The Jews and the Gentiles typified by the two sons. Aug., _De Civ._, xx, 29.
654 The six ages, the six Fathers of the six ages, the six wonders at the beginning of the six ages, the six mornings at the beginning of the six ages.[238] 655 Adam _forma futuri_.[239] The six days to form the one, the six ages to form the other. The six days, which Moses represents for the formation of Adam, are only the picture of the six ages to form Jesus Christ and the Church. If Adam had not sinned, and Jesus Christ had not come, there had been only one covenant, only one age of men, and the creation would have been represented as accomplished at one single time.
656 _Types._--The Jewish and Egyptian peoples were plainly foretold by the two individuals whom Moses met; the Egyptian beating the Jew, Moses avenging him and killing the Egyptian, and the Jew being ungrateful.
657 The symbols of the Gospel for the state of the sick soul are sick bodies; but because one body cannot be sick enough to express it well, several have been needed. Thus there are the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the paralytic, the dead Lazarus, the possessed. All this crowd is in the sick soul.
658 _Types._--To show that the Old Testament is only figurative, and that the prophets understood by temporal blessings other blessings, this is the proof: First, that this would be unworthy of God.
Secondly, that their discourses express very clearly the promise of temporal blessings, and that they say nevertheless that their discourses are obscure, and that their meaning will not be understood. Whence it appears that this secret meaning was not that which they openly expressed, and that consequently they meant to speak of other sacrifices, of another deliverer, etc. They say that they will be understood only in the fullness of time (Jer. xxx, _ult._).
The third proof is that their discourses are contradictory, and neutralise each other; so that if we think that they did not mean by the words "law" and "sacrifice" anything else than that of Moses, there is a plain and gross contradiction. Therefore they meant something else, sometimes contradicting themselves in the same chapter. Now, to understand the meaning of an author...659 Lust has become natural to us, and has made our second nature. Thus there are two natures in us--the one good, the other bad. Where is God?
Where you are not, and the kingdom of God is within you. The Rabbis.
660 Penitence, alone of all these mysteries, has been manifestly declared to the Jews, and by Saint John, the Forerunner; and then the other mysteries; to indicate that in each man, as in the entire world, this order must be observed.
661 The carnal Jews understood neither the greatness nor the humiliation of the Messiah foretold in their prophecies. They misunderstood Him in His foretold greatness, as when He said that the Messiah should be lord of David, though his son, and that He was before Abraham, who had seen Him.
They did not believe Him so great as to be eternal, and they likewise misunderstood Him in His humiliation and in His death. "The Messiah," said they, "abideth for ever, and this man says that he shall die."[240] Therefore they believed Him neither mortal nor eternal; they only sought in Him for a carnal greatness.
662 _Typical._--Nothing is so like charity as covetousness, and nothing is so opposed to it. Thus the Jews, full of possessions which flattered their covetousness, were very like Christians, and very contrary. And by this means they had the two qualities which it was necessary they should have, to be very like the Messiah to typify Him, and very contrary not to be suspected witnesses.
663 _Typical._--God made use of the lust of the Jews to make them minister to Jesus Christ, [who brought the remedy for their lust].
664 Charity is not a figurative precept. It is dreadful to say that Jesus Christ, who came to take away types in order to establish the truth, came only to establish the type of charity, in order to take away the existing reality which was there before.
"If the light be darkness, how great is that darkness!"[241] 665 Fascination. _Somnum suum.[242] Figura hujus mundi._[243] _Inimici Dei terram lingent._[245] Sinners lick the dust, that is to say, love earthly pleasures.
The Old Testament contained the types of future joy, and the New contains the means of arriving at it. The types were of joy; the means of penitence; and nevertheless the Paschal Lamb was eaten with bitter _Singularis sum ego donec transeam._[247]--Jesus Christ before His death was almost the only martyr.
