The Philocalia of Origen (1911) pp. 1-237. English translation

The following analysis of Origen's scheme of interpretation may be useful to the reader:----

	                                           Interpretation
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	    Literal (Body)                            Moral (Soul)                  Mystical (Spirit)
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	|                       |                                          |                       |
     Actual                 Fictitious                                 Allegory.                Anagoge.
     History.                History.                              Prefiguring the           Typifying the
                       Invented by the Holy Spirit                 history of Christ         things of a higher
                       to convey moral and mystical                and His Church.           world in which
                       truths which earthly things                                           everything of this
                       could not sufficiently typify.                                        earth has its antitype.
                          In the law some things
                       were literally to be observed;
                       others were in the letter impossible
                       or absurd, but were intended
                       to convey moral and mystical teaching.

1. Inasmuch as when we investigate matters of such importance we are not content with common notions and such light as is given by the things that are seen, we strengthen our position by the additional evidence of the Scriptures, which we believe to be Divine, viz. both that which is called the Old Testament and that which is called the New, and endeavour with the help of reason |2 to confirm our faith. But as we have never yet discussed the Scriptures on the side of their Divine inspiration, let us bring together a few brief remarks concerning them, by way of showing upon what grounds we regard them as Divine. And before we proceed to make use of the text of the Scriptures and of what is revealed in them, a few particulars must be given concerning Moses and Jesus Christ----the lawgiver of the Hebrews, and the Author of the saving doctrines of Christianity. For of all the numerous lawgivers that have arisen among Greeks and Barbarians, we recall no one who could induce other nations to eagerly accept his tenets; and although the professors of philosophic truth made elaborate efforts to establish their doctrine on a seeming basis of reason, not one of them succeeded in introducing into different nations the truth which he supported, or in influencing considerable numbers of one nation. And yet the lawgivers would have liked, if it had been possible, to bind the good laws, as they appeared to be, on the whole human race, and the teachers would desire that what they imagined to be truth should be spread throughout the world. Conscious, however, that they would not succeed if they invited men of different languages and of many nationalities to observe the law they promulgated, and accept the instruction they gave, they did not even attempt this at first, for they shrewdly suspected that the attempt would end in failure. But in every land, Greek and Barbarian, throughout the world, countless adherents of our faith may be found who have abandoned their ancestral customs and familiar gods, to become zealous observers of the law of Moses and eager disciples of Jesus Christ; and this in spite of the fact that they who submit to the law of Moses are hated by the worshippers of images, and they who accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ are not only hated but are in peril of death.

2. And if we realise in how very short a time, notwithstanding the plots laid against the professors of Christianity, whereby some perished and others lost their |3 possessions, the Word, though the number of the preachers was not great, has been everywhere preached throughout the world, so that Greeks and Barbarians, wise and foolish, submit themselves to the fear of God through Jesus, if, I say, we realise this, we shall not hesitate to say that there is something superhuman in the result. For Jesus taught with all authority and persuasiveness that the Word would prevail, so that one may reasonably regard His utterances as prophetic.¹ For instance, "Before governors and kings shall ye be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles."² And, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not eat in thy name, and drink in thy name? And I will say to them, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. I never knew you."^³It was perhaps reasonable to think that He spoke these things at random, and that they were not true; but when the things spoken with such authority came to pass, it is manifest that God really took our nature upon Him and delivered doctrines of salvation to men.

3. Need I add how it was foretold that the promised princes should depart from Judah,⁴ and rulers from between his thighs, at the coming of Messiah for whom it is reserved, viz. the kingdom, and at the advent of the Expectation of the Gentiles? For it is surely clear from history and from what we see to-day, that from the times of Jesus there have been none who called themselves kings of the Jews; for everything whereon the Jews prided themselves, I mean the arrangements of the temple and the altar, the performance of the service, and the vestments of the high priest, has been abolished. For the prophecy was fulfilled which says, "The children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without priesthood,⁵ and without Urim and Thummim." ⁶ And |4 we turn the foregoing passage against our opponents, who, perplexed by what Jacob in Genesis says to Judah, allege that the Ethnarch sprung from the family of Judah, is the "governor of the people," and that his seed shall not fail until the coming of Messiah of which they dream. For if "the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without priesthood, and without Urim and Thummin"; and from the time when the temple was destroyed there has been no sacrifice, nor altar, nor priesthood, it is clear that a prince has failed from Judah, and a ruler from between his thighs. And since the prophecy says, "A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a ruler from between his thighs, until the things reserved for him shall come,"⁷ it is clear that He has come to whom the things reserved belong, viz. the Expectation of the Gentiles. And this is proved by the multitude of the Gentiles who have believed on God through Christ.

4. The Song in Deuteronomy also contains a prophecy of the future election of the foolish Gentiles on account of the sins of God's former people, and this has come to pass through Jesus only. "For they," so the words stand, "have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God: they have provoked me to anger with their idols. And I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people: I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." ⁸ We can very clearly understand how they who bore the name of Hebrews and provoked God to jealousy with that which is not God, and provoked Him to anger with their idols, were themselves provoked to jealousy and moved to anger with those which were not a people, the foolish people, whom God chose through the coming of Christ and through His disciples. "We see, then, our calling, that not many wise men after the flesh, not many |5 mighty, not many noble are called: but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the base things and things that are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that were before: and that Israel after the flesh may not boast before God."^⁹For when the Apostle uses the word "flesh" he means "Israel."

5. But what are we to say about the prophecies in the Psalms concerning Christ? Is there not a "song" entitled "For the Beloved"? ¹⁰ The Beloved's tongue is called "the pen of a ready writer"; He is fairer than the children of men, for grace is poured into His lips. A proof of the grace poured into His lips is the fact that though the whole period of His teaching was so short (He taught for something like a year and a few months), the world has been filled with His doctrine and with the religion which He brought. For "in his days righteousness hath sprung up, and abundance of peace to last to the end," ¹¹ for this lasting to the end is the meaning of the phrase "the moon shall be no more"; and "He shall have perpetual dominion from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth." And a sign is given to the house of David; for the Virgin did bear; she both conceived and bore a son, and His name is Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us.¹² The prophecy is fulfilled, as the same prophet says: "God is with us; be wise ye nations, and submit; ye that are mighty submit."^¹³We of the Gentiles who have been led captive by the grace of His Word have been conquered and have submitted. But even the place of His birth was foretold: "For thou Bethlehem, land of Judah, art in no wise least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a governor, which shall be shepherd of my people Israel."¹⁴ And the seventy weeks wore fulfilled, as Daniel |6 shows,¹⁵ when Christ the "governor" came. And, according to Job,¹⁶ He came who subdued the great sea-monster, and has given authority to His true disciples to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, being in no wise hurt by them.¹⁷ Let a man observe how the Apostles who were sent by Jesus to proclaim the Gospel went everywhere, and he cannot help seeing their superhuman daring in obedience to the Divine command. And if we inquire how it was that men when they heard new doctrines and strange words welcomed the Apostles, and in spite of their desire to plot against them were overcome by a certain Divine power guarding the speakers, we shall not disbelieve even if we are told that the Apostles did work miracles, God bearing witness to their words both by signs and wonders and by manifold powers.¹⁸

6. But in thus briefly summarising the proofs for the Godhead of Jesus, and making use of the words of the prophets concerning Him, we are at the same time proving the inspiration of the Scriptures which prophesy of Him, and are showing that those writings which proclaim His coming and teaching were delivered with all power and authority; and we say that if they have prevailed over the election from the Gentiles, it is because they were inspired. But we must say that the divinity of the prophetic utterances, and the spiritual meaning of the law of Moses, shone forth by the dwelling of Jesus on earth. For there could be no clear proofs of the inspiration of the ancient Scriptures before the coming of Christ. But the coming of Jesus brought men who might suspect that the law and the prophets were not Divine to the plain avowal that they were written with help from heaven. And the careful and attentive reader of the words of the prophets, if his zeal be kindled ever so little by reading them, will through his own experience be persuaded that what we believe to be the words of God |7 are not human compositions. And the light also of the law of Moses, though it had been hidden by a veil, shone forth when Jesus came;¹⁹ for the veil was taken away and the good things foreshadowed in the Scriptures were gradually revealed.

7. It would be a big undertaking to now recount the most ancient prophecies, so that in amazement at their Divine character, the doubter may with full conviction and concentrated purpose submit himself with all his soul to the words of God. If, however, the superhuman element in the Scriptures does not everywhere appear to strike the uninstructed, no wonder; for in the working of the Divine Providence throughout the whole World some things are very clearly seen to be providential, while others are so hidden as to seem to leave room for doubt as to whether God with His ineffable skill and power does order the universe. For the evidence of design in Providence is not so clear in things of earth as it is in the sun and moon and stars; and it is not so clear in the changes and chances of human affairs as it is in the souls and bodies of animals, certainly when the why and wherefore of their instincts, impressions, natures, and bodily structure have been ascertained by experts in these branches of knowledge. But as the doctrine of Providence is not destroyed by our ignorance in some particulars, when we have once for all admitted it, so neither is the Divine character of Scripture upon the whole impaired, because our weakness cannot in each phrase approach the hidden glory of the truths concealed in poor and contemptible language. For we have a treasure in earthly vessels,²⁰ that the exceeding greatness of the power of God may shine forth, and may not be thought to come from us men. For if the hackneyed methods of demonstration common among men, which we find on our library shelves,²¹ had prevailed over men, our faith would with good reason have been supposed to stand |8 in the wisdom of men, and not in the power of God;²² but as things are, if a man will lift up his eyes, it will be evident that the Word and the preaching have influenced the multitude not by persuasive words of wisdom, but by demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Wherefore, seeing that a heavenly power, or a power even from, above the heavens, urges us to worship the Creator only, let us, leaving the word of the beginning of Christ,²³ that is, leaving elementary instruction, endeavour to press on unto perfection, that the wisdom spoken to the perfect may be spoken also to us.²⁴ For He Who has this wisdom promises to speak it among the perfect, a wisdom other than the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the ruler of this world, which is brought to nought. And this wisdom shall be plainly stamped on us, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is manifested, by the Scriptures of the prophets ²⁵ and the appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,²⁶ to Whom be the glory for ever. Amen.

