Collectio dictorum veteris testamenti

 is forced to descend into a foreign state and if the demons should see any good understanding accompanying him, they hasten to subject it to the sowi

 escaping. The heifer, taken first, signified the first generation. For just as the heifer struggles against the yoke, so also the first generation of

 the river, but to keep alive every female. For the devil, the spiritual Pharaoh, also conceived a threefold manner of plotting against the spiritual I

 He interprets what that one speaks spiritually and obscurely, and transforms his weak voice to be more melodious. For I have not come, he says, to abo

 the Gospel according to Christ, had as a son the multitude of those being reborn to it through the Holy Spirit whom she also circumcised with a stone

 and easy to comprehend is the mystery concerning Christ. But God did not lead the Jews to this immediately, but through the long law and the many ridd

 Moses commanded Joshua son of Nun to choose mighty men and go out and fight 77.1196 Amalek, signified that Jesus Christ would be subject to the comman

 of the people of the Jews, and servant of God, he ascends to the highest knowledge of God but the people are prevented from approaching, lest they di

 coming after it, demands this final penalty, as one who, after being freed from the burden of sin, is again voluntarily subjected to it. And He comman

 But the eighth ineffably suggests the mystery of the eternal well-being of the 77.1204 beings. The sixth day is called Preparation, because on it the

 and poverty of intellect, they make their neighbors, that is, those of the same faith, partners, so that through one another they may be raised to hig

 unmixed with wickedness, those partaking of the true Lamb nourish their own soul, throughout the whole weekly age, which is measured by the week. And

 the body bears uncircumcision. Circumcision is mystical, a voluntary removal of the passions. The circumcision of circumcision is the putting away of

 of rational discernment, as Israel did in the time of Moses, commits idolatry. For having cast into the fire of the passions the words concerning theo

 to do good things, and to walk toward good things. Humpbacked is the one bent downwards, and not able to look up from earthly things. Sun-spotted is o

 God, ostracizing stupidity, and wishing his subjects to belong to necessity alone, through the not weaving together of linen and wool, banished variet

 but in heaven God Himself whom alone they both worship and attend. And on the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, an

 they were catechized by the evangelists. Or otherwise, the four types of meanings were a symbol of the four types of moral discourse. Of which the one

 Aaron's rod, as a symbol of watchfulness. For to Jeremiah, seeing a staff of a nut tree, God says: Behold, I am watchful over my words. And it budded

 bracelets, and rings, and armlets, and braided chains. For the leaders of the people in Christ and the eminent often surpass the evangelical commands

 with bodily ways of the ministry of the virtues, they return to the contemplation of kindred intelligible things. A foreign boy and a servant-girl are

 undertaking. For she will pay the penalty for the offense to God, the Father of spirits, and she will be his wife, as having already been joined to hi

 of the other man wherefore he is required to pay the penalty for the murder, but he alone suffers loss in his soul. For this, I think, is what this m

 war for one year he shall cheer his wife, whom he has taken. For it is not right that one who has just taken a spouse for himself should be led out t

 Virtue is the mother of the good deeds from it. And its nest is the soul in which it dwells. It is necessary for those who encounter them to be benefi

 its fruit for three years will be unpurified for you. It shall not be eaten, and in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy to the Lord. But in th

 dragging down to earth, those things that draw up to heaven. Saul, is the natural 77.1249 law, which from the beginning received from the Lord the lot

 David is the law according to the spirit, who reigns over the Christians who worship God spiritually. But Saul is the law according to the letter, who

 the face of the Lord, according to David, and learns the cause of such a famine, that this injustice was against Saul, and against his house, with whi

 taking from the spiritual David, that is, the law according to the spirit, may kill the aforementioned sons and grandsons of 77.1257 Saul then in eve

 of knowledge, if it should receive the divine and discerning word, which brings to memory former sins, and will prefer even to nature itself the heali

