to whom he entrusted the prophecies which foretell the Messiah as a
deliverer, and as a dispenser of those carnal possessions which the
people loved. And thus they have had an extraordinary zeal for their
prophets, and, in sight of the whole world, have had charge of these
books which foretell their Messiah, assuring all the nations that he
should come, and in the manner foretold in their books, which they
held open to all the world. But this people deceived by the poor and
ignominious advent of the Messiah have been his most cruel enemies.
So that they, who were of all nations in the world the least open to
the suspicion of favouring us, the most scrupulous and most zealous
that can be named for their law and their prophets, have kept the
records incorrupt.
Therefore the prophecies have a hidden and spiritual sense, which
this people hated, under the carnal sense which they loved. Had the
spiritual sense been disclosed, it being such as they were unable to
love, or even to bear, they would not have been zealous to preserve
their books and their ceremonies; and if they had loved these
spiritual promises, and had preserved them incorrupt till Messiah
came, their witness would have had no force, because they had been
his friends. Therefore it was well that the spiritual sense should
be concealed; but on the other hand, had the sense been so hidden as
not to be at all apparent, it could not have served as a proof of the
Messiah. What then was done? In a crowd of passages the spiritual was
concealed under the temporal sense, and has been clearly revealed in
a few; again, the time and the state of the world were so clearly
foretold that the sun is not so evident. And in some passages this
spiritual sense is so dearly expressed that no less a blindness than
that which the flesh imposes on the spirit when enslaved, can keep us
from discerning it.
See then what God has done. This sense is concealed under another
in an infinite number of passages, in some, though rarely, it is
revealed, yet so that the passages in which it is concealed are
equivocal, and can suit both senses, while those in which it is
disclosed are unequivocal, and can agree with the spiritual sense
alone.
So that this cannot lead us into error, and could only be
misunderstood by so carnal a people.
For when possessions are promised in abundance, what could
hinder them from understanding the true possessions, save their
covetousness, which limited the sense to the good things of this
world? But those whose only good was in God referred the sense to
him alone. For there are two qualities which divide the will of man,
covetousness and charity. Not that covetousness cannot coexist with
faith in God, nor charity with worldly possessions, but covetousness
uses God, and enjoys the world, while the opposite is the case with
charity.
Now the end we pursue gives names to things. All which hinders the
attainment of this end, is said to be at enmity with us. Thus the
creatures, however good, are the enemies of the just, when they turn
them aside from God, and God himself is the enemy of those whose
greed he opposes.
Hence the word enemy being interpreted according to the end
proposed, the just understood by it their passions, and the carnal
understood the Babylonians, so that the term is obscure only for the
unrighteous. And this is what Isaiah says: _Signa legem in electis
meis_, and that Jesus Christ shall be a stone of stumbling. But,
"Blessed are they who shall not be offended in him!" Hosea, xiv. 9,
says excellently: "Where is the wise, and he shall understand these
things. The just shall know them, for the ways of God are right, but
the transgressors shall fall therein."
So that those who rejected and crucified Jesus Christ, being offended
at him, are the same people who bear the books which witness of him,
and which say that he will be rejected and a stumbling stone, so that
their refusal has given an additional mark that it is he, and he has
been proved both by the just Jews who received him, and the unjust
Jews who rejected him, both of whom were foretold.
One of the main reasons why the prophets put a veil on the spiritual
possessions which they promised under the figure of temporal
possessions is, that they had to do with a carnal people whom they
must make the keepers of the spiritual covenant.
Jesus Christ, prefigured by Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent
by his father to visit his brethren, etc., innocent, sold by his
brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and thereby becoming their
lord, their saviour, the saviour of strangers, and the saviour of
the world; all which had not been brought about but for the plot for
his destruction, their sale and rejection of him.
In prison Joseph innocent between two criminals; Jesus Christ on
the cross between two thieves. Joseph foretold deliverance to the
one, and death to the other, from the same omens. Jesus Christ saves
the elect, and condemns the reprobate after the same crimes. Joseph
foretold only, Jesus Christ acts. Joseph asked of him who is saved to
be mindful of him when he has come into his glory, and he whom Jesus
Christ saved asked that he would remember him when he came into his
Kingdom.
