Hebreus 10
Origen of Alexandria · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Hebreus 10:1
Paul distinguishes three levels in the law: the shadow, the image and the truth.… The law contains the shadow of future good things but not the very image of the realities, and this clearly shows that the image of the realities is different from what is designated as the shadow of the law. If anyone can describe the ceremonies of the Jewish worship, let him view the temple as not having had the image of realities but only their shadow. Let him see the altar as a mere shadow, and the rams and the calves brought to sacrifice also as a shadow. According to the Scripture, "our days on the earth are like a shadow."If someone wishes to go beyond this shadow, let him come to the image of the realities, and let him behold the coming of Christ made flesh. Let him contemplate him in his role as high priest, offering victims to the Father henceforth and in the future; let him understand that all this is an image of spiritual realities and that heavenly functions are denoted by corporeal functions. We employ the term image to refer to that which is intelligible at present and which human nature can observe. If you can penetrate the heavens with your understanding and your mind and follow Jesus, who has penetrated the heavens and who stands as our intercessor before the face of God, you will find there those good things whose shadow the law contained and whose image Christ revealed through his incarnation. Those good things … have been prepared for the blessed, which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, and which no person has ever even imagined or thought of. — HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 38.2.2
Hebreus 10:1
The law, then, and everything in the law, being inspired, as the apostle says, until the time of amendment, is like those people whose job it is to make statues and cast them in metal. Before they tackle the statue itself, the one they are going to cast in bronze, silver or gold, they first make a clay model to show what they are aiming at. The model is a necessity, but only until the real statue is finished. The model is made for the sake of the statue, and when the statue is ready the sculptor has no further use for the model. Well, it is rather like that with the law and the prophets. The things written in the law and the prophets were meant as types or figures of things to come. But now the artist himself has come, the author of it all, and he has transferred the law, which had only the shadow of the good things to come, to the very image of the things. — HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 10
Hebreus 10:1
We must also know that just as there is a "law" which contains a "shadow of the good things to come," which have been revealed by the law proclaimed in accordance with truth, so also the gospel, which is thought to be understood by all who read it, teaches a shadow of the mysteries of Christ.And that which John calls an eternal gospel, which would properly be called a spiritual gospel, clearly presents both the mysteries presented by Christ's words and the things of which his acts were symbols, to those who consider "all things face to face" concerning the son of God himself. — COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 1.39-40
Hebreus 10:1
The way which seems right to us for understanding the Scriptures and the investigation of their meaning, we consider to be the following: we are instructed by Scripture itself regarding the ideas that we ought to form of it. In the Proverbs of Solomon we find just such instruction for the examination of holy Scripture. "For your part," he says, "describe these things to yourself in a threefold manner in counsel and knowledge, that you may answer words of truth to those who question you." Each one, then, ought to describe in his own mind, in a threefold manner, the understanding of the divine letters, that is, so that the simple may be edified, so to speak, by the very body of Scripture; for that is what we call the common and historical meaning. But if some have begun to make considerable progress and are able to see something more than that, they may be edified by the very soul of Scripture. And those who are perfect and resemble those of whom the apostle says, "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are doomed to pass away. But we speak the wisdom of God, hidden in a mystery, which God has decreed before the ages for our glorification." Such people may be edified by the spiritual law which has a shadow of the good things to come, edified as if by the Spirit. For just as man is said to consist of body, and soul and spirit, so also does sacred Scripture, which has been granted by God's gracious dispensation for the salvation of man. — ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4.1. [4.1.11]
Hebreus 10:1
That the first "sense," which we have called the literal one, is profitable in that it is capable of imparting edification is witnessed by the multitude of those believers who accept the faith genuinely and simply. But of that interpretation which is referred back to the "soul," there is an illustration in Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. He says, "You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the grain." Then he adds, "Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was for our sake, no doubt, that this was written: that the plowman should plough in hope, and the thresher thresh in hope of a share in the crop." And there are numerous interpretations adapted to the multitude which are in circulation, and which edify those who are unable to understand the higher meanings, which have something of the same character. But the interpretation is "spiritual" when one is able to show of what heavenly things the Jews "according to the flesh" served as a copy and a shadow, and of what future blessings the law has a shadow. And, speaking generally, we must investigate, according to the apostolic promise, "the wisdom in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world for the glory" of the righteous, which "none of the rulers of this world knew." And the same apostle says somewhere, after mentioning certain events from Exodus and Numbers, "that these things happened to them as a warning, but that they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come." He also gives hints to show what things these were figures of, when he says, "For they drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ."11And in another epistle, when outlining the various matters relating to the tabernacle, he used the words: "You shall make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain." Further, in the epistle to the Galatians, as if reproaching those who think that they are reading the law and yet do not understand it, judging that those do not understand it who do not believe that allegories are contained under what is written, he says: "Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written, Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise. Now this is an allegory: for these women are the two covenants," and so on. Now we must carefully mark each word spoken by him. He says: "You who desire to be under the law" (not "You that are under the law"), "do you not hear the law?"