When the Transjordanian Israelites had erected the altar, rumor at once reports it to the Cisjordanian [west-of-Jordan] Israelites (v. 11); and among these [latter] an opinion straightway arose [that] the matter was evil and impious: and therefore also a suspicion sprang up [that] the Transjordanians were contriving an apostasy from the true worship of God (vv. 12, 16, 17, 18, 19). The reason was [that] it was God’s precept that, in the Israelite people, and in [its] whole region — as much beyond as on this side of the Jordan — [there] should be only one place of sacred [rites], one altar of sacrifices (Exod. 20 & 24; Lev. 17:8 & 9; Deut. 12:5, 11, 13). Josephus (bk. 4 of the Archaeology, ch. 8): ἱερὰ πόλις ἔστω μία τῆς χαναναίων γῆς ἐν τῷ καλλίστῳ καὶ δι’ ἀρετὴν ἐπιφανεῖ· καὶ νεὼς εἷς ἐν ταύτῃ ἔστω, καὶ βωμὸς εἷς ἐκ λίθων μὴ κατειργασμένων [hiera polis estō mia tēs chananaiōn gēs en tō kallistō kai di’ aretēn epiphanei; kai neōs heis en tautē estō, kai bōmos heis ek lithōn mē kateirgasmenōn, “Let there be one holy city in the land of the Canaanites, in the fairest [spot] and conspicuous for [its] excellence; and let there be one temple in it, and one altar of stones not wrought [by tool]”]. And [in] bk. 2 Against Apion: … θεοῦ θεραπείας οὗτος ὁσιώτατος, εἷς ναὸς ἑνὸς θεοῦ· φίλον γὰρ ἀεὶ παντὶ τὸ ὅμοιον [… theou therapeias houtos hosiōtatos, heis naos henos theou; philon gar aei panti to homoion, ”… this [is] the most holy manner of the worship of God: one temple of one God; for the like is ever dear to every like”]. And most elegantly Philo, near the beginning of bk. 2 On Monarchy:
Ἐδεῖ ἡμᾶς ἀνθρώπων μὴ ἀνακόψαι φορὰς τὰς εἰς εὐσέβειαν συντελούντων, καὶ θυσίαις βουλομένων ἢ ἐπὶ τοῖς συμβαίνουσιν ἀγαθοῖς εὐχαριστεῖν, ἢ ἐφ’ οἷς ἂν ἁμάρτωσι συγγνώμην καὶ παραίτησιν αἰτεῖσθαι. Προενόησε δὲ ὡς … πολλαχόθι ἐν τῷ [κόσμῳ] πολλὰ κατασκευασθήσεται ἱερά, δικαιώσας, ἐπειδὴ εἷς ἐστι θεός, καὶ ἱερὸν εἶναι μόνον. [Edei hēmas anthrōpōn mē anakopsai phoras tas eis eusebeian syntelountōn … “[He willed] that we should not check the impulses of men as [they] press toward piety and wish, by sacrifices, either to give thanks for the good [things] that befall [them], or to seek pardon and deprecation for [the things] in which [they] may have sinned. But [God] provided beforehand against [there being], in many places [throughout the world], many temples built — judging [it] right, since God is one, [that] the temple also be one.”]
When, therefore, these Transjordanians had erected a second altar, and in another place than where the true altar and tabernacle of God was, [they] seemed guilty of apostasy and impiety (vv. 11, 16, 19) — as though this had been done by them ἐπὶ νεωτερισμῷ, καὶ ξενικῶν εἰσαγωγῇ θεῶν [epi neōterismō, kai xenikōn eisagōgē theōn, “for [the sake of] revolt [innovation], and the introduction of foreign gods”], as Josephus says.
An assembly [comitia], therefore, was held at Silo (v. 12), in which this whole matter — so new, and so unusual and suspect — might be debated. But to those [deliberations] the Cisjordanians seem to have come of their own accord, and uninvited: because, the instant [they] had heard about the new altar, [they] judged [that] the crime must be avenged, and the apostates utterly destroyed and rooted out; nor [that it] must be waited until [they] should be summoned; but [that there] must be a hastening, of their own accord, to Silo, to the house of God, to the High Priest, to the Commander Joshua, and a taking-care that, by the judgment of those [men] and of the whole people, the common evil be removed. In which matter their zeal [is] to be praised, nor [is] the suspicion greatly to be censured.
