ACC ~ Hebrews 10 v1 - 11

OVERVIEW:

Scripture, like a human being, is comprised of body, soul and spirit (ORIGEN). The law was only a shadow of good things to come (CHRYSOSTOM, OECUMENIUS, ORIGEN, BEDE), those circumcised by the law only a shadow of heavenly things (ORIGEN, SYMEON). Even the gospel might only be understood in part but can be known in full through Christ (ORIGEN). The law cannot guarantee forgiveness of sin through sacrifices offered. It is through the perfect and single sacrificial giving of the body of Christ once and for all that we are sanctified (THEODORET, EPHREM, OECUMENIUS, THEODORE, PHOTIUS, CHRYSOSTOM).

10:1-2 | The Law Has but a Shadow

THREEFOLD UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURES. ORIGEN: 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 4.2.4 [4.1.11].

THE LAW WAS THE SHADOW OF REVELATION. CHRYSOSTOM: For as in painting, so long as one only draws the outlines, it is a sort of “shadow,” but when one has added the bright paints and laid in the colors, then it becomes “an image.” Something of this kind also was the law. ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 17.5.

PREFIGUREMENT OF A PREFIGUREMENT. OECUMENIUS: You are able to understand it in this way. It has been said by Gregory in his sacred writings, in his Apologetics and in his To the Governors, that the present divine mysteries are antitypes of even greater mysteries. And again in his treatise Concerning the Resurrection he says, “Let us receive the Passover, now in a typological fashion, but hereafter in a more complete manner. For the Passover under Mosaic law, I dare to say and in fact say it, was a prefigurement of a prefigurement.” Gregory said these things in the following sense. The apostle knew among these things “the shadow” and “the image” and “the coming good things,” which he also calls “the substance,” that is, the true things. For inasmuch as he makes clear what are the true matters—for that is also the truth—by comparing it with the shadow and the image, he first knows the things in the law as the shadow and second our things (those of Christians) as an image, but “the coming good things” and the true “substance” the things in the coming age. For just as the image is not entirely in accord with the truth, so also the shadow is not entirely in accord with the image. For even if the image does not have the very truth, except that it exists as a visible imitation of the truth by preserving the shape through its surfaces and the proportion of its members and the complexion of the substrate. But the “shadow” is an indistinct appearance of the image, showing none of the things of which it is the image. And I believe that Gregory in his sacred writings has been led forth by these apostolic writings to say what is most likely. And many other fathers say things similar to Gregory. FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 10.1.

NARRATIVE AND ALLEGORICAL LEVELS OF SCRIPTURE INTERPRETATION. ORIGEN: 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.”

And 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 4.2.6.

DELIVERED FROM THE SHADOW. SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN: Those who lived before grace, because they were under law, found themselves sitting under its shadow. But those who have come into existence after the coming of grace and day have been delivered from the shadow, truly from the slavery of the law. That is to say, they have risen above it, having been taken up on high as by a ladder, namely, the gospel way of life. They are living with the lawgiver, being themselves lawgivers rather than keepers of law. DISCOURSE 28.4.

DIVINE STUMBLING BLOCKS DEEPEN SCRIPTURAL UNDERSTANDING. ORIGEN: 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 4.2.9.

LAW AS SHADOW, GOSPEL AS LIGHT. BEDE: The law was indeed given through Moses, and there it was determined by a heavenly rule what was to be done and what was to be avoided, but what it commanded was completed only by the grace of Christ. On the one hand, that law was capable of pointing out sin, teaching justice and showing transgressors what they are charged with. On the other hand, the grace of Christ, poured out in the hearts of the faithful through the spirit of charity, brings it about that what the law commanded may be fulfilled. Hence that which was written, “do not covet,” is the law given through Moses because it is commanded, but grace comes through Christ when what is commanded is fulfilled. Truth came through Christ because “the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities.” And, as the apostle says elsewhere, “These things happened to them as a figure.” But in place of a shadow Christ displayed the light of truth, and in place of the figure of the law he displayed the exact image of the things which were prefigured when, with the giving of the grace of the Spirit, he made clear to his disciples the meaning so that they could understand the Scriptures. The law was given through Moses when the people were commanded to be made clean by the sprinkling of the blood of a lamb. The grace and truth which were prefigured in the law came through Jesus Christ when he himself, having suffered on the cross, “freed us from our sins by his blood.” HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 1.2.

