Patriarch Among the Patriarchs

So the little boy who led Samson by the hand was a foreshadowing of John the Baptist, who pointed the people to faith in Christ. The house where they were gathered stands for the world, where the various nations live in unbelief and offer sacrifice to their idols. The two pillars are the two covenants. And Samson leaning himself on the pillars means this: that the people, once they had been taught, recognized the mystery of Christ. [a]

“And the man of God said, Where did it fall? And he showed him the place. And he cut down a piece of wood and threw it in there, and the iron floated.” This was a sign that souls would be carried upward by means of wood — the wood on which he suffered who is able to carry upward the souls that follow him in his own ascent. It was also an indication of this: that when the holy soul of Christ went down, many souls came up and were seen in their bodies. For just as the wood, which is the lighter body, sank in the water, while the iron, the heavier one, floated, so, when the Word of God became one with flesh, joined to it in nature and in person, the heavy and earthly part was made immortal and was carried up into heaven by the divine nature after the resurrection. [c]

The Gospel according to Matthew was written for the Jews. For they laid particular stress on the point that the Christ was to be of the seed of David. Matthew, who wanted still more to establish it, took particular pains to give them convincing proof that Christ is of the seed of David; and that is why he begins with his genealogy. [f]

“The axe is laid to the root,” he says — urging us on to the knowledge of the truth, cleaning us up by means of fear, and getting us ready to bear fruit in season. [g] Notice that by the grain of mustard seed in the parable the heavenly teaching is meant, sown like seed in the world as in a field — seed with a force of its own in it, fiery and powerful. For in this way the Judge of the whole world is proclaimed: the one who was hidden in the heart of the earth in a tomb for three days, and who, having become a great tree, has stretched out his branches to the ends of the earth. Sprouting from him, the twelve apostles became fair and fruitful boughs and were made a shelter for the nations, as for the birds of the sky. All of them have taken refuge under those boughs, like birds flocking to a nest, and have shared in the wholesome and heavenly food that comes from them. [h]

Josephus says that when Moses had been brought up in the royal palaces he was chosen as general against the Ethiopians; and that, having proved victorious, he obtained the daughter of that king in marriage, since out of her affection for him she handed the city over to him. Why was it that when these two, Aaron and Miriam, had both treated Moses with contempt, only Miriam was judged and punished? First, because the woman was the more to blame, since both nature and the law put the woman in a place below the man. Or perhaps Aaron was to some degree excusable, seeing that he was the elder brother and was honored with the dignity of high priest. Then again, since a person with a skin disease was counted unclean by the law, while the origin and foundation of the priesthood lay in Aaron, the Lord did not hand him the same punishment, in case the stigma should fasten itself on the whole priestly line. Instead he woke Aaron’s fears by what happened to his sister and taught him the same lesson. For Miriam’s punishment affected Aaron so much that the moment she felt it he begged Moses, the man he had wronged, to take the affliction away by his prayer. And Moses did not fail to do it; he poured out his petition at once. At that the Lord, who loves mankind, made him understand that he had not chastened her as a judge but as a father. For he said, “If her father had spat in her face, would she not be ashamed? Let her be shut outside the camp for seven days, and after that let her come in again.” [i]

Certain men — moved by what considerations I do not know — take away from God half of his power to create. They say that he is merely the cause of the quality that resides in matter, and they hold that matter itself is uncreated. Come, then, let us put the question. What is at any time … is unchangeable. Matter, then, is unchangeable. But if matter is unchangeable, and what is unchangeable undergoes no change in respect of quality, then matter does not form the substance of the world. That is why they think it pointless for God to have attached qualities to matter, since matter admits of no alteration at all, being of itself an uncreated thing. But further: if matter is uncreated, then it has been made altogether according to a certain quality, and that quality unchangeable — so that it cannot take on further qualities, and cannot be the thing the world is made of. And if the world is not made of it, then this theory shuts God out of any exercise of power in creation. [k]

“And he dipped himself,” says the scripture, “seven times in the Jordan.” It was not for nothing that Naaman long ago, when he was suffering from a skin disease, was made clean when he was baptized; it served as a sign for us. For as we are diseased in sin, we are made clean from our old wrongs by the sacred water and the calling on the Lord’s name, and are born again in the spirit like newborn children, just as the Lord declared: “Unless a person is born again through water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” [m] If the corpse of Elisha raised a dead man, how much more will God, when he has brought men’s dead bodies to life, bring them up for judgment? [o]

