First of all, we're going through Book Four and just taking some key spots. The trouble with Erinace is that if you're not careful, you get into a place and it just opens up on you. I mean, you can't get out of it, just because everything connects with everything else. So we have to be kind of, I keep saying that, we have to be ruthless about moving on. There's one thing we omitted in, you know, we're talking about Book Five particularly as a theology of the earth. It's a theology that works like this, that God takes the earth and with his two hands, that is the word and the spirit, he forms this earth into his own image. He raises it up until it's like him. And when it's like him, it's united with him, it's somehow one with him. Now, there are all different levels in this. There are several levels. The first level is that Erinace is writing all this stuff to say that there's one God. You know, so you can boil it down to that if you take it in a kind of legalistic way. On another level, he's making a theology like that of the earth.

[01:10]

And on a still other level, he's constructing a work of art with these images, which is very subtle. And sometimes you go along for a long stretch and nothing seems to happen as regards the images. It's fairly still, fairly tight. And then all of a sudden, a whole bunch of things begin to put together, be nice to crystallize. Now, that's the way it is in the second part, the central part of this Book Five, as we will see when we get there. The division of that book, usually they divide it into three parts. I'll get to that in a minute. We skipped one thing in Book Four that I wanted to mention. We didn't do the treasure in the field, did we, in Book Four? If you don't remember, you probably didn't know. That's Book Four, Chapter 26, Number 1, on page 496 and 497. Let's just take a look at that, because it points us towards this earth theology we're

[02:14]

talking about. Is that gold? That's another one. It's like that, but it's before that. We skipped over it. It was Chapter 36, the last chapter in the book, where he takes the earth and is going to cover the clay with gold, remember? Now, this is a parallel passage. This kind of imagery is very important. This way of describing the process is very important to Irenaeus, and so we'd like to pick out several instances. When you see something coming up the same way or in slightly different ways, time after time after time, you see that's one of his central images, one of his central figures in his mind. Now, this is page 496, Chapter 26, Number 1. The translation isn't completely satisfactory. It doesn't get the meaning across completely. If anyone, therefore, reads the Scriptures, that is the Old Testament, you will find in them an account of Christ and a foreshadowing of a new vocation, a new calling. Remember, Christ is a word, so he's very often playing subtly with words like that,

[03:18]

a new vocation, because he's the word, the voice. For Christ is the treasure which was hid in the field. I'll have to find the text because this is a little... It's squeezed together in the translation. For he is the treasure hidden in the field, that is to say, in the world, because since the field, that is the world. Remember, those are the literal words from the Gospel. It's from... I think it's in Matthew somewhere, Matthew 13, that chapter. Treasure hidden in the Scriptures. Okay, so he's talking about two levels here. Christ is the treasure hidden in the field of the world and in the field of the Scriptures. Now, Irenaeus just passes over this very quickly, but it's quite important. Many of the Fathers will talk about there being two worlds. There's the world of the Scriptures and then there's the other world. And the world of the Scriptures is your guide to understanding, to reading the regular world, the creative world, the world of life.

[04:18]

Remember, the world of the Scriptures is the world of the word somehow, and in it is the word, Christ. In its totality, it is the word. He's the center and he's the whole thing. And the other world, the external world, was created through the Scriptures, through the word. It was created through the word. So that's the relation between the two. You can say that there's a third world that just died. You can say that. Anyhow, the world is two things then, or the field is two things. It's the world and it's the Scriptures. And Christ is hidden in both of them. Hidden in the Scriptures, for he was signified by the figures in the parables, which humanly speaking could not be understood before the fulfillment of the prophecies. That is, before the coming of the Lord. So he was hidden in the Scriptures, in the field of the Old Testament, until his coming. Okay, then there's a slow space here, and then it gets on to something very like St.

