Without a doubt, Against the Jews is one of the most controversial of Tertullian’s thirtyone treatises. It is not too difficult to understand why. To begin with, there have been questions about the integrity of the text and its authorship. Much of the material from chapter 9 onwards is virtually identical with sections of book three of Against Marcion. From Augustus Neander in the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, a significant number of scholars (Quispel 1943:61–79; Quasten 1953:269; Kroymann (see Gerlo et al.)1954:1338) have reached the conclusion that the second half of the treatise was not by Tertullian and that someone had taken the material from the earlier Against Marcion and rather ineptly attached it to the first eight chapters, which Tertullian had written. Efroymson called this the majority view among scholars today (Efroymson 1979:116). Ernest Evans, who has translated Tertullian’s Against Marcion into English, even questioned the authenticity of the first half of Against the Jews, believing that the early chapters lack much of Tertullian’s usually forthright energy (Evans 1972:1:xx). So the Clavis Patrum Latinorum lists Against the Jews as one of Tertullian’s doubtful works (Dekkers 1995:9). Frend considers it to be one of his less significant works (Frend 1968:6).
The second factor that contributes to the neglect of this treatise concerns its subject matter. It is an early example of the anti-Judaic genre of early Christian literature. Some scholars have traced that anti-Judaism (or even anti-Semitism—scholars define these terms differently) to the New Testament (Ruether 1974). Other early Christian texts that have been understood as discussing Christian attitudes towards Judaism include Epistle of Barnabas and Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, as well as the lost Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus and Miltiades’ Against the Jews. Those scholars who have examined this body of literature have been concerned chiefly with the question of the target audience: were these pieces meant to be read by Jews? Closely related to that was the other question: do these texts indicate that there was ongoing contact between Christians and Jews in the second century and beyond? The answer from many scholars has been a definitive ‘no’ to both questions. The words of George Foot Moore in 1921 are indicative of this view: ‘…in the apologies the Jewish disputant is a man of straw, who raises his difficulties and makes objections only to give the Christian the opportunity to show how easily they are resolved or refuted, while in the end the Jew is made to admit himself vanquished. This of itself shows that the authors did not write to convert Jews but to edify Christians…’ (Moore 1921:198; see also Ruether 1974:181; Rokéah 1982). More recently, Miriam Taylor has renewed this criticism of what she describes as ‘competitive anti-Judaism’: ‘The Judaism opposed in the Christian writings is somehow devoid of life and substance…’ (Taylor 1995:23). She understands the purpose of this literary genre to be one of Christian self-definition, having little to do with real social contact. This lack of real interaction with Judaism has been seen in Tertullian’s Against the Jews in particular. Lukyn Williams could write about Tertullian that: ‘…he is very inferior to Justin Martyr in any personal knowledge of his opponents and their religion’ (Williams 1935:52). Tertullian’s arguments, it is claimed, are only biblical and thus indicate nothing about his contemporary setting or his contemporary concerns, thus demonstrating that he had no contact with Jews (Tränkle 1964:lxxiii–iv; Barnes 1985:91–93; Gaston 1986:163–4).
This is a view that needs revision. Some scholars have contributed to that over the years in various ways. Noeldechen argued that the entire Against the Jews was written by Tertullian, the first eight chapters being the more finished part of the text, that it was composed about 195–6, and that it was used by Tertullian in the writing of book three of Against Marcion (Noeldechen 1888:46–51; 1894:14–92). Säflund also accepted the whole work as genuine and dated it early in Tertullian’s career, before Against Marcion (Säflund 1955:128–208). Harnack suggested that Tertullian wrote the whole treatise, but he dated it after Against Marcion, which was used to create the final chapters of Against the Jews (Harnack 1904:288–92). Other scholars also accept Tertullian’s authorship of the entire treatise, the integrity of the text, and the priority of Against the Jews over Against Marcion (Tränkle 1964:liii–lxvii; Fredouille 1972:254–5; Aziza 1977:104–8; Barnes 1985:53; Aulisa 1998:43–55).
I have reached the same conclusion about the authorship and integrity of Against the Jews from a rhetorical analysis of the text (Dunn 1999a). I am also content with Barnes’ date of 197 (Barnes 1985:55). Given that we find a similar assessment of Judaism in Apology 21, it would not surprise me to find that in writing Apology Tertullian adapted material from the earlier Against the Jews, as he did from To the Heathens (see also Tränkle 1964:lxvi–lxvii). What we find in the treatise are comments in its early chapters about its structure, which are realized in the later chapters. This would indicate that whoever wrote the first half intended to write something that, structurally, at least, closely resembles what we have in the second half. I have suggested a structure for the treatise, based upon the conventions of classical rhetoric (Dunn 1998:120, 143; 1999b:317–20; 1999c:245; 2000:3–7, 12–13, 15–18). Yet, it cannot be said that this is a well-written treatise. It has a very unfinished and rambling quality about it: there are repetitions, digressions, jumps in the logic of the argument, and a tendency to be long-winded. There are sentences that do not read well or make complete sense.
At its heart, the treatise is an argument about whether the Christians are beneficiaries in God’s plans. Tertullian’s proof was to try and demonstrate that they were beneficiaries on the basis of the fact that the promised Christ had come. Not only that, he wanted to argue that the Jews had been disinherited and that this too had been promised by God. In style, the treatise is forensic in nature: it argues about the truth of a past event. In many ways it is an example of Roman controversiae (legal-like declamations much favoured as oratorical training exercises and show pieces), some of which, as we find in the elder Seneca, were concerned with developing arguments for contesting wills. Tertullian was an out-and-out supersessionist; for him, the Christians had replaced the Jews. A rhetorical perspective helps us appreciate this as being at the heart of the treatise.
The work begins with an exordium (1.1–3a), which here explains why this work came to be written. A lengthy debate between a Christian and a proselyte Jew had ended in a shouting match involving the audience and so Tertullian decided to put into writing the Christian case. The topic for that debate seems to have been the question of whether Gentiles could be admitted to God’s law. Then follows a partitio (1.3b–2.1a) in which Tertullian set out the basic question he was going to address: had God made a promise in the past that the Gentiles would replace the Jews as God’s people? He offered his answer: yes, God had made this promise to Rebekah and the promise had been fulfilled with the conversion of the Gentiles and the idolatry of the Jews. In the main body of the treatise, Tertullian offered a refutatio (2.1b–6.1) of the Jewish argument that God had only made a promise and entered a covenant with one people through Moses. He did this by attempting to prove that God promised a new law (2.1b–10a), a new circumcision (2.10b–3.13), a new sabbath (4.1–11) and a new sacrifice (5.1–7), which were to include all people, not just the Jews. After a brief summary of the refutatio (6.1), Tertullian moved to the other section of the treatise: the confirmatio (6.2–14.10), in which he offered his positive arguments in support of his case. This was to be shaped by two questions: had there been a promise of a Christ to instigate that new law, and had that Christ come? (6.2–7.1). The first question did not delay him (7.2), although it gave rise to a digression about the universal spread of Christianity (7.3–8.1a). The second question was divided into three sub-questions (8.2b): the predicted times for the birth and death of the Christ, and the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the fulfilment of those time predictions; other predicted signs and activities associated with the Christ; and events predicted to occur after the Christ. These three questions were taken up in turn. First, the prophecy in Daniel 9 about the seventy weeks was used to examine the question of the timing of the birth and death of the Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem, in order to show that only Jesus could have fulfilled the prophecy (8.3–18). Second, other general prophecies about the Christ were examined in order to show that only Jesus fulfilled them (9.1–10.19). Third, the prophecy in Ezekiel 8–9 about the destruction of Jerusalem was presented (11.1–9) in order to show that all of the events destined to follow after the Christ had occurred already: the conversion of the Gentiles (12.1–2), the desolation of Judaea (13.2–5a), the end of the possibility of anointing a messiah (13.5b–7), the destruction of Jerusalem (13.9–10) and the suffering of the Jews (13.11–29), with only the second coming of the Christ being still awaited, yet definitely predicted (14.1–10). Clearly out of place among these three sub-questions is passage 11.10–11, being more obviously suited to a position after 8.18. Finally, there is 14.11–14 (of which 14.11–12 is an almost verbatim repetition of 11.10–12.2), which I regard as an interpolation because of some of the telling differences where things are not verbatim. The treatise thus structured does not flow entirely smoothly. This has to do, it can be argued, with the work surviving in an unrevised draft form. Had it been submitted to the scrutiny of an editor or anonymous readers for peer review, I am sure that the repetitions would have been eliminated, the meandering logic reigned in, and the whole argument tightened and made more focused.
Much of the argumentation may be found in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho and Irenaeus’ Against Heresies. Yet, sometimes Tertullian adds his own twist and creates some subtle variation in the pattern of debate. I do not have the opportunity in this volume to explore that dependence in any great detail.
Furthermore, the whole question of the relationship between and attitudes of early Judaism and early Christianity has been revisited in recent years. It is one of the key areas of interest in scholarship on Late Antiquity. This text needs to be reconsidered in the light of this renewed interest. More and more scholars are coming to the conclusion that Marcel Simon reached early in the twentieth century—that the parting of the ways between Christians and Jews has been dated too early (Gager 1985:154, 164; Simon 1996; Boyarin 1999). The question is becoming less about whether Christians and Jews were in contact with each other, and more about when, how and why Christians and Jews saw themselves as distinct from each other and how they reacted to that. Rather than simply re-adopt the older ‘conflict theory’, these scholars are trying to find new and dynamic ways of understanding the ongoing relationship (MacLennan 1990; Lieu 1996; Stroumsa 1996), which accept valid insights from both approaches. Of course, questions of separation (or, more accurately, of distinct identities) are different from those about ongoing contact. A community can be concerned to forge its own independent identity at the same time as it has contact with other groups. I support the idea that these do not have to be mutually exclusive. As Guy Stroumsa writes: ‘Polemics…serves multiple purposes. It does not intend only, or even mainly, to convince and convert, but also to strengthen the faith, or the self-confidence, of those who are already converted’ (Stroumsa 1996:18). In Against the Jews, I see no reason to disbelieve Tertullian’s opening statement that there had been a well-attended debate between a Christian and a proselyte. Certainly, in Tertullian’s mind, as represented by Against the Jews, Christians and Jews were distinct people. So to answer the question about the intended readership of this work, I would say that it need not be either Christian or Jew but could well be both Christian and Jew.
