When, then, He had fulfilled the commandment, what does He say? "Who is he that contends with me? Let him stand against me; or who is he that goes to law with me? Let him draw near to the Servant of the Lord.
Woe to you, for you all shall grow old like a garment, and the moth shall devour you." And again the prophet says, since He was set as a strong stone for crushing: "Behold, I lay in the foundations of Zion a precious stone, chosen, a cornerstone, honored."
Then what does He say? "And whoever shall hope upon Him shall live forever." Is our hope, then, upon a stone? God forbid! But it is because the Lord set His flesh in strength. For He says: "And He set me as a hard rock."
And again the prophet says: "The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner." And again He says: "This is the great and wonderful day which the Lord has made."
What, then, does the prophet say again? "The assembly of evildoers surrounded me, they encircled me as bees a honeycomb," and: "Upon my clothing they cast lots."
Since, then, He was about to be manifested and to suffer in His flesh, the suffering was made manifest beforehand. For the prophet says concerning Israel: "Woe to their soul, for they have devised an evil counsel against themselves, saying: Let us bind the righteous one, for he is unprofitable to us."
What does the other prophet, Moses, say to them? "Behold, thus says the Lord God: Enter into the good land which the Lord swore to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and inherit it, a land flowing with milk and honey."
And what does knowledge say? Learn. "Hope," it says, "upon Jesus, who is about to be manifested to you in the flesh." For man is suffering earth; for from the face of the earth came the forming of Adam.
What, then, does He say: "Into the good land, a land flowing with milk and honey"? Blessed is our Lord, brothers, who has placed in us wisdom and understanding of His hidden things; for the prophet speaks a parable of the Lord. Who shall understand it, except the wise and prudent and one who loves his Lord?
Since, then, having renewed us in the forgiveness of sins, He made us into another type, so that we have the soul of children, as though indeed He were re-forming us afresh.
For the Scripture says concerning us, as He says to the Son: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them rule over the beasts of the earth and the birds of heaven and the fishes of the sea." And the Lord said, seeing our fair creation: "Increase and multiply and fill the earth." These things He said to the Son.
Again I will show you how He speaks to us. In the last days He made a second forming. And the Lord says: "Behold, I make the last things as the first." To this end, then, the prophet proclaimed: "Enter into a land flowing with milk and honey, and have dominion over it."
Behold, then, we have been re-formed, just as He says again in another prophet: "Behold, says the Lord, I will take away from these"—that is, from those whom the Spirit of the Lord foresaw—"their stony hearts, and I will put in fleshly ones"; because He Himself was about to be manifested in the flesh and to dwell in us.
For the Lord says again: "And wherein shall I appear to the Lord my God and be glorified?" He says: "I will confess to you in the assembly of my brothers, and I will sing praise to you in the midst of the assembly of the saints." We, then, are those whom He has brought into the good land.
What, then, are the milk and the honey? Because the infant is first given life by honey, then by milk; so we also, being given life by the faith of the promise and by the word, shall live, having dominion over the earth.
And we said before above: "Let them increase and multiply and rule over the fishes." Who, then, is able now to rule over beasts or fishes or birds of heaven? For we ought to perceive that ruling belongs to authority, so that one who commands may have dominion.