TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.
CHAP. I.—OCCASION OF WRITING. RELATIVE
POSITIONOF JEWS AND GENTILES ILLUSTRATED.
IT happened very recently
a dispute was held between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte. Alternately
with contentious cable they each spun out the day until evening. By the
opposing din, moreover, of some partisans of the individuals, truth began
to be overcast by a sort of cloud. It was therefore our pleasure that that
which, owing to the confused noise of disputation, could be less fully
elucidated point by point, should be more carefully looked into, and that
the pen should determine, for reading purposes, the questions handled
For the occasion, indeed, of claiming Divine grace even for the Gentiles derived a pre-eminent fitness from this fact, that the man who set up to vindicate CoWs Law as his own was of the Gentiles, and not a Jew "of the stock of the Israelites."(2) For this fact—that Gentiles are admissible to God's Law—is enough to prevent Israel from priding himself on the notion that "the Gentiles are accounted as a little drop of a bucket," or else as "dust out of a threshing-floor:"(3) although we have God Himself as an adequate engager and faithful promiser, in that He promised to Abraham that "in his seed should be blest all nations of the earth;"(4) and that(5) out of the womb of Rebecca "two peoples and two nations were about to proceed,"(6)—of course those of the Jews, that is, of Israel; and of the Gentiles, that is ours. Each, then, was called a people and a nation; lest, from the nuncupative appellation, any should dare to claim for himself the privilege of grace. For God ordained "two peoples and two nations" as about to proceed out of the womb of one woman: nor did grace(6) make distinction in the nuncupative appellation, but in the order of birth; to the effect that, which ever was to be prior in proceeding from the womb, should be subjected to "the less," that is, the posterior. For thus unto Rebecca did God speak: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided from thy bowels; and people shall overcome people, and the greater shall serve the less."(7) Accordingly, since the people or nation of the Jews is anterior in time, and "greater" through the grace of primary favour in the Law, whereas ours is understood to be "less" in the age of times, as having in the last era of the world(8) attained the knowledge of divine mercy: beyond doubt, through the edict of the divine utterance, the prior and "greater" people—that is, the Jewish—must necessarily serve the "less;" and the "less" people—that is, the Christian—overcome the "greater." For, withal, according to the memorial records of the divine Scriptures, the people of the Jews—that is, the more ancient—quite forsook God, and did degrading service to idols, and, abandoning the Divinity, was surrendered to images; while "the people" said to Aaron, "Make us gods to go before us."(9) And when the gold out of the necklaces of the women and the rings of 152
the men had been wholly smelted by fire, and there had come forth a calf-like head, to this figment Israel with one consent (abandoning God) gave honour, saying, "These are the gods who brought us from the land of Egypt."(1) For thus, in the later times in which kings were governing them, did they again, in conjunction with Jeroboam, worship golden kine, and groves, and enslave themselves to Baal.(2) Whence is proved that they have ever been depicted, out of the volume of the divine Scriptures, as guilty of the crime of idolatry; whereas our "less"—that is, posterior—people, quitting the idols which formerly it used slavishly to serve, has been converted to the same God from whom Israel, as we have above related, had departed.(3) For thus has the "less"—that is, posterior—people overcome the"greater people," while it attains the grace of divine favour, from which Israel has been divorced.
CHAP. II.—THE LAW ANTERIOR TO MOSES.
Stand we, therefore, foot to foot,
and determine we the sum and substance of the actual question within definite
lists.
For why should God, the founder of the universe, the Governor of the whole world,(4) the Fashioner of humanity,the Sower(5) of universal nations be believed to have given a law through Moses to one people, and not be said to have assigned it to all nations? For unless He had given it to all by no means would He have habitually permitted even proselytes out of the nations to have access to it. But—as is congruous with the goodness of God, and with His equity, as the Fashioner of mankind—He gave to all nations the selfsame law, which at definite and stated times He enjoined should be observed, when He willed, and through whom He willed, and as He willed. For in the beginning of the world He gave to Adam himself and Eve a law, that they were not to eat of the fruit of the tree planted in the midst of paradise; but that, if they did contrariwise, by death they were to die.(6) Which law had continued enough for them, had it been kept. For in this law given to Adam we recognise in embryo(7) all the precepts which afterwards sprouted forth when given through Moses; that is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God from thy whole heart and out of thy whole soul; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;(8) Thou shalt not kill; Thou shall not commit adultery; Thou shalt not steal; False witness thou shall not utter; Honour thy father and mother; and, That which is another's, shall thou not covet. For the primordial law was given to Adam and Eve in paradise, as the womb of all the precepts of God. In short, if they had loved the Lord their God, they would not have contravened His precept; if they had habitually loved their neighbour—that is, themselves(9)—they would not have believed the persuasion of the serpent, and thus would not have committed murder upon themselves,(9) by falling(10) from immortality, by contravening God's precept; from theft also they would have abstained, if they had not stealthily tasted of the fruit of the tree, nor had been anxious to skulk beneath a tree to escape the view of the Lord their God; nor would they have been made partners with the falsehood-asseverating devil, by believing him that they would be "like God;" and thus they would not have offended God either, as their Father, who had fashioned them from clay of the earth, as out of the womb of a mother; if they had not coveted another's, they would not have tasted of the unlawful fruit. Therefore, in this general and primordial law of God, the observance of which, in the case of the tree's fruit, He had sanctioned, we recognise enclosed all the precepts specially of the posterior Law, which germinated when disclosed at their proper times. For the subsequent superinduction of a law is the work of the same Being who had before premised a precept; since it is His province withal subsequently to train, who had before resolved to form, righteous creatures. For what wonder if He extends a discipline who institutes it? if He advances who begins? In short, before the Law of Moses,(11) written in stone-tables, I contend that there was a law unwritten, which was habitually understood naturally, and by the fathers was habitually kept. For whence was Noah "found righteous,"(12)if in his case the righteousness of a natural law had not preceded? Whence was Abraham accounted "a friend of God,"(13) if not on the ground of equity and righteousness, (in the observance) of a natural law? Whence was Melchizedek named "priest of the most high God,"(14) if, before the priesthood of the Levitical law, there were not levites who were wont to offer sacrifices to God? For thus, after the above-mentioned patriarchs, was the Law given to Moses, at that (well-known) time after their exode from Egypt, after the interval and spaces of four hundred years. In fact, it was after Abraham's "four hundred and thirty years"(1) that the Law was given. Whence we understand that God's law was anterior even to Moses, and was not first (given) in Horeb, nor in Sinai and in the desert, but was more ancient; (existing) first in paradise, subsequently reformed for the patriarchs, and so again for the Jews, at definite periods: so that we are not to give heed to Moses' Law as to the primitive law, but as to a subsequent, which at a definite period God has set forth to the Gentiles too and, after repeatedly promising so to do through the prophets, has reformed for the better; and has premonished that it should come to pass that, just as "the law was given through Moses"(2) at a definite time, so it should be believed to have been temporarily observed and kept. And let us not annul this power which God has, which reforms the law's precepts answerably to the circumstances of the times, with a view to man's salvation. In fine, let him who contends that the Sabbath is still to be observed as a balm of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day because of the threat of death, teach us that, for the time past, righteous men kept the Sabbath, or practised circumcision, and were thus rendered "friends of God." For if circumcision purges a man since God made Adam uncircumcised, why did He not circumcise him, even after his sinning, if circumcision purges? At all events, in settling him in paradise, He appointed one uncircumcised as colonist of paradise. Therefore, since God originated Adam uncircumcised, and inobservant of the Sabbath, consequently his offspring also, Abel, offering Him sacrifices, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was by Him commended; while He accepted(3) what he was offering in simplicity of heart, and reprobated the sacrifice of his brother Cain, who was not rightly dividing what he was offering.(4) Noah also, uncircumcised—yes, and inobservant of the Sabbath—God freed from the deluge.(5) For Enoch, too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and in-observant of the Sabbath, He translated from this world;(6) who did not first taste(7) death, in order that, being a candidate for eternal life,(8) he might by this time show us that we also may, without the burden of the law of Moses, please God. Melchizedek also, "the priest of the most high God," uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was chosen to the priesthood of God.(9) Lot, withal, the brother(10) of Abraham, proves that it was for the merits of righteousness, without observance of the law, that he was freed from the conflagration of the Sodomites.(11)
CHAP. Ill.—OF CIRCUMCISION AND THE SUPERCESSION
OF THE OLD LAW.
