At the time when the apostle gave the follow- ing exposition of this promise, " To Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. He saith not. To seed, as of many, but as of one, To thy seed, which is Christ,"* a doubt on this point might then have been less inexcus- able, for at that time all nations had not yet believed on Christ, who is preached as of the seed of Abraham. But now that we see the fulfillment of what we read in the ancient pro- phecy,— now that all nations are actually iDlessed in the seed of Abraham, to whom it was said thousands of years ago, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed," — it is mere obstinate folly to try to bring in another Christ, not of the seed of Abraham, or to hold that there are no predictions of Christ in the prophetical books of the children of Abraham.
7, To enumerate all the passages in the Hebrew prophets referring to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, would exceed the limits of a volume, not to speak of the brief replies of which this treatise consists. The whole contents of these Scriptures are either directly or indirectly about Christ. Often the refer- ence is allegorical or enigmatical, perhaps in a verbal allusion, or in a historical narrative, requiring diligence in the student, and re- warding him with the pleasure of discovery. Other passages, again, are plain; for, without the help of what is clear, we could not un- derstand what is obscure. And even the figurative passages, when brought together, will be found so harmonious in their testimony to Christ as to put to shame the obtuseness of the sceptic.
8. In the creation God finished His works in six days, and rested on the seventh. The history of the world contains six periods marked by the dealings of God with men. The first period is from Adam to Noah; the second, from Noah to Abraham; the third, from Abraham to David; the fourth, from David to the captivity in Babylon; the fifth, from the captivity to the advent of lowliness of our Lord Jesus Christ; the sixth is now in progress, and will end in the coming of the exalted Saviour to judgment. What answers to the seventh day is the rest of the saints, — not in this life, but in another, where the rich man saw Lazarus at rest while he was tormented in hell; where there is no evening, because there is no decay. On the sixth day, in Genesis, man is formed after the image of God; in the sixth period of the \vorld there is the clear discovery of our transformation in the renewing of our mind, according to the 4 Gal. iii. 16.
1 86 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XII.
ima-je of Him who created us, as the apostle saybV As a wife was made for Adam from his side while he slept, the Church becomes the property of her dying Saviour, by the sacrament of the blood which flowed from His side after His death. The woman made out of her husband's side is called Eve, or Life, and the mother of living beings; and the Lord says in the Gospel: " Except a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he has no life in him." - The whole narrative of Gene- sis, in the most minute details, is a prophecy of Christ and of the Church with reference either to the good Christians or to the bad. There is a significance in the words of the apostle when he calls Adam " the figure of Him that was to come; " ^ and when he says, " A man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. "'^ This points most obviously to the way in which Christ left His Father; for "though He was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, He emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant." ^ And so, too, He left His mother, the synagogue of the Jews which cleaved to the carnality of the Old Testament, and was united to the Church His holy bride, that in the peace of the New Testament they two might be one flesh. For though with the Father He was God, by whom we were made, He became in the flesh partaker of our nature, that we might become the body of which He is the head.
9. As Cain's sacrifice of the fruit of the ground is rejected, while AbeFs sacrifice of his sheep and the fat thereof is accepted, so the faith of the New Testament praising God in the harmless service of grace is preferred to the earthly observances of the Old Testa- ment. For though the Jews were right in practising these things, they were guilty of unbelief in not distinguishing the time of the New Testament when Christ came, from the time of the Old Testament. God said to Cain, " If thou offerest well, yet if thou di- videst not well, thou hast sinned."^ If Cain had obeyed God when He said, " Be content, for to thee shall be its reference, and thou shalt rule over it," he would have referred his sin to himself, by taking the blame of it, and confessing it to God; and so assisted by supplies of grace, he would have ruled over his sin, instead of acting as the servant of sin in killing his innocent brother. So also the Jews, of whom all these things are a figure.
if they had been content, instead of being turbulent, and had acknowledged the time of salvation through the pardon of sins by grace, and heard Christ saying, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance; '' ^ and, "Every one that committeth sin is the servant of sin;'' and, " If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed,"^ — they would in confession have referred their sin to themselves, saying to the Physician, as it is written in the Psalm, ''I said, Lord, be merciful to me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee."^ And being made free by the hope of grace, they would have ruled over sin as long as it con- But now, being tinned in their mortal body, ignorant of God's righteousness, and wishing to establish a righteousness of their own, proud of the works of the law, instead of being humbled on account of their sins, they have not been content; and in subjection to sin reigning in their mortal body, so as to make them obey it in the lusts thereof, they have stumbled on the stone of stumbling, and have been inflamed with hatred ao:ainst him whose works they grieved to see accepted by God. The man who was born blind, and had been made to see, said to them, "We know that God heareth not sinners; but if any man serve Him, and do His will, him He hear- eth;"'" as if he had said, God regardeth not the sacrifice of Cain, but he regards the sac- rifice of Abel. Abel, the younger brother, is killed by the elder brother; Christ, the head of the younger people, is killed by the elder people of the Jews. Abel dies in the field; Christ dies on Calvary.
