God revealed Himself to man, and in the course of time chose one nation which He instructed in the fundamental truths of religion, which He constantly taught through the mouth of His prophets, and through whom He influenced even the pagans. The second, and by far the more glorious manner whereby God took mercy on fallen man was the promise of a Redeemer, Who should take the sins of the world upon Himself, and destroy the kingdom of Satan and of Darkness. As the Divine Physician He would thereby heal the miseries of the world, and console afflicted humanity in its almost hopeless longing for salvation.

   If we have seen, my beloved, the glorious wisdom and Providence of God, how in a particular manner He revealed Himself to the Jews in order to instruct them in the most essential truths, we shall be still more enlightened today with regard to the manner in which He frequently spoke to the Fathers, that is, how He gradually prepared mankind by prototypes and prophecies for the coming of the Redeemer, in order that men's longing might become greater, the deeper they should fall into the abyss of misery and suffering. We will therefore speak today of the prototypes of the Redeemer, of the persons and things that prefigured Him in the Old Law.

   O Jesus, assist us with Thy grace!

   1. By prototypes we understand those persons and things in the Old Testament by which the Person, the life and suffering of the Savior, as well as the means of salvation, were previously and visibly represented. Although the Old Testament was only, as it were, the vestibule of Christianity, in which mankind was prepared for the coming of the Savior, nevertheless these types did not begin with the Jewish people, but two thousand years earlier, in Paradise. Taken together they give us a comprehensive view of the Redeemer as presented by God Himself, in the prophetic descriptions of His Person and life. The prototypes are older than the prophecies by which they are explained.

But their complete explanation was given in the fullness of time, when Jesus Christ Himself appeared on earth, so that they become for us Christians who can compare the types with the reality an absolute proof. But since the Savior Himself often appealed to these types in His discussions with the Jews, and St. Paul, especially in his letter to the Hebrews, does the same, we conclude that Almighty God intended them to be a preparation for the coming of the Savior. We shall, therefore, consider the principal prototypes of our Redeemer, for to discuss all of them would be impossible.

   Who was, then, the first type of the Redeemer? Adam, the father of the human race. God the Father knew from all eternity that His Divine Son would one day become man, and for this reason, in the creation of the first Adam, He had Jesus Christ in mind, Who should become the Second and Spiritual Father of the human race. St. Paul expressly says: "Adam, who is the form of Him Who is to come." Wonderful! In the creation of everything else, Holy Scripture states after each thing was made: "God saw that it was good," only at the creation of the first Adam, we miss these words, but after four thousand years, when Our Savior Himself came, we hear these words: "This is my well-beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased." Here God saw for the first time that it was good.

   The next type of the Redeemer is the innocent Abel, as the guilty Cain is a type of the Jewish people. Abel, the just, was hated by his brother Cain, because God was pleased with him and accepted his gifts; and Christ is the more hated by the Jews, His brethren according to the flesh, the more God looked upon Him with pleasure. Out on the open field, Cain shed the blood of the just Abel; outside the city the Blood of Christ was shed. The blood of Abel cried to Heaven for vengeance against Cain, and the Blood of Christ, shed indeed for the salvation of all, should, in accordance with their own demand, come down in vengeance upon His murderers and upon their children. Laden with the curse of God, the fratricide Cain wanders, a fugitive, banished from home; in like manner wanders the deicidal Jewish people over the face of the earth, scattered and dispersed. "And the Lord set a mark on Cain that whosoever found him should not kill him;" and although it was often persecuted and hated, the Jewish people has been marvelously preserved, and can be distinguished from all other people.

   Who among you, my beloved, does not recognize in Noe and the Ark an evident type of the Savior? Holy Scripture thus speaks of Noe: "This same shall comfort us from the works and labors of our hands on the earth, which the Lord hath cursed" [Gen. 5, 29]. Yes, Christ the Lord truly consoles mankind in its trials and difficulties, and changes the curse that rests upon it into a blessing. As the second and better Noe, He gathers His own into His Ark-----into His Holy Church-----and snatches them from the deluge of sin. Noe had only one Ark, and outside this Ark all the rest of mankind, even if they strove to save themselves in ships, were lost. Christ also has only one true Church; the sects do not constitute a Church in the true sense of the word, nor do they offer salvation strictly considered. Noe saved his family by water and wood, and Christ saves His followers by the water of Baptism and by the wood of the Cross.

