Orth. -Now compare the type with the reality and you will see the impassibility of the Godhead even in the type. Both in the former and in the latter there is a Father; both in the former and the latter a well beloved Son, each bearing the material for the sacrifice. The one bore the wood, the other the cross upon his shoulders. It is said that the top of the hill was dignified by the sacrifice of both. There is a correspondence moreover between the number of days and nights and the resurrection which followed, for after Isaac had been slain by his father's willing heart, on the third day after the bountiful God had ordered the deed to be done, he rose to new life at the voice of Him who loves mankind. A lamb was seen caught in a thicket, furnishing an image of the cross, and slain instead of the lad. Now if this is a type of the reality, and in the type the only begotten Son did not undergo sacrifice, but a lamb was substituted and laid upon the altar and completed the mystery of the oblation, why then in the reality do you hesitate to assign the passion to the flesh, and to proclaim the impassibility of the Godhead?
Eran. -In your observations upon this type you represent Isaac as living again at the divine command. There is nothing therefore unseemly if, fitting the reality to the type, we declare that God the Word suffered and came to life again.
Orth. -I have said again and again that it is quite impossible for the type to match the archetypal reality in every respect, and this may also be easily understood in the present instance. Isaac and the lamb, as touching the difference of their natures, suit the image, but as touching the separation of their divided persons they do so no longer. We preach so close an union of Godhead and of manhood as to understand one person undivided, and to acknowledge the same to be both God and man, visible and invisible, circumscribed and uncircumcscribed, and we apply to one of the persons all the attributes which are indicative alike of Godhead and of manhood. Now since the lamb, an unreasoning being, and not gifted with the divine image, could not possibly prefigure the restoration to life, the two divide between them the type of the mystery of the oeconomy, and while one furnishes the image of death, the other supplies that of the resurrection. We find precisely the same thing in the Mosaic sacrifices, for in them too may. be seen a type outlined in anticipation of the passion of salvation.
Eran. -What Mosaic sacrifice foreshadows the reality?
Orth. -All the Old Testament, so to say, is a type of the New. It is for this reason that the divine Apostle plainly says-"the Law having a shadow of good things to come" and again "now all these things happened unto them for ensamples." The image of the archetype is very distinctly exhibited by the lamb slain in Egypt, and by the red heifer burned without the camp, and moreover referred to by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he writes "Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate."
But of this no more for the present. I will however mention the sacrifice in which two goats were offered, the one being slain, and the other let go. In these two goats there is an anticipative image of the two natures of the Saviour;-in the one let go, of the impassible Godhead, in the one slain, of the passible manhood.
Eran. -Do you not think it irreverent to liken the Lord to goats?
Orth. -Which do you think is a fitter object of avoidance and hate, a serpent or a goat?
Eran. -A serpent is plainly hateful, for it injuries those who come within its reach, and often hurts people who do it no harm. A goat on the other hand comes, according to the Law, in the list of animals that are clean and may be eaten.
Orth. -Now hear the Lord likening the passion of salvation to the brazen serpent. He says: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." If a brazen serpent was a type of the crucified Saviour, of what impropriety are we guilty in comparing the passion of salvation with the sacrifice of the goats?
Eran. -Because John called the Lord "a lamb," and Isaiah called Him "lamb" and "sheep."
Orth. -But the blessed Paul calls Him "sin" and "curse." As curse therefore He satisfies the type of the accursed serpent; as sin He explains the figure of the sacrifice of the goats, for on behalf of sin, in the Law, a goat, and not a lamb, was offered. So the Lord in the Gospels likened the just to lambs, but sinners to kids; and since He was ordained to undergo the passion not only on behalf of just men, but also of sinners, He appropriately foreshadows His own offering through lambs and goats.
Eran. -But the type of the two goats leads us to think of two persons.
Orth. -The passibility of the manhood and the impassibility of the Godhead could not possibly be prefigured both at once by one goat. The one which was slain could not have shewn the living nature. So two were taken in order to explain the two natures. The same lesson may well be learnt from another sacrifice.
