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

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 he calls the first and the seventh holy; for holy is the time in the beginning, in which Adam lived in paradise, and the one at the end of times, which Christ sanctified by His coming Concerning the Passover, and Pentecost, and other feasts. The Passover was a symbol of practical philosophy, which leads across from sin to virtue. But Pentecost was a type of natural contemplation in the spirit, offering to God, like first-fruits of summer, the pious doctrines concerning created things. And the trumpets, a symbol of the incarnation of God proclaimed through the law and the prophets. And the Atonement, a type of the reconciliation of God with men, which the incarnation of God and Savior Christ accomplished. And the Feast of Tabernacles was a prefiguration of the universal resurrection from the dead. Concerning the Sabbath. It was not because God wished the days to be honored by men that he commanded the Sabbath to be honored, and the days of the new moons and the feasts; for so he would have permitted worship of the creation rather than the Crea 77.1209 tor; but he ordained that he Himself be honored symbolically through such days. For He Himself is the Sabbath ....... the rest of the soul from the labors in the body, and the cessation of the toils for righteousness. And the New Moon, as the beginning of the first movement of the virtues. For from Him we have the seeds of these, sown together with our nature. And since the law knows various feasts, God Himself again is the Passover, as the liberator of those held by the bitter slavery of sin, and the passage from sin to virtue, and from darkness to light. Pentecost, as the first-fruits of summer were offered to God*. And the mystical summer are those cultivated through the incarnation of the Savior, of whom He Himself as first-fruit according to his human nature was offered through his life-giving death. And since there was also a feast of trumpets, and of atonement, and of tabernacles, He Himself is again the trumpet, as sounding in us divine knowledge and the revelations of the mysteries; and the atonement, as having become man for our sake, that through Himself He might reconcile us to the Father. And the feast of tabernacles as the pitching of our dissolving tabernacle; for He is truly the life and immortality of our mortal bodies. A mystical summer is the gathering and enjoyment of the more spiritual reasons according to practical philosophy and natural contemplation. The summer of summer is the gathering and collection of the mind towards God after the contemplation of intelligible things, being harvested by the separation from all other things that are after God; and being offered to God alone, by being continually stretched out towards Him alone. Concerning circumcision. The foreskin is natural. And everything natural is a work of divine creation, and for this reason very good. For God saw, it says, all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. Therefore, he who applies himself to the symbols of the law will surely know that God, correcting nature after so many generations, did not legislate that the foreskin be circumcised as something harmful or unclean; but through such circumcision as a symbol He commanded the passionate disposition of the soul to be circumcised. And since the foreskin is an excess of the pleasure-producing member, He commanded that superfluous pleasure be put away; and superfluous pleasure is every sin. Therefore, then, he who bears sin is uncircumcised, even if he is circumcised in the body; but he who has put it away is circumcised, even if the