Tertullian’s argument from Scripture (rather than from contemporary events) is not necessarily an indication that he had no contact with Jews in Carthage in his own day, but rather that the issue between Jews and Christians at the end of the second century in that part of the Mediterranean remained constantly about the proper interpretation of Scripture. The earlier debate that Tertullian mentioned had been about the correct interpretation of Scripture. That he employed arguments that were not always original does not mean that they were irrelevant to his own time. Anti-Judaic Christian literature became repetitious not simply because authors imitated each other but because the same challenge from the Scripture to the Christian belief in Jesus as the Christ was mounted generation after generation. What this treatise tells us is that the ongoing issue between Jews and Christians was about who understood Scripture correctly.
At the heart of the early Christian understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures is this question of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Tertullian’s Against the Jews is a tour de force in christological exegesis. It is one of the most scripturally based treatises he wrote and it should be important to us for this reason alone. In fact, in chapter 9 Tertullian presents us with some comment on one of the hermeneutical methods of exegesis he employed (he could use whatever method best suited his purpose at any one time). He was quite adept at reading a passage figuratively and in context, as he does here, as he was at reading it literally and in isolation. One of the interesting things for the historian in this treatise is the chronological list of political rulers and dynasties from the Persian king Darius II to the Roman emperor Vespasian. Also, Tertullian offers us his calculation of the year in which Jesus was born (3 BC) as well as a precise date for Jesus’ death (25 March, AD 29). This is an important treatise for tracing the emergence of Christian anti-Judaism and for recovering Christian attitudes towards and relationship with Jews. Tertullian’s polemics against pagans (Apology, To Scapula, To the Heathens) are better known, their popularity reflecting scholars’ interest in using them to obtain information about the Roman empire in the Severan age, yet this ought not make them necessarily more important.
This text has not been translated into English since the middle of the nineteenth century in the Ante-Nicene Library/Ante-Nicene Fathers series. I have based my translation on the Latin text of Kroymann in the Corpus Christianorum, as it is the most readily accessible. I have, however, incorporated many of the alternative readings and emendations offered by Tränkle in his German commentary. I have been able to note some of these. I have also been guided by Aulisa’s recent Italian translation and, where the parallels exist, by Evans’ English translation of Tertullian’s Against Marcion.
Text
[1339] 1.1 It happened very recently that a debate was held between a Christian and a proselyte Jew. Through the tug-of-war exchange between them, they dragged the day into evening. Also, through the clamouring from some supporters of both individuals, the truth was being obscured as if by a cloud. Therefore, as a full explanation was impossible on account of everyone speaking at once, it was decided to settle the questions that have been reconsidered in writing, after a more careful examination of the texts. 1.2 For the opportunity indeed of claiming divine grace, even for the Gentiles themselves, had a sure sign from this fact: that the man who resolved to lay claim to God’s law for himself is from the Gentiles and is not a Jew from the stock of the Israelites. 1.3 In fact, this is enough—that the Gentiles are able to be admitted to the law of God—for Israel not to pride itself still that the Gentiles are counted as a drop in the bucket or as dust from the threshing floor.
However, we have the sufficient promiser and faithful guarantor, God actually, who promised to Abraham that in his offspring all the tribes of the earth would be blessed and that from Rebekah’s womb two peoples and two clans were about to come forth. They are, of course, the Jews—that is, Israel—and the Gentiles—that is, us. 1.4 Therefore, each has been named both a people and a clan, so that from the giving of the name nobody dared to claim the privilege of grace for themselves. [1340] For indeed, God designed two peoples and two clans to come forth from the womb of one woman, not to separate grace on the basis of the name but on the order of the birth, such that the one who would come forth from the womb first would be subjected to the younger—that is, the later. For thus God has spoken to Rebekah, saying as follows, ‘Two clans are in your womb and two peoples from your womb will be separated. One people will rise above the other people and the elder will serve the younger.’1.5 And so, although the people or clan of the Jews is anterior in time and older, graced with the first honour in relation to the law, ours is understood accurately as younger in the ages of time. This is so, as in the final lap of our age we have grasped the notion of divine compassion. Without doubt, according to the decree of the divine utterance, the first, the elder people, namely the Jewish, inevitably will serve the younger. The younger people, namely the Christian, will rise above the elder. 1.6 For also, according to the records of the divine Scriptures, the Jewish people—that is, the more ancient—were devoted to idols, as they had deserted God, and were addicted to images, as they had abandoned the divinity. The people were saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who may go before us.’ When the gold from the women’s necklaces and from the men’s rings had been melted in the fire by these people and an ox head had come forth for them, as they had abandoned God, all Israel delivered honour to this figure saying, These are the gods who brought us out from the land of Egypt.’ 1.7 For thus, in later times, when kings ruled them, they, together with Jeroboam, were cultivating in worship golden calves and sacred groves and sold themselves to Baal. From this, by means of the divine Scriptures, there is proof that they were marked out indelibly as answerable for the crime of idolatry. [1341] In fact, our people—that is, the later—having forsaken the idols to which previously we used to be devoted, were converted to the same God from whom Israel departed, as we mentioned above. 1.8 For thus the younger people—that is, the later—rose above the older people, while it was obtaining the grace of divine honour from which Israel has been divorced. 2.1 Therefore, let us come to the point and define by fixed limits the extent of the investigation itself.
For why is God, the founder of the universe, the governor of the whole world, the creator of humankind, the instigator of every clan, believed to have given the law through Moses to one people and is not said to have given it to all clans? 2.2 For unless [God] had given it to all, there is no way [God] would have permitted even a proselyte from the Gentiles to have access to it. But, as is appropriate to the goodness and fairness of God, as creator of the human race, [God] gave the same law to all clans and, at certain definite times, directed it to be kept when, by whom, and as [God] wished.
For, in the beginning of the world itself, [God] gave the law to Adam and to Eve in order that they might not eat from the fruit of the tree in the middle of paradise because, if they had acted against the law, they would have died. The law would have been enough for them if it had been kept. 2.3 In fact, in this law given to Adam, we recognize all the hidden commands that afterwards came forth when they had been given through Moses, that is, ‘You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul’, ‘You shall love your neighbour as much as yourself , ‘You shall not slay, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false evidence, you shall respect your father and your mother’ and ‘You shall not desire another person’s property’. 2.4 In fact, the original law was given to Adam and Eve in paradise as the source of all the commands of God. Further, if [1342] they had loved the Lord their God, they would not have acted against [God’s] command. If they had been loving their neighbour—that is, each other—they would not have believed the opinion of the serpent, and thus they would not have committed murder among themselves. By acting against the command of God, they fell from immortality. 2.5 They would have refrained from robbery too if they had not eaten secretly from the fruit of the tree, nor would they have longed to take refuge under the tree from the sight of the Lord their God, or have been made partners in falsehood with the deceitful devil by believing [the devil] that they were going to be like God. Nor would they have offended the Lord God in the role of Father, who had shaped them from the mud of the earth as from a mother’s womb, if they had not, out of a desire for another’s property, eaten from the forbidden fruit. 2.6 Therefore, in this general and original law of God, which God had decreed to be observed in the case of the fruit of the tree, we recognize that all the commands of the later law, which came forth when promulgated in their own times, existed already in a particular expression. In fact, to add a law afterwards is also the right of the same one who earlier had put forward the command, seeing that to instruct afterwards is the right of the same one who earlier had undertaken to fashion the just. 2.7 In fact, is it a surprise if the one who established the directive adds to it, or if the one who began it finishes it?
Again, I contend that before the law of Moses was written on stone tablets there was an unwritten law, which was understood naturally and was kept by the ancestors; from where was Noah found righteous if the justice of a natural law had not come before the law of Moses? From where was Abraham counted a friend of God if not from the fairness and justice of natural law? From where was Melchizedek called a priest of the most high God if there were not Levites who were offering God sacrifices before the priesthood of the levitical law? 2.8 For indeed, thus was the law given to Moses, after the above-mentioned patriarchs, in that time after they had departed from Egypt, following the intervening passage of much time. [1343] Briefly, after 430 years from Abraham, the law was given to Moses. 2.9 From this we understand that the law of God was already in existence before Moses, as [it has been given] first neither at Horeb, nor at Sinai, nor in the desert, but [it has been given] first at a more ancient time—in paradise— then afterwards to the patriarchs. And thus also, it has been given to the Jews at certain times when [God] wanted, and has been reformed at certain times. The result is that now we do not pay attention to the law of Moses in such a way as though it were the first law, but as a subsequent one. At a certain time, God both produced this law for the Gentiles, as had been promised through the prophets, and has improved it, as [God] foretold would happen, with the result that, just as the law has been given through Moses at a certain time, so it may be believed to have been observed and kept for a limited time. 2.10 Nor may we take away this power of God to modify the commands of the law for human salvation, according to the conditions of the time.
Finally, let the one who still asserts both that the sabbath should be kept as a means of salvation, and that circumcision should be observed on the eighth day on account of the threat of death, demonstrate that, in the past, the just kept the sabbath or practised circumcision and thus became friends of God. 2.11 For if circumcision justifies men, since God made Adam uncircumcised, why did [God] not circumcise him even after he sinned? Certainly, when [God] settled him in paradise, [God] appointed an uncircumcised man as inhabitant of paradise. 2.12 Therefore, as God established Adam neither circumcised nor observing the sabbath, consequently also [God] praised Abel, Adam’s offspring, as he offered [God] sacrifices, uncircumcised and not keeping the sabbath. [God] accepted the offering that Abel presented in simplicity of heart and rejected the sacrifice of his brother Cain who had not divided equally what he was offering. 2.13 God freed Noah from the flood although [Noah was] uncircumcised and not observing the sabbath. [1344] For from this world also [God] removed Enoch, a man most upright, but neither circumcised nor observing the sabbath. He had not yet tasted death in order that one already a candidate for eternity might show us that we too are able to please God without the burden of the law of Moses. 2.14 Melchizedek also, the priest of the most high God, was selected to the priesthood of God uncircumcised and not observing the sabbath. Lot too, the brother of Abraham, was pleasing in that he was freed from the fires of the Sodomites as a reward for his upright living without his keeping the law.
3.1 ‘But Abraham,’ you will say, ‘was circumcised.’ But he was pleasing to God before he was circumcised. Neither did he observe the sabbath. In fact, he had received circumcision, but it would have been as a sign of that time, not as a guarantee of salvation. In addition, subsequent patriarchs have been uncircumcised, like the uncircumcised Melchizedek who, on his return from battle, offered bread and wine to the now circumcised Abraham.
