Christian Topography 1 part 8/22

And do not merely boast with empty words that you happen to be natural philosophers.

And since some also wish it to be turned like a lathe by a pivot or by an axle, or like a cart, or like a machine, let them also show in what the pivot or the axle is fixed, and that again upon what, and so on to infinity.

How then do you argue as natural philosophers? And how also does the axle not pass through the earth, it being in the middle, and turn it around? Again, tell us, you who follow these notions and wish to be regarded as Christian, into which region of the eight spheres, or of the ninth, called by some the starless sphere, has Christ entered, or into which are we too about to enter? Or how can waters exist upon a sphere that turns? Or how, at the consummation, when the stars fall, are your so many spheres still preserved? And what is their use? Is it not then obvious that you argue things without hope, contrary to Christian belief? For these things, unless they are fitting for the hopeless Greeks, who do not hope for another better state, who consistently with themselves suppose the world to be eternal, so that for them the rich multitude of spheres may be preserved, in which the planets always complete their own course, and in another sphere also the fixed stars—and the error put forward by them has some plausibility of reason.

But you argue things wholly implausible: you want a multitude of spheres, and you want a consummation of the world, yet you are unable to state the usefulness of these things.

Likewise you also wish there to be waters upon spheres that turn—things which you wish to hold are ridiculous and full of every folly, and you argue things contrary both to yourselves and to the nature of things.

And you want the universe to have come to be in six days, yet not finding mention of the making of a third heaven within them, you dare to speak of eight and nine heavens.

How great is the knowledge among you, how great the wisdom, how great the understanding, how great the self-contradiction!

'No one can be a slave to two masters' was rightly said by the Lord: rather, either he is God's, wholly God's, or he is mammon's, wholly mammon's.

And again he himself cries out through Paul:

'You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons'; and again:

'Do not become unequally yoked with unbelievers.'

'For what participation is there of righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship of light with darkness? And what agreement of Christ with Belial? Or what portion has a believer with unbelievers? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?' For again, how is it possible, according to you, that the earth, being in the very middle of the universe, endured the flood in the time of Noah? Or that it is to be believed that on the first and second day it was again entirely covered by waters, and on the third, after the water was gathered together, it appeared, as it is written in Genesis? But—the wiser thing yet—you posit antipodes, men walking about on the entire earth.

Let us, then, draw the earth and the antipodes according to you.

and let anyone among you who has healthy eyesight and sound reasoning turn the earth about as he wishes, and let him say whether all the antipodes can be upright at the same time;

but they will not be able to show it, even if they speak shamelessly.

Thus, then, against your fabricated and untrue hypotheses, and the conclusions of your arguments—irregular, unfitting, and inconsistent, undergoing no ordinary turmoil, and a revolution greater than that of the unstable and revolving mythical sphere among you.

Wherefore, Christ-loving father, having made this the end of the fourth discourse, I will begin, after the drawing of the antipodes, also the fifth discourse, as I have promised to your God-loving soul, to make the depiction of the tabernacle constructed in the wilderness by Moses, by the will of God the Savior of us all.

Discourse V. In which is the depiction of the tabernacle, and the agreement of the prophets and apostles.

...of a most divine man, a teacher, who has drawn his starting points and testimonies from divine Scripture, beginning from their exodus out of Egypt, when the firstborn of the Egyptians were dying, having received the last plague through Moses, at which time the Israelites also ate the Passover, having sacrificed it, standing upright, girded about their loins, and holding their staffs in their hands, ready for departure, on the first day of the first month, from evening, the moon already being in its fourteenth day, which constituted a shadow and type of the things that were to come to pass in the Lord Christ—namely, I mean, the release from tyrannical slavery, and the re-creation of the world accomplished through the resurrection of the dead, and the eternal rest of mankind.

For it is at this very time that the world also appears to have been brought forth by God and to have had its beginning;

likewise also in the time of Noah, after the flood, again a beginning of the world occurred at this time;

in it again occurred the freedom of the Israelites from Egypt;

in it again also the conception of the Lord Christ according to the flesh from the Virgin took place, he being the second Adam, the author of the second state;

and in it occurred the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh;

and they say that the universal resurrection will also take place again in it.

