act of drinking would not have benefited their souls. Neither would it
profit us to receive bread and wine at the altar if we were without
faith. Indeed, had not the Word of God come first, the rock would not
have yielded water and command faith. Likewise, if God's Word did not
accompany bread and wine, they would not be spiritual food nor
exercise faith.

14. So it is ever the same spiritual meat and drink which God embodies
in his word and sign, whatever its material and external form may be.
Were he to command me to lift up a mere straw, immediately the straw
would hold for me spiritual food and drink. Not because of any virtue
in the straw, but because it is a revelation and sign of the divine
truth and presence. Again, if God's Word and his sign be lacking or
unrecognized, the very presence of God himself has no effect. Christ
says of himself (Jn 6, 63), "The flesh profiteth nothing." He makes
that statement because his hearers pay no heed to the words in which
he speaks of his flesh, though it is these which make his body the
true meat, according to his declaration (v. 58), "This is the bread
which came down out of heaven." Therefore we are not to regard unduly,
as blind reason does, the works, signs and miracles of God; rather we
are to recognize his message therein. This is the act of faith.

15. The apostle refers to a single type--the rock, saying: "They drank
of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ." By
this statement he makes all the figures and signs granted to the
people of Israel by the Word of God refer to Christ; for where the
Word of God is, there Christ is. All the words and promises of God are
concerning Christ. Christ himself refers the serpent of Moses to
himself, giving it a typical significance, Jn 3, 14. We may truly say
the Israelites looked upon the same serpent we behold, for they saw
the spiritual serpent that followed them, or Christ on the cross.
Their beholding was believing in the Word of God, with the serpent for
a sign; even as their spiritual drinking was believing in the Word of
God with the rock for a sign. Without the Word of God, the serpent
could have profited them nothing; nor could brazen serpents
innumerable, had the Israelites gazed upon them forever. Likewise the
rock would have profited them nothing without the word of God; they
might have crushed to powder all the rocks of the world or drank from
them to no purpose.

16. According to the genera