But Abraham, (you say,) was circumcised. Yes, but he pleased God before his circumcision;(12) nor yet did he observe the Sabbath. For he had "accepted"(13) circumcision; but such as was to be for "a sign" of that time, not for a prerogative title to salvation. In fact, subsequent patriarchs were uncircumcised, like Melchizedek, who, uncircumcised, offered to Abraham himself, already circumcised, on his return from battle, bread and wine.(14) "But again," (you say) "the son of Moses would upon one occasion have been choked by an angel, if Zipporah,(15) had not circumcised the foreskin of the infant with a pebble; whence, "there is the greatest peril if any fail to circumcise the foreskin of his flesh." Nay, but if circumcision altogether brought salvation, even Moses himself, in the case of his own son, would not have omitted to circumcise him on the eighth day; whereas it is agreed that Zipporah did it on the journey, at the compulsion of the angel. Consider we, accordingly, that one single infant's compulsory circumcision cannot have prescribed to every people, and rounded, as it were, a law for keeping this precept. For God, foreseeing that He was about to give this circumcision to the people of Israel for "a sign," not for salvation, urges the circumcision of the son of Moses, their future leader, for this reason; that, since He had begun, through him, to give the People the precept of cir- cumcision, the people should not despise it, from seeing this example (of neglect) already exhibited conspicuously in their leader's son. For circumcision had to be given; but as "a sign," whence Israel in the last time would have to be distinguished, when, in accordance with their deserts, they should be prohibited from entering the holy city, as we see through the words of the prophets, saying, "Your land is desert; your cities utterly burnt with fire; your country, in your sight, strangers shall eat up; and, deserted and subverted by strange peoples, the daughter of Zion shall be derelict, like a shed in a vineyard, and like a watchhouse in a cucumber-field, and as it were a city which is being stormed."(1) Why so? Because the subsequent discourse of the prophet reproaches them, saying, "Sons have I begotten and upraised, but they have reprobated me;"(2) and again, "And if ye shall have outstretched hands, I will avert my face from you; and if ye shall have multiplied prayers, I will not hear you: for your hands are full of blood;"(3) and again, "Woe! sinful nation; a people full of sins; wicked sons; ye have quite forsaken God, and have provoked unto indignation the Holy One of Israel."(4) This, therefore, was God's foresight,—that of giving circumcision to Israel, for a sign whence they might be distinguished when the time should arrive wherein their above-mentioned deserts should prohibit their admission into Jerusalem: which circumstance, because it was to be, used to be announced; and, because we see it accomplished, is recognised by us. For, as the carnal circumcision, which was temporary, was inwrought for "a sign" in a contumacious people, so the spiritual has been given for salvation to an obedient people; while the prophet Jeremiah says, "Make a renewal for you, and sow not in thorns; be circumcised to God, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart:"(5) and in another place he says, "Behold, days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will draw up, for the house of Judah and for the house of Jacob,(6) a new testament; not such as I once gave their fathers in the day wherein I led them out from the land of Egypt."(7) Whence we understand that the coming cessation of the former circumcision l then given, and the coming procession of a new law (not such as He had already given to the fathers), are announced: just as Isaiah foretold, saying that in the last days the mount of the Lord and the house of God were to be manifest above the tops of the mounts: "And it shall be exalted," he says, "above the hills; and there shall come over it all nations; and many shall walk, and say, Come, ascend we unto the mount of the Lord, and unto the house of the God of Jacob,"(8)—not of Esau, the former son, but of Jacob, the second; that is, of our "people," whose "mount" is Christ, "praecised without concisors' hands,(9) filling every land," shown in the book of Daniel.(10) In short, the coming procession of a new law out of this "house of the God of Jacob" Isaiah in the ensuing words announces, saying, "For from Zion shall go out a law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, and shall judge among the nations,"—that is, among us, who have been called out of the nations,—"and they shall join to beat their glaives into ploughs, and their lances into sickles; and nations shall not take up glaive against nation, and they shall no more learn to fight."(11) Who else, therefore, are understood but we, who, fully taught by the new law, observe these practices,—the old law being obliterated, the coming of whose abolition the action itself(12) demonstrates? For the wont of the old law was to avenge itself by the vengeance of the glaive, and to pluck out "eye for eye," and to inflict retaliatory revenge for injury.(13) But the new law's wont was to point to clemency, and to convert to tranquillity the pristine ferocity of "glaives" and "lances," and to remodel the pristine execution of "war" upon the rivals and foes of the law into the pacific actions of "ploughing" and "tilling" the land.(14) Therefore as we have shown above that the coming cessation of the old law and of the carnal circumcision was declared, so, too, the observance of the new law and the spiritual circumcision has shone out into the voluntary obediences(15) of peace. For "a people," he says, "whom I knew not hath served me; in obedience of the ear it hath obeyed me."(16) Prophets made the announcement. But what is the "people" which was ignorant of God, but ours, who in days bygone knew not God? and who, in the hearing of the ear, gave heed to Him, but we, who, forsaking idols, have been converted to God? For Israel—who had been known to God, and who had by Him been "upraised"(1) in Egypt, and was transported through the Red Sea, and who in the desert, fed forty years with manna, was wrought to the semblance of eternity, and not contaminated with human passions,(2) or fed on this world's(3) meats, but fed on "angel's loaves"(4)—the manna—and sufficiently bound to God by His benefits—forgat his Lord and God, saying to Aaron: "Make us gods, to go before us: for that Moses, who ejected us from the land of Egypt, hath quite forsaken us; and what hath befallen him we know not." And accordingly we, who "were not the people of God" in days bygone, have been made His people,(5) by accepting the new law above mentioned, and the new circumcision before foretold.
CHAP. IV.—OF THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH.
It follows, accordingly, that,
in so far as the abolition of carnal circumcision and of the old law is
demonstrated as having been consummated at its specific times, so also
the observance of the Sabbath is demonstrated to have been temporary.
For the Jews say, that from the
beginning God sanctified the seventh day, by resting on it from all His
works which He made; and that thence it was, likewise, that Moses said
to the People: "REMEMBER the day of the sabbaths, to sanctify it: every
servile work ye shall not do therein, except what pertaineth unto life."(6)
Whence we (Christians) understand that we still more ought to observe a
sabbath from all "servile work"(7) always, and not only every seventh day,
but through all time. And through this arises the question for us, what
sabbath God willed us to keep? For the Scriptures point to a sabbath eternal
and a sabbath temporal. For Isaiah the prophet says, "Your sabbaths my
soul hateth;"(8) and in another place he says, "My sabbaths ye have profaned."(9)
Whence we discern that the temporal sabbath is human, and the eternal sabbath
is accounted divine; concerning which He predicts through Isaiah: "And
there shall be," He says, "month after month, and day after day, and sabbath
after sabbath; and all flesh shall come to adore in Jerusalem, saith the
Lord;"(10) which we understand to have been fulfilled in the times of Christ,
when "all flesh"—that is, every nation—"came to adore in Jerusalem" God
the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, as was predicted through the
prophet: "Behold, proselytes through me shall go unto Thee."(11) Thus,
therefore, before this temporal sabbath, there was withal an eternal sabbath
foreshown and foretold; just as before the carnal circumcision there was
withal a spiritual circumcision foreshown. In short, let them teach us,
as we have already premised, that Adam observed the sabbath; or that Abel,
when offering to God a holy victim, pleased Him by a religious reverence
for the sabbath; or that Enoch, when translated, had been a keeper of the
sabbath; or that Noah the ark-builder observed, on account of the deluge,
an immense sabbath; or that Abraham, in observance of the sabbath, offered
Isaac his son; or that Melchizedek in his priesthood received the law of
the sabbath.
But the Jews are sure to say, that
ever since this precept was given through Moses, the observance has been
binding. Manifest accordingly it is, that the precept was not eternal nor
spiritual, but temporary,(12) which would one day cease. In short, so true
is it that it is not in the exemption from work of the sabbath—that is,
of the seventh day—that the celebration of this solemnity is to consist,
that Joshua the son of Nun, at the time that he was reducing the city Jericho
by war. stated that he had received from God a precept to order the People
that priests should carry the ark of the testament of God seven days, making
the circuit of the city; and thus, when the seventh day's circuit had been
performed, the walls of the city would spontaneously fall.(13) Which was
so done; and when the space of the seventh day was finished, just as was
predicted, down fell the walls of the city. Whence it is manifestly shown,
that in the number of the seven days there intervened a sabbath-day. For
seven days, whencesoever they may have commenced, must necessarily include
within them a sabbath-day; on which day not only must the priests have
worked, but the city must have been made a prey by the edge of the sword
by all the people of Israel. Nor is it doubtful that they "wrought servile
work," when, in obedience to God's precept, they drave the preys of war.
For in the times of the Maccabees, too, they did bravely in fighting on
the sabbaths, and routed their foreign foes, and recalled the law of their
fathers to the primitive style of life by fighting on the sabbaths.(1)
Nor should I think it was any other law which they thus vindicated, than
the one in which they remembered the existence of the prescript touching
"the day of the sabbaths."(2)
Whence it is manifest that the force of such precepts was temporary, and respected the necessity of present circumstances; and that it was not with a view to its observance in perpetuity that God formerly gave them such a law.
CHAP. V.—OF SACRIFICES.
So, again, we show that sacrifices of earthly oblations and of spiritual sacrifices(3) were predicted; and, moreover, that from the beginning the earthly were foreshown, in the person of Cain, to be those of the "elder son," that is, of Israel; and the opposite sacrifices demonstrated to be those of the "younger son," Abel, that is, of our people. For the elder, Cain, offered gifts to God from the fruit of the earth; but the younger son, Abel, from the fruit of his ewes. "God had respect unto Abel, and unto his gifts; but unto Cain and unto his gifts He had not respect. And God said unto Cain, Why is thy countenance fallen? hast thou not—if thou offerest indeed aright, but dost not divide aright—sinned? Hold thy peace. For unto thee shall thy conversion be and he shall lord it over thee. And then Cain said unto Abel his brother, Let us go into the field: and he went away with him thither, and he slew him. And then God said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother's keeper? To whom God said, The voice of the blood of thy brother crieth forth unto me from the earth. Wherefore cursed is the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive the blood of thy brother. Groaning and trembling shalt thou be upon the earth, and every one who shall have found thee shall slay thee."(4) From this proceeding we gather that the twofold sacrifices of "the peoples" were even from the very beginning foreshown. In short, when the sacerdotal law was being drawn up, through Moses, in Leviticus, we find it prescribed to the people of Israel that sacrifices should in no other place be offered to God than in the land of promise; which the Lord God was about to give to "the people" Israel and to their brethren, in order that, on Israel's introduction thither, there should there be celebrated sacrifices and holocausts, as well for sins as for souls; and nowhere else but in the holy land.(5) Why, accordingly, does the Spirit afterwards predict, through the prophets, that it should come to pass that in every place and in every land there should be offered sacrifices to God? as He says through the angel Malachi, one of the twelve prophets: "I will not receive sacrifice from your hands; for from the rising sun unto the setting my Name hath been made famous among all the nations, saith the Lord Almighty: and in every place they offer clean sacrifices to my Name."(6) Again, in the Pslams, David says: "Bring to God, ye countries of the nations"—undoubtedly because "unto every land" the preaching of the apostles had to "go out"(7)—"bring to God fame and honour; bring to God the sacrifices of His name: take up(8) victims and enter into His courts."(9) For that it is not by earthly sacrifices, but by spiritual, that offering is to be made to God, we thus read, as it is written, An heart contribulate and humbled is a victim for God;"(10) and elsewhere, "Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and render to the Highest thy vows."(11) Thus, accordingly, the spiritual "sacrifices of praise" are pointed to, and "an heart contribulate" is demonstrated an acceptable sacrifice to God. And thus, as carnal sacrifices are understood to be reprobated—of which Isaiah withal speaks, saying, "To what end is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? saith the Lord"(12)—so spiritual sacrifices are predicted(13) as accepted, as the prophets announce. For, "even if ye shall have brought me," He says, "the finest wheat flour, it is a vain supplicatory gift: a thing execrable to me;" and again He says, "Your holocausts and sacrifices, and the fat of goats, and blood of bulls, I will not, not even if ye come to be seen by me: for who hath required these things from your hands?"(14) for "from the rising sun unto the setting, my Name hath been made famous among all the nations, saith the Lord."(1) But of the spiritual sacrifices He adds, saying, "And in every place they offer dean sacrifices to my Name, saith the Lord."(1)
CHAP. VI.—OF THE ABOLITION AND THE ABOLISHER
OF THE OLD LAW.