For although — as will afterward appear — [it] was false, yet [there] was cause for suspecting: and [they] did not so indulge the suspicion [as] not to refer it to the superiors, and to the common council. And indeed, in matters which touch the whole Commonwealth and divine religion, [it] is blameworthy rather for us to be slow and slow-paced [spissigrados] than to speed up, to hasten, and to run. For haste and running — which does not exclude counsel and deliberation — is especially wont to forestall and avert dangers, nor can [it] be called headlong and rash. For to this pertains the whole [matter treated] from Deut. ch. 13, and what I said against Filidinus in the preface, and in bk. 1, ch. 2. “Dry [things],” says Seneca (bk. 2, Epist. 18), “and [things] easy to catch [fire], nurse even a spark, [right] up into a conflagration.” “Much more swiftly,” says Peter the Venerable (bk. 1, Epist. 2), “do increments [of growth] attend upon the worst [things] than upon the best.” Far more easily and more fruitfully does the devil’s cockle [tares], than God’s wheat, spread itself in his field.
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In the assembly [comitia], indeed, three [things] were decreed — chiefly by the authority and judgment of the Pontiff [Eleazar] and of Joshua, as Josephus notes (bk. 5, ch. 1). First: that inquiry be made — not whether [they] had set up an altar (for that was established [certain]) — but to what end [they] had built it: whether for idolatry, and injury to God, or for some other cause. Second: if for idolatry and injury to God, [that] effort be made [that] they be recalled as quickly as possible from that nefarious defection and crime, by admonition, reproof, [and] rebuke. Third: if by these [means] their impious mind should be bent in no way, but [they] should persist obstinately in the impiety [they had] undertaken, [that] an atrocious and internecine war be undertaken against them: and that [it] be straightway declared to them, and, [once] declared, be waged. And that these three [things] might be done most conveniently and best, [it] was also decreed that a legation be sent to them, which would either do or announce all these [things]. [Men] chosen, therefore, for it [the legation] from the whole of Israel on this side of the Jordan — in the first place indeed, from the sacred order of the Levites and Priests, the priest Phinees (v. 13), son of the Pontiff Eleazar, grandson of Aaron, a man most distinguished in wisdom, holiness, zeal, and eloquence. And moreover [he was] most highly commended by the testimony and the signal office of the everlasting priesthood [given him], ever since that time when [he] had transfixed, [as they were] fornicating together, the Midianite woman Cozbi and the Israelite Zambri [Zimri] (Num. 25). Then, with him [were chosen] from the ten Cisjordanian tribes — [those] which were strongest in prudence and highest authority — ten princes [χιλίαρχοι [chiliarchoi, “commanders of a thousand”], in the Seventy; so here in the Hebrew below, v. 30], whose names are unknown (vv. 14 & 30). These, therefore, having set out across the Jordan, discharged the office of the legation laid [upon them] diligently [strenuously]: but in the first place [he] who was its prince and head, the priest Phinees. He was the mouth of all: through him all the others spoke (vv. 15 & 16).
Of this [assembly] — both in Josephus and in this our chapter — gathered to the Transjordanians, and collected in a kind of Senate and assembly [comitium], which Josephus calls ἐκκλησίαν [ekklēsian, “assembly”], a speech is extant. In it indeed, that [his] authority may be the greater for [what] he is about to say, Phinees shows [the following]. First: [that he speaks] in the name, by the will, and by the authority of the whole public [body] of the people, by whom [he] had been sent with [his] colleagues (v. 16): “Thus commands all the people of the Lord” — where [there] is great force in [the fact] that [he] calls his people “the people of the Lord”; namely, as [it were], [a people] constant in the worship of God — from which these [tribes] seemed to have departed — and firmly cleaving to him: and likewise, in that [word] “all.” For “people,” in Hebrew, [there] is “hedah” [עדה], that is, “Church [assembly],” “congregation” [coetus] — συναγωγή [synagōgē], as [it] is in the Seventy. Secondly: [he] comes at once to the matter itself, and joins the two first heads of the legation — namely, by inquiring [investigating] to what end at last the altar was built by them, and by admonishing them. He inquires, indeed, subtly [craftily], while [he] casts up, as [though] certain, the [charge] which [he] inquires about (vv. 16 & 17). For thus the Transjordanians were the more stirred up, so that, [if] what was objected were false, [they] might utterly deny [it], and might explain with what mind that [altar] had been built. “A sacrilegious altar” the Interpreter [Vulgate] calls [it], [that] which in Hebrew is called “an altar for defecting [falling away],” or “for apostatizing from God”: in the Seventy, βωμὸς τοῦ ἀποστάτας γενέσθαι ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου [bōmos tou apostatas genesthai apo tou kyriou, “an altar for becoming apostates from the Lord”].
