[5.] Do the scriptures contradict themselves, or do the prophets disagree with the law? But rather the Lord’s books agree among themselves to praise him worthily and to send us into one and the same knowledge and life, and one hope that is to come, if the veil of the scriptures is drawn aside. It is impossible for it to be drawn aside, unless we turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so with an uncovered face we shall know his glory, which is proclaimed in the old books, [6.] not making him a house of ivory and gold (for this is not what the prophet commands). If the Jews are in error about Christ in this way, we know that the Deity takes no pleasure in the dead wiles of human ingenuity, but in those things which are living and never decay.
How the towers are spiritual bodies.
[7.] The “towers” are the spiritual bodies, in whom the Lord rejoices, seeing them without sin in the resurrection. Therefore he calls our bodies towers of ivory, which are sanctified with good works as if with ivory, and they shall receive the kingdom, and God is glad of them, as the prophet says, “I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
[IX.1] Let us therefore follow the way of the word: light is shone upon the shadow, the law is fulfilled, hope is come near, the truth is revealed, the end of time has come, God has sent his Son to redeem man, who was under the nomos. Not only can the blood and ashes of the heifer and the hyssop purify the unclean, but the whole commandment of the nomos was ordained to that end; for that was not what was awaited, but the Lord Christ. [2.] The hope has come, the gospel is preached, we have learnt greater things. Where now is the purification that was written required? For the law and the prophets were proclaimed until John. But since John, those who think to be purified by the nomos transgress the nomos; for the nomos is washing, and purified by purifications. Since the coming of Christ there are no more ashes of the heifer, for it was not permitted to use the ashes of any other heifer but that prescribed by Moses, nor to omit this mode of purification, nor for anyone who was not purified to go unpunished.
[3.] “ This is a statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish and on which no yoke has been laid. You shall give it to the priest Eleazar, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence.” And then there is also this law: if a man enter the tent of a man that has died, he shall be unclean, and so shall all that is in that tent, and anyone who touches them is unclean. And he shall take some of the ashes that are made purification, and mix them with water and hyssop, and he shall purify those that are unclean. And then, if anyone becomes unclean and does not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation, because he has defiled the holy things of the Lord, because he has not been sprinkled with the water of purification. And this shall be an eternal law for you.
[X.1] If the Jews want to live according to the law, none of them ought to take the book of the law into his hands, nor kill the lamb and keep the passover, lest they come under wrath as having defiled the holy things of the Lord. [2.] For it says, if any person becomes unclean and is not purified, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation, because he has not been purified with the water of purification. [3.] It does not say ordinary water, but water that has been mixed with the ashes of the heifer, because that is purification according to the law. For God did not ordain that they should be purified with water only, lest they should boast, but that they should not touch a tomb, nor enter the house of one who had died, nor cross a field of the dead – which is impossible. [4.] Therefore if you set yourself to live according to the law when there are no more ashes left, you have fallen under condemnation; for God has so arranged it, that they should be forced to seek one who would redeem them from the law. “For I say,” said the apostle, “to every man that is circumcised, that he must fulfil the whole nomos.” [5.] The time is past, there is no more ash, it is no longer written on tablets of stone, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, compelling those who are under the law to serve the Lord against their will, but on tablets of flesh for those who would live forever to serve God of their free will.
[6.] I would have liked to ask them kindly how they would have us keep the law: as the law itself and the Holy Spirit command us, or as they themselves think it should be kept? If it is as they think, then they command nothing but the breaking of the law. For the nomos is: anyone who has touched a dead bone, or a dead body, if he is not purified, then he shall be cut off from his people lest he touch the holy things. But they, when they have touched dead persons or bones, not only do not purify themselves, but they defile the holy things when they approach them. But if [they say that the law is to be kept] as the Holy Spirit commands, then how are they not the most shameless of all people, [7.] if they tell us to live according to the Spirit, and themselves are seen to do the opposite? “For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God.”
[XI.1] For the mystery of the heifer is kept in us, who keep the nomos not according to the letter, but according to the spirit, not serving the shadow, or the likeness, or the image, but the truth itself according to the truth. [2.] Human weakness invented these signs, in which it placed its ignorance; but it received the truth from others. For it is impossible for humanity, being still separated from the goodness of God because of the deceptions that beset it, to receive the signs of the truth, wherein it should understand the truth. Those whose souls are healthy and can understand the Creator by his heavenly goodness, those need neither signs nor images. But it needed to be shown at first in the law, so that thereby they would become capable also of spiritual things, of which our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us. Those who have tasted the truth shall not worship God in Jerusalem, nor on Mount Gerizim, but in spirit and in truth, lifting up pure hands. [3.] For the holy is not confined in space, nor measured in length of time. By such pure service is the true heifer made manifest, of which she was an image, to show what true purification is. For “See,” he said, “that you make them according to the pattern for them, which is being shown.”