But the outsiders too bear witness to this season, being thieves, considering it their own opinion, positing Aries as the beginning of the zodiacal circle—in which the first month, according to divine Scripture, occurs—a clear refutation of them coming about even in this, especially since they also provide a beginning of the circle, which according to them is something ridiculous.

For nothing good exists in them which they did not steal from divine Scripture;

but, possessed by vanity, and wishing to be superior to the rest of mankind, they have used what belongs to others as their own.

But that the Law holds the rank of a shadow of certain things to come, the Apostle testifies, crying out:

'For the Law, having a shadow of the good things to come,' not the very image of the things—calling it a shadow, as it were when someone sketches the outline of a man, but does not make his image, that is, his features and all his limbs, so that it might be recognized what sort of person he is, whether old or young, comely or unseemly, but sketches only the size of the body;

thus he also calls 'image' the very features and characteristics, that is, the mysteries accomplished through us Christians—I mean regeneration through baptism, and the partaking of the mysteries.

And again, the very things themselves he calls the resurrection from the dead itself, the transformation of our bodies, the change from corruption to incorruption, the unchangeableness of the soul in place of mutability, and perfect knowledge instead of partial, the dwelling-place and the rest and the entrance into heaven, heavenly things instead of earthly, eternal things instead of temporary.

And all these things have been accomplished for the human race through our Lord Jesus Christ.

He calls the Law, then, a shadow of these things, and 'image' and 'characteristics' the mysteries accomplished through Christians—such as, I mean, the lamb that was sacrificed, in place of the Passion of Christ, just as the apostle Paul also says:

'For indeed Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.' And John the Baptist also says thus:

'Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.' Then there is the flight resulting from this—for those Israelites at that time, from the destroying angel and from the slavery of Pharaoh; for us, from the devil and from the slavery of the most burdensome law;

for them, the crossing of the sea, and the passage through the wilderness, and the giving of the Law, and the setting up of the tabernacle; for us, the crossing of baptism, and the passage of the Church, and the gift of the Holy Spirit;

for them, abundant water for life out of the rock; for us, life-giving mysteries;

for them, the land of promise was their rest; for us, heaven not made with hands is our rest;

for them, temporary life; for us, eternal life, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, and blessedness.

Those things, then, exist as in the order of a shadow-sketch, while ours are the images and characteristics of the very things themselves;

...we have become such, but we are yet to rise from the dead.

For except the Lord Christ alone according to the flesh, no other has entered into the realities themselves, he being the first of all to rise from the dead.

As the Egyptians urged the Israelites to go out from Egypt, they took upon their shoulders the very dough that they had kneaded for unleavened bread, not having had time to bake it.

So when they had gone out and were approaching the Red Sea, Pharaoh the Egyptian, having changed his mind and having encamped his army, pursued after them, and, having overtaken them near the sea, opposite the settlement, between Migdol and opposite Baal-zephon,

Then, as evening had already overtaken them, that night the pillar of cloud, or rather of fire, which continually went before them and guided them, having come behind them, prevented the Egyptians from mingling with the Israelites.

Then, as day was about to come, the Israelites having cried out to God, God commands Moses to strike the sea with the staff and to split it apart.

Having done, then, what was commanded, and having struck the sea, he divides the water, it becoming a wall on this side and on that, and the Israelites cross through.

But the Egyptians, all of them with their chariots, when they had come to the middle of the sea, pursuing the Israelites, the water having turned back upon them by divinely-sent wrath, perished, being drowned.

This very place is at the place called Clysma, on the right as one goes up toward the mountain.

There the tracks of the wheels of their chariots are also visible, appearing from a considerable distance all the way to the sea, and preserved even to this day as a sign to unbelievers, not to believers.

A marginal note on the conception of the Lord. When Zacharias, on the tenth of the seventh month, entered the temple according to the tradition of the law, and was given the good news that he would beget John from Elisabeth, in her sixth month the Virgin also received the good news, so that this became a beginning in the first month.

For Zacharias having received the good news on the tenth of the seventh month, and Elisabeth having conceived in that same month, it is clear that six months of the year had passed and six still remained, less those ten days — or another two, or three, or seven besides — until Zacharias departed to his house, so that the days came to one hundred sixty-eight, or one hundred sixty-seven, or one hundred sixty-three.

The beginning, then, of the conception of the Lord, that is, the beginning of the first month, was in every respect Elisabeth's sixth month, according to the tradition of the Gospels.