[He] admonishes, indeed, in a threefold way. First: by threatening the vast wrath and vengeance of God — which may invade both all [together] and suddenly — and [he makes] this certain by the example of the sin committed in [the matter of] the idol Peor, or Baalphegor (Num. 25), whose so great destruction and ruin was [such], that very many of the people fell: and although the Lord here attests himself [to have been] propitiated by the zeal of Phinees [who was] speaking — nevertheless that sin was not yet wholly expiated (v. 17), where [it is] to be read “up to the present day the stain of this crime remains in us,” which in Hebrew is said “not yet have we purified ourselves from that crime” [nondum nos ipsos purificavimus ab eo scelere]: in the Seventy, οὐκ ἐκαθαρίσθημεν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἁμαρτήματος Φογώρ [ouk ekatharisthēmen ap’ autou tou hamartēmatos Phogōr, “we have not been cleansed from that sin of Phogor (Peor)”]. Not because some still cherished [loved] that sin, as Ralbag [Gersonides] says, nor because its infamy alone survived: but because, on account of it, penalties were still being exacted, day by day, from very many. For [it is] certain [that], the sin [being] pardoned, and the eternal penalty remitted, temporal penalties [are] not rarely still to be paid — as [in] Num. 14:20 [and] 2 Kings [2 Sam.] 12. “The fault,” says St. Augustine on John, “would be thought small, if it were ended together with [its] penalty.” Let this pronouncement of Phinees be observed, therefore, against the Novators [innovators] of our time, [who] think [that], after the pardon of some sin has been obtained, no further penalties of it are to be feared. Secondly: Phinees meets a certain tacit objection (v. 19). “Perhaps you forge [cuditis] a new worship for yourselves, because [you] think your land — [given] to God — [to be] as it were unclean, since [he] fixed [his] tabernacle not among you, but among us. But [it] is not unclean: and if [you] think [it] such, leave it: migrate to us. We will yield to you a part of our portion most willingly, provided [you] desist from that impiety.” O the splendid virtue of those Israelites, who — in order to call others away from error and crime, [to] lead [them] across to God, [and] make [them] come to [their] senses — deprive themselves of their own inheritance, [and] of their own accord invite [their] neighbors into participation and communion of it! Woe to those wretched, greedy, and sordid Euclios [misers], who, lest [they] should have to give anything to [those] returning from heresy to the Catholic Church, prefer [that] those [people] be not led away from it [heresy], not called forth, not received! Thirdly: on account of the one offense of Achan, the whole people was afflicted with grievous slaughter and disgrace (above, ch. 7); what [is] now to be [expected] with so great a multitude sinning against God? “Would that he alone had perished in his crime” (v. 20). What is wished [for] here — as if in Hebrew [it] had formerly been written not “lo” [לא, “not”] but “lo” [לו, “to him / O that”] — is today affirmed in the Hebrew thus: “not one,” or “not alone, did [he] perish in his crime”: but with him exceedingly [too] many. In the Seventy, however, the contrary would seem to be asserted — οὗτος εἷς αὐτὸς ἀπέθανεν τῇ ἑαυτοῦ ἁμαρτίᾳ [houtos heis autos apethanen tē heautou hamartia] — unless [it] be read interrogatively. “Did this one man himself die in his own sin?” — q.d. [as if to say]: “No, but with him others also.”
