Do all these passages indicate what is real?  No.  Do they then indicate what is typical?  No, but what is either real or typical.  But the first passages, excluding as they do reality, indicate that all this is only typical.

All these passages together cannot be applied to reality; all can be said to be typical; therefore they are not spoken of reality, but of the type.

Agnus occisus est ab origine mundi.[262] A sacrificing judge.

685

Contradictions.—­The sceptre till the Messiah—­without king or prince.

The eternal law—­changed.

The eternal covenant—­a new covenant.

Good laws—­bad precepts.  Ezekiel.

686

Types.—­When the word of God, which is really true, is false literally, it is true spiritually. Sede a dextris meis:[263] this is false literally, therefore it is true spiritually.

In these expressions, God is spoken of after the manner of men; and this means nothing else but that the intention which men have in giving a seat at their right hand, God will have also.  It is then an indication of the intention of God, not of His manner of carrying it out.

Thus when it is said, “God has received the odour of your incense, and will in recompense give you a rich land,” that is equivalent to saying that the same intention which a man would have, who, pleased with your perfumes, should in recompense give you a rich land, God will have towards you, because you have had the same intention as a man has towards him to whom he presents perfumes.  So iratus est, a “jealous God,"[264] etc.  For, the things of God being inexpressible, they cannot be spoken of otherwise, and the Church makes use of them even to-day:  Quia confortavil seras,[265] etc.

It is not allowable to attribute to Scripture the meaning which is not revealed to us that it has.  Thus, to say that the closed mem[266] of Isaiah signifies six hundred, has not been revealed.  It might be said that the final tsade and he deficientes may signify mysteries.  But it is not allowable to say so, and still less to say this is the way of the philosopher’s stone.  But we say that the literal meaning is not the true meaning, because the prophets have themselves said so.

687

I do not say that the mem is mystical.

688

Moses (Deut. xxx) promises that God will circumcise their heart to render them capable of loving Him.

689

One saying of David, or of Moses, as for instance that “God will circumcise the heart,” enables us to judge of their spirit.  If all their other expressions were ambiguous, and left us in doubt whether they were philosophers or Christians, one saying of this kind would in fact determine all the rest, as one sentence of Epictetus decides the meaning of all the rest to be the opposite.  So far ambiguity exists, but not afterwards.