[05:34]

Paul in 2 Corinthians. When the law is read to the Jews, it's like a fable, for they do not possess the explanation of all things, but then you can see they don't have the word, which is the key. But when it is read by the Christian, it is a treasure hid indeed in a field, but brought to light by the cross of Christ. Now the cross and the tree is continually coming back here. Every time you find an instrument or a tool of some kind, very often, usually, it's the cross that's being referred to, which is the key. Even if he knew it was the word key, he would certainly be thinking of the cross in the back of his mind, which somehow opens everything. And here it opens the field, both enriching the understanding of man, showing forth the wisdom of God in Sophia, and so on. Proclaiming beforehand that the man who loves God shall arrive at such excellency as even to see God and hear his word, and from the hearing of his word be glorified to such an abundance. It seems like he certainly has 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 in the back of his mind there.

[06:38]

Remember when St. Paul talks about the light of the glory of God shining on the face of Jesus Christ? We've seen it in our hearts, and we ourselves have transfigured from glory to glory as we reflect on that image, okay? Now, he doesn't quote explicitly St. Paul, but that's there. Now, notice there are about three levels in this thing. There's the level of the field being the world. There's the level of the field being the scriptures. Finally, there's the level of the field being you, okay? That is, the earth which you are, which gets transfigured in this light of Christ, through the reading of the word, and through the penetration of what's at the heart of the word, okay? This light and fire, which is Christ at the heart of the word. So he's operating on all those different levels. Ernest is very subtle. And his power, often, is in that subtlety, because then he recapitulates everything in just one word, one phrase. And then he refers to the Emmaus incident in Luke's Gospel.

[07:38]

Remember where their hearts were burning within them as he opened to them the scriptures. Told them about, revealed to them himself hidden in the scriptures. And similarly, at the same time, there's this thing burning inside them, remember? He moves so close to the central vein, or the central channel of revelation, that when he talks about one thing, three or four other things are happening within these. Because he's so close to the core, he's so close to the nerve of the thing, that he doesn't even have to be thinking of those things somehow, but because he's close, as it were, to the central cable, all of the other resonances come out, you know. Okay, let's go to Book Five now. Now, Book Five is about the resurrection, and if you read the kind of bluntest summaries, they'll tell you that the whole book is just to prove one thing, which is to say that there is a resurrection in the flesh. Now, here, if anywhere, you'll find that big distinction, difference, between Irenaeus

[08:41]

as a lawyer, sort of proving some point, and Irenaeus as a poet. And the poet is a theologian, because he's the one who's just immersed in the Word of God, and who, out of this connaturality that he has with the Word, is able to read it like he wrote it, read it as if it were a psalm. I had the trouble of finding too many texts here to look at. It will take too long, so what we'll have to do is try to skip through. This is usually, as I said before, divided into three parts. The first part goes from chapters one through fifteen, and is simply the defense of the reality of the resurrection in the flesh, one through fourteen.

[09:43]

The second part is fifteen through twenty-four, and concerns three episodes in the life of Christ. However, we're going to find out that that central section is especially rich. I think it's the center of the whole book, and also in a theological way. And that's where Irenaeus is at his deepest in using this imagery, in sort of weaving this imagery. And then the last part, twenty-five through thirty-six, is a section about the Antichrist, which is perplexing. You don't know how to put it into the sequence of the thing. And then the end is about the new heavens and the new earth, about the new kingdom, in which the risen faithful will live. So, actually, it looks something like this. If you divide it into four sections, it's a little clearer. The first section is about the harvest of the body, so to speak. The spiritual body, the risen body of the faithful.

[10:45]

The second part is about Christ. That's what we're calling the middle part. Say the third part is about the Antichrist. And the fourth part is about the new earth. Now, this body, this spiritual body, what we're going to find is the first fruits. Now, the first fruits for Irenaeus is an important word, because it means the first fruit of time, the first fruits contained within them everything. And this is the full harvest over here. The full harvest when the earth itself is recreated and has this great new abundance coming out of it. Now, this section here is the real pivot.

