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| Of Israel’s Bondage in Egypt, Their Deliverance, and Their Passage Through the Red Sea.
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Chapter
20.—Of Israel’s Bondage in Egypt, Their Deliverance, and Their
Passage Through the Red Sea.
34. “That people, then, having
been brought down into Egypt, were in bondage to the harshest of
kings; and, taught by the most oppressive labors, they sought their
deliverer in God; and there was sent to them one belonging to the
people themselves, Moses, the holy servant of God, who, in the
might of God, terrified the impious nation of the Egyptians in
those days by great miracles, and led forth the people of God out
of that land through the Red Sea, where the water parted and opened
up a way for them as they crossed it, whereas, when the Egyptians
pressed on in pursuit, the waves returned to their channel and
overwhelmed them, so that they perished. Thus, then, just as the
earth through the agency of the flood was cleansed by the waters
from the wickedness of the sinners, who in those times were
destroyed in their inundation, while the righteous escaped by means
of the wood; so the people of God, when they went forth from Egypt,
found a way through the waters by which their enemies were
devoured. Nor was the sacrament of the wood wanting there. For
Moses smote with his rod, in order that that miracle might be
effected. Both these are signs of holy baptism, by
which the faithful pass into the new life, while their sins are
done away with like enemies, and perish. But more clearly was the
passion of Christ prefigured in the case of that people, when they
were commanded to slay and eat the lamb, and to mark their
door-posts with its blood, and to celebrate this rite every year,
and to designate it the Lord’s passover. For surely prophecy
speaks with the utmost plainness of the Lord Jesus Christ, when it
says that “He was led as a lamb to the slaughter.”1445
And with
the sign of His passion and cross, thou art this day to be marked
on thy forehead, as on the door-post, and all Christians are marked
with the same.
35. “Thereafter this people was
conducted through the wilderness for forty years. They also
received the law written by the finger of God, under which name the
Holy Spirit is signified, as it is declared with the utmost
plainness in the Gospel. For God is not defined1446
| 1446 Or = circumscribed,
definitus. | by the form of a body, neither are
members and fingers to be thought of as existent in Him in the way
in which we see them in ourselves. But, inasmuch as it is through
the Holy Spirit that God’s gifts are divided to His saints, in
order that, although they vary in their capacities, they may
nevertheless not lapse from the concord of charity, and inasmuch as
it is especially in the fingers that there appears a certain kind
of division, while nevertheless there is no separation from unity,
this may be the explanation of the phrase. But whether this may be
the case, or whatever other reason may be assigned for the Holy
Spirit being called the finger of God, we ought not at any rate to
think of the form of a human body when we hear this expression
used. The people in question, then, received the law written by the
finger of God, and that in good sooth on tables of stone, to
signify the hardness of their heart in that they were not to
fulfill the law. For, as they eagerly sought from the Lord gifts
meant for the uses of the body, they were held by carnal fear
rather than by spiritual charity. But nothing fulfills the law save
charity. Consequently, they were burdened with many visible
sacraments, to the intent that they should feel the pressure of the
yoke of bondage in the observances of meats, and in the sacrifices
of animals, and in other rites innumerable; which things, at the
same time, were signs of spiritual matters relating to the Lord
Jesus Christ and to the Church; which, furthermore, at that time
were both understood by a few holy men to the effect of yielding
the fruit of salvation, and observed by them in accordance with the
fitness of the time, while by the multitude of carnal men they were
observed only and not understood.
36. “In this manner, then,
through many varied signs of things to come, which it would be
tedious to enumerate in complete detail, and which we now see in
their fulfillment in the Church, that people were brought to the
land of promise, in which they were to reign in a temporal and
carnal way in accordance with their own longings: which earthly
kingdom, nevertheless, sustained the image of a spiritual kingdom.
There Jerusalem was founded, that most celebrated city of God,
which, while in bondage, served as a sign of the free city, which
is called the heavenly Jerusalem1447
which latter term is a Hebrew
word, and signifies by interpretation the ‘vision of peace.’
The citizens thereof are all sanctified men, who have been, who
are, and who are yet to be; and all sanctified spirits, even as
many as are obedient to God with pious devotion in the exalted
regions of heaven, and imitate not the impious pride of the devil
and his angels. The King of this city is the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Word of God, by whom the highest angels are governed, and at the
same time the Word that took unto Himself human nature,1448
in order
that by Him men also might be governed, who, in His fellowship,
shall reign all together in eternal peace. In the service of
prefiguring this King in that earthly kingdom of the people of
Israel, King David stood forth pre-eminent,1449
of whose seed according to the
flesh that truest King was to come, to wit, our Lord Jesus Christ,
‘who is over all, God blessed for ever.’1450
In that land of promise many
things were done, which held good as figures of the Christ who was
to come, and of the Church, with which you will have it in your
power to acquaint yourself by degrees in the Holy
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