_Types._--Saviour, father, sacrificer, sacrifice, food, king, wise,
lawgiver, afflicted, poor, having to create a people, which he must
lead and nourish, and bring into the land.
Fascination.--_Somnum suum. Figura hujus mundi._
The Eucharist.--_Comedes panem tuum. Panem nostrum._
_Inimici Dei terram lingent._ The sinners lick the dust, that is to
say, love earthly pleasures.
The Old Testament contained the types of future joy, and the New
contains the means of attaining it.
The types were of joy, the means of penitence, and nevertheless the
Paschal Lamb was eaten with bitter herbs, _cum amaritudinibus_.
_Singularis sum ego donec transeam._ Jesus Christ before his death
was almost the only martyr.
To speak against too greatly figurative expressions.
There are some types clear and demonstrative, but others which seem
far-fetched, and which bring proof only to those already persuaded.
These may seem like the sayings of the Apocalyptics. But the
difference is that these have none which are not doubtful, so that
nothing is so unjust as to pretend that theirs are as well founded as
some of ours, for they have none so demonstrative as some of ours.
There is no comparison possible. We have no right to compare and
confound things because they agree in one point, while they are so
different in another. What is clear in things divine forces us to
revere what is obscure.
I do not say that the _mem_ is a mystery.
We may not attribute to the Scripture the sense which it has not
revealed to us that it contains. Thus, to say that the closed _mem_
of Isaiah means six hundred, has not been revealed. It might be said
that the final _tsadé_ and the _he deficientes_ signify mysteries.
But we are not allowed to say so, and still less to say this is the
way of the philosopher's stone. But we say that the literal sense is
not the true sense, because the prophets said so themselves.
_Extravagances of the Apocalyptics, Preadamites, Millenarians,
etc._--Whoever would found extravagant opinions on the Scripture will
for instance found them on the fact that:
It is said that "This generation shall not pass away till all these
things be fulfilled." On that I will say that after that generation
will come another generation, and so in constant succession.
The Second Book of Chronicles speaks of Solomon and the King as if
they were two different persons. I say that they were two.
_Against those who misuse passages of Scripture, and who are puffed
up when they find one which seems to favour their error._
The chapter for Vespers, on Passion Sunday, the prayer for the King.
Explanation of these words: "He that is not with me is against me."
And these others: "He that is not against you is with you." A person
who says: I am neither for nor against; we ought to answer him....
One of the Antiphons for Vespers at Christmas: _Exortum est in
tenebris lumen rectis corde_.
_THAT THE JEWISH LAW WAS FIGURATIVE._
_Contradiction._--It is not possible to give a good expression to
a portrait save by bringing all contraries into harmony, and it is
not enough to dwell upon a series of accordant qualities, without
reconciling the contraries. To understand the meaning of an author we
must harmonise all the contrary passages.
Thus, to understand Scripture, we must find a sense in which all
the contrary passages are reconciled; it is not enough to have one
which agrees with many consonant passages, but we must find one which
reconciles even dissonant passages.
Every author has a sense in which all the contradictory passages
agree, or he has no meaning at all. The latter cannot be said of
Scripture and the prophets, which assuredly abound in good sense. We
must then seek for a meaning which harmonises all contraries.
The true sense then is not that of the Jews, but in Jesus Christ all
dissonances are brought into harmony.
The Jews could not make the cessation of the royalty and principality
foretold by Hosea accord with the prophecy of Jacob.
If we take the law, the sacrifices, the kingdom as realities, we
cannot reconcile all the passages. Of necessity then they are but
figures. We cannot even reconcile the passages of the same author,
nor of the same book, nor sometimes of the same chapter, which
abundantly denotes what was the meaning of the author. As when
Ezekiel, chap. xx., says that man will live by the commandments of
God and will not live by them.
It was not lawful to sacrifice elsewhere than at Jerusalem, the
place which the Lord had chosen, nor even to eat the tithes in any
other place. Deut. xii. 5, etc.; Deut. xiv. 23, etc.; xv. 20; xvi.
2-15.
