Joel 2:29

I should be obliged to use many words in explaining all that Joel prophesies in order to make clear those that pertain to Christ and the Church. But there is one passage I must not pass by, which the apostles also quoted when the Holy Spirit came down from above on the assembled believers according to Christ’s promise. He says, “And it shall come to pass after these things, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream, and your young men shall see visions: and even on my servants and mine handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit.”

8. Genesis, we shall be told, needs no explanation; its topics are too simple, the birth of the world, the origin of the human race, the division of the earth, the confusion of tongues, and the descent of the Hebrews into Egypt! Exodus, no doubt, is equally plain, containing as it does merely an account of the ten plagues, the decalogue, and sundry mysterious and divine precepts! The meaning of Leviticus is of course self-evident, although every sacrifice that it describes, nay more every word that it contains, the description of Aaron’s vestments, and all the regulations connected with the Levites are symbols of things heavenly! The book of Numbers too, are not its very figures, and Balaam’s prophecy, and the forty-two camping places in the wilderness so many mysteries? Deuteronomy also, that is the second law or the foreshadowing of the law of the gospel, does it not, while exhibiting …

19. But Peter who had the Holy Ghost, and who knew what he possessed, says, “ Men of Israel , ye who preach Joel, but know not the things which are written, these men are not drunken as ye suppose . Drunken they are, not however as ye suppose, but according to that which is written, They shall be drunken with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the torrents of thy pleasure . They are drunken, with a sober drunkenness, deadly to sin and life-giving to the heart, a drunkenness contrary to that of the body; for this last causes forgetfulness even of what was known, but that bestows the knowledge even of what was not known. They are drunken, for they have drunk the wine of the spiritual vine, which says, I am the vine and ye are the branches . …

12. Again I will remind thee, my beloved, also of that which is written. For thus it is written, that when it was a grievous burden to Moses to lead the camp alone, the Lord said to him: Lo! will take away of the Spirit that is upon thee, and will put it upon seventy men, elders of Israel . But when He took away some of the Spirit of Moses, and the seventy men were filled with it, Moses nothing lacked, nor could it be known that anything was taken away from his Spirit. Moreover the blessed apostle also said: God divided of the Spirit of Christ and sent it into the Prophets . And Christ was in nothing injured, for it was not by measure that His Father gave unto Him the Spirit . By this reflection thou canst comprehend that Christ dwells in faithful men; yet Christ suffers no loss though He is divided among many. …