Therefore, since it is manifest
that a sabbath temporal was shown, and a sabbath eternal foretold; a circumcision
carnal foretold, and a circumcision spiritual pre-indicated; a law temporal
and a law eternal formally declared; sacrifices carnal and sacrifices spiritual
foreshown; it follows that, after all these precepts had been given carnally,
in time preceding, to the people Israel, there was to supervene a time
whereat the precepts of the ancient Law and of the old ceremonies would
cease, and the promise(2) of the new law, and the recognition of spiritual
sacrifices, and the promise of the New Testament, supervene;(3) while the
light from on high would beam upon us who were sitting in darkness, and
were being detained in the shadow of death.(4) And so there is incumbent
on us a necessity s binding us, since we have premised that a new law was
predicted by the prophets, and that not such as had been already given
to their fathers at the time when He led them forth from the land of Egypt,(6)
to show and prove, on the one hand, that that old Law has ceased, and on
the other, that the promised new law is now in operation.
And, indeed, first we must inquire whether there be expected a giver of the new law, and an heir of the new testament, and a priest of the new sacrifices, and a purger of the new circumcision, and an observer of the eternal sabbath, to suppress the old law, and institute the new testament, and offer the new sacrifices, and repress the ancient ceremonies, and suppress(7) the old circumcision together with its own sabbath,(8) and announce the new kingdom which is not corruptible. Inquire, I say, we must, whether this giver of the new law, observer of the spiritual sabbath, priest of the eternal sacrifices, eternal ruler of the eternal kingdom, be come or no: that, if he is already come, service may have to be rendered him; if he is not yet come, he may have to be awaited, until by his advent it be manifest that the old Law's precepts are suppressed, and that the beginnings of the new law ought to arise. And, primarily, we must lay it down that the ancient Law and the prophets could not have ceased, unless He were come who was constantly announced, through the same Law and through the same prophets, as to come.
CHAP. VII.—THE QUESTION WHETHER CHRIST
BE COME TAKEN UP.
Therefore upon this issue plant we foot to foot, whether the Christ who was constantly announced as to come be already come, or whether His coming be yet a subject of hope. For proof of which question itself, the times likewise must be examined by us when the prophets announced that the Christ would come; that, if we succeed in recognising that He has come within the limits of those times, we may without doubt believe Him to be the very one whose future coming was ever the theme of prophetic song, upon whom we—the nations, to wit—were ever announced as destined to believe; and that, when it shall have been agreed that He is come, we may undoubtedly likewise believe that the new law has by Him been given, and not disavow the new testament in Him and through Him drawn up for us. For that Christ was to come we know that even the Jews do not attempt to disprove, inasmuch as it is to His advent that they are directing their hope. Nor need we inquire at more length concerning that matter, since in days bygone all the prophets have prophesied of it; as Isaiah: "Thus saith the Lord God to my Christ (the) Lord,(9) whose right hand I have holden, that the nations may hear Him: the powers of kings will I burst asunder; I will open before Him the gates, and the cities shall not be closed to Him." Which very thing we see fulfilled. For whose right hand does God the Father hold but Christ's, His Son?—whom all nations have heard, that is, whom all nations have believed,—whose preachers, withal, the apostles, are pointed to in the Psalms of David: "Into the universal earth," says he, "is gone out their sound, and unto the ends of the earth their words."(10) For upon whom else have the universal nations believed, but upon the Christ who is already come? For whom have the nations believed,—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and they who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, and they who dwell in Pontus, and Asia, and Pamphylia, tarriers in Egypt, and inhabiters of the region of Africa which is beyond Cyrene, Romans and sojourners, yes, and in Jerusalem Jews,(1) and all other nations; as, for instance, by this time, the varied races of the Gaetulians, and manifold confines of the Moors, all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons—inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ, and of the Sarmatians, and Dacians, and Germans, and Scythians, and of many remote nations, and of provinces and islands many, to us unknown, and which we can scarce enumerate? In all which places the name of the Christ who is already come reigns, as of Him before whom the gates of all cities have been opened, and to whom none are closed, before whom iron bars have been crumbled, and brazen gates(2) opened. Although there be withal a spiritual sense to be affixed to these expressions,—that the hearts of individuals, blockaded in various ways by the devil, are unbarred by the faith of Christ,—still they have been evidently fulfilled, inasmuch as in all these places dwells the "people" of the Name of Christ. For who could have reigned over all nations but Christ, God's Son, who was ever announced as destined to reign over all to eternity? For if Solomon "reigned," why, it was within the confines of Judea merely: "from Beersheba unto Dan" the boundaries of his kingdom are marked.(3) If, moreover, Darius "reigned" over the Babylonians and Parthians, he had not power over all nations; if Pharaoh, or whoever succeeded him in his hereditary kingdom, over the Egyptians, in that country merely did he possess his kingdom's dominion; if Nebuchadnezzar with his petty kings, "from India unto Ethiopia" he had his kingdom's boundaries;(5) if Alexander the Macedonian he did not hold more than universal Asia, and other regions, after he had quite conquered them; if the Germans, to this day they are not suffered to cross their own limits; the Britons are shut within the circuit of their own ocean; the nations of the Moors, and the barbarism of the Gaetulians, are blockaded by the Romans, lest they exceed the confines of their own regions. What shall I say of the Romans themselves,(5) who fortify their own empire with garrisons of their own legions, nor can extend the might of their kingdom beyond these nations? But Christ's Name is extending everywhere, believed everywhere, worshipped by all the above-enumerated nations, reigning everywhere, adored everywhere, conferred equally everywhere upon all. No king, with Him, finds greater favour, no barbarian lesser joy; no dignities or pedigrees enjoy distinctions of merit; to all He is equal, to all King, to all Judge, to all "God and Lord."(6) Nor would you hesitate to believe what we asseverate, since you see it taking place.
CHAP. VIII.—OF THE TIMES OF CHRIST'S
BIRTH AND PASSION, AND OF JERUSALEM'S DESTRUCTION.
Accordingly the times must be inquired
into of the predicted and future nativity of the Christ, and of His passion,
and of the extermination of the city of Jerusalem, that is, its devastation.
For Daniel says, that "both the holy city and the holy place are exterminated
together with the coming Leader, and that the pinnacle is destroyed unto
ruin."(7) And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader,(8) must be
inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and, after computing them,
shall prove Him to be come, even on the ground of the times prescribed,
and of competent signs and operations of His. Which matters we prove, again,
on the ground of the consequences which were ever announced as to follow
His advent; in order that we may believe all to have been as well fulfilled
as foreseen.
In such wise, therefore, did Daniel
predict concerning Him, as to show both when and in what time He was to
set the nations free; and how, after the passion of the Christ, that city
had to be exterminated. For he says thus: "In the first year under Darius,
son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who reigned over the kingdom
of the Chaldees, I Daniel understood in the books the number of the years.
... And while I was yet speaking in my prayer, behold, the man Gabriel,
whom I saw in the vision in the beginning, flying; and he touched me, as
it were, at the hour of the evening sacrifice, and made me understand,
and spake with me, and said, Daniel I am now come out to imbue thee with
understanding; in the beginning of thy supplication went out a word. And
I am come to announce to thee, because thou art a man of desires;(1) and
ponder thou on the word, and understand in the vision. Seventy hebdomads
have been abridged(2) upon thy commonalty, and upon the holy city, until
delinquency be made inveterate, and sins sealed, and righteousness obtained
by entreaty, and righteousness eternal introduced; and in order that vision
and prophet may be sealed, and an holy one of holy ones anointed. And thou
shalt know, and thoroughly see, and understand, from the going forth of
a word for restoring and rebuilding Jerusalem unto the Christ, the Leader,
hebdomads (seven and an half, and(3)) lxii and an half: and it shall convert,
and shall be built into height and entrenchment, and the times shall be
renewed: and after these lxii hebdomads shall the anointing be exterminated,
and shall not be; and the city and the holy place shall he exterminate
together with the Leader, who is making His advent; and they shall be cut
short as in a deluge, until (the) end of a war, which shall be cut short
unto ruin. And he shall confirm a testament in many. In one hebdomad and
the half of the hebdomad shall be taken away my sacrifice and libation,
and in the holy place the execration of devastation, (and(4)) until the
end of (the) time consummation shall be given with regard to this devastation."(5)
Observe we, therefore, the limit,—how,
in truth, he predicts that there are to be lxx hebdomads, within which
if they receive Him, "it shall be built into height and entrenchment, and
the times shall be renewed." But God, foreseeing what was to be—that they
will not merely not receive Him, but will both persecute and deliver Him
to death—both recapitulated, and said, that in lx and ii and an half of
an hebdomad He is born, and an holy one of holy ones is anointed; but that
when vii hebdomads(6) and an half were fulfilling, He had to suffer, and
the holy city had to be exterminated after one and an half hebdomad—whereby
namely, the seven and an half hebdomads have been completed. For he says
thus: "And the city and the holy place to be exterminated together with
the leader who is to come; and they shall be cut short as in a deluge;
and he shall destroy the pinnacle unto ruin."(7) Whence, therefore, do
we showy that the Christ came within the lxii and an half hebdomads? We
shall count, moreover, from the first year of Darius, as at this particular
time is shown to Daniel this particular vision; for he says, "And understand
and conjecture that at the completion of thy word(8) I make thee these
answers." Whence we are bound to compute from the first year of Darius,
when Daniel saw this vision.
Let us see, therefore, how the
years are filled up until the advent of the Christ:—
For Darius reigned . . xviiii(9)
years (19).
Artaxerxes reigned . . xl and
i years (41). Then King Ochus (who is also called Cyrus) reigned . xxiiii
years (24). Argus ....one year. Another Darius, who is also named Melas,
...xxi years (21).
Alexander the Macedonian, .xii
years (12).
Then, after Alexander,who had
reigned over both Medes and Persians, whom he had reconquered, and had
established his kingdom firmly in Alexandria, when withal he called that
(city) by his own name; (10) after him reigned, (there, in Alexandria,)
Soter,. . . . .xxxv years (35). To whom succeeds
Philadelphus, reigning xxx and
viii years (38). To him succeeds
Euergetes, .xxv years (25). Then
Philopator . . .xvii years (17)
After him
Epiphanes, . . xxiiii years (24).
Then another
Euergetes, . . .xxviiii years
(29). Then another
Soter, . . . .xxxviii years (38).
Ptolemy . . . .xxxvii years (37).
Cleopatra, . . .xx years v months
(20 5-12). Yet again
Cleopatra reigned joint- ly with
Augustus . xiii years (13.) After Cleopatra, Augus- tus reigned other .
xliii years (43). For all the years of the empire of Augustus were lvi
years (56).