Hosea foretold that the Jews should be without king, without prince,
without sacrifice and without idols, which is accomplished at this
day, since they are not able to make a lawful sacrifice out of
Jerusalem.
_Types._--If the law and the sacrifices are the truth it must be
pleasing to God, and not displeasing to him. If they are figures they
must be both pleasing and displeasing.
Now through the whole of Scripture they are both pleasing and
displeasing. It is said that the law shall be changed, that the
sacrifice shall be changed, that they shall be without law, without
a prince and without sacrifices, that a new covenant shall be made,
that the law shall be renewed, that the precepts which they have
received are not good, that their sacrifices are abominations, that
God has required none of them.
It is said, on the contrary, that the law shall abide for ever, that
the covenant shall be eternal, that sacrifice shall be eternal, that
the sceptre shall never depart from among them, because it shall not
depart from them till the coming of the eternal King.
Now are all these passages obviously literal? No. Are they obviously
typical? No, they are obviously either real or typical. But the first
set, which bar a literal interpretation, prove that the whole are
typical.
All these passages together cannot apply to the thing signified, all
can apply to the type, therefore they are not spoken of the thing
signified, but of the type.
_Agnus occisus est ab origine mundi._ A sacrificing judge.
_Types._--God willing to form to himself an holy people, whom he
should separate from all other nations, whom he should deliver from
their enemies, and should establish in a place of rest, has not
only promised this, but has foretold by his prophets the time and
the manner of his coming. And yet, to confirm the hope of his elect
through all ages, he made them to see it in a figure, but never left
them without assurances of his power and of his will to save them.
For at the creation of man, Adam was the witness, and the guardian
of the promise made concerning the Saviour who should be born of the
woman, when men were still so near the creation that they could not
have forgotten their creation and their fall. When those who had seen
Adam were no longer in the world, God sent Noah, whom he saved, and
drowned the whole earth by a miracle which marked sufficiently both
the power which he had to save the world, and the will which he had
to do so; and to raise up of the seed of the woman him whom he had
promised.
This miracle was enough to confirm the hope of men. The memory of the
deluge being fresh among men while Noah was still living, God made
promises to Abraham, and while Shem was still living God sent Moses,
etc....
_Types._--God, willing to deprive his own of perishable possessions,
made the Jewish people in order to show that this arose from no lack
of power.
The Jews had grown old in these earthly thoughts, that God loved
their father Abraham, his flesh, and all that would spring from it;
that for this reason he had multiplied them, and set them apart
from all other peoples, without allowing them to intermingle; that
when they were languishing in Egypt he brought them out with many
wonderful signs in their favour; that he fed them with manna in the
wilderness, and brought them out into a very fat land; that he gave
them kings and a well-built temple, there to offer beasts before
him, by the shedding of whose blood they were purified; that at last
he would send Messiah to make them masters of the whole world, and
foretold the time of his coming.
The world having grown old in these carnal errors, Jesus Christ came
at the time foretold, but not with the expected glory, and therefore
men did not think it was he. After his death Saint Paul came to teach
that all these things had happened in figures, that the Kingdom of
God was not in the flesh, but in the spirit; that the enemies of
men were not the Babylonians, but the passions; that God delighted
not in temples made with hands, but in a pure and contrite heart;
that bodily circumcision was unprofitable, but that of the heart was
needed; that Moses gave them not that bread from heaven, etc.
But God, not willing to disclose these things to a people unworthy
of them, yet nevertheless willing to foretell them, in order that
they might be believed, foretold the time dearly, and expressed the
things sometimes clearly, but generally in figures, so that those who
loved the emblems might rest in them, and those who loved the things
figured might see them therein.
All that tends not to charity is figurative.
The sole aim of the Scripture is charity.
All which tends not to that only end is figurative, for since there
is but one end, all which does not refer to it in express terms is
figurative.
God has so varied that sole precept of charity to satisfy our
curiosity, which seeks for diversity, by that diversity which still
leads us to the one thing needful. For one only thing is needful, yet
we love diversity, and God satisfies both by these diversities, which
lead to the one thing needful.
The Jews so loved the mere shadows, and waited for them so entirely,
that they misunderstood the substance, when it came in the time and
manner foretold.