    2. Melchisedech, in the time of Abraham, was a wonderful type of the Priesthood of Christ, of whom St. Paul speaks in the most sublime words in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews. Melchisedech means King of the Just, and Founder of Justice. Melchisedech was king of Salem, later Jerusalem, called the City of Peace, and therefore the expression, King of Peace. But Who was the Prince of Peace if not Jesus Christ? Melchisedech appears very suddenly in the Holy Scriptures; we do not read whence he came, nor whither he went so suddenly, like an apparition from another world he appears on the scene. Christ comes forth from the bosom of eternity, and returns again. Melchisedech, upon his appearance in Holy Scripture, seems to have had one object, to offer bread and wine. Thus Jesus Christ likewise, at the Last Supper, offers bread and wine, and, under the same appearances, He continues to offer Himself. For this reason King David, in the spirit of prophecy, and especially at a later time, St. Paul called Him a High Priest according to the order of Melchisedech. But what other sacrifice will the coming High Priest and Redeemer make? Soon after the appearance of
Melchisedech, God showed this new sacrifice in a new type and in a touching manner, namely, in Isaac. Isaac, the promised, the long desired, and the only heir of the aged Abraham, should, by order of God, be sacrificed by his father. Isaac willingly carried the sacrificial wood for himself on his shoulder, climbed Mt. Moria, and silently laid himself down on the sacrificial altar. True, he was saved by an Angel, and a ram was sacrificed in his stead, but the day will come when the eternal Father will not spare His only begotten Son, but deliver Him up as a Sacrifice for the world. And truly, Christ, the Promised One, the Long-desired, the only begotten Son of God, carries the wood of the Cross on His shoulders, climbs Mt. Calvary, which according to an old tradition is the same Mt. Moria, and silently places Himself on the! Cross as the altar on which He offers Himself as a Bloody Sacrifice for the salvation of the world.

   Even the more minute circumstances of this Sacrifice, God soon showed even with greater clearness in the person of the blessed Joseph, who was deemed more worthy than the other Saints of God to become a type of the Savior. Joseph was the beloved son of his father Jacob, and for this reason he was an object of hate to his brothers, and was persecuted by them. When Jacob sent Joseph to his brothers, they robbed him of his clothing and sold him as a servant for twenty pieces of silver to merchants, who took him to Egypt. So, too, Our Divine Savior was hated and persecuted by the Jews, and when He had been sent to them by His Heavenly Father, they robbed Him of His clothes, and sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, and delivered Him over to pagans and strangers. Joseph was falsely accused in Egypt, and, although he was innocent, he was cast into prison with two malefactors. He foretold to one of them that he would be received into the service of the king, and to the other his death on the gallows. So, too, was Our Divine Savior falsely accused, accounted among malefactors, and crucified between two thieves. To one of these He promised that he would be taken up into Heaven; the other died an eternal death. Joseph came forth from the prison into a palace. The king issued a proclamation that every one must salute Joseph, and upon him he also conferred a new name, which signifies savior or redeemer of the world. And Jesus Christ came forth gloriously, and transfigured from the prison of the grave. And His Heavenly Father raised Him up and gave to Him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. He is the Savior and the Redeemer of the world. Joseph gave to the Egyptians bread in the time of famine, and Jesus gives us the Bread of Eternal Life, the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Joseph's brothers were converted and obtained forgiveness from him; and the Jews will also be converted some day and obtain forgiveness.

