8. For that both history of
the Old Testament, and ætiology, and analogy are found in the New
Testament, has been, as I think, sufficiently proved: it remains to
show this of allegory. Our Redeemer Himself in the Gospel uses
allegory out of the Old Testament. “This generation,” saith He,
“seeketh a sign, and there shall not be given it save the sign of
Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in
the whale’s belly, so also shall the Son of Man be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth.”1708
For why should I speak of the
Apostle Paul, who in his first
Epistle to the Corinthians shows
that even the very history of the Exodus was an
allegory of the
future
Christian People. “But I would not that ye should be
ignorant,
brethren, how that all our fathers were under the
cloud,
and all passed through the
sea, and were all
baptized into
Moses,
in the
cloud, and in the
sea, and did all eat the same
spiritual
meat, and did all drink the same
spiritual drink; for they drank of
the
spiritual Rock that followed with them; and that
Rock was
Christ. But in the more part of them
God was not well pleased: for
they were
overthrown in the
wilderness. But these things were
figures of us,
1709
| 1709 Figuræ nostra
τὐποι
ἠμῶν Gr. in figura facta
sunt nostri. Vulg. |
that we be
not
lustful of
evil things, as they also
lusted. Neither let us
worship idols, as certain of them; as it is written, The people sat
down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us
commit
fornication, as certain of them
committed, and fell in one day
three and twenty
thousand men. Neither let us tempt
Christ, as
certain of them tempted, and
perished of
serpents. Neither
murmur
we, as certain of them
murmured, and
perished of the destroyer. But
all these things happened unto them in a figure.
1710
But they were written for our
admonition, upon whom the ends of the
world have come.”
1711
There is
also in the
Apostle a certain
allegory, which indeed greatly
relates to the cause in
hand, for this reason that they themselves
are wont to bring it forward, and make a display of it in
disputing. For the same
Paul says to the Galatians, “For it is
written, that
Abraham had two sons, one of a
bond-
maid, and one of
a free
woman. But he who was of the
bond-
maid was
born after the
flesh: but he who was of the free
woman, by
promise: which things
were spoken by way of
allegory.
1712
For these are the two Testaments,
one of Mount
Sinai gendering unto
bondage, which is Agar: for
Sinai
is a mount in
Arabia, which bordereth
1713
upon that
Jerusalem which now is,
and is in bondage with her children. But that Jerusalem which is
above is free, which is the mother of us all.”
1714
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