8. Now that we have, as it were, just glanced at the inspiration of the Divine Scriptures, we must pass on to the way to read and understand them; for very many mistakes have been made, because the right method of examining the holy texts has not been discovered by the greater number of readers. Hardhearted and unlearned readers belonging to the Circumcision have not believed on our Saviour, because it is their habit to follow the bare letter of the prophecies concerning Him, and they do not see Him with their bodily eyes proclaiming liberty to the captives,²⁷ nor building what they think the true city of God,²⁸ nor cutting off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem,²⁹ nor eating butter and honey, and before He knoweth or preferreth evil choosing the good.³⁰They still suppose that prophecy declares that the |9 four-footed animal, the wolf, shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the bull, and the lion feed together, and that a little child shall lead them; and that the cow and the bear shall be pastured together, their young ones being reared together, and that the lion shall eat straw like the ox.³¹ Because they saw nothing like this when He Whom we believe to be Christ dwelt on the earth, they did not receive Jesus, but crucified Him, maintaining that He had no right to call Himself Christ. And heretics when they read the words, "A fire is kindled in mine anger";³² and, "I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and fourth generation";³³ and, "It repenteth me that I have anointed Saul to be king";³⁴ and, "I am God that maketh peace and create evil";³⁵ and in another place, "Shall evil befall a city, and the Lord hath not done it";³⁶ or again, "Evil is come down from the Lord unto the gates of Jerusalem";³⁷ and, "An evil spirit from the Lord plagued Saul";³⁸ and countless similar passages: when they read these, I say, they will not venture to deny the Divine origin of the Scriptures, but believing them to have come from the Demiurge,³⁹ Whom the Jews worship, and holding that the Demiurge is imperfect and lacking in goodness, they suppose our Saviour while He dwelt on earth to have proclaimed a more perfect God, Whom, from different motives, they affirm not to be the Demiurge. And having thus once for all revolted from the Demiurge, Who is the only God uncreate, they have given themselves up to vain imaginations, inventing for themselves various theories, so as to account for the origin of things that are seen, and for the origin of others not seen, and all this is the offspring of their own fancy. And yet, as a matter of fact, the less sophisticated of those who in their self-confidence have left the Church |10 allow no God greater than the Demiurge, and so far they are right; but their conception of Him is such as would discredit an extremely cruel and unjust man.

9. Now the only reason why all these of whom Ihave spoken entertain false and impious opinions, or ignorant views respecting God, appears to be that the Scripture on the spiritual side is not understood, but is taken in the bare literal sense. For the sake, therefore, of those readers who are persuaded that the sacred books are not human compositions, but that they were written and have come to us by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, according to the will of the Father of All through Jesus Christ, we must point out what appear to be the right methods, while we keep to the rule of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ in succession to the Apostles. And that there are certain mystic dispensations revealed through the Divine Scriptures has been believed by all who have studied the Word, even the simplest readers; but what these dispensations are, fair-minded and modest men confess they do not know. Anyway, supposing a man to be perplexed about the intercourse of Lot with his daughters,⁴⁰ or the two wives of Abraham,⁴¹ or Jacob's marrying two sisters, and the handmaidens who had children by him,⁴² these readers will say that here we have mysteries which we do not understand. But suppose the passage to be about the building of the tabernacle,^⁴³feeling sure that the narrative is typical, they will endeavour to give each detail, as best they can, a spiritual meaning. So far as their conviction goes that the tabernacle is a type of something, they are not far wrong; but when on the strength of this they attempt in a way worthy of Scripture to define the particular thing of which the tabernacle is a type, they sometimes fail. And every ordinary story of marriage, or childbearing, or war, or any historical occurrences which would generally be |11 regarded as such, they pronounce to be typical. But when they come to particulars, it sometimes happens, partly because they are not thoroughly familiar with the subject, partly because they are too precipitate, partly because, even if a man is well trained and deliberate, the things are extremely difficult to investigate, that certain points are not quite cleared up.

10. And why speak of the prophecies, which we ail know to be full of enigmas and dark sayings? And, coming to the Gospels, if we are to find their exact sense, inasmuch as that sense is the mind of Christ, there is need of the grace given to him who said, "We have the mind of Christ, that we may know the things freely given to us by God; which things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth." ⁴⁴ And who, again, can read the things revealed to John without astonishment at the ineffable mysteries therein concealed, mysteries, plainly enough, though a man does not understand what is written? As for the letters of the Apostles, could any critic find them clear and easily intelligible, seeing they contain countless things of the greatest importance and thronging thoughts, seen as through a lattice,⁴⁵ and by no means easy of access? Wherefore, seeing that this is the case, and that vast numbers go wrong, it is somewhat dangerous when we read to lightly declare that one understands what requires that key of knowledge which was with the lawyers. And I wish they who will not allow that men had the truth before Christ came would tell us what our Lord Jesus Christ means by saying that the key of knowledge was in the keeping of the lawyers, for, according to our opponents, the lawyers had no books containing the secrets of knowledge, and complete mysteries. The precise words are these: "Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away |12 the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered." ⁴⁶

11. The right way, then, to read the Scriptures and extract their meaning, so far as we have been able to discover from examining the oracles themselves, appears to be as follows:----Solomon in the Proverbs gives a rule respecting the Divine doctrines of Scripture to this effect: "Do thou thrice record them with counsel and knowledge that thou mayest answer with words of truth to those who try thee with hard questions." ⁴⁷ A man ought then in three ways to record in his own soul the purposes of the Holy Scriptures; that the simple may be edified by, as it were, the flesh of Scripture (for thus we designate the primary sense), the more advanced by its soul, and the perfect by the spiritual law, which has a shadow of the good things to come. For the perfect man resembles those of whom the Apostle speaks: "Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, which are coming to nought: but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory,⁴⁸ from the spiritual law which hath a shadow of the good things to come.⁴⁹ As man consists of body, soul, and spirit, so too does Scripture which has been granted by God for the salvation of men. And thus we explain that passage in The Shepherd,----a book which some treat with contempt, ----in which Hermas is commanded to write two books, and then read to the elders of the Church what he has learned from the Spirit.⁵⁰ "Thou shalt write two books, and give one to Clement and one to Grapte. And Grapte shall admonish the widows and orphans, Clement shall send to the cities abroad, and thou shalt read to the elders of the Church." Grapte, who admonishes the widows and orphans, is the bare letter of Scripture; it admonishes those readers whose souls are in the stage of childhood, and who cannot |13 yet call God their Father, and are therefore styled "orphans"; it moreover admonishes souls,⁵¹ no longer consorting with the unlawful bridegroom, but remaining in a widowed state because not yet worthy of the true Bridegroom. Clement, the reader who has got beyond the letter, is said to send what is said to the cities abroad, that is to say, the souls which have escaped from the bodily desires and lower aims. And next the writing is forsaken, and the disciple himself of the Spirit is bidden "read" to the wise and hoary-headed elders of the whole Church of God with the living voice.

12. But inasmuch as some Scriptures have not the "corporeal," ⁵² as we shall presently show, in such cases we must seek only the "soul" and the "spirit." For instance, this may explain why the six waterpots of stone said to be set after the Jews' manner of purifying, as we read in the Gospel according to John,⁵³ contain two or three firkins apiece: the Word darkly hinting at those who were inwardly Jews, of whom the Apostle speaks ⁵⁴----that these, forsooth, are cleansed through the word of Scripture, that Word sometimes containing two firkins, that is, if we may so say, the "soul" and "spirit" of the Word: sometimes three; for some Scriptures have besides these two also the "corporeal" part with its power of edification. As for the number, the six waterpots may reasonably refer to those who are being purified in the world, which was made in six days, six being a perfect number.⁵⁵