666 _Typical._--The expressions, sword, shield. _Potentissime._ 667 We are estranged, only by departing from charity. Our prayers and our virtues are abominable before God, if they are not the prayers and the virtues of Jesus Christ. And our sins will never be the object of [_mercy_], but of the justice of God, if they are not [_those of_] Jesus Christ. He has adopted our sins, and has [_admitted_] us into union [_with Him_], for virtues are [_His own, and_] sins are foreign to Him; while virtues _[are]_ foreign to us, and our sins are our own.
Let us change the rule which we have hitherto chosen for judging what is good. We had our own will as our rule. Let us now take the will of [_God_]; all that He wills is good and right to us, all that He does not will is [_bad_].
All that God does not permit is forbidden. Sins are forbidden by the general declaration that God has made, that He did not allow them. Other things which He has left without general prohibition, and which for that reason are said to be permitted, are nevertheless not always permitted.
For when God removed some one of them from us, and when, by the event, which is a manifestation of the will of God, it appears that God does not will that we should have a thing, that is then forbidden to us as sin; since the will of God is that we should not have one more than another. There is this sole difference between these two things, that it is certain that God will never allow sin, while it is not certain that He will never allow the other. But so long as God does not permit it, we ought to regard it as sin; so long as the absence of God's will, which alone is all goodness and all justice, renders it unjust and wrong.
668 To change the type, because of our weakness.
669 _Types._--The Jews had grown old in these earthly thoughts, that God loved their father Abraham, his flesh and what sprung from it; that on account of this He had multiplied them, and distinguished them from all other nations, without allowing them to intermingle; that when they were languishing in Egypt, He brought them out with all these great signs in their favour; that He fed them with manna in the desert, and led them into a very rich land; that He gave them kings and a well-built temple, in order to offer up beasts before Him, by the shedding of whose blood they should be purified; and that at last He was to send them the Messiah to make them masters of all the world, and foretold the time of His coming.
The world having grown old in these carnal errors, Jesus Christ came at the time foretold, but not with the expected glory; and thus men did not think it was He. After His death, Saint Paul[248] came to teach men that all these things had happened in allegory; that the kingdom of God did not consist in the flesh, but in the spirit; that the enemies of men were not the Babylonians, but the passions; that God delighted not in temples made with hands, but in a pure and contrite heart; that the circumcision of the body was unprofitable, but that of the heart was needed; that Moses had not given them the bread from heaven, etc.[249] But God, not having desired to reveal these things to this people who were unworthy of them, and having nevertheless desired to foretell them, in order that they might be believed, foretold the time clearly, and expressed the things sometimes clearly, but very often in figures, in order that those who loved symbols might consider them, and those who loved what was symbolised might see it therein.
All that tends not to charity is figurative.
The sole aim of the Scripture is charity.
All which tends not to the sole end is the type of it. For since there is only one end, all which does not lead to it in express terms is figurative.
God thus varies that sole precept of charity to satisfy our curiosity, which seeks for variety, by that variety which still leads us to the one thing needful. For one thing alone is needful,[250] and we love variety; and God satisfies both by these varieties, which lead to the one thing needful.
The Jews have so much loved the shadows, and have so strictly expected them, that they have misunderstood the reality, when it came in the time and manner foretold.
The Rabbis take the breasts of the Spouse[251] for types, and all that does not express the only end they have, namely, temporal good.
And Christians take even the Eucharist as a type of the glory at which they aim.
670 The Jews, who have been called to subdue nations and kings, have been the slaves of sin; and the Christians, whose calling has been to be servants and subjects, are free children.[252] 671 _A formal point._--When Saint Peter and the Apostles deliberated about abolishing circumcision, where it was a question of acting against the law of God, they did not heed the prophets, but simply the reception of the Holy Spirit in the persons uncircumcised.[253] They thought it more certain that God approved of those whom He filled with His Spirit, than it was that the law must be obeyed. They knew that the end of the law was only the Holy Spirit; and that thus, as men certainly had this without circumcision, it was not necessary.
672 _Fac secundum exemplar quod tibi ostensum est in monte._[254]--The Jewish religion then has been formed on its likeness to the truth of the Messiah; and the truth of the Messiah has been recognised by the Jewish religion, which was the type of it.