10. God asks Cain where his brother is, not as if He did not know, but as a judge asks a guilty criminal. Cain replies that he knows not, and that he is not his brother's keeper. And what answer can the Jews give at this day, when we ask them with the voice of God, that is, of the sacred Scriptures, about Christ, except that they do not know the Christ that we speak of? Cain's ignorance was pretended, and the Jews are deceived in their refusal of Christ. Moreover, they would have been in a sense keepers of Christ, if they had been willing to receive and keep the Christian faith. For the man who keeps Christ in his heart does not ask, like Cain, Am I my brother's keeper? Then God says to Cain, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." So the voice of God in the Holy Scriptures accuses the Jews. For the blood 3 Rom. V. 14, 6 Vulg.
Book XII.]
REPLY TO FAUSTIJS THE MANICH^AN.
187 of Christ has a loud voice on the earth, when the responsive Amen of those who beheve in Him comes from all nations. This is the voice of Christ's blood, because the clear voice of the faithful redeemed by His blood is the voice of the blood itself.
II. Then God says to Cain: "Thou art cursed from the earth, which hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood at thy hand. For thou shalt till the earth, and it shall no longer yield unto thee its strength. A mourner and an abject shalt thou be on the earth." It is not, Cursed is the earth, but, Cursed art thou from the earth, which hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood at thy hand. So the unbelieving people of the Jews is cursed from the earth, that is, from the Church, which in the confession of sins has opened its mouth to receive the blood shed for the remission of sins by the hand of the people that would not be under grace, but under the law. And this murderer is cursed by the Church; that is, the Church admits and avows the curse pronounced by the apostle: " Whoever are of the works of the law are under the curse of the law.'' ' Then, after saying, Cursed art thou from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood at thy hand, what follows is not, For thou shalt till it, but. Thou shalt till the earth, and it shall not yield to thee its strength. The earth he is to till is not neces- sarily the same as that which opened its mouth to receive his brother's blood at his hand.
From this earth he is cursed, and so he tills an earth which shall no longer yield to him its strength. That is, the Church admits and avows the Jewish people to be cursed, because after killing Christ they continue to till the ground of an earthly circumcision, an earthly Sabbath, an earthly passover, while the hid- den strength or virtue of making known Christ, which this tilling contains, is not yielded to the Jews while they continue in impiety and unbelief, for it is revealed in the New Testa- ment. While they will not turn to God, the veil which is on their minds in reading the Old Testament is not taken away. This veil is taken away only liy Christ, who does not do away with the reading of the Old Testa- ment, but with the covering which hides its virtue. So, at the crucifixion of Christ, the veil was rent in twain, that by the passion of Christ hidden mysteries might be revealed to believers who turn, to Him with a mouth opened in confession to drink His blood. In this way the Jewish people, like Cain, continue tilling the ground, in the carnal obser- ' Gal. iii. 10.
vance of the law, which does not yield to them its strength, because they do not perceive in it the grace of Christ. So. too, the flesh of Christ was the ground from which by crucify- ing Him the Jews produced our salvation, for He died for our offences. But this ground did not yield to them its strength, for they were not justified by the virtue of His resur- rection, for He arose again for our justifica- tion. As the apostle says: " He was crucified in weakness, but He liveth by the power of God.'"" This is the power of that ground which is unknown to the ungodly and unbe- lieving. When Christ rose. He did not ap- pear to those who had crucified Him. So Cain was not allowed to see the streno-th of the ground which he tilled to sow his seed in it; as God said, " Thou shalt till the ground, and it shall no longer yield unto thee its strength."
