17. Concerning the differences of types.

D. How many kinds of types, or figures, are there? M. Principally, four. For either the pleasant are indicated by the pleasant, or the sad by the sad, or the pleasant by the sad, or the sad by the pleasant.

[2] D. Give examples for the individual kinds. M. The pleasant indeed are indicated by the pleasant, as for example our Lord's resurrection according to the flesh and his dwelling in heaven is a form of our resurrection and evidence of future dwelling in heaven for the righteous, as for example the Apostle says, "For you have died, and our life has been hidden with Christ in God" (Col 3:3).

[3] But sad are prefigured by sad, as the casting down of the devil and his angels and the promise of their future punishment is a figure of those who because of a similarity of deeds will be thrust down by similar punishments; as for example even blessed Peter employs the same form to deter sinners, saying about God that even "the angels when they sinned he did not spare, but to the underworld of darkness he handed them over" (2 Pt 2:4).

[4] The third kind is when pleasant things are indicated with sad, as for example the transgression of Adam was a type of the justice of our Savior, as the blessed Apostle teaches that "just as by the disobedience of one man the many were established as sinners, so also by the obedience of one man the many will be established as just. For death reigned from Adam up to Moses even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a form of him who was to come" (Rom 5:19,14), i.e., a type. For in the Greek "type" is specifically read. Therefore the grace of the second Adam, i.e., Christ, was a form, or type, of Adam's transgression, depicted of course by the opposite.

[5] The fourth kind is when sad things are depicted with pleasant things, as baptism is a figure of the death of our Lord, as for example the Apostle says, "For as many of you as have been baptized have been baptized in the death of Jesus" (Rom 6:3). For what is either more pleasant than baptism, where we are cleansed from sin and by which we become children of God, or sadder than death, to which he, too, who had been about to take it upon himself voluntarily, nevertheless sadly came?

[6] D. What other things are accidental to types? M. The difference of times. For certain things are before the Law, as the killing of Abel by his brother was prefiguring Christ's passion (Gn 4:8), and Noah's ark the Church (Gn 7:7), and the other things similar. But certain things are under the Law, as the death of Moses himself and the glory of Jesus. Certain things are under Grace, as the garments of the baptized, and the robes of the priests, and the sharing in the Lord's body (1 Cor 10:16), and other individual things; to show all these things by types pertains not to the teaching of principles, but to the exposition of the text.

[7] D. For what reason do we say that figures, or types, pertain to the future world? M. Because, on the one hand, figures of the Old Testament look to the New in intention; the New, on the other hand, promises the happiness of the future life; and thus all things from their very intention run toward the hope of the future world.