[11:48]

It's chapters 15 through 24. And this is what the book turns around, you see, because it's what produces the first fruits, and it's also what produces the full harvest. And what it is is the cross of Christ. It's the tree. It's the tree. Now, this section is all based upon Genesis, the first three chapters of Genesis, when Adam and Eve are still in the garden. So, it's the recapitulation of the creation of the sin, and so on, in Christ, on the cross. And that's the pivot, you see, around which everything else turns. And it somehow sends the antichrist, as it were, spinning off into emptiness. And, sort of, the emptiness of the antichrist, and the fullness of the antichrist, even if you try to figure out different kinds of oppositions to explain this structure, it makes it less interesting. There are relationships and parallels and oppositions between all these points, which Well, we're mostly interested, what I want to put before you, mostly, is that second

[13:00]

part, the part about Christ, because it's so deep and beautiful, and the way that it pulls everything else together. First of all, a little bit on part one. In chapters one and two, he's going to spend this whole section, this whole first part, proving the resurrection of the body, which is earth, which is matter, from the letters of Saint Paul, okay? And then he makes his usual abbreviations and preambulance, and so on. There's number one on page 526 in book five. In no other way could we have learned the things of God, unless our master, existing as the Word, had become man. We could have learned in no other way than by seeing our teacher and hearing his voice with our own ears. You know, there's a scripture, there's an Old Testament passage behind that that doesn't

[14:01]

quite surface, if I remember. I think it's Isaiah. You'll hear his voice, remember, and you'll see your teacher. So, we may have communion with him receiving increase from the perfect one and from him who is prior to all creation. We who were but lately created by the only best and good being, by him who has the gift of immortality, having been formed after his likeness, and made the firstfruits of creation. Okay, that's the key point that I wanted to point out there. It's as if that's the overture to this book five, this notion of the firstfruits. And what he ends up with in chapter 36 is the whole harvest, you see, which includes the material creation, which is somehow resurrected, remember Romans 8, which is brought into our new abundance. He goes on about how everything's going to grow in peace and everything's going to grow in an enormous fertility for the things that grow in life. And then towards, at the end of that number one, he has one of these marvelous passages

[15:09]

of recapitulation in it. It's almost like his doxology, and he does it in a slightly different way at the end of each section. Since the Lord thus has redeemed us through his own blood, now, giving his soul for our souls and his flesh for our flesh, giving his humanity. But man is composed of three parts, according to Irenaeus, and the third part is the spirit, and the spirit comes from God, and has also poured out the spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man. Now, we're going to find, as it were, four levels here. First, he's poured out his humanity in those two forms, body and soul. He's poured out the spirit of God, imparting indeed God to men by means of his spirit. Imparting God to men. See, his language is very heavily laden often. We skip through it. On the other hand, attaching man to God by his own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at his coming immortality. You see the Trinitarian pattern behind that. Very often Irenaeus has his Trinitarian movement behind it.

[16:13]

But here there are four numbers, because the first number is the pouring out of his humanity, his body and soul. Then, at the end of number three, is this beautiful passage. For never at any time did Adam escape the hands of God. God never left him. He never left him alone. To whom? To God. To whom the Father speaking said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. God spoke to his own hands, as it were, in order to make man. The hands, you remember, are the word and the spirit. And for this reason, in the last times, that is, in the end, the times of Christ, not by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man. And you hear there the ring of John's prologue.

[17:14]

Okay, so you know it's coming. He's talking about the incarnation. But by the good pleasure of the Father, his hands formed a living man. Now, that's Christ. That's the incarnation. In order that Adam might be created again after the image and likeness of God. But it's not only Christ, is it? It's not only Jesus. It's Adam, meaning the whole human race, somehow created after the image and likeness of God. So we're moving from the first fruits here, you know, further. There's a whole bunch of levels of those first fruits. It comes up especially when he talks about the Eucharist. He gets into that in the next chapter. And so, I'll wait until we get into that to speak about it more. Chapter 2. I'm omitting all of this argumentation, you know, which is monotonous. Always coming back to the same point that God didn't take something else