Among the Jews the truth was only typified; in heaven it is revealed.
In the Church it is hidden, and recognised by its resemblance to the type.
The type has been made according to the truth, and the truth has been recognised according to the type.
Saint Paul[255] says himself that people will forbid to marry, and he himself speaks of it to the Corinthians in a way which is a snare. For if a prophet had said the one, and Saint Paul had then said the other, he would have been accused.
673 _Typical._--"Do all things according to the pattern which has been shown thee on the mount." On which Saint Paul says that the Jews have shadowed forth heavenly things.[256] 674...And yet this Covenant, made to blind some and enlighten others, indicated in those very persons, whom it blinded, the truth which should be recognised by others. For the visible blessings which they received from God were so great and so divine, that He indeed appeared able to give them those that are invisible, and a Messiah.
For nature is an image of Grace, and visible miracles are images of the Isaiah says that Redemption will be as the passage of the Red Sea.
God has then shown by the deliverance from Egypt, and from the sea, by the defeat of kings, by the manna, by the whole genealogy of Abraham, that He was able to save, to send down bread from heaven, etc.; so that the people hostile to Him are the type and the representation of the very Messiah whom they know not, etc.
He has then taught us at last that all these things were only types, and what is "true freedom," a "true Israelite," "true circumcision," "true bread from heaven," etc.
In these promises each one finds what he has most at heart, temporal benefits or spiritual, God or the creatures; but with this difference, that those who therein seek the creatures find them, but with many contradictions, with a prohibition against loving them, with the command to worship God only, and to love Him only, which is the same thing, and, finally, that the Messiah came not for them; whereas those who therein seek God find Him, without any contradiction, with the command to love Him only, and that the Messiah came in the time foretold, to give them the blessings which they ask.
Thus the Jews had miracles and prophecies, which they say fulfilled and the teaching of their law was to worship and love God only; it was also perpetual. Thus it had all the marks of the true religion; and so it was. But the Jewish teaching must be distinguished from the teaching of the Jewish law. Now the Jewish teaching was not true, although it had miracles and prophecy and perpetuity, because it had not this other point of worshipping and loving God only.
675 The veil, which is upon these books for the Jews, is there also for evil Christians, and for all who do not hate themselves.
But how well disposed men are to understand them and to know Jesus Christ, when they truly hate themselves!
676 A type conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain.
A cipher has a double meaning, one clear, and one in which it is said that the meaning is hidden.
677 _Types._--A portrait conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain.
The reality excludes absence and pain.
To know if the law and the sacrifices are a reality or a type, we must see if the prophets, in speaking of these things, confined their view and their thought to them, so that they saw only the old covenant; or if they saw therein something else of which they were the representation, for in a portrait we see the thing figured. For this we need only examine what they say of them.
When they say that it will be eternal, do they mean to speak of that covenant which they say will be changed; and so of the sacrifices, etc.?
A cipher has two meanings. When we find out an important letter in which we discover a clear meaning, and in which it is nevertheless said that the meaning is veiled and obscure, that it is hidden, so that we might read the letter without seeing it, and interpret it without understanding it, what must we think but that here is a cipher with a double meaning, and the more so if we find obvious contradictions in the literal meaning? The prophets have clearly said that Israel would be always loved by God, and that the law would be eternal; and they have said that their meaning would not be understood, and that it was veiled.
How greatly then ought we to value those who interpret the cipher, and teach us to understand the hidden meaning, especially if the principles which they educe are perfectly clear and natural! This is what Jesus Christ did, and the Apostles. They broke the seal; He rent the veil, and revealed the spirit. They have taught us through this that the enemies of man are his passions; that the Redeemer would be spiritual, and His reign spiritual; that there would be two advents, one in lowliness to humble the proud, the other in glory to exalt the humble; that Jesus Christ would be both God and man.
678 _Types._--Jesus Christ opened their mind to understand the Scriptures.
