EXPLANATION.

A large decorative woodcut initial 'I' features ornate scrollwork and foliage motifs.

In this page, therefore, the holy Cross extends through the middle, having four quadrangular forms placed around its sides. This is to show, certainly, the structure of the heavenly building: namely, the Church of the living God, which is both His house, and the column and foundation of the truth. To this house, therefore, belong the chosen angels, a likeness to whom is promised to us in the future life, as the Lord says: "But those who are considered worthy of that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they can no longer die. For they are equal to the angels and are children of God, since they are children of the resurrection." To this house belongs the mediator of God and men himself, the man Christ Jesus, as He Himself testifies when He says: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Which the Evangelist, explaining, added: "But He was saying this about the temple of His body." Moreover, the Apostle says of us: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"

If, therefore, He was made the temple of God through the assumed humanity, and we are made the temple of God through His inhabiting Spirit: it is certainly established that the material temple which King Solomon built in Jerusalem held the figure of all of us and of the Lord Himself and His members, which we are. But He is like a cornerstone, uniquely chosen and precious, established in the foundation. We, however, are like living stones built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets: that is, upon the Lord Himself. This the Apostle shows, saying: "For no one can lay any other foundation than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus." He can rightly be called the foundation of the house of the Lord for this reason: because, as Peter says, "There is no other name under heaven given to men in which we must be saved," and again, "Coming to Him," he says, "as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and honored by God: and you yourselves like living stones are built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

Therefore, the patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, can be appropriately understood as the first stones of this foundation and suitable for the base. They laid the foundations of the faith for us, whether by preaching, or by working, or by suffering. The rest of the crowd of the faithful follows their authority in doctrine, their examples in actions, and their imitation in endurance. For just as the apostles and martyrs after the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of the Savior into heaven built the spiritual building of the house of God throughout the whole world by preaching Christ, or even by dying for Christ: so before His coming in the flesh, the patriarchs and prophets among the former people and in those regions where they lived, always busied themselves in turning the lives of others for the better by words and examples. They did this so that they might deserve to have God as an inhabitant through worthy conversation, and feel that He was a merciful God to them, under whose dominion they came to know the Almighty.

Rightly, then, it is written in the Book of Kings concerning the building of that symbolic temple: that the king commanded that they should take great stones, precious stones, for the foundation of the temple, and they should square them. The precious stones, therefore, are holy men, who are illustrious in merits. They are commanded to be well-squared, and thus placed in the foundation. For everything square is accustomed to stand firm whichever way it is turned. To this figure, certainly, the hearts of the elect are compared: which have thus learned to consist in the firmness of

FIRST BOOK. FOLIO 12.

faith, so that they cannot be tilted from the rectitude of their state by any occurring adversity, nor even by death itself. The Church has received such teachers not only from Judea but also from the Gentiles through many people. Correctly indeed is this building demonstrated in the holy Cross, because in it—that is, in the passion of Christ—the entire Catholic Church was founded, perfectly constructed, and dedicated. Nor would this building ever come to effect unless the human race were liberated through the Cross, nor would the office of the priest himself be worthily completed unless the priest himself became the sacrifice on the Cross.

In the Cross itself, this verse is contained and written: Glorious Cross of the Lord, foundation and hall of Christ. original: Inclyta Crux domini Christi fundamen et aule. In the tetragons four-sided figures placed around the Cross, however, the verses are written not by circling entirely around—that is, so that they return from final letters to the starting letters by a bend—but all starting in their right corner above, they descend through the left above to the left below in nineteen letters. Afterward, starting again in the right corner above from the twentieth letter and going down through the right below to the left, they reach as far as below in seventeen letters. Thus, each verse of the four tetragons contains thirty-six letters, which is certainly the number of a flat tetragon and of the number six perfected by multiplication in itself 6 multiplied by 6 equals 36, as we shall demonstrate in the following pages.

The verse of the tetragon placed below the right arm is: The praiseworthy action of the patriarchs signifies you. original: Te patriarcharum laudabilis actio signat. The verse of the tetragon placed below the left arm is: And the people of the prophets commanded by divine speech. original: Plebsq[ue] prophetarū diuino famine iussa. Of that one which is placed above the right arm of the Cross, the verse is such: The apostolic host duly reveals your trophies. original: Agmen apostolicū pandit tua rite trophea. Above the left, it is such: And the choir of martyrs itself, by the rightful shedding of blood. original: Martyrū et ipse chorus effuso iure cruore.