How the heifer is the flesh of Christ.
[4.] “The heifer” is the true flesh of Christ, which he took for the purification of the world. She is called red because of the passion, and without blemish because of his innocence, and without the yoke, because he was free of all sin, and not trained to harness, because he was dispassionate, and outside the camp – outside Jerusalem, in a clean place – he was killed away from any tumult. By her blood the churches are sanctified, by her ashes the people are purified, and by her death all the nations are redeemed from death.[5.] For “The Lord,” he says, “is my helper.” And Jeremiah says: “my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies.” And for this reason it is burnt (for the scripture says, they shall burn “her skin and her flesh and her blood, with her dung”), [6.] because the mysteries are established for the enlightenment and illumination and vivification of those who are taught. Her flesh is holy works, her blood is the word of interpretation, her skin the image and purification of faith which, when we have it, we offer to God. Her dung is the stinking sores of transgression, for he took our infirmities upon him, etc. [7] Hence the law commands us to burn all this, and by this is to be understood the spiritual life, whereby we are to be enlightened by being made alive in the spirit in our hearts, that we understand nothing dark of him, and as if brought out of the dungeon into God’s light on high, as if somehow upon a high mountain, receiving the coming of the Holy Spirit. For as the eye is the light of the body, so is the mind the light of the soul. When you escape the darkness of what is written, you will remain in the light forever.
Why they roast the flesh of the lamb and eat it.
[XII.1] The flesh of the lamb is not boiled in water, but roasted and eaten. For he forbids it to be eaten raw, or boiled with water; and this saying is about Christ. For he was the perfect lamb: for he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, etc. For when he brings his people out of Egypt, and delivers them from the oppressor, he is a lamb; but when he purifies from sin, he is a heifer without blemish. [2.] Therefore cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet are cast into the midst of the burning, so that we may read in these books which reveal to us by these images, how the scripture shows to us that it is not fitting, when we make enquiry concerning the flesh of Christ, to fail to make reference immediately to the Holy Trinity. For thus is the coming of the Word, holding this faith, and by no means making up opinions of our own about the incarnation of the pre-eternal Word. [3.] The cedar wood, because it does not rot, and is evergreen, we take to indicate the Father, who possesses incorruptibility and immortality. We take the hyssop as a symbol of the coming of the only-begotten Son, for he came for our healing and salvation, for this herb helps against the wasting away of the body, and our Lord Jesus Christ brought us to life when we had dried up and withered away, and brought us back to our original honour. We say that the scarlet denotes the communion of the Holy Spirit, because of whom our souls will bear a good token, and his gifts shine forth from our bodies. [4.] And this is an image of the Trinity made of those things thrown into the burning of the heifer.
[5.] And that there are two persons indicates that there are two lives, the pure and the murky, and that the choice of the good life requires help, [showing] by these signs that when one is enlightened, his soul immediately receives renewal, whereby it is all cleansed of sin. [6.] And the ash that is sprinkled on those who are defiled reveals on the one hand the burial of the body of Christ, how he entered into the dust of the earth for our sake, and on the other symbolises repentance from sins, for while Christ was not yet come, they purified themselves with ashes.
And why did the scriptures call Christ’s death the dust of death and ashes? Because now they are purified by being baptised into Christ’s death, which washes the wounds which we have sustained through transgressions. Those who “were baptised into Christ,” says the apostle, “were baptised into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism,” etc.
[7.] Why then do the scriptures call Christ’s death dust and ashes? Because Christ underwent his passion not in the imagination, but in reality, having taken our flesh unchanged, and tasted death, like us, in truth. Thus they who have believed in him, but do not say that he really underwent his passion for us, are still in their sins. [8.] Therefore the people were not commanded to use the ashes of a second heifer, if there was no more of the first, that it should be clearly manifest, that Christ died for our sake, he died for the salvation of the world. And, says the apostle, “will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God,” having brought the flesh into eternal life.
