And although it was useful to have treated this for the recognizing of the significance of spiritual deeds, yet for this reason above all has this passage been recalled by us: that—since we were to have discourse concerning Rahab, through whom we might show the Church prefigured in her—we might safely set forth this comparison of the Church and the harlot, according to the understanding of our sense, seeing that the harlot joined to the prophet was found to be betrothed unto the eternal hope of the righteousness and faith and knowledge of God, for the prefiguration of the Church. And indeed in this, that under Joshua all things were done in her, there is the greatest power of prophecy. For in Joshua thus surnamed the perfect reckoning of the future sacrament was shown.
For after much discourse of God to Moses, when it had been said to him that he should make all things on earth according to the pattern which he had seen on the mountain, he surnamed Joshua—who before was called Auses—as leader for the people going on to the land of promise, to be their future leader. Moses, bidden to order all things after the pattern of the heavenly vision, added to the future leader that name which had already been prepared in the heavens for the eternal Leader. For as this one is prince of the synagogue, so that one of the Church; as this one is leader for gaining the promised land, so that one leader of the land to be inherited, of which the Lord says: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth'; as this one comes after Moses, so that one after the Law.
As to this one circumcision was commanded, repeated with a stone knife, so by the Lord—who is both the sharp word penetrating even to the division of the soul and the cornerstone—the circumcision of the heart was spiritually renewed. As this one divided the waters, so that one divides the peoples; for he says: 'I came not to send peace, but division.' As this one both uncovered twelve stones for an eternal testimony from the deep onto the land, and placed them from the land into the deep, so that one both brought forth the apostolic doctrine from the synagogue and left it in the synagogue even now, for its use if it would, since for an eternal testimony in the twelve stones the apostolic doctrine had both been brought forth from the Law and yet was found within the Law.
But how evident and how complete is that very division of the waters, when one part stood whole and full, and the other, its channel dried up, flowed entirely into the sea, while nevertheless the midst of the space was established with the Lord together with the priests! By which signification it is understood that a part of the people would be set free from the course of sins and of their own death at the coming of the ark of God—that is, at the bodily coming—while the rest flowed away into the sea, that is, into the damnation of this world and its fellowship. Under this Joshua, therefore, the things done by Rahab and in Rahab are to be considered. For two spies turned aside to spy out the land, and in the city of Jericho to the house of this harlot. She receives and hides them; when the king demanded their surrender from her, she lies that they had gone back.
Then, they being hidden in her house, she says that she knows the Lord has delivered the whole of her city to them, and that their God is God above in heaven and on the earth below. She entreats that they preserve herself and all her household at the time of the city's capture. The spies promise that whatever should be found within her house would remain unharmed, but that whoever went out of the house would himself be answerable for himself; and they appoint as a sign a scarlet cord hanging from the window, and they report the whole matter to Joshua. Then the city is approached.
The priests, with the ark of the Lord, go around this city for six days; but on the seventh day, when they had gone around seven times, at the sounding of the trumpet the walls of the city fell, and, all who were in the city being slain, Rahab alone with her whole household is preserved by Joshua. This order of things is connected with great sacraments to be spiritually accomplished. The harlot received into her house two spies of the land sent by Joshua: the sinful Church received the Law and prophecy sent to spy out the faith of men, through whom she confesses God both above in heaven and below on earth. After her spiritual begetting she learned the attested bodily nativity—for she learned in these: 'after this he was seen on the earth and conversed among men.'
From these same men she also received a sign of salvation in the scarlet—a color royal in dignity and blood-red in respect of the body, both of which befit the Passion, since the Lord was clothed in such a garment and blood flowed from his side. This scarlet Manasseh also received as a sign; with this blood the houses in Egypt were marked and kept safe, the book of the covenant was sprinkled, and the people was sanctified. But whoever of the household should be found outside the house was made answerable for himself, teaching that those who should be outside the Church would be the cause of death to themselves. But Jericho, set as an image of this world, is circled for six days, and on the seventh it falls at the sound of the trumpet, and the house of Rahab is preserved whole through Joshua.