Let us see, moreover, how in the
forty-first year of the empire of Augustus, when he has been reigning for
xx and viii years after the death of Cleopatra, the Christ is born. (And
the same Augustus survived, after Christ is born, xv years; and the remaining
times of years to the day of the birth of Christ will bring us to the xl
first year, which is the xx and viiith of Augustus after the death of Cleopatra.)
There are, (then,) made up cccxxx and vii years, v months: (whence are
filled up lxii hebdomads and an half: which make up ccccxxxvii years, vi
months:) on the day of the birth of Christ. And (then) "righteousness eternal"
was manifested, and "an Holy One of holy ones was anointed"—that is, Christ—and
"sealed was vision and prophet," and "sins" were remitted, which, through
faith in the name of Christ, are washed away(1) for all who believe on
Him. But what does he mean by saying that "vision and prophecy are sealed?"
That all prophets ever announced of Him that He was to come and had to
suffer. Therefore, since the prophecy was fulfilled through His advent,
for that reason he said that "vision and prophecy were sealed;" inasmuch
as He is the signet of all prophets, fulfilling all things which in days
bygone they had announced of Him.(2) For after the advent of Christ and
His passion there is no longer "vision or prophet" to announce Him as to
come. In short, if this is not so, let the Jews exhibit, subsequently to
Christ, any volumes of prophets, visible miracles wrought by any angels,(such
as those) which in bygone days the patriarchs saw until the advent of Christ,
who is now come; since which event "sealed is vision and prophecy," that
is, confirmed. And justly does the evangelist(3) write, "The law and the
prophets (were) until John" the Baptist. For, on Christ's being baptized,
that is, on His sanctifying the waters in His own baptism,(4) all the plenitude
of bygone spiritual grace-gifts ceased in Christ, sealing as He did all
vision and prophecies, which by His advent He fulfilled. Whence most firmly
does he assert that His advent "seals visions and prophecy."
Accordingly, showing, (as we have done,) both the number of the years, and the time of the lx two and an half fulfilled hebdomads, on completion of which, (we have shown) that Christ is come, that is, has been born, let us see what (mean) other "vii and an half hebdomads," which have been subdivided in the abscision of(5) the former hebdomads; (let us see, namely,) in what event they have been fulfilled:—
For, after Augustus who survived after
the birth of
Christ, are made up . xv years
(15). To whom succeeded Tibe-
rius Caesar, and held the
empire . . xx years, vii months,
xxviii
days (20 etc.). (In the fiftieth year of his
empire Christ suffered.
being about xxx years of
age when he suffered.) Again Caius
Caesar, also called Caligula, . . iii years, viii months, xiii
days (3 etc.). Nero Caesar, . . xi years, ix months, xiii
days (11 etc.). Galba . . . . vii months,vi days. (7 etc.). Otho . . .
. iii days. Vitellius, . . . viii mos., xxvii days (8 mos.) Vespasian,
in the first year of his empire, subdues the Jews in war; and there are
made lii years, vi months. For he reigned xi years. And thus, in the day
of their storming, the Jews fulfilled the lxx hebdomads predicted in Daniel.
Therefore, when these times also were completed, and the Jews subdued, there afterwards ceased in that place "libations and sacrifices," which thenceforward have not been able to be in that place celebrated; for "the unction," too,(6) was "exterminated" in that place after the passion of Christ. For it had been predicted that the unction should be exterminated in that place; as in the Psalms it is prophesied, "They exterminated my hands and feet."(7) And the suffering of this "extermination" was perfected within the times of the lxx hebdomads, under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulate of Rubellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, in the month of March, at the times of the passover, on the eighth day before the calends of April,(8) on the first day of unleavened bread, on which they slew the lamb at even, just as had been enjoined by Moses.(9) Accordingly, all the synagogue of Israel did slay Him, saying to Pilate, when he was desirous to dismiss Him, "His blood be upon us, and upon our children;"(10) and, "If thou dismiss him, thou art not a friend of Caesar;"(11) in order that all things might be fulfilled which had been written of Him.(12)
CHAP.IX.—OF THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIRTH
AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF CHRIST
Begin we, therefore, to prove that
the BIRTH of Christ was announced by prophets; as Isaiah (e.g.,) foretells,
"Hear ye, house of David; no petty contest have ye with men, since God
is proposing a struggle. Therefore God Himself will give you a sign; Behold,
the virgin(1) shall conceive, and bear a son, and ye shall call his name
Emmanuel"(2) (which is, interpreted, "God with us"(3)): "butter and honey
shall he eat;"(4): "since, ere the child learn to call father or mother,
he shall receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria, in opposition
to the king of the Assyrians."(5)
Accordingly the Jews say: Let us
challenge that prediction of Isaiah, and let us institute a comparison
whether, in the case of the Christ who is already come, there be applicable
to Him, firstly, the name which Isaiah foretold, and (secondly) the signs
of it(6) which he announced of Him.
Well, then, Isaiah foretells that
it behoves Him to be called Emmanuel; and that subsequently He is to take
the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria, in opposition to the king
of the Assyrians. "Now," say they, "that (Christ) of yours, who is come,
neither was called by that name, nor engaged in warfare." But we, on the
contrary, have thought they ought to be admonished to recall to mind the
context of this passage as well. For subjoined is withal the interpretation
of Emmanuel—"God with us"(7)—in order that you may regard not the sound
only of the name, but the sense too. For the Hebrew sound, which is Emmanuel,
has an interpretation, which is, God with us. Inquire, then, whether this
speech, "God with us" (which is Emmanuel), be commonly applied to Christ
ever since Christ's light has dawned, and I think you will not deny it.
For they who out of Judaism believe in Christ, ever since their believing
on Him, do, whenever they shall wish to say(8) Emmanuel, signify that God
is with us: and thus it is agreed that He who was ever predicted as Emmanuel
is already come, because that which Emmanuel signifies is come—that is,
"God with us." Equally are they led by the sound of the name when they
so understand "the power of Damascus," and "the spoils of Samaria," and
"the kingdom of the Assyrians," as if they portended Christ as a warrior;
not observing that Scripture premises, "since, ere the child learn to call
father or mother, he shall receive the power of Damascus and the spoils
of Samaria, in opposition to the king of the Assyrians." For the first
step is to look at the demonstration of His age, to see whether the age
there indicated can possibly exhibit the Christ as already a man, not to
say a general. Forsooth, by His babyish cry the infant would summon men
to arms, and would give the signal of war not with clarion, but with rattle,
and point out the foe, not from His charger's back or from a rampart, but
from the back or neck of His suckler and nurse, and thus subdue Damascus
and Samaria in place of the breast. (It is another matter if, among you,
infants rush out into battle,—oiled first, I suppose, to dry in the sun,
and then armed with satchels and rationed on butter,—who are to know how
to lance sooner than how to lacerate the bosom!)(9) Certainly, if nature
nowhere allows this,—(namely,) to serve as a soldier before developing
into manhood, to take "the power of Damascus" before knowing your father,—it
follows that the pronouncement is visibly figurative. "But again," say
they, "nature suffers not a 'virgin' to be a parent; and yet the prophet
must be believed." And deservedly so; for he bespoke credit for a thing
incredible, by saying that it was to be a sign. "Therefore," he says, "shall
A SIGN be given you. Behold, a virgin shall conceive in womb, and bear
a son." But a sign from God, unless it had consisted in some portentous
novelty, would not have appeared a sign. In a word, if, when you are anxious
to cast any down from (a belief in) this divine prediction, or to convert
whoever are simple, you have the audacity to lie, as if the Scripture contained
(the announcement), that not "a virgin," but "a young female," was to conceive
and bring forth; you are refuted even by this fact, that a daily occurrence—the
pregnancy and parturition of a young female, namely—cannot possibly seem
anything of a sign. And the setting before us, then, of a virgin-mother
is deservedly believed to be a sign; but not equally so a warrior-infant.
For there would not in this case again be involved the question of a sign;
but, the sign of a novel birth having been awarded, the next step after
the sign is, that there is enunciated a different ensuing ordering(10)
of the infant, who is to eat "honey and butter." Nor is this, of course,
for a sign. It is natural to infancy. But that he is to receives(1) "the
power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria in opposition to the king of
the Assyrians," this is a wondrous sign. Keep to the limit of (the infant's)
age, and inquire into the sense of the prediction; nay, rather, repay to
truth what you are unwilling to credit her with, and the prophecy becomes
intelligible by the relation of its fulfilment. Let those Eastern magi
be believed, dowering with gold and incense the infancy of Christ as a
king;(2) and the infant has received "the power of Damascus" without battle
and arms. For, besides the fact that it is known to all that the "power"—for
that is the "strength"—of the East is wont to abound in gold and odours,
certain it is that the divine Scriptures regard "gold" as constituting
the "power" also of all other nations; as it says(3) through Zechariah:
"And Judah keepeth guard at Jerusalem, and shall amass all the vigour of
the surrounding peoples, gold and silver."(4) For of this gift of "gold"
David likewise says, "And to Him shall be given of the gold of Arabia;"(5)
and again, "The kings of the Arabs and Saba shall bring Him gifts."(6)
For the East, on the one hand, generally held the magi (to be) kings; and
Damascus, on the other hand, used formerly to be reckoned to Arabia before
it was transferred into Syrophoenicia on the division of the Syrias: the
"power" whereof Christ then "received" in receiving its ensigns,—gold,
to wit, and odours. "The spoils," moreover, "of Samaria" (He received in
receiving) the magi themselves, who, on recognising Him, and honouring
Him with gifts, and adoring Him on bonded knee as Lord and King, on the
evidence of the guiding and indicating star, became "the spoils of Samaria,"
that is, of idolatry—by believing, namely, on Christ. For (Scripture) denoted
idolatry by the name of "Samaria," Samaria being ignominious on the score
of idolatry; for she had at that time revolted from God under King Jeroboam.
For this, again, is no novelty to the Divine Scriptures, figuratively to
use a transference of name grounded on parallelism of crimes. For it(7)
calls your rulers "rulers of Sodore," and your people the "people of Gomorrha,"(8)
when those dries had already long been extinct.(9) And elsewhere it says,
through a prophet, to the people of Israel, "Thy father (was) an Amorite,
and thy mother an Hittite;"(10) of whose race they were not begotten, but
(were called their sons) by reason of their consimilarity in impiety, whom
of old (God) had called His own sons through Isaiah the prophet: "I have
generated and exalted sons."(11) So, too, Egypt is sometimes understood
to mean the whole world(12) in that prophet, on the count of superstition
and malediction.(13) So, again, Babylon, in our own John, is a figure of
the city Rome, as being equally great and proud of her sway, and triumphant
over the saints.(14) On this wise, accordingly, (Scripture)(15) entitled
the magi also with the appellation of "Samaritans,"—"despoiled"(of that)
which they had had in common with the Samaritans, as we have said—idolatry
in opposition to the Lord. (It(16) adds), "in opposition," moreover, "to
the king of the Assyrians,"—in opposition to the devil, who to this hour
thinks himself to be reigning, if he detrudes the saints from the religion
of God.
Moreover, this our interpretation
will be supported while (we find that) elsewhere as well the Scriptures
designate Christ a warrior, as we gather from the names of certain weapons,
and words of that kind. But by a comparison of the remaining senses the
Jews shall be convicted. "Gird thee," says David, "the sword upon the thigh."(17)
But what do you read above concerning the Christ? "Blooming in beauty above
the sons of men; grace is outpoured in thy lips."(18) But very absurd it
is if he was complimenting on the bloom of his beauty and the grace of
his lips, one whom he was girding for war with a sword; of whom he proceeds
subjunctively to say, "Outstretch and prosper, advance and reign!" And
he has added, "because of thy lenity and justice."(19) Who will ply the
sword without practising the contraries to lenity and justice; that is,
guile, and asperity, and injustice, proper (of course) to the business
of battles? See we, then, whether that which has another action be not
another sword,—that is, the Divine word of God, doubly sharpened(20) with
the two Testaments of the ancient law and the new law; sharpened by the
equity of its own wisdom; rendering to each one according to his own action.(21)
Law- ful, then, it was for the Christ of God to be precinct, in the Psalms,
without warlike achievements, with the figurative sword of the word of
God; to which sword is congruous the predicated "bloom," together with
the "grace of the lips;" with which sword He was then "girt upon the thigh,"
in the eye of David, when He was announced as about to come to earth in
obedience to God the Father's decree. "The greatness of thy right hand,
he says, "shall conduct thee"(1)—the virtue to wit, of the spiritual grace
from which the recognition of Christ is deduced. "Thine arrows," he says,
"are sharp,"(2)—God's everywhere-flying precepts (arrows) threatening the
exposure(3) of every heart, and carrying compunction and transfixion to
each conscience: "peoples shall fall beneath thee,"(4)—of course, in adoration.
Thus mighty in war and weapon-bearing is Christ; thus will He "receive
the spoils," not of "Samaria" alone, but of all nations as well. Acknowledge
that His "spoils" are figurative whose weapons you have learnt to be allegorical.
And thus, so far, the Christ who is come was not a warrior, because He
was not predicted as such by Isaiah.
"But if the Christ," say they,
"who is believed to be coming is not called Jesus, why is he who is come
called Jesus Christ?" Well, each name will meet in the Christ of God, in
whom is found likewise the appellation(5) Jesus. Learn the habitual character
of your error. In the course of the appointing of a successor to Moses,
Oshea(6) the son of Nun(7) is certainly transferred from his pristine name,
and begins to be called Jesus.(8) Certainly, you say. This we first assert
to have been a figure of the future. For, because Jesus Christ was to introduce
the second people (which is composed of us nations, lingering deserted
in the world(9) aforetime) into the land of promise, "flowing with milk
and honey"(10) (that is, into the possession of eternal life, than which
nought is sweeter); and this had to come about, not through Moses (that
is, not through the Law's discipline), but through Joshua (that is, through
the new law's grace), after our circumcision with "a knife of rock"(11)
(that is, with Christ's precepts, for Christ is in many ways and figures
predicted as a rock(12)); therefore the man who was being prepared to act
as images of this sacrament was inaugurated under the figure of the Lord's
name, even so as to be named Jesus.(13) For He who ever spake to Moses
was the Son of God Himself; who, too, was always seen.(14) For God the
Father none ever saw, and lived.(15) And accordingly it is agreed that
the Son of God Himself spake to Moses, and said to the people, "Behold,
I send mine angel before thy"—that is, the people's—"face, to guard thee
on the march, and to introduce thee into the land which I have prepared
thee: attend to him, and be not disobedient to him; for he hath not escaped(16)
thy notice, since my name is upon him."(17) For Joshua was to introduce
the people into the land of promise, not Moses. Now He called him an "angel,"
on account of the magnitude of the mighty deeds which he was to achieve
(which mighty deeds Joshua the son of Nun did, and you yourselves read),
and on account of his office of prophet announcing (to wit) the divine
will; just as withal the Spirit, speaking in the person of the Father,
calls the forerunner of Christ, John, a future "angel," through the prophet:
"Behold, I send mine angel before Thy"—that is, Christ's—"face, who shall
prepare Thy way before Thee."(18) Nor is it a novel practice to the Holy
Spirit to call those "angels" whom God has appointed as ministers of His
power. For the same John is called not merely an "angel" of Christ, but
withal a "lamp" shining before Christ: for David predicts, "I have prepared
the lamp for my Christ;"(19) and him Christ Himself, coming "to fulfil
the prophets,"(20) called so to the Jews. "He was," He says, "the burning
and shining lamp;"(21) as being he who not merely "prepared His ways in
the desert,"(22) but withal, by pointing out "the Lamb of God,"(23) illumined
the minds of men by his heralding, so that they understood Him to be that
Lamb whom Moses was wont to announce as destined to suffer. Thus, too,
(was the son of Nun called) JOSHUA, on account of the future mystery(1)
of his name: for that name (He who spake with Moses) confirmed as His own
which Himself had conferred on him, because He had bidden him thenceforth
be called, not "angel" nor "Oshea," but "Joshua." Thus, therefore, each
name is appropriate to the Christ of God—that He should be called Jesus
as well (as Christ).
And that the virgin of whom it
behoved Christ to be born (as we have above mentioned) must derive her
lineage of the seed of David, the prophet in subsequent passages evidently
asserts. "And there shall be born," he says, "a rod from the root of Jesse"—which
rod is Mary—"and a flower shall ascend from his root: and there shall rest
upon him the Spirit of God, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the
spirit of discernment and piety, the spirit of counsel and truth; the spirit
of God's fear shall fill Him."(2) For to none of men was the universal
aggregation of spiritual credentials appropriate, except to Christ; paralleled
as He is to a "flower" by reason of glory, by reason of grace; but accounted
"of the root of Jesse," whence His origin is to be deduced,—to wit, through
Mary.(3) For He was from the native soil of Bethlehem, and from the house
of David; as, among the Romans, Mary is described in the census, of whom
is born Christ.(4)
I demand, again—granting that He who was ever predicted by prophets as destined to come out of Jesse's race, was withal to exhibit all humility, patience, and tranquillity—whether He be come? Equally so (in this case as in the former), the man who is shown to bear that character will be the very Christ who is come. For of Him the prophet says, "A man set in a plague, and knowing how to bear infirmity;" who "was led as a sheep for a victim; and, as a lamb before him who sheareth him, opened not His mouth."(5) If He "neither did contend nor shout, nor was His voice heard abroad," who "crushed not the bruised reed"—Israel's faith, who "quenched not the burning flax"(6)—that is, the momentary glow of the Gentiles—but made it shine more by the rising of His own light,—He can be none other than He who was predicted. The action, therefore, of the Christ who is come must be examined by being placed side by side with the rule of the Scriptures. For, if I mistake not, we find Him distinguished by a twofold operation,—that of preaching and that of power. Now, let each count be disposed of summarily. Accordingly, let us work out the order we have set down, teaching that Christ was announced as a preacher; as, through Isaiah: "Cry out," he says, "in vigour, and spare not; lift up, as with a trumpet, thy voice, and announce to my commonalty their crimes, and to the house of Jacob their sins. Me from day to day they seek, and to learn my ways they covet, as a people which hath done righteousness, and hath not forsaken the judgment of God," and so forth:(7) that, moreover, He was to do acts of power from the Father: "Behold, our God will deal retributive judgment; Himself will come and save us: then shall the infirm be healed, and the eyes of the blind shall see, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, and the mutes' tongues shall be loosed, and the lame shall leap as an hart,"(8) and so on; which works not even you deny that Christ did, inasmuch as you were wont to say that, "on account of the works ye stoned Him not, but because He did them on the Sabbaths."(9)
CHAP. X.—CONCERNING THE PASSION OF CHRIST,
AND ITS OLD TESTAMENT PREDICTIONS AND ADUMBRATIONS.
Concerning the last step, plainly,
of His passion you raise a doubt; affirming that the passion of the cross
was not predicted with reference to Christ, and urging, besides, that it
is not credible that God should have exposed His own Son to that kind of
death; because Himself said, "Cursed is every one who shall have hung on
a tree."(10) But the reason of the case antecedently explains the sense
of this malediction; for He says in Deuteronomy: "If, moreover, (a man)
shall have been (involved) in some sin incurring the judgment of death,
and shall die, and ye shall suspend him on a tree, his body shall not remain
on the tree, but with burial ye shall bury him on the very day; because
cursed by God is every one who shall have been suspended on a tree; and
ye shall not defile the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee for
(thy) lot."(11) Therefore He did not maledictively adjudge Christ to this
passion, but drew a distinction, that whoever, in any sin, had incurred
the judgment of death, and died suspended on a tree, he should be "cursed
by God," because his own sins were the cause of his suspension on the tree.
On the other hand, Christ, who spoke not guile from His mouth,(1) and who
exhibited all righteousness and humility, not only(as we have above recorded
it predicted of Him) was not exposed to that kind of death for his own
deserts, but (was so exposed) in order that what was predicted by the prophets
as destined to come upon Him through your means(2) might be fulfilled;
just as, in the Psalms, the Spirit Himself of Christ was already singing,
saying, "They were repaying me evil for good;"(3) and, "What I had not
seized I was then paying in full;(4)" They exterminated my hands and feet;"(5)
and, "They put into my drink gall, and in my thirst they slaked me with
vinegar;"(6) "Upon my vesture they did cast (the) lot;"(7) just as the
other (outrages) which you were to commit on Him were foretold,—all which
He, actually and thoroughly suffering, suffered not for any evil action
of His own, but "that the Scriptures from the mouth of the prophets might
be fulfilled."(8)
And, of course, it had been meet
that the mystery(9) of the passion itself should be figuratively set forth
in predictions; and the more incredible (that mystery), the more likely
to be "a stumbling-stone,"(10) if it had been nakedly predicted; and the
more magnificent, the more to be adumbrated, that the difficulty of its
intelligence might seek (help from) the grace of God.
Accordingly, to begin with, Isaac,
when led by his father as a victim, and himself bearing his own "wood,"(11)
was even at that early period pointing to Christ's death; conceded, as
He was, as a victim by the Father; carrying, as He did, the "wood" of His
own passion.(12)
Joseph, again, himself was made
a figure of Christ(13) in this point alone (to name no more, not to delay
my own course), that he suffered persecution at the hands of his brethren,
and was sold into Egypt, on account of the favour of God;(14) just as Christ
was sold by Israel—(and therefore,) "according to the flesh," by His "brethren"(15)—when
He is betrayed by Judas.(16) For Joseph is withal blest by his father(17)
after this form: "His glory(is that) of a bull; his horns, the horns of
an unicorn; on them shall he toss nations alike unto the very extremity
of the earth." Of course no one-horned rhinoceros was there pointed to,
nor any two-horned minotaur. But Christ was therein signified: "bull,"
by reason of each of His two characters,—to some fierce, as Judge; to others
gentle, as Saviour; whose "horns" were to be the extremities of the cross.
For even in a ship's yard—which is part of a cross—this is the name by
which the extremities are called; while the central pole of the mast is
a "unicorn." By this power, in fact, of the cross, and in this manner horned,
He does now, on the one hand, "toss" universal nations through faith, wafting
them away from earth to heaven; and will one day, on the other, "toss"
them through judgment, casting them down from heaven to earth.
He, again, will be the" bull" elsewhere
too in the same scripture.(18) When Jacob pronounced a blessing on Simeon
and Levi, he prophesies of the scribes and Pharisees; for from them(19)
is derived their(20) origin. For (his blessing) interprets spiritually
thus: "Simeon and Levi perfected iniquity out of their sect,"(21) —whereby,
to wit, they persecuted Christ: "into their counsel come not my soul! and
upon their station rest not my heart! because in their indignation they
slew men"—that is, prophets—"and in their concupiscence they hamstrung
a bull!"(22)—that is, Christ, whom—after the slaughter of prophets—they
slew, and exhausted their savagery by transfixing His sinews with nails.
Else it is idle if, after the murder already committed by them, he upbraids
others, and not them, with butchery.(23)
But, to come now to Moses, why,
I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek,
pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he
ought rather, surely, to have com- mended his prayer by knees bended, and
hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it
was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech—destined
as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil—the figure
of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was
to win the victory?(1) Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition
of any "likeness of anything,"(2) set forth a brazen serpent, placed on
a "tree," in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at
the time when, after their idolatry,(3) they were suffering extermination
by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord's cross
on which the "serpent" the devil was "made a show of,"(4) and, for every
one hurt by such snakes—that is, his angels(5)—on turning intently from
the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ's cross, salvation was
outwrought? For he who then gazed upon that(cross) was freed from the bite
of the serpents.(6)
Come, now, if you have read in
the utterance of the prophet in the Psalms, "God hath reigned from the
tree,"(7) I wait to hear what you understand thereby; for fear you may
perhaps think some carpenter-king(8) is signified, and not Christ, who
has reigned from that time onward when he overcame the death which ensued
from His passion of "the tree."
Similarly, again, Isaiah says:
"For a child is born to us, and to us is given a son."(9) What novelty
is that, unless he is speaking of the "Son" of God?—and one is born to
us the beginning of whose government has been made "on His shoulder." What
king in the world wears the ensign of his power on his shoulder, and does
not bear either diadem on his head, or else sceptre in his hand, or else
some mark of distinctive vesture? But the novel "King of ages," Christ
Jesus, alone reared "on His shoulder" His own novel glory, and power, and
sublimity,—the cross, to wit; that, according to the former prophecy, the
Lord thenceforth "might reign from the tree." For of this tree likewise
it is that God hints, through Jeremiah, that you would say, "Come, let
us put wood(10) into his bread, and let us wear him away out of the land
of the living; and his name shall no more be remembered."(11) Of course
on His body that "wood" was put;(12) for so Christ has revealed, calling
His body "bread,"(13) whose body the prophet in bygone days announced under
the term "bread." If you shall still seek for predictions of the Lord's
cross, the twenty-first Psalm will at length be able to satisfy you, containing
as it does the whole passion of Christ; singing, as He does, even at so
early a date, His own glory.(14) "They dug," He says, "my hands and feet"(15)—which
is the peculiar atrocity of the cross; and again when He implores the aid
of the Father, "Save me," He says, out of the mouth of the lion"—of course,
of death —"and from the horn of the unicorns my humility,"(16)—from the
ends, to wit, of the cross, as we have above shown; which cross neither
David himself suffered, nor any of the kings of the Jews: that you may
not think the passion of some other particular man is here prophesied than
His who alone was so signally crucified by the People.
Now, if the hardness of your heart shall persist in rejecting and deriding all these interpretations, we will prove that it may suffice that the death of the Christ had been prophesied, in order that, from the fact that the nature of the death had not been specified, it may be understood to have been affected by means of the cross(17) and that the passion of the cross is not to be ascribed to any but Him whose death was constantly being predicted. For I desire to show, in one utterance of Isaiah, His death, and passion, and sepulture. "By the crimes," he says, "of my people was He led unto death; and I will give the evil for His sepulture, and the rich for His death, because He did not wickedness, nor was guile found in his mouth; and God willed to redeem His soul from death,"(18) and so forth. He says again, moreover: "His sepulture hath been taken away from the midst."(19) For neither was He buried except He were dead, nor was His sepulture removed from the midst except through His resurrection. Finally, he subjoins: "Therefore He shall have many for an heritage, and of many shall He divide spoils:(20)" who else (shall so do) but He who "was born," as we have above shown?—"in return for the fact that His soul was delivered unto death?" For, the cause of the favour accorded Him being shown,—in return, to wit, for the injury of a death which had to be recompensed,—it is likewise shown that He, destined to attain these rewards because of death, was to attain them after death—of course after resurrection. For that which happened at His passion, that mid-day grew dark, the prophet Amos announces, saying, "And it shall be," he says, "in that day, saith the Lord, the sun shall set at mid-day, and the day of light shall grow dark over the land: and I will convert your festive days into grief, and all your canticles into lamentation; and I will lay upon your loins sackcloth, and upon every head baldness; and I will make the grief like that for a beloved (son), and them that are with him like a day of mourning."(1) For that you would do thus at the beginning of the first month of your new (years) even Moses prophesied, when he was foretelling that all the community of the sons of lsrael was(2) to immolate at eventide a lamb, and were to eat(3) this solemn sacrifice of this day (that is, of the passover of unleavened bread) with bitterness;" and added that "it was the passover of the Lord,"(4) that is, the passion of Christ. Which prediction was thus also fulfilled, that "on the first day of unleavened bread"(5) you slew Christ;(6) and (that the prophecies might be fulfilled) the day hasted to make an "eventide,"—that is, to cause darkness, which was made at mid-day; and thus "your festive days God converted into grief, and your canticles into lamentation." For after the passion of Christ there overtook you even captivity and dispersion, predicted before through the Holy Spirit.
CHAP. XI.—FURTHER PROOFS, FROM EZEKIEL.
SUMMARY OF THE PROPHETIC ARGUMENT THUS FAR.
For, again, it is for these deserts
of yours that Ezekiel announces your ruin as about to come: and not only
in this age(7)—a ruin which has already befallen—but in the "day of retribution,"(8)
which will be subsequent. From which ruin none will be freed but he who
shall have been frontally sealed(9) with the passion of the Christ whom
you have rejected. For thus it is written: "And the Lord said unto me,
Son of man, thou hast seen what the elders of Israel do, each one of them
in darkness, each in a hidden bed-chamber: because they have said, The
Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath derelinquished the earth. And He said
unto me, Turn thee again, and thou shall see greater enormities which these
do. And He introduced me unto the thresholds of the gate of the house of
the Lord which looketh unto the north; and, behold, there, women sitting
and bewailing Thammuz. And the Lord said unto me, Son of man, hast thou
seen? Is the house of Judah moderate, to do the enormities which they have
done? And yet thou art about to see greater affections of theirs. And He
introduced me into the inner shrine of the house of the Lord; and, behold,
on the thresholds of the house of the Lord, between the midst of the porch
and between the midst of the altar,(10) as it were twenty and five men
have turned their backs unto the temple of the Lord, and their faces over
against the east; these were adoring the sun. And He said unto me, Seest
thou, son of man? Are such deeds trifles to the house of Judah, that they
should do the enormities which these have done? because they have filled
up (the measure of) their impieties, and, behold, are themselves, as it
were, grimacing; I will deal with mine indignation,(11) mine eye shall
not spare, neither will I pity; they shall cry out unto mine ears with
a loud voice, and I will not hear them, nay, I will not pity. And He cried
into mine ears with a loud voice, saying, The vengeance of this city is
at hand; and each one had vessels of extermination in his hand. And, behold,
six men were coming toward the way of the high gate which was looking toward
the north, and each one's double-axe of dispersion was in his hand: and
one man in the midst of them, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet,(12)
and a girdle of sapphire about his loins: and they entered, and took their
stand close to the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel, which
was over the house, in the open court of it,(13) ascended from the cherubim:
and the Lord called the man who was clothed with the garment reaching to
the feet, who had upon his loins the girdle; and said unto him, Pass through
the midst of Jerusalem, and write the sign Tau(1) on the foreheads of the
men who groan and grieve over all the enormities which are done in their
midst. And while these things were doing, He said unto an hearer,(2) Go
ye after him into the city, and cut short; and spare not with your eyes,
and pity not elder or youth or virgin; and little ones and women slay ye
all, that they may be thoroughly wiped away; but all upon whom is the sign
Tau approach ye not; and begin with my saints."(3) Now the mystery of this
"sign" was in various ways predicted; (a "sign") in which the foundation
of life was forelaid for mankind; (a "sign") in which the Jews were not
to believe: just as Moses beforetime kept on announcing in Exodus,(4) saying,
"Ye shall be ejected from the land into which ye shall enter; and in those
nations ye shall not be able to rest: and there shall be instability of
the prints of thy foot: and God shall give thee a wearying heart, and a
pining soul, and failing eyes, that they see not: and thy life shall hang
on the tree(6) before thine eyes; and thou shalt not trust thy life."
And so, since prophecy has been
fulfilled through His advent—that is, through the nativity, which we have
above commemorated, and the passion, which we have evidently explained—that
is the reason withal why Daniel said, "Vision and prophet were sealed;"
because Christ is the "signet" of all prophets, fulfilling all that had
in days bygone been announced concerning Him: for, since His advent and
personal passion, there is no longer "vision" or "prophet;" whence most
emphatically he says that His advent "seals vision and prophecy." And thus,
by showing "the number of the years, and the time of the lxii and an half
fulfilled hebdomads," we have proved that at that specified time Christ
came, that is, was born; and, (by showing the time) of the "seven and an
half hebdomads," which are subdivided so as to be cut off from the former
hebdomads, within which times we have shown Christ to have suffered, and
by the consequent conclusion of the "lxx hebdomads," and the extermination
of the city, (we have proved) that "sacrifice and unction" thenceforth
cease.
Sufficient it is thus far, on these points, to have meantime traced the course of the ordained path of Christ, by which He is proved to be such as He used to be announced, even on the ground of that agreement of Scriptures, which has enabled us to speak out, in opposition to the Jews, on the ground(7) of the prejudgment of the major part. For let them not question or deny the writings we produce; that the fact also that things which were foretold as destined to happen after Christ are being recognised as fulfilled may make it impossible for them to deny (these writings) to be on a par with divine Scriptures. Else, unless He were come after whom the things which were wont to be announced had to be accomplished, would such as have been completed be proved?(8)
CHAP. XII.—FURTHER PROOFS FROM THE CALLING
OF THE GENTILES.
Look at the universal nations thenceforth
emerging from the vortex of human error to the Lord God the Creator and
His Christ; and if you dare to deny that this was prophesied, forthwith
occurs to you the promise of the Father in the Psalms, which says, "My
Son art Thou; to-day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee
Gentiles as Thine heritage, and as Thy possession the bounds of the earth."(9)
For you will not be able to affirm that "son" to be David rather than Christ;
or the "bounds of the earth" to have been promised rather to David, who
reigned within the single (country of) Judea, than to Christ, who has already
taken captive the whole orb with the faith of His gospel; as He says through
Isaiah: "Behold, I have given Thee for a covenant(10) of my family, for
a light of Gentiles, that Thou mayst open the eyes of the blind"—of course,
such as err—"to outloose from bonds the bound"—that is, to free them from
sins—"and from the house of prison"—that is, of death—"such as sit in darkness"(11)—of
ignorance, to wit. And if these blessings accrue through Christ, they will
not have been prophesied of another than Him through whom we consider them
to have been accomplished.(12)
CHAP. XIII.—ARGUMENT FROM THE DESTRUCTION
OF JERUSALEM AND DESOLATION OF JUDEA.
Therefore, since the sons of Israel affirm
that we err in receiving the Christ, who is already come, let us put in
a demurrer against them out of the Scriptures themselves, to the effect
that the Christ who was the theme of prediction is come; albeit by the
times of Daniel's prediction we have proved that the Christ is come already
who was the theme of announcement. Now it behoved Him to be born in Bethlehem
of Judah. For thus it is written in the prophet: "And thou, Bethlehem,
are not the least in the leaders of Judah: for out of thee shall issue
a Leader who shall feed my People lsrael."(1) But if hitherto he has not
been born, what "leader" was it who was thus announced as to proceed from
the tribe of Judah, out of Bethlehem? For it behoves him to proceed from
the tribe of Judah and from Bethlehem. But we perceive that now none of
the race of Israel has remained in Bethlehem; and (so it has been) ever
since the interdict was issued forbidding any one of the Jews to linger
in the confines of the very district, in order that this prophetic utterance
also should be perfectly fulfilled: "Your land is desert, your cities burnt
up by fire,"—that is, (he is foretelling) what will have happened to them
in time of war "your region strangers shall eat up in your sight, and it
shall be desert and subverted by alien peoples." (2) And in another place
it is thus said through the prophet: "The King with His glory ye shall
see,"—that is, Christ, doing deeds of power in the glory of God the Father;(3)
"and your eyes shall see the land from afar,"(4)—which is what you do,
being prohibited, in reward of your deserts, since the storming of Jerusalem,
to enter into your land; it is permitted you merely to see it with your
eyes from afar: "your soul," he says, "shall meditate terror,"(5)—namely,
at the time when they suffered the ruin of themselves.(6) How, therefore,
will a "leader" be born from Judea, and how far will he "proceed from Bethlehem,"
as the divine volumes of the prophets do plainly announce; since none at
all is left there to this day of (the house of) Israel, of whose stock
Christ could be born?
Now, if (according to the Jews)
He is hitherto not come, when He begins to come whence will He be anointed?(7)
For the Law enjoined that, in captivity, it was not lawful for the unction
of the royal chrism to be compounded.(8) But, if there is no longer "unction"
there(9) as Daniel prophesied (for he says, "Unction shall be exterminated"),
it follows that they(10) no longer have it, because neither have they a
temple where was the "horn"(11) from which kings were wont to be anointed.
If, then, there is no unction, whence shall be anointed the "leader" who
shall be born in Bethlehem? or how shall he proceed "from Bethlehem," seeing
that of the seed of Israel none at all exists in Bethlehem.
A second time, in fact, let us show that Christ is already come, (as foretold) through the prophets, and has suffered, and is already received back in the heavens, and thence is to come accordingly as the predictions prophesied. For, after His advent, we read, according to Daniel, that the city itself had to be exterminated; and we recognise that so it has befallen. For the Scripture says thus, that "the city and the holy place are simultaneously exterminated together with the leader,"(12)—undoubtedly (that Leader) who was to proceed "from Bethlehem," and from the tribe of "Judah." Whence, again, it is manifest that "the city must simultaneously be exterminated" at the time when its "Leader" had to suffer in it, (as foretold) through the Scriptures of the prophets, who say: "I have outstretched my hands the whole day unto a People contumacious and gainsaying Me, who walketh in a way not good, but after their own sins."(13) And in the Psalms, David says: "They exterminated my hands and feet: they counted all my bones; they themselves, moreover, contemplated and saw me, and in my thirst slaked me with vinegar."(14) These things David did not suffer, so as to seem justly to have spoken of himself; but the Christ who was crucified. Moreover, the "hands and feet," are not "exterminated,"(15) except His who is suspended on a "tree." Whence, again, David said that "the Lord would reign from the tree:"(16) for elsewhere, too, the prophet predicts the fruit of this "tree," saying "The earth hath given her blessings,"(17)—of course that virgin-earth, not yet irrigated with rains, nor fertilized by showers, out of which man was of yore first formed, out of which now Christ through theflesh has been born of a virgin; "and the tree,"(1) he says, "hath brought his fruit,"(2)—not that "tree" in paradise which yielded death to the protoplasts, but the "tree" of the passion of Christ, whence life, hanging, was by you not believed!(3) For this "tree" in a mystery,(4) it was of yore wherewith Moses sweetened the bitter water; whence the People, which was perishing of thirst in the desert, drank and revived;(5) just as we do, who, drawn out from the calamities of the heathendom(6) in which we were tarrying perishing with thirst (that is, deprived of the divine word), drinking, "by the faith which is on Him,"(7) the baptismal water of the "tree" of the passion of Christ, have revived,—a faith from which Israel has fallen away, (as foretold) through Jeremiah, who says, "Send, and ask exceedingly whether such things have been done, whether nations will change their gods (and these are not gods!). But My People hath changed their glory: whence no profit shall accrue to them: the heaven turned pale thereat" (and when did it turn pale? undoubtedly when Christ suffered), "and shuddered," he says, "most exceedingly;"(8) and "the sun grew dark at mid-day:"(9) (and when did it "shudder exceedingly" except at the passion of Christ, when the earth also trembled to her centre, and the veil of the temple was rent, and the tombs were burst asunder?(10) "because these two evils hath My People done; Me," He says, "they have quite forsaken, the fount of water of life,(11) and they have digged for themselves worn-out tanks, which will not be able to contain water." Undoubtedly, by not receiving Christ, the "fount of water of life," they have begun to have "worn-out tanks," that is, synagogues for the use of the "dispersions of the Gentiles,"(12) in which the Holy Spirit no longer lingers, as for the time past He was wont to tarry in the temple before the advent of Christ, who is the true temple of God. For, that they should withal suffer this thirst of the Divine Spirit, the prophet Isaiah had said, saying:
"Behold, they who serve Me shall eat,
but ye shall be hungry; they who serve Me shall drink, but ye shall thirst,
and from general tribulation of spirit shall howl: for ye shall transmit
your name for a satiety to Mine elect, but you the Lord shall slay; but
for them who serve Me shall be named a new name, which shall be blessed
in the lands."(13)
Again, the mystery of this "tree"(14)
we read as being celebrated even in the Books of the Reigns. For when the
sons of the prophets were cutting "wood"(15) with axes on the bank of the
river Jordan, the iron flew off and sank in the stream; and so, on Elisha(16)
the prophet's coming up, the sons of the prophets beg of him to extract
from the stream the iron which had sunk. And accordingly Elisha, having
taken "wood," and cast it into that place where the iron had been submerged,
forthwith it rose and swam on the surface,(17) and the "wood" sank, which
the sons of the prophets recovered.(18) Whence they understood that Elijah's
spirit was presently conferred upon him.(19) What is more manifest than
the mystery(20) of this "wood,"—that the obduracy of this world(21) had
been sunk in the profundity of error, and is freed in baptism by the "wood"
of Christ, that is, of His passion; in order that what had formerly perished
through the "tree" in Adam, should be restored through the "tree" in Christ?(22)
while we, of course, who have succeeded to, and occupy, the room of the
prophets, at the present day sustain in the world(23) that treatment which
the prophets always suffered on account of divine religion: for some they
stoned, some they banished; more, however, they delivered to mortal slaughter,(24)—a
fact which they cannot deny.(25)
This "wood," again, Isaac the son
of Abraham personally carried for his own sacrifice, when God had enjoined
that he should be made a victim to Himself. But, because these had been
mysteries(26) which were being kept for perfect fulfilment in the times
of Christ, Isaac, on the one hand, with his "wood," was reserved, the ram
being of- feted which was caught by the horns in the bramble;(1) Christ,
on the other hand, in His times, carried His "wood" on His own shoulders,
adhering to the horns of the cross, with a thorny crown encircling His
head. For Him it behoved to be made a sacrifice on behalf of all Gentiles,
who "was led as a sheep for a victim, and, like a lamb voiceless before
his shearer, so opened not His mouth" (for He, when Pilate interrogated
Him, spake nothing(2)); for "in humility His judgment was taken away: His
nativity, moreover, who shall declare?" Because no one at all of human
beings was conscious of the nativity of Christ at His conception, when
as the Virgin Mary was found pregnant by the word of God; and because "His
life was to be taken from the land."(3) Why, accordingly, after His resurrection
from the dead, which was effected on the third day, did the heavens receive
Him back? It was in accordance with a prophecy of Hosea, uttered on this
wise: "Before daybreak shall they arise unto Me, saying, Let us go and
return unto the Lord our God, because Himself will draw us out and free
us. After a space of two days, on the third day"(4)—which is His glorious
resurrection—He received back into the heavens (whence withal the Spirit
Himself had come to the Virgin(5)) Him whose nativity and passion alike
the Jews have failed to acknowledge. Therefore, since the Jews still contend