‘But also the son of Moses,’ you say, ‘would have been suffocated by an angel at that time if Zipporah, his mother, had not circumcised the infant’s foreskin with a pebble.’ It is on the basis of this that all the circumcised say, ‘There is the greatest danger if anyone will not circumcise the foreskin of the flesh.’ 3.2 However, if circumcision were to impart salvation in every case, even Moses himself, in the case of his son, would not have omitted circumcising him on the eighth day. It is agreed that Zipporah did it on the journey when forced by an angel. Thus, we consider that the forced circumcision of one infant was not able to prescribe and to establish, as it were, a law for all people out of this [single] order. 3.3 For God, foreseeing that this circumcision would be given to the people of Israel as a sign, not as salvation, for this reason urged the son of the future leader, Moses, to be circumcised. The result [1345] was that, as [God] had begun to give the command of circumcision to the people through him, the people, seeing that example now having been honoured in the leader’s son, would not reject it.
3.4 In fact, circumcision continued to be given, but as a sign by which [the people of] Israel, in more recent times, was to be distinguished [from other people], when it was justly prohibited from entering the holy city, as found in the words of the prophets who said,
Your land is waste, your cities are consumed by fire, strangers shall devour your territory in your sight, and the daughter of Sion shall be abandoned, having been deserted and subverted by foreign peoples, like a hut in a vineyard and like a watchtower in a field of cucumbers and like a city that is being stormed.
3.5 Why so? Because the following statement of the prophet censures them saying, ‘I have reared and raised sons. However, they themselves have rejected me.’ And again, ‘And if you will have stretched out your hands, I will turn my face from you, and if you will have increased prayers, I will not hear you, for your hands are full of blood.’ And again, ‘Alas sinful nation, people saturated in sin, wicked sons, you have abandoned the Lord and have provoked to indignation the Holy One of Israel.’ 3.6 Therefore, this was the foresight of God who gave circumcision to Israel as a sign, by which they might be distinguished when the time came, as they were prohibited from entering Jerusalem on account of their above-mentioned faults. And because it was going to be, it was announced and because we see it accomplished, we recall it.
3.7 In fact, just as circumcision of the flesh, which was temporary, was initiated as a sign for a stubborn people, so one of the spirit was given as salvation for an obedient people, as Jeremiah says, ‘Renew yourselves and do not plant among thorns. Be circumcised for God and circumcise the foreskin of your heart.’ And in another place it says,
[1346] ‘For behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will draw up a new covenant for the house of Judah and the house of Jacob. It shall not be such as I gave to their ancestors on the day I led them from the land of Egypt’.
3.8 From this we understand that it was announced both that the first circumcision would cease and that the new law, not like the one [God] had given already to the ancestors, would appear. This was just as Isaiah proclaimed when he said that, in the last days, the mountain of the Lord would be made visible, as well as the house of God upon the summits of the mountains. ‘It shall be raised,’ he says, ‘on the hills and all clans shall come to it and many shall walk and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob.”’ He did not say ‘of Esau’, the first son, but ‘of Jacob’, the following—that is, of our people—whose mountain is the Christ who has been shown according to Daniel as having been carved without the hands of the carvers and filling all the earth. 3.9 Further, Isaiah announced that the new law would appear from this house of the God of Jacob, when he said in the following words, ‘For a law shall go forth from Sion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem and it shall judge between the clans’—that is, between us who have been called from the Gentiles—and he says, ‘they shall refashion their swords into ploughs and their spears into sickles and one clan shall not take the sword against another and henceforth they shall not learn to fight.’ 3.10 Therefore, who is understood other than us, who, having been instructed in the new law, observe it, since the old law has been cancelled, whose future abolition he was demonstrating beforehand, by that very act? For the old law used to protect itself by the vengeance of the sword and used to tear out eye for eye and would pay back injury with revenge. However, the new law was pointing out clemency and was changing the previous savagery of sword and lance into stillness, and was reforming the previous conduct of war against rivals and enemies into the peaceful actions of ploughing and cultivating the land.
3.11 Therefore, as we have shown above, just as the ceasing of the old law and circumcision of the flesh was declared, so too the observance of the new law and of circumcision of the spirit [1347] has shone forth in peaceful obedience. In fact, the prophets have announced ‘a people that I have not known have been attentive to me and in the listening of the ear have obeyed me’. 3.12 Now who is the people who was ignorant of God, if not us who never knew God formerly? And who, in the listening of the ear, has obeyed [God] if not us who, having left idols behind, have turned to God? 3.13 For Israel, which had been known by God and had been rescued by [God] in Egypt, having been led across the Red Sea and having been fed with manna in the desert for forty years, was given a taste of eternity uncontaminated by human sufferings or the food of this age, but was fed with the manna, the bread of angels. Israel, having been indebted to God by these kindnesses, has forgotten its Lord and God and said to Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who may go before us, for that Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt has deserted us, and we do not know what has happened to him.’ And because of this we, who were not formerly the people of God, have been made [God’s] people by accepting both the new law mentioned above and the new circumcision proclaimed earlier.
4.1 And so it follows that, in so far as the abolition of the circumcision of the flesh and of the old law is shown to have been cancelled in its own times, so the observation of the sabbath is also shown to have been temporary. For the Jews say that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day by resting on it from all the works that [God] made, and this was the reason Moses also said to the people, ‘Remember to sanctify the sabbath day. You shall not do any servile work on it, except so far as life is concerned.’ 4.2 From this we understand [1348] that we ought always to observe a sabbath from all servile work, not only on every seventh day but also for all time. And on account of this we ought to ask which sabbath God wishes us to keep, for the Scriptures describe an eternal sabbath and a temporal sabbath. For the prophet Isaiah says, ‘My soul hates your sabbath.’ And in another place he says, ‘My sabbath you have profaned.’ 4.3 From this we discern that the temporal sabbath is human and the eternal sabbath is reckoned divine. [God] announces this through Isaiah,‘“And there shall be,” he says, “month after month, day after day and sabbath after sabbath and all flesh shall come to Jerusalem to worship,” says the Lord’. 4.4 We acknowledge that this was fulfilled in the times of Christ when all flesh—that is, every Gentile—came to Jerusalem to worship God the Father through Jesus Christ his Son, as it was proclaimed through the prophets, ‘Behold, proselytes shall go to you through me.’ 4.5 So, therefore, before there was a temporal sabbath, an eternal sabbath had been both foreshown and foretold, just as even before there was a circumcision of the flesh, a spiritual circumcision had been foreshown.
4.6 Further, let them teach, just as we have mentioned already, either that Adam observed the sabbath, or that Abel, when offering God a holy sacrifice, pleased [God] by reverence of the sabbath, or that Enoch, the one who was transferred [to heaven] was a keeper of the sabbath, or that Noah, the builder of the ark, observed the sabbath on account of the threatening flood, or that Abraham sacrificed Isaac, his son, in observance of the sabbath, or that Melchizedek received the law of the sabbath during his priesthood. 4.7 But the Jews are going to say that from the moment this command was given through Moses then it ought to be heeded. And so it has been shown that the command was not eternal but temporal, as one day it would cease. 4.8 Further, so much so is this festival not to be celebrated in rest on the seventh day that Joshua, son of Nun, at the time he was subjugating the city of Jericho, said that a command [was given] to him from God that he should command the people that the priests [1349] carry the ark of the covenant of God in a circuit of the city for seven days and thus, when the circuit of the seventh day was completed, the walls of the city would collapse by themselves. 4.9 Thus it happened that the walls of the city collapsed, just as had been foretold, when the course of the seventh day ended. From this it is shown clearly that a sabbath day has occurred within the number of your seven days. In fact, it is necessary for seven days, wherever they began, to include within them a sabbath day. On this day, not only did the priests work but also, in the face of the sword, the citizens were taken captive by all the people of Israel. 4.10 Nor is there doubt that they performed servile work when they dispatched the spoils of war by the command of God. For also, in the time of the Maccabees, they acted bravely in fighting on the sabbaths, they overcame their foreign enemies, and brought back their ancestral law to its former condition by fighting on the sabbaths. 4.11 Nor should I believe that they defended another law than the one in which it was prescribed that they should remember the sabbath days. It has been shown from this that commands of this kind had force for a time, and for the need of the situation then existing, and that God had not earlier given them a law of this kind for them to keep forever.
5.1 Thus we also show that sacrifices of earthly offerings and of spiritual sacrifices were foretold and indeed that, from the beginning, the earthly sacrifices of the elder son—that is, of Israel—were foreshown in Cain, and the other type of sacrifices of the younger son—that is, of our people—were shown in Abel. 5.2 For Cain, the elder by birth, brought gifts for God from the fruit of the earth, but the younger, Abel, (brought) offspring from the fruit of his flock.
And God had regard for Abel and his gifts. For Cain and his gifts, however, [God] had no regard. [1350] And God said to Cain, ‘Why is your face downcast? Surely you have sinned, have you not, even if you should sacrifice correctly, by not dividing it up correctly? Stop it! In fact, it [sin] is turning towards you, and you shall master it.’ Then Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go into the field.’ He went away with him and there he slew him. Then God said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother?’ And he said, ‘I do not know. Am I the guardian of my brother?’ God said to him, The voice of the blood of your brother cries out to me from the earth.
For this reason the earth, which opened its mouth in order to receive the blood of your brother, is cursed. You shall be groaning and trembling upon the earth, and everyone who finds you shall slay you.’
5.3 Therefore, from this event we notice that the double sacrifices of the two peoples were already foreshown from the beginning.
Finally, when the priestly law in Leviticus was being put together by Moses, we find the command for the people of Israel that sacrifices be offered to God in no other place than in the promised land, which the Lord God was going to give to their ancestors. This was so that sacrifices and burnt offerings would be celebrated for sins, as for souls, in that place, when Israel had been led in, and in no other place except the holy land. 5.4 Why therefore does the Spirit proclaim afterwards through the prophets that it would happen that sacrifices would be offered to God in every place and in every land? For example, [the Spirit] says through Malachi, [1351] one of the twelve prophets, ‘I will not receive sacrifice from your hands, since from the rising of the sun through to its setting my name has been made famous among all clans,’ says the all-powerful Lord, ‘and in every place clean sacrifices are offered to my name.’ Likewise, in the psalms of David, ‘Bring to God, homelands of foreigners.’ This is without a doubt because the preaching of the apostles had to go out to every land. ‘Bring to God renown and honour, bring to the Lord a sacrifice to [the Lord’s] name. Gather up a sacrificial animal and enter [the Lord’s] courts.’ 5.5 Because it is not by earthly sacrifices, but by spiritual ones, that an acceptable offering is brought to God, thus we read as it is written: ‘A contrite and humble heart is a victim for God’. And elsewhere: ‘Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise and offer your solemn promises to the most high’. Thus, for this reason, the spiritual sacrifices of praise are marked out and a contrite heart is pointed out as an acceptable sacrifice for God. 5.6 And so, in the same way as carnal sacrifices are understood as having been rejected, Isaiah spoke about this saying, ‘“What do the great number of your sacrifices mean to me?” the Lord says, because even, “If you bring,” the Lord says, “the finest wheat flour for me, it is a worthless ceremony, it is utterly abhorrent to me.”’ And also, ‘“Your holocausts and sacrifices and the fat of goats and the blood of bulls I refuse, even if you come to me. In fact, who has asked for these things from your hands?”’ So spiritual sacrifices are proclaimed acceptable, as the prophets announce. 5.7 In truth, sacrifices are carnal as [1352] I said above, about which it has been foretold, ‘“I have no interest in you,” says the Lord. “I will not accept sacrifices from your hands, since, from the rising of the sun through to its setting, my name has been made famous among all clans,” says the Lord.’ But about spiritual sacrifices the Lord adds ‘“And in every place, clean sacrifices are offered to my name.”’
