Orth.— I have said again and again that it is quite impossible for the type to match the archetypal reality in every respect, and this may also be easily understood in the present instance. Isaac and the lamb, as touching the difference of their natures, suit the image, but as touching the separation of their divided persons they do so no longer. We preach so close an union of Godhead and of manhood as to understand one person undivided, and to acknowledge the same to be both God and man, visible and invisible, circumscribed and uncircumscribed, and we apply to one of the persons all the attributes which are indicative alike of Godhead and of manhood. Now since the lamb, an unreasoning being, and not gifted with the divine image, could not possibly prefigure the restoration to life, the two divide between them the type of the mystery of the œconomy, and while one furnishes the image of death, the other supplies that of the resurrection. We find precisely the same thing in the Mosaic sacrifices, for in them too may be seen a type outlined in anticipation of the passion of salvation.
Eran.— What Mosaic sacrifice foreshadows the reality?
Orth.— All the Old Testament, so to say, is a type of the New. It is for this reason that the divine Apostle plainly says— “the Law having a shadow of good things to come” and again “now all these things happened unto them for ensamples.” The image of the archetype is very distinctly exhibited by the lamb slain in Egypt, and by the red heifer burned without the camp, and moreover referred to by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he writes “Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.”
But of this no more for the present. I will however mention the sacrifice in which two goats were offered, the one being slain, and the other let go. In these two goats there is an anticipative image of the two natures of the Saviour;— in the one let go, of the impassible Godhead, in the one slain, of the passible manhood.
Eran.— Do you not think it irreverent to liken the Lord to goats?
Orth.— Which do you think is a fitter object of avoidance and hate, a serpent or a goat?
Eran.— A serpent is plainly hateful, for it injures those who come within its reach, and often hurts people who do it no harm. A goat on the other hand comes, according to the Law, in the list of animals that are clean and may be eaten.
Orth.— Now hear the Lord likening the passion of salvation to the brazen serpent. He says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” If a brazen serpent was a type of the crucified Saviour, of what impropriety are we guilty in comparing the passion of salvation with the sacrifice of the goats?
Eran.— Because John called the Lord “a lamb,” and Isaiah called Him “lamb” and “sheep.”
Orth.— But the blessed Paul calls Him “sin” and “curse.” As curse therefore He satisfies the type of the accursed serpent; as sin He explains the figure of the sacrifice of the goats, for on behalf of sin, in the Law, a goat, and not a lamb, was offered. So the Lord in the Gospels likened the just to lambs, but sinners to kids; and since He was ordained to undergo the passion not only on behalf of just men, but also of sinners, He appropriately foreshadows His own offering through lambs and goats.
Eran.— But the type of the two goats leads us to think of two persons.
Orth.— The passibility of the manhood and the impassibility of the Godhead could not possibly be prefigured both at once by one goat. The one which was slain could not have shown the living nature. So two were taken in order to explain the two natures. The same lesson may well be learned from another sacrifice.
Eran.— From which?
Orth.— From that in which the lawgiver bids two pure birds be offered— one to be slain, and the other, after having been dipped in the blood of the slain, to be let go. Here also we see a type of the Godhead and of the manhood— of the manhood slain and of the godhead appropriating the passion.
Eran.— You have given us many types, but I object to enigmas.
Orth.— Yet the divine Apostle says that the narratives are types. Hagar is called a type of the old covenant; Sarah is likened to the heavenly Jerusalem; Ishmael is a type of Israel, and Isaac of the new people. So you must accuse the loud trumpet of the Spirit for giving its enigmas for us all.
Eran.— Though you urge any number of arguments, you will never induce me to divide the passion. I have heard the voice of the angel saying to Mary and her companions, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
Orth.— This is quite in accordance with our common customs; we speak of the part by the name which belongs to all the parts. When we go into the churches where are buried the holy apostles or prophets or martyrs, we ask from time to time, “Who is it who lies in the shrine?” and those who are able to give us information say in reply, Thomas, it may be, the Apostle, or John the Baptist, or Stephen the protomartyr, or any other of the saints, mentioning them by name, though perhaps only a few scanty relics of them lie here. But no one who hears these names which are common to both body and soul will imagine that the souls also are shut up in the chests; everybody knows that the chests contain only the bodies or even small portions of the bodies. The holy angel spoke in precisely the same manner when he described the body by the name of the person.
Eran.— But how can you prove that the angel spoke to the women about the Lord's body?
Source: Dialogues ("Eranistes" or "Polymorphus") (New Advent)