________________
THE SECRET SENSE
171
the stable name of endurance is given; for this cause surely, because she alone remains to all generations, rejoicing ever, subsisting as she does by the endurance of us believers, who are the members of Christ. And the witness of those that have endured to the end, and the rejoicing on their account, is the mystic sport, and the salvation accompanied with decorous solace which brings us aid."-(Clement) A.N.C.L. vol. iv. p. 128.
"... very many events are figuratively predicted by means of enigmas and allegories and parables, and they must be understood in a sense different from the literal description........ When the very Apostle whom the heretics adopt, interprets the law which allows an unmuzzled mouth to the oxen that tread out the corn, not of cattle, but of ourselves; and also alleges that the rock which followed [the Israelites] and supplied them with drink was Christ; teaching the Galatians, moreover, that the two narratives of the sons of Abraham had an allegorical meaning in their course; and to the Ephesians giving an intimation that, when it was declared in the beginning that a man should leave his father and mother and become one flesh with his wife, he applied this to Christ and the Church."-(Tertullianus) A.N.C.L. vol. vii. pp. 126-127.
The passage in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians referred to in the last quotation is as ' follows:
"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it 15 written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freetoman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory : for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which 18 Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and anstvereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above 18 free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren which bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate bath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now, we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the