[18:17]

in order to give life to it. But he restored that which he'd made in the beginning. And so, God the Creator is also God the Father. God didn't put his life, his sonship. He didn't adopt something that was not his own. He adopted his own attitude. We do stand in need of fellowship with him. He didn't need us. And for this reason it was that he graciously poured himself out that he might gather us into the bosom of the Father. In other words, poured himself out. That has a lot of resonances. You remember the open side of Christ. You remember the washing of your feet. You remember in St. John, the only son he was in the bosom of the Father. He has redeemed. Nobody's ever seen that. And we almost get a suggestion of God himself being open so that Christ might be poured out for us. Now he gets to the Eucharist. And it's very interesting the way he uses the Eucharist in his argument here.

[19:19]

See if you can catch the force of it. See, he's arguing against these people who say, well, the flesh is not good, the body is not good, matter and the earth are completely incapable of being glorified, completely incapable of being spiritualized. And he's saying no, and he wants to prove it. Now, how is he going to prove that the earth and the body which is made of earth are capable of bearing God, capable of being divinized, capable of living in spirit and eternally? But if the flesh doesn't attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with his blood. Nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of his blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of his body. For his blood could only have come from the humanity, from veins and flesh and so on. As we are his members, we are also nourished by means of the creation. Now he's getting to the Eucharist.

[20:21]

Not only did Jesus have a physical body, but when he instituted the sacrament, he made us re-assume, re-capitulate, take up again the elements of the creation, such as wheat and wine, to take them up again and make them into his body. It's a very deliberate re-capitulation. Of the creation again. We are also nourished by means of the creation. And this is on the natural level. And he has acknowledged the cup which is a part of creation as his own blood. So you see the different levels here? First of all, the humanity of Jesus. Then the creation which nourishes us outside of the sacrament. Then the fact that we go back and pick up the creation again to make the Eucharist out of it. And the bread, also a part of creation, which he has established as his own body, from which he gives in peace to our bodies. Now there's a very direct and concrete sense of the Eucharist here. The fact that the Eucharist feeds us. It's as if they knew it so much by experience that it wasn't a kind of abstract theological argument.

[21:25]

They could use something like the experience of the Eucharist as an argument. It wasn't at the end of the argument, it was at the beginning. It's like the St. Paul argument in Galatians. When you've received the Holy Spirit, you've experienced the Holy Spirit. Where did it come from? Similarly, Irenaeus can say if you have experienced the Eucharist, then these things follow from there. When therefore the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the word of God, this is marvelous, and the word comes into the creation once again, as it did before. And the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported. It must be that there was an experience actually of healing, an experience of vitality received from the Eucharist. Otherwise you couldn't say that. How can they confirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God? And a little later on. That flesh which is nourished by the cup which is his blood

[22:26]

and receives increase from the bread which is his body. And just as a cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a grain of wheat falling into the earth and decomposing rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God. So we are a seed. And it's the Eucharist somehow which gives us this immortality by which the seed of our body is to rise again from the earth. And this vegetative image is very important. I think it dominates the whole fifth book of the Anastasia. From the vine at the end, from the seed to the harvest. And he didn't talk about the first fruits at this point, and speaking of the Eucharist, but it's in the back of his mind somehow. The fact that he brought it in right after that mention of first fruits. That analogy of the seed falling into the ground and coming back

[23:26]

rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God who contains all things. Notice he's saying that on the natural level. He's saying it's the Holy Spirit that raises the natural seed out of the ground. Makes it grow. And then through the wisdom of God serves the use of man. And having received the word of God becomes the Eucharist which is the body and blood of Christ. So also our bodies being nourished by it and deposited in the earth like a seed in suffering decomposition there shall rise at their appointed time. The word of God granting the resurrection to the glory of God. See the repeated cycle there? First on the natural level, then on the level of our own death and our own resurrection. So you see how the symbolism fits together into a very real sacramentality. Centered in the Eucharist. Some of the people that write about him have said that the Eucharist is the center. He's managed to make the Eucharist the center of his whole theology. And he does it through this notion of recapitulation or call it notion of first fruits when you're talking about the Eucharist.

