The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

that they might be known to them by certain faith. The particular objects in the same line are the special arguments of each book. Thus, the primary object of the whole Scripture in common, and of any book of Scripture in particular, is God under the aspect of Divinity. The secondary object, although in that order it is most excellent, is Christ considered as man. If, however, He is considered absolutely, as the most perfect composite of Divine and human natures in the unity of the sole personality of the Word, subsisting substantially and unmixedly, in whom all things that are in Scripture are most perfectly recapitulated, He can rightly be called the adequate object, both in extension and attribution, as our Seraphic Doctor Saint Bonaventure proves most excellently, showing in the first volume of the treatise inscribed Principle of Scripture how Christ is prefigured from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse.

III. The error of Theodore of Mopsuestia was deservedly condemned in the 5th general Synod and more expressly in the Roman one (with twenty bishops subscribing, under Pope Vigilius, which is held in the Vatican Library), who thought that nothing regarding Christ is said in the Old Testament to the letter, but only by a certain adaptation and accommodation. For it is the constant opinion of the Church, and one to be sustained as pertaining to faith, that although many things in the Old Testament are said to the letter about another person than Christ, and can be enunciated and understood of Him only in an accommodative sense, there are nevertheless many other things which can be understood of Christ alone to the letter, which is clearly shown in many places of the New Testament.

IV. The book of Genesis is distinguished into four parts. I. It comprises deeds from the beginning of the World up to the Flood, chapter 7. II. From the Flood and Noah up to Abraham; from chapter 7 to chapter 12. III. The deeds of Abraham up to his death; from chapter 12 to 25. IV. It describes the deeds of the remaining Patriarchs up to the passing of Joseph; from chapter 25 to the end of the book.

V. The book of Exodus is likewise divided into four parts. I. It comprises the death of the Patriarchs, sons of Jacob, and the subsequent oppression and servitude of the Jews in Egypt, chapter 1. II. The birth, preservation, education of Moses, and his deeds before the flight, and the flight itself or escape, chapter 2; the command for the liberation of the Hebrews from Pharaonic servitude, chapters 3 and 4; the aggravation of servitude and the prodigies by which such liberation was made by God; from chapter 5 to chapter 14. III. The transit of the Hebrews through the Red Sea and their encampments up to the Desert of Sinai; from chapter 14 to chapter 19. IV. It contains the moral, judicial, and ceremonial precepts by which Moses, taught by God, instituted the Synagogue; from chapter 19 to the end.