On the use and benefits of the Pentateuch and Old Testament.
There are some who think that the Old Testament belongs to the Jews, as it were, and that it is not as useful or necessary for Christians, and that it is enough for a theologian to understand the gospels and the epistles. This persuasion, if it is a matter of practice, is a practical mistake; if it is theoretical, it is heresy; in either case, it is harmful and ought to be eliminated.
This was the heresy of Simon Magus and his followers, then of Marcion, Curbica the Persian (whom his followers honored with the titles Manes and Manichaeus, as if he poured out manna), the Albigensians, and lately of the libertines and certain anabaptists who proscribe the Old Testament and Moses, although the foundation in each case is not the same. Simon, the manichaeans, and the marcionites taught that the Old Testament was produced by a sinister power and the bad angels, since this Testament describes a God who from eternity dwelt in darkness before there was light, who forbade man to take the food of knowledge of good and evil, which lay hidden in a corner of paradise, who requires angels to guard paradise, who is subject to wrath, zeal, and indeed to jealousy; who is indignant, vindictive, ignorant, and who asks questions such as "Adam, where are thou?". For the libertines, it is not the letter of the Old Testament but rather its sense and their own inclination that guide faith and morals. The anabaptists boast that they are led and taught by an enthusiasm (inpouring) of the spirit. Our own age, which has seen nothing that is not monstrous, has seen a fanatic who invented a triumvirate of blasphemy consisting of the three impostors of the world: Moses, Christ, and Mohamed (I shudder to say more).
Those of our people who use time or labor or utility as an excuse for their neglect of the Old Testament can be forgiven for their opinion, but in point of fact they are in error, and their error always comes to the same thing: it is an error, I repeat, because it brings one into conflict with Moses, with the prophets, with the apostles, with the mind of the Church, with the fathers, with reason, with Christ, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
With Moses: see Deuteronomy, 17:8: "If thou perceive that there be among you a hard and doubtful matter in judgment," etc. "thou shalt do whatsoever they shall say, that preside in the place, which the Lord shall choose, and what they shall teach thee According to his law." Who does not see that disagreements about faith, morals, and rites, both new and old, must be settled according to the law of God, and that priests and theologians must use the law, like a Lydian stone, to define them? Therefore, they must study the law, both old and new.
With the Prophets: for Isaias, chapter 8, verse 20, cries: "To the law rather, and to the testimony." And Malachias, chapter 2, verse 7: "For the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth." Also David, Psalm 118:2: "Blessed are they who search his testimonies," and verse 18: "Open thou my eyes: and I will consider the wondrous things of thy law."
With the apostles: St. Peter says in his second Epistle, chapter 2 [sic, chapter 1], verse 19: "And we have the more firm prophetical word: whereunto you do well to attend, as to a light that shineth in a dark place." St. Paul praised Timothy (2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 15), because he had known the sacred writings from his infancy (i.e., the old writings, [17] the only ones that existed at the time), "which can instruct thee to salvation, by the faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work."
With Christ, who says, "Search the scriptures," John 5:39. He does not say, "Read the scriptures" (adds Chrysostom), but "Search" them, that is, dig up the hidden treasures of the scriptures with hard work and diligence, like those who carefully search for gold and silver in the veins of minerals.
With the mind of the Church: for as a faithful guardian, she displays and makes known both the Old and New Testaments in her sacred rites, at table, in libraries and in chairs of learning. At the Council of Trent, in the entire first chapter of the decree On Reformation, she commands that the continual reading of holy scripture be everywhere restored and firmly established. She also requires bishops, the future pastors of the Church, to affirm before they are consecrated that they know both the old and new testaments; and although Sylvester, called The Bishop [???], and others soften the interpretation of this pledge, many wiser heads, after careful consideration of the words themselves, conclude that this oath was added so that they might recuse the episcopate rather than bind themselves with a false oath.