For God has always kept this order, and keeps it still.

It is possible to know this, since we all also reckon the very birth of Christ as occurring at the completion of the ninth month from the beginning of the first month, that is, Choiak twenty-eight.

But the Jerusalemites, taking their cue from the blessed Luke's statement concerning the Lord's being baptized when beginning to be about thirty years old, place his birth at Epiphany.

And both the evangelist and the Jerusalemites speak truly;

yet the precise truth is not thus; rather, the baptism occurred on the very day of the birth, as both Luke and the Jerusalemites also say.

But from ancient times the Church, lest by celebrating the two feasts together it should cause one of them to fall into oblivion, legislated that twelve days should intervene, according to the number of the apostles, and thus the feast of Epiphany comes to pass — just as it also legislated that the Lord's forty-day fast, which he fasted when about to contend against the devil, should be concluded at the Lord's resurrection, so that we too, according to the type, as far as is possible, by contending and imitating, might receive a share of the Lord's passion and resurrection;

however it did not happen on the same days.

Thus, then, it also legislated that the Epiphany of our Master Christ should occur twelve days after his birth.

Only the Jerusalemites, from a plausible conjecture, though not with precision, place the birth at Epiphany;

The crossing of the Israelites in the desert after the exodus. So when the Israelites had passed over to the other side, to the place called Phoinikon, they began to walk through the desert of Sur, God by day spreading out a cloud for them as shelter from the scorching heat of the sun and guiding them by it, and by night shining in a pillar of fire and leading them through the whole desert, as it is written:

'He spread out a cloud for their shelter, and fire to give them light by night.' This too, then, can be depicted as follows.

Then again, journeying on from Merra, they came to Elim, which we now call Raithou, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trunks;

the springs are still preserved even to this day, but the palm trees have become much more numerous.

Up to this point they had the sea on the right and the desert on the left;

but from this point, as they go up toward the mountain, they henceforth leave the sea behind them, walking with the desert ahead of them.

There, when they had come to be between Elim and Mount Sinai, there the manna came down upon them;

there they also first kept the sabbath, according to the commandments which God had given to Moses unwritten at Merra.

This too, then, can be depicted thus:

Having arrived here at Elim from Merra, and again journeying between Elim and Mount Sinai into the desert, into which the quail also came down upon them there in the evening, and in the morning the manna;

there again they first began to keep sabbath, the manna being preserved from the sixth day through the sabbath, but on any other day being unable to remain, but instead rotting and vanishing away;

and through this they were taught to keep the sabbath;

for some wished to gather even on the sabbath, and did not find any, as it is written.

Then again they encamped at Raphidin, at what is now called Pharan.

And being thirsty, Moses proceeds, according to God's command, together with the elders — the rod also in his hand — to Mount Horeb, that is, at Sinai, which lies near Pharan, about six Roman miles away.

And there, having struck the rock, much water flowed out and the people drank, just as David also cries out in the Psalms:

'He split the rock in the desert, and gave them drink as from a great abyss'; and again:

'He split the rock, and waters flowed; rivers ran in the dry places'; and again:

'And he brought water out of the rock, and made waters come down like rivers.' But the apostle Paul says:

'For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them';

'and the rock was Christ' — so as to say:

just as abundant water, following from the rock, gave those people drink ungrudgingly, so life-giving streams are provided to us by Christ through the mysteries, of which the rock was a type.

And there again, having fought against Amalek, they routed him;

there again Jothor meets his son-in-law Moses, together with his two children and his wife;

for Moses had sent back his wife and children, when he saw the vision of the angel in the desert and became faint;

there Sepphora also circumcised the other son, who was uncircumcised.

This too, then, can be depicted thus:

In the third month they came to Mount Sinai, and after speaking to Moses in various ways in a pillar of cloud, God thereafter shows the people that fearful vision, so that the people were struck with terror and feared exceedingly, the mountain burning and smoke rising as from a furnace;

and darkness and gloom were present, and there was a storm, and the sounds of trumpets blaring occurred.

And there, having led great Moses up and hidden him in the cloud without food for forty days, he then shows him through visions how he began to make the world;

and he extended the making over six days, and on the seventh he rested.

And thus he gives the law in writing;

the depiction of the aforementioned is thus:

The people of Israel going up to Mount Sinai from Raphidin; Moses receiving the law from God.

