READING THE OLD TESTAMENT

Dearest Sister Florentina,

Be careful when reading the Old Testament.  Do not reflect on the marriages and the love affairs of those days; nor upon the eating of meat and delicacies; nor upon the polygamy allowed  in those days.  Because many things permitted then are not permitted now.  

The Hebrews were still carnal and had to be treated as such.  But when the TRUTH came in the New Testament, the darkness of the Old was dispersed; when the true sacrifice came, the symbols of the Old ceased.  

Everything in the Old Testament must be interpreted in a spiritual sense although it actually happened.  You must know the spiritual meaning from the historical fact.  

Pay no attention to the romance and emotions of the Canticle of Canticles, for it invites to carnal pleasures and love of earthly things.  Look at the spiritual meaning, a representation of the love between Christ and His Church.  The saints have correctly forbidden the reading of the Heptateuch and the Canticle of Canticles by those whose minds are of the flesh, lest they become dissolved in excitements to lust and pleasure because they do not know its spiritual meaning.  

St. Leander of Seville: "De Institutione Virginum" Chap. 16

(05-20-05)