{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-63","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":10,"chapter_to":10,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":6,"verse_to":6},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"Now these things were figures of us.\"</p><p>For as the gifts are figures, even so are the punishments figures: and as Baptism and the Table were sketched out prophetically, so also by what ensued, the certainty of punishment coming on those who are unworthy of this gift was proclaimed beforehand for our sake that we by these examples might learn soberness. Wherefore also he adds,</p><p>\"To the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.\" For as in the benefits the types went before and the substance followed, such shall be the order also in the punishments. Seest thou how he signifies not only the fact that these shall be punished, but also the degree, more severely than those ancients? For if the one be type, and the other substance, it must needs be that the punishments should as far exceed as the gifts.</p><p>And see whom he handles first: those who eat in the idol-temples. For having said, \"that we should not lust after evil things,\" which was general, he subjoins that which is particular, implying that each of their sins arose from evil lusting.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Corinthians 23</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: These things were written as examples for us, so that when we read about their sins we shall know to avoid them.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON 1 CORINTHIANS 4.46</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But if any feigns ignorance of the fact that that effigy of the serpent of bronze, after the manner of one uphung, denoted the shape of the Lord's cross, which was to free us from serpents-that is, from the devil's angels-while, through itself, it hanged up the devil slain; or whatever other exposition of that figure has been revealed to worthless men no matter, provided we remember the apostle affirms that all things happened at that time to the People figuratively. It is enough that the same God, as by law He forbade the making of similitude, did, by the extraordinary precept in the case of the serpent, interdict similitude. If you reverence the same God, you have His law, \"Thou shall make no similitude.\" If you look back, too, to the precept enjoining the subsequently made similitude, do you, too, imitate Moses: make not any likeness in opposition to the law, unless to you, too, God have bidden it.<br/><i>— On Idolatry</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But why resort to the figure of a sacred sign given by an extraneous god? Was it to teach the very truth, that ancient things prefigured the Christ who was to be educed out of them? For, being about to take a cursory view of what befell the people (of Israel) he begins with saying: \"Now these things happened as examples for us.\" Now, tell me, were these examples given by the Creator to men belonging to a rival god? Or did one god borrow examples from another, and a hostile one too? He withdraws me to himself in alarm from Him from whom he transfers my allegiance.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Where now is necessity, and what they call fortune or fate? What plague awaits the redeemed from death, after their eternal pardon? What wrath is there for the reconciled, after grace? What weakness, after their renewed strength? What risk and danger, after their salvation? That the raiment and shoes of the children of Israel remained unworn and fresh for the space of forty years; that in their very persons the exact point of convenience and propriety checked the rank growth of their nails and hair, so that any excess herein might not be attributed to indecency; that the fires of Babylon injured not either the mitres or the trousers of the three brethren, however foreign such dress might be to the Jews; that Jonah was swallowed by the monster of the deep, in whose belly whole ships were devoured, and after three days was vomited out again safe and sound; that Enoch and Elias, who even now, without experiencing a resurrection (because they have not even encountered death), are learning to the full what it is for the flesh to be exempted from all humiliation, and all loss, and all injury, and all disgrace-translated as they have been from this world, and from this very cause already candidates for everlasting life; -to what faith do these notable facts bear witness, if not to that which ought to inspire in us the belief that they are proofs and documents of our own future integrity and perfect resurrection? For, to borrow the apostle's phrase, these were \"figures of ourselves; \" and they are written that we may believe both that the Lord is more powerful than all natural laws about the body, and that He shows Himself the preserver of the flesh the more emphatically, in that He has preserved for it its very clothes and shoes.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"2b1876511ed5d3e63272ee37fba73aeae6853490167762e63c9992e2d97b6749","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":63,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"5d4a1d1d049e106c755c4b0f77810c6a32ce34d3224b8143d5d1585859849913","translator":null,"work":null}