The rabbis take the breasts of the Spouse for figures, as they do
every thing which does not express the only aim they had, that of
temporal good.
And Christians take even the Eucharist as a type of the glory for
which they strive.
Charity is no figurative precept. It is horrible to say that Jesus
Christ, who came to take away the figure and establish the truth,
came only to establish the type of charity and take away the existing
reality.
If the light be darkness, what must the darkness be?
When David foretold that Messiah would deliver his people from their
enemies, we may believe that these according to the flesh were the
Egyptians, and then I know not how to show that the prophecy was
fulfilled. But we may well believe also that the enemies were their
sins, for in truth the Egyptians were not their enemies, and their
sins were. This word enemies is therefore equivocal.
But if he say, as in fact he does elsewhere, that he will save his
people from their sins, as do also Isaiah and others, the ambiguity
is removed, and the double sense of enemies is reduced to the single
sense of iniquities. For if he had sins in his mind he might well
denote them by the word enemies, but if he thought of enemies, he
could not designate them by the word iniquities.
Now Moses, David, and Isaiah employ the same terms. Who will say then
that they have not all the same meaning, and that the sense of David
which is plainly that of iniquities when he spoke of enemies, is not
the same as that of Moses when speaking of enemies.
Daniel prays that the people may be delivered from the captivity of
their enemies, but he was thinking of sins, and to show this, he
says that Gabriel came to tell him that his prayer was heard, and
that there were only seventy weeks to wait, after which the nation
would be delivered from iniquity, that sin would have an end, and the
Redeemer, the Most Holy, should bring in eternal righteousness, not
legal, but eternal.
The Jews had a doctrine of God as we have one of Jesus Christ, and
confirmed by miracles; they were forbidden to believe every worker of
miracles, and more, they were ordered to have recourse to the chief
priests, on whom only they should rely.
Thus, in regard to their prophets, they had all those reasons which
we have for refusing to believe the workers of miracles.
And yet they were very blameworthy in refusing the prophets because
of their miracles, and had not been blameworthy had they not seen the
miracles. _Nisi fecissem, peccatum non haberent._
Therefore all belief rests on miracles.
Whoever estimates the Jewish religion by its coarser minds will
know it but ill. It is to be seen in the sacred books, and in the
tradition of the prophets, who have made it plain enough that they
did not understand the law according to the letter. So our Religion
is divine in the Gospel, in the Apostles, and in tradition, but
ridiculous in those who corrupt it.
The Messiah, according to the carnal Jews, was to be a mighty
temporal prince. Jesus Christ, according to carnal Christians, has
come to dispense us from the love of God, and to give us sacraments
which shall operate without our concurrence. This is no more the
Christian religion than was the other the Jewish.
True Jews and true Christians have always expected a Messiah who
should inspire them with the love of God, and by that love should
make them triumph over all their enemies.
The carnal Jews hold a midway place between Christians and Pagans.
The Pagans know not God, and love this world only. The Jews know the
true God, and love this world only. Christians know the true God,
and love not the world. Jews and Pagans love the same good. Jews and
Christians know the same God.
The Jews were of two kinds, one having merely Pagan, the other having
Christian affections.
The carnal Jews understood neither the greatness nor the humiliation
of Messiah as foretold by their prophecies. They misunderstood him in
his foretold greatness, as when he said that Messiah should be lord
of David, through his son, and that he was before Abraham who yet had
seen him. They did not believe him so great as to be eternal, and
so too they misunderstood him in his humiliation and in his death.
Messiah, said they, abideth for ever, and this man has said that he
shall die. They believed him then neither mortal nor eternal, and
they only looked in him for a carnal greatness.
_Typical._--God availed himself of the lust of the Jews to make them
avail for Jesus Christ.
_Typical._--Nothing is so like charity as covetousness, and nothing
is so contrary to it. Thus the Jews, full of possessions which
flattered their covetousness, were very like Christians and very
contrary. And by this means they had the two qualities which were
necessary to them, to be very like the Messiah in order to be figures
of him, and very contrary that they might not be suspected witnesses.
