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THE SECRET SENSE
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times understood, in His sense, the whole world as being marked out by superstition and a curse. By & similar passage Babylon also in our St. John is & figure of the city of Rome, as being like [Babylon) great and proud in royal power, and warring down the saints of God."-A.N.C.L. vol. vii. p. 146.
This world (of transmigration) is regarded as female, and the world to come' (Nirvana) as male (Clementine Homilies : A.N.C.L. vol. xvii. p. 66), the former representing Pleasure (Sense-life) and the latter Reason (Knowledge), as Philo Judæus points out (see Yonge's Philo Judæus, vol. i).
To come down to historical allegories, the following from Clementine Homilies (A.N.C.L. vol. xvii. p. 56) is lucid enough for our requirements:
"Then Peter answered : ' Assuredly, with good reason, I neither believe anything against God, nor against the just men recorded in the law, taking for granted that they are impious imaginations. For, as I am persuaded, neither was Adam a transgressor, who was fashioned by the hands of God; nor was Noah drunken, who was found righteous above all the world ; nor did Abraham live with three wives at once, who, on account of his sobriety, was thought worthy of a numerous posterity; nor did Jacob associate with fourof whom two were sisters—who was the father of the twelve tribes, and who intimated the coming of the presence of our Master; nor was Moses a murderer, nor did he learn to judge from an idolatrous priest-he who set forth the law of God to all the world, and for his right judgment has been testified to as a faithful steward. But of these and such like things I shall afford you an explanation in due time. But for the rest, since, as you see, the evening has come upon us, let what has been said be enough for to-day.'"
"... And Isaac 18 shown to mean 'self-taught': wherefore also be 18 discovered to be a type of Christ. He was the husband of one wife Rebecca, which they translate 'Patience.' And Jacob is said to have consorted with several, bis name being interpreted
Exerciser.' And exercises are engaged in by means of many and various dogmas. Whence, also, he who is really endowed with the
