of baptism, like the waters of Noah, rises above all the wisdom of the proud. Seven and eight are also combined in the number of one hundred and fifty, made up of seventy and eighty, which was the number of days during which the water prevailed, pointing out the deep import of baptism in conse- cratintr the new man to hold the faith of rest and resurrection.
20. That the raven sent out after forty days did not return, being either prevented 190 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XII.
by the water or attracted by some floating carcase; as men defiled by impure desire, and therefore eager for things outside in the world, are either baptized, or are led astray into the company of those to whom, as they are out- side the ark, that is, outside the Church, baptism is destructive. That the dove when sent forth found no rest, and returned; as in the New Testament rest is not promised to the saints in this world. The dove was sent forth after forty days, a period denoting the length of human life. When again sent forth after seven days, denoting the sevenfold operation of the Spirit, the dove brought back a fruitful olive branch; as some even who are I-iaptized outside of the Church, if not desti- tute of the fatness of charity, may come after all, as it were in the evening, and be brought into the one communion by the mouth of the dove in the kiss of peace. That, when again sent forth after seven days, the dove did not return; as, at the end of the world, the rest of the saints shall no longer be in the sacra- ment of hope, as now, while in the communion of the Church, they drink what flowed from the side of Christ, but in the perfection of eternal safety, when the kingdom shall be de- livered up to God and the Father, and when, in that unclouded contemplation of un- changeable truth, we shall no longer need natural symbols.
21. There are many other points which we cannot take notice of even in this cursory manner. Why in the six hundred and first year of Noah's life — that is, after six hundred years were completed — the covering of the ark is removed, and the hidden mystery, as it were, disclosed. Why the earth is said to have dried on the twenty-seventh day of the second month; as if the number fifty-seven denoted the completion of the rite of baptism. For the twenty-seventh day of the second month is the fifty-seventh day of the year; and the number fifty-seven is seven times eight, which are the numbers of the spirit and the body, with one over, to denote the bond of unity. Why they leave the ark together, though they entered separately. For it is said: " Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and liis sons' wives with him, into the ark; " the men and the women being spoken of separately; which denotes the time when the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. But they go forth, Nonh and his wife, and his sons and their wives, — the men and women together. For in the end of the world, and in the resurrec- tion of the just, the body will be united to the spirit in perfect harmony, undisturbed by the wants and the passions of mortality. Why, after leaving the ark, only clean animals are offered in sacrifice to God, though both clean and unclean were in the ark.
22.. Then, again, it is significant that when God speaks to Noah, and begins anew, as it were, in order, by repetition in various forms, to draw attention to the figure of the Church, the sons of Noah are blessed, and told to re- plenish the earth, and all animals are given to them for food; as was said to Peter of the vessel, " Kill and eat." That they are told to pour out the blood when they eat; that the former life may not be kept shut up in the conscience, but may be, as it were, poured out in confession. That God makes the bow, which appears in the clouds only when the sun shines, the sign of His covenant with men, and with every living thing, that He will not destroy them with a flood; as those do not perish by the flood, in separation from the Church, who in the clouds of God — that is, in the prophets and in all the sacred Scriptures — discern the glory of Christ, instead of seek- ing their own glory. The worshippers of the sun, however, need not pride themselves on this; for they must understand that the sun, as also a lion, a lamb, and a stone, are used as types of Christ because they have some resemblance, not because they are of the same substance.
23. Again, the sufferings of Christ from His own nation are evidently denoted by Noah being drunk with the wine of the vine- yard he planted, and his being uncovered in his tent. For the mortality of Christ's flesh was uncovered, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, both Shem and Japhet, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.^ Moreover, the two sons, the eldest and the youngest, carrying the garment backwards, are a figure of the two peoples, and the sacra- ment of the past and completed passions of the Lord. They do not see the nakedness of their father, because they do not consent to Christ's death; and yet they honor it with a covering, as knowing whence they were born. The middle son is the Jewish people, for they neither held the first place with the apostles, nor believed subsequently with the Gentiles. They saw the nakedness of their father, be- cause they consented to Christ's death; and they told it to their brethren outside, for what was hidden in the prophets was dis- closed by the Jews. And thus they are the Book XII.J REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHyEAN.
