Chapter XVIII.1022    Compare adv. Judæos, chap. 10. [pp. 165, 166, supra.]—Types of the Death of Christ. Isaac; Joseph; Jacob Against Simeon and Levi; Moses Praying Against Amalek; The Brazen Serpent.

On the subject of His death,1023    De exitu. I suppose, you endeavour to introduce a diversity of opinion, simply because you deny that the suffering of the cross was predicted of the Christ of the Creator, and because you contend, moreover, that it is not to be believed that the Creator would expose His Son to that kind of death on which He had Himself pronounced a curse. “Cursed,” says He, “is every one who hangeth on a tree.”1024    Compare Deut. xxi. 23 with Gal. iii. 13. But what is meant by this curse, worthy as it is of the simple prediction of the cross, of which we are now mainly inquiring, I defer to consider, because in another passage1025    The words “quiaet aliasantecedit rerum probatio rationem,” seem to refer to the parallel passage in adv. Judæos, where he has described the Jewish law of capital punishment, and argued for the exemption of Christ from its terms. He begins that paragraph with saying, “Sed hujus maledictionis sensum antecedit rerum ratio.”  [See, p. 164, supra.] we have given the reason1026    Perhaps rationale or procedure. of the thing preceded by proof. First, I shall offer a full explanation1027    Edocebo. of the types. And no doubt it was proper that this mystery should be prophetically set forth by types, and indeed chiefly by that method: for in proportion to its incredibility would it be a stumbling-block, if it were set forth in bare prophecy; and in proportion too, to its grandeur, was the need of obscuring it in shadow,1028    Magis obumbrandum. that the difficulty of understanding it might lead to prayer for the grace of God. First, then, Isaac, when he was given up by his father as an offering, himself carried the wood for his own death. By this act he even then was setting forth the death of Christ, who was destined by His Father as a sacrifice, and carried the cross whereon He suffered. Joseph likewise was a type of Christ, not indeed on this ground (that I may not delay my course1029    But he may mean, by “ne demorer cursum,” “that I may not obstruct the course of the type,” by taking off attention from its true force. In the parallel place, however, another turn is given to the sense; Joseph is a type, “even on this ground—that I may but briefly allude to it—that he suffered,” etc.), that he suffered persecution for the cause of God from his brethren, as Christ did from His brethren after the flesh, the Jews; but when he is blessed by his father in these words: “His glory is that of a bullock; his horns are the horns of a unicorn; with them shall he push the nations to the very ends of the earth,”1030    Deut. xxxiii. 17.—he was not, of course, designated as a mere unicorn with its one horn, or a minotaur with two; but Christ was indicated in him—a bullock in respect of both His characteristics: to some as severe as a Judge, to others gentle as a Saviour, whose horns were the extremities of His cross. For of the antenna, which is a part of a cross, the ends are called horns; while the midway stake of the whole frame is the unicorn. By this virtue, then, of His cross, and in this manner “horned,” He is both now pushing all nations through faith, bearing them away from earth to heaven; and will then push them through judgment, casting them down from heaven to earth. He will also, according to another passage in the same scripture, be a bullock, when He is spiritually interpreted to be Jacob against Simeon and Levi, which means against the scribes and the Pharisees; for it was from them that these last derived their origin.1031    Census.Like Simeon and Levi, they consummated their wickedness by their heresy, with which they persecuted Christ. “Into their counsel let not my soul enter; to their assembly let not my heart be united: for in their anger they slew men,” that is, the prophets; “and in their self-will they hacked the sinews of a bullock,”1032    Gen. xlix. 6. The last clause is, “ceciderunt nervos tauro.” that is, of Christ. For against Him did they wreak their fury after they had slain His prophets, even by affixing Him with nails to the cross. Otherwise, it is an idle thing1033    Vanum. when, after slaying men, he inveighs against them for the torture of a bullock! Again, in the case of Moses, wherefore did he at that moment particularly, when Joshua was fighting Amalek, pray in a sitting posture with outstretched hands, when in such a conflict it would surely have been more seemly to have bent the knee, and smitten the breast, and to have fallen on the face to the ground, and in such prostration to have offered prayer? Wherefore, but because in a battle fought in the name of that Lord who was one day to fight against the devil, the shape was necessary of that very cross through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, once more, did the same Moses, after prohibiting the likeness of everything, set up the golden serpent on the pole; and as it hung there, propose it as an object to be looked at for a cure?1034    Spectaculum salutare. Did he not here also intend to show the power of our Lord’s cross, whereby that old serpent the devil was vanquished,—whereby also to every man who was bitten by spiritual serpents, but who yet turned with an eye of faith to it, was proclaimed a cure from the bite of sin, and health for evermore?

