Chapter 10. The Same God Inspired the Old and the New Testaments. The Old Foretold the Son’s Comingand His Passion.
Chapter 10
1. Well, then, does John, too, recall that the Lord said to the Jews, You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. How, therefore, could the Scriptures testify to him unless they were of one and the same Father, instructing people in advance about his Son’s coming and announcing in advance the salvation which is from him? For if you believed in Moses, you would believe in me also, for he wrote of me. [This is true] in the sense that God’s Son was implanted everywhere in the Scriptures. At one time he speaks with Abraham when about to eat with him, at another time with Noah, giving him the measurements [for the ark]; at another time, he is looking for Adam; at another time he punishes the Sodomites; then, too, he appears to Jacob and directs him on his journey; next he speaks with Moses from the bush. One cannot count the number of times that God’s Son is manifested by Moses. He was not ignorant of the day of his passion and announced this in advance typically, when speaking of the Pasch. Indeed, on the very same [day] that was foretold by Moses so long before, the Lord suffered and so fulfilled the Pasch. He described not only the day but also the place and the end of the times and the sign of the setting sun. He said, You may not offer the Passover sacrifice (Pascha) within any of your towns, which the Lord your God gives you: but in the space which the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it; there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice (Pascha) in the evening at the going down of the sun.
2. His coming, too, he had already manifested when he said, The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the mace from between his feet until he to whom (the scepter) belongs comes; and he is the hope of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine, and his ass’s colt to the choice vine. He will wash his garments in wine, and his vesture in the blood of the grapes. His eyes will be joyful from wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. Let those, then, who are rumored as examining everything inquire at what time the ruler and leader ceased in Judah, and who is the hope of the peoples, and who the vine, and who his colt and what his garment, and which the eyes, and what the wine. Let them examine all statements and they will find that no other than Our Lord Jesus was announced. For this reason Moses rebuked the people for being ungrateful. He said, Do you thus requite the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Again, he pointed out that the Word who created and made them in the beginning is shown hanging on a tree, in these last times, redeeming us and giving us life, yet they do not believe in him. For he said, Your life shall hang before you and you shall not trust your life; and again, Is not he your father, who created you, and made you, and established you?