   In still clearer outline do we discern in Moses a figure of the Savior, for of Moses we read: "I will raise them up a prophet out of the midst of their brethren like to thee: and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him" [Deut. 18, 18]. And, truly, by a special providence of God Moses escaped from the destruction which menaced all the male Israelite children; and so did the Divine Child escape in the most miraculous manner the murder of the Innocents in Bethlehem. Moses left the royal court in order to help his people, betook himself into the desert, and was proclaimed by a voice from on high "The Ambassador of God." And Jesus Christ left Heaven, in order to assist His people, betook Himself into the desert and on the river Jordan was proclaimed by a voice from Heaven to be the Ambassador of God: "This is My well-beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." Moses frequently appealed to his miracles as the proof of his Divine ambassadorship, fasted forty days before he received the Commandments of God, was the mediator between God and the Jewish people. He closed the Old Testament with its earthly rewards and punishments, and even offered his own life in expiation of the sins of his people [Exodus, 32, 32]. So too Christ appealed more strongly to His miracles: "If I do not the works of My Father believe Me not. But if I do, though you will not believe Me, believe My works, which give witness to Me" [John 10, 37, 38]. He fasted forty days before He entered upon His teaching office, when He proclaimed the Law of Grace. He is truly the Mediator between God and man, established the New Testament with its Heavenly and eternal promises or punishments, and offered Himself in expiation for the sins of the world. Moses found unbelief, contradiction and ingratitude, which went so far that the people took up stones to cast at him. In like manner, the Redeemer found everywhere unbelief, contradiction and ingratitude. At Nazareth they took up stones to cast at Him, and, finally, murdered Him. Moses freed his people from the slavery of Egypt, chose Josue as his successor, and commissioned him to lead the people into the Promised Land in the words: "Be manly and brave, for you must lead this people into the Land of Promise." At the end of his life he ascended a mountain, and was seen no more. So, too, the Savior freed His people from the slavery of the Devil, and chose the Apostle Peter as His successor, to secure the continuation and growth of His Church. He said to him: "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and thou being converted, confirm thy brethren." Jesus then went up the Mount of Olives, and from there ascended into Heaven.

   3. Thus we arrive, my beloved, passing over other types as Josue and Elias, to David, who as progenitor of Christ typified in many ways the Person of the Savior. He was king, prophet, and the anointed of the Lord. By his defeat of the giant Goliath, he became the temporal liberator of his people. Persecuted by his ungrateful son he passed over the brook Cedron, and midst revilings and ridicule ascended Mt. Olivet. Jesus Christ, the great King, Prophet and Anointed of the Lord, passed over this same brook in sadness, having been betrayed by Judas, in order that He might begin His Passion on Mt. Olivet, but by His Passion He overcame the great Goliath, Satan, and became the Liberator of the World.

   Jonas is in  particular manner the type or figure of the Risen Savior, to which Christ Himself appeals:

"For as Jonas was in the whale's belly three days and three nights; so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights" [Matt. 12, 40]. The prophet Jonas, in order to save the people on board the ship, was cast into the sea, and the storm subsided. Jonas himself was swallowed by a whale according to the plan of Divine Providence, but after three days he was cast up on the land. He at once began to admonish the inhabitants of the wicked and degenerate city of Ninive to do penance, in order to escape the threatened punishment of God. So, too, the promised Savior was delivered over to death for the salvation of all men. He remained three days in the grave, rose gloriously from the dead, and preached through His Apostles to the pagan world, which became converted to Him and believed in Him.

   The High Priest of the Jewish people was placed by God as a type of the priestly office of Jesus Christ, just as Solomon typified the kingly office of Christ, and Elias the prophetic office. St. Paul gives testimony of this truth in his Epistle to the Hebrews, in the ninth chapter. Purified and sanctified, the High Priest was obliged to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple on the great Day of Atonement, in order to reconcile the people with Jehovah with bloody sacrifice and prayer. This Holy of Holies in the Temple-----where the Ark of the Covenant, the golden urn with the manna, and the flowering rod of Aaron, and the Tables of the Law were kept, "And over it were the Cherubims of glory overshadowing the propitiatory" [Heb. 9, 5]-----no mortal was allowed to enter, not even the priests. The High Priest was allowed to enter only once a year, namely, on the Day of Atonement, and this he did with solemn ceremony. The Redeemer is truly the Pure High Priest pleasing to God, Who, according to the words of St. Paul: "Neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by His Own Blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption" [Heb. 9, 12]. The great Day of the Atonement was Good Friday, the Holy of Holies is Heaven, which no mortal could enter before Christ had ascended into Heaven.