These [things] having been argued out by Phinees, the Transjordanians answered (v. 21) [that] the suspicion with which the Cisjordanians had labored was false. First, therefore (vv. 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28), [they] attest God [as] καρδιογνώστην [kardiognōstēn, “knower of hearts”], with an imprecation, [that they are] utterly estranged from all apostasy: and [that it was] with this mind and intent [that they had] erected that altar — not that [they] might make any sacrifices on it, but that it might be a symbol, a monument, and a witness of their religion toward the true God, of their concord with the other Israelites, and of [their] brotherly fellowship in the sacrosanct worship of the Deity. [They declare] that [they] had indeed feared lest the posterity of the Cisjordanian Israelites, seeing themselves and their descendants separated from the Transjordanians by the river Jordan, should bar [the latter] from their sacred [rites] also, and so give [them] some occasion of idolatry, and of a most foul departure from God. And so
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[…and so to] all these [things], as most truly, so also most gravely, the Transjordanians replied: and just as the Legates’ speech had been thoroughly pathetic [moving] and ardent, so also is the response of these [men]. The outcome of which was [such] as — [once] the truth was laid open — [it] had to be among good men. For, these [things] having been heard, Phinees the priest, and the princes of the legation of Israel, who were with him — says the text (v. 30) — were appeased [placated]: and the words of the children of Ruben, and of Gad, and of the half tribe of Manasses they received most willingly; or, as [it] is in the Hebrew, this whole [thing] was good in their sight, or it was good in their eyes — in the Seventy, ἤρεσεν αὐτοῖς [ēresen autois, “it was pleasing to them”]. Therefore Phinees, wholly glad, exultant, and giving as [it were] a vast applause, said (v. 31): Now we know that the Lord is with us, because you are not estranged from him by this prevarication [transgression], and you have delivered the children of Israel from the hand of the Lord — [the hand] which, namely, would have inflicted a most grievous penalty and calamity, had these [tribes] fallen away from his worship and law. And when those Cisjordanians, returned to Silo, had reported the same [things] (v. 32), the saying pleased all that heard [it] (v. 33), and the children of Israel praised God. And the same [thing] the Transjordanians, freed from that suspicion, did not by word only, but also by deed. When (v. 34) they imposed a name upon the altar, [a name] which signified both [that] they themselves persevered in the true worship of God, and what the true use of that altar ought to be. For they called this altar “Testimony,” because they attest the Lord to be God, or [that] he is God and Lord whom the Transjordanians worship and venerate, and not indeed any other. For therefore the Seventy say “ὁ Θεὸς θεῶν” [ho Theos theōn, “God of gods”]. And therefore, when Peter of Blois (Epist. 106) calls that altar “sacrilegious,” [he is] either to be understood as to the first suspicion, or — as [was] noted there by its editor — [his] memory slipped, especially since [he] subjoins [that], on account of it, “the wrath of God flowed out universally upon the people.” Which, however, did not happen.
But from this whole history, besides [the things] which [are] already interspersed, we learn [the following]. 1. If heresies and scandals arise, [one] must withstand them at once, at [their] beginnings. For often the medicine is prepared too late, when the ills have grown strong through long delays. “Succor [me], I beg,” says Tullius [Cicero] to Atticus, “while it is [at its] ἀκμή [akmē, ‘critical point, prime’].” Pelagius the Pontiff writes to Narses the Patrician, as [it] is had [in] the chapter De Liguribus (23, q. 5): “The Fathers established this specially: that if any Ecclesiastical person, to whom [one] is subject, should resist, or should gather [a flock] apart, or should erect another altar — or should make a schism — let that [person] be excommunicated and condemned.”
2. [One] must act zealously and prudently with those who seem to err; and first indeed [one] must strive by doctrine and instruction, by admonition and by thoroughly frightening [them], that [they] may return to the way. But then, if [they] be unwilling, force [is] to be applied — which St. Augustine (Epist. 50) greatly approves and commends. 