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

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 reigns over the Jews who worship God bodily. Since David is interpreted as contempt, and sufficient in sight. Such is the evangelical law; on the one hand, considered as such among the Jews, and on the other, among the Christians. Just as Saul is interpreted as borrowed, or a loan. Such is the Mosaic law, when taken according to the letter. For it was given for a time and until the coming of the evangelical. For even if Saul is interpreted in another sense as Hades requested, yet the meaning declared here is the appropriate one. And the Gibeonites are the higher principles according to natural contemplation. For Gibeonites are interpreted as mountainous or lofty. Whom Joshua son of Nun saved, after slaying the five kings who warred against them; and he appointed them for the tabernacle as hewers of wood and drawers of water, prefiguring Jesus Christ, who slew the passionate thoughts and ways that, according to the fivefold sense, war against the higher principles of natural contemplation, and preserved them. And these intelligible Gibeonites he appointed to the tabernacle of the divine mysteries, as hewers of wood, inasmuch as they supply kindling material for the light of knowledge; and as drawers of water, inasmuch as they bring a cleansing from the passions. For natural contemplation in the spirit, being a sort of mean between types and truth, leads away from the one, and leads back to the other. These, therefore, Saul destroys and casts out from the initiation into divine things, Saul who is the law of the letter, who reigns over those who live according to sense alone; and anyone who, holding only to the letter, rejects the spirit hidden in the letter. And the Gibeonites also typify the portion of the Gentiles for Jesus, the inheritor of the divine promises, who are commanded to hew wood and draw water, that is, to bear the knowledge concerning the saving cross and the life-giving baptism; and through the practical life, as wood, to bring about the 77.1253 mortification of the members that are upon the earth; and through the contemplative, as water, the influx of knowledge. God was therefore angered, on account of the destruction of the Gibeonites. And he brought on the famine, not in the days of Saul who destroyed them, but in the days of David; because it is not natural, while the letter of the law is living and reigning over the Jews who are corporeal and dull of intellect, for the famine of spiritual knowledge to be known; but rather for it to occur in the days of David, after that one had died at the end of the time appointed for the corporeal worship of the law, I mean of the spirit of the law, which was hidden in the letter, having now shone forth and reigning over the Christians who are spiritual and subtle of intellect. For those around the aforementioned Saul, having never enjoyed spiritual knowledge, were not able to know its famine. For famine is the absence of goods known by experience. And here also a scarcity of the spiritual foods of the soul. But those around the aforementioned David, these especially hunger this famine, when they attend to the house of Saul, in attending to the letter, and in receiving the things of divine Scripture corporeally. Concerning which house we shall speak as we proceed. And a famine of three years is the lack of spiritual knowledge according to the three laws: the natural, the Mosaic, and the evangelical. For the lack of spiritual contemplation according to the Mosaic law has following it also that according to the natural and that according to the evangelical; wherefore they are also said to be connected to each other. And in another way, he who takes the Mosaic law corporeally hungers for these three things, virtue, and deification. And just as the face is characteristic of each individual, so also does spiritual knowledge emphatically characterize the Divine; he who seeks it, is said to seek

