Numbers 34:13

But that further consequence must nonetheless be grasped: that if God, when he scattered the sons of Adam, "set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God"—or, as we read in other copies, "according to the number of the sons of Israel"—at the beginning of the world, and the sons of that Adam were thus scattered as either their merits or the regard for Adam himself demanded, what shall we say will come to pass when the divine condescension shall begin to deal with the sons of the last Adam—who was made not into a living soul but into a life-giving spirit—not to scatter but to dispense them, not at the beginning but at the end of the world; and not as those who in Adam all died, but as those who in Christ have all been made alive? Without doubt there will be a certain such division and distribution as must be weighed not only according to the merits of those who are dispensed, but also according to the regard for the last Adam, in whom all are said to be made alive. But which of us is such that he may deserve to come to a distribution of this kind and to that lot of the heavenly inheritance? Who will be so blessed that his lot shall fall in Jerusalem, so that he may be there where the temple of God is—nay rather, that he himself may be the temple of God? Who is so blessed that he may keep his feast days there where the divine altar is kindled with perpetual fires? Who is so blessed as to place his sacrifice and his incense of sweetness upon that fire of which the Savior said, "I came to send fire upon the earth"? Who is so blessed as to keep the Passover there forever, in the place which the Lord his God has chosen, and there to observe the day of Pentecost and the feast of atonement and the solemnity of tabernacles, no longer through a shadow, but through the very appearance and truth of the realities? Which of us will be held worthy of the election of so blessed a lot, when God shall begin to divide the sons of the last Adam—not one to whom he may say, "You shall have power over five cities," or to whom he may say, "You shall have power over ten cities," nor to whom he may say, "Enter into the joy of your Lord," but to whom he may say, "Sit, you also, with me upon twelve thrones, judging, you also, the twelve tribes of Israel"? Of whom he may say, "Father, I will that where I am, they too may be with me"; "I will also that…

But that both my discourse and your understanding may be somewhat elevated and may conceive a certain approach toward perceiving the things we are speaking of, let us make use of some comparison. No one doubts that in the land of Judaea every place, every mountain, every city and village is designated by certain particular names; nor is there any place at all without a name, but each single one is designated by its own appellations—for example, those by which the Canaanites named them in their regions, or the Perizzites likewise in theirs, and the Amorites, or the Hivites, or even the Hebrews. So then, according to the opinion of Paul, by which he says that earthly things are a shadow and copy of heavenly ones, perhaps in the heavenly regions too there will be differences of places, and those not slight, distinguished namely by certain appellations and names, and marked with names not only of the quarters of heaven, but even of all the stars and constellations. For he who made the multitude of the stars, as the prophet says, "calls them all by their names." Concerning these names very many secret and hidden things are indeed contained in the little books which are called Enoch; but because these little books themselves do not seem to be held in authority among the Hebrews, let us for the present defer citing as an example what is there named, and let us instead pursue our investigation of these matters from those things which we have in hand, about which there can be no doubt. The land of Judaea, then, is described by the words of God in the divine law, and it is said that these things ought to be referred to the image of heavenly things; and that in the heavens there is a city Jerusalem is plainly declared by the Apostle, and Mount Zion. It is therefore consequent that, just as there are also other cities situated around the earthly Jerusalem, and villages and various regions, so also that heavenly Jerusalem, according to the image of earthly things, has around it both other cities and villages and various regions, in which the people of God and the true Israel is at some time to be settled through the true Jesus—of whom that Joshua son of Nun bore the image—and is to receive the inheritance by the distribution of the lot, that is, by the consideration of merits. If, then, the Lord now says in the distribution of the land, for example, that the boundaries…