191 servants of their brethren. For what else is this nation now but a deslc for tlie Ciiristians, bearing the law and the prophets, and testify- ing to the doctrine of the Churcn, so that we honor in the sacrament what they disclose in the letter?
24. Again, every one must be impressed, and be either enlightened or confirmed in the faith, by the blessing of the two sons who honored the nakedness of their father, though they turned away their faces, as displeased with the evil done by the vine. " Blessed," he says, "be the Lord God of Shem." For although God is the God of all nations, even the Gentiles acknowledge Him to be in a peculiar sense the God of Israel. And how IS this to be explained but by the blessing of Japhet? The occupation of all the world by t;ie Church among the Gentiles was exactly foretold in the words: "Let God enlarge Japhet, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem." That is for the Manichsean to attend to. You see what the state of the world ac- tuall}- is. The very thing that you are aston- ished and grieved at in us is this, that God is enlarging Japhet. Is He not dwelling in the tents of Shem? — that is, in the churches built i>y the apostles, the sons of the prophets. Hear what Paul says to the believing Gentiles: ''Ye were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants; having no hope of the promise, and without God in the world. " In these words there is a description of the state of Japhet before he dwelt in the tents of Shem. But observe what follows: "Now then," he says, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being huilt upon the foundation of the apostles and l^irophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone."' Here we have Japhet enlarged, and dwelling in the tents of Shem. These testimonies are taken from the epistles <^f the apostles, which you yourselves ac- knowledge, and read, and profess to follow. You occupy an unhappy middle position in a building of which Christ is not the chief corner-stone. For you do not belong to the wall of those who, like the apostles, being of the circumcision, believed in Christ; nor to the wall of those who, being of the uncircumcision, like all the Gentiles, are joined in the unity of faith, as in the fellowship of the corner- stone. However, all who accept and read any books of our canon in which Christ is spoken of as having been born and having suffered in the flesh, and who do not unite with us in Eph.
U. 12, 19, 20.'
a common veiling with the sacrament of the mortality, uncovered by the passion, but without the knowledge of piety and charity make known that from which we all are born, —although they differ among themselves, whether as Jews and heretics, or as heretics of one kind or other,— are still all useful to the Church, as being all alike servants, either in bearing witness to or in proving some truth. For of heretics it is said: "There must be heresies, that those who are api^roved among you may be manifested." = Go on, then, with your objections to the Old Testament Script- ures I Go on, ye servants of Ham! You have despised the flesh from which you were born when uncovered. For you could not have called yourselves Christians unless Christ had come into the world, as foretold by the prophets, and had drunk of His own vine that cup which could not pass from Him, and had slept in His passion, as in the drunkenness of the folly which is wiser than men; and so, in the hidden counsel of God, the disclosure had been made of that infirmity of mortal flesh which is stronger than men. For unless the Word of God had taken on Himself this in- firmity, the name of Christian, in which you also glory, would not exist in the earth. Go on, then, as I have said. Declare in mockery what we may honor with reverence. Let the Church use you as her servants to make manifest those members who are approved. So particular are the predictions of the prophets regarding the state and the suffer- ings of the Church, that we can find a place even for you in what is said of the destructive error by which the reprobate are to perish, while the approved are to be manifested.
25. You say that Christ was not foretold by the prophets of Israel, when, in fact, their Scriptures teem with such predictions, if you would only examine them carefully, instead of treating them with levity. Who in Abra- ham leaves his country and kindred that he may become rich and prosperous among strangers, but He who, leaving the land and country of the Jews, of whom He was born in the flesh, is now extending His power, as we see, among the Gentiles? Who in Isaac carried the wood for His own sacrifice, but Fle who carried His own cross? Who is the ram for sacrifice, caught by the horns in a bush, but He who was fastened to the cross as an offering for us?
26. Who in the angel striving with Jacob, on the one hand is constrained to give him a blessing, as the weaker to the stronger, the conquered to the conqueror, and on the other - I Cor. xi. 19.