12. " Groaning and trembling shalt thou be on the earth." Here no one can fail to see that in every land where the Jews are scattered they mourn for the loss of their kingdom, and are in terrified subjection to the im- mensely superior number of Christians. So Cain answered, and said: " My case is worse, if Thou drivest me out this day from the face of the earth, and from Thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a mourner and an outcast on the earth; and it shall be that every one that findeth me shall slay me.'' Here he groans indeed in terror, lest after losing his earthly possession he should suffer the death of the body. Tliis he calls a worse case than that of the ground not yielding to him its strength, or than- that of spiritual death. For his mind is carnal; for he thinks little of being hid from the face of God, that is, of being under the anger of God, were it not that he may be found and slain. This is the carnal mind that tills the ground, but does not obtain its strength. To be carnally minded is death; but he, in ignorance of this, mourns for the loss of his earthly possession, and is in terror of bodily death. But what does God reply? " Not so," He says; " but whosoever shall kill Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." That is. It is not as thou sayest; not by bodily death shall the ungodly race of carnal Jews perish. For whoever de- stroys them in this way shall suffer sevenfold vengeance, that is, shall bring upon himself the sevenfold penalty under which the Jews lie for the crucifixion of Christ. So to the end of the seven days of time, the continued preservation of the Jews will be a proof to be- lieving Christinns of the subjection merited * 2 Cor.
xiii. 4.
iSS THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XII.
by those who, in the pride of tiieir kingdom, l)ut the Lord to death.
13. "And the Lord God set a mark upon Cain, lest any one finding him should slay him." It is a most notable fact, that all the nations subjugated by Rome adopted the heathenish ceremonies of the Roman worship; while the Jewish nation, whether under Pagan or Christian monarchs, has never lost the sign of their law, by which they are distinguished from all other nations and peoples. No em- peror or monarch who finds under his govern- ment the people with this mark kills them, that is, makes them cease to be Jews, and as Jews to be separate in their observances, and unlike the rest of the world. Only when a Jew comes over to Christ, he is no longer Cain, nor goes out from the presence of God, nor dwells in the land of Nod, which is said to mean commotion. Against this evil of commotion the Psalmist prays, " Suffer not my feet to be moved;" ' and again, " Let not the hands of the wicked remove me;"'' and, " Those that trouble me will rejoice when I am moved:" ^ and, " The Lord is at my right hand, that I should not be moved;"'* and so in innumerable places. This evil comes upon those who leave the presence of God, that is, His loving-kindness. Thus the Psalmist says, "I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved." But observe what follows, "Lord, by Thy favor Thou hast given strength to my honor; Thou didst hide Thy face, and I was troubled;'"= which teaches us that not in itself, but by participation in the light of God, can any soul possess beauty, or honor, or strength. The ALanichasans should think of this, to keep them from the blasphemy of identifying themselves with the nature and substance of God. But they cannot think, because they are not content. The Sabbath of the heart they are strangers to. If they were content, as Cain was told to be, they would refer their sin to themselves; that is, they would lay the blame on themselves, and not on a race of darkness that no one ever heard of, and so by the grace of God they would prevail over their sin. But now the Manicha^ans, and all who oppose the truth by their various heresies, leave the presence of God, like Cain and the scattered Jews, and inhabit the land of com- motion, that is, of carnal disquietude, instead of the enjoyment of God, that is instead of Eden, which is interpreted Feasting, where Paradise was planted. But not to depart too much from the argument of this treatise I must limit myself to a few short remarks un- der this head.
- Ps. xxxvi. II. 5 Ps. XXX. 6, 7.
3Ps.
XUl. 4.
14. Omitting therefore many passages in these Books where Cnrist may be found, but which require longer explanation and proof, although the most hidden meanings are the sweetest, convincing testimony may be ob- tained from the enumeration of such things as the following: — That Enoch, the seventh from Adam, pleased God, and was translated, as there is to be a seventh day of rest into which all will be translated who, during the sixth day of the world's history, are created anew by the incarnate Word. That Noah, with his family is saved by water and wood, as the family of Christ is saved by baptism, as representing the suffering of the cross. That this ark is made of beams formed in a square, as the Church is constructed of saints prepared unto every good work: for a square stands firm on any side. Tliat the length is six times the breadth, and ten times the height, like a human body, to show that Christ appeared in a human body. That the breadth reaches to fifty cubits; as the apostle says, " Our heart is enlarged,"*^ that is, with spiritual love, of which he says again, " The love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us."' For in the fiftieth day after His resurrection, Christ sent His Holy Spirit to enlarge the hearts of His disciples. That it is three hun- dred cubits long, to make up six times fifty; as there are six periods in tne history of the world during which Christ has never ceased to be preached, — in five foretold by the pro- phets, and in the sixth proclaimed in the gos- pel. That it is thirty cubits high, a tenth part of the length; because Christ is our height, who in his thirtieth j^ear gave His sanction to the doctrine of the gospel, by declaring that He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. Now the ten command- ments are to be the heart of the law; and so the lenijth of the ark is ten times thirty. Noah himself, too, was the tenth from Adam. That the beams of the ark are fastened within and without with pitch, to signify by compact union the forbearance of love, which keeps the brotherly connection from being impaired, and the bond of peace from being broken by the offences which try the Church either from without or from within. For pitch is a glutinous substance, of great energy and force, to represent the ardor of love which, with great power of endurance, beareth all things in the maintenance of spiritual communion.