With the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: for why has the Holy Trinity preserved the Old Testament for four thousand years, in such good repair, through so many wars and political upheavals, unless he wished us to do what Josue says in chapter 1, verse 8: "Let not the book of this law depart from thy mouth: but thou shalt meditate on it day and night." Why has he punished those who profane it with such harsh vengeance? Josephus and Aristeas, in the book On the Seventy Translators, tell us that the celebrated Theopompus, when he wished to adorn a passage of the divine Hebrew books with Greek speech, was stricken with agitation and unsoundness of mind and so forced to abandon his project. And when he asked God in prayer why this had happened to him, God answered that he defiled the divine writings. Moreover, they relate, Theodectes, a writer of tragedies, wanted to bring some things from the scripture of the Jews into a play, and paid for his temerity with blindness; for he was immediately stricken and deprived of his eyesight. When they both recognized their fault, repented of the deed, and asked God for forgiveness, the former recovered his mind and the latter, his eyes. Why did the Trinity move Ptolemy Philadelphus, the son of Ptolemy Lagus, who succeeded his brother Alexander the Great as king of Egypt, to employ the high priest Eleazer in the selection of six men of the wisest men from each tribe--the seventy interpreters--to translate the old testament from Hebrew to Greek? Why did God see to it that they completed the task in seventy days with the greatest agreement, not only regarding the sense, but also the words? And they did this, if we believe Justin, Cyril, Clement of Alexandria, and Augustine, when each of them made his own version isolated in a separate cell? Why did Philadelphus charge Demetrius, the prefect of the library of Alexandria, to place and carefully preserve this translation, the Septuagint, in his library along with the Hebrew exemplars? Tertullian, in his Apology, testifies that the same was preserved up to his own time; thus God wished these things to be entrusted to the Greek nations, and though them to the Latin--that is, to us and our theologians--and to be distributed to all parts of the world, to all academies and cities.
After Christ, why did God give or foresee so many other translators as witnesses and keepers of the same Old Testament? The second translator of the Hebrew after the Septuagint, according to Epiphanius, was Aquila Ponticus, who translated the Hebrew scripture into Greek in the twelfth year of the reign of Hadrian. But because he defected from Christianity to the Jews, his reliability is uncertain.
His more trustworthy successor was Theodotion, a Jewish convert from the Marcionite sect when Commodus was emperor, whose translation of Daniel was accepted and followed by the Church. The fourth was Symmachus, who was first an Ebionite and then a Jew during the reign of Severus. The fifth was an anonymous translator, whose version was discovered in some jars in the town of Jericho in the seventh year of Caracalla, who succeeded his father, Severus. The sixth was likewise anonymous and likewise found in jars at Nicopolis when Alexander, the son of Mammea, was ruling. These are commonly regarded as the fifth and sixth editions. Origen collected them all for the composition of his Tetrapla, Hexapla, and Octapla; he also corrected errors in the text of the Septuagint, so that his edition is universally regarded as the κοινή , i.e., the common text. The seventh translator was St. Lucian, priest and martyr, who made a new translation from Hebrew into Greek at the time of Diocletian.
Finally, St. Jerome, the sun of the Latin Church, at the behest of Blessed Damasus, translated the Old Testament from Hebrew to Latin; his version, which has been in common use for a thousand years, after a few subtractions, is approved and followed by the Church. For what purpose, I repeat, did God so carefully and diligently provide all this, except to pass on without diminishment this sacred and ancient treasure of ancient books for reading, teaching, and learning?
This view conflicts with the fathers: for St. Augustine wrote in defense of the utility of the Pentateuch and the Old Testament in the 33 books Against Faustus and another two books Against the Adversary of the Law and Prophets. Tertullian wrote four books Against Marcion in the same vein. To encourage the reading of these scriptures, St. Basil and his follower and interpreter St. Ambrose toiled as one, writing the Hexameron on Genesis and commentaries on the Psalms and Isaias. Origen wrote sixteen books on Genesis, Chrysostom, [illegible; 67?] homilies. St. Cyril composed seventeen books [18] on the Pentateuch, entitled On Worship in Spirit and Truth; inquiries and paraphrases of the same were published by St. Augustine, Theodoret, Bede, Procopius, and Jerome. And this was fitting; for as St. Ambrose says in Letter 44, divine scripture is a sea that has profound meanings and a depth of prophetic mysteries, especially in the Old Testament.
