Joshua 8:29

But after all things, even "the king of Ai" is said "to be hanged upon a double wood." In this place a mystery is concealed which lies hidden from very many, but, with you praying, we shall attempt to open these things not by our own opinions, but by the testimonies of divine Scripture. In the foregoing we said that the king of Ai may be compared to the devil; here it is worth the effort to know how "he is crucified upon a double wood." The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ was double. Perhaps what I say seems to you a strange and novel saying: that the cross was double, that is, it consists of a twofold and double reasoning; because visibly indeed the Son of God was crucified in the flesh, but invisibly upon that cross the devil with "his principalities and powers was affixed to the cross." Will this not seem true to you if I produce for you the Apostle Paul as witness of these things? Hear, then, what he himself declares concerning these things: "that which was," he says, "contrary to us, he took it away out of the midst, affixing it to his cross, and stripping the principalities and powers he displayed them openly, triumphing over them on the wood of the cross" — although in other copies it is found: "triumphing over them in himself," but among the Greeks it is found "on the wood." Therefore the reasoning of the Lord's cross is twofold: one, that by which the Apostle Peter says that "Christ, crucified, left us an example," and this second, by which that "cross" was a trophy over the devil, "on which he was both crucified and triumphed over." Therefore, finally, the Apostle Paul also said: "but far be it from me to glory except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world." You see that here too the Apostle has set forth a twofold reasoning of the cross. For he says that two things contrary to each other were crucified, himself holy and the world sinful, after that likeness, without doubt, which we spoke of above, of Christ and the devil. For we are "crucified to the world" then, when "the prince of this world, coming, finds nothing in us"; and "the world is crucified to us," when we do not receive the concupiscences of sin.

But if perchance there is some more attentive hearer, he can say: the form of the things done seems indeed to be fitting, but this still troubles me, that the devil and his army, as far as is shown by the figure of the history, was destroyed; and how do we still see both the devil and the contrary powers to prevail so greatly against the servants of God, that even the Apostle Peter with great caution forewarns and says that it must be observed that "our adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour"? Let us see, therefore, whether in this too we can find something worthy of the utterances of the Holy Spirit. One coming of Christ was accomplished in lowliness, but another is hoped for in glory; and this first coming in the flesh is, by a certain mystical manner of speech, in the holy scriptures called his "shadow," just as the prophet Jeremiah also announces, saying: "the spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord, of whom we said: in his shadow we shall live among the nations." But Gabriel too, when he brought Mary the good tidings concerning his nativity, says: "the power of the Most High shall overshadow you." Wherefore we understand that very many things are foreshadowed at this first coming of his, whose fulfillment and perfection is consummated at the second coming. And the Apostle Paul says that "he raised us up together with him, and made us sit together in the heavenly places." And yet we do not yet see believers either already "raised up" or "seated together in the heavenly places," but these things are indeed now foreshadowed through faith, because in mind and hope we are lifted up from earthly and dead works and we raise our heart to heavenly and eternal things; yet this will be fulfilled at his second coming, so that the things which we now have anticipated by faith and hope, we may then also hold bodily by the actual accomplishment. So, then, concerning the devil also it must be understood that he was indeed conquered and crucified, but for those who have been crucified with Christ; but for all believers and for all the peoples alike he will then be crucified, when that shall be fulfilled which the Apostle says, that "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." There is therefore in this also the mystery of the future resurrection. For then too the people will be divided into two parts, there…