[24:29]

There are two places in book four that we didn't touch where this comes out strong. There's chapters 17 and 18 of book four. I don't think you have many on your notes there. Unfortunately. If anybody wants, we can make copies of it. I can mention the book if anybody wants. Book four, chapters 17 and 18. And the reason for why we have to die —remember this business of the knowledge of good and evil— for this purpose God permitted our resolution into the common dust of mortality, our return to the earth, that we being instructed by every mode may be accurate in all things, being ignorant neither of God nor of ourselves. We know that we're earth and we know that God is God because he lets us decompose into what we are and yet he raises us up into himself. And behind it, always this imagery, this imagery of the brain and the earth and the resurrection of the brain into the world. Levels of that notion of first fruits.

[25:34]

Let me just mention this before we go on. One level is the bread and wine, which people always, you know, people always put first fruits in their various crops. So the bread and wine from the earth are already first fruits, which could be... Remember Mark Isidore? I'll put bread and wine in there. The second level is man is the first fruits of creation. The human person is the first fruits of creation already on a natural level. Then Christ is the first fruits of humanity and also the first fruits of the creation. You see how this recapitulation is taking place. It's a kind of center moving into more and more central points, centers. Then the risen body of Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection. You see, first fruits from the dead. That's what Saint Paul said literally. And then finally the Eucharist is first fruits. And when the Eucharist is the first fruits, it's the first fruits of the whole of creation because we're taking from the creation within, the present creation, and making with the Word of God,

[26:35]

making the body of Christ, the body of the risen Christ. So it's got all those levels. But as I say, where the whole harvest appears is at the end, that last part, chapters 31 through 36. There's several places in here where he talks about what the human being is made up of. I'm just going to mention very quickly. One of them is, because you don't have it in your notes, there's no point in going on. One of them is chapter 6, number 1. The other is chapter 9, number 1. Here's chapter 6. For the perfect man consists in the commingling and the union of the soul, receiving the Spirit of the Father, and the admixture of that fleshly nature, which was molded after the image of God. So there are three things in the human person, he says. The body, which is molded in the image of God. The soul, which is in the body. And the soul, which is the most mysterious element here, because he passes over it very quickly, going from body to spirit. And which is capable of receiving the Spirit of God. And then finally, the spirit, which comes from God. So one essential part of man doesn't belong to man.

[27:38]

It has to come from God, according to our notes. There's some ambiguity there. Commentators are not quite sure that that's the way it works. Man is not complete without God. And you can see how if there is meant to be any image and likeness of God, what is he, until he is the image and likeness of God? He's just earth. In chapter 14, on page 541, we're skipping over... This is the conclusion of this first part. And so there's a kind of recapitulation here, a kind of summary. And you can see how he makes his arguments very concise.

[28:46]

If the flesh were not in a position to be saved, the Word of God would in no wise have become flesh. And if the blood of the righteous were not to be inquired after it, the Lord would certainly not have had blood in His composition. That's a difficult point there, which we don't have time to follow up. What he means by the blood? It's something different from the flesh. There's something about judgment, retribution, and all of that, and sacrifice, that involves especially this notion of blood. And that too is recapitulated in Christ. He thus points out the recapitulation that should take place in His own person of the effusion of blood from the beginning. Remember he said, All the blood that's been shed upon the earth of the righteous from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias shall be required from this generation. In the words of Jesus, that's what he's talking about. Now, this blood did not be required unless it also had the capability of being saved. Nor would the Lord have summed up these things, recapitulated,

[29:50]

unless He had Himself been made flesh and blood after the way of the original formation of man. Saving in His own person at the end, that which it had in the beginning perished in Adam. So, obviously what he's saying here is that Jesus was truly flesh, which he said a hundred times before. A little lower down, this is in number two. For the Lord, taking dust from the earth, molded man, and it was upon His behalf that all the dispensation of the Lord's advent, the Lord's coming, took place. He had Himself, therefore, flesh and blood, recapitulating in Himself, not a certain other, not any other, but that original handiwork of the Father. That's the key principle in Ernest's whole thing, isn't it? That God is faithful to His work. He's faithful to His action. There's a consistency in God, which is both expressed in the three persons of the Trinity being one, and in the fact that nothing in creation is lost.

