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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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88 Pages
Page 35
Chapter XIV.
Objection that some were baptized unto Moses and believed in him, and an answer to it; with remarks upon types.
31. But even if some are baptized unto the Spirit, it is not, it is urged, on this account right for the Spirit to be ranked with God. Some "were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." [971] And it is admitted that faith even before now has been put in men; for "The people believed God and his servant Moses." [972] Why then, it is asked, do we, on account of faith and of baptism, exalt and magnify the Holy Spirit so far above creation, when there is evidence that the same things have before now been said of men? What, then, shall we reply? Our answer is that the faith in the Spirit is the same as the faith in the Father and the Son; and in like manner, too, the baptism. But the faith in Moses and in the cloud is, as it were, in a shadow and type. The nature of the divine is very frequently represented by the rough and shadowy outlines [973] of the types; but because divine things are prefigured by small and human things, it is obvious that we must not therefore conclude the divine nature to be small. The type is an exhibition of things expected, and gives an imitative anticipation of the future. So Adam was a type of "Him that was to come." [974] Typically, "That rock was Christ;" [975] and the water a type of the living power of the word; as He says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." [976] The manna is a type of the living bread that came down from heaven; [977] and the serpent on the standard, [978] of the passion of salvation accomplished by means of the cross, wherefore they who even looked thereon were preserved. So in like manner, the history of the exodus of Israel is recorded to shew forth those who are being saved through baptism. For the firstborn of the Israelites were preserved, like the bodies of the baptized, by the giving of grace to them that were marked with blood. For the blood of the sheep is a type of the blood of Christ; and the firstborn, a type of the first-formed. And inasmuch as the first-formed of necessity exists in us, and, in sequence of succession, is transmitted till the end, it follows that "in Adam" we "all die," [979] and that "death reigned" [980] until the fulfilling of the law and the coming of Christ. And the firstborn were preserved by God from being touched by the destroyer, to show that we who were made alive in Christ no longer die in Adam. The sea and the cloud for the time being led on through amazement to faith, but for the time to come they typically prefigured the grace to be. "Who is wise and he shall understand these things?" [981] --how the sea is typically a baptism bringing about the departure of Pharaoh, in like manner as this washing causes the departure of the tyranny of the devil. The sea slew the enemy in itself: and in baptism too dies our enmity towards God. From the sea the people came out unharmed: we too, as it were, alive from the dead, step up from the water "saved" by the "grace" of Him who called us. [982] And the cloud is a shadow of the gift of the Spirit, who cools the flame of our passions by the "mortification" of our "members." [983]
[971] 1 Cor. x. 2.
[972] Ex. xiv. 31, lxx.
[973] skiagraphia, or shade-painting, is illusory scene-painting. Plato (Crit. 107 c.) calls it "indistinct and deceptive." cf. Ar. Eth. Nic. i. 3, 4, "pachulos kai en tupo." The tupos gives the general design, not an exact anticipation.
[974] Rom. v. 14.
[975] 1 Cor. x. 4.
[976] John vii. 37.
[977] John vi. 49, 51.
[978] semeion, as in the LXX. cf. Numb. xxi. 9 and John iii. 14.
[979] 1 Cor. xv. 22.
[980] Rom. v. 17.
[981] Hos. xiv. 9.
[982] Eph. ii. 5.
[983] Col. iii. 5.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/holy-spirit.asp?pg=35
