Genesis 3:15

“And what follows, ‘My hope from the breasts of my mother. On Thee have I been cast from the womb; from my mother’s belly Thou art my God: for there is no helper. Many calves have compassed me; fat bulls have beset me round. They opened their mouth upon me, as a ravening and a roaring lion. All my bones are poured out and dispersed like water. My heart has become like wax melting in the midst of my belly. My strength is become dry like a potsherd; and my tongue has cleaved to my throat’, foretold what would come to pass; for the statement, ‘My hope from the breasts of my mother,’ [is thus explained]. As soon as He was born in Bethlehem, as I previously remarked, king Herod, having learned from the Arabian Magi about Him, made a plot to put Him to death, and by God’s command Joseph took Him with Mary and departed into Egypt. …

3. The Lord, indeed, sowed good seed in His own field; and He says, “The field is the world.” But while men slept, the enemy came, and “sowed tares in the midst of the wheat, and went his way.” Hence we learn that this was the apostate angel and the enemy, because he was envious of God’s workmanship, and took in hand to render this [workmanship] an enmity with God. For this cause also God has banished from His presence him who did of his own accord stealthily sow the tares, that is, him who brought about the transgression; but He took compassion upon man, who, through want of care no doubt, but still wickedly [on the part of another], became involved in disobedience; and He turned the enmity by which [the devil] had designed to make [man] the enemy of God, against the author of it, by removing His own anger from man, turning it in another direction, and sending it instead upon the serpen …

1. He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as thou canst perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for ( observabit ) thy head, and thou on the watch for His heel.” For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. …

But, in the next place, what am I to interpret those jewels to be which vie with gold in haughtiness, except little pebbles and stones and paltry particles of the self-same earth; but yet not necessary either for laying down foundations, or rearing party-walls, or supporting pediments, or giving density to roofs? The only edifice which they know how to rear is this silly pride of women: because they require slow rubbing that they may shine, and artful underlaying that they may show to advantage, and careful piercing that they may hang; and (because they) render to gold a mutual assistance in meretricious allure ment. But whatever it is that ambition fishes up from the British or the Indian sea, it is a kind of conch not more pleasing in savour than, I do not say the oyster and the sea-snail, but, even the giant muscle. …

In Isaiah: “And the Lord went on to speak to Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign from the Lord thy God, in the height above and in the depth below. And Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord my God. And He said, Hear ye, therefore, O house of David: it is no trifling contest unto you with men, since God supplies the struggle. On this account God Himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and ye shall call His name Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall He eat; before that He knows to prefer the evil, He shall exchange the good.” This seed God had foretold would proceed from the woman that should trample on the head of the devil. In Genesis: “Then God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from every kind of the beasts of the earth. …

Now, keeping in mind what we said above in regard to the passage from Isaiah about the bill of divorcement, we will say that the mother of the people separated herself from Christ, her husband, without having received the bill of divorcement, but afterwards when there was found in her an unseemly thing, and she did not find favour in his sight, the bill of divorcement was written out for her; for when the new covenant called those of the Gentiles to the house of Him who had cast away his former wife, it virtually gave the bill of divorcement to her who formerly separated from her husband, the law, and the Word. Therefore he, also, having separated from her, married, so to speak, another, having given into the hands of the former the bill of divorcement; wherefore they can no longer do the things enjoined on them by the law, because of the bill of divorcement. …

16. By the justice of God in some sense, the human race was delivered into the power of the devil; the sin of the first man passing over originally into all of both sexes in their birth through conjugal union, and the debt of our first parents binding their whole posterity. This delivering up is first signified in Genesis, where, when it had been said to the serpent, “Dust shalt thou eat,” it was said to the man, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return.” In the words, “Unto dust shalt thou return,” the death of the body is fore-announced, because he would not have experienced that either, if he had continued to the end upright as he was made; but in that it is said to him whilst still living, “Dust thou art,” it is shown that the whole man was changed for the worse. …

16. But wherefore so greatly fearest thou this? Because it is said, “Thereby have fallen all that work iniquity” ( ver. 12 ); so that they have come into that abyss of which it is said, “Thy judgments are like the great abyss:” so that they have come even to that deep wherein sinners who despise have fallen. “Have fallen.” Whereby did they first fall? By the foot of pride. Hear the foot of pride. “When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God.” Therefore came against them the foot of pride, whereby they came into the depth. “God gave them over to their own hearts’ lusts, to do those things which are not convenient.” The root of sin, and the head of sin feared he who said, “Let not the foot of pride come against me.” Wherefore said he, “the foot”? Because by walking proudly man deserted God, and departed from Him. His foot, called he his affection. …

13. What more after the heads of dragons? For those dragons have their chief, and he is himself the first great dragon. And concerning him what hath He done that hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth? Hear: “Thou hast broken the head of the dragon” ( ver. 14 ). Of what dragon? We understand by dragons all the demons that war under the devil: what single dragon then, whose head was broken, but the devil himself ought we to understand? What with him hath He done? “Thou hast broken the head of the dragon.” That is, the beginning of sin. That head is the part which received the curse, to wit that the seed of Eve should mark the head of the serpent. For the Church was admonished to shun the beginning of sin. Which is that beginning of sin, like the head of a serpent? The beginning of all sin is pride. …

10. Wherefore was Simon the sorcerer condemned? Was it not that he came to the Apostles, and said, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost ? For he said not, “Give me also the fellowship of the Holy Ghost,” but “Give me the power;” that he might sell to others that which could not be sold, and which he did not himself possess. He offered money also to them who had no possessions; and this, though he saw men bringing the prices of the things sold, and laying them at the Apostles’ feet. And he considered not that they who trod under foot the wealth which was brought for the maintenance of the poor, were not likely to give the power of the Holy Ghost for a bribe. …

25. This is why the heathen rage and the peoples imagine vain things; why tree is set over against tree, hands against hand, the one stretched out in self indulgence, the others in generosity; the one unrestrained, the others fixed by nails, the one expelling Adam, the other reconciling the ends of the earth. This is the reason of the lifting up to atone for the fall, and of the gall for the tasting, and of the thorny crown for the dominion of evil, and of death for death, and of darkness for the sake of light, and of burial for the return to the ground, and of resurrection for the sake of resurrection. All these are a training from God for us, and a healing for our weakness, restoring the old Adam to the place whence he fell, and conducting us to the tree of life, from which the tree of knowledge estranged us, when partaken of unseasonably, and improperly.

XIX. And as to shoes , let him who is about to touch the Holy Land which the feet of God have trodden, put them off, as Moses did upon the Mount, that he may bring there nothing dead; nothing to come between Man and God. So too if any disciple is sent to preach the Gospel, let him go in a spirit of philosophy and without excess, inasmuch as he must, besides being without money and without staff and with but one coat, also be barefooted, that the feet of those who preach the Gospel of Peace and every other good may appear beautiful. But he who would flee from Egypt and the things of Egypt must put on shoes for safety’s sake, especially in regard to the scorpions and snakes in which Egypt so abounds, so as not to be injured by those which watch the heel which also we are bidden to tread under foot. And concerning the staff and the signification of it, my belief is as follows. …