For in the six days is shown the time of six thousand years, during which the world was wandered about and, as it were, coursed round in a certain circuit of generations, that same world being about to be dissolved at the voice of the trumpet in the seventh, the thousandth time; the Church alone, through the reception of the spies, through the confession of God in the flesh, through the sign of the scarlet decreed by Joshua, is to be preserved with all her household.
We have frequently warned that diligence must be brought to the reading of the divine Scriptures—a diligence which by careful examination and no empty judgment might discern when a record of things done is to be understood either simply or typically—lest, using both immoderately and unskillfully, we should render both useless to the hearers, if either the knowledge of plain things were corrupted by the empty assertion of prefigurations, or the force of the prefigurations were ignored under the opinion of plain things; although the discourse of divine Scripture is such that nothing there is found to be empty, nothing beyond the cause of some necessity, nothing not set forth under the discernment of an understanding to be pursued by us.
For while the creation of the world is recounted, God is known in creating; while Enoch is heard to have been translated, man is understood to be capable of being made eternal; while Lot is to be preserved when five cities are burned up, we learn that God has care of the innocent; while his wife, looking back against God's command, is changed into a pillar of salt, we are instructed by the fear of the example unto obedience to God's ordinances; while the sins of the Amorites are awaited to be filled up, we come to know both the mercy and the justice of God, since by the expectation of their ceasing from sins the time is prolonged for us, and in the consummation of their wickedness the deferred vengeance is decreed. And now indeed the order of the generations, the election of Abraham, the procreation of the patriarchs—
the servitude of the people, the disasters of the Egyptians, the division of the sea, the raining down of the manna, the establishing of the Law, the distinction of sacrifices, the age of the judges, the knowledge of the kingdoms, the transmigration of the people into captivity, the vision of the saints, the admonition of the prophets—how far it is necessary unto knowledge!
For in all the things recalled above, God the Father and God the Son, and from God the Father God the Son, God and man Jesus Christ, is recognized: while in the creation of the world God commands and God accomplishes; while man is formed to the likeness of a common image; while the Lord rains sulphur and fire from the Lord—for neither would one command himself to do it, nor would one alone extend his fellowship to another, nor give to himself and alone receive from himself; while man is seen by Abraham and God is adored; while in Jacob God is seen wrestling as a man; while, holding the man, he asks to be blessed by the Lord; while by Nebuchadnezzar, only three children being cast into the furnace, a fourth is seen like the Son of God; while a virgin bears Emmanuel, him who is God with us.
These things, therefore, signified by all and known and fulfilled in that One, it was fitting should be preserved in memory in writings and in sealed volumes, so that posterity, instructed by the deeds of an earlier time in its successions, might contemplate present things also in things past, and might now also venerate past things in things present. For since the knowledge of the truth is one and the same when perfect, if the truth is understood from reason—for all things were written unto our knowledge and unto the firmest faith of our judgment—neither did these things, which by the will of God were set down in books, stand in need of the knowledge of posterity;
but posterity had need of the knowledge of the Scriptures, that it might learn the truth, that it might receive from reason the teaching of the truth, that it might follow the science of life as though advanced from its very cradle: namely, that it should not doubt God from God, since the Lord rained from the Lord; that it should not be ignorant of the one unbegotten God, since God commanded; that it should not fail to know the only-begotten God, since God accomplished; that it should not doubt that the two are one, since one exemplar of the common image was established in man; that it should not deny that God, into man . . . [text lost] . . . begotten of fathers.
And it is ready to hear Paul glorying that he is an Israelite of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin. Therefore, since it is Elijah's office to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, the mystery of perfect preaching is reserved to him, that he may turn the fathers to that faith which the spirit of the same prophecy has already confirmed in the sons.