Eran. -From which?
Orth. -From that in which the lawgiver bids two pure birds be offered-one to be slain, and the other, after having been dipped in the blood of the slain, to be let go. Here also we see a type of the Godhead and of the manhood-of the manhood slain and of the godhead appropriating the passion.
Eran. -You have given us many types, but I object to enigmas.
Orth. -Yet the divine Apostle says that the narratives are types. Hagar is called a type of the old covenant; Sarah is likened to the heavenly Jerusalem; Ishmael is a type of Israel, and Isaac of the new people. So you must accuse the loud trumpet of the Spirit for giving its enigmas for us all.
Eran. -Though you urge any number of arguments, you will never induce me to divide the passion. I have heard the voice of the angel saying to Mary and her companions, "Come, see the place where the Lord lay."
Orth. -This is quite in accordance with our common customs; we speak of the part by the name which belongs to all the parts. When we go into the churches where are buried the holy apostles or prophets or martyrs, we ask from time to time, "Who is it who lies in the shrine?" and those who are able to give us information say in reply, Thomas, it may be, the Apostle, or John the Baptist, or Stephen the protomartyr, or any other of the saints, mentioning them by name, though perhaps only a few scanty relics of them lie here. But no one who hears these names which are common to both body and soul will imagine that the souls also are shut up in the chests; everybody knows that the chests contain only the bodies or even small portions of the bodies. The holy angel spoke in precisely the same manner when he described the body by the name of the person.
Eran. -But how can you prove that the angel spoke to the women about the Lord's body?
Orth. -In the first place, the tomb itself suffices to settle the question, for to a tomb is committed neither soul nor Godhead whose nature is uncircumscribed; tombs are made for bodies. Furthermore this is plainly taught by the divine Scripture, for so the holy Matthew narrates the event, "When the even was come there came a rich man of Arimathaea named Joseph who also himself was Jesus' disciple: he went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered, and when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre and departed." See how often he mentions the body in order to stop the mouths of them who blaspheme the Godhead. The same course is pursued by the thrice blessed Mark, whose narrative I will also quote. "And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marvelled if He were already dead; and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether He had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph, and he brought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped Him in the linen, and laid Him in a sepulchre," and so on. Observe with admiration, the harmony of terms, and how consistently and continuously the word body is introduced. The illustrious Luke, too, relates just in the same way how Joseph begged the body and after he had received it treated it with due rites. By the divine John we are told yet more, "Joseph of Arimathaea being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes about a hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh at band." Observe how often mention is made of the body; how the Evangelist shows that it was the body which was nailed to the cross, the body begged by Joseph of Pilate, the body taken down from the tree, the body wrapped in linen clothes with the myrrh and aloes, and then the name of the person given to it; and Jesus said to have been laid in a tomb. Thus the angel said, "Come see the place where the Lord lay," naming the part by the name of the whole; and we constantly do just the same. In this place, we say, such an one was buried; not the body of such an one. Every one in his senses knows that we are speaking of the body, and such a mode of speech is customary in divine Scripture. Aaron, we read, died and they buried him on Mount Hor. Samuel died and they buried him at Ramah, and there are many similar instances. The same use is followed by the divine Apostle when speaking of the death of the Lord. "I delivered unto you first of all," he writes, "that which I also received how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures," and so on.
Eran. -In the passages we have just now read the Apostle does not mention a body, but Christ the Saviour of us all. You have brought evidence against your own side, and wounded yourself with your own weapon.
Orth. -You seem to have very quickly forgotten the long discourse in which I proved to you over and over again that the body is spoken of by the name of the person. This is what is now done by the divine Apostle, and it can easily be proved from this very passage. Now let us look at it. Why did the divine writer write thus to the Corinthians?
Eran. -They had been deceived by some into believing that there is no resurrection. When the teacher of the world learnt this he furnished them with his arguments about the resurrection of the bodies.