6.1 It is clear that both a temporal sabbath has been shown and an eternal sabbath has been foretold. A circumcision of the flesh has been foretold and a circumcision of the spirit foretold beforehand. A temporal law and an eternal law have been announced. Carnal sacrifices and spiritual sacrifices have been foreshown. Therefore, because of this, it follows that, in the preceding time, when all those commands of yours had been given carnally to the people of Israel, a time would come in which the commands of the ancient law and of the old ceremonies would cease, and the promise of a new law, the acceptance of spiritual sacrifices, and the offer of the new covenant would come. This is because the light shining from on high has arisen for us, who were sitting in darkness and who were being held in the shadow of death.
6.2 And so, because we have proclaimed a new law foretold by the prophets, and not such as had been given already to their ancestors in the time when [God] brought them out of the land of Egypt, it is incumbent upon us to show and prove that, as much as that old law has ceased, so too [1353] the promised new law now applies. And indeed, I need to ask first whether a proposer of the new law, an heir to the new covenant, a priest of the new sacrifices, a purifier of the new circumcision, and an establisher of the eternal sabbath is expected. This is the one who suppresses the old law, sets up the new covenant, offers the new sacrifices, represses the ancient ceremonies, suppresses the old circumcision together with its sabbath and announces the new kingdom, which will not decay. 6.3 For I ought to ask as well whether this proposer of the new law, the establisher of the spiritual sabbath, the high priest of the eternal sacrifices, the ruler of the eternal kingdom, has arrived yet or not, because, if he has come already he ought to be served, and if he has not yet come it should be endured until it is evident from his coming that the precepts of the old law are suppressed and that the introduction of the new law ought to arise. 6.4 It especially ought to be understood that the ancient law and the prophets could not cease unless the one had come whose coming was announced through the same law and the same prophets. 7.1 Therefore, let us take a position on this point of yours about whether the Christ was announced as going to come, has come already or whether his intended coming is still awaited. Now in order that the issue itself may be proved, the timing, in which the prophets have announced that the Christ was destined to come, ought to be investigated by us. This is in order that, if we recognize him to have come during those times of your making, we may without doubt believe him to be the same one whom the prophets prophesied would come and in whom they announced we—that is, the Gentiles—would believe. And when it has been agreed that he has come, we may believe without a doubt also that the new law has been given by him and we may not deny the new covenant drawn up for us in and through him.
7.2 In fact, we know that even the Jews do not refute the fact that the Christ is going to come, in as much as they extend their hope to his coming. And we need not inquire about that in more detail as formerly, [1354] all the prophets have spoken publicly about it, like Isaiah, Thus says the Lord God to the Christ my Lord, whose right hand I have held in order that the Gentiles may hear him, “The bravery of kings I will smash. I will open the gates before him and cities shall not be closed to him.’” [We need not inquire] because we see now the prophecy itself having been fulfilled.
7.3 For whose right hand does God the Father hold if not that of Christ, his son, whom all clans have heard, that is, all clans have believed in him, whose preachers, the apostles, are revealed in the psalms of David, ‘Their sound has gone out,’ it says, ‘to the entire earth and their words to the end of the earth.’? 7.4 In fact, in whom else have the clans of the world believed if not in the Christ who has come already? For in whom have the other clans (the Parthians, Medes, Elamites and those who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia, Cappadocia, those dwelling in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, those remaining in Egypt and those inhabiting parts of Africa beyond Cyrene, Romans and foreign residents, then also Jews in Jerusalem) and the remaining clans (as now the various Gaetulians and the many territories of the Moors, all [within] the boundaries of both Spains, the diverse tribes of the Gauls, and the region of the Britons that is inaccessible to the Romans but subject to Christ, and the Sarmatians, Dacians, Germans, Scythians, and the many concealed clans and provinces and islands unknown to us that we are less able to count) believed? 7.5 In all of these places the name [1355] of Christ, who is come already, reigns, in as much as the gates of every city have been opened before him and none has been closed to him, before whom iron bolts have been smashed and bronze folding-doors have been opened. 7.6 Although those words of yours also ought to be understood spiritually—to the extent that the hearts of individuals besieged by the devil in various ways may be saved by faith in Christ—nevertheless, obviously even they have been fulfilled, in as much as the people of the name of Christ live in all these places. In fact, who could have reigned over all clans if not Christ, the son of God, whose eternal reign over all was announced? 7.7 For if Solomon reigned, yet it was only within the boundaries of Judaea. The limits of his kingdom are marked from Beersheba to Dan. If Darius truly reigned over the Babylonians and Parthians, he did not have further power beyond the boundaries of his kingdom, among every clan. If Pharaoh, or whoever succeeded him in his hereditary rule over the Egyptians, [reigned], only there did he possess the authority of his rule. If Nebuchadnezzar with his princes [reigned] from India to Ethiopia, there he had the boundaries of his kingdom. If Alexander of Macedon [reigned], he held no more than the whole of Asia and other regions that he had conquered afterwards. 7.8 If the Germans [reigned], still [1356] they are not allowed to cross over from their borders. The Britons have been enclosed within the ambit of their ocean. The Moorish clans and Gaetulian foreigners are contained by the Romans, lest they go beyond the boundaries of their own territories. What may I say about the Romans themselves, who fortify their empire with garrisons of their own legions, and who are not able to extend the force of their rule across those clans? 7.9 On the other hand, the name of Christ is extended everywhere, believed everywhere, honoured by all the above-mentioned clans. It reigns everywhere. It is cultivated in worship everywhere. It is assigned on an equal basis to everyone everywhere. No king has greater grace in his presence and no barbarian less joy. No dignity or birthright [is given] to anyone by the distinction of merit. He is fair to all, king to all, judge to all, lord and God to all. 8.1 Nor should you hesitate to believe what we claim, as you see that it is happening.
And thus the predicted times of the future birth of the Christ, of his suffering, and of the expulsion of the city of Jerusalem—that is, its destruction—must be considered. In fact, Daniel says, ‘Both the holy city and the sanctuary are destroyed, together with the leader who is going to come, and the pinnacle is dismantled completely to the point of ruin.’ 8.2 And thus the times of the future coming of the Christ, the ruler, which we shall seek out in Daniel, must be considered. By having calculated these times we shall prove [1357] that he has come. Besides the ground of the fixed times, we will prove these things from relevant signs and from his activities, and from subsequent events that were announced as happening after his coming, in order that we may believe that everything anticipated now has been fulfilled.
8.3 Therefore, Daniel spoke publicly about him in the following way, in order to show both when and in which time he was intending to free the clans, and how in the year after his suffering the city itself would be destroyed. 8.4 In fact, he speaks as follows,
In the first year of Darius, son of Ahasuerus, from the stock of the Medes, who ruled over the kingdom of the Chaldeans, I, Daniel, became aware of the measure of the years in the books [of Scripture]. And while I was still speaking in prayer, behold Gabriel, the man whom I saw originally in a vision, was flying, and he touched me at about the hour of the evening sacrifice and made me understand, and he spoke with me and said, ‘Daniel, I have come forth now to steep you with understanding. At the beginning of your entreaty a word was sent. 8.5 And I have come to tell you, as you are a man of longing: reflect on the word and understand the vision. Seventy weeks have been shortened concerning your people and the holy city. [This will last] until crime may be worn out, sins may be marked, injustice may have appeared, eternal justice may be introduced, vision and prophet may be sealed and a holy of holies be anointed. And you shall know and comprehend and understand that, from the sending of the word about the restoring and building of Jerusalem [1358] until the ruler Christ, there are (seven and a half weeks and) sixty-two and a half weeks. It shall be both transformed and built in breadth and depth, but the circumstances shall be altered. 8.6 And after these sixty-two and a half weeks, anointing shall be abolished and shall no longer exist. Both the city and the sanctuary shall be destroyed, together with the coming leader.
They shall be brought to ruin as in a flood until the end of the war, because it shall be brought to ruin until its [final] destruction. And he shall make a covenant among the many. In one and half weeks, my sacrifice and libation shall be put aside and in the sanctuary there shall be the curse of devastation constantly until the end of these times [when] there will be a finish to this devastation.’
8.7 Therefore, let us take notice of the end-point in which he actually foretells that there are going to be seventy weeks in which, if they accept him [the coming leader] ‘it shall be built in breadth and length, but the circumstances will be altered’. 8.8 Moreover, God, foreseeing what would happen—not only that they would not receive him but also they would both pursue and hand him over to death—recapitulated and said that within sixtytwo and a half weeks he would be born and a holy of holies anointed. Moreover, [God said] that when seven and a half weeks were completed he [the coming leader] had to suffer, and the city had to be destroyed [1359] after one and half weeks, by which time of course the seven and a half weeks have been completed. In fact, [God] speaks thus, ‘Both the city and the sanctuary are destroyed together with the leader who is going to come. They shall be thrown down as in a flood and the pinnacle is dismantled completely to the point of ruin.