—"hearing" being understood to mean "understanding" and "knowing." And in the epistle to the Colossians, briefly epitomizing the meaning of the entire system of the law, he says, "Therefore let no man judge you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of things to come." Further, in the epistle to the Hebrews, when discoursing about those who belong to the circumcision, he writes, "They serve a copy and shadow of heavenly things." Now it is probable, from these illustrations, that those who have once admitted that the apostle is divinely inspired will entertain no doubt with respect to the five books of Moses; but they wish to know if the rest of the history also "happened figuratively." We must note, then, the expression in the epistle to the Romans, "I have left to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal," quoted from the third book of Kings. Paul has understood this to stand for those who are Israelites according to election, for not only are the Gentiles benefited by the coming of Christ, but also some who belong to the divine race. — ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4.1.6
Hebreus 10:1
But if in every detail of this outer covering, that is, the actual history, the sequence of the law had been preserved and its order maintained, we should have understood the Scriptures in an unbroken course and should certainly not have believed that there was anything else buried within them beyond what was indicated at a first glance. Consequently the divine wisdom has arranged for certain stumbling blocks and interruptions of the historical sense to be found therein, by inserting in the midst a number of impossibilities and incongruities. [This was done] in order that the very interruption of the narrative might as it were present a barrier to the reader and lead him to refuse to proceed along the pathway of the ordinary meaning. And so, by shutting us out and debarring us from that, [the writers] might recall us to the beginning of another way, and might thereby bring us, through the entrance of a narrow footpath, to a higher and loftier road and lay open the immense breadth of the divine wisdom.… The aim of the Holy Spirit was chiefly to preserve the connection of the spiritual, meaning, both in the things that are yet to be done and in those which have already been accomplished. [Thus] whenever he found that things which had been done in history could be harmonized with the spiritual meaning, he composed in a single narrative a texture comprising both kinds of meaning, always, however, concealing the secret sense more deeply. But wherever the record of deeds that had been done could not be made to correspond with the sequence of the spiritual truths, he inserted occasionally some deeds of a less probable character or which could not have happened at all, and occasionally some that might have happened but in fact did not. Sometimes he does this by a few words, which in their bodily sense do not appear capable of containing truth and at other times by inserting a large number.This is found to happen particularly in the law, where there are many things that as literal precepts are clearly useful, but also a considerable number in which no principle of utility whatever is disclosed, while sometimes even impossibilities are detected. All this, as we have said, the Holy Spirit supervised, in order that in cases where that which appeared at the first glance could neither be true nor useful we should be led on to search for a truth deeper down and needing more careful examination. And [we] should try to discover in the Scriptures which we believe to be inspired by God a meaning worthy of God. And not only did the Holy Spirit supervise the writings which were previous to the coming of Christ, but because he is one and the same Spirit and proceeds from the one God, he has acted similarly in regard to the Gospels and the writings of the apostles. For even the narratives that he inspired through them were not woven together without the spell of that wisdom of his, the nature of which we explained above. And so it happens that even in them the Spirit has mingled not a few things by which the historical order of the narrative is interrupted and broken, with the object of turning and calling the attention of the reader, by the impossibility of the literal sense, to an examination of the inner meaning. — ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4.1.9
Hebreus 10:1
It is a great thing to have passed from the law to the shadow of Christ. For Christ is the way, Christ is truth and life; and when we come under his shadow we have the shade of the way, are overshadowed by the truth and live in life's shadow. And whereas we have only glimpses of knowledge, like a confused reflection in a mirror, if we follow this way we shall eventually come to see face to face what at first we saw confusedly as a shadow. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 3
Hebreus 10:28-29
According to the law, "the adulterer and the adulteress were put to death." They could not say, "We seek repentance and we pray for mercy." There was no place for tears, and no opportunity was granted for any correction, but in every way it was necessary for those who had contravened the law to be punished. This was observed in certain individual offenses for which the death penalty was ascribed. But among Christians, if adultery has been committed, the precept is not that "the adulterer and adulteress" be punished by the destruction of the body. No power was given to episcopal authority to sentence an adulterer to immediate death, as had happened earlier according to the levitical law who gave this power to elders. What does this mean? That while the law of Moses takes adultery seriously enough to punish it unmercifully, the gospel of Christ through gentleness frees the adulterer to go from bad to worse? It is not so. For this reason, we brought forth the word of Paul, saying above, "How much worse punishment will be deserved by one who has spurned the Son of God," etc. Hear, therefore, how neither was the law cruel then, nor does the gospel now appear dissolute because of the abundance of mercy, but in both instances the benevolence of God is held in a different dispensation. — HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 11.2
Hebreus 10:29
But if you sin again, the old reproaches return again against you and all the more so, since it is a much greater crime "to spurn the Son of God and to profane the blood of the covenant" than to neglect the law of Moses. — HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 5.6