Joshua 22

Joshua 22:1

Origen of Alexandria: After these things “Jesus summons the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh,” who had done military service with him in overcoming the enemies of Israel, and he dismisses them to go to their inheritance, having also given them certain gifts, as it is written. In which he seems to indicate this mystery: that, “when the fullness of the nations has come in,” and they have received what was promised to them by the Lord Jesus, those who had been taught and instructed through Moses, and who brought us aid by their prayers and supplications while we were set in the struggle — because they have not yet obtained the promises, waiting “that our calling too might be completed,” as the Apostle says — now at last obtain the perfection which had been deferred for them, together with the gifts which they receive from Jesus, so that each one may dwell in peace, all war and all assault having ceased. — HOMILIES ON Joshua 26.2

Joshua 22:10

Origen of Alexandria: After these things there was read to us that “the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, who were beyond the Jordan, had built up a huge altar; but the sons of Israel” — the rest, not knowing why this altar had been erected — “send Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, with ten men chosen from the several tribes,” so that, if perhaps they had done this as those “departing from God,” having become as it were “apostates” and acting against the commandment of God, they might be assailed by the rest of the sons of Israel; but if otherwise, that they might learn the cause. But those men give satisfaction concerning the altar and say: we know that the true altar is among you, where Jesus dwells, but we made this altar after the likeness of that altar which has been built among you, so that among us too the figure and image of the true altar may be held; “lest perhaps tomorrow,” he says, it should please you “to say that the Jordan is a boundary between us and you” and that it itself sets the limit, and therefore “you have no portion” in our altar. Such were the replies they sent. But let us see what mystery this deed contains. The former people of the circumcision is designated in Reuben, who had been the firstborn; but also in Gad, who himself too is a firstborn, from Zilpah, and no less in Manasseh, the “firstborn.” But when I say “firstborn,” I speak according to time. These things, then, are said lest any division or separation should seem to exist between us and those who were just before the coming of Christ, but so that they might show themselves to be — even though they were before the coming of Christ — nevertheless our brothers. For although they then, before the coming of the Savior, had an altar, yet they knew and perceived that that altar was not the true one, but that it was the form and figure of this true altar that was to come. They knew this: that the true victims, those which could take away sins, were not offered on that altar which the firstborn people had, but on this one, where Jesus was; here the heavenly victims, here the true sacrifices are consummated. There comes to be, then, “one flock and one shepherd,” those former just ones and those who are now Christians. But I wish, for the proof of these things, to call to mind also a certain history, if only the Lord deigns to grant that we may be able to find its spiritual explanation. The people once “was falling in the desert” and dying. Aaron the high priest came and “stood in the midst of those who were dying and those who were living,” lest the devastation of death should advance further even upon the rest. Now too my true high priest, the Lord, has come and has interceded in the midst between the dying and the living — that is, between those who from among the Jews received his presence, and those who not only did not receive it, but slew themselves rather than him, saying: “his blood be upon us and upon our children!” Hence also “all the righteous blood which has been shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah whom they killed between the temple and the altar, shall be required of that generation” which said: “his blood be upon us and upon our children.” These, then, are the portion of the people that is dead, because they keep neither the unleavened bread nor the feast days fittingly, but “their feast days are turned into mourning and their songs into lamentation”; who, even if they wished, could not celebrate the feast day in “that place which the Lord God has chosen.” And we indeed did not say to them that “there shall be for you no portion” in this altar or in the inheritance of the Lord, but they of their own accord refused the true altar and the heavenly high priest, and were brought to such a pitch of unhappiness that they lost even the image and did not receive the truth, and therefore it is said to them: “behold, your house shall be left to you deserted.” For the grace of the Holy Spirit has been transferred to the nations, the solemnities have been transferred to us, because there has passed over to us also a high priest not imaginary but true, “chosen according to the order of Melchizedek”: and it is necessary that he offer true victims, that is, spiritual ones, among us, where the temple of God is built out of “living stones,” “which is the church of the living God,” and where the true Israel is, in Christ Jesus our Lord, “to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.” — HOMILIES ON Joshua 26.3

Origen of Alexandria: Do you wish that I prove to you still more evidently that among that former people, whom Moses foreshadowed in the “two and a half tribes,” not all things were whole nor perfect? That history also declares it, which is written in this very little book of Jesus of Nave, when it says that the true altar was indeed in that land which Jesus was dispensing, yet these who were across the Jordan, that is, “Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, made themselves an altar,” but not a true altar, but one that held the type and pattern of the true altar which was with Jesus. Marvel, then, not at all if those who had built neither a whole nor a true altar had not received a whole knowledge of the Trinity. — HOMILIES ON Joshua 3.2

Joshua 22:27

Augustine of Hippo: And in the sacrifices of our salvation. As the sacrifices are spoken in the plural, that is why the salvations are also in the plural. But we must pay close attention to the fact that it is often called “sacrifice of salvation”, because if we accept that Christ is called God’s salvation (Leviticus 2,30), we do not see how this word could be understood in the plural. For one is only our Lord Jesus Christ, (Cf 1Co 8,6) although some may be called Christ by his grace, as the psalm reads: Do not touch my Christians (Ps. 104,15). But we should not easily dare to say that we could say saludos (salutares) or salvaciones (salutaria), because he alone is the savior of the body (Eph. 5,23). — QUESTIONS ON JOSHUA, Q. 23 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)