13. That we may profit by the primary sense of Scripture, even if we go no further, is evident from the multitudes of true and simple-minded believers. Let us, however, take what Paul says in the first Epistle to the |14 Corinthians as an example of the higher "soul" interpretation. "It is written," he says, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." ⁵⁶ Then, going on to explain this law, he adds, "Is it for the oxen that God careth, or saith he it altogether for our sake? Yea, for our sake it was written: because he that ploweth ought to plow in hope, and he that thresheth, to thresh in hope of partaking." And, indeed, very many passages so interpreted as to suit the great body of believers, and edifying for those who have no ear for better things, have more or less the same stamp. But spiritual interpretation is for one who is able to show the nature of the heavenly things,⁵⁷ of which the Jews after the flesh served the copy and shadow, and what the good things to come are of which the law is a shadow. And in general, according to the apostolic command, we must everywhere seek wisdom in a mystery, "even the wisdom which hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the world unto the glory of the righteous; which none of the rulers of this world knoweth." ⁵⁸ The same Apostle, referring to certain incidents in Exodus and Numbers, somewhere says, "These things happened unto them by way of figure: and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are come";⁵⁹ and he hints at the things of which they were figures, saying, "For they drank of a spiritual Rock that followed them: and the Rock was Christ." ⁶⁰ And in the sketch of the tabernacle which he gives in another epistle he quotes the words, "Thou shalt make all things according to the pattern which was shewed thee in the Mount." ⁶¹ Again, in the Epistle to the Galatians, as it were reproaching those who think they read the law though they do not understand it, and giving his judgment that as many as think there are no allegories in what is written, do not understand, he goes on to say, "Tell me ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? ⁶² |15 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the freewoman. Howbeit the son by the handmaid is born after the flesh, but the son by the freewoman is born through promise. Which things contain an allegory: for these women are two covenants," and so on. We must carefully note exactly what he says: "Ye that desire to be under the law": not "Ye that are under the law"; and, "Do you not hear the law?": the hearing in his judgment being the understanding and knowing. And also in the Epistle to the Colossians, where he epitomises the meaning of the whole giving of the law, he says, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of the things to come." ^⁶³Further, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, arguing concerning those of the Circumcision, he writes thus: "Who serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things." ^⁶⁴This will probably suffice to remove all doubts respecting the five books, called the Books of Moses, from the minds of those who really believe the Apostle to be a Divine ⁶⁵ man; but they may wish to learn whether the rest of the history is also figurative. Now we must carefully note that the passage in Romans from the third Book of Kings, "I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal," ⁶⁶ was taken by Paul as applying to the Israelites according to the election,⁶⁷ for that not only have the Gentiles benefited by the coming of Christ, but also some of the holy ⁶⁸ race.

14. This being so, we must outline what seems to us the peculiarities involved in understanding the Scriptures. And what we have to show first is that the aim of the Spirit, Who, by the providence of God through the Word, Who in the beginning was with God, enlightens the ministers of the truth, the Prophets and Apostles, was chiefly directed to the unspeakable mysteries connected |16 with men,----and by men I mean embodied souls, so that any one who is capable of instruction, if he will search the Scriptures, and will earnestly endeavour to fathom their depths, may be a partaker in all the decrees of His counsel. And as regards souls, inasmuch as without the rich and wise truth concerning God they cannot possibly reach perfection, things relating to God and to His only-begotten Son must be placed in the front rank, viz. His nature, in what sense He is Son of God, and for what reasons He humbled Himself and took upon Him our flesh and perfect manhood; further, how He works, for whom, and under what conditions. And, of necessity, if we want to know about kindred beings, and the other rational creatures, both those more Divine than humankind and those also who have fallen from bliss, and the causes of their fall, this should be introduced into Divine revelation; and, similarly, if we have to discuss the differences in souls, and how the differences have arisen; or inquire what we mean when we talk of the "world," and ask how it came into existence. We have to learn, moreover, the origin of the great and terrible wickedness on earth, and whether it is found only on earth, or elsewhere as well.

15. Now, while the Spirit Who illumines the souls of the holy ministers of the truth had these and similar purposes in view, it was, secondly, His aim, for the sake of those who cannot bear the labour of investigating such mysteries, to conceal the foregoing doctrines in narrative form conveying an account of the visible works of creation, and of man's creation, and of the descendants of the first man until they become numerous; and in other histories which relate the doings of righteous men, and the sins which they occasionally committed inasmuch as they were men, as also the wicked, licentious, overbearing behaviour of lawless and godless men. And, very strange though it may seem, by the history of wars and victors and vanquished, some of the ineffable mysteries are declared to those who have the ability to investigate these matters. And, still more marvellous, through the written law, the |17 laws of the Truth are foretold; and all these subjects are linked together by the Divine wisdom with a power truly worthy of the wisdom of God. For it was the Spirit's purpose to make even the vesture of things spiritual, I mean the "corporeal" part of the Scriptures, many ways not unprofitable, but capable of benefiting the majority of readers according to their capacity.

16. If the use of the Law had been everywhere made perfectly clear, and strict historical sequence had been preserved, we should not have believed that the Scriptures could be understood in any other than the obvious sense.^⁶⁹The Word of God therefore arranged for certain stumbling-blocks and offences and impossibilities to be embedded in the Law and the historical portion, so that we may not be drawn hither and thither by the mere attractiveness of the style, and thus either forsake the doctrinal part because we receive no instruction worthy of God, or cleave to the letter and learn nothing more Divine. And this we ought to know, that the chief purpose being to show the spiritual connection both in past occurrences and in things to be done, wherever the Word found historical events capable of adaptation to these mystic truths, He made use of them, but concealed the deeper sense from the many; but where in setting forth the sequence of things spiritual there was no actual event related for the sake of the more mystic meaning, Scripture interweaves the imaginative with the historical, sometimes introducing what is utterly impossible, sometimes what is possible but never occurred. Sometimes it is only a few words, not literally true, which have been inserted; sometimes the insertions are of greater length. And we must this way understand even the giving of the Law, for therein we may frequently discover the immediate use, adapted to the times when the Law was given; sometimes, however, no good reason appears. And elsewhere we have even impossible commands, for readers of greater ability and those who have more of the spirit of inquiry; so that, applying themselves |18 to the labour of investigating the things written, they may have a fitting conviction of the necessity of looking therein for a meaning worthy of God. And not only did the Spirit thus deal with the Scriptures before the coming of Christ, but, inasmuch as He is the same Spirit, and proceedeth from the One God, He has done the same with the Gospels and the writings of the Apostles; for not even they are purely historical, incidents which never occurred being interwoven in the "corporeal" sense; nor in the Law and the Commandments does the Spirit make the reasonableness altogether clear.

17. Anyway, will any man of sense suppose that there was a first day, and a second, and a third, evening and morning, without sun and moon and stars? ⁷⁰ and the first, as it were, even without a heaven? And who is so silly as to imagine that God, like a husbandman, planted a garden in Eden eastward, and put in it a tree of life,^⁷¹which could be seen and felt, so that whoever tasted of the fruit with his bodily teeth received the gift of life, and further that any one as he masticated the fruit of this tree partook of good and evil? And if God is also said to walk in the garden in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under the tree,⁷² I do not suppose that any one will doubt that these passages by means of seeming history, though the incidents never occurred, figuratively reveal certain mysteries. Moreover, Cain's comning out from the presence of God,⁷³ if we give heed, is a distinct inducement to inquire what is meant by "the presence of God," and by a man's "coming out from" it. Why say more? They who are not quite blind can collect countless similar instances of things recorded as actual occurrences, though not literally true. Why, even the Gospels abound in incidents of the same kind. We read of the Devil taking Jesus into a lofty mountain, that from thence he might shew Him the kingdoms of the whole world and their |19 glory.⁷⁴ Who but a careless reader of these things would not condemn the supposition that with the bodily eye, which required a lofty height if the parts down below at the foot were to be seen, Jesus beheld the kingdoms of Persia, Scythia, India, and Parthia, and the glory of their rulers among men? And, similarly, the careful student may observe countless other instances in the Gospels, and may thus be convinced that with the historical events, literally true, different ones are interwoven which never occurred.

18. And if we come also to the Mosaic code, many of the laws, so far as regards their bare observance, seem unreasonable, and others impossible. The prohibition of kites,⁷⁵ for instance, as food is unreasonable, for no one in the direst famines would be driven to this creature. Children eight days old if not circumcised are ordered to be cut off from their people. If an express enactment respecting those children was indispensable, it is their fathers who should be ordered to be put to death; whereas the Scripture says, "Every uncircumcised male, who shall not be circumcised on the eighth day, shall be cut off from his people." ⁷⁶ If you wish to see some impossible enactments, let us consider that the goat-stag is a fabulous creature. And yet Moses commands us to offer it as a clean animal;⁷⁷ on the other hand, there is no instance of the griffin having been tamed by man, but the lawgiver, nevertheless, forbids it to be eaten. If we closely examine the famous ordinance of the Sabbath, "Ye shall sit every man in his house: let no man go out of his place on the seventh day,"⁷⁸ we shall see that it cannot be literally kept; for no living creature can sit the whole day without stirring from his seat. And therefore in some cases they of the Circumcision, and as many as desire no more light than that of the mere letter, do not go to the root of things, and, for example, search for the meaning of what is said about the goat-stag, the griffin, and the kite; while |20 in other cases they sophistically trifle with the words, and confront you with frigid traditions; as regards the Sabbath, for instance, they maintain that every man's "place" is 2000 cubits. Others, among them Dositheus the Samaritan, condemning such an interpretation, think the person is to remain until the evening in the posture in which he was found on the Sabbath day. Nor can the command to carry no burden on the Sabbath be observed; ⁷⁹ and the Jewish teachers have accordingly gone very great lengths, pretending that a sandal of one kind is a "burden," but not a sandal of another kind, the one being nailed, the other without nails; and, the same way, what is carried upon one shoulder is a "burden," but by no means what is carried upon both.

19. If we similarly investigate the Gospels, what could be more unreasonable than the command which simple readers think the Saviour gave to His Apostles, "Salute no man by the way." ⁸⁰ Again, what is said about the smiting on the right cheek is incredible;⁸¹ for when a man strikes, if he acts naturally, he strikes the left cheek with his right hand. And we cannot take literally the passage in the Gospel in which the right eye is said to cause one to stumble.⁸² For even granting the possibility of sight making any one to stumble, why, when the two eyes see, should we put the blame on the right eye. Would any man when he condemns himself for looking on a woman to lust after her, put the blame on the right eye only, and cast it from him? Again, the Apostle lays down the law thus: "Was any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised?" ⁸³ Any one may see that the Apostle has something in view other than the literal context; for, in the first place, such an insertion when he is giving precepts concerning marriage and purity must appear unmeaning. And, in the second place, who will say that, in order to escape from the disgrace mostly connected with circumcision, a man |21 does wrong in endeavouring, if he can, to become un-circumcised.