that the Christ is not yet come, whom we have in so many ways approved(6)
to be come, let the Jews recognise their own fate,-a fate which they were
constantly foretold as destined to incur after the advent of the Christ,
on account of the impiety with which they despised and slew Him. For first,
from the day when, according to the saying of Isaiah, "a man cast forth
his abominations of gold and silver, which they made to adore with vain
and hurtful (rites),"(7)—that is, ever since we Gentiles, with our breast
doubly enlightened through Christ's truth, cast forth (let the Jews see
it) our idols,—what follows has likewise been fulfilled. For "the Lord
of Sabaoth hath taken away, among the Jews from Jerusalem," among the other
things named, "the wise architect" too,(8) who builds the church, God's
temple, and the holy city, and the house of the Lord. For thenceforth God's
grace desisted (from working) among them. And "the clouds were commanded
not to rain a shower upon the vineyard of Sorek,"(9)—the clouds being celestial
benefits, which were commanded not to be forthcoming to the house of Israel;
for it "had borne thorns"—whereof that house of Israel had wrought a crown
for Christ—and not "righteousness, but a clamour,"—the clamour whereby
it had extorted His surrender to the cross.(10) And thus, the former gifts
of grace being withdrawn, "the law and the prophets were until John,"(11)and
the fishpool of Bethsaida(12) until the advent of Christ: thereafter it
ceased curatively to remove from Israel infirmities of health; since, as
the result of their perseverance in their frenzy, the name of the Lord
was through them blasphemed, as it is written: "On your account the name
of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles:"(13) for it is from them that
the infamy (attached to that name) began, and (was propagated during) the
interval from Tiberius to Vespasian. And because they had committed these
crimes, and had failed to understand that Christ "was to be found"(14)
in "the time of their visitation,"(15) their land has been made "desert,
and their cities utterly burnt with fire, while strangers devour their
region in their sight: the daughter of Sion is derelict, as a watch-tower
in a vineyard, or as a shed in a cucumber garden,"—ever since the time,
to wit, when "Israel knew not" the Lord, and "the People understood Him
not;" but rather "quite forsook, and provoked unto indignation, the Holy
One of Israel."(16) So, again, we find a conditional threat of the sword:
"If ye shall have been unwilling, and shall not have been obedient, the
glaive shall eat you up."(17) Whence we prove that the sword was CHRIST,
by not hearing whom they perished; who, again, in the Psalm, demands of
the Father their dispersion, saying, "Disperse them in Thy power;"(18)
who, withal, again through Isaiah prays for their utter burning. "On My
account," He says, "have these things happened to you; in anxiety shall
ye sleep."(19)
Since, therefore, the Jews were predicted as destined to suffer these calamities an Christ's account, and we find that they have suffered them, and see them sent into dispersion and abiding in it, manifest it is that it is on Christ's account that these things have befallen the Jews, the sense of the Scriptures harmonizing with the issue of events and of the order of the times. Or else, if Christ is not yet come, on whose account they were predicted as destined thus to suffer, when He shall have come it follows that they will thus suffer. And where will then be a daughter of Sion to be derelict, who now has no existence? where the cities to be exust, which are already exust and in heaps? where the dispersion of a race which is now in exile? Restore to Judea the condition which Christ is to find; and (then, if you will), contend that some other (Christ) is coming.
CHAP. XIV.—CONCLUSION. CLUE TO THE ERROR
OF THE JEWS.
Learn now (over and above the immediate
question) the clue to your error. We affirm, two characters of the Christ
demonstrated by the prophets, and as many advents of His forenoted: one,
in humility (of course the first), when He has to be led "as a sheep for
a victim; and, as a lamb voiceless before the shearer, so He opened not
His mouth," not even in His aspect comely. For "we have announced," says
the prophet, "concerning Him, (He is) as a little child, as a root in a
thirsty land; and there was not in Him attractiveness or glory. And we
saw Him, and He had not attractiveness or grace; but His mien was unhonoured,
deficient in comparison of the sons of men,"(1) "a man set in the plague,(2)
and knowing how to bear infirmity:" to wit as having been set by the Father
"for a stone of offence,"(3) and "made a little lower" by Him "than angels,"(4)
He pronounces Himself "a worm, and not a man, an ignominy of man, and the
refuse of the People."(5) Which evidences of ignobility suit the FIRST
ADVENT, just as those of sublimity do the SECOND; when He shall be made
no longer "a stone of offence nor a rock of scandal," but "the highest
corner-stone,"(6) after reprobation (on earth) taken up (into heaven) and
raised sublime for the purpose of consummation,(7) and that "rock"—so we
must admit—which is read of in Daniel as forecut from a mount, which shall
crush and crumble the image of secular kingdoms.(8) Of which second advent
of the same (Christ) Daniel has said: "And, behold, as it were a Son of
man, coming with the clouds of the heaven, came unto the Ancient of days,
and was present in His sight; and they who were standing by led (Him) unto
Him. And there was given Him royal power; and all nations of the earth,
according to their race, and all glory, shall serve Him: and His power
is eternal, which shall not be taken away, and His kingdom one which shall
not be corrupted."(9) Then, assuredly, is He to have an honourable mien,
and a grace not "deficient more than the sons of men;" for (He will then
be) "blooming in beauty in comparison with the sons of men."(10) "Grace,"
says the Psalmist, "hath been outpoured in Thy lips: wherefore God hath
blessed Thee unto eternity. Gird Thee Thy sword around Thy thigh, most
potent in Thy bloom and beauty!" (10) while the Father withal afterwards,
after making Him somewhat lower than angels, "crowned Him with glory and
honour and subjected all things beneath His feet."(11) And then shall they
"learn to know Him whom they pierced, and shall beat their breasts tribe
by tribe;"(12) of course because in days bygone they did not know Him when
conditioned in the humility of human estate. Jeremiah says: "He is a human
being, and who will learn to know Him?"(13) because, "His nativity," says
Isaiah, "who shall declare?" So, too, in Zechariah, in His own person,
nay, in the very mystery(14) of His name withal, the most true Priest of
the Father, His own(15) Christ, is delineated in a twofold garb with reference
to the TWO ADVENTS.(16) First, He was clad in "sordid attire," that is,
in the indignity of passible and mortal flesh, when the devil, withal,
was opposing himself to Him—the instigator, to wit, of Judas the traitor(17)—who
even after His baptism had tempted Him. In the next place, He was stripped
of His former sordid raiment, and adorned with a garment down to the foot,
and with a turban and a clean mitre, that is, (with the garb) of the SECOND
ADVENT; since He is demonstrated as having attained "glory and honour."
Nor will you be able to say that the man (there depicted) is "the son of
Jozadak,"(1) who was never at all clad in a sordid garment, but was always
adorned with the sacerdotal garment, nor ever deprived of the sacerdotal
function. But the "Jesus"(2) there alluded to is CHRIST, the Priest of
God the most high Father; who at His FIRST ADVENT came in humility, in
human form, and passible, even up to the period of His passion; being Himself
likewise made, through all (stages of suffering) a victim for us all; who
after His resurrection was "clad with a garment down to the foot,"(3) and
named the Priest of God the Father unto eternity.(4) So, again, I will
make an interpretation of the two goats which were habitually offered on
the fast-day.(5) Do not they, too, point to each successive stage in the
character of the Christ who is already come? A pair, on the one hand, and
consimilar (they were), because of the identity of the Lord's general appearance,
inasmuch as He is not to come in some other form, seeing that He has to
be recognised by those by whom He was once hurt. But the one of them, begirt
with scarlet, amid cursing and universal spitting, and tearing, and piercing,
was cast away by the People outside the city into perdition, marked with
manifest tokens of Christ's passion; who, after being begirt with scarlet
garment, and subjected to universal spitting, and afflicted with all contumelies,
was crucified outside the city.(6) The other, however: offered for sins,
and given as food to the priests merely of the temple,(7) gave signal evidences
of the second appearance; in so far as, after the expiation of all sins,
the priests of the spiritual temple, that is, of the church, were to enjoy(8)
a spiritual public distribution (as it were) of the Lord's grace, while
all others are fasting from salvation.
Therefore, since the vaticinations
of the FIRST ADVENT obscured it with manifold figures, and debased it with
every dishonour, while the SECOND (was foretold as) manifest and wholly
worthy of God, it has resulted therefrom, that, by fixing their gaze on
that one alone which they could easily understand and believe (that is,
the SECOND, which is in honour and glory), they have been (not undeservedly)
deceived as to the more obscure—at all events, the more unworthy—that is,
the FIRST. And thus to the present moment they affirm that their Christ
is not come, because He is not come in majesty; while they are ignorant
of(9) the fact that He was first to come in humility.
Enough it is, meantime, to have thus far followed the stream downward of the order of Christ's course, whereby He is proved such as He was habitually announced: in order that, as a result of this harmony of the Divine Scriptures, we may understand; and that the events which used to be predicted as destined to take place after Christ may be believed to have been accomplished as the result of a divine arrangement. For unless He come after whom they had to be accomplished, by no means would the events, the future occurrence whereof was predictively assigned to His advent, have come to pass. Therefore, if you see universal nations thenceforth emerging from the profundity of human error to God the Creator and His Christ (which you dare not assert to have not been prophesied, because, albeit you were so to assert, there would forthwith—as we have already premised(10)—occur to you the promise of the Father saying, "My Son art Thou; I this day have begotten Thee; ask of Me, and I will give Thee Gentiles as Thine heritage, and as Thy possession the boundaries of the earth." Nor will you be able to vindicate, as the subject of that prediction, rather the son of David, Solomon, than Christ, God's Son; nor "the boundaries of the earth," as promised rather to David's son, who reigned within the single land of Judea, than to Christ the Son of God, who has already illumined the whole world(11) with the rays of His gospel. In short, again, a throne "unto the age"(12) is more suitable to Christ, God's Son, than to Solomon,—a temporal king, to wit, who reigned over Israel alone. For at the present day nations are invoking Christ which used not to know Him; and peoples at the present day are fleeing in a body to the Christ of whom in days bygone they were ignorant(13)), you cannot contend that is future which you see taking place.(14) Either deny that these events were prophesied, while they are seen before your eyes; or else have been fulfilled, while you hear them read: or, on the other hand, if you fail to deny each position, they will have their fulfilment in Him with respect to whom they were prophesied.
End of Etext AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS by Tertullian
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