Moses remaining inside the cloud without food for forty days and forty nights,

at the fearful vision of the mountain burning and smoking.

Moses receiving the law from God.

There great Moses, after the forty days, was deemed worthy in another six days to see through visions how, in six days, God made heaven and earth and all things in them;

according to the order of each single day, God also emboldened him to write these things down, his face too having been glorified by God.

The text. Then, having come down from the mountain, he is commanded by God to make the tabernacle, which was a type of the things he had seen on the mountain — I mean, the impress of the whole world;

'For see,' he says, 'you shall make all things according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.' And blessed Paul the apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, said that the first tabernacle was a type of this world;

'For the first also had regulations of divine service, and a sanctuary of this world;'

'for a tabernacle was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the setting-forth of the loaves, which is called the Holy Place.' Having called it 'of this world,' as it were a type of this world, he added:

'in which was the lampstand' — so as to signify the luminaries — 'and the table,' that is, the earth, 'and the setting-forth of the loaves' — so as to signify its yearly fruits — 'which,' he says, 'is called the Holy Place,' so as to indicate the first tabernacle.

Then he also speaks concerning the second tabernacle:

'Such a high priest we have, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens, a minister of the holy things and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man'; and again:

'But Christ, having appeared as high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, nor through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered once for all into the holy places, having obtained eternal redemption'; and again:

'For Christ did not enter into holy places made with hands, which are antitypes of the true ones, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God' — calling heaven the true tabernacle, and calling the things constructed through Moses antitypes;

hence he calls the things of Moses 'made with hands,' but the true things 'not made with hands.'

Having been commanded, then, to make it, he makes it, just as the model of the tabernacle was shown to him, and the model of all its vessels — both the ark of the testimony and the mercy seat above it and the two cherubim stretching out their wings and overshadowing the mercy seat from above, likewise also the veil and the table and the lampstand and the curtains of the tabernacle (I mean the first coverings), and the goat-hair skins from the wool of goats (I mean felted material) — these again being the second coverings of the tabernacle — likewise also the third covering, of red skins and blue-gray skins, which they called leather hides — all of them varied and wondrous.

The depiction of the tabernacle is as follows:

Six pillars, each of a cubit and a half, come to nine cubits; and two pillars at the corners, each of half a cubit, make the eight pillars come to ten cubits;

this is the width of the tabernacle.

Having a drawn veil, called a hanging curtain.

Bars passing through the rings.

A middle bar passing through the boards.

Bars passing through the rings.

The twenty pillars are twenty standing boards, each board being one cubit and a half in width;

the twenty pillars amount to thirty cubits;

this is the length of the tabernacle.

Their sockets were double, surrounding the board on the inside and the outside;

and the sockets were of silver.

The capitals were plain, but of gold; likewise also the rings, and the boards, and the bars, and the tenons.

The tenons are two pieces of wood inlaid with gold and nailed into each board, turning and pressing against one another, so that they might bind together all the boards.

These same tenons and the bars, passing through the finger-rings, that is, the clasps, securely bound together the whole tabernacle.

...it passed through, the boards being grooved, for the greater security of the tabernacle.

The height of each board was ten cubits, and the width of the tabernacle was ten cubits, and the other wall was like this wall.

When the veil of the temple was torn in two at the Passion of the Lord, it signified three things at once:

first, it exposed the audacity of the Jews committed against the Lord, as though the divine temple were mourning and rending itself asunder;

second, that the Jewish institutions would be dissolved and thrown into confusion, the first tabernacle being abolished;

third, that the inner tabernacle, which was invisible and inaccessible to all, even to the priests, became visible and accessible to men.

Glory for all things be to God, the King of the ages, unto the ages.

Note. It must be observed here again that Scripture calls the tabernacle pitched by God the "true" tabernacle, that is, heaven.

And again it calls it "not made with hands" and the "perfect" tabernacle, that is, heaven, as having come into being from God;

for it calls "made with hands" the tabernacle which Moses constructed.

In contradistinction to the tabernacle constructed by Moses, it calls this one "true", as ever remaining, whereas that one is to be dissolved.

He calls the curtains (kortinai) "aulaiai";

and the outside Attic writers also call them thus, saying that "aulaia" is the large and variegated hanging.