8.9 Therefore, now we will show that the Christ came within the sixty-two and a half weeks. Well, we shall count from the first year of Darius, since the vision is revealed to Daniel at that very time. In fact, [Gabriel] says to him, ‘Both understand and interpret that from the sending of the word I have said these things to you.’ Whence we ought to calculate from the first year of Darius, when Daniel saw this vision. 8.10 Therefore, let us see how the years are filled up until the coming of Christ. In fact, Darius reigned for nineteen years and Artaxerxes reigned forty-one years. Then king Ochus, who is known also as Cyrus, reigned twenty-four years. Argus reigned one year. Another Darius, who is known also as Melas, reigned twenty-one years. Alexander from Macedon reigned twelve years. Then after Alexander—who had reigned over the Medes and Persians [1360] whom he had subjugated, and who had secured his kingdom in Alexandria when he named it with his own name—Soter reigned there in Alexandria for thirty-five years, to whom Philadelphus succeeded, reigning thirty-eight years. Euergetes succeeded him for 25 years. Then Philopator reigned for seventeen years. After this, Epiphanes reigned for twenty-four years. Then another Euergetes reigned for twenty-seven years. Then another Soter reigned for thirty-eight years. Ptolemy reigned for thirty-seven years. Cleopatra reigned for twenty years and six months. Cleopatra then reigned contemporaneously with Augustus for thirteen years. After Cleopatra, Augustus ruled for another forty-three years, for the total years of the imperium of Augustus were fifty-six.
8.11 Moreover, we see that in the forty-first year of the imperium of Augustus, who, after the death of Cleopatra, ruled for twenty-eight years, the Christ was born. And the same Augustus survived for fifteen years from the year in which the Christ was born. Until the day of the birth of the Christ in the forty-first year of Augustus, who lived for twenty-eight years after the death of Cleopatra, there is a total of 437 years [1361] and six months (whence sixty-two and a half weeks are complete). 8.12 And ‘eternal justice has been made visible and the holy of holies—that is, the Christ—has been anointed and the vision and prophet has been sealed and sins have been renounced’, which on account of the name of the Christ will be granted to all who believe in him. However, why is it that he says that ‘the vision and prophecy are sealed’? As all the prophets were making announcements about him, that he was destined to come and had to suffer, therefore, as prophecy has been fulfilled through his coming, on that account he said, ‘vision and prophecy are sealed,’ as he himself was the sign of all prophecy, fulfilling everything that the prophets had announced previously about him. 8.13 In fact, after his coming and his suffering there is now neither vision nor prophet announcing the Christ as going to come. Further, if this is not so, let the Jews produce some volumes of the prophets after the Christ, or visible miracles of some angels like those the patriarchs saw in former times up until the coming of this Christ, who is now come. 8.14 From [the time of] his coming ‘vision and prophecy have been sealed’—that is, [1362] have been settled. And the evangelist rightly says, ‘The law and the prophets were until John the baptizer.’ In fact, when the Christ was baptized—that is, when he sanctified the waters in his own baptism—all the abundance of past spiritual gifts ended in the Christ who has sealed all visions and prophecies, which he has fulfilled by his coming. 8.15 Whence he says most truthfully that his coming seals vision and prophecy.
Therefore, having shown that both the number of years and the time of the sixty-two and a half weeks have been fulfilled, at the completion of which the Christ has come (that is, he was born), let us see in what events the other seven and a half weeks, which have been subdivided in separation from the former weeks, have been fulfilled. 8.16 In fact, after Augustus, who survived fifteen years after the birth of the Christ, they are made up [as follows]: Tiberius Caesar succeeded him and he held imperium for twenty-two years, seven months and twenty-eight days. In the fifteenth year of his imperium, the Christ suffered, being about thirty when he suffered. Then Caius Caesar, known as Caligula, [held imperium] for three years, eight months and thirteen days. Tiberius Claudius [held imperium] for thirteen years, seven months and twenty days. Nero [held imperium] for eleven years, nine months and thirteen days. Galba [held imperium] for seven months and six days. Otho [held imperium] for three months and five days. Vitellius [held imperium] for eight months and twenty-seven days. Vespasian, in the first year [1363] of his imperium, given that he ruled for twelve years, conquered the Jews. The number becomes fifty-two years and six months. In this way, on the day of their capture, the Jews satisfied the seventy weeks proclaimed in Daniel.
8.17 Therefore, when these particular times also were complete and the Jews conquered, afterwards libations and sacrifices ceased there and they were not able to be celebrated there after that. For even anointing was eliminated there after the suffering of the Christ. In fact, it had been foretold that anointing was to be eliminated there, just as it was prophesied in the psalms, They have destroyed my hands and feet.’ 8.18 And the suffering of the Christ was accomplished within the time of the seventy weeks under Tiberius Caesar, when Rubellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus were consuls, in the month of March at the time of Passover, on the 25th of March, on the first day of unleavened bread on which they slew the lamb at evening, just as Moses had instructed. And so the entire synagogue of the children of Israel killed him, saying to Pilate, when he wanted to release him, [1364] ‘His blood be upon us and upon our children,’ and ‘If you release him you are not a friend of Caesar,’ in order that everything might be fulfilled that had been written about him. 9.1 Therefore, let us begin to prove that the birth of the Christ was announced by the prophets. [It is] just as Isaiah proclaims,
Listen, house of David! The human struggle is not a trifle for you as God is responsible for the contest. On account of this, God gives you a sign:
see the virgin will conceive and will bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us’. He will eat butter and honey, as before the infant knows how to say ‘father’ or ‘mother’ he will receive the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians.
And so the Jews say, ‘Let us challenge that [1365] proclamation of Isaiah, and let us make a comparison whether the name that Isaiah proclaimed and the signs of him that he announced, corresponds with the Christ who has come already’ And, indeed, Isaiah proclaims that it is necessary for him to be called Emmanuel, and afterwards he is going to receive the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians. 9.2 ‘Further,’ they say, ‘that [Christ] of yours who has come has neither been spoken of under such a name [as Emmanuel] nor has engaged in any warfare.’ But we, on the contrary, consider that they ought to be reminded to consider the context of this passage as well. For there is added an interpretation of Emmanuel (‘God is with us’), so that you should not only pay attention to the sound of the name, but the sense as well. For the Hebrew sound, which is Emmanuel, has an interpretation, which is ‘God is with us’. 9.3 Therefore, inquire whether that word ‘God is with us’, which is Emmanuel, is employed afterwards with regard to Christ, since the light of Christ has begun to shine. I think you will not deny it. For those from Judaism who believe in Christ, from the time they believe in him, since they wish to say Emmanuel, they mean that ‘God is with us’, and in this way it is agreed that he has come already who was proclaimed Emmanuel, because that which Emmanuel means, that is ‘God is with us’, has come.
9.4 No less are they being led by the sound of the words when they accept the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria and the king of the Assyrians as indicating the Christ as a warrior. They do not take heed of what Scripture promises: ‘Since before the boy knows how to say father or mother, he will receive the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians’. 9.5 In fact, you must examine before all else the description of his age, whether that age can represent Christ as now a man, [1366] far less a commander. Do you suppose the infant was going to call to arms by his squalling, and give the signal for war not with a trumpet but with a rattle instead, and point out the enemy not from horse or wall, but from his nurse’s or nanny’s back or neck, and thus overcome Damascus and Samaria before [overcoming] their breasts? 9.6 It is another matter if the infants among you sally forth into battles. I suppose they are first oiled and laid in the sun, and afterwards outfitted in nappies and paid with butter— these same who know how to launch a lance before they learn to lacerate [with their teeth]. Certainly, if nature nowhere permits this—to be a soldier before becoming a man—it follows that the statement ‘to take up the strength of Damascus before knowing a father’ must be seen as figurative.
9.7 ‘But also,’ they say, ‘nature does not permit a virgin to bear, and yet the prophet is to be believed.’ And rightly so. In fact, he laid the groundwork for faith in an incredible thing, by saying that it was intended for a sign. Therefore,’ he says, ‘a sign will be given to you. Behold a virgin will conceive in the womb, and will bear a son.’ Now a sign from God, unless it had been some strange novelty, would not be seen as a sign. 9.8 Consequently, whenever in the hope of dislodging anyone from this divine proclamation, or whenever you long to convert those who are simple, you dare to lie that it is contained in Scripture not that a virgin but a young woman is to conceive and bear, you are disproved also, because no sign is able to be seen in an everyday occurrence, certainly [not in] the pregnancy and childbearing of a young woman. Therefore, a virgin mother, having been set up as a sign for us, is rightly believed; but truly an infant warrior is not equally [believed]. 9.9 In fact, also no question of a sign is involved, but with the sign of the new nativity having been written down, [1367] immediately after the sign another part of the infant’s upbringing is now made known, that he will eat honey and butter. Nor is this undoubtedly a sign; it is part of infancy. But going to receive the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians is an unusual sign. 9.10 Observe the limit set for his age and seek the sense of the prophecy. What is more, give back to the truth the things you are not willing to believe and the prophecy is understood as it is reported fulfilled. Let those eastern magi be believed who present gold and incense to the newly born infancy of Christ. Thus the infant will have accepted the wealth of Damascus without battles or arms. 9.11 For aside from the wealth of the East— in fact, that is, its strength—which is known by everybody, is usually valued in gold and spices, it is certainly possible from the divine Scriptures to make gold the wealth of other tribes as well; as it is said through Zechariah, ‘And Judah will stretch out before Jerusalem and gather together all the vigour of the peoples round about, gold and silver.’ 9.12 For about the present of gold, David also says, ‘And it will be given to him from the gold of Assyria’ and again The kings of the Arabs and of Saba will bring him gifts.’ For the East, on the one hand, generally has had [1368] the magi as kings, and on the other, Damascus used to be counted in Arabia, before it was transferred to Syro-Phoenicia after the dividing up of the Syrias. It was then that the Christ received its wealth, by receiving its symbols, namely gold and spices; while as for the plunder of Samaria [he received] the magi themselves, who—when they had discovered him, and honoured him with presents, and had worshipped him as Lord and king by bending the knee on the evidence of the star that was their guide and leader—were made the plunder of Samaria—that is, of idolatry—because they believed in Christ. 9.13 In fact, he branded idolatry under the name of Samaria, which was in disgrace because of the idolatry by which it had once revolted from God under king Jeroboam. In fact, this is nothing new for the divine Scriptures to make a figurative use of the transference of names from a comparison of crimes. 9.14 For it also calls your rulers the ‘rulers of Sodom’ and your people the ‘people of Gomorrah’, when those cities have been extinct now for a long time. And in another place through the prophet to the people of Israel, ‘Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite’, of whose tribe they were not begotten. But he named them this because of the same sort of impiety, although at another time [God] had even said they were [God’s] own sons through the prophet Isaiah, ‘I have reared and raised sons.’ 9.15 Thus also Egypt is sometimes understood to mean the whole world, when charged by him with superstition and abomination. Thus also in our John, Babylon is a figure of the city of Rome, which, like Babylon, is equally great and proud in territories and victorious over the saints. In the same way, Scripture describes the magi also by the title of Samaritans, because, as we have said, [1369] they were completely ruined by idolatry against the Lord, a thing they had in common with the Samaritans. 9.16 ‘Against the king of the Assyrians’ is understood to mean against the devil, who still thinks that he reigns, if he forces the saints away from the worship of God. This interpretation of ours will receive support while elsewhere the Scriptures also designate the Christ as a warrior on account of the names of certain weapons and words to the same effect, if the Jews are convicted from a comparison of the remaining senses. ‘Gird your sword upon your thigh,’ says David. 9.17 But what do you read above {this} about the Christ? ‘You are ripe in beauty above the sons of men, grace is poured forth on your lips.’ Moreover, it is extremely absurd if he was flattering, in the matter of ripeness of beauty and grace of lips, one whom he was girding for war with a sword, about whom he went on to say, ‘Stretch forth and prosper and reign’ and he adds ‘because of gentleness and your uprightness.’ Who is going to produce these results with a sword? Will that not produce the opposite of gentleness and uprightness instead— that is, deceit and severity and lack of integrity, which naturally is appropriate to the business of battles? 9.18 Let us see therefore whether there is a different meaning for that sword, which has so different an activity—that is, the divine word of God, twice sharpened from the two testaments of the ancient law and the new law, sharpened by the fairness of its own wisdom, giving back to each according to their action. 9.19 Therefore, it was permissible for the Christ of God in the psalms, without war-like intent, to be girt with the figurative sword of the word of God—to which the foretold condition agrees with the charm of the lips—which was at that time [1370] girt upon his thigh, according to David, when it was announced that he was about to come to earth at the decree of God the Father. ‘Your right hand,’ it says, ‘will marvellously lead you forth,’ which means the strength of spiritual grace, from which is deduced the knowledge of Christ. ‘The arrows are sharp,’ the precepts of God, which fly in every direction, threatening the exposure of every heart, which both pierce and transfix every conscience. ‘People will fall down before you.’ 9.20 This is how Christ is a warrior and an armed man, this is how he will receive the plunder, not only of Samaria but also of all the Gentiles. Admit also that his plunder is figurative, whose arms too you have been taught are allegorical. And so the Christ who has come was not a warrior, because he is not declared as such by Isaiah.
‘But the Christ,’ they say, ‘who is believed to be coming, is not even called Jesus. Why therefore is he who is come named Jesus Christ?’ 9.21 But each name is evident in the Christ of God, in whom the name Jesus is found as well. Learn here also the character of your error. While Hoshea the son of Nun was chosen as successor to Moses, certainly he is changed from his original name, and begins to be called Jesus (Joshua). Certainly, you answer. We say that this former [name] was a figure of the future [name]. 9.22 Because Jesus the Christ was going to bring the second people, because we are the tribes previously dwelling in the wilderness of the world, into the [1371] land of promise, flowing with milk and honey—that is, into the possession of eternal life—than which nothing is sweeter, and because this was going to be effected not through Moses—that is, not through the teaching of the law—but through Jesus, through the new law of grace, after we were circumcised with flint knife—that is, the precepts of Christ—for Christ was announced, in many ways and figures, as a rock. Therefore, that man who was being prepared in imitation of this mystery was also first established as a figure of our Lord’s name, being named Jesus (Joshua). For he who was speaking to Moses was himself the Son of God, who is the one who was always seen, for no one ever saw God the Father and lived. 9.23 And for that reason it is agreed that the Son of God himself spoke to Moses and said to the people. ‘Behold I send my angel before your face’—that is, of the people—‘to guard you on the journey and to bring you into the land that I have prepared for you. Pay attention to him and hear him and do not disobey him, for he will not hide it from you that my name is upon him.’ For Jesus (Joshua) was to bring the people into the land of promise, not Moses. He said that he was an angel because of the magnitude of the courage he was to produce, which courage Jesus (Joshua) the son of Nun accomplished, as you yourselves read—and because of his office of prophet in declaring the will of God. Similarly, the Holy Spirit, speaking from the person of the Father through the prophet, calls John the precursor of Christ, a future [1372] angel: ‘Behold I send my angel before your face’—that is, of the Christ—‘who will prepare your way before you.’ Nor is it new for those whom God appoints as ministers of his strength to be called angels by the Holy Spirit. 9.24 For the same John is called not only an angel of Christ but even a lamp before Christ. ‘For I have prepared a lamp for my Christ,’ David foretells. [This lamp] was Christ himself, coming to fulfil the prophets, who says to the Jews, ‘He was the glowing and shining light,’ in as much as he not only prepared his ways in the desert, but by pointing out the lamb of God he enlightened human minds by his proclamation, so that they understand him to be the lamb that Moses announced was going to suffer. 9.25 And thus he called him Jesus (Joshua) because of the mystery of his own future name. In fact, he [Jesus] confirmed his own name that he had conferred upon him [Joshua], because he had ordered him to be called in future not as angel or as Hoshea but as Jesus (Joshua). Thus, therefore, both these names are appropriate to the Christ of God, such that he was named both as Jesus and as the Christ.
9.26 And seeing that the virgin, from whom it is proper for the Christ to be born, as we mentioned above, ought to have traced her descent from the seed of David, the prophet clearly [1373] says in the following passages, ‘And there shall be born,’ he says, ‘a twig from the root of Jesse,’—who is Mary—‘and a flower shall climb from the root and the spirit of God and shall rest on it: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, the spirit of counsel and courage, and the spirit of the fear of God will bring it to fullness.’ 9.27 In fact, there is no one in all humanity about whom the whole of spiritual testimony corresponds, except Christ, who was equated with a flower because of grace, yet was accounted from the stem of Jesse, through Mary, of course, who is thought to be from it. For he was from the land of Bethlehem and from the house of David, just as, among the Romans, Mary, from whom the Christ was born, was registered in the census. Still I demand whether he, who was announced by the prophets as going to come when he was born from Jesse and as going to display all humility and patience and non-resistance, has come.
9.28 And indeed certainly this man, who is shown as such, will be the very Christ who comes. For about this Christ the prophet says, ‘A man placed in affliction, and knowing how to bear weakness,’ who ‘has been led like a sheep to sacrifice and like a lamb itself in the presence of the shearer he did not open his mouth.’ Thus, ‘neither did he struggle nor cry, nor was his voice heard out of doors, he who did not break the bruised reed,’ the faith of Israel, ‘nor extinguish the burning flax,’ which was the recently lit flame of the Gentiles, but made it shine more [1374] by the rising of his own light, he cannot be any other than the one the prophet announced.
9.29 And so the activity of [God’s] Christ who comes needs to be authenticated by the rule of the Scriptures, where, if I am not mistaken, it is distinguished as a twofold operation of preaching and of strength. But concerning each topic having been arranged thus, for that reason specifically we may revise the order I have undertaken, teaching that the Christ was announced a preacher, as through Isaiah: 9.30 ‘Cry out energetically,’ he says, ‘and do not hold back. Lift up your voice as a trumpet and announce to my people their crimes and to the house of Jacob their offences. They seek me from day to day and they long to know my ways, like a people who have enacted justice and who have not abandoned the judgement of God’ and so on. Moreover, [I shall demonstrate] the feats of strength he was going to perform from the Father: ‘Behold, our God shall restore judgement, God shall come and shall make us well. Then the weak shall be cared for, the eyes of the blind shall see, the ears of the deaf shall hear, the tongues of the mute shall be loosened and the lame shall leap like the deer’, etc. 9.31 Nor are you denying that Christ has done these things, seeing that it is you who used to say that you were throwing stones at him, not on account of his works but because he was doing them on the sabbath.
10.1 Certainly you are disputing the issue of his suffering, denying that the passion of the cross was prophesied of the Christ, with a further argument that it is not to be believed that God should have exposed [God’s] Son to that kind of death, because [God] has said ‘Cursed is everyone who has hung on a tree.’ Now the reason for these things [1375] precedes the meaning of this curse. 10.2 For [God] says in Deuteronomy,
Moreover, if he has committed some offence in such a way that the sentence is death, he shall die and you shall hang him on a tree. His body shall not remain on the tree, but you shall bury him with a burial that same day, since cursed by God is everyone who has been hung on a tree and you shall not pollute the land that the Lord your God will give to you for your destiny.
10.3 Therefore, [God] has not cursed Christ to this suffering, but has made a distinction, such that a person, who had [the sentence] of death for some offence and died hanging on a tree, would be cursed by God as one who, on account of the faults of his own offences, was hung on a tree. 10.4 On the other hand, Christ—who did not speak deceit from his own mouth and who has displayed all justice and humility, as we mentioned above were foretold about him—was exposed to that form of death, not on account of his own faults but in order that the things about to occur to him through you [Jews], which had been foretold by the prophets, might be fulfilled, just as the same Spirit of Christ was already singing in the psalms in these words, They were repaying me evil for good’ and Those things I had not seized, then I was paying off and ‘They destroyed my hands and feet’ and They put bile into my drink and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink’ and They cast lots over my clothes’, just as the other things that you were going to commit against him have been foretold. 10.5 Certainly, having endured all of these same things, he suffered not on account of any evil in his own actions, but in order that the Scriptures, from the mouth of the prophets, might be fulfilled. And undoubtedly it had been necessary that the mystery of the suffering itself was uttered in prophecies. The more incredible it was, the more it would become a stumbling block if it were prophesied plainly, and the more [1376] splendid it was, the more it needed to be obscured, so that the difficulty of understanding might ask for a favour from God.
10.6 And so to begin with Isaac, when led by his father [to be] a sacrifice, he carried the wood and was indicating then the death of the Christ, who, when surrendered as a victim by his Father, carried the wood of his own suffering.
Joseph himself is also a figure of Christ—this is only the best known, lest I delay my course—because he suffered persecution from his brethren and was sold into Egypt because of God’s grace, just as Christ was sold by Israel, his brethren according to the flesh, when he was handed over by Judas. 10.7 For Joseph is blessed by his father in these words, ‘His glory is that of a bull, his horns are the horns of a unicorn. With them he will sift the Gentiles together, even to the end of the earth.’ He was certainly not intended to be a one-horned rhinoceros or a two-horned minotaur. Instead, the Christ was indicated in him as a bull on account of each arrangement: to some people stern as a judge, to others kind as a saviour, whose horns were to be the extremities of the cross. For in the yard-arm of a ship, which is part of a cross, this is what its extremities are called, while the unicorn is the post upright in the middle. 10.8 So then by this courage of the cross, and by being horned after this manner, he is even now sifting all the clans through faith, lifting them up from earth into heaven, as he will later sift them by judgement, casting them down from heaven to earth. He will also be found as a bull elsewhere in the same Scripture, where Jacob, when he extends a blessing on Simeon and Levi, proph-esies about the scribes and Pharisees, [1377] for their origin is drawn from these. 10.9 For [the blessing] is interpreted spiritually thus, ‘Simeon and Levi have perfected iniquity by their way of life’; that is, by which [way of life] they persecuted Christ ‘let my soul not come into their council, and let my heart not rest in their assembly since in their indignation they have killed men’—that is, the prophets—‘and in their desire they hamstrung a bull’—that is, the Christ, whom they killed after the murder of the prophets and they savaged his sinews by crucifixion with nails. 10.10 Otherwise it would have been pointless if, after the murder already committed by them, he rebukes others and not them for the slaughter.