St. Jerome, in the preface to his commentary on the Letter to the Ephesians, entitled On the Study of Scripture, says, "Since my youth, I have never ceased to read or to ask learned men about the things of which I was ignorant; I was never my own teacher, as most are. Finally, for this reason above all I set out to Alexandria, that I might see Didymus and consult with him regarding all my doubts about passages of Scripture." St. Augustine, in the third book On Christian Doctrine, chapter 6, says that it was by the providence of God that the industry of man was delivered from both pride and tedium by holy scripture, which is so varied and difficult. The same author says in book 12 of the Confessions, chapter 14: "Wonderful is the depth of Your oracles, whose surface is before us, inviting the little ones; and yet wonderful is the depth, O my God, wonderful is the depth. It is awe to look into it; and awe of honor, and a tremor of love." [tr. Pilkington] Hence, he also says in Letter 119: "In the holy scriptures themselves, there is more that I do not know than that I know."
Nor was this the mind of the Church in the age of the fathers alone, but also in those centuries when scholastic theology thrived and flourished. St. Dominic, the doctor of sacred theology, frequently read the Old as well as the New Testament; in Rome and elsewhere, he publicly taught many of its books, and so was appointed the first Master of the Sacred Palace. From that time this dignity has belonged to the holy Order of Preachers. Listen to the author of his Life, book 4, chapter 4 (with allowance for his simple style): "Because one cannot be a perfect preacher without knowledge of the scriptures, he urged the Brethren always to study the Old and New Testaments. He had little regard for the inventions of philosophers, and so the Brethren who were sent to preach carried the Bible alone, and they brought many to repentance." Likewise, St. Vincent Ferrer, who within the memory of our great-grandfathers travelled through Italy, France, Germany, England, and Spain and converted a minimum of one hundred thousand persons, carried a single breviary and a Bible for his preaching.
St. Jordan the doctor, the second Master General of his order after St. Dominic, was asked by his preachers, "Which would be better, to apply oneself to prayer or sacred scripture?" He replied with humor, as was his manner: "Which would be better, always to drink, or always to eat? Surely it is best to do both, just as one ought to pray and study sacred scripture in turns." As St. Basil also says, "Let reading follow prayer, and prayer, reading."
Likewise, St. Francis indulged the request of his followers for the study of sacred letters, on the condition that they would not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion. The first member of his community to teach these letters was St. Anthony of Padua, while St. Francis was still alive to see it; he was so well versed in both the Old and New Testaments that, when he preached before the Supreme Pontiff, the latter hailed him as the arc of the covenant. I pass over St. Bernard, who spoke in the words of scripture practically every time he spoke; I pass over Blessed Alfonso Tostado, the bishop of Avila, who composed with keen judgment and diligence separate and quite ample volumes on the decateuch [Genesis through Esdras] and each of the historical books; these brought me no less labor than benefit as I read them long ago and reread them recently.
St. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1247, who spent all day and all night absorbed in the sacred literature, passed his sleepless nights with such reverence that as often as he opened the Bible, he honored it with a kiss. This story about him is memorable: when he was on an embassy and reading the Bible at night as usual, he was overcome by sleep; his candle fell on the book and set it aflame. Awaking, Edmund sighed, thinking that the book had been burned up, but he blew away the ash that covered it, he was amazed to find the volume all intact. St. Charles Borromeo spent his time in holy scripture as if in a garden of delight; he used to say that a bishop did not need a garden, since the his garden was the holy Bible.
To conclude this section, St. Thomas, the foremost of the scholastics, gave us a shining example of the way we should join scholastic theology with sacred scripture as if they were twin sisters. Everyone knows about his love for scripture, his zeal, prayers, and fasts, his commentaries on the prophets, Canticles, and Job as well other books of the Old Testament. Among these, his books on Genesis (if indeed they are his; I will discuss this later) are exceptional and erudite.
