Chapter LXXXVI.—There are various figures in the Old Testament of the wood
of the cross by which Christ reigned.
And when I had quoted this, I added, “Hear, then, how this Man, of whom the Scriptures
declare that He will come again in glory after His crucifixion, was symbolized both by the
tree of life, which was said to have been planted in paradise, and by those events which
should happen to all the just. Moses was sent with a rod to effect the redemption of the
people; and with this in his hands at the head of the people, he divided the sea. By this he
saw the water gushing out of the rock; and when he cast a tree into the waters of Marah,
which were bitter, he made them sweet. Jacob, by putting rods into the water-troughs, caused
the sheep of his uncle to conceive, so that he should obtain their young. With his rod the
same Jacob boasts that he had crossed the river. He said he had seen a ladder, and the
Scripture has declared that God stood above it. But that this was not the Father, we have
proved from the Scriptures. And Jacob, having poured oil on a stone in the same place, is
testified to by the very God who appeared to him, that he had anointed a pillar to the God
who appeared to him. And that the stone symbolically proclaimed Christ, we have also
proved by many Scriptures; and that the unguent, whether it was of oil, or of stacte,522 or
of any other compounded sweet balsams, had reference to Him, we have also proved,523
inasmuch as the word says: ‘Therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil
of gladness above Thy fellows.’524 For indeed all kings and anointed persons obtained from
Him their share in the names of kings and anointed: just as He Himself received from the
Father the titles of King, and Christ, and Priest, and Angel, and such like other titles which
He bears or did bear. Aaron’s rod, which blossomed, declared him to be the high priest.
Isaiah prophesied that a rod would come forth from the root of Jesse, [and this was] Christ.
And David says that the righteous man is ‘like the tree that is planted by the channels of
waters, which should yield its fruit in its season, and whose leaf should not fade.’525 Again,
the righteous is said to flourish like the palm-tree. God appeared from a tree to Abraham,
as it is written, near the oak in Mamre. The people found seventy willows and twelve springs
after crossing the Jordan.526 David affirms that God comforted him with a rod and staff.
Elisha, by casting a stick527 into the river Jordan, recovered the iron part of the axe with
which the sons of the prophets had gone to cut down trees to build the house in which they
wished to read and study the law and commandments of God; even as our Christ, by being
522 [Myrrh. Christ the (Anointed) Rock is also referred to by Jacob (Gen. xlix. 24).]
523 In chap. lxiii. probably, where the same Psalm is quoted.
524 Ps. xlv. 7.
525 Ps. i. 3.
526 The Red Sea, not the Jordan. [Ex. xv. 27.]
527 Literally, “a tree.”
Chapter LXXXVI.—There are various figures in the Old Testament of the wood of the cross by which Christ reigned.
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Chapter LXXXVI.—There are various figures in the Old Testament of the wood…