       Thus you see, my beloved, how gloriously God throughout the thousands of years pointed out the coming Savior in these personal types, and as it were portrayed Him. From these personal descriptions, given even in minutest detail, the most skeptical man must needs believe, unless he forcibly closes his eyes to the truth, that Jesus Christ is truly the promised Savior, and that these types are not merely accidental and forced comparisons, but the real types and figures of Our Divine Savior, which were made by the hand of the Supreme Artist Himself, God, in the Old Testament. Hence in admiration and adoration we are obliged to exclaim with the Apostle St. Paul: "O the depth of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable are His ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counselor?" [Rom. 11, 33, 34]. These figures of the Savior are like so many morning stars, heralding the approach of the sun.

   It was decided in the counsels of Eternal Wisdom that the Savior should not come immediately after the commission of the first sin, but that man should first by following the path of experience learn into what an abyss of depravity he had fallen without the Savior, in order that his longing and gratitude should be all the greater. Just as the sun does not at once appear in all its brilliancy in the heavens, but is preceded by the soft light of daybreak, and then by the stronger light of the aurora, in order that our eyes may be prepared by this gradual development of light to bear the blinding brilliancy of the sun-----so too Jesus Christ, the Heavenly Son of Justice, did not appear at once in His full glory, but was preceded by a daybreak and aurora, which first gave promise of His coming, then typified Him and prepared the world for His arrival. This took place through the first promises; the promises were followed by the figures or types, the types in turn by the sublime and still plainer prophecies. But God not only typified the Savior by persons, but also by things, and we shall now discuss the principal material types of the Savior.

  4. We have already seen what a convincing type of the Savior the Ark of Noe was. The second and, indeed, the most beautiful is the Paschal Lamb, which by Divine ordinance had to be without blemish. The Jews, at the time of their exodus from Egypt, were obliged to sprinkle the door posts with the blood of the Paschal Lamb, in order to escape death that night. It had to be spitted in the form of a cross, thoroughly roasted, and no bone broken. Who does not recognize in this Paschal Lamb of the Jews the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world? This Lamb is indeed without stain or blemish. Mankind is washed in His Sacred Blood, and saved from the slavery of the Devil. He was sacrificed on the Cross, but no bone was broken, as the evangelist St. John testifies. The Jews were obliged to consume the whole Paschal Lamb. Christ gave Himself entirely for us. We receive Him whole and entire in Holy Communion. The Paschal Lamb was eaten at the time of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt into the Promised Land. We receive the true Paschal Lamb Christ, after our exodus from the Egypt of sin; and at our exodus from the Egypt of this life as Viaticum on our way to the Promised Land of Heaven.

   The passage through the Red Sea was another figure. Moses led the Israelites through the waters of the Red Sea in order to escape the slavery of Pharaoh, and to take possession of the Promised Land. So, too, Our Divine Savior as the second and true Moses  leads His people through the waters of Baptism into His Holy Church, and snatches them from the pursuit of Satan in order that they may attain Heaven. A pillar of fire went before the Jewish people after their passage through the Red Sea, in order to show them the way through the wilderness.

       Our Divine Savior is such a pillar of fire, Who, after our Baptism, goes before us by His example and by His teaching, in order that we may not err in our wanderings through the wilderness of this life on our way to Heaven. Who does not recognize Christ
as being typified by the manna in the desert? Even Christ Himself appeals to this figure of Himself: "Your fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from Heaven; that if any man eat of it he may not die. I am the living bread which came down from Heaven" [John 6, 49-51]. The Jews were preserved in the most marvelous manner on their way through the desert to the Promised Land by the manna from Heaven, and we, in our wanderings through the desert of this life, should be strengthened with the True Bread of Heaven in Holy Communion, until we are in possession of the Promised Land of Heaven. But when the Jewish people in the desert murmured against God and Moses, God sent among them poisonous serpents which caused the death of many. In contrition the people came to Moses and said: "We have sinned, since we spoke against Jehovah and thee; pray therefore to Jehovah that He take away from us the serpents." Moses prayed to God and Jehovah said to Him: "Make a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live." Moses did so, and every one who had been bitten, and who looked upon the brazen serpent with hope was cured. Hence the Book of Wisdom of Solomon says: "But Thy wrath endured not forever . . . having a sign of salvation to put them in remembrance of the Commandment of thy Law. For he that turned to it was not healed by that which he saw, but by Thee the Savior of all" [Wis. 16, 6-7]. Who now are meant by the afflicted ones, if not all mankind who were led astray by the Serpent on the tree in paradise, and thereby coming under the dominion of Satan died an eternal death? And Who is the brazen serpent on the staff if not Christ, Who appeared in the form of sinful flesh, and yet the poison of sin was not in Him, no more than it was in the brazen serpent? Therefore Christ was raised upon the tree of the Cross in order that all who looked upon Him with confidence and with faith might be saved from the snares of the Infernal Serpent, healed from the wounds of sin, and delivered from eternal death. But if you do not wish to believe this explanation, believe at least the Savior Who Himself appeals to this type in the presence of the Jews: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish but may have everlasting life" [John 3, 14-15].