Two great revelations are these. (1) All things happened to them in types: _vere Israelitae, vere liberi_, true bread from Heaven. (2) A God humbled to the Cross. It was necessary that Christ should suffer in order to enter into glory, "that He should destroy death through death."[257] Two advents.
679 _Types._--When once this secret is disclosed, it is impossible not to see it. Let us read the Old Testament in this light, and let us see if the sacrifices were real; if the fatherhood of Abraham was the true cause of the friendship of God; and if the promised land was the true place of rest. No. They are therefore types. Let us in the same way examine all those ordained ceremonies, all those commandments which are not of charity, and we shall see that they are types.
All these sacrifices and ceremonies were then either types or nonsense.
Now these are things too clear, and too lofty, to be thought nonsense.
To know if the prophets confined their view in the Old Testament, or saw therein other things.
680 _Typical._--The key of the cipher. _Veri adoratores._[258]--_Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi_.[259] 681 Is. i, 21. Change of good into evil, and the vengeance of God. Is. x, I; xxvi, 20; xxviii, I. Miracles: Is. xxxiii, 9; xl, 17; xli, 26; xliii, 13.
Jer. xi, 21; xv, 12; xvii, 9. _Pravum est cor omnium et incrustabile; quis cognoscet illud?_ that is to say, Who can know all its evil? For it is already known to be wicked. _Ego dominus_, etc.--vii, 14, _Faciam domui huic_, etc. Trust in external sacrifices--vii, 22, _Quia non sum locutus_, etc. Outward sacrifice is not the essential point--xi, 13, _Secundum numerum_, etc. A multitude of doctrines.
Is. xliv, 20-24; liv, 8; lxiii, 12-17; lxvi, 17. Jer. ii, 35; iv, 22-24; 682 _Types_,--The letter kills. All happened in types. Here is the cipher which Saint Paul gives us. Christ must suffer. An humiliated God.
Circumcision of the heart, true fasting, true sacrifice, a true temple.
The prophets have shown that all these must be spiritual.
Not the meat which perishes, but that which does not perish.
"Ye shall be free indeed."[260] Then the other freedom was only a type of freedom.
"I am the true bread from Heaven."[261] 683 _Contradiction._--We can only describe a good character by reconciling all contrary qualities, and it is not enough to keep up a series of harmonious qualities, without reconciling contradictory ones. To understand the meaning of an author, we must make all the contrary passages agree.
Thus, to understand Scripture, we must have a meaning in which all the contrary passages are reconciled. It is not enough to have one which suits many concurring passages; but it is necessary to have one which reconciles even contradictory passages.
Every author has a meaning in which all the contradictory passages agree, or he has no meaning at all. We cannot affirm the latter of Scripture and the prophets; they undoubtedly are full of good sense. We must then seek for a meaning which reconciles all discrepancies.
The true meaning then is not that of the Jews; but in Jesus Christ all the contradictions are reconciled.
The Jews could not reconcile the cessation of the royalty and principality, foretold by Hosea, with the prophecy of Jacob.
If we take the law, the sacrifices, and the kingdom as realities, we cannot reconcile all the passages. They must then necessarily be only types. We cannot even reconcile the passages of the same author, nor of the same book, nor sometimes of the same chapter, which indicates copiously what was the meaning of the author. As when Ezekiel, chap, xx, says that man will not live by the commandments of God and will live by them.
684 _Types._--If the law and the sacrifices are the truth, it must please God, and must not displease Him. If they are types, they must be both pleasing and displeasing.
Now in all the Scripture they are both pleasing and displeasing. It is said that the law shall be changed; that the sacrifice shall be changed; that they shall be without law, without a prince, and without a sacrifice; that a new covenant shall be made; that the law shall be renewed; that the precepts which they have received are not good; that their sacrifices are abominable; that God has demanded none of them.
It is said, on the contrary, that the law shall abide for ever; that this covenant shall be for ever; that sacrifice shall be eternal; that the sceptre shall never depart from among them, because it shall not depart from them till the eternal King comes.