True knowledge, then, is the understanding of Christ — what Paul calls the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which the merely natural man does not receive: the teaching of the cross. Anyone who has tasted it will not go along with the disputes and hair-splitting of proud and puffed-up men who push into matters they cannot perceive. For the truth has no ornament on it; and “the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,” as the same apostle says, easy to take in for those who are willing to obey. For it makes us like Christ, if we come to know “the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings.” This is the interweaving of the apostles’ teaching and of the most holy “faith handed down to us,” which the unschooled receive and men of small learning have taught — men who do not give their attention to “endless genealogies,” but study instead to keep a straight course of life, so that they may not be robbed of the divine Spirit and fail to reach the kingdom of heaven. For truly the first thing is to deny yourself and follow Christ; and those who do this are carried on toward perfection, having done everything their Teacher wants, becoming sons of God by being born again in the Spirit, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Those who seek that first will not be left to themselves. [p]

Those who have come to know the apostles’ secondary rules are aware that the Lord established a new offering in the new covenant, as Malachi the prophet said: “From the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice.” John says the same in the Revelation: “The incense is the prayers of the holy ones.” And Paul urges us “to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.” And again: “Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of our lips.” Now these offerings are not according to the law, whose written record the Lord took out of the way by cancelling it; they are according to the Spirit, for we must worship God “in spirit and in truth.” And so the offering of the thanksgiving is not a fleshly one but a spiritual one, and in that respect it is pure. For we make an offering to God of the bread and of the cup of blessing, thanking him that he has commanded the earth to bring forth these fruits for our food. Then, when we have completed the offering, we call on the Holy Spirit to show this sacrifice forth — the bread as the body of Christ and the cup as the blood of Christ — so that those who receive these counterparts may obtain forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Those, then, who make these offerings in remembrance of the Lord are not falling in with Jewish opinions; they perform the service in a spiritual way, and they will be called sons of wisdom. [t]

The apostles laid it down that “we should not judge anyone in respect of food or drink, or about a feast day, or new moons, or sabbaths.” Where, then, do these quarrels come from? Where do these splits come from? We keep the feast, but in the leaven of malice and wickedness, cutting the church of God to pieces; and we keep up its outside, so that we may throw away the better things, faith and love. We have heard from the words of the prophets that these feasts and fasts are displeasing to the Lord. [w] Christ, who was called the Son of God before the ages, was made manifest in the fullness of time, so that he might cleanse us by his blood — us who were under the power of sin — and present us to his Father as pure sons, if we hand ourselves over obediently to the Spirit’s discipline. And at the end of time he will come to do away with all evil and to reconcile all things, so that there may be an end of every impurity. [x]

“And he found the jawbone of a donkey.” It is worth noticing that after Samson had committed sexual immorality, the holy scripture no longer tells of the things he accomplished with the words, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him.” For, as the holy apostle says, the sin of sexual immorality is committed against the body, and so it involves a sin against the temple of God as well. [y] This points to the persecution against the church set going by the nations who still continue in unbelief. But the man who suffered those things — Samson — trusted that there would be a repayment against those who were waging this war. And repayment by what means? First, by his taking himself off to the Rock that the senses cannot reach; second, by his finding of the jawbone of a donkey. Now the jawbone is a foreshadowing of the body of Christ. [z]

If we always speak well of the worthy and never speak ill of the unworthy, we too will reach the glory and kingdom of God. In these things it was signified by prophecy that the people, having become law-breakers, would be bound with the chains of their own sins. But the breaking of those bonds of their own accord indicates that, when they repent, they will be loosed again from the shackles of sin. [aa] It is not an easy thing for a soul under the sway of error to be persuaded of the opposite view. [ab]

“And Balaam son of Beor they killed with the sword.” For since he was no longer speaking by the Spirit of God, but was setting up another law — a law of sexual immorality, against the law of God — this man is no longer to be counted a prophet but a diviner. Since he did not remain in God’s command, he received the just wage of his evil schemes. [ac] “The god of the world” — that is, Satan, who was given the name “god” with respect to those who do not believe. [ad] The birth of John the Baptist put an end to Zechariah’s silence. For the voice did not weigh his father down when it came out of the silence; but just as, when it was not believed, it had tied his tongue, so the voice, sounding out clearly, set his father free — the father to whom he had been both announced and born. Now the voice and the burning lamp went ahead of the Word and the Light. [ae]