Finally, one can be persuaded of the utility and necessity of the Old Testament by reason. Moses, David, and Isaias no less than Peter, Paul, and John, were admitted to the company of the angels and drank wisdom directly from the very font of truth, and as St. Gregory and Theodoret rightly observe, the hands and tongues of these sacred writers were nothing other than the pens of the same Holy Spirit, so much that they seemed to be not different writers but diverse pens of the same writer. Therefore, the same truth, authority, reverence , study, and diligence ought to be assigned to Moses as Paul, or rather, to the Holy Spirit who was speaking through Moses and Paul, for whatever was written by him was written for our instruction. Indeed, all the wisdom that was necessary or useful for men, which we wished to share with us from the abyss of his divinity, he included in both the Old and New Testaments. This is the book of God, the book of the Word, the book of the Holy Spirit, in which there is nothing redundant, nothing superfluous, but with a variegated and beautiful harmony [19] of both writings and things all things make music together and complete and knit together this universal work of God, so that if you take away one part, you break apart the whole. Accordingly, just a philosopher should read the whole corpus of Aristotle; a physician, all of Galen; an orator, all of Cicero; and a lawyer, all of Justinian, so much more should a theologian open, read, and wear out this entire book of God. And just as one who would butcher metaphysics would do the same to philosophy, so too does one mutilate theology if he does so with scripture; for just as metaphysics supplies first principles to philosophy, so does sacred scripture does for theology. This indeed was the will of Christ when he said, "Every scribe," i.e., every doctor, every theologian, "instructed in the kingdom of heaven bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old."
I. That I should make the matter plain, however, I will review some of the more outstanding benefits of reading the Old Testament. First, the Old Testament, no less than the New, makes firm one's faith. How, I ask, do we know the beginning of the world, its creation, and the creator, unless it is because we believe that the ages have been molded by the word of God? What word is that? The first in Genesis, "Let there be light, let there be luminaries, let us make man," etc. From what have we learned about the immortal soul, the fall of man, original sin, the Cherubim, and paradise, if not from the same Genesis which narrates these things? Eusebius in the entire eleventh book of Preparation for the Gospel teaches that Plato, whom St. Augustine followed as a divine teacher in preference to Aristotle and the others, as did all the other fathers before him--that Plato, I say, took from Moses his views concerning God, the word of God, the origin of the world, the immortality of the soul, the future resurrection and judgment, and punishments and rewards.
How would we recognize the providence of God, if not from the sequence of so many centuries? From where have we drawn our knowledge of the propagation of men, kings, and kingdoms, of the universal cataclysm, of resurrection and the hope of eternal life, if not from the ancient history, from the patience of Job and the men of old, from the perpetual wandering of the patriarchs? The Apostle says, "By faith he abode in the land, dwelling in cottages, with Isaac and Jacob, the co-heirs of the same promise. For he looked for a city that hath foundations; whose builder and maker is God." And from this our hope is sharpened and our spirit rises, so that, recalling that it is a sojourner and an exile here, it may aspire to its celestial home and desire or marvel at nothing in this world, that it may trample all things under foot and regard them as dung, and with St. Jerome may constantly recite to itself this Socratic dictum: ἀεροβατῶ, καὶ περιφρονῶ τὸν ἥλιον, I ascend to the etherial plane, and I look down upon this soil, nay, upon the sky and sun itself. I am the heir and master not of the earth, but of heaven; thither am I borne in mind, hope, and with every thought, and I raise myself above the stars. I am a fellow-citizen of the saints, a householder of God, a resident of paradise. As for the rest, I trample upon it as lowly, abject, and unworthy of me.
Which book in all of scripture more clearly establishes faith in the nature, office, guardianship, and invocation of angels than the book of Tobias? Which has more expressly posited prayers for the dead than the books of the Machabees? So much so that our Innovators, when they saw no other escape and, despairing of victory and certain of defeat, were turned by necessity to rage, wrote these books out of the sacred canon.
On the other hand, how many heresies defend themselves with these books? The Jews tenaciously defend their practice of lending money at interest to Christians with this verse of Deuteronomy (23:19): Thou shalt not lend to thy brother money to usury, but to the stranger. Magicians call witnesses for magic, citing the magicians of Pharao, who used their power to change serpents into rods and rods into serpents, like Moses. On behalf of necromancy, they cite the witch who raised Samuel from the dead; he in turn upset Saul with a prophecy of coming death and disaster. On behalf of chiromancy they trot out this verse of Job, chapter 37: "He sealeth in the hand of all men, that every one may know his works."