_Antiquity of the Jews._--What difference there is between book and
book. I am not surprised that the Greeks made the Iliad, nor the
Egyptians and the Chinese their histories.
We have only to see how this comes about. These fabulous historians
are not contemporaneous with the facts they narrate. Homer writes a
romance, which he puts forth as such, and which is received as such,
for no one supposed that Troy or Agamemnon existed more than did the
golden apple. So he thought not of making a history, but solely a
book to amuse; he is the only man who wrote in his time, the beauty
of his work has made it last, every one learns it and talks of it, we
are bound to know it, and we each get it by heart. Four hundred years
afterwards the witnesses of these things are no more, no one knows of
his own knowledge if it be fable or history; he has only learnt it
from his ancestors, and this may pass for true.
_The sincerity of the Jews._--They preserve with faithfulness and
zeal the book in which Moses declares that they have been all their
life ungrateful to God, and that he knows they will be still more so
after his death; that he therefore calls heaven and earth to witness
against them, and that he has taught them enough.
He declares that finally God, being angry with them, would scatter
them among all the nations of the earth, that as they have angered
him, in worshipping gods who were not their God, so he will provoke
them by calling a people which is not his people, and wills that
all his words shall be eternally preserved, and that his book shall
be placed in the Ark of the Covenant to serve for ever as a witness
against them.
Isaiah says the same thing, xxx. 8.
However, they have kept at the cost of their life this very book
which dishonours them in so many ways. This is a sincerity which has
no example in the world, and no root in nature.
Every history which is not contemporaneous is open to suspicion, thus
the books of the Sibyls and Trismegistus and so many others which
have been credited by the world are false, and found to be false in
course of time. It is not so with contemporaneous authors.
There is a great difference between a book written by a private man,
and dispersed among a whole people, and a book which itself creates a
people. We cannot doubt that the book is as old as the people.
The sincerity of the Jews.
Defective and final letters.
Sincere against their honour, and dying in its defence; this has no
example in the world's history, and no root in nature.
They are visibly a people expressly formed to serve as witnesses to
the Messiah, Isaiah xliii. 9; xliv. 8, they bear the books, and love
them while they understand them not. And all this was foretold, that
God's judgments might be entrusted to them, but as a sealed book.
_Types._--When once the secret is disclosed it is impossible not to
see it If the Old Testament be read in this light, we shall see if
the sacrifices were real; if the fatherhood of Abraham was the true
cause of the friendship of God; that the promised land was not the
true place of rest. These were then but types. If in the same way we
examine all those ordained ceremonies, and all those commandments
which are not of charity, we shall see that they are types.
All these sacrifices and ceremonies were then either figures or
absurdities. But there are things which are clear, and yet too lofty
for us to think them absurdities.
Adam _forma futuri_. Six days to form the one, six ages to form the
other. The six days which Moses represents for the formation of
Adam, are but the representation of the six ages to form Jesus Christ
and the Church. If Adam had not sinned, and Jesus Christ had not
come, there had been only one covenant, only one age of men, and the
creation would have been represented as done at one single time.
The six ages, the six Fathers of the six ages, the six miracles at
the opening of the six ages, the six mornings at the opening of the
six ages.
_Types._--The Jewish and Egyptian peoples were visibly foretold by
the two men whom Moses met, the Egyptian beating the Jew, Moses
avenging him and slaying the Egyptian while the Jew was ungrateful.
The conversion of the Egyptians, Isaiah xix. 19. An altar in Egypt to
the true God.
The sabbath was only a sign, Exodus xxxi. 13, and in memory of
the deliverance from Egypt. Deut. v. 19. Therefore it is no more
necessary, for we ought to forget Egypt.
Circumcision was only a sign, Gen. xvii. 13, therefore it came to
pass that in the desert they were not circumcised, because they could
not be confounded with other peoples, and after Jesus Christ came it
was no longer needful.
Those who ordained these sacrifices knew their uselessness, and those
who have declared their uselessness, ceased not to practise them.
Your name shall be accursed to my elect, and I will give them another
name.
Harden their heart. How? By flattering their lust, and making them
hope to accomplish it.
_Fac secundum exemplar quod tibi ostensum est in monte._