st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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126 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
to be believed on and worshipped by every creature ;
(c. xxi.).
A figure of the cross is found, somewhat artifi
cially, in the act of Moses, when bidden to //// up
his rod and stretch out his hand over the sea; the
uplifted rod, as it would seem, being meant for a
type of the upright beam of the cross, and the out
stretched arm for the transverse beam across it. 1
The reason why Christ should have been laid in a
new sepulchre
is thus stated : But why He is laid
in a new sepulchre, wherein no dead was ever yet
laid? Methinks it was that the resurrection might
not be supposed to have been that of any of its
former occupants. For the men who thus looked
with evil eye on their own salvation were ready for
any device, and most prompt to disbelieve. And,
therefore, that the resurrection of the Lord may
be visibly and conspicuously displayed, He is buried
in a new and unused tomb. He, the spiritual Rock
of life, from which as it followed them the unmindful
Israelites drank ; He, the corner stone, not hewn with
This seems the true explanation of an obscure passage.
Damascene s words are: "Does not the same Moses again
smite the sea with his rod, and by the twofold manner of his
stroke, the upright and the transverse, betoken the figure of
the cross?" (c. xxv.) Lequien briefly refers to Exod. xiv. 27;
but in that verse there is mention only of the stretching out of
the hand over the sea. To complete the fanciful idea in the
text, we want the mention of the uplifted rod as well, found in
xiv. 1 6 ;
unless indeed there has been some confusion in the
writer s mind between this and the smiting the rock twice ;
as
there is nothing in Exod. xiv. to suggest that Moses smote the
sea.