ἀμιγέσι φαυλότητος, ἀποτρέφειν τὴν ἑαυτῶν ψυχὴν τοὺς μεταλαμβάνοντας τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ Ἀμνοῦ, παρ' ὅλον ἑβδοματικὸν τὸν αἰῶνα, τὸν διὰ τῆς ἑβδομάδος μετρούμενον. Ἁγίαν δὲ τὴν πρώτην καὶ τὴν ἑβδόμην καλεῖ· ἅγιος γὰρ ὁ ἐν ἀρχῇ τε χρόνος, καθ' ὃν ἐν παραδείσῳ διῃτᾶτο Ἀδὰμ, καὶ ὁ ἐπ' ἐσχάτων, ὃν ὁ Χριστὸς ἐπιδημήσας ἡγίασεν Περὶ τοῦ Πάσχα, καὶ τῆς Πεντεκοστῆς, καὶ λοιπῶν ἑορτῶν. Τὸ Πάσχα μὲν σύμβολον ἦν πρακτικῆς φιλοσοφίας, διαβιβαζούσης ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας εἰς τὴν ἀρετήν. Ἡ Πεντηκοστὴ δὲ τύπος ἦν τῆς ἐν πνεύματι φυσικῆς θεωρίας προσφερούσης τῷ Θεῷ καθάπερ ἀπαρχὰς θέρους τὰς περὶ τῶν ὄντων εὐσεβεῖς δόξας. Αἱ δὲ σάλπιγγες, σύμβολον τῆς κηρυττομένης διὰ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν ἐνανθρωπήσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ. Ὁ δὲ Ἱλὲμ, τύπος τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ πρὸς ἀνθρώπους καταλλαγῆς, ἢν ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ Σωτῆρος Χριστοῦ κατώρθωσεν ἐνανθρώπησις. Ἡ δὲ Σκηνοπηγία προχάραγμα ἦν τῆς παγκοσμίου ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστάσεως. Περὶ τοῦ Σαββάτου. Οὐ τὰς ἡμέρας τιμᾶσθαι βουλόμενος ὁ Θεὸς ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, προσέταξε τιμᾶσθαι τὸ Σάββατον, καὶ τὰς ἡμέρας τῶν νεομηνιῶν καὶ τῶν ἑορτῶν· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν ἐπέτρεπε λατρεύειν τῇ κτίσει παρὰ τὸν κτί 77.1209 σαντα· ἀλλὰ συμβολικῶς διὰ τῶν τοιούτων ἡμερῶν ἑαυτὸν τιμᾶσθαι ἐνομοτέθησεν. Αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστι Σάββατον ....... τῶν ἐν σώματι μόχθων τῆς ψυχῆς ἀνάπαυσις, καὶ τῶν κατὰ δικαιοσύνην πόνων κατάπαυσις. Νεομηνία δὲ, ὡς ἀρχὴ τῆς πρώτης κινήσεως τῶν ἀρετῶν. Παρ' αὐτοῦ γὰρ ἔχομεν τὰ σπέρματα τούτων, τῇ καθ' ἡμᾶς φύσει συγκαταβεβλημένα. Ἐπεὶ δὲ διαφόρους οἶδε τὰς ἑορτὰς ὁ νόμος, αὐτὸς πάλιν ὁ Θεός ἐστι Πάσχα μὲν, ὡς ἐλευθερωτὴς τῶν τῇ πικρᾷ δουλείᾳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας κεκρατημένων, καὶ διάβασις ἀπὸ ἁμαρτίας εἰς ἀρετὴν, καὶ ἀπὸ σκότους εἰς φῶς. Πεντηκοστὴ, ὡς ἀπαρχὴ θέρους τῷ Θεῷ* προσεφέροντο. Θέρος δὲ μυστικὸν οἱ γεωργούμενοι διὰ τῆς τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἐνανθρωπήσεως, ὧν ἀπαρχὴ αὐτὸς κατὰ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον προσηνέχθη διὰ τοῦ ζωοποιοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ. Ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ σαλπίγγων ἦν ἑορτὴ, καὶ ἱλασμοῦ καὶ σκηνοπηγίας, αὐτὸς αὖθίς ἐστι σάλπιγξ μὲν, ὡς ἐνηχῶν ἡμῖν τὰς θείας γνώσεις καὶ τὰς τῶν μυστηρίων ἀποκαλύψεις· ἱλασμὸς δὲ, ὡς γενόμενος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος, ἵνα ἡμᾶς δι' ἑαυτοῦ καταλλάξῃ τῷ Πατρί. Σκηνοπηγία δὲ ὡς πῆξις τοῦ διαλυομένου σκήνους ἡμῶν· αὐτὸς γὰρ ὄντως ἡ ζωὴ καὶ ἀθανασία τῶν θνητῶν σωμάτων ἡμῶν. Θέρος ἐστὶ μυστικὸν ἡ τῶν κατὰ τὴν πρακτικὴν φιλοσοφίαν καὶ τὴν φυσικὴν θεωρίαν πνευματικωτέρων λόγων συλλογὴ καὶ ἀπόλαυσις. Θέρος θέρους ἐστὶν ἡ μετὰ τὴν τῶν νοητῶν θεωρίαν συλλογὴ καὶ συναγωγὴ τοῦ νοῦ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, θεριζομένου μὲν τῇ ἀποδιαιρέσει τῶν ἄλλων πάντων ὅσα μετὰ Θεόν· προσφερομένου δὲ μόνῳ τῷ Θεῷ, τῷ πρὸς μόνον αὐτὸν διηνεκῶς ἀνατείνεσθαι. Περὶ περιτομῆς. Φυσικὸν ἡ ἀκροβυστία. Πᾶν δὲ φυσικὸν θείας ἔργον δημιουργίας ἐστὶ, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο λίαν καλόν. Καὶ εἶδε γὰρ, φησὶν, ὁ Θεὸς πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησε, καὶ ἰδοὺ καλὰ λίαν. Οὐκοῦν ὁ τοῖς συμβόλοις ἐπιβάλλων τοῦ νόμου, γνώσεται πάντως ὡς οὐ τὴν φύσιν ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ τοσαύτας γενεὰς διορθούμενος, ἐνομοθέτησε περιτέμνεσθαι τὴν ἀκροβυστίαν, ὡς βλαβερὰν ἢ ἀκάθαρτον· ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς τοιαύτης περιτομῆς ὡς συμβόλου τὴν ἐμπαθῆ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐκέλευσε περιτέμνεσθαι διάθεσιν. Καὶ ἐπεὶ ἡ ἀκροβυστία ἡδυντικοῦ μορίου ἐστὶ περίττωμα, τὴν περιττὴν ἡδονὴν ἀποτίθεσθαι προσέταξε· περιττὴ δὲ ἡδονὴ πᾶσα ἁμαρτία. Λοιπὸν οὖν ὁ μὲν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν φέρων, ἀκρόβυστός ἐστιν, εἰ καὶ περιτέμνεται σωματικῶς· ὁ δὲ ταύτην ἀποθέμενος, περιτετμημένος ἐστὶν, εἰ καὶ τὸ