Just as seventy tongues are indicated by that number, and out of the scattering the tongues are gathered into one by being interpreted, so that ark is declared to be a foreshadowing of the body of Christ, which is pure and without spot. For as that ark was gilded with pure gold both inside and outside, so also the body of Christ is pure and shining: adorned within by the Word and shielded on the outside by the Spirit, so that from both materials the splendor of the natures might be shown together. [af]

Now, then, by means of what was brought forth long ago, the Word has given an interpretation. We are convinced that there are, so to speak, two men in each one of us. One of them, admittedly, is a hidden thing, while the other stands out in the open; one is bodily, the other spiritual. Still, the coming-to-be of the two may be compared to the birth of twins, for both are revealed to the world as one. The soul did not exist before the body in its being, nor, as regards its forming, did the body come before the soul: both were produced at one time, and their nourishment is purity and sweetness. [ag] For then there will truly be a shared joy brought to its fullness for all those who believe and so come to life; and in each person the mystery of the resurrection will be confirmed, and the hope of incorruption, and the beginning of the eternal kingdom, when God has destroyed death and the devil. For that human nature and flesh which has risen again from the dead will die no more; but after it had been changed to incorruption and made like spirit, when heaven was opened, our Lord, full of glory, offered it — the flesh — to the Father. [ah]

As things are, though, these men’s books may have escaped your notice, while they have come to ours; so I am calling your attention to them, in order that for the sake of your own good name you may throw these writings out from among you, since they bring disgrace on you and their author boasts of being one of your company. For they are a stumbling block to many, who take in simply and without reserve the blasphemy these books speak against God, because it comes from an elder. Just look at the man who wrote these things: by them he does harm not only to those who assist in the service, who happen to have minds ready for blasphemies against God, but he also damages people among us, since through his books he soaks their minds in false teaching about God. [ai]

The sacred books acknowledge about Christ that, just as he is the Son of man, so the same one is not merely a man; and as he is flesh, so he is also spirit, and the Word of God, and God. As he was born of Mary in the last times, so he also came forth from God as the Firstborn of all creation. As he grew hungry, so he satisfied others. As he grew thirsty, so he long ago gave the Jews drink, for the “Rock was Christ” himself; and so Jesus now gives his believing people power to drink spiritual waters that spring up to eternal life. As he was the son of David, so he was also David’s Lord. As he was from Abraham, so he also existed before Abraham. As he was the servant of God, so he is the Son of God and Lord of the universe. As he was shamefully spat upon, so he also breathed the Holy Spirit into his disciples. As he was saddened, so he also gave joy to his people. As he could be handled and touched, so again he passed, in a form that could not be laid hold of, through the middle of those who were trying to injure him, and came in through shut doors without hindrance. As he slept, so he also ruled the sea and the winds and the storms. As he suffered, so he is also alive, and gives life, and heals every weakness of ours. As he died, so he is also the resurrection of the dead. He bore shame on earth, while in heaven he is higher than all glory and praise; who, “though he was crucified in weakness, yet lives by the power of God”; who “went down into the lower parts of the earth” and who “went up above the heavens”; for whom a feeding trough was room enough, yet who filled all things; who was dead, yet who lives forever and ever. Amen. [aj]

About Christ, the law and the prophets and the writers of the good news have proclaimed that he was born of a virgin; that he suffered on a beam of wood; that he appeared from among the dead; that he also went up into the heavens and was glorified by the Father, and is the eternal King; that he is the perfect Mind, the Word of God, begotten before the light; that he was the Founder of the universe, along with the light, and the Maker of man; that he is all things in all: [ak]

For it is he who sailed in the ark with Noah, and who guided Abraham; who was bound together with Isaac, and was a wanderer with Jacob; the Shepherd of those who are rescued, and the Bridegroom of the church; the Chief of the cherubim too, and the Prince of the angelic powers; God of God; Son of the Father; Jesus Christ; King for ever and ever. Amen.