Do all these passages indicate what is real? No. Do they then indicate what is typical? No, but what is either real or typical. But the first passages, excluding as they do reality, indicate that all this is only typical.
All these passages together cannot be applied to reality; all can be said to be typical; therefore they are not spoken of reality, but of the type.
_Agnus occisus est ab origine mundi._[262] A sacrificing judge.
685 _Contradictions._--The sceptre till the Messiah--without king or prince.
The eternal law--changed.
The eternal covenant--a new covenant.
Good laws--bad precepts. Ezekiel.
686 _Types._--When the word of God, which is really true, is false literally, it is true spiritually. _Sede a dextris meis:_[263] this is false literally, therefore it is true spiritually.
In these expressions, God is spoken of after the manner of men; and this means nothing else but that the intention which men have in giving a seat at their right hand, God will have also. It is then an indication of the intention of God, not of His manner of carrying it out.
Thus when it is said, "God has received the odour of your incense, and will in recompense give you a rich land," that is equivalent to saying that the same intention which a man would have, who, pleased with your perfumes, should in recompense give you a rich land, God will have towards you, because you have had the same intention as a man has towards him to whom he presents perfumes. So _iratus est_, a "jealous God,"[264] etc. For, the things of God being inexpressible, they cannot be spoken of otherwise, and the Church makes use of them even to-day: _Quia confortavil seras_,[265] etc.
It is not allowable to attribute to Scripture the meaning which is not revealed to us that it has. Thus, to say that the closed _mem_[266] of Isaiah signifies six hundred, has not been revealed. It might be said that the final _tsade_ and _he deficientes_ may signify mysteries. But it is not allowable to say so, and still less to say this is the way of the philosopher's stone. But we say that the literal meaning is not the true meaning, because the prophets have themselves said so.
687 I do not say that the _mem_ is mystical.
688 Moses (Deut. xxx) promises that God will circumcise their heart to render them capable of loving Him.
689 One saying of David, or of Moses, as for instance that "God will circumcise the heart," enables us to judge of their spirit. If all their other expressions were ambiguous, and left us in doubt whether they were philosophers or Christians, one saying of this kind would in fact determine all the rest, as one sentence of Epictetus decides the meaning of all the rest to be the opposite. So far ambiguity exists, but not afterwards.
690 If one of two persons, who are telling silly stories, uses language with a double meaning, understood in his own circle, while the other uses it with only one meaning, any one not in the secret, who hears them both talk in this manner, will pass upon them the same judgment. But if afterwards, in the rest of their conversation one says angelic things, and the other always dull commonplaces, he will judge that the one spoke in mysteries, and not the other; the one having sufficiently shown that he is incapable of such foolishness, and capable of being mysterious; and the other that he is incapable of mystery, and capable of foolishness.
The Old Testament is a cipher.
691 There are some that see clearly that man has no other enemy than lust, which turns him from God, and not God; and that he has no other good than God, and not a rich land. Let those who believe that the good of man is in the flesh, and evil in what turns him away from sensual pleasures, [_satiate_] themselves with them, and [_die_] in them. But let those who seek God with all their heart, who are only troubled at not seeing Him, who desire only to possess Him, and have as enemies only those who turn them away from Him, who are grieved at seeing themselves surrounded and overwhelmed with such enemies, take comfort. I proclaim to them happy news. There exists a Redeemer for them. I shall show Him to them. I shall show that there is a God for them. I shall not show Him to others. I shall make them see that a Messiah has been promised, who should deliver them from their enemies, and that One has come to free them from their iniquities, but not from their enemies.
When David foretold that the Messiah would deliver His people from their enemies, one can believe that in the flesh these would be the Egyptians; and then I cannot show that the prophecy was fulfilled. But one can well believe also that the enemies would be their sins; for indeed the Egyptians were not their enemies, but their sins were so. This word, enemies, is therefore ambiguous. But if he says elsewhere, as he does, that He will deliver His people from their sins, as indeed do Isaiah and others, the ambiguity is removed, and the double meaning of enemies is reduced to the simple meaning of iniquities. For if he had sins in his mind, he could well denote them as enemies; but if he thought of enemies, he could not designate them as iniquities.