20. We have said all this for the sake of showing that the aim of the Divine power which gives us the sacred Scriptures, is not to select such things only as are presented in a literal sense, for sometimes the things selected taken literally are not true, but are even unreasonable and impossible; and further, that certain things are woven into the web of actual history and of the Law, which in its literal sense has its uses. But that no one may suppose us to make a sweeping statement and maintain that no history is real,⁸⁴ because some is unreal; and that no part of the Law is to be literally observed, because a particular enactment in its wording happens to be unreasonable or impossible; or that what is recorded of the Saviour is true only in a spiritual sense; or that we are not to keep any law or commandments of His: that we may not incur such an imputation, we must add that we are quite convinced of the historical truth of certain passages; for instance, that Abraham was buried in the double cave in Hebron,⁸⁵ as also Isaac and Jacob, and one wife of each of these; and that Sichem was given to Joseph for his portion,⁸⁶ and that Jerusalem is the capital of Judea, wherein God's temple was built by Solomon, and countless other statements. For those things which are true historically are many more than those connected with them which contain merely a spiritual sense. Again, take the commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother that it may be well with thee." ⁸⁷ Would not any one allow its usefulness apart from any anagogical ⁸⁸ interpretation, and support |22 its observance, seeing that even the Apostle Paul uses the express words? And what are we to say about the commands, "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not commit adultery," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not bear false witness?" ⁸⁹ Further, there are commands in the Gospel about which there is no doubt as to whether they are to be literally observed or not; for instance, that which says, "But I say to you, whosoever shall be angry with his brother," ⁹⁰ and so on; and, "But I say to you, Swear not at all." ⁹¹ And we must keep to the letter of the Apostle's words, "Admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be long-suffering towards all";⁹² though among more eager students it is possible to treasure every detail as the deep wisdom of God, without rejecting the literal meaning of the command.

21. Still, there are places where the careful reader will be distracted because he cannot without much labour decide whether he is dealing with history in the ordinary sense, or not, and whether a given commandment is to be literally observed, or not. The reader must therefore, following the Saviour's injunction to search the Scriptures,⁹³ carefully examine where the literal meaning is true, and where it cannot possibly be so; and he must, to the best of his ability, by comparing parallel passages scattered up and down Scripture, trace out the prevalent sense of what is literally impossible. Since, then, as will be clear to readers, the literal connection is impossible, while the main connection is not impossible but even true, we must strive to grasp the general sense which intelligibly connects things literally impossible with such things as are not only not impossible, but are historically true, and capable of allegorical |23 interpretation, no less than those which never literally occurred. For, regarding the whole of Divine Scripture, we hold that every portion has the spiritual meaning, but not every portion the "corporeal"; for the "corporeal" meaning is often proved to be impossible. The cautious reader must therefore very carefully bear in mind that the Divine books are Divine writings, and that there appears to be a peculiar way of understanding them, which I will now describe.

22. The inspired words relate that God chose out a certain nation upon earth, which they call by several names. The whole nation is called Israel, and also Jacob. But after the division in the time of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the ten tribes under him were called Israel, and the other two with the tribe of Levi, governed by kings of the seed of David, were known as Judah. And the whole country inhabited by the nation, and given to them by God, is called Judea; and of this Jerusalem was the metropolis, or mother city, that is to say, of numerous cities, the names of which dispersed in many parts of Scripture are included in one list in the Book of Joshua the son of Nun. This being so, the Apostle, raising our thoughts higher, somewhere says, "Behold Israel after the flesh,"⁹⁴ implying that there is an Israel after the Spirit. And elsewhere he says, "It is not the children of the flesh that are children of God: nor are they all Israel which are of Israel.⁹⁵ Nor is he a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter." ⁹⁶ For if the judgment of the Jew depends on the inward state, we must understand that as there is a bodily race of Jews, so there is a race of those who are Jews inwardly, and that there are secret reasons for souls having this noble lineage. There are, moreover, many prophecies concerning Israel and Judah which relate the things that should befall them. Now, let me ask, |24 do not such great prophecies written on their behalf, inasmuch as in the literal sense they are trivial and exhibit none of the lofty dignity of a promise made by God, require a mystical interpretation? And if the promises are spiritual, though expressed by means of things sensible, they also to whom the promises are given are not "corporeal."

23. And, not to spend more time over the argument concerning the Jew that is one inwardly and the Israelite in the inner man, enough having been said for any but unintelligent readers, we return to our subject, and say. that Jacob was the father of the twelve patriarchs, they the progenitors of the rulers of the people, and these again the ancestors of the rest of Israel. So, then, the "corporeal" Israelites are traced up to the rulers of the people, and the rulers to the patriarchs, and the patriarchs to Jacob and those still farther back; but as for the spiritual Israelites, of whom the "corporeal" were the type, do they not spring from the "hundreds," the "hundreds" from the tribes, and the tribes from one man who had no such "corporeal" descent, but the better, he too being born of Isaac, and he of Abraham, all going back to Adam, who, as the Apostle says, is Christ? For all families in their relation to the God of All had their beginning lower down in Christ, Who being next to the God and Father of All, is thus the Father of every soul as Adam is the father of all men. And if Eve has been made by Paul to represent the Church, it is no wonder that Cain, who was born of Eve, and all after him who trace their descent from Eve, should be types of the Church, inasmuch as in a special sense they sprang from the Church.

24. If we are impressed by what has been said about Israel and the tribes and the hundreds, when the Saviour tells us that He was not sent save unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,⁹⁷ we do not take the words in the same sense as the Ebionites with their poverty of |25 understanding (their poverty of intellect gives them their name, for "Ebion" is the Hebrew for "poor "), and suppose that Christ came chiefly to Israel after the flesh; for "it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God." ^⁹⁸Again, the Apostle gives similar teaching concerning Jerusalem when he tells us that "the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother." ⁹⁹ And in another epistle he says, "But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven." ¹⁰⁰ If, then, Israel is a race of souls, and there is a city, Jerusalem in heaven, it follows that the cities of Israel, and, consequently, all Judea, have for their metropolis the heavenly Jerusalem. Accordingly, whatever is foretold or said respecting Jerusalem, if we listen to God as God, and hear Him speaking from the depths of His wisdom,¹⁰¹ we must understand that the Scriptures refer to the heavenly city, and the whole country containing the cities of the holy land. It may be that these are the cities to which the Saviour leads us ¹⁰² up when He gives the command of ten or five cities to those who satisfactorily dealt with the pounds.

25. If, then, the prophecies respecting Judea and Jerusalem, and Israel and Judah and Jacob, inasmuch as we do not take them in the fleshly sense, suggest some such mysteries as the foregoing, it should follow that the prophecies concerning Egypt and the Egyptians, Babylon and the Babylonians, Tyre and the Tyriaus, Sidon and the Sidonians, or any other nations, are not prophecies merely of the corporeal Egyptians,¹⁰³ Babylonians, Tyrians, and Sidonians. For if there are "spiritual" Israelites, it follows that there are "spiritual" Egyptians and Babylonians. What the Prophet Ezekiel says cannot at all be made to |26 suit Pharaoh, King of Egypt, a past or future human ruler of the country, as will be evident to close observers. Similarly, what is said about the ruler of Tyre cannot be understood of some future human ruler of Tyre. And the many passages relating to Nabuchadnosor, particularly in Isaiah, how can we possibly take them to refer to the man of that name? For the man Nabuchadnosor did not fall from heaven,¹⁰⁴ nor was he Lucifer, nor did he rise early on the earth. And the sayings in Ezekiel concerning Egypt, to the effect that it would be desolate for forty years,¹⁰⁵ so that the foot of man should not be found there, and that war should be so fiercely waged at some time or other that throughout the whole land blood should reach to the knees, what sensible person will understand them of Egypt that borders on the Ethiopians with their sunburnt bodies?

26. Perhaps, as they who leave the earth when they die the death of all men are dealt with in such a way that according to the deeds done in the body, if judged worthy of the place called Hades, they are assigned to different places in proportion to their sins: so they, if I may so speak, who die there, descend to this earthly Hades, being judged worthy of the different habitations, better or worse, throughout the world, and to have parents of different nationalities; so that an Israelite may perhaps fall among Scythians, and an Egyptian descend into Judea. But the Saviour came to gather together the lost sheep of the house of Israel;¹⁰⁶ and as many of Israel did not submit to His teaching, the Gentiles also are being called.

27. These mysteries are, as we think, concealed in the histories. For "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field."¹⁰⁷ Let us consider then whether the obvious in Scripture, its superficial and easy meaning, is |27 not like a field covered with all sorts of growths; while the secret things, not seen by all, but as it were buried beneath the things that are seen, are the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge:¹⁰⁸ which the Spirit by the mouth of Esaias calls "dark," "invisible," "concealed." They must be found out, though God alone can break in pieces the gates of brass which hide them, and shatter the iron bars upon the doors; so that all the statements in Genesis concerning different real varieties of souls, and as it were seeds of souls, more or less remote from Israel, may be discovered; as also what is meant by the seventy souls going down into Egypt,¹⁰⁹ that there they may become as the stars of heaven for multitude. But since not all their descendants are the light of the world,¹¹⁰ for "they are not all Israel that are of Israel," ¹¹¹ the seventy become even as it were sand by the sea shore that cannot be numbered.

