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| Passages of Holy Scripture Compared.
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Discourse
III.—Thaleia.
Chapter I.—Passages of Holy
Scripture2550
Compared.
You seem to me, O Theophila, to excel all in action and
in speech, and to be second to none in wisdom. For there is no
one who will find fault with your discourse, however contentious and
contradictory he may be. Yet, while everything else seems rightly
spoken, one thing, my friend, distresses and troubles me, considering
that that wise and most spiritual man—I mean Paul—would not vainly refer to
Christ and the Church the union of the first man and woman,2551
if the Scripture
meant nothing higher than what is conveyed by the mere words and the
history; for if we are to take the Scripture as a bare representation
wholly referring to the union of man and woman, for what reason should
the apostle, calling these things to remembrance, and guiding us, as I
opine, into the way of the Spirit, allegorize the history of Adam and
Eve as having a reference to Christ and the Church? For the
passage in Genesis reads thus: “And Adam said, This is now
bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man
leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh.”2552
But the apostle considering this
passage, by no means, as I said, intends to take it according to its
mere natural sense, as referring to the union of man and woman, as you
do; for you, explaining the passage in too natural a sense, laid down
that the Spirit is speaking only of conception and births; that the
bone taken from the bones was made another man, and that living
creatures coming together swell like trees at the time of
conception. But he, more spiritually referring the passage to
Christ, thus teaches: “He that loveth his wife loveth
himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth
and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church: for we are
members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto
his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great
mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the
Church.”2553
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