Now Moses, David, and Isaiah used the same terms. Who will say then that they have not the same meaning, and that David's meaning, which is plainly iniquities when he spoke of enemies, was not the same as [_that of_] Moses when speaking of enemies?
Daniel (ix) prays for the deliverance of the people from the captivity of their enemies. But he was thinking of sins, and, to show this, he says that Gabriel came to tell him that his prayer was heard, and that there were only seventy weeks to wait, after which the people would be freed from iniquity, sin would have an end, and the Redeemer, the Holy of Holies, would bring _eternal_ justice, not legal, but eternal.
SECTION XI THE PROPHECIES 692 When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe, and man without light, left to himself, and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island, and should awake without knowing where he is, and without means of escape. And thereupon I wonder how people in a condition so wretched do not fall into despair. I see other persons around me of a like nature. I ask them if they are better informed than I am. They tell me that they are not.
And thereupon these wretched and lost beings, having looked around them, and seen some pleasing objects, have given and attached themselves to them. For my own part, I have not been able to attach myself to them, and, considering how strongly it appears that there is something else than what I see, I have examined whether this God has not left some sign of Himself.
I see many contradictory religions, and consequently all false save one.
Each wants to be believed on its own authority, and threatens unbelievers. I do not therefore believe them. Every one can say this; every one can call himself a prophet. But I see that Christian religion wherein prophecies are fulfilled; and that is what every one cannot do.
693 And what crowns all this is prediction, so that it should not be said that it is chance which has done it.
Whosoever, having only a week to live, will not find out that it is expedient to believe that all this is not a stroke of chance...Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would amount to the same thing.
694 _Prophecies._--Great Pan is dead.[267] 695 _Susceperunt verbum cum omni aviditate, scrutantes Scripturas, si ita se haberent._[268] 696 697 We understand the prophecies only when we see the events happen. Thus the proofs of retreat, discretion, silence, etc. are proofs only to those who know and believe them.
Joseph so internal in a law so external.
Outward penances dispose to inward, as humiliations to humility. Thus the...698 The synagogue has preceded the church; the Jews, the Christians. The prophets have foretold the Christians; Saint John, Jesus Christ.
699 It is glorious to see with the eyes of faith the history of Herod and of Caesar.
700 The zeal of the Jews for their law and their temple (Josephus, and Philo the Jew, _Ad Caium_). What other people had such a zeal? It was necessary they should have it.
Jesus Christ foretold as to the time and the state of the world. The ruler taken from the thigh,[269] and the fourth monarchy. How lucky we are to see this light amidst this darkness!
How fine it is to see, with the eyes of faith, Darius and Cyrus, Alexander, the Romans, Pompey and Herod working, without knowing it, for the glory of the Gospel!
701 Zeal of the Jewish people for the law, especially after there were no more prophets.
702 While the prophets were for maintaining the law, the people were indifferent. But since there have been no more prophets, zeal has succeeded them.
703 The devil troubled the zeal of the Jews before Jesus Christ, because he would have been their salvation, but not since.
The Jewish people scorned by the Gentiles; the Christian people persecuted.
704 _Proof._--Prophecies with their fulfilment; what has preceded and what has followed Jesus Christ.
705 The prophecies are the strongest proof of Jesus Christ. It is for them also that God has made most provision; for the event which has fulfilled them is a miracle existing since the birth of the Church to the end. So God has raised up prophets during sixteen hundred years, and, during four hundred years afterwards, He has scattered all these prophecies among all the Jews, who carried them into all parts of the world. Such was the preparation for the birth of Jesus Christ, and, as His Gospel was to be believed by all the world, it was not only necessary that there should be prophecies to make it believed, but that these prophecies should exist throughout the whole world, in order to make it embraced by the whole world.
