A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

223the “flesh,” as it were, of Scripture, for so we name the obvioussense; while he who has ascended a certain way may be edifiedby the “soul,” as it were. The perfect man, and he who resemblesthose spoken of by the Apostle, when he says, “We speak wisdomamong them that are perfect, but not the wisdom of the world, [201]nor of the rulers of this world, who come to nought; but we speakthe wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which Godhath ordained before the ages unto our glory” [I Cor. 2:6, 7], mayreceive edification from the spiritual law, which was a shadowof things to come. For as man consists of body and soul andspirit, so in the same way does the Scripture consist, which hasbeen arranged by God for the salvation of men.Ch. 12. But as there are certain passages which do not containat all the “corporeal” sense, as we shall show in the following,there are also places where we must seek only for the “soul,” asit were, and “spirit” of Scripture.Ch. 15. But since, if the usefulness of the legislation andthe sequence and beauty of the history were universally evident,we should not believe that any other thing could be understoodin the Scriptures save what was obvious, the Word of God hasarranged that certain stumbling-blocks, and offences, and impossibilities,should be introduced into the midst of the law and thehistory, in order that we may not, through being drawn awayin all directions by the merely attractive nature of the language,either altogether fall away from the true doctrines, as learningnothing worthy of God, or, by not departing from the letter,come to the knowledge of nothing more divine. And this, also,we must know: that, since the principal aim is to announce the“spiritual” connection in those things that are done and that oughtto be done where the Word found that things done according tothe history could be adapted to these mystic senses, He madeuse of them, concealing from the multitude the deeper meaning;but where in the narrative of the development of super-sensualthings there did not follow the performance of those certain