28. And as all the gifts of God are vastly greater than the mortal substance, so also the true word of wisdom concerning all these, being with God Who caused all these things to be written, for the Father of the Word so willed, would be found in the soul which with all earnestness and with full consent has been thoroughly purified from human weakness in the apprehension of that wisdom. But if a man rashly enters on the subject, and is not aware of the mystery of the wisdom of God and of the Word Who was in the beginning with God and was Himself God, and that if we are to seek and find these things we must follow the instructions of the Word Who was also God, and conform to His wisdom, he must of necessity fall into fables and frivolous conceits and inventions of his own, for he exposes himself to danger for his impiety. We must therefore remember the admonition in Ecclesiastes to such readers: "Let not thine heart |28 be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few." ¹¹² And it is fitting to believe that not a single tittle of the sacred Scriptures is without something of the wisdom of God; for He Who gave me a mere man the command, "Thou shalt not appear before me empty," ¹¹³ how much more will He not speak anything "empty." When the Prophets speak, it is after receiving of His fulness; ¹¹⁴ and so everything breathes what comes of His fulness; and there is nothing in Prophecy, or Law, or Gospel, or Apostle, which is not of His fulness. And just because it is of His fulness, it breathes His fulness to those who have eyes to see the things of that fulness, and ears to hear the things of that fulness, and a faculty to perceive the sweet odour of the things of that fulness. But if in reading the Scripture thou shouldest sometime stumble at a meaning which is a fair stone of stumbling and rock of offence,^¹¹⁵blame thyself. Do not despair of finding meanings in the stone of stumbling and rock of offence, so that the saying may be fulfilled, "He that believeth shall not be ashamed." ¹¹⁶ First believe, and thou shalt find beneath what is counted a stumbling-block much gain in godliness.

29. If the partly allegorical treatment of the history appears to any one forced, and therefore not to relieve the difficulties, we have obviously been speaking to no purpose, and we must look for some other suitable interpretation; unless, perchance, some reader by further labour may discover a way of putting everything right, explaining ¹¹⁷ both the murder of the man and his evident kindliness, inasmuch as he was unwilling to go to his house and rest, when the people were in camp and |29 struggling against the enemy. But I do not know how they who shun the allegorical interpretation, and think the narrative was written for its own sake, will reconcile themselves to the will of the Holy Spirit, Who thought such things deserving of record as justify the charge not only of licentiousness, but also of savagery and inhumanity being brought against David; for he dared to commit a crime against Uriah which would be extraordinary even in the case of a man of average morality. I should, however, say that as the judgments of God are great and cannot be expressed,¹¹⁸ and seem to be causes of the erring of unnurtured souls, so also His Scriptures are great and full of meanings, secret, spiritual, and hard to understand. They, too, cannot be expressed, and appear to cause the unnurtured souls of heretics to err by inconsiderately and rashly accusing God on account of the Scriptures which they do not understand, and by therefore falling into the error of inventing another God. The safe course is to wait for the interpretation of an explainer of the Word, and of the wisdom hidden in a mystery,¹¹⁹ which none of the rulers of this world knoweth, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal,¹²⁰ but now is manifested to the Apostles and those like them, both through the writings of the Prophets, and by the appearing to them of our Saviour the Word Who in the beginning was with God.¹²¹

30. Not perceiving the difference between visible and spiritual Judaism, that is, between the Judaism which is outward and the Judaism which is inward,¹²² godless and impious heresies forsook Judaism and the God Who gave our Scriptures and the whole Law, and invented a different God besides Him Who gave the Law and the Prophets, besides the Maker of heaven and earth. The fact is not so, however; but He Who gave the Law also gave the |30 Gospel, He Who made things visible also made things invisible. And things visible are akin to things invisible; in such wise akin that the invisible things of God since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made.¹²³ The things of the Law and the Prophets which are seen are akin to the things of the Law and the Prophets which are not seen but are intelligible.¹²⁴ Seeing, then, that the Scripture itself consists as it were of a body which is seen, and a soul therein apprehended by the reason, and a spirit, that which corresponds to the copies and shadow of heavenly things,^¹²⁵let us call upon Him Who created Scripture with a body, soul, and spirit, the body for those who were before us, the soul for us, and the spirit for those who in the coming age shall inherit eternal life, and are destined to reach the heavenly, archetypal things contained in the Law; and then let us search, not for the letter, but for the soul of what we are considering. Then, if we are able, we will ascend also to the spirit, corresponding to the principles involved in the sacrifices of which we read.

1. The Divine words say that the Divine Scriptures have been closed up and sealed with the key of David, and perhaps with the seal which is described as "the stamp of a seal, a hallowed offering to the Lord" ¹²⁶----that is, with the power of God, Who gave the Scriptures, the seal being the emblem of power. Now John interprets the closing up and sealing in the Apocalypse, when he says:¹²⁷"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and none shall shut, and that shutteth, and none openeth: I know thy |31 works: behold I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut." And a little farther on:¹²⁸ "And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and without, close sealed with seven seals. And I saw another, a strong angel, proclaiming with a great voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no one in the heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to open the book, or to look thereon. And I wept because no one was found worthy to open the book, or to look thereon: and one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book and the seven seals thereof."

2. As regards the sealing up only, Esaias thus speaks:^¹²⁹"And all these sayings shall be to you as the words of this book which is sealed, which men deliver to One that is learned, saying, Read this: and he saith, I cannot read it, for it is sealed: and the book shall be delivered into the hands of a man that is not learned, saying, Read this: and he saith, I am not learned." For we must consider these things to be spoken not only of the Apocalypse of John and Esaias, but also of all Divine Scripture, which is beyond question full of riddles, and parables, and dark sayings, and various other obscurities, hard to be understood by men, whose ears can catch no more than the faint echoes of the Divine words. This was what the Saviour wished to teach us when He said, inasmuch as the key was with the Scribes and Pharisees who did not strive to find the way to open the Scriptures, "Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered." ¹³⁰

3. Now that we are going to begin our interpretation |32 of the Psalms, let us preface our remarks with a very pleasing tradition respecting all Divine Scripture in general, which has been handed down to us by the Jew. That great scholar used to say that inspired Scripture taken as a whole was on account of its obscurity like many locked-up rooms in one house. Before each room he supposed a key to be placed, but not the one belonging to it; and that the keys were so dispersed all round the rooms, not fitting the locks of the several rooms before which they were placed. It would be a troublesome piece of work to discover the keys to suit the rooms they were meant for. It was, he said, just so with the understanding of the Scriptures, because they are so obscure; the only way to begin to understand them was, he said, by means of other passages containing the explanation dispersed throughout them. The Apostle, I think, suggested such a way of coming to a knowlege of the Divine words when He said, "Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual." ¹³¹

Much farther on, comparing the blessings addressed to individuals with those addressed to more than one,¹³² he says:----

4. If the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace, approved of the whole earth, purified seven times; ¹³³ it is just as true that the Holy Spirit has dictated them, through the ministers of the Word,¹³⁴ with the most scrupulous accuracy, lest the parallel meaning which the wisdom of God had constantly in view over the whole range of inspired Scripture, even to the mere letter, should escape us. And perhaps this is why the Saviour says, "One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished." ¹³⁵ For if we study Creation we see that the Divine skill is shown not only in heaven, in the sun, moon, and stars, being everywhere evidenced in those bodies, but also upon earth no less |33 in commoner matter: so that the bodies of the smallest living creatures are not scornfully treated by the Creator, much less the souls existing in them, each having some peculiar gift, something to ensure the safety of the irrational creature. And as for plants, neither are they overlooked, for the Creator is immanent in every one, as regards roots, and leaves, appropriate fruits, and varying qualities. So, too, we conceive of all that has been recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, believing that the sacred foreknowledge ¹³⁶ has through the Scriptures supplied superhuman wisdom to the race of man, having, so to speak, sown the seeds of saving truths, traces of the wisdom of God, in every letter as far as possible.

5. In truth, any one who has once accepted these Scriptures as coming from the Creator of the world, must be convinced that whatever difficulties confront those who investigate the story of creation, similar difficulties will also be found in the study of the Scriptures. There are, I say, in creation as well as in Scripture, certain problems which we men solve with difficulty, or even not at all; and we must not therefore blame the Maker of the universe because, say, we cannot discover why basilisks and other venomous creatures were created. In the contemplation of Nature it is an act of piety if a man who is conscious of human weakness, and recognises the impossibility of understanding the principles of the Divine skill, though pondered with all diligence, will ascribe to God the knowledge of these things. He will hereafter, should we be deemed worthy, reveal to us all the mysteries which now engage our reverent attention. Similarly, we should see that the Divine Scriptures also contain many mysteries of which it is hard for us to give an account. Anyway, let those who, after forsaking the Creator of the world and betaking themselves to a god of their own invention, make these professions, solve the difficulties we put before them; or, at least, after such strange impiety, let them see how they can with a good |34 conscience uphold their speculations on the matters under investigation and the problems presented to them. For if the problems no less remain, though our opponents have forsaken the Godhead, would it not be far greater piety to be content with our conception of God, the Creator being contemplated through the works of creation, and to refrain from uttering godless and unholy opinions respecting so great a God?

