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Handout #52

Origen (185-253 A.D.) 

Scripture always has a spiritual sense, but it does not always have a literal sense.

Jericho collapsed at the sound of the priests' trumpets. I said before that Jericho is a figure of this world, the power and defenses of which are destroyed, as we see, by the priests' trumpets. The world's power and defenses, the walls it relied on, were the worship of idols ... The son of Nun, Joshua (Greek for Jesus) foreshadowed the coming of Christ. When Christ came, he sent out his apostles, as Joshua had sent out the priests, and like the priests they carried resonant trumpets, namely the gospel .. and all the devices of idolatry and the dogmas of the philosophers have been razed to the ground. Origen, Homily on Joshua 7

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