THE SHADE OF THE WAY. ORIGEN: 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.

A MODEL IS NECESSARY BUT NOT REAL. ORIGEN: 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 10.2.

DRAW NEAR CONTINUALLY. CHRYSOSTOM: Many partake of this sacrifice the Eucharist once in the whole year, others twice, others many times. Our word then is to all, not to those only who are here but to those also who are settled in the desert. For they partake once in the year and often indeed at intervals of two years. What then? Which shall we approve? Those who receive once in the year? Those who receive many times? Those who receive few times? Neither those who receive once, nor those who receive often, nor those who receive seldom, but those who come with a pure conscience, from a pure heart, with an irreproachable life. Let such draw near continually, but those who are not such, not even once. Why, you will ask? Because they receive to themselves judgment, yea, and condemnation and punishment and vengeance. And do not wonder. For as food, nourishing by nature, if received by a person without appetite, ruins and corrupts all the system and becomes an occasion of disease, so surely is it also with respect to the awful mysteries. Do you feast at a spiritual table, a royal table, and again pollute your mouth with mire? Do you anoint yourself with sweet ointment and again fill yourself with ill savors? Tell me, I ask, when after a year you partake of the communion, do you think that the forty days are sufficient for you for the purifying of the sins of all that time? And again, when a week has passed, do you give yourself up to the former things? Tell me now, if, when you have been well for forty days after a long illness, you should again give yourself up to the food which caused the sickness, have you not lost your former labor too? For if natural things are changed, much more those which depend on choice. As for instance, by nature we see, and naturally we have healthy eyes, but oftentimes from a bad habit of body our power of vision is injured. If then natural things are changed, much more those of choice. You assign forty days for the health of the soul, or perhaps not even forty, and do you expect to propitiate God? Tell me, are you ready for this?

These things I say, not as forbidding you the one and annual coming but as wishing you to draw near continually. ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 17.7.

THE GOSPEL TEACHES A SHADOW. ORIGEN: 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.

SHADOW, IMAGE AND TRUTH. ORIGEN: 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.

10:3-11 | Sacrifices and Offerings

A REMINDER OF SIN. THEODORET OF CYR: He showed both the law’s limitations and its usefulness: while it cannot remove sins, it mounts an accusation against them, instills fear and obliges one to have recourse to grace. INTERPRETATION OF HEBREWS 10.

SACRIFICES ABOLISHED THROUGH SACRIFICE. EPHREM THE SYRIAN: If they had become perfect, their priesthood would have ceased, because they should have abstained from their sacrifices. And if their conscience was cleansed from sin, at the same time they would have been cleansed from the impurity of flesh. But “in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin” every day. “For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.” Therefore our Lord, who came to this world, said through the mouth of David, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me,” so that the victims of sacrifices might be abolished through his sacrifice. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

A SACRIFICE FOR ALL SINS. OECUMENIUS: For he says that the sacrifices were offered not only for sins that had taken place, but rather for all sins, on the grounds that the sacrifices that had already taken place could not put the sins away. FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 10:4.

HE CHANGES THE TEXT FROM “I WILL ESTABLISH EARS.” THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: These things have been spoken to those in Babylon who wanted to say to God, “You did not demand sacrifices from me but only to obey you and to do your will.” And right away the things pertaining to the quotation have become unambiguous as far as I am concerned. Changing it he speaks in this way about the person of Christ, saying, “I will establish a body” instead of “I will establish ears.” FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 10.5.