As we are dealing with numbers, and every number has among real existences a certain significance, of which the Creator of the universe made full use as well in the general scheme as in the arrangement of the details, we must give good heed, and with the help of the Scriptures trace their meaning, and the meaning of each of them. Nor must we fail to observe that not without reason the canonical books are twenty-two,¹³⁸ according to the Hebrew tradition, the same in number as the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. For as the twenty-two letters may be regarded as an introduction to the wisdom and the Divine doctrines given to men in those Characters, so the twenty-two inspired books are an alphabet of the wisdom of God and an introduction to the knowledge of realities. |35

1. A reader who carefully distinguishes language, meaning, and things, on which the meaning is based, will not stumble at solecistic ¹³⁹ expressions, if, on examination, he finds that the things are none the worse for the language in which they are clothed, particularly as the holy writers confess that their speech was not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.¹⁴⁰

2. Inasmuch as the Apostles were not unconscious of their errors, nor unaware what the things were which concerned them, they say they are rude in speech, but not in knowledge:¹⁴¹ for we must believe that the other Apostles, as well as Paul, would have said so. Then there is the passage, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves";¹⁴² which we interpret of the treasure elsewhere described as the treasure of knowledge and hidden wisdom,¹⁴³ and we take the "earthen vessels" in the sense of the ordinary, and, in Greek estimation, contemptible diction of the Scriptures, wherein the exceeding greatness of the power of God is really seen. For the mysteries of the truth and the force of what was said, in spite of the ordinary language, were strong enough to reach the ends of the earth, and bring into subjection to the word of Christ, not only the foolish things of the world, but sometimes also its wise ones.¹⁴⁴ For we see what our calling is: not that it has no one wise after the flesh, but not many wise |36 after the flesh. Nay more, Paul says that in proclaiming the Gospel ¹⁴⁵ he owes the delivery of the Word not only to Barbarians but also to the Greeks, and not only to the foolish, who more easily give their assent, but also to the wise; for he was by God made sufficient to be a minister of the new covenant,¹⁴⁶ and to use the demonstration of the Spirit and of power,¹⁴⁷ so that the assent of believers may not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. For had the Scripture been embellished with elegance of style and diction, like the masterpieces of Greek literature, one might perhaps have supposed that it was not the truth which got hold of men, but that the clear sequence of thought and the beauty of the language won the souls of the hearers, and caught them with guile.

I. Since you are not content to have taken up your present work as God's task-master over me,¹⁴⁸ and expect me even when away to devote myself mainly to you and to my duty towards you, I in turn, if I decline the labour, and shun the danger to which they are exposed at God's hands who give themselves up to writing on Divine subjects, might find support in Scripture for refusing to "make many books." For Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, "My son, beware of making many books: there is no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh." ¹⁴⁹ If the words |37 before us had not a hidden meaning which we do not even yet clearly understand, we should have expressly broken the commandment through not being on our guard against "making many books."

Then, after saying that he had written four full volumes on a few passages of the Gospel, he proceeds thus:----

2. As far as the words go there are two possible meanings of the precept, "My son, beware of making many books"; firstly, that one ought not to have many books: secondly, that one ought not to compose many books; and if the first is not permissible, the second is certainly not; though if the second is permissible, the first is not certainly so; ¹⁵⁰ either way the lesson appears to be that we ought not to make too many books. And, keeping to what has now occurred to me, I might send you the passage which I have quoted, as my apology: I might make the most of the fact that the saints have never had leisure for composing many books, and, accordingly, cease to compose any more to be sent to you, as we agreed. You would perhaps be so struck by what I said that you would let me have my way. But since a man should investigate Scripture with a good conscience, and not hastily claim to understand the meaning because he grasps the literal sense, I cannot bear to offer an unreal apology, which you might turn against me if I were to break our agreement. First, then, seeing that history seems to support what Solomon says, inasmuch as no saint has published numerous volumes and expressed his thoughts in many books, something must be said about this. And he who chides me for going on composing more books will tell me that the famous Moses left only five.

Then, after enumerating Prophets and Apostles, and showing how each of them wrote but a little, or not even that, he continues:----

3. Again, though I have said all this, my head swims, and I turn dizzy at the thought that in obeying you I may have disobeyed God and not imitated the saints. I trust |38 I shall not do wrong, if in my heartfelt affection for you, and earnest desire in nothing to give you pain, I plead my own cause and base my defence on these grounds. First of all, we adduced the words of Ecclesiastes, "My son, beware of making many books." ¹⁵¹ Side by side with this I place the saying of the same Solomon in the Proverbs, "In the multitude of words thou shalt not escape sin, but if thou refrain thy lips thou wilt be discreet," ¹⁵² and I ask if the mere speaking many words is much speaking, even if a man speak many holy and saving words. If this be so, and he who discusses many profitable things indulges in a "multitude of words," Solomon himself did not escape the sin, for "he spake three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes." ¹⁵³ How can teaching be effective without many words of the simpler kind? Wisdom herself tells the perishing, "I prolonged my words unto you, and ye did not regard." ¹⁵⁴ And Paul appears to have continued preaching from morn until midnight, until Eutychus borne down with deep sleep fell down and alarmed the audience, who thought he was dead.¹⁵⁵

4. Well, then, if it be true that "in a multitude of words thou wilt not escape sin"; and if it be also true that neither Solomon sinned though he spake many words about the above-mentioned subjects, nor Paul, though he continued teaching until midnight, we must inquire what "a multitude of words" is, and then pass on to consider the meaning of "the many books." The whole Word of God, I say, the Word which was in the beginning with God,¹⁵⁶ is not "a multitude of words," for it is not "words "; there is one Word ¹⁵⁷ which may be regarded from many points of view, and each of these meanings is a part of the whole Word. But as for words other than this Word, which |39 profess to describe or relate anything whatsoever, though we may believe them to be words respecting truth,----what I am going to say will sound still more paradoxical, ----not one of them is a word, but each of them words. For the unit can nowhere be found, nor can harmony and unity, but because they are torn with mutual conflict their unity has perished; and they are split into many parts, perhaps infinitely numerous; so that, according to this, we may say that he who utters anything whatsoever contrary to godliness speaks much, while he who speaks the things of the truth, even though he speak so exhaustively as to omit nothing, even speaks one word, and the saints, making the one Word their constant aim, do not fall into the vice of much speaking. If, then, whether there be or be not "much speaking" depends on the doctrines and not on the number of the words, see whether we cannot say the whole range of sacred teaching is one book, and all other teaching many books?

5. But since I must have proof from the Divine Scripture, consider whether my most striking way of presenting it is not to show that the account of Christ in relation to us is not contained in one book, if we take the "books" in the ordinary sense. It is described even in the Pentateuch; but also in each of the Prophets, and in the Psalms, and, generally, as the Saviour Himself says, in all the Scriptures, to which He refers us, bidding us "Search the Scriptures, for ye think that in them ye have eternal life: and these are they which bear witness of me." ¹⁵⁸ If, then, He refers us to the Scriptures as bearing witness of Him, He does not send us to this or that particular portion, but to all the Scriptures that tell of Him, such as those which in the Psalms He called "the roll of the book," saying, "In the roll of the book it is written of me." ¹⁵⁹ If any one takes the phrase "in the roll of the book" to mean some one of the books containing the things concerning Him, I should like him to tell me why he prefers that book to any other. To justify |40 any one in supposing that the word refers to the Book of the Psalms itself, he must point out that the words should have been "In this book it is written concerning me." But the fact is that He says that everything is one roll, because the account of Himself which has reached us is summed up in one (statement, "I came to do Thy will"). And what, again, is the meaning of the book being seen by John written in front and on the back, close sealed:^¹⁶⁰which no one could read or loose the seals thereof, except the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, He that hath the key of David,¹⁶¹ He that openeth and no man shall shut, and no man shall open? It surely is the whole of Scripture which is indicated by the "book"; written "in front" by reason of the easy, obvious interpretation: "on the back " because of the more remote and spiritual sense.

6. Besides this, we must closely observe whether it is any proof of holy truths being one book, and the opposite of these many, that for the living there is one book from which they who have become unworthy of it are blotted out, as it is written, "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living," ¹⁶² while for those subject to judgment looks are brought; for Daniel says, "The judgment was set and the books were opened." ¹⁶³ To the unity of the Divine book even Moses testifies when he says, "If thou wilt forgive this people their sin, forgive them; and if not, blot me out of thy book which thou hast written."¹⁶⁴ I take the passage in Isaiah the same way; for it is not a peculiarity of his prophecy that the words of the book were sealed, and were not read by him that was not learned because he was not learned, nor by him that was learned because the book was sealed; but even this is true of all Scripture, which needs the Word that shut and will open; for "He shall shut and none shall open," ¹⁶⁵ and once He opens no one can any longer associate darkness with His clear light; and this is why it is said that He shall |41 open and none shut. And the very similar passage in Ezekiel about the book there spoken of, wherein was written "lamentations and music and woe." For every book contains the "woe" of the perishing,¹⁶⁶ and "music" for those who are being saved, and lamentations for those between these extremes. John, too, when he says that he ate one roll of the book,¹⁶⁷ wherein were written things past and things to come, must have regarded the whole of Scripture as one book, very sweet as a man understands it at first and feeds upon it, but bitter when it is revealed to the self-consciousness of every one who has come to know it. To demonstrate this I will add an apostolic saying not understood by the followers of Marcion, who therefore reject the Gospels; for whereas the Apostle says, "According to my gospel in Christ Jesus," ¹⁶⁸ and does not speak of gospels, they oppose us, and maintain that if there were several gospels the Apostle would not have used the word in the singular. They do not understand that as He is one, so the Gospel written by its many authors is one in effect, and the Gospel truly delivered by four evangelists is one Gospel.