Hyperides the orator, in his speech Against Patrocles:

"And the nine archons feasted in the stoa, having fenced off part of it with an aulaia." Likewise also Menander:

"Tow, ivory, myrrh, wine, an aulaia." Note. Here Moses, after being deemed worthy on the mountain of those fearful visions, is commanded by God to make the tabernacle according to the pattern which he had seen on the mountain, it being a pattern of the whole world.

"See," he says, "you shall make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain." Since, then, it was shown to him how God made heaven and earth, and on the second day made the firmament in the middle and made the one space into two spaces, he likewise, according to the pattern he had seen, made the tabernacle and placed a veil in the middle, and by dividing made the one tabernacle into two, an outer and an inner.

The Apostle, then, declared the outer to be a type of this world, saying thus:

For the first also had ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary;

for a tabernacle was prepared, the first, in which were the lampstand, and the table, and the setting forth of the loaves, which is called the Holy Place, as it were serving as a type of this world, in which is the earth, and its fruits, and the luminaries.

Then, interpreting also the second, he says thus:

But Christ, having come as high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, nor through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption, as it were:

As the high priest enters once a year into the inner tabernacle through the blood of goats and calves, propitiating the people, so also Christ entered into the tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, heaven, having obtained once for all eternal redemption;

For Christ did not enter into holy places made with hands, antitypes of the true, but into heaven itself. And again he says:

For the law had a shadow of the good things to come;

for, as in a sketch, it prefigured, through the inner tabernacle, the ascent of the Master Christ according to the flesh, and the entrance of righteous men.

Whence, admonishing again, he adds:

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, his flesh, and having a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart. And again, showing that Christ is within, in heaven, he says:

...the second tabernacle was situated...

And many other such things are found in the Epistles of the Apostle and in all divine Scripture.

The text. This is the depiction of the bare tabernacle.

Its first coverings were woven, variegated, of blue and purple and twined fine linen and scarlet, just like the veil, which Scripture also calls "aulaiai".

They were like long curtains;

the length of one was twenty-eight cubits, and the width four cubits.

He says that five hangings were joined together, and again likewise five;

then the joining of the five and five in the middle: on the edge of the one were loops, and on the edge of the other, clasps.

And they put the clasps upon the loops and bound the ten together, as with the so-called sigistropylai, or bed-roll bundles, or as also with double saddle-bags.

And when they dismantled the tabernacle for the journey, they were five and five, these being taken apart and carried.

This same thing they did also with the second coverings, which were of goats' hair and felted, and which they also called "derreis".

one was thirty cubits, and again four cubits was the width.

There were five together, and another six together;

and they were joined again by the clasps and the loops, and again the whole became one.

The length of the tabernacle, then, was thirty cubits.

For there were twenty pillars, that is to say, boards, each one and a half cubits in width, making thirty cubits;

then also the width: six pillars, each one and a half cubits, make nine cubits;

and at the corners two pillars of half a cubit each; the eight pillars come to ten cubits, secured on every side by the bars.

The ten hangings, then, joined together, made forty cubits in width, and covered the whole length of the tabernacle and the rear wall, which had a height of ten cubits;

The twenty-eight cubits of the length of the hangings covered the width of the tabernacle, that is, ten cubits, and the height of the two walls on either side, each of ten cubits, making another twenty cubits;

it is evident that it covered the one wall short by one cubit, and the other likewise short by one cubit.

The goat-hair curtains covered also the other two cubits;

for the length of each was thirty cubits;

and the one extra goat-hair curtain hung down over the door of the tabernacle.

We depict, then, also their form.

It is thus, together also with the third coverings, those of skins.

Seven lamps, tongs, oil-flasks. This lampstand, having seven lamps, situated to the south of the tabernacle, was a type of the luminaries, since, according to wise Solomon, the luminaries, rising and running through to the south, shine upon the earth toward the north.

And again they are seven because of the week of days, since all time, beginning from weeks, is completed both in months and in the year.

And he commands that they be lit from the one side, since the table was situated toward the north, so that they might shine from the south toward the north.

For thus also concerning the luminaries Solomon says:

"Rising, it goes forth to the south, and circles round to the north;

it circles round and round, and upon its circuits the wind returns." From the more general principles, then, both Solomon and Moses spoke concerning the luminaries.

We shall depict both the lampstand and the table.