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE PREDICTIONS OF CHRIST. PHOTIUS: Christ spoke, “while coming into the world,” not “after he had entered it.” But manifestly he was already entering it when he promised David and maintained that he would seat one from the fruit of his loins on his throne until the age would come. Therefore, “while entering into the world” because of the promises made to David, he also says this through him, since “you did not wish for sacrifice and offering, neither were you well pleased” with the rites in the law. And he did not say, “you are not well pleased nor wish,” but “you did not want nor were you well pleased,” all but saying, “From their very institution and introduction the sacrifices were not entirely satisfactory and well pleasing. But really if any of them were accepted by you, it was accepted owing to the weakness of the one who brought them. Since then I reject these things and ‘I prepare a body for myself,’ then ‘I have come’ in order ‘to do your will.’ For this also is spoken concerning me not in a simple manner and in passing, but as the chief matter and the supposition of the book which foretold about me.” And he calls the book the whole Old Testament. For the chief thing and the most noteworthy supposition of the Old Testament are the predictions about Christ. FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 10.5-9.

NOT THROUGH THE BLOOD OF BEASTS. THEODORET OF CYR: How could the blood of brute beasts declare guiltless some murderer or parricide? This is the reason blessed David also said, “Had you wanted it, I would have offered sacrifice; you will take no delight in burned offerings.” INTERPRETATION OF HEBREWS 10.

THE LORD’S BODY IS THE COMMON SACRIFICE. CHRYSOSTOM: Do you see that the law takes its force from the place? And, since the city is gone, there can no longer be a priesthood. There can be no emperor if there are no armies, no crown, no purple robe, none of the other things that weld together an empire. So, too, there can be no priesthood if sacrifice has been destroyed, if offerings are forbidden, if the sanctuary has been trampled into the dust, if everything that constituted it has disappeared. For the priesthood depended on all these things. . . .

That great and wonderful prophet, David … made it clear that the one kind of sacrifice would be abolished and another brought in to take its place when he said, “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be numbered.” See how wise the prophet is. He said, “You have multiplied your wondrous deeds,” and he stood aghast at God’s power to work miracles. But he did not go on to tell us about the creation of the things we see—of heaven, earth, and oceans, of water in Egypt or of any other miracles like those. What did he say were wondrous works? “Sacrifice and offering you do not desire.” . . .

David went on to say, “But a body you have fitted to me.” By this he meant the Lord’s body which became the common sacrifice for the whole world, the sacrifice which cleansed our souls, canceled sin, put down death, opened heaven, gave us many great hopes and made ready all the other things which Paul knew well and spoke of when he exclaimed, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.”

David, then, foresaw all this when he said, “Many are the wondrous works you have done, O Lord my God.” He went on to say, speaking of the person of Christ, “In holocausts and sin offerings you had had no pleasure,” and then continued, “Then I said, ‘Lo, I come.’” When was “then”? When the time was ripe for more perfect instructions. We had to learn the less perfect lessons through his servants, but the loftier lessons which surpass the nature of humankind we had to learn from the lawgiver himself. DISCOURSES AGAINST JUDAIZING CHRISTIANS 7.2.1-7.

THE ABOLITION OF SACRIFICE. CHRYSOSTOM: Here he does not blame those who offer, showing that it is not because of their wickednesses that he does not accept them, as he says elsewhere, but because the thing itself has been convicted for the future and shown to have no strength or any suitableness to the times. What then has this to do with the “sacrifices” being offered “oftentimes”? Not only from their being “oftentimes” offered, he means, is it manifest that they are weak and that they effected nothing, but also from God’s not accepting them, as being unprofitable and useless. And in another place it is said, “If you had desired sacrifice, I would have given it.” Therefore by this also he makes it plain that he does not desire it. Therefore sacrifices are not God’s will, but the abolition of sacrifices. Wherefore they sacrifice contrary to his will. ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 18.1.

HE ABOLISHES THE FIRST. THEODORET OF CYR: By “first” he meant the sacrifice of brute beasts, by the “second” the rational one, offered by himself. … He brought out clearly that God’s will is the salvation of humankind. The Lord also said as much, “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who believes in me may not be lost but may have eternal life.” INTERPRETATION OF HEBREWS 10.

THE SAME SACRIFICES. PHOTIUS: He calls them “the same sacrifices” because they are always being offered for the same things, since those sacrifices and offerings which have taken place and are taking place are not strong enough to strip away any sin purely and completely. FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 10.11.