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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean
28.
Christ appears to me in Joseph, who was persecuted and sold by his brethren, and after his troubles obtained honor in Egypt. We have seen the troubles of Christ in the world, of which Egypt was a figure, in the sufferings of the martyrs. And now we see the honor of Christ in the same world which He subdues to Himself, in exchange for the food which He bestows. Christ appears to me in the rod of Moses, which became a serpent when cast on the earth as a figure of His death, which came from the serpent. Again, when caught by the tail it became a rod, as a figure of His return after the accomplishment of His work in His resurrection to what He was before, destroying death by His new life, so as to leave no trace of the serpent. We, too, who are His body, glide along in the same mortality through the folds of time; but when at last the tail of this course of things is laid hold of by the hand of judgment that it shall go no further, we shall be renewed, and rising from the destruction of death, the last enemy, we shall be the sceptre of government in the right hand of God.
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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres
28.
Ipse mihi in Ioseph innuit, qui persequentibus et vendentibus fratribus in Aegypto post labores honoratur. Didicimus enim labores Christi in orbe gentium, quem significabat Aegyptus, per varias passiones martyrum; et nunc videmus honorem Christi in eodem orbe terrarum erogatione frumenti sui sibi omnia subiugantis. p. 356,19 Ipse mihi innuit in virga Moysi, quae in terra serpens effecta eius mortem figuravit a serpente venientem; sed – quod apprehensa cauda significat – posterius peractis iam omnibus in fine actionis ad id, quod fuerat, resurgendo revertitur, ubi per vitae reparationem morte consumpta nihil serpentis apparet. Nos quoque, corpus eius, in eadem mortalitate per lubrica temporum volvimur, sed fine novissimo velut cauda saeculi per manum, id est per potestatem iudicii, ne ultra prolabatur apprehensa, reparabimur et novissima inimica morte destructa resurgentes in dextera dei virga regni erimus. p. 357,6