The Patriarchs, who lived to a great age, dwelt not in fixed dwellings, but in moveable tents, as pilgrims; whereas their descendants, the period of whose existence is greatly curtailed, pass their time in building and planning as if they were never to die. This earth is a place of our exile, heaven is our true country: let us then live here as strangers and pilgrims, looking forward with anxious desires for our true country, the land of the living, in the bosom of our God.
For they looked (he says) for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Do you see that they received them in this sense, in their already accepting them and being confident respecting them. If then to be confident is to receive, it is in your power also to receive. For these, although they enjoyed not those [blessings], yet still saw them by their longing desire. Why now do these things happen? That we might be put to shame, in that they indeed, when things on earth were promised them, regarded them not, but sought the future city: whereas God again and again speaks to us of the city which is above, and yet we seek that which is here. He said to them, I will give you the things of the present [world]. But when He saw, or rather, when they showed themselves worthy of greater things, then He no longer suffers them to receive these, but those greater ones; wishing to show us that they are worthy of greater things, being unwilling to be bound to these. As if one shou...
And the Jews declared that the shadow of the image (of the heavenly things which was afforded to them), was the third from the reality; but we clearly behold the image of the heavenly order; for the truth will be accurately made manifest after the resurrection, when we shall see the heavenly tabernacle (the city in heaven "whose builder and maker is God"