706 But it was not enough that the prophecies should exist. It was necessary that they should be distributed throughout all places, and preserved throughout all times. And in order that this agreement might not be taken for an effect of chance, it was necessary that this should be foretold.
It is far more glorious for the Messiah that the Jews should be the spectators, and even the instruments of His glory, besides that God had reserved them.
707 _Prophecies._--The time foretold by the state of the Jewish people, by the state of the heathen, by the state of the temple, by the number of years.
708 One must be bold to predict the same thing in so many ways. It was necessary that the four idolatrous or pagan monarchies, the end of the kingdom of Judah, and the seventy weeks, should happen at the same time, and all this before the second temple was destroyed.
709 _Prophecies._--If one man alone had made a book of predictions about Jesus Christ, as to the time and the manner, and Jesus Christ had come in conformity to these prophecies, this fact would have infinite weight.
But there is much more here. Here is a succession of men during four thousand years, who, consequently and without variation, come, one after another, to foretell this same event. Here is a whole people who announce it, and who have existed for four thousand years, in order to give corporate testimony of the assurances which they have, and from which they cannot be diverted by whatever threats and persecutions people may make against them. This is far more important.
710 _Predictions of particular things._--They were strangers in Egypt, without any private property, either in that country or elsewhere.
[There was not the least appearance, either of the royalty which had previously existed so long, or of that supreme council of seventy judges which they called the _Sanhedrin_, and which, having been instituted by Moses, lasted to the time of Jesus Christ. All these things were as far removed from their state at that time as they could be], when Jacob, dying, and blessing his twelve children, declared to them, that they would be proprietors of a great land, and foretold in particular to the family of Judah, that the kings, who would one day rule them, should be of his race; and that all his brethren should be their subjects; [and that even the Messiah, who was to be the expectation of nations, should spring from him; and that the kingship should not be taken away from Judah, nor the ruler and law-giver of his descendants, till the expected Messiah should arrive in his family].
This same Jacob, disposing of this future land as though he had been its ruler, gave a portion to Joseph more than to the others. "I give you," said he, "one part more than to your brothers." And blessing his two children, Ephraim and Manasseh, whom Joseph had presented to him, the elder, Manasseh, on his right, and the young Ephraim on his left, he put his arms crosswise, and placing his right hand on the head of Ephraim, and his left on Manasseh, he blessed them in this manner. And, upon Joseph's representing to him that he was preferring the younger, he replied to him with admirable resolution: "I know it well, my son; but Ephraim will increase more than Manasseh." This has been indeed so true in the result, that, being alone almost as fruitful as the two entire lines which composed a whole kingdom, they have been usually called by the name of Ephraim alone.
This same Joseph, when dying, bade his children carry his bones with them when they should go into that land, to which they only came two hundred years afterwards.
Moses, who wrote all these things so long before they happened, himself assigned to each family portions of that land before they entered it, as though he had been its ruler. [In fact he declared that God was to raise up from their nation and their race a prophet, of whom he was the type; and he foretold them exactly all that was to happen to them in the land which they were to enter after his death, the victories which God would give them, their ingratitude towards God, the punishments which they would receive for it, and the rest of their adventures.] He gave them judges who should make the division. He prescribed the entire form of political government which they should observe, the cities of refuge which they should build, and...711 The prophecies about particular things are mingled with those about the Messiah, so that the prophecies of the Messiah should not be without proofs, nor the special prophecies without fruit.
712 _Perpetual captivity of the Jews._--Jer. xi, 11: "I will bring evil upon Judah from which they shall not be able to escape."
_Types._--Is. v: "The Lord had a vineyard, from which He looked for grapes; and it brought forth only wild grapes. I will therefore lay it waste, and destroy it; the earth shall only bring forth thorns, and I will forbid the clouds from _[raining]_ upon it. The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant. I looked that they should do justice, and they bring forth only iniquities."
Is. viii: "Sanctify the Lord with fear and trembling; let Him be your only dread, and He shall be to you for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin