Ambrosiaster : Paul says the Jews were under the cloud in order to point out that everything that happened to them is meant to be understood as a picture of the truth which has been revealed to us. Under the cloud they were protected from their enemies until they were delivered from death, analogous to baptism. For when they passed through the Red Sea they were delivered from the Egyptians who died in it, and their death prefigured our baptism, which puts our adversaries to death as well. — COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES Augustine of Hippo : The history of the exodus was an allegory of the Christian people that was yet to be. — THE USEFULNESS OF BELIEF 8 Cyprian : For the case of the Jews under the apostles was one, but the condition of the Gentiles is another. The former, because they had already gained the most ancient baptism of the law and Moses, were to be baptized also in the name of Jesus Christ, in conformity with what Peter tells them in the Acts of the Apostles, saying, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For this promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." — Epistle LXXII Gennadius of Constantinople : The cloud was a figure standing for the grace of the Spirit. For just as the cloud covered the Israelites and protected them from the Egyptians, so the Spirit's grace shields us from the wiles of the devil. Likewise, just as the crossing of the sea protected them from their enemies and gave them real freedom, so baptism protects us from our enemies. That was how the Israelites came to live under the law of Moses. This is how we, in baptism, are clothed with the Spirit of adoption and inherit the covenants and confessions made in accordance with the commands of Christ. — PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH Tertullian : For the people, after crossing the sea, and being carried about in the desert during forty years, although they were there nourished with divine supplies, nevertheless were more mindful of their belly and their gullet than of God. Thereupon the Lord, driven apart into desert places after baptism, showed, by maintaining a fast of forty days, that the man of God lives "not by bread alone," but "by the word of God; " and that temptations incident to fulness or immoderation of appetite are shattered by abstinence. — On Baptism Theodore of Mopsuestia : The sea is a figure of baptism with water; the cloud of the grace of baptism in the Spirit. — PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH