"two turtledoves, our soul and our flesh"

Morgan Library M.385 (1440-1460), fol. 12v

     "At the time of [his] first birth, Christ entered after forty days into the earthly Jerusalem, into the Temple, and conveyed as first-born two turtledoves to God.  But at the time of his rebirth from among the dead, too, Christ, after forty days, was taken up into the Jerusalem on high—from which he was n[ever however] separated—into the true Holy of Holies, and, as incorruptible ‘firstborn from among the dead,’ conveyed to God and to the Father [as it were] two turtledoves [without blemish], our soul and our flesh [(ὡς δύο ἀμώμους τρυγόνας τὴν ψυχήν καὶ τὴν σάρκα τήν ἡμετέραν)]. . . ."

     Pseudo-Epiphanius, Homilia in diuini corporis sepulturam (In Sabbato magno, Homily for the Great and Holy Saturday, Ancient homily on Holy Saturday, The Lord's descent into Hades, On the burial of the divine body, Homily on the burial of Jesus, etc.) 3, as translated from the French of A. Vaillant, L’homélie d’Épiphane sur l’ensevelissement du Christ:  Texte vieux-slave, texte grec et traduction française (Zagreb:  1958), 87.  The Greek (presumably of Dindorf (p. 13, ll. 3 ff.) or PG 43 (Petau)) is given at p. 31 ll. 13 ff.  In the next line, Pseudo-Epiphanius distinguishes intriguingly between such claims considered as "[articles] of faith" (which, apparently, they aren't) on the one hand and "[figures] of rhetorique" on the other (μυθικῶς . . . οὐ πιστῶς).  "For just as Christ was born of a Virgin the bolts of [whose] virginity [were] marked with a[n unbroken] seal, so the rebirth of Christ took place with the seals of the tomb unbroken."  For an online English translation of the Greek provided by Vaillant, go here.