 The Lord in the desert I mean in the world, and in the nature of men, digging out and cleansing the hearts of the worthy from material weight and min

 of the city. Since Hezekiah is interpreted as 'strength of God,' every mind 77.1265 that through practical philosophy has acquired divine strength, wh

 through themselves they again turn him away, as he flees into his land which is the fixed habit of evil, whom his sons kill as he is fleeing, and the

 the king of the Assyrians, flees to God, and silently cries out to Him, through progress in virtue and knowledge, and receives an angel as an ally th

 at once a philosopher and a lover of God has both Judah and Jerusalem the one taken as the habit of confession and repentance for Judah is interpret

 becomes a lofty and exalted mind, and in the good things given to it by God, boasts as if in its own accomplishments. There comes by providence upon t

 the spear and the flask of water that is, the power of practical virtue, and the grace of gnostic contemplation, even if he again gives these things

 of king Darius, I mean of the natural law, having conquered by him, lifts up his face to heaven, that is, the disposition of the soul, in which are th

 not being guarded. For lead is a symbol of punishment, but silver of brightness. And the seven eyes of this practical faith are the seven gifts of the

 constituted. For since matter is indeed a tetrad, because of the tetraktys of its elements, and form is a pentad, because of the fivefold nature of se

 they rise up for mischief. And approaching Zerubbabel, and Joshua and the leaders of the families, they say to them: We will build with you for like

He interprets what that one speaks spiritually and obscurely, and transforms his weak voice to be more melodious. For I have not come, he says, to abolish the law, but to fulfill it through the addition of what is lacking. And the Mosaic law becomes for the evangelical law the things pertaining to God; for to the evangelical law the starting-points of piety have come from the Mosaic law. And Moses, it says, was 80 years old when he spoke to Pharaoh. And Aaron was 83 years old; for in terms of time, Aaron is the first. Since also the evangelical way of life appeared before the legal one in Abraham and those with him. But according to the mission and ministry, he is second, since also the gos 77.1188 pel was given after the law. And Aaron surpasses him by a Triad of years, just as Christ also according to his divinity. And in another way, Christ is older according to his divinity, but later-born according to his humanity and the economy. The rod, having fallen from the hand of Moses, and having been transformed into a serpent, and again having been taken by its tail in his hand, and having been restored to a rod, signified that the first-formed man, being in God's hand in the beginning, fell away to earthly things, having transgressed the commandment, and through malice, crept into the death-bearing evil of a serpent. And again God the creator, taking hold of him through the incarnation, restored him to the first image, and clothed him with his ancient beauty through the keeping of the commandments. And the tail, being the last part, signified the incarnation in the last days. His hand, having been brought into Moses' bosom, and having become leprous when brought out, and again having been brought in, and brought out clean, signified that man, made in the image of God, as long as he was in the protection of God, as in a bosom, was pure and most beautiful. But in being brought out of this through love of pleasure and disobedience, he became leprous with the loathsomeness and abomination of sin. And again, being in the protection of God through self-control and obedience and adoption as a son, he was restored to the beauty from the beginning, and he appeared pure and radiant. The desert from which Moses is sent to Egypt is this world, human nature, or the state and condition deprived of passions, where through contemplation the mind, having been instructed in the knowledge of existing things, is commanded by God according to the unseen part of the heart to lead out from the flesh and the senses, as from Egypt, the divine thoughts of existing things like the Israelites, toiling in the clay of the passions. And walking toward this along with his spouse wisdom, and of the virtuous thought born to him from her, and of a reverent manner, when he should stop and stand still from the course of virtue, whose standing still is a movement of vice, being occupied with something of the material things lying beside this path on either side; then, as his aforementioned son becomes uncircumcised and profane, he sees, like a sharp angel, the rebuking word of conscience threatening death. Whom his spouse wisdom persuades, circumcising for the child-like thought the material imagination that has arisen, and like a flow of blood, drying up the movement of a life of passion. Moses, on the one hand, having been chosen for a mission, is somewhat cowardly and does not proceed directly, but also consults with his kinsmen about the journey, and takes along his wife and children. But Aaron, having done nothing of the sort, sets out immediately. For those of the Mosaic law are both cowardly towards 77.1189 temptations and hesitant, and divided between the divine commandments and bodily and worldly relations. But those of the Gospel, and of whom Aaron is a type, are both bold towards dangers and eager, and divided between God and the world, but holding fast to the divine commandments alone. Zipporah the Midianite was a type of the Church from the gentiles, who, having been subjected to the seedings of Moses, that is, to the faint theologies of the Mosaic law concerning the Holy Trinity of the one who instructs towards