7. Wherefore, if this has brought us conviction as to what the one book means, and what the many, I am now not so much concerned for the quantity of the copy as for the quality of the same, lest I fall into the transgression of the commandment, if I put forth anything as truth which is contrary to the truth even in a single detail of what is written; for I shall then prove myself to be a writer of many books. And just now, when, with a show of knowledge, men who hold false opinions are rising up against the holy Church of Christ, and publishing book after book which professes to expound the Gospels and apostolic writings, if we hold our peace, and do not meet them with the true and sound doctrines, they will prevail over gluttonous souls which, for want of wholesome food, rush to things forbidden, to utterly unclean and abominable meats. It therefore seems to me to be necessary, that he |42 who can genuinely plead for the doctrine of the Church and refute the handlers of knowledge falsely so-called, should withstand the inventions of the heretics, opposing to them the elevation of the preaching of the Gospel, inasmuch as he is satisfied with the harmony of doctrines common to the Old Testament and to the New, as they are respectively called. At all events, you yourself, when advocates of the good cause were scarce, because you could not endure an irrational and commonplace faith, in your love for Jesus embraced opinions which you afterwards, when you had fully exercised the understanding given to you, condemned and forsook. This I say, according to my light, by way of excuse for men who can speak and write, and also by way of apology for myself, lest, perhaps, not being equipped as a man should be who is enabled by God to be a minister of the New Testament,¹⁶⁹ not of the letter, but of the spirit, I too boldly apply myself to composition.¹⁷⁰

1. To the man who is both ways a peacemaker, there is no longer anything in the Divine oracles crooked or perverse,¹⁷² for all things are plain to those who understand; and since to such an one there is nothing crooked or perverse, he sees abundance of peace¹⁷³ everywhere in Scripture, even in those parts which appear not to agree and to be contradictory to one another. But there is also a third peacemaker, he, viz. who shows that what to the eyes of others seems like disagreement in the Scriptures is not really so, and who proves that harmony and concord exist, whether between the Old and the New, or the Law and the Prophets, or Gospel and Gospel, or Evangelists and |43 Apostles, or Apostles and other Apostles. For,¹⁷⁴ according to the Preacher,¹⁷⁵ all the Scriptures, words of the wise, are as goads, and as nails well fastened, words which were given from collections from one shepherd, and there is nothing superfluous in them. And the Word is "one shepherd" of things relating to the Word, which do indeed sound discordant to those who have not ears to hear,¹⁷⁶ but are in truth most harmonious.

2. For as the different strings of the psaltery or the lyre, each of which gives forth a note of its own seemingly unlike that of any other, are thought by an unmusical man who does not understand the theory of harmony to be discordant, because of the difference in the notes: so they who have not ears to detect the harmony of God in the sacred Scriptures suppose that the Old Testament is not in harmony with the New, or the Prophets with the Law, or the Gospels with one another, or an Apostle with the Gospel, or with himself, or with the other Apostles. But if a reader comes who has been instructed in God's music, a man who happens to be wise in word and deed, and on that account, it may be, called David, which being interpreted is "a cunning player," he will produce a note of God's music, for he will have learned from God's music to keep good time, playing now upon the strings of the Law, now upon those of the Gospel in harmony with them, now upon those of the Prophets; and when the harmony of good sense is required he strikes the apostolic strings tuned to suit the foregoing, and, similarly, apostolic strings in harmony with those of Evangelists. For he knows that the whole Scripture is the one, perfect, harmonious instrument of God, blending the different notes, for those who wish to learn, into one song of salvation, which stops and hinders all the working of an evil spirit, as the music of David laid to rest the evil spirit in Saul which was |44 vexing him.¹⁷⁷ You observe, then, that there is a third kind of peacemaker, he who keeping close to the Scripture both sees the peace which pervades it everywhere, and bestows it on those who rightly seek the truth and are really eager to learn.

1. Any one who does not understand the peculiar character ¹⁷⁸ of the persons in Scripture, both as regards the speakers and the persons addressed, must be much perplexed by what he reads; he will ask who is speaking, who is spoken to, and when does the speaker cease to speak. For it often happens that the same person is addressed, though a third person speaks to him; or the person addressed is no longer the same, and a different person takes up what is said, while the same person speaks. And sometimes both the speaker and the person addressed are changed; or, further, though both are unchanged, it is not clear that they are. Need I seek an illustration of each of these statements, seeing that the prophetical writings abound in such changes? In fact we have here a special, though it may be unrecognised, cause of the obscurity of Scripture. It is also the way of Scripture to jump suddenly from one discourse to another.^¹⁷⁹The prophets, above all, do this, obscuring their sense and more or less confusing the reader.

Again, from the 4th Homily ¹⁸⁰ on the Acts, "It was needful that the Scripture should be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spake before by the mouth of David concerning Judas."

2. In the Psalm wherein the things concerning Judas are written, one might say that it is not the Holy Spirit Who speaks, for the words are clearly the Saviour's, |45 "Hold not thy peace, O God, at my praise: for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful man is opened upon me," ¹⁸¹ and so on, until we come to "And his office let another take." Now if it is the Saviour Who says this, what does Peter mean by telling us that "It was needful that the Scripture should be fulfilled which the Holy Ghost spake before by the mouth of David?" ¹⁸²Perhaps the lesson is something like this. The Holy Ghost employs personification in the prophets, and if He introduces the person of God, it is not God Who speaks, but the Holy Ghost speaks as God.¹⁸³ And if He introduces Christ, it is not Christ Who speaks, but the Holy Ghost speaks as Christ. So, then, if He brings in the person of a prophet, or personifies this or that people, or anything whatsoever, it is the Holy Ghost Who devises all these personifications.

1. Inasmuch as the solecisms ¹⁸⁴ in Scripture, if literally taken, often confuse the reader, so that he suspects the text to be neither correct, nor in accord with propriety of reason; and this to such an extent, that some persons by way of correction, even venture to make alterations and substitute another meaning for that of the seemingly inconsistent passages, I fear something similar may befall the language of the passages before us; we are therefore bound to see what their hidden meaning is. The Prophet after using the plural, "They wept and made supplication unto me," ¹⁸⁵ and again the plural, showing the sequel, "In |46 the house of On they found me," proceeds in the singular, "And there he spoke with him." A reader glancing at the words as they stand might suppose there was an error in the copy, and therefore write the plural in the last clause, or change the previous plurals into the singular. For when he reads, "They wept and made supplication unto me," and "In the house of On they found me," he would say that the next clause should be, "There he spake with them," that is, with those who wept and made supplication and found God in the house of On. But if we consider other passages we shall see that even here we have no inconsistency.

2. In Genesis God gives a command to Adam, saying, "Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall not eat of it: for in the day that ye eat thereof ye shall surely die." ¹⁸⁶ There, also, God begins by speaking in the singular, "Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat," but goes on in the plural, "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall not eat of it: for in the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die." The explanation is that when God speaks of the commandment which He wished Adam to keep and live, He commands in the singular, "Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat"; for they who walk in God's ways and hold fast His commandments, though they be many, yet by reason of their being of one mind the many are essentially one.¹⁸⁷ And, therefore, when a commandment respecting goodness is given, the singular is used----"Thou mayest freely eat"; but in laying down the law respecting transgression, God no longer uses the singular, but the plural----"Ye shall not eat: for in the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die."

3. And so it is with the present passage. When they still weep and make supplication to God, the plural is used----"They wept and made supplication to me "; but when they find God, He no longer uses the plural----"There |47 He spake, not with them," but with him. For by finding God and by hearing His Word, they have already become one. For the individual when he sins is one of many, severed from God and divided, his unity gone; but the many who follow the commandments of God are one man; as also the Apostle testifies, saying, "For we who are many are one bread, one body";¹⁸⁸ and again, "There is one God, and One Christ, and one faith, and one baptism";¹⁸⁹ and elsewhere, "For all we are one body in Christ Jesus";¹⁹⁰ and again, "I espoused you all to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to the Lord."¹⁹¹ And that they are well pleasing to the Lord and one,¹⁹² is shown in the Lord's prayer to His Father for His disciples. "Holy Father," He says, "grant that as I and Thou are one, so also they may be one in us."¹⁹³ And also, whenever the saints are said to be members of one another,¹⁹⁴ the only conclusion is that they are one body. In The Shepherd,¹⁹⁵ again, where we read of the building of the tower, a building composed of many stones, but seeming to be one solid block, what can the meaning of the Scripture be except the harmony and unity of the many?