3. Because this altar — not a true altar, but [one] which had the type and form of the true altar, as Origen says (homily 3 on this book) — was [built], we learn [that] images and statues can be made, which may preserve the memory of Christ the Lord, of the saints, and of divine things, [may] kindle faith, [and may] take away forgetfulness. This, in this place, the Catholic Masius, and the Lutheran Chytraeus, note against the Calvinists; and in the name of the latter [Chytraeus] and of his whole conventicle, the words are these: “The image-fighters [iconomachi] speciously, in their theatre, accuse the Churches of these regions [on the ground] that, against the express prohibition of the first and second precept, they tolerate images and statues in their temples.” To these — as to the Rubenite Legates — we reply: [that] images are not to be adored nor worshiped, nor is any adoration or worship of them to be tolerated in our temples: but [that] pictures of the passion and the resurrection of CHRIST, and of the holy Martyrs, [are] to be retained as, as it were, embellishments and monuments of [the sacred] histories; by which we are stirred up, in our [own] measure, to true piety, faith, constancy, and the other virtues of the saints, to be imitated. [There is] an end [purpose] of images [established] in the word of God — [it] is by no means prohibited. And this, in the preface to our [confrère] Vazquez’s books On Adoration edited here, I showed at [greater] length. But we have Calvin here confessing: “These,” he says, “were works of impiety, which [things] had indeed been refuted: yet [they] do not seem to have been in every part free from fault, because the law forbids [one] to erect any statues whatever.” But the excuse is easy: no other statues are condemned, except those which look to representing God. Meanwhile, to erect a heap of stones (much more a single stone or [piece of] wood) in place of a trophy — either for a testimony of a miracle, or for the memory of a signal grace of God — nowhere has the law prohibited. Otherwise both Joshua, and after him some holy Judges and Kings, would have defiled themselves with a profane novelty. But [that] indeed some worship and veneration too — which, however, is not divine and latreutic [latria] — can be applied to these [images] (which, with that Calvin, the Lutheran [Chytraeus] does not want): the argument is the pillar [titulus] which Jacob erected (Gen. 28:18). For [it] was a statue [pillar], as there Calvin, and his disciples Tremellius and Junius, translate: and Jacob applied to it a religious ceremony of anointing, as the same [men] note in [their] annotations. For when [they] had translated “Jacob set up the stones for a statue [pillar], and poured oil upon the top of it,” [they] subjoin, “[as] a sign, namely, of consecration — [a sign] not devised by him, but received from [his] father too, and divinely instituted. This ceremony thereafter, under the Law, was in use in the consecrations of things and persons, by God’s command (Exod. 29).” And the same Calvin likewise: “This ceremony was an appendage of divine worship. For external rites do not make true worshipers of God, but are only supports [adminicula] of piety.”
Fourthly: since I have fallen upon that Calvin, [it] pleases [me] to note something else from him here. “Not lightly,” he says, “did the tribes Ruben, Gad, and Manasses sin, in that — the high priest [being] passed over, [and] the brethren unconsulted — [they] undertook a new thing: then, in that the very form of the testimony [altar] could be drawn to the wrong [sinister] side.” But if both this was so grave a sin, how [is there] so great a silence in the text about each [of them]? How does Phinees reject neither? How, after [they] had answered him about the purpose of their altar, does that [Calvin] not press [the point that] the authority of the High Priest [was] violated — [nor] the residual appearance of their deed, which would [still] be liable to suspicions and rumors? Neither, in truth, was a sin, or [it was] altogether very slight. For nowhere was [it] prohibited, that no one might do what he judged good, without consulting the high priest. Nowhere [was there] a precept that whole tribes, if [they] wished to set up spontaneously some testimony of divine benefits toward themselves, should refer that to all the other tribes. This very [thing] was lawful to private persons and individuals — as we saw of Jacob, and as that Calvin himself has confessed concerning Joshua, and others after him, Judges and Kings. How, therefore, would [it] not have been lawful to whole tribes? And indeed [they acted] with deliberation, and great
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[And indeed, with deliberation and great] counsel this altar [was] erected by them, [as] is clearly shown in this very chapter, from v. 23 to 29. Nor does [it] matter [that it] could have been drawn [twisted] to the wrong [sinister] side. For what cannot be twisted? What good [thing] is done by Catholics, which the Lutherans [and] Calvinists do not interpret most wrongly? Wittily [does] that Plautine Callicles [speak] in the Trinummus:
Lest I admit a fault, I am [my] own steward over my own breast [I keep my own conscience]; suspicion is lodged in another’s breast. And again, It is and is not in my hand [power], Megaronides — that they not say [things], is not [in my power]; but that, with good cause, they not say [them], that is.