And again, why did Moses particularly only then, when Joshua was engaged in battle against Amalek, pray sitting and with out-stretched hands, when in such critical circumstances he might have been expected rather to commend his prayer with bended knees, with hands beating his breast, and with face rolling in the dirt? Was it not because on that occasion, when one was fighting who bore the name of the Lord Jesus, as our Lord himself was afterwards to fight against the devil, the appearance of the cross was essential, so that by it Joshua might gain victory? The same Moses again, after he had banned the [making of] a copy of everything, afterwards set up a bronze serpent on a tree in a hanging position and offered salvation to Israel by its display at that time when they were being destroyed by serpents after their idolatry. Why was this, if not because here he was pointing out the Lord’s cross, where the devil was being indicated as a serpent? To everyone wounded in this way by snakes—that is, by [the devil’s] angels— salvation from the offence of their transgressions was effected, after they were turned to the mystery of the cross. For the one who was looking at that [tree] [1378] was then freed from the bile of the serpent.
10.11 Come now, if you have read the prophet in the psalms, The Lord has reigned from a tree’, I am waiting for what you understand by it, lest perhaps you think some woodcutter is signified as king and not the Christ, who, ever since his suffering on the tree, has been king through his conquest of death. In the same sense Isaiah says, ‘Because to us a child is born and to us a son is given.’ What is new if he is not speaking about the Son of God? And, ‘To us one is given, the beginning of whose government is placed upon his shoulder.’ 10.12 Which of the kings explicitly displays the emblem of his power upon his shoulder, and not rather a crown upon his head, or a sceptre in his hand, or the use of some new property? No, only the new king of the ages, Christ Jesus, has lifted up upon his shoulder new glory and his own power and majesty—that is, the cross—so that from thenceforth, as our previous prophecy stated, he did reign from the tree as Lord. For God even hints about this tree, through Jeremiah, that you were going to say, ‘Come let us put a tree into his bread and let us eliminate him from the land of the living, and his name will be remembered no more.’ Certainly the tree was put against his body—in fact, Christ, whose body the prophet had of old announced as bread, has revealed it a such, when he named his body as bread. 10.13 If you ask for further prophecies of our Lord’s cross, you will be able to satisfy yourself with the twenty-first psalm, which contains the whole suffering of the Christ, who was even then foretelling of his own glory. They pierced,’ he said [1379] ‘my hands and my feet,’ which is the particular atrocity of the cross. And again, when appealing for his Father’s help, he says, ‘Save me from the mouth of the lion’, meaning death, ‘and [save my] wretchedness from the horns of the unicorn’, which are the points of the cross, as I have shown above. 10.14 Now as neither David nor any king of the Jews had to suffer that cross, you cannot think the suffering of anyone else to be prophesied than his, who alone was so remarkably crucified by the people.
So now, if the hardness of your heart rejects and derides all these interpretations, we shall prove that it may be sufficient that the death of the Christ has been prophesied, in order that from this, although the manner of death had not been determined, it may be understood to have come about by a cross. Nor ought the suffering of the cross to have been considered of anyone other than of him whose death was foretold. 10.15 For I can show his death and suffering and burial by one word of Isaiah. ‘By the villainy,’ he says, ‘of my people he was brought to death and I shall give the evil ones for his burial and the rich for his death because he has not committed crime nor has deceit been discovered in his mouth, and God wants to remove his soul by death,’ and so on. 10.16 In fact, he says also, ‘His burial was raised up out of the midst.’ For he was not buried without having died, nor was his burial raised up out of the midst except by resurrection. And so he adds, Therefore he will have the many for an inheritance, and he will divide the plunder of the many,’ (who, if not he who was born?—as we show above) ‘because his soul has been handed over to death’. For in this is shown the purpose of his grace, that it is to be a recompense for the insult of death. It is also shown that he will obtain these things on account of his death. [1380] He is to obtain them after death, at least after his resurrection. 10.17 For that which happened at his suffering, namely that the middle of the day became dark, the prophet Amos announced saying,
‘And it shall be on that day,’ says the Lord, ‘the sun shall set in the middle of the day and the daylight shall grow dark over the earth, and I will turn your feast days into mourning and all your songs into wailing and I will place sackcloth upon your loins and baldness on every head, and I will make him like the mourning of a loved one, and those who are with him like the day of grief.’
10.18 In fact, Moses also prophesied that you were going to do this at the beginning of the first month of the new [year], when he was foretelling that the whole crowd of the synagogue of the sons of Israel was going to sacrifice a lamb in the evening and were going to eat this solemn sacrifice of this day—that is, of the Passover of unleavened bread—with bitterness. He added that it was the Passover of the Lord—that is, the suffering of the Christ—because it was fulfilled in such a way that, on the first day of unleavened bread, you killed the Christ. 10.19 And in order that the prophecies might be fulfilled, the day hastened to bring evening—that is, to produce darkness—which happened in the middle of the day, and thus God changed your feast days into mourning and your songs into wailing.
In fact, after the suffering of Christ, captivity and dispersion also befell you, having been foretold before through the Holy Spirit. 11.1 For on account of those faults of yours, Ezekiel announced your future destruction, and not only in that age which has already occurred but also in the day of retribution that will follow. [1381] No one will be exempt from this destruction except the one who will have been sealed with the suffering of the Christ whom you reject. 11.2 In fact, thus it is written:
And the Lord God said to me, ‘Son of man, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing, each one of them in darkness, each one of them in a secret room, because they have said, “The Lord does not see us. The Lord has abandoned the land”? And the Lord said to me, ‘Now when you turn you shall see greater villainy that they are committing.’ 11.3 And the Lord led me to the north facing entrance of the doorway of the house of the Lord and behold there were women sitting there and bewailing Tammuz.
And the Lord said to me, ‘Son of man, have you seen? Is it a trifle for the house of Israel to commit the villainy that they have committed? And yet you are going to see still greater [indications] of their character.’ 11.4 And the Lord led me into the inner room of the house of the Lord and behold within the entrances of the house of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar, about twenty-five men who had turned their backs to the temple of the Lord, and with their faces towards the east, were worshipping the sun. 11.5 And the Lord said to me, ‘Do you see, son of man? Is it so insignificant to the house of Judah to commit the villainy that they have committed here? Because they have had their fill of lack of respect and behold, they themselves are mocking as it were, I will act on my indignity. My eye will not spare and neither will I have compassion. They will cry out to my ears with a loud voice and I will not hear them and neither will I have compassion.’ 11.6 And the Lord cried out with a loud voice into my ear saying, The punishment of this city has drawn near.’
And each one had the equipment of destruction in his hand. And behold, six men were coming from the road of the north-facing high gate, and [1382] the double-edged weapon of destruction of each was in his hand.
11.7 And there was one man in the middle of them clothed with a long priestly garment and a belt of sapphires around his loins. They entered and stood near the bronze altar. The brightness of the God of Israel, which spread over them in the courtyard of the house, rose from the Cherubim.
11.8 And the Lord called the man clothed with the long priestly garment who had the belt on his loins, and the Lord said to him, ‘Pass through the centre of Jerusalem and write the letter T on the foreheads of those men who bemoan and bewail over the villainy that is committed in their midst.’ And the Lord said to them while I was listening, ‘Go after him into the city and destroy, do not spare your eyes, do not have pity on either the elders, the young or virgins. Slay all the children and the women so that they may be wiped out. However, do not approach those on whom there is the letter T.Begin at my sanctuary’
11.9 Now the mystery of this sign, in which life was prepared for people [and] in which the Jews were not going to believe, was made known in various ways, just as Moses was announcing in Exodus saying, ‘You shall be thrown out of the land into which you will enter, and among those tribes you shall not be at rest, there shall be no stability for your footsteps, and God shall give you a tired heart, a ruined soul and failing eyes, with the result that they do not see, and your life shall be hanging on the tree before your eyes and you shall not trust in your life.’
11.10 And so, since the prophecies were fulfilled through [1383] the coming of Jesus—that is, through the birth that we have mentioned above—and suffering, which we have established clearly, on that account Daniel also said that vision and prophecy were sealed, as Christ is the sign of all prophecy, fulfilling everything that had previously been announced about him. For after his coming and his suffering, there is now neither vision nor prophet. Whence he says most truthfully that his coming seals vision and prophecy. 11.11 Therefore, showing that both the number of years and the time of the sixty-two and a half weeks have been fulfilled, we have proven that the Christ has come—that is, he was born—at that time. As to the seven and a half weeks, which have been subdivided by being separated from the former weeks, we have shown that the Christ has suffered within that time, and thus, with the seventy weeks brought to an end and with the city destroyed, that both sacrifice and anointing have ceased from then on.
It is sufficient so far to have run through Christ’s condition in these things in the meantime, such that it is proven that he is such a one as was announced. And so now from that accord of the Scriptures, by prior authority of the majority of instances, we have spoken out against the Jews. In fact, they may neither bring into doubt nor deny the Scripture that we have produced, so that from this [run through] also they may not deny parallels with the divine Scripture, with the result that the things that were foretold as going to be after the Christ are recognized as having been fulfilled. 11.12 These things would not be found fulfilled in this manner, such that now they are proven, [1384] unless he had come, after whom the things that were being announced had to be accomplished.
12.1 See how all the tribes after that time [of Christ] are emerging from the abyss of human error towards the Lord God the creator and [the Lord’s] Christ, and, if you dare to deny that it was prophesied, immediately the Father’s promise in the psalms meets you, saying, ‘You are my son, this day I have begotten you. Seek for me and I shall give you the Gentiles for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.’ 12.2 You cannot claim that David is son rather than Christ, or that the boundaries of the earth were promised to David, who reigned only over Judaea, rather than to Christ, who has now captured the whole world by the faith of his gospel. So Isaiah says, ‘I have given you for a covenant of the human race, for a light to the foreigners to open the eyes of the blind’—those who are in error—‘to loose from their bonds those who are bound’— that is, to set them free from offence—‘and from the house of the prison’—that is, death—‘those who sit in darkness’—the darkness of ignorance. If these things are coming to pass through Christ, they cannot have been prophesied of any other than him through whom we consider them to be accomplished.