The propitiatory sacrifices of the Jews prescribed by God were also types after the manner of this one. They were sacrificed for each individual once a year, and on the great Day of Atonement for the whole people, and they foreshadowed the propitiatory sacrifice of the Savior. For this reason the sinful Israelite had to place his hand on the head of the victim as if he desired thereby to transfer his sins to the victim, which was then sacrificed for him in his stead. So Christ took upon Himself the sins of each and every one of us, and atoned for them on the Cross in our stead, when He offered Himself on the great day of Atonement as the Lamb of God, as a Sacrifice for us.

   5. What we have heard, beloved brethren, is sufficient to arouse admiration for the sublime Providence of God for the salvation of mankind. "O the depth of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable are His ways" [Rom. 11, 33]! For this reason it is that the unbelief of the modem world is so monstrous. Monstrous, too, is the scorn which men in their presumption, in their delusion and conceit, heap upon the eternal truths, which are as old as the world itself. By the greater number of Christians is the Savior of the world known only in so far that they have learned to reject salvation at His hands, and to cast aside with ridicule His commands and teachings, and those of His Holy Church.
 
   Would that they might behold the Heavenly wisdom of the Father, Who, in His sweet Providence over mankind, was also mindful of them! Would that they might behold the love of the Father, Who, from the beginning, did not spare His only begotten Son, and graciously deigned to prefigure His Person, His life and His suffering! Would that they might at least give ear to the heartrending cry of despairing mankind for the promised Savior, in order that they might learn to know that they, too, should share in the salvation of mankind! Would that they would listen to the touching words of the prophet Isaias in which he expresses the longing of the oppressed: "Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just; and let the earth be opened, and bud forth the Savior" [Isaias, 45, 8]. But they hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. Immersed in seeking after wealth, and delivered over to the lust of their hearts, of them the words hold true: "Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: these always err in heart. And these men have not known my ways; so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest" [Ps. 94, 10-11]. Yes, how gloriously was the Redeemer prefigured, and how entrancing the rewards and blessings of those who believe in Him and keep His Commandments! But what terrible examples of punishments are foretold which will overtake the unfaithful and godless Christians! These punishments are typified in that part of the Jewish people which, on account of their murmurings against Moses and their disobedience to him, died in the wilderness, and could not enter the Promised Land. They are typified in Core, Dathan, Abiron and their followers who arose against Moses, but the earth opened under their feet and swallowed them all together. "And immediately as he had made an end of speaking, the earth broke asunder under their feet; and opening her mouth devoured them with their tents and all their substance. And they went down alive into Hell, the ground closing upon them, and they perished from among the people" [Num. 16, 31-33]. They are prefigured by those who were bitten by the poisonous serpents, and died amidst the greatest sufferings because they did not look to the brazen serpent on the cross. They are prefigured in the despairing cry of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah whom the fire consumed, and too in the pitiful downfall of Jerusalem, and the rejection of the Jewish people.

   May you at least, my beloved Christians, being mindful of the love of God, prepare your hearts for your Savior, and requite love with love. He has become for us a model for our conduct on earth, and He symbolizes, too, what we shall attain in Heaven, if we have here upon this earth walked in Faith, Hope and Charity. Amen.

E-MAIL


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