15. That all kinds of animals are inclosed in the ark; as the Church contains all nations, which was also set forth in the vessel shown 62 c or. VI. II.
7 Rom. V. 5.
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REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH.-EAN.
189 to Peter. That clean and unclean animals are in the ark; as good and bad take part in the sacraments of the Church. That the clean are in sevens, and the unclean in twos; not because the bad are fewer than the good, but because the good preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; and the Spirit is spoken of in Scripture as having a seven- fold operation, as being " the Holy Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and piety, and of the fear of God." ' So also the number fifty, which is connected with the advent of the Holy Spirit, is made up of seven times seven, and one over; whence it is said, " Endeavor- ing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."- The bad, again, are in twos, as being easily divided, from their tendency to schism. That Noah, counting his family, was the eighth; because the hope of our resurrection has appeared in Christ, who rose from the dead on the eighth day, that is, on the day after the seventh, or Sabbath day. This day was the third from His passion; but in the ordinar}'- reckoning of days, it is both the eighth and the first.
16. That the whole ark together is finished in a cubit above; as the Church, the body of Christ gathered into unity, is raised to per- fection. So Christ says in the Gospel: "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." ^ That the entrance is on the side; as no man enters the Church except by the sacrament of the remission of sins which flowed from Christ's opened side. That the lower spaces of the ark are divided into two and three chambers: as the multitude of all nations in the Church is divided into two, as circumcised and uncircumcised; or into three, as de- scended from the three sons of Noah. And these parts of the ark are called lower, because in this earthly state there is a difference of races, and above we are completed in one. Above there is no diversity; for Christ is all and in all, finishing us, as it were, in one cubit above with heavenly unity.
17. That the flood came seven days after Noah entered the ark; as we are baptized in the hope of the future rest, which was de- noted by the seventh day. That all flesh on the face of the earth, outside the ark, was destroyed by the flood; as, beyond the com- munion of the Church, though the water of baptism is the same, it is efificacious only for destruction, and not for salvation. That it rained for forty days and forty nights; as the sacrament of heavenly baptism washes away all the guilt of the sins against the ten com- ' I sa. M. 2, 3.
Eph. iv. 3.
3 Matt..\ii. 30.
mandments throughout all the four quarters of the world (four times ten is forty), whether that guilt has been contracted in the day of prosperity or in the night of adversity.
18. That Noah was five hundred years old when God told him to make the ark, and si.K hundred when he entered the ark; which shows that the ark was made during one hun- dred years, which seem to correspond to the years of an age of the world. So the si.\th age is occupied with the construction of the Church by the preaching of the gospel. The man who avails himself of the offer of salva- tion is made like a square beam, fitted for every good work, and forms part of the sacred fabric. Again, it was the second month of the six hundredth year when Noah entered the ark, and in two months there are sixty days; so that here, as in every multiple of six, we have the number denoting the sixth age.
19. That mention is made of the twenty- seventh day of the month; as we have already seen the significance of the square in the beams. Here especiall}'- it is significant; for as twenty-seven is the cube of three, there is a trinity in the means by which we are, as it were, squared, or fitted for every good work. By the memory we remember God; by the understanding we know Him; by the will we love Him. That in the seventh month the ark rested; reminding us again of the seventh day of rest. And here again, to de- note the perfection of those at rest, the twenty- seventh day of the month is mentioned for the second time. So what is promised in hope is realized in experience. There is here a combination of seven and eight; for the water rose fifteen cubits above the mountains, point- ing to a profound mystery in baptism, — the sacrament of our regeneration. For the seventh day of rest is connected with the eighth of resurrection. For when the saints receive again their bodies after the rest of the intermediate state, the rest will not cease; but rather the whole man, body and soul united, renewed in the immortal health, will attain to the realization of his hope in the en- joyment of eternal life. Thus the sacrament