[30:52]

Nothing is just thrown away. If you look at it from a certain point of view, that's art. In other words, that's a perfection of artistry. That's part of what Ernest is saying. To create beauty is to be able to deal with that limitation, deal with the given material, and then bring it forward into its potentiality, its perfection. There's something here on the first fruits, too, I think. No, that was at the end of the previous chapter. The first fruits are those of sleep. Christ has risen from the dead, the first fruits are those of sleep. Those recurrent mentions are deliberate, and they have to keep a certain continuity, which then opens up towards the end of the book. Now, this second part, which is very special. It's the central part of the book. Even if we divide it into four parts, it's the central part,

[31:54]

because everything else turns around it. And there are three episodes in it. It goes from chapter, as I said, was it 15 through 24, I think. It's a little fuzzy at the far end. There are three episodes in it. The first is the healing of the man born blind. And we may be puzzled as to why Ernest should select this miracle and talk about it when Jesus has done so many others. But that will come out as we look at it. The second is the crucifixion, the cross. And that, I believe, is the center of the book. That's what everything turns around. It pivots around the tree, as it were. The two trees. The tree of the cross, which is also the tree of life, which is also Christ the Word, the tree of life. Everything pivots around that, including the structure of the book. And including also this central section. So that is the center of the central, as it were. And then finally, the temptation in the desert, which is a little harder to explain exactly why it's there. But you'll notice that there's something in common

[32:54]

between all of these three episodes from the life of Christ. They all deal with the original chapters of Genesis, that is, with the creation, the original sin. It may not be so evident in the case of the man born blind, but remember what Satan promised Adam and Eve if they ate of the tree? Their eyes would be open. Their eyes would be open. So there's an irony in here, which Bernays doesn't even explain. He doesn't quote Adam and talk about it. That is, the opening of the eyes has really been blindness. But he doesn't look at it only as a consequence of sin. He's looking at it as if the earth starts out being blind and God gives it eyes. And to give eyes to the earth is to bring the earth into his Word, to bring the earth into his logos, to bring the earth into that light which is himself. And that's the beauty in this episode of the man born blind, as we'll see. Now, all of those three episodes are connected with the tree.

[33:57]

The first one, because the blindness is connected with the tree, the opening of the eyes that was promised, and so on. And I think there's another connection there which I forgot. The second one, obviously, because it's about the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross. And that's where Irenaeus is most subtle and most rich in his image and conception. And playing on various levels of meaning of words, and so on. And the third one, about the temptation of the desert. Remember, the first temptation of Jesus in the desert was to eat, right? Was to eat. To turn the stones into bread. To use his power in some way. Now, that corresponds to the temptation of Adam and Eve, right? To eat the fruit of the tree. The fact that Irenaeus doesn't bring this out clearly, he doesn't say, well, now I'm going to talk about these three things and this is the way they're connected, and so on. The fact that he doesn't do that means that every time you find something, you're going to find something else if you keep looking. It means that beneath one subtlety,

[34:59]

beneath one illusion, or one symbolism, there's another one waiting for you. And that's the way it is, especially in this info section. And remember that for him, everything, somehow, is expressed in this quadriform of the cross. That his whole reality, somehow, finds its meaning in that figure of the cross, which for him, in some way, is a figure of the Logos as well. I'll read you something from his Proof of the Apostolic Preaching when we get to that point. Okay, before we get to the man born blind, there's this little passage on the raising of the bones from Ezekiel. Now, those bones, that's the resurrection, of course. And it's important to move on close to the concrete imagery here. Like when he says, The dead shall rise again. This is Isaiah, of course, before he gets to Ezekiel. These things are very carefully put in.