Calvin concludes from the verse of David, "the Lord hath bid him (Semei) curse David," 2 Kings 16:10, that God is an author, nay a preceptor (as he himself thinks), of evil; and he lays down these passages of Exodus: "And I shall harden the heart of Pharao" and "And therefore have I raised thee, that I may shew my power in thee", as inescapable statements of God's reprobation. He establishes the doctrine of the slavish will on the fact that Jeremias makes us like clay in the hand of God, the potter.
A few years ago in a disputation at Regensburg, Saxon Lutherologists, vain-talkers, put the entire weight of their argument for proscribing our traditions in this one divine saying, as if it were the single arbiter of controversies : "You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it," Deuteronomy 4:2; and likewise Deuteronomy 12:32: "What I command thee, that only do thou to the Lord: neither add any thing, nor diminish."
What will you do, if you are not at home here? How you will make yourself a laughing stock to them, for the scandal of the Church, if you hesitate, if you do not read, listen, learn, and often consult the sources themselves! St. Augustine teaches that all this is necessary. Surely anyone who does not know the meaning of Hebrew צוה tsava, that is, God commanded Semei, etc., will not escape Calvin's clutches. For one who does not know the Hebrew idiom--specifically that tsava signifies to order, provide, dispose, and all of God's providence, both positive and negative or permissive-- will deploy this weapon like a spider's web. I will point out similar hebraisms in their individual occurrences, which are unintelligible except with reference to the Hebrew language.
II. This is the first, two-fold utility of the Old Testament. The second is not less than this, because the Old is much richer than the New. You will see a rich ethical doctrine in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiasticus; an admirable political philosophy in the deeds and the judicial and ceremonial laws of Moses, from which the Church and the canonical writers have borrowed a great deal, and the civil law has taken something, as well; you will find oracles in the prophets, and speeches [20] in Deuteronomy and the prophets; and, to return to the task at hand, you will find in the decateuch a most reliable, well-ordered, diverse, and entertaining account of the history of the world from its creation to the times of the judges, kings, and Christ. The law is fourfold: the law of innocence, the law of nature, the law of Moses, and the law of the Gospel. The first three are their histories are comprised by the pentateuch. As St. Jerome says in the Helmeted Prologue [sic; Letter 53, to Paulinus]: "Genesis narrates the birth of the world, the origin of the human race, the division of the earth, the confusion of tongues, and the descent of the Hebrews into Egypt " [tr. Freemantle, adapted]
The pagan Roman and Greek historians tell fables about the flood of Deucalion, about Prometheus and Hercules, and in every profane history, everything is full of fables and the darkness of ignorance until the Olympiads. These began either in the beginning of the reign of Joatham or at the end of the reign of Ozias, i.e., more than three thousand years after the creation of the world. Thus, you have no reliable history of the first three thousand years except that of Moses and the Hebrews. Indeed, history is the mistress, leader, and light of human life; in it, you may see as in a mirror the rise and fall, the virtues and vices of kingdoms, public affairs, and human life, and from the example of others and their happiness or unhappiness you may learn prudence and the way that leads to happiness.
What is more: in no history, nor even in the New Testament, are found so many, such varied, and such heroic examples of every type of virtue as in the Pentateuch and the Old Testament. The Romans praise their illustrious hucksters of glory, whose wax-covered shades, or rather images, are encircles by overgrown ivy, while their bodies and souls are bathed and consumed by eternal fire. They praise their Manlii Torquati, who slaughtered their sons for engaging the enemy in excess of their father's and general's command--although they won the battle--for the sake of establishing military discipline. But who would love the commands of a Manlius? They praise the vindicator of Roman liberty, Junius Brutus, the first consul, who flogged and beheaded his own sons and those of his brother [sic] because they had conspired with the Vitelli and the Aquilii to take the Tarquins into the City--a father unfortunate and infamous with such offspring. Who will not rather praise the innocent Abraham and Isaac, who intended to ratify the obedience due to God with bloodshed and sacrifice at the hands of a parent? Or the mother of the Machabees, who immolated herself and her seven children to God on behalf of the ancestral laws?