CAPUT XVIII.

0345C

De exitu plane puto diversitatem tentatis inducere, negantes passionem crucis in Christum Creatoris praedicatam, et argumentantes insuper non esse credendum, ut in id genus mortis exposuerit Creator Filium suum, quod ipse maledixerat: Maledictus, inquit (Deuter., XXI), omnis qui pependerit in ligno. Sed hujus maledictionis sensum differo, dignae sola praedicatione crucis, de qua nunc maxime quaeritur, 0346A quia et alias antecedit rerum probatio rationem. De figuris prius edocebo. Et utique vel maxime sacramentum istud figurari in praedicatione oportebat, quanto incredibile, tanto magis scandalo futurum, si nude praedicaretur; quantoque magnificum, tanto magis obumbrandum, ut difficultas intellectus gratiam Dei quaereret. Itaque in primis Isaac, cum a patre in hostiam deditus, lignum sibi ipse portaret, Christi exitum jam tunc denotabat, in victimam concessi a Patre, et lignum passionis suae bajulantis. Joseph et ipse in Christum figuratus, nec hoc solo (ne demorer cursum) quod persecutionem a fratribus passus est, et venumdatus in Aegyptum , ob Dei gratiam, sicut et Christus a Judaeis carnaliter fratribus venumdatus, a Juda cum traditur. Nam 0346B et benedicitur in haec verba (Deuter., XXXIII, 17): Tauri decor ejus , cornua unicornis cornua ejus, in eis nationes ventilabit pariter ad summum usque terrae: non utique rhinoceros destinabatur unicornis, nec Minotaurus bicornis; sed Christus in illo significabatur, taurus ob utramque dispositionem; aliis ferus, ut judex; aliis mansuetus, ut salvator; cujus cornua essent crucis extima . Nam et in antenna navis , quae crucis pars est, extremitates cornua vocantur : unicornis autem, media stipitis, palus. Hac denique virtute crucis , et hoc more cornutus, universas gentes et nunc ventilat per fidem, auferens a terra in coelum; et tunc per judicium ventilabit, dejiciens de coelo in terram. Idem erit et alibi taurus apud eamdem scripturam, cum Jacob in 0346C Simeonem et Levi exporrigens benedictionem , id est , in Scribas et Pharisaeos (ex illis enim deducitur census istorum) spiritaliter interpretatur. Simeon et Levi (Genes., XLIX, 6) perfecerunt iniquitatem, ex sua haeresi, qua scilicet Christum sunt persecuti. In concilium eorum ne venerit anima mea, et in stationem eorum ne incubuerint jecora mea: quia in indignatione sua interfecerunt homines, id est Prophetas, et in concupiscentia sua caeciderunt nervos 0347A tauro, id est Christo, quem post necem Prophetarum interfecerunt , et suffigendo nervos ejus clavis desaevierunt. Caeterum, vanum si, post homicidia, alicujus bovis illis exprobrat carnificinam. Jam vero Moyses, quid utique tunc tantum, cum Jesus adversus Amalech praeliabatur, expansis manibus orabat residens; quando in rebus tam attonitis, magis utique genibus depositis , et manibus caedentibus pectus, et facie humi volutante, orationem commendare debuisset; nisi quia illic ubi nomen Domini Jesu dimicabat, dimicaturi quandoque adversus diabolum, crucis quoque erat habitus necessarius, per quam Jesus victoriam esset relaturus? Idem rursus Moyses (Num. XXI) post interdictam omnis rei similitudinem, cur aereum serpentem, ligno impositum, pendentis 0347B habitu in spectaculum Israeli salutare proposuit eo tempore quo a serpentibus exterminati sunt, nisi quod et hic dominicae crucis vim intentabat, qua serpens diabolus publicabatur, et laeso cuique a spiritalibus colubris, intuenti tamen et credenti in eam sanitas morsuum peccatorum, et salus exinde praedicabatur.