[36:02]

They're very carefully put in like a kind of mosaic, so that you can follow a pattern. And a pattern is largely a pattern of imagery. The dead shall rise again, and they who are in the tomb shall arise, and they who are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew which is from you is health to them. Dew. You have this vegetative image there still. The Holy Spirit is the dew which raises the dead. Now he's going to talk about the bones, the great field full of bones in Ezekiel. And two things. The word is spoken, prophesied to the bones, and the breath is breathed into them. The word and the spirit lift up these bones into a great army of human beings. Just as God in the beginning had molded man. The bones are earth, and as man has become the earth. And once again with the word and the spirit, he's set on his feet. Now, that business of being placed in your land is more important than it may seem.

[37:14]

I think it has something to do with being planted in your land. I think really it means that Israel and man and the church is a tree, as Christ is a tree. And so in the end, we're going to find... First we see the fruit, which is the christened body, and somehow we see the tree, which is Christ, and the whole of the things. It's the same thing in a different aspect. And then we find finally the earth into which it's to be planted. At the end, where he talks about the miller. And then there's an important little quotation here, which comes up a couple of times. There's another time on page 565, right towards the end of the book. For as the tree of life, so shall their days be. Those things are not accidental. This is at the top of 543, the left-hand column. Those things are not accidental in any sense. They're deliberate, and also the placement of them. And that somehow embraces this section. And it includes the man born blind in the tree section, too.

[38:16]

Now we get to him. In number 2 of chapter 15, starting on page 543, the left-hand column. If you just read this once, you may wonder why he put it in there at all. But if you stay with it, it opens up. And also that argument that he's continually making with its monotony can push you off. He healed by a word all the others who were in a weakly condition because of sin. But this man... And the word's connected with obedience and disobedience. To that man, however, who had been blind from his birth, he gave sight, not by means of a word, but by an outward action, doing this not without a purpose, but that he might show forth the hand of God, that which at the beginning had molded man. This is a masterpiece, this commentary on the blind man.

[39:21]

In other words, the hand of God which molded man at the beginning is the word of God. Jesus is the word of God, come in the flesh. And with his hand, he takes the clay once again, and he heals this blind man. That's part of it, it's not all of it. So he remolds this man somehow, or he repairs, restores the molding, the original molding. So the disciples asked him, why was he born blind? This is from John chapter 9. And the Gospel of John gives a lot of importance to that healing too. The disciples asked, why was he born blind? Because it's his father's parents' fault. Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. Now the work of God is the fashioning of man. And the Lord took clay from the earth in the form of man, of course the Genesis. So he's continually playing the creation narrative. He's continually playing back and forth between the creation in Genesis chapter 2, the second creation of man,

[40:23]

and also the first one in chapter 1, where he talks about the image and likeness, and this miracle of Jesus, the healing of the blind man. Very important that he's blind from birth. The healing of the blind man in John 9. The Lord took clay from the earth in the form of man. Wherefore also the Lord spat on the ground and made clay, and smeared it upon the eyes, pointing out the original fashioning of man, how it was effected, and manifesting the hand of God. To those who can understand by what hand man was formed out of the dust. For that which the artificer, the Word, it was the Word that did in the beginning the hand of God, had omitted to form in the womb, that is the blind man's eyes, he then supplied in public. Now in public is not the best translation of that. The Latin is in manifesto. In manifesto. What's he chasing me? What he omitted to form in the womb, in the darkness,

[41:25]

in the earth of the womb, as it were, he then supplied in manifesto, in the light. Do you see what's happening? Remember this is blindness we're talking about. This is blindness. So, the first creation was, as it were, in the darkness of the womb. Now he shifted from the creation account to the creation of each one of us, the forming in the womb. And he's talking about that original moulding of earth as being somehow a womb experience, still in darkness. As if man at that point, man at that point is a blind being. He's moulded, he's begun, but he's a blind being, and he's incomplete, and he's in darkness. He's in this kind of womb. Now, his fulfillment, as it were, his full education, his perfecting comes when he's brought into the light. But being brought into the light, in manifesto, is the same as being given eyes. These eyes that Jesus somehow makes out of the earth, he even says it later on. Marvellous. Remember that the light that he's given is the word itself. It's as if the light is grafted into him at this point.