Let others praise those three brothers, the Horatii, who defeated those other three, the Curiatii in single combat by guile rather than strength, and transferred the rule of Alba to Rome. Who would not rather praise the courage and strength of David, who toppled with a sling that tower of flesh and bone, Goliath, and claimed for Israel power over the Philistines?
They praise the continence of Alexander, who upon the death of Darius refused to look at his captured wife and daughters, who were very beautiful, saying that Persian women are a torment for the eyes. Who would not rather praise Joseph, who was secretly propositioned by his mistress, who fled, leaving his cloak behind, and who exposed himself to the the danger of imprisonment and the loss of his reputation and life for the sake of preserving his chastity?
They praise Lucretia, who was unchastely chaste and a belated punisher of her crime, and a killer; we celebrate Susanna, a far braver defender of her chastity, life, and reputation.
They praise Virginius the centurion, who was unable to rescue his daughter, Claudia Virginia, from violation by Appius Claudius the decemvir, and, demanding a final interview with her, secretly killed her, preferring to see his daughter dead rather than dishonored. The admire the Decii, father and son, who solemnly dedicated themselves, through the priests Valerius and Liberius, along with the Latins and Samnites who stood before the Roman camp, to the underworld spirits, and through their own death secured the victory. But who would not rather praise the prince Jephte, who, for the victory of his people, vowed his only daughter and her virginity to the true God, and fulfilled the vow? Who would not praise Moses, who vowed himself not to temporal, but to eternal destruction?
They praise the fortitude and success in war of Julius Caesar, Pompey, P. Cornelius Scipio, Hannibal, and Alexander. But how much greater were Samson, Gedeon, David, Saul, the Machabees, and Josue, who were endowed not with the strength of men, but of heaven, and with divine good fortune routed many powerful enemies, although their forces were few in number? Whom the sun, moon, and stars obeyed as if they were soldiers and fought against their enemies? To whom, I ask, but Theodosius, and even more to Judas the Machabee and Josue, would you sing these verses:
Verily God is with thee, when at thy behest
Aeolus frees the armèd tempests from his cave,
when the very elements fight for thee
and the allied winds come at the call of thy trumpets. [tr. Platnauer]
But these men continually urge us to every arduous undertaking, to all moral purity and innocence, so that, as their rivals, we may walk as earthly angels and heavenly men in the light of the Gospel, before the eyes of the divine majesty, which is always gazing upon us, and may serve him in holiness and justice. Thence may we have hope in the midst of this turmoil, both public and private, in Belgium and Europe, and like the Machabees having the holy books for our consolation, through the patience and consolation of scripture, lift our spirits, knowing that God has care for us; and strengthened by his love and that of saints, let us fear nothing and despise even death and torment; and even if the broken world should go to ruin, let it fall upon us undaunted.
Thus the Apostle, in the entire eleventh chapter of the Epistle To the Hebrews, uses the example of the fathers in a splendid exhortation as he urges them to endurance and martyrdom, that with a small measure of blood they may purchase a blessed eternity: "They were stoned," that is, Moses, Jeremias, and other holy man of the Old Testament; "they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted: [21] Of whom the world was not worthy; wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth," and this "that they might find a better resurrection. And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us."
III. The third benefit is that without the Old Testament, the New is unintelligible. The apostles frequently cite the former, and more frequently allude to it, as does Christ, even his his last farewell to the disciples (Luke, 24:44): "These are the words which I spoke to you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures."
Indeed, the Epistle to the Hebrews is very weighty and obscure for this very reason, that it is entirely woven from the Old Testament and its allegories.
IV. The fourth benefit is this: since the end of the law is Christ , and everything which is said in the Old Testament pertains to Christ and to Christians, whether in a literal or allegorical sense. Moreover, the Old Testament is superior to the New in this respect, that the Old sometimes has, in addition to its literal meaning, an allegorical sense, and often an anagogical and tropological sense, as well. The Apostle says in I Corinthians, 10:1, "Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: And did all eat the same spiritual food, etc. Now these things were done in a figure of us, and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come." Hence the same author teaches us that understanding of the Old Testament was taken from the Jews and has passed to us. "For, until this present day, the selfsame veil, in the reading of the old testament, remaineth not taken away (because in Christ it is made void). But even until this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart" (2 Corinthians 3:14).
