How to read the Bible in Lent (and much of the time)

 

Instruction of St. Basil the Great

A "type" is something that foreshadows a future reality and prepares souls by a faint imitation for its advent. Thus, Adam was the type of him who should come; the rock in the desert from which water gushed out represented typically Christ, and the water itself symbolized the living power of the Word: If any man is thirsty, he said himself, let him come to me, and drink.  The manna was the type of the living Dread that came down from heaven; the serpent placed on a pole was the type of the crucified Saviour: those who looked on it were healed.

It is in this way that we must interpret the story of the flight from Egypt: it prefigured baptism. Indeed, the firstborn of the Israelites were saved, like the bodies of the baptized, by a grace granted to those who bore the stain of blood:  this blood of the Iamb was the type of the blood of Christ; the firstborn were the type of the first man, and if God preserved the firstborn from the strokes of the destroying angel, it was to show that living in Christ we shall no longer die in Adam. As to the sea and the cloud, they incited to faith at the time by the wonder that they evoked; but they had besides a symbolic sense, looking to the future, for they signified grace that was to be. In what way? Let the wise man consider these things.² The sea separated the Hebrews from Pharao, as baptism separates us from the tyranny of the devil. As the sea swallowed up the enemy, so baptism destroys our enmity with God. The chosen people passed through the sea uninjured, and we come from the water of baptism, the living among the dead, saved by the grace of him who has called us. As for the cloud, it was the image of the gift which comes from the Holy Spirit and which cools the passions by corporal mortification.

As to the words: The people put their trust in God and in his servant Moses, we must notice that in them Moses is joined to God, because he was the type of Christ: he prefigures, indeed, in his person, by the ministry of the law, the true Mediator between God and man; hence the faith that was placed in him was directed through him to our Lord, who said: If you believed Moses, you would believe me.

In order for us to achieve perfection God has drawn his first lessons from objects which are easy to see and adapted to our intelligence; by that, providence gradually lifts us up to the full light of truth, just as eyes used to darkness are gradually admitted to light. It cares for our weakness out of the unfathomable riches of its wisdom; in the inscrutable certainty of its designs, it gives us this gentle and well-proportioned education, inclining us first of all to look at shadows, the reflection of the sun in water, for fear that, turning our eyes too quickly to the pure light, we should be blinded. According to this method, the law, the shadow of those blessings which were still to come, and the sketch drawn by the prophets, which contains the outline of truth in a hidden form, were looked on as a training for the eyes of the heart, so that, from these shadows, the way to the wisdom which is hidden in full mystery, becomes easy.