διερμηνεύει ἃ πνευματικῶς καὶ ἀσυμφανῶς ἐκεῖνος λαλεῖ, καὶ τὸ ἰσχνόφωνον αὐτοῦ πρὸς τὸ εὐηχέστερον μετατίθησιν. Οὐκ ἦλθον γὰρ, φησὶ, καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον, ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι διὰ τῆς τοῦ ἐλλείποντος προσθήκης. Ὁ δὲ Μωσαϊκὸς τῷ εὐαγγελικῷ γίνεται τὰ πρὸς τὸν Θεόν· τῷ γὰρ εὐαγγελικῷ αἱ ἀφορμαὶ τῆς θεοσεβείας ἐκ τοῦ Μωσαϊκοῦ γεγόνασι. Μωσῆς δὲ, φησὶν, ἦν ἐτῶν πʹ, ὅτε ἐλάλησε πρὸς Φαραώ. Ἀαρὼν δὲ πγʹ ἦν ἐτῶν· κατὰ χρόνον μὲν γὰρ ὁ πρῶτος ὁ Ἀαρών. Ἐπεὶ καὶ ἡ εὐαγγελικὴ πολιτεία πρὸ τῆς νομικῆς ἐν Ἀβραὰμ, καὶ τοῖς κατ' ἐκεῖνον, ἐφάνη. Κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἀποστολὴν καὶ διακονίαν, δεύτερος, ἐπεὶ καὶ τὸ εὐαγ 77.1188 γέλιον ὕστερον τοῦ νόμου δέδοται. Ὑπερέχει δὲ Τριάδι ἐτῶν ὁ Ἀαρὼν, ἐπεὶ καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς κατὰ τὴν θεότητα. Καὶ ἑτέρως δὲ πρεσβύτερος μὲν ὁ Χριστὸς, κατὰ τὴν θεότητα· ὑστερογενέστερος δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα καὶ οἰκονομίαν. Ἀποπεσοῦσα τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ Μωσέως ἡ ῥάβδος, καὶ εἰς ὄφιν μετασχηματισθεῖσα, καὶ πάλιν ἐν χειρὶ αὐτοῦ ληφθεῖσα τῆς κέρκου, καὶ εἰς ῥάβδον ἀποκαταστᾶσα, ἐσήμανεν, ὡς ὁ πρωτόπλαστος ἐν χειρὶ Θεοῦ κατ' ἀρχὰς ὢν ἀπέπεσεν εἰς τὰ γήϊνα, παραβὰς τὴν ἐντολὴν, καὶ διὰ τῆς κακίας, εἰς θανατηφόρον πονηρίαν ὄφεως εἵρπυσε. Πάλιν δὲ ὁ δημιουργὸς Θεὸς ἐπιλαβόμενος αὐτοῦ διὰ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως εἰς τὴν πρώτην ἀπεκατέστησεν εἰκόνα, καὶ τὸ ἀρχαῖον κάλλος ἐνέδυσε διὰ τῆς φυλακῆς τῶν ἐντολῶν. Ἡ δὲ κέρκος ἔσχατον μέρος οὖσα, τὴν ἐπ' ἐσχάτων ἡμερῶν ἐνανθρώπησιν παρεδήλου. Εἰσενεχθεῖσα εἰς τὸν κόλπον Μωσέως ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἐξάγεσθαι λεπρωθεῖσα, καὶ αὖθις εἰσενεχθεῖσα, καὶ ἐξενεχθεῖσα καθαρὰ, ἐσήμανεν ὡς ὁ κατ' εἰκόνα Θεοῦ πεποιημένος ἄνθρωπος, ἕως μὲν ἦν τῇ σκέπῃ τοῦ Θεοῦ, καθάπερ ἐν κόλπῳ, καθαρὸς καὶ κάλλιστος ἦν. Ἐν δὲ τῷ ἐξάγεσθαι ταύτης διὰ φιληδονίας καὶ παρακοῆς, ἐλεπρώθη τῇ εἰδεχθείᾳ καὶ βδελυρίᾳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας. Αὖθις δὲ ἐν τῇ σκέπῃ τοῦ Θεοῦ, δι' ἐγκρατείας καὶ ὑπακοῆς, καὶ υἱοθεσίας γενόμενος, ἀποκατέστη πρὸς τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὡραιότητα, καὶ ἐφάνη καθαρὸς καὶ λαμπρός. Ἡ ἔρημος ἀφ' ἧς πέμπεται Μωσῆς εἰς Αἴγυπτον, ἔστιν ὁ κόσμος οὗτος, ἡ ἀνθρωπίνη φύσις, ἢ ἡ τῶν παθῶν ἐστερημένη ἕξις καὶ κατάστασις, ὅπου διὰ θεωρίας τὴν τῶν ὄντων γνῶσιν παιδευθεὶς ὁ νοῦς, κελεύεται παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ κατὰ τὸ τῆς καρδίας ἀφανὲς, ἐξαγαγεῖν τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῆς αἰσθήσεως, ὡς ἐξ Αἰγύπτου, καθάπερ Ἰσραηλίτας τὰ θεῖα τῶν ὄντων νοήματα, περὶ τὸν πηλὸν τῶν παθῶν πονούμενα. Πρὸς τοῦτο δὲ βαδίζων μετὰ καὶ τῆς συμβίου σοφίας, καὶ τοῦ ἐξ αὐτῆς αὐτῷ γεννηθέντος ἐναρέτου λογισμοῦ, καὶ τρόπου σεμνοῦ, ὅτε καταλύσῃ καὶ στῇ τοῦ δρόμου τῆς ἀρετῆς, ἧς ἡ στάσις κίνησις κακίας ἐστὶν, ἀσχοληθεὶς περί τι τῶν ἑκατέρωθεν τῇ ὁδῷ ταύτῃ παρακειμένων ὑλικῶν· τηνικαῦτα τοῦ δηλωθέντος υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ γινομένου ἀκροβύστου καὶ βεβήλου, ὁρᾷ καθάπερ ἄγγελον ἀπότομον τὸν ἐλέγχοντα λόγον τῆς συνειδήσεως ἀπειλοῦντα θάνατον. Ὃν ἡ σύνοικος αὐτοῦ δυσωπεῖ σοφία, τὴν ἐγγενομένην ὑλικὴν φαντασίαν τῷ παιδὶ λογισμῷ περιτεμοῦσα, καὶ καθάπερ αἵματος ῥύσιν τὴν κίνησιν ἐμπαθοῦς ζωῆς ἀποξηράνασα. Μωσῆς μὲν προχειρισθεὶς εἰς ἀποστολὴν ὑποδειλιᾷ καὶ οὐκ εὐθυδρομεῖ, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς κατὰ γένος προσήκουσι κοινολογεῖται περὶ τῆς ἀποδημίας, καὶ συμπαραλαμβάνει τὴν γυναῖκα καὶ τὰ παιδία. Ἀαρὼν δὲ μηδέν τι τοιοῦτον δράσας εὐθὺς ὁρμᾷ. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ Μωσαϊκοῦ νόμου δειλοί τέ εἰσι πρὸς 77.1189 πειρασμοὺς καὶ ὀκλάζοντες, καὶ μεριζόμενοι πρός τε τὰς θείας ἐντολὰς, καὶ πρὸς τὰς σωματικὰς καὶ κοσμικὰς σχέσεις. Οἱ δὲ τοῦ Εὐαγγελίου, καὶ ὧν τύπος ὁ Ἀαρὼν, τολμηροί τε πρὸς κινδύνους καὶ πρόθυμοι, καὶ μεριζόμενοι πρὸς Θεὸν καὶ κόσμον, μόνων δὲ τῶν θείων ἐντολῶν ἐξεχόμενοι. Σεπφώρα ἡ Μαδιανῖτις τύπος ἦν τῆς ἐξ ἐθνῶν Ἐκκλησίας, ἥτις ὑπαχθεῖσα τοῖς σπερματισμοῖς Μωσέως, ἤτοι ταῖς τοῦ Μωσαϊκοῦ νόμου περὶ τῆς ἁγίας Τριάδος ἀμυδραῖς θεολογίαις τοῦ παιδαγωγοῦντος ἐπὶ