V: Here is the fifth: God has provided a wealth of readings, disputations, and sermons in the Old Testament, so that one may seek in it a great variety of figures, examples, aphorism, and prophecies, not only for strengthening faith, but also for the forming an idea of a upright life. Thus Christ rouses torpid souls to watchfulness with the example of Noah and the wife of Lot in Luke, 17:32, saying, "Remember Lot's wife." Again, he provokes the stubborn minds of the Jews with alarm by recalling the people of Sodom and Nineveh and the queen of the south. Thus he calls to repentance the imitators of that rich man who was buried in hell with the words of Abraham in Luke 16:27 [sic, verse 29]: "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." Paul, for his part, says in 1 Corinthians 10, verses 6 and 11: "Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things," nor become idolaters, fornicators, gluttons, murmurers, or people who tempt God, lest we perish like those who did such things under the old law. For the Holy Spirit, who knows and foresees all time, wove together scripture in such a way that it might serve not only the Jews, but Christians of every time. Indeed, Tertullian, in book 3, chapter 22 of The Apparel of Women, remarks that there is no expression of the Holy Spirit that must be understood and applied only to the present matter, and not to every useful occasion.
Saint Augustine speaks the truth at the end of book 13 Against Faustus: "As for the books of the apostles and prophets, we read them as a record of our faith, to encourage our hope and animate our love. These books are in perfect harmony with one another; and their harmony, like the music of a heavenly trumpet, wakens us from the torpor of worldliness, and urges us on to the prize of our high calling" (tr. Stothert).
The is why the Church occasionally uses readings from the Old Testament in its rites, and in the season of fasting she always brings in an epistle reading from the Old Testament that is suitable to the day's Gospel, an image corresponding to the type as a shadow to the body. Formerly I saw famous preachers discoursing in the first part of their sermons on historical events or something similar from the Old Testament, and in the latter part something from the New, drawing great crowds and applause, for the people's edification.
Finally, not only heretics, but also orthodox men of importance, who are employed in counsel, cases, and judgments of the law, read and study both the Old and New Testaments, following a time-honored example.
Francis Petrarch relates that 250 years ago, Robert, the king of Sicily, took such pleasure in literature, especially of the sacred kind, that he said, "I swear to you, Petrarch, that letters are much dearer to me than my kingdom; and if I were obliged to do without one of them, I could bear being deprived of my crown more easily than of letters."
Panormitanus is the source of this story: Alfonso, the king of Aragon, was wont to boast that even in the midst of royal business he had read the entire Bible with commentaries fourteen times. It would not be a novel occurrence if princes, their advisors, and other prominent men should pose questions about the Old and New Testaments at table or in relaxed conversation--where the theologian, if he should keep silent, will find himself unable to speak, and if he should respond incompetently, will listen as an ignorant man and a fool.
VI. From this arises a sixth advantage: the Old Testament is a prelude to the New and bears witness to it, as St. John the Baptist did to Christ. For he no less than Moses "went before the face of the Lord, to prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation to his people, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide their feet in the way of peace. " It was to symbolize this fact that Moses and Elias appeared in the transfiguration of Christ, both to give witness to him and to speak of the sacrifice that he was to complete in Jerusalem. For who would have believed in Christ or the Gospel, had this not been confirmed, foretold, and foreshadowed by so many testimonies [22] of the fathers, so many prophecies, and so many figures? How will you convince the Jews and bring them to Christ, unless through the oracles of Moses and the prophets? Among pagans, Saracens, and indeed all sorts of men, says Eusebius, the truth of the gospel is shown with great power by the fact that it was promised and previously signified for so many centuries by the entire Old Testament.
This is why Christ so often mentions Moses: "For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). "For if you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:46). "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him" (Luke 24:27). Hence Philipp says to Nathaniel in John, chapter 1, verse 45: "We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus." A mighty witness to Christ and the truth is the agreement of both Testaments, or of Moses and Christ, of the prophets and apostles, of the synagogue and the Church, as Tertullian says in various places in his treatise Against Marcion. To conclude: how great and varied is this wisdom, you may learn from Moses himself.