1. One term, law, may be used, but the scriptural account of "law" is not everywhere one and the same. A reader must therefore in every place consider with the utmost care first the literal meaning of the word "law," then the special significance of it. This is only what we do with most other words; for there are other instances of equivocal scriptural terms, such as confuse readers who suppose that because the word is the same the meaning |48 must be the same wherever it is found. Now the word "law" is intended to serve not everywhere the same purpose, but many purposes; we will, therefore, passing by the numerous passages requiring careful reasoning because they suggest an objection which calls for an answer, set forth all such as may effectually convince anybody that the word "law" has many meanings. As an illustration let us take what is said in the Epistle to the Galatians. "As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one which continueth riot in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." ^¹⁹⁷It is clear that we have here the literal law of Moses, enjoining on those under it what they are to do, and forbidding what they must not do. And we have no less clearly the meaning of the passage in the same Epistle, "The law was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made; and it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator";¹⁹⁸ and of another, "So that the law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor. For ye are all sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus." ^¹⁹⁹And that "law" also denotes the historical writings of Moses we may gather from the passage in the same epistle ----"Tell me ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the freewoman. Howbeit the son by the handmaid is born after the flesh; but the son by the freewoman is born through the promise." ²⁰⁰

2. I know that even the Psalms are called "law," as is plain from the passage, "That the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." ²⁰¹ Nay more, the prophecy of Isaiah is called "law" by the Apostle, who tells us, "In the law it is |49 written, By men of strange tongues, and by the lips of strangers will I speak unto this people; and not even then will they hear me, saith the Lord";²⁰² and this is in effect what I found in Aquila's interpretation. The term is also applied to the more mystic and Divine sense of the law; as, for instance, "We know that the law is spiritual."^²⁰³And besides all this, the Word sown in the soul, evidenced by the moral notions common to mankind, and in Scripture language "written in the heart," enjoining what we have to do, forbidding what we must not do, is called "law." This is proved by the following words of the Apostle: "For when the Gentiles which have no law do by nature the things of the law, these, having no law, are a law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their consciences bearing witness therewith." ²⁰⁴ For the law written in men's hearts and in Gentiles who by nature do the things of the law, is no other than the law of common morality by nature written in our governing part,²⁰⁵ and day by day becoming clearer with the perfecting of reason. This is the meaning of law in the words,"Sin is not imputed where there is no law," ²⁰⁶and in these, "I had not known sin except through the law." ²⁰⁷ For before the Mosaic law was given sin is found to have been imputed both to Cain and to the sufferers in the Deluge, and to the people of Sodom as well, and to countless others; and many came to know sin before the law of Moses was given. And do not be surprised if two meanings of the one word "law" are discovered in the same place; for we shall find this usage in other parts of Scripture; for example, "Say not ye, There are yet four months and then cometh the harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they |50 are white already into harvest."²⁰⁸ The word "harvest" is used twice, the first time of the "corporeal" ²⁰⁹ harvest, the second time of the spiritual. And you will find a parallel also in the account of the healing of the man born blind. The man was literally blind, but the Saviour adds, "For judgment came I into this world, that they which see not may see; and that they which see may become blind." ²¹⁰

3. So, then, it is as true as ever that; "apart from the law, the law of nature, a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." ^²¹¹And we would tell those readers who shrink from admitting the double meaning of "the law," that if we are to understand the same law to be referred to in both clauses, "But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested," and "Being witnessed by the law and the prophets," we must conclude that if the righteousness hath been manifested apart from the Law, it is not witnessed by the Law; and if it is witnessed by the Law, it hath not been manifested apart from the Law. The truth is that the law of nature by no means witnesses to the righteousness of God manifested by Jesus Christ, for it is inferior to that righteousness; but the Law of Moses, not the letter, but the spirit, does witness, as also the Prophets in accordance with the spirit of the law, and as does the spiritual word in them. The reader of the Divine Scripture must therefore carefully observe that the Scriptures do not invariably use the same words to denote the same things; and they make the change sometimes on account of the equivocal sense of a word, sometimes for the sake of the figurative meaning, and sometimes because the context requires a different nuance in some places from that which the word has in others. If we are well on our guard in all this we escape many blunders and false interpretations. We ought, then, to know that the word "see" ^²¹²does not always denote the same thing, sometimes being applied to bodily sight, sometimes to our understanding. |51 Speaking generally, we ought to be aware that inasmuch as the purpose of the Spirit in the Prophets, and the Word in the Apostles of Christ, is to conceal and not plainly disclose the thoughts of the Truth, confusion arises again and again through the mere wording, and no close sequence of thought is preserved; the object being that even the unworthy may not to the judgment of their own soul discover the things which are thus for their good concealed from them. And this is often the reason why Scripture, as a whole, appears to lack orderly arrangement and consecutiveness, particularly, as we said before, the prophetic and apostolic writings; and in the apostolic writings, the Epistle to the Romans, wherein the functions of the Law are set forth in different terms, and applied to different circumstances. The result is that Paul in the composition of the epistle does not seem to be true to his aim.

1. If at anytime in reading the Scripture you stumble at something which is a fair stone of stumbling, and rock of offence,²¹³ blame yourself; for you must not despair of finding in this stone of stumbling and rock of offence thoughts to justify the saying, "He that believeth shall not be ashamed." ²¹⁴ First believe, and thou shalt find beneath what is deemed a stumbling-stone much gain in godliness. For if we really received a commandment to speak no idle word, because we shall give account of it in the day of judgment;²¹⁵ and if we must with all our might endeavour to make every word proceeding out of our mouths a working word both in ourselves who speak and in those who hear, must we not conclude that every word spoken |52 through the Prophets was fit for work? and it is no wonder if every word spoken by the Prophets had a work adapted to it. Nay, I suppose that every letter, no matter how strange, which is written in the oracles of God, does its work. And there is not one jot or tittle ²¹⁶ written in the Scripture, which, when men know how to extract the virtue does not work its own work.

2. As every herb has its own virtue whether for the healing of the body, or some other purpose, and it is not given to everybody to know the use of every herb, but certain persons have acquired the knowledge by the systematic study of botany, so that they may understand when a particular herb is to be used, and to what part it is to be applied, and how it is to be prepared, if it is to do the patient good; just so it is in things spiritual; the saint is a sort of spiritual herbalist, who culls from the sacred Scriptures every jot and every common letter, discovers the value of what is written and its use, and finds that there is nothing in the Scriptures superfluous. If you would like another illustration, every member of our body has been designed by God to do some work. But it is not for everybody to know the power and use of all the members, even the meanest, but those physicians who are expert anatomists can tell for what use every part, even the least, was intended by Providence. Just so, you may regard the Scriptures as a collection of herbs, or as one perfect body of reason; but if you are neither a scriptural botanist, nor can dissect the words of the Prophets, you must not suppose that anything written is superfluous, but blame yourself and not the sacred Scriptures when you fail to find the point of what is written. All this by way of general preface, though it may be applied to the whole of Scripture; so that they who will give heed to their reading may beware of passing over a single letter without examination and inquiry. |53

After giving his views respecting sheep that are rams, and sheep that are goats, and showing that it is the practice of Scripture sometimes to class sheep and goats together, he thus proceeds:----

1. Now let us do our best to discover what truths are shadowed out in these words. Every good pasture, and the pool of clear water, represent, I suppose, the oracles of the sacred Scriptures as a whole. The next thought is that inasmuch as certain persons approve of some portions as profitable, and reject others as having no saving power, they may be said to feed upon the good pasture of the passages they choose, drink the clear water of what they judge to be the best, and then tread down the residue of the pasture, and foul the residue of the water with their feet. These, I say, are they who approve the New Testament, but reject the Old; these are they who maintain that certain parts of the ancient writings exhibit more of the Divine power and are highly spiritual, and make others to be deficient in these respects. But the Shepherd calls them His own sheep who do not disdain what has been trodden by the feet, and who do not despise the water fouled by the feet, of the |54 blame-worthy sheep, perhaps more correctly named goats and kids; for they would not be sheep worthy of the rams upon the right hand.

2. For ourselves, then, who profess to be sheep of the Shepherd, let us never be shy at feeding on those passages which, taken literally, do not look like Scripture, and on account of their verbal incongruity are trodden down by men who are neither able nor willing to use the whole pasture. Even supposing that some water has been fouled by their feet, suppose, I mean, they have mingled with the pure word of the Scripture shameful unheard-of objections, let us not, because of the confusion they have introduced into the Word, be deterred from drinking that which has been fouled by their feet. And carefully observe that they who foul the water and tread down the pasture, are reminded of better sheep in the words, "And as for my sheep, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet." ²¹⁸ Furthermore, let us never tread down the pasture of the Prophets, nor foul the water of the Law; and while there are some who err in respect of the Gospel pasture and the apostolic water, so that they tread down certain portions of the Gospel field and feed on others as on good pasture, either rejecting the whole apostolic pasture, or approving some parts and rejecting others, let us feed on the whole of the Gospels and not tread down any part of them, and while we drink of all the apostolic waters, clear water as far as we can make it such, let us guard the fountains, and in no wise foul them through unbelief, which is wont to confuse the minds of men who cannot understand what is said.

1. A hearer greatly profits by such readings as these |55 if he can understand the true inheritance which Joshua divided by lot to the children of Israel, and if he can both ascend to the holy land, the true, really good land, and, following the list of names, can adapt the local descriptions to the varying circumstances of those who receive the inheritance. But it is difficult to find a man who thus profits, and we therefore wish to encourage our hearers not to faint as they read. "What the encouragement is which I offer to him who hears such passages, I must now tell. Charms have a certain natural force; and any one who comes under the influence of the charm, even if he does not understand it, gets something from it, according to the nature of the sounds thereof, either to the injury or to the healing of his body, or his soul. Just so, pray observe, it is with the giving of names in the Divine Scriptures, only they are stronger than any charm. For there are certain faculties in us, the best of which are nourished by these "charms," as I may call them, being akin to them, though we may not perceive that those faculties by understanding what we are told become more effective in the development of our lives. For that there are certain invisible departments of our being, and those many in number, the words of the Psalm will prove, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name." ²¹⁹ There is, then, within us a multitude of faculties amongst which we have been, as it were, souls and bodies, divided by lot; and these are such that if holy they profit and gather strength at the reading of the Scripture, even though the understanding be unfruitful; as it is written concerning him who speaketh "in a tongue," "My spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful." ²²⁰ Please note, then, that though at times our understanding is unfruitful, the faculties which assist the soul, and the understanding, and help us all, are nourished with rational nourishment drawn from the Holy Scriptures, and from these names, and that being nourished they are better able to assist us. And just as our better faculties, as |56 it were, use the charm and are profited, and gain strength through Scriptures and names like these, so the opposing faculties of our inner nature, we may say, are weakened and overcome by God's enchantments, and being overcome are put

THE PHILOCALIA OF ORIGEN