[42:26]

The light which is Christ himself, the word. And so this is a kind of metaphor for the incarnation, for one thing, you see. Eyes coming into the human person. The word, the logos, coming into this clay which is humanity. That the works of God might be manifested in him, in order that we might not be seeking out another hand, like that one, or another father. Knowing that this hand of God which formed us at the beginning, that's Christ, the word, and which does form us in the womb, secondly, each one of us, in the last time sought us out who were lost, winning back his own and taking up the lost sheep upon his shoulders, and with joy restoring it to the fold of life. As if all of mankind, not only the individual, but all of mankind was lost somehow in darkness. And he brings it back to the joy of the fold of life, which is the light of God. Now that the word of God forms us in the womb, he's got to prove that. As therefore we are by the word formed in the womb, this is chapter, this is number three in the middle.

[43:28]

This very same word formed the visual power in him who had been blind from his birth. For the Lord who formed the visual powers is he who made the whole man. And then he sends him to wash, remember? We should have read the Gospel of Christ. And as much as man, with respect to that formation, plasmatio, remember when he says formation, it's always, always remember clay and earth. That molding, which was after Adam, having fallen into transgression, did the labor of regeneration, baptism. It's as if for him baptism was only necessary because of the sin after the creation, okay? It served as an interruption in the continuity of man's making. And then baptism restores it, and then it can go on as it should have gone in the beginning. So it's like we're, hey, a sin has only come as a little diversion from the fact of man's making. From the true drama, the true plot.

[44:33]

He did the labor of regeneration. The Lord said to him, after he had smeared his eyes with the clay, go to Siloam and wash. Thus restoring to him both his perfect, his confirmation of that regeneration which takes place by means of the labor. I forgot to lift this up to see because there's something wrong with the translation. Let's see if we can get it up, what follows. For this reason when he was washed he came seeing that he might both know him who had fashioned him and that man might learn to know him who has conferred upon him life. That's fuzzy there, isn't it? Let's see. The Lord said to the blind man,

[45:42]

after having coated his eyes with mud, go and wash yourself in the pool of Siloam, thus giving him at the same time the modeling and the regeneration accomplished by the bath. I don't know what that means, I don't know the difference between the two. At the same time, the modeling and the regeneration operate. The modeling seems to be connected with the clay there. And then he makes the regeneration in a second. That's right, Theron. I don't see in what way... In what way they're different, in fact, as I told you. Thus, after having washed himself, he comes back seeing clearly. So that at the same time he may recognize the one who had formed him

[46:48]

and to learn who was the Lord who had given him life. Well, that seems... Okay, it seems to be as if you have two levels. One level is the level of your creation and the second level is the gift of the life of God, okay? The gift of the actual communication of God's life. That's what it seems to be, sir. It's a recreation on a higher level on which one really participates and that's why it's personal, somehow. That seems to be it. And you also get a sense that the washing is the final step necessary to really see that the... If it bears that the miracle is a reconfiguration of both of the original molding of clay, which, again, the reconfiguration of pudding does not have. And then, by washing, that's a reconfiguration of everything. But that's a parallel to the baptism. So there's just a two-fold process there.

[47:51]

And I think he's saying the reason that the seventh level is necessary to read is that the water is necessary just in the same way that the baptism is necessary. I may not be getting what you're trying to fuzzy here, but I thought that was it. The burden of his argument, I think, is once again that these two gifts come from the same source, the creation and the regeneration. Okay, now number four. He's fighting the Valentinians again. They say that man wasn't furnished with compassion for the earth because the earth was a good friend.

[48:41]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