But [as to the charge] that [Calvin] says these tribes bound themselves by so grave a crime — because, the high priest [being] passed over, [they] erected an altar — what, at last, and how great, is [Calvin’s] own crime, who — the high priest [being] passed over, despised, and mocked — has overturned and disturbed so many most ancient temples and altars of God? who has raised up so many new dogmas and errors [as] it were altars and hearths of impiety? who has sundered, drawn away, [and] torn away himself and all his [followers] from the tabernacle of God, and from the true altar — from the Catholic Church, I say, and from the sacred [rites] and communion of all Christian brethren? I remember, too, [having] read a certain letter [written] to Grynaeus, by Calvin’s own hand, in which [he said] he had written on some controversies which look to the faith, nor [had he] wished to consult his other Sacramentarian brethren, those symmystae [fellow-initiates], about those [matters], lest their counsel should be hindered. But just as that Calvin too much accuses those Transjordanians, so too much does Moncaeus [excuse them], when (bk. 1 On Aaron, ch. 12, p. 133) [he] writes [that] they wished to have a true altar: so that on it — outside the three prescribed solemnities of the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, on which [feasts] all had to go to the tabernacle — they might be able to sacrifice: lest [they] always have to set out so far, for the sake of sacrifice. But this excuse is rather a grave accusation. First, indeed, [they] would not have opened the true cause of their counsel and deed to Phinees the Pontiff, and to the other legates. Then, nowhere else, even outside those three feasts, was [it] ordinarily lawful to sacrifice. Thirdly: those same Transjordanians would have been exceedingly negligent and slothful in the divine worship — [they] who, when (with that good and religious mind, as Moncaeus wants) [they] had erected the altar, yet, in [the case] where [it] was lawful, and especially [so] at the beginning and dedication [when] it behooved [them], would have made no Sacrifice as yet. For if [they] had done this, [they] would already have utterly refuted, by the very deed, their own previously-set-down response and purgation.
But Fifthly: we learn, when some suspicion about certain friends has arisen in some matter, [that] we should go to them, question [them], [and] admonish [them] — as, [in] the Trinummus cited a little before, a certain prudent old man [says]:
To chastise a friend for a deserved fault is a thankless deed, yet, in [its] season, useful and profitable.
Sixthly: when by friends we are admonished, chastised, [or] rebuked, [it] is not to be borne ill, but to be received evenly [calmly] and amicably. And if indeed we are innocent, [our] innocence is to be set forth to our Rubenites, Gadites, and Manassites [i.e. to our critics]: suspicion is to be separated from us in a good manner, and to be snatched away from others. Nay — to the friend who, [out of concern] for admonishing and rebuking us, is fearful and hesitant, [it] is of a good man to add courage, as [did] that old Callicles:
If you know [that] I have done anything ignorantly or wickedly, [and] if you do not accuse [me] of it, you yourself ought to be rebuked, I know.
Seventhly: when we have heard the excuse and innocence of friends, let us easily believe [it] and acquiesce: let us not imitate those harsh and implacable [men], who, if [they] have ever been exasperated and offended, can be appeased by no defense, but always have [something] which [they] malignantly and unfairly carp at. Let us rather imitate those ten tribes, and their legates: and, if [it] please, that old man who had come of set purpose to [his] friend, [resolved] to rebuke him sharply with many words. For when [he] had understood [that the things] which [had been done] by him were not perverse, but rightly done:
“Pausa [Stop],” he says, “you have conquered your chastiser. You have shut up [my] tongue. There is nothing I might answer.”
Eighthly: Bishops and Ecclesiastics all have in Phinees a splendid example, which [it] is fitting to follow: that [men] be recalled from new and depraved opinions in religion to the old and ancient piety. [One] must go to those same [men]: [one] must converse with them: nothing [is] to be feared: expeditions [are] to be undertaken: rivers [are] to be crossed: sermons [are] to be held [preached]: their favor [is] to be set after the public utility, and [their] private [favor] after the eternal salvation of those same [people] — as I also touched [on, in] ch. 6 of the Joshuan Priests, num. 70.
Ninthly: if, finally, anyone should wish for something allegorical, Origen [is] at hand, who, in [his] last homily on this book, teaches [that] [it] is signified [that] the ancient Israelites — who are denoted by the firstborn Ruben, Gad, [and] Manasse — did not have a true altar on which true victims might be offered, [and by which] sins might be truly taken away; but [that] these [things] are among JESUS, and among Christians. But so, that by one faith, one Church, one salvation, both peoples may be joined, and may become one flock, and [under] one shepherd — those former just [ones], and those who now are Christians. But when [Origen] here says [that] the Jewish altar was not a true altar, but a form and figure of the future and true altar, [he] does not deny that which above, from homily 3, was said — [namely] that the altar of the three tribes was a type and image of the true [altar], which was in the tabernacle. For that Rubenite [altar] was a type of the Siloan [altar], and this Siloan [one] of the Christian [altar]: and the Siloan [altar] is called “true” as to the victims and rites then flourishing, but “shadowy” and “imaginary” as to the truth and effect, which now is, at CHRIST’s time.
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