[XIII.1] What else does it say? For the rest should also be seen. And this is the law: if a man die in a tent, anyone who enters the tent is unclean, as is everything that is there. He does not speak of death in general, but of spiritual death – for the soul also dies, and not for a time, but eternally. As the prophet says, “The soul that sins, it shall die.” [2.] This is real death, that is, the death of sin. For the beauty of the soul, and its covering, and its adornment, is a good life according to the scriptures. “The wise woman,” he says, “builds her house.” Likewise the Lord commands each of us to build our houses by good living, like the work of the wise man who built his house upon the rock. He calls himself the rock, and the stronghold of faith the house.
[3.] For if a man dies in spiritual death, and you enter his house, that is to say, his way of life and his works, you have immediately defiled your conscience and darkened your mind. However, if you repent before the evil can fester in your soul and body, you will come and purify yourself with the holy body. [4.] Every vessel that is open, and has no cover tied on it, is unclean. But every soul that is tied up with bonds of love and bound around, cannot receive that defilement. But that which is open through weakness, and does not bear the seal of Christ upon it, is defiled by the wiles of the Devil. Thus Jeremiah told the people, saying, “For death has come in through their doors.” He calls their senses doors.
[5.] If therefore they want to obey the words of the law concerning those who have died, how in reality one who has touched a dead man should be unclean, then let us say what sort of a likeness that was, that those who had touched a dead person should be in defilement. How is it that we consider dead bodies unclean – as not going to die ourselves, or as going to die? If as not going to die, then we shall say nothing. But if as going to die, it is impossible for anyone not to taste death. What is this absurdity, to abhor dying bodies, as if we were not going to be just like them? For both the dying and the dead are more honourable than we (if they are not afflicted with sins), for they have escaped the occasion of sin. “For whoever has died,” he said, “is freed from sin.” [6.] If it were not clean, would the Lord wish to raise it up and grant it the Kingdom of Heaven? The Lord spoke concerning the resurrection of the dead, as he spoke to Moses, “He is not a God of the dead, but of the living.” If he is a God of the living, the bodies that have left this life are alive, in that they have the hope of resurrection; therefore they are not unclean, for God takes care of them. [7.] Or how did the bones of Joseph not defile those who approached them? For all the people went with them.
[XIV.1] And anyone who crosses a field of the dead, or touches a dead body, or a human bone, or a grave, shall be unclean.
[2.] What is a field of the dead?
The “field of the dead” is the mentality of self-indulgence, which has hurt many, and has undone countless numbers by bringing them imaginary pleasures. And the wise [son of] Sirach prayed that he might avoid this snare: “O Lord, Father and Governor of all my whole life, leave me not to their counsels. [...] Let not the greediness of the belly nor lust of the flesh take hold of me.” For blessed indeed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and has gone round far off from wicked works. [3.] Or the bone of a dead man or the grave of a dead man. The bone means those who have abandoned the faith, and are not members of the church, but are cut off, and dead, and have lost all movement of life, and are separated from the most holy head, Our Lord, on whom the whole body depends, and being put together grows into a holy temple to the Lord. [4.] The “grave” and the “tomb” are hypocrites, and because they are fair on the outside but evil on the inside, the Lord compared them to whitewashed tombs.
[5.] The nomos commands that anyone who has touched this sort of wickedness should be purified. For it is good for those who have sinned in small things to purify themselves quickly, before they descend to the depths of evil. [6.] The seventh day, on which the unclean person is declared clean, is the distance from sin to confession, the time not having come for their complete pilgrimage. For if these seven days were longer than their pilgrimage, then, the times coming to an end, they would find no place for repentance. And on the seventh day, that is, at the end of life, he should be found clean. [7.] The ashes symbolise humility, as David said, “a humbled heart God will not despise.” And the Ninevites also repented with sackcloth and ashes. Likewise also Esther filled her head and ashes and dung, when she prayed to the Lord for her fellow-countrymen. Likewise Abraham said to the Lord, “I am dust and ashes.” And it says in the hundred and first Psalm, “I eat ashes like bread, and mingle tears with my drink,” showing great humility, offered wholeheartedly. And he also says, “O give thanks to the Lord; for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever.”
[XV.1] These are the true purifications of those who fear God, and these are the sprinklings which are accomplished by the Body of Christ, whereby not only bodies, but souls also are cleansed, better than by the blood of a heifer or the other purifications of the nomos. For the blood of Christ, says the apostle, will purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God, to whom be glory now and forever and unto ages of ages, Amen.