∆αβὶδ μὲν ὁ κατὰ τὸ πνεῦμα νόμος, ὁ βασιλεύων τῶν πνευματικῶς Θεῷ λατρευόντων Χριστιανῶν. Σαοὺλ δὲ ὁ κατὰ γράμμα νόμος, ὁ βασιλεύων τῶν σωματικῶς Θεῷ λατρευόντων Ἰουδαίων. Ἐπεὶ καὶ ∆αβὶδ ἑρμηνεύεται ἐξουδένωσις, καὶ ἱκανὸς ὁράσει. Τοιοῦτος δὲ ὁ εὐαγγελικὸς νόμος· τὸ μὲν παρ' Ἰουδαίοις νομιζόμενος, τὸ δὲ παρὰ Χριστιανοῖς. Ὥσπερ καὶ Σαοὺλ ἑρμηνεύεται δεδανεισμένος, ἢ δάνειον. Τοιοῦτος δὲ ὁ Μωσαϊκὸς νόμος, κατὰ τὸ γράμμα λαμβανόμενος. Πρόσκαιρος γὰρ ἐδόθη καὶ μέχρι τῆς ἐπιδημίας τοῦ εὐαγγελικοῦ. Εἰ γὰρ καὶ αἰτητὸς ᾅδης καθ' ἕτερον λόγον ὁ Σαοὺλ ἑρμηνεύεται, ἀλλὰ τὸ δηλωθὲν σημαινόμενον ἐνταῦθα οἰκεῖον. Γαβαωνῖται δὲ, οἱ κατὰ τὴν φυσικὴν θεωρίαν ὑψηλότεροι λόγοι. Γαβαωνῖται γὰρ ὀρεινοὶ ἢ μετέωροι ἑρμηνεύονται. Οὓς διέσωσεν Ἰησοῦς ὁ τοῦ Ναυῆ, ἀποκτείνας τοὺς πολεμοῦντας αὐτοῖς εʹ βασιλεῖς· καὶ κατέστησεν αὐτοὺς τῇ σκηνῇ ξυλοφόρους καὶ ὑδροφόρους, προτυπῶν τὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν, ὃς ἀπέκτεινε τοὺς κατὰ τὴν πενταδικὴν αἴσθησιν πολεμοῦντας τοῖς κατὰ τὴν φυσικὴν θεωρίαν ὑψηλοτέροις λόγοις, ἐμπαθεῖς λογισμοὺς καὶ τρόπους, καὶ περιποιησάμενος. Τούτους δὲ τοὺς νοητοὺς Γαβαωνίτας κατέστησε τῇ σκηνῇ τῶν θείων μυστηρίων, ξυλοφόρους μὲν, ὡς χορηγοῦντας ὕλην ἐξαπτικὴν τοῦ φωτὸς τῆς γνώσεως· ὑδροφόρους δὲ, ὡς κομίζοντας ῥύψιν τῶν παθῶν· ἡ γὰρ ἐν πνεύματι φυσικὴ θεωρία μέση τις οὖσα τύπων καὶ ἀληθείας, τῶν μὲν ἀπάγει, πρὸς δὲ τὴν ἐπανάγει. Τούτους τοίνυν ἀναιρεῖ καὶ ἔξω ποιεῖ τῆς τῶν θείων μυσταγωγίας Σαοὺλ, ὁ τοῦ γράμματος νόμος, ὁ τῶν κατὰ μόνην τὴν αἴσθησιν ζώντων βασιλεύων· καὶ εἴ τις μόνου τοῦ γράμματος ἀντεχόμενος, ἀθετεῖ τὸ ὑποκρυπτόμενον τῷ γράμματι πνεῦμα. Τυποῦσι δὲ οἱ Γαβαωνῖται καὶ τὴν ἐθνικὴν μερίδα τῷ κληροδότῃ τῶν θείων ἐπαγγελιῶν Ἰησοῦ, καὶ προσταττομένων ξυλοφορεῖν καὶ ὑδροφορεῖν, τοῦτ' ἔστι, τὴν περὶ τοῦ σωτηρίου σταυροῦ καὶ ζωοποιοῦ βαπτίσματος γνῶσιν βαστάζειν· καὶ διὰ μὲν τῆς πρακτικῆς· ὡς ξύλα τὴν 77.1253 νέκρωσιν τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς μελῶν παραφέρειν· διὰ δὲ τῆς θεωρητικῆς, ὡς ὕδωρ τὴν ἐπιῤῥοὴν τῆς γνώσεως. Ὠργίσθη μὲν οὖν ὁ Θεὸς, διὰ τὴν τῶν Γαβαωνιτῶν ἀναίρεσιν. Ἐπήγαγε δὲ τὸν λιμὸν, οὐκ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ ἀνελόντος αὐτοὺς Σαοὺλ, ἀλλὰ ἐν ταῖς τοῦ ∆αβίδ· ὅτι μηδὲ πέφυκε, ζῶντος τοῦ νομικοῦ γράμματος καὶ βασιλεύοντος τῶν σωματικῶν καὶ παχῶν τὴν διάνοιαν Ἰουδαίων, γνωσθῆναι τὸν λιμὸν τῆς πνευματικῆς γνώσεως· ἀλλ' ἀποθανόντος ἐκείνου τῷ πέρατι τοῦ χρόνου τοῦ ὁρισθέντος τῇ σωματικῇ λατρείᾳ τοῦ νόμου, μᾶλλον ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ∆αβὶδ γενέσθαι, τοῦ νομικοῦ λέγω πνεύματος, τοῦ ὑποκεκρυμμένου τῷ γράμματι, λάμψαντος ἤδη καὶ βασιλεύοντος τῶν πνευματικῶν καὶ λεπτῶν τὴν διάνοιαν Χριστιανῶν. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ περὶ τὸν εἰρημένον Σαοὺλ, μηδέποτε πνευματικῶς γνώσεως ἀπολαύσαντες, οὐδὲ τὸν λιμὸν αὐτῆς ἠδύναντο γνῶναι. Λιμὸς γάρ ἐστιν ἔκλειψις τῶν κατὰ πεῖραν ἀγαθῶν ἐγνωσμένων. Ἐνταῦθα δὲ καὶ σπάνις τῶν πνευματικῶν τῆς ψυχῆς βρωμάτων. Οἱ δ' ἀμφὶ τὸν δηλωθέντα ∆αβὶδ, οὗτοι μάλιστα λιμώττουσι τοῦτον τὸν λιμὸν, ὅταν περιέπωσι τὸ γένος Σαοὺλ, ἐν τῷ περιέπειν τὸ γράμμα, καὶ σωματικῶς ἐκδέχεσθαι τὰ τῆς θείας Γραφῆς. Περὶ οὗ γένους προϊόντες ἐροῦμεν. Λιμὸς δὲ τριῶν ἐτῶν, ἡ ἔλλειψις τῆς κατὰ τοὺς τρεῖς νόμους, τόν τε φυσικὸν καὶ τὸν Μωσαϊκὸν, καὶ τὸν εὐαγγελικὸν, πνευματικῆς γνώσεως. Ἡ γὰρ ἔνδεια τῆς κατὰ τὸν Μωσαϊκὸν νόμον πνευματικῆς θεωρίας, ἔχει παρεπομένην καὶ τὴν κατὰ τὸν φυσικὸν, καὶ τὴν κατὰ τὸν εὐαγγελικόν· διὸ καὶ ἀλλήλων ἔχεσθαι λέγονται. Καὶ ἄλλως γὰρ ὁ τὸν Μωσαϊκὸν νόμον σωματικῶς λαμβάνων, λιμώττει τὰ τρία ταῦτα ἀρετὴν, καὶ θέωσιν. Ὥσπερ δὲ τὸ πρόσωπον χαρακτηριστικόν ἐστι τοῦ καθ' ἕκαστον, οὕτως καὶ ἡ πνευματικὴ γνῶσις ἐμφατικῶς χαρακτηρίζει τὸ Θεῖον· ἣν ὁ ἐκζητῶν, λέγεται ἐκζητεῖν