13.1 Therefore, as the children of Israel assert that we are mistaken in accepting Christ, who is come already, let us put forward to them from the Scriptures themselves that the Christ who was proclaimed has come already, although we have proven, from the times made known by Daniel, that the Christ who was announced has come already. It was proper to him to be born in Bethlehem in Judaea. 13.2 In fact, thus it has been written in the prophet, ‘And you, Bethlehem, are not the least among the leaders of Judah. In fact, from you a leader shall come forth who shall feed my people Israel.’ However, if he has not been born yet, what leader was announced as going to come forth out of Bethlehem from the tribe of Judah? 13.3 For it was proper for him [1385] to come forth from the tribe of Judah and to come forth from Bethlehem. However, now we notice that no one of the clan of Israel has remained in the city of Bethlehem since the time when it was forbidden for any of the Jews to linger in the boundaries of that region of yours, such that this [word] also of the prophet has been fulfilled, 13.4 ‘Your land is forsaken, your cities are consumed by fire’, which happened to them in a time of war, ‘foreigners shall devour your country in your sight and it shall be forsaken and overthrown by an alien people,’ that is by the Romans. Thus the prophet says in another place, ‘You shall see the king with his brightness’—that is, the Christ performing feats of strength in the glory of God the Father—‘and your eyes shall see the land from a distance.’ As you are prohibited from entering your land after the destruction of Jerusalem on account of your faults, it is permitted to see it only with your eyes from a distance. ‘Your soul,’ he says, ‘shall think about terror,’ namely, what they suffered from the time of their own overthrow. 13.5 How, therefore, will a leader be born from Judah, and to what extent will he proceed from Bethlehem—just as the divine volumes of the prophets announce—when even now no one at all from Israel has been left behind there from whose stock he can be born?
On the other hand, if, according to the Jews, the Christ has not come yet, when he does come, where will he be anointed? 13.6 In fact, the law has taught that it was not lawful that the anointing with royal chrism be made in captivity. But if now there is no anointing there, as Daniel has prophesied—for he says, ‘anointing will be abolished’—therefore now there is no anointed because there is no temple where the horn was from which the kings used to be anointed. 13.7 Therefore, if there is no anointing, where will the leader be anointed who will be born in Bethlehem, or how will he proceed from Bethlehem when no one at all from the seed of Israel [1386] is in Bethlehem? 13.8 Let us show again finally that the Christ has already come in accordance with the prophets, suffered, and has now been taken back into heaven from where he is going to come in accordance with the proclamations of the prophets. 13.9 For after his coming, we read, in accordance with Daniel, the fact that the city itself has to be destroyed and we recognize that so it has been done. In fact, thus Scripture says, ‘Both city and sanctuary shall be destroyed at the same time with the leader.’ With which leader? Undoubtedly, it was he who was about to proceed from Bethlehem and from the tribe of Judah.
13.10 From this it is also clear that the city was due to be destroyed at the same time as when its leader was having to suffer in it, in accordance with the writings of the prophets who say, ‘I have stretched out my hands for the whole day to a people who are stubborn and speaking against me and who walk not in a way that is good but after their own sins.’ Likewise in the psalms, They have destroyed my hands and my feet. They have counted all my bones. Moreover, they themselves have seen and considered me’,and ‘in my thirst they have given me vinegar to drink.’ 13.11 David did not suffer these things in order to seem to have spoken correctly about himself, but the Christ who was crucified [suffered them]. Hands and feet are not destroyed except of him who is hung on a tree. Also from [the psalms], David himself was saying that the Lord would reign from a tree, for elsewhere even the prophet proclaims the fruit of this tree, saying, The earth has given her blessings.’ [1387] Certainly that virgin earth was not yet moistened with rain nor had been made fruitful by showers, from which a human being was first created back then and from which now the Christ was born according to the flesh from the virgin. ‘And the tree has borne its fruit’; not that tree in paradise that gave death to the first human beings, but the tree of the suffering of the Christ, from where the life that hung there was not believed by you. 13.12 In fact, this tree was at that time a mystery, when Moses sweetened the bitter water, from where the people, who were dying of thirst in the desert, revived by drinking. We who have been taken out of the calamities of the times in which we used to dwell, dying of thirst, do the same—that is, having been approved by the divine word—we have come back to life by the tree of the suffering of the Christ through the waters of baptism, drinking the faith that is in him. 13.13 Israel fell away from this faith, according to Jeremiah who says, ‘Send! Ask thoroughly if such things are done, if the clans have exchanged their gods, and those gods of yours are not gods. However, my people has exchanged their glory, from which [exchange] nothing will come forth for them. Heaven grew frightened over that.’ And when did it grow frightened? Without doubt, it was when Christ suffered. 13.14 ‘And it shuddered thoroughly.’ And when has it shuddered thoroughly if not in the suffering of Christ, when the earth also shook and the sun grew dark in the middle of the day and the curtain of the temple was split and the tombs were broken apart? He said, This is because my people have done two vile things: they have forsaken me, the fountain of the water of life, and they have dug worn-out troughs for themselves, which are not able to hold water.’ 13.15 Without doubt, by not receiving Christ, the fountain of the water of life, [1388] they have begun to possess worn-out troughs—that is, the synagogues among the scattering of the Gentiles. The Holy Spirit does not now remain in them, as it used to dwell in the temple in the past, before the coming of the Christ, who is the true temple of God. 13.16 For the prophet also proclaimed that they were going to suffer that drought of the divine Spirit, saying,
Behold, those who serve me shall eat but you shall starve. Those serving me shall drink but you shall thirst and shall howl from an anguish of spirit. In fact, you shall give up your name for loathing by my chosen ones but the Lord shall kill you. However, those who serve me, to them a new name shall be given which will be blessed in the lands.
13.17 Moreover, we read in the book of Kings of the mystery of this wood still being celebrated. For when the sons of the prophets were cutting wood with axes on the river Jordan, the iron leapt off and was plunged into the river. And thus, when Elisha the prophet had arrived, the sons of the prophets begged him to lift out the iron that had been plunged into the river. 13.18 And thus, as Elisha had taken and released wood at that place where the iron had been submerged, the iron floated at once, and the sons of the prophets recovered it when the wood was immersed. From this they understood the fact that the spirit of Elijah had been made present to him. 13.19 What is more obvious by the mystery of this wood, than that the hardness of this age has been plunged into profound error, and by the wood of Christ—that is, by his suffering—is freed through baptism in order that what once had been lost in Adam on account of wood, could be restored through the wood of the Christ to us who have followed in place of the prophets, enduring in this present age those things that the prophets always suffered on account of divine religion? 13.20 For some they stoned, some they drove away. In fact they handed more over to death, which they cannot deny And this wood, Isaac himself, the son of Abraham, carried for himself to the sacrifice when God had commanded him to become the victim for [God]. 13.21 But as these things were mysteries that [1389] were being preserved to be understood in the times of the Christ, Isaac with his wood was saved when a ram, which had got stuck by the horns in a thorn bush, was sacrificed, while Christ in his times carried the wood on his shoulders, clinging to the horns of the cross, a crown of thorns around his head. For it was proper for him who, ‘has been led like a sheep to sacrifice and just as a lamb itself without a voice in the presence of the shearer, thus he did not open his mouth’, to become this sacrifice for all clans. 13.22 In fact, he said nothing when interrogated by Pilate. For ‘his trial was endured in submissiveness’. In addition, ‘Who will tell of his birth?’ Why? Because no one at all of the human race was aware of the birth of the Christ, at his conception, when Mary the virgin was discovered pregnant by the word of God and because ‘his life was removed from the land’. 13.23 Why so? Certainly after his resurrection from the dead, which was carried out on the third day, the heavens took him back, according to the prophecy of this kind uttered by Hosea, ‘Before daybreak they will arise and say to me, “Let us go and return to the Lord our God as God will rescue and free us after two days on the third day.”’ This is the glorious resurrection of him from earth into the heavens, neither whose birth nor whose suffering the Jews acknowledged. [God] took him back from where the Spirit itself too had come to the virgin.
13.24 Therefore, as the Jews maintain that the Christ has not yet come, whom in so many ways we have proved to have come, let the Jews recognize the end that, it was prophesied, they would bring upon themselves after Christ’s coming, on account of their impiety in despising and killing him. [1390] In fact, first, since that day on which, as the word of Isaiah says, a person has thrown away their detestable objects of gold and silver that they made for worshipping empty and hurtful things—since, that is, we Gentiles, our hearts enlightened through the truth of Christ, have thrown away our idols—let the Jews also see that what follows has been accomplished. 13.25 ‘For the Lord of hosts has taken from the Jews and from Jerusalem’—among other things—‘the wise architect who is building the Church, the temple of God, and the home of the Lord’. As from then on the grace of God has ceased among them, and the commandment has been given to the clouds that they do not release rain upon the vineyard of Sorech, which means that heavenly benefits have been commanded not to spring up for the house of Israel. 13.26 In fact, it had brought forth thorns, with some of which it made a crown for the Christ, [it had brought forth] not righteousness but the cry it had extracted from him on the cross. Thus the showers of spiritual gifts were withdrawn, and the law and the prophets ceased with John, and the pool of Bethsaida stopped curing the illnesses within Israel with the coming of the Christ. After that, by the continuation of their own rage, the name of the Lord was blasphemed through them, as it is written, ‘For your sakes the name of the Lord is blasphemed among the Gentiles.’ For from them began that infamy and the time between Tiberius and Vespasian. Since they had committed those infamies and had not understood the Christ who came in the time of the own punishment, Their land was made desolate and their cities burned with fire, their country was devoured [1391] before them by strangers, and the daughter of Sion was left as derelict as a look-out in a vineyard or a hut in a cucumber patch’, since that time, in fact, when ‘Israel did not know the Lord and the people did not understand him’, but forsook him more and provoked the holy one of Israel to indignation. 13.27 Thus also the conditional threat of the sword threatens them: ‘If you are unwilling and refuse to hear me, the sword will devour you’. From this we prove that the sword was Christ whom they refused to hear. Also in the psalm he demands of the Father their dispersion saying, ‘Disperse them in your strength.’ Again through the guise of Isaiah, he says about their