192 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
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hand puts his thigh-bone out of joint, but He who, when He suffered the people of Israel to prevail against Him, blessed those among them who believed, while the multi- tude, like Jacob's thigh-bone, halted in their carnality? Who is the stone placed under Jacob's head, but Christ the head of man? And in its anointing the very name of Christ is expressed, for, as all know, Christ means anointed. Christ refers to this in the Gospel, and declares it to be a type of Himself, when He said of Nathanael that he was an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile, and when Nathanael, resting his head, as it were, on this Stone, or on Christ, confessed Him as the Son of God and the King of Israel, anointing the Stone by his confession, in which he acknowledged Jesus to be Christ. On this occasion the Lord made appropriate mention of what Jacob saw in his dream: " Verily I say unto you. Ye shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man."' This Jacob saw, who in the blessing was called Israel, when he had the stone for a pillow, and had the vision of the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, on which the angels of God were ascending and descending. "= The angels denote the evangelists, or preachers of Christ.
They ascend when they rise above the created universe to describe the supreme majesty of the divine nature of Christ as being in the be- ginning God with God, by whom all things were made. They descend to tell of His be- ing made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law. Christ is the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, or from the carnal to the spiritual: for by His assistance the carnal as- cend to spirituality; and the spiritual may be said to descend to nourish the carnal with milk when they cannot speak to them as to spiritual, but as to carnal. 3 There is thus both an as- cent and a descent upon the Son of man. For the Son of man is above as our head, being Himself the Saviour; and He is below in His body, the Church. He is the ladder, for He says, "I am the way." We ascend to Him to see Him in heavenly places; we descend to Him for the nourishment of His weak members. And the ascent and descent are by Him as well as to Him. Following His example, those who preach Him not only rise to behold Him exalted, but let themselves down to give a plain announcement of the truth. So the apostle ascends, " Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God;" and de- scends, " V/hether we be sober, it is for vour John i. 47-51.
1-3- sake." And by whom did he ascend and descend? " For the love of Christ constrain- eth us: for we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all died; and that He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them, and rose again." ■• 27. Tlie man who does not find pleasure in tliese views of sacred Scripture is turned away to fables, because he cannot bear sound doctrine. The fables have an attraction for childish minds in people of all ages; but we who are of the body of Christ should say with the Psalmist; "O Lord, the wicked have spoken to me pleasing things, but the}^ are not after Thy law."^ In every page of these Scriptures, while I pursue my search as a son of Adam in the sweat of my brow, Christ either openly or covertly meets and refreshes me. Where the discovery is laborious my ardor is increased, and the spoil obtained is eagerly devoured, and is hidden in my heart for my nourishment.
28. Christ appears to me in Joseph, who was persecuted and sold by his brethren, and after his troubles obtained honor in Egypt. We have seen the troubles of Christ in the world, of which Egypt was a figure, in the sufferings of the martyrs. And now we see the honor of Christ in the same world which He subdues to Himself, in exchange for the food which He bestows. Christ appears to me in the rod of Moses, whicli became a ser- pent when cast on the earth as a figure of His death, which came from the serpent. Again, when caught by the tail it became a rod, as a figure of His return after the accomplishment of His work in His resurrection to what He was before, destroying death by His new life, so as to leave no trace of the serpent. We, too, who are His body, glide along in the same mortality through the folds of time; but when at last the tail of this course of things is laid hold of by tlie hand of judgment that it shall go no further, we shall be re- newed, and rising from the destruction of death, the last enemy, we shall be the sceptre of government in the right hand of God.
29. Of the departure of Israel from Egypt, let us hear what the apostle himself says: " I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignor- ant that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink of the same spiritual drink. For they drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ.''*' 4 2 Cor. V. 13-15.
5 Ps. cxix. 83.
^ I Cor. X, 1-4.
Book XII. J REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICH.'EAN.
