of the future," that is. presumably, with reference to the future. But almost all figurative or
Book XII 497 said about Moses, "mouth to mouth." That is to say, it will be through the very form by which God is whatever he is, however limited the extent to which he can so be grasped by the mind (which is not what he is), even when it has been cleansed of all earthly grime and alienated and rapt away from every sort ofbody and bodily likeness. But being weighed down by this mortal and perishable burden,49 we are strangers to this vision as long as we are walking byfaith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:6.7), even when we are living just lives here.
Why then should we not believe that God wished to demonstrate to such a great apostle, the teacher of the nations (1 Tm 2:7), by snatching him up to this all-surpassing vision, the life in which we are to live forever after this life? And why should this not be called paradise, in addition to the one in which Adam lived in the body among shady groves of fruit-trees, seeing that the Church too, which gathers us all together into her loving lap, is called a paradise with the fruits ofapples (Sg 4:13). But this is said in a figurative sense, as if the Church had been signified, through the form of the future Adam,50 by that very paradise where Adam was to be found in the literal sense, though in fact more thorough reflection may suggest that the bodily paradise in which Adam was to be found in the body signified both this life of the saints which is now being lived in the Church and that eternal life that is coming after this one. In the same way Jeru salem, which means "vision of peace,"51 and is demonstrably nonetheless a particular earthly city, signifies the Jerusalem which is our eternal mother in heaven, whether realized in those who have been saved by hope, and while hoping for what they do not see wait for it in patience, whose numbers mean that the children of the deserted wife are many more than those of the one who has a husband; or realized in the holy angels themselves through the Church of the manifold wisdom of God,52 with whom after this exile we look forward to living without toil and without end.
49. See Wis 9: 15. 50. Performamfuturi; literally, 1 suppose (though it is a distinctly odd phrase), "through the shape of the future," that is. presumably, with reference to the future. But almost all figurative or "spiritual" meanings of Old Testament figures had reference to the future. So 1 take the oddness of the expression as hinting that/umri refers to the future Adam, the last Adam; especially as forma is the key word in that crucial christological text, Phil 2:61 1 , "Who being in iheform of
God . . . emptied himself, taking theform of a slave." Furthermore, it is the bridegroom in the Song of Songs who is the speaker of our text, and he of course was universally taken to be Christ, singing these love song duets with his bride, the Church. 51. See Heb 7:2 for the second part of this interpretation. Salem meaning peace (shalom), Melchizedek being king of Salem. The first part of the name Jerusalem, however, has no connection with the Hebrew verb meaning "to see"; so this etymology, though clearly very old in the Christian tradition, has no roots either in biblical or rabbinic sources. 52. Here he is running together texts from Rom 8:24-25 and Gal 4:26-27, to have what seems to be the heavenly Jerusalem realized on earth in the Church, and turning Eph 3: 10 on its head for the Church of the angels in heaven.