(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all mistakes found.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing intially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.

TERTULLIAN

AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.(1)

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 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 circumcision, 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
  jointly with Augustus   .    xiii years (13.)
After Cleopatra, Augustus
  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 Tiberius 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) Lawful, 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
commended 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 offeted 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.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 3, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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