193 The explanation of one thing is a key to the rest. For if the rock is Christ from its sta- bility, is not the manna Christ, the living bread which came down from heaven, which gives spiritual life to those who truly feed on it? The Israelites died because they received the figure only in its carnal sense. The apostle, by calling it spiritual food, shows its! reference to Christ, as the spiritual drink is explained by the words, " That rock was Christ," which explain the whole. Then is i not the cloud and the pillar Christ, who by His uprightness and strength supports our j feebleness; who shines by night and not by day, that they who see not may see, and that ■ they who see may be made blind? In the clouds and the Red Sea there is the baptism consecrated by the blood of Christ. The enemies following behind perish, as past sins. are put away. | 30. The Israelites are led through the wil j derness, as those who are baptized are in the j wilderness while on the way to the promised land, hoping and patiently waiting for that which they see not. In the wilderness are severe trials, lest thev should in heart return to Egypt. Still Christ does not leave them; the pillar does not go away. The bitter waters are sweetened by wood, as hostile people become friendly by learning to honor the cross of Christ. The twelve fountains watering the seventy palm trees are a figure of apostolic grace watering the nations. As seven is mutiplied by ten, so the decalogue is fulfilled in the sevenfold operation of the Spirit. The enemy attempting to stop them j in their way is overcome by Moses stretching out his hands in the figure of the cross. The, deadly bites of serpents are healed by the i brazen serpent, which was lifted up that they might look at it. The Lord Himself gives the explanation of this: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever be- lieveth in Him may not perish, but have ever- lasting life."' So in many other things we may find a protest against the obstinacy of unbelieving hearts. In the passover a lamb is killed, representing Christ, of whom it is said in the Gospel, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world! " - In the passover the bones of the lamb were not to be broken; and on the cross the bones of the Lord were not broken. The evangel- ist, in reference to this, quotes the words, "A bone of Him shall not be broken." ^ The X)sts were marked with blood to keep away destruction, as people are marked on their foreheads with the sign of the Lord's passion for their salvation. The law was given on the fiftieth day after the passover; so the Holy Spirit came on the fiftieth day after the passion of the Lord. The law is said to have been written with the finger of God; and the Lord says of the Holy Spirit, "With the finger of God I cast out devils." ■• Such are the Scriptures in which Faustus, after shut- ting his eyes, declares that he can see no pre- diction of Christ. But we need not wonder that he should have eyes to read and yet no heart to understand, since, instead of knock- ing in devout faith at the door of the heavenly secret, he dares to act in profane hostility. So let it be, for so it ought to be. Let the gate of salvation be shut to the proud. The meek, to whom God teaches His ways, will find all these things in the Scriptures, and those things which he does not see he will believe from what he sees.
31. He will see Jesus leading the people into the land of promise; for this name was given to the leader of Israel, not at first, or by chance, but on account of the work to which he was called. He will see the cluster from the land of promise hanging from a wooden pole. He will see in Jericho, as in this perishing world, an harlot, one of those of whom the Lord says that they go before the proud into the kingdom of heaven, putting out of her window a scarlet line symbolical of blood, as confession is made with the mouth for the remission of sins. He will see the walls of Jericho, like the frail defences of the world, fall when compassed seven times by the ark of the covenant; as now in the course of the seven days of time the covenant of God compasses the w^hole globe, that in the end, death, the last enemy, may be destroyed, and the Church, like one single house, be saved from the destruction of the ungodly, purified from the defilement of fornication by the window of confession in the blood of re- mission.
^2. He will see the times of the judges precede those of the kings, as the judgment will precede the kingdom. And under both the judges and the kings he will see Christ and the Church repeatedly prefigured in many and various ways. Who was in Samson, when he killed the lion that met him as he went to get a wife strangers, but He who.
when going to call His Church from among the Gentiles, said, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world?"5 What means the hive in the mouth of the slain lion, but that, as we see, the very laws of the earthly king- ' John iii. 14.
- John i. 29.
3 John xix. 36.
•» Luke xi. 20.
5 J<ihn xvi. 33.
194 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book XII.
dom which once raged against Christ have now lost their fierceness, and have become a protection for the preaching of gospel sweet- ness? Wliat is that woman boldly piercing the temples of the enemy with a wooden nail, but the faith of the Church casting down the kingdom of the devil by the cross of Christ? What is the fleece wet while the ground was dry, and again the fleece dry while the ground was wet, but the Hebrew nation at first pos- sessing alone in its typical institution Christ the mystery of God, while the whole world was in ignorance? And now the whole world has this mystery revealed, while the Jews are destitute of it.