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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

31.

Videat Iesum introducentem populum in terram promissionis, neque enim hoc temere ab initio vocabatur, sed ex ipsa dispensatione nomine mutato Iesus appellatus est. p. 359,16 Videat botrum de terra promissionis in ligno pendentem. Videat in Hiericho tamquam in hoc mortali saeculo meretricem – de qualibus ait dominus, quod praecedant superbos in regnum caelorum – per fenestram domus suae tamquam per os corporis sui coccum mittentem – quod est utique sanguinis signum propter remissionem peccatorum – confiteri ad salutem. Videat muros ipsius civitatis tamquam munitiones mortalis saeculi septies circumacta testamenti arca cecidisse, sicut nunc per tempora, quae septem dierum vicissitudine dilabuntur, testamentum dei circuit toto orbe terrarum, ut in fine temporum mors, novissima inimica, destruatur et ex impiorum perditione unica domus tamquam unica ecclesia liberetur, mundata a turpitudine fornicationis per fenestram confessionis in sanguine remissionis. p. 360,6

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

31.

He will see Jesus leading the people into the land of promise; for this name was given to the leader of Israel, not at first, or by chance, but on account of the work to which he was called. He will see the cluster from the land of promise hanging from a wooden pole. He will see in Jericho, as in this perishing world, an harlot, one of those of whom the Lord says that they go before the proud into the kingdom of heaven, putting out of her window a scarlet line symbolical of blood, as confession is made with the mouth for the remission of sins. He will see the walls of Jericho, like the frail defences of the world, fall when compassed seven times by the ark of the covenant; as now in the course of the seven days of time the covenant of God compasses the whole globe, that in the end, death, the last enemy, may be destroyed, and the Church, like one single house, be saved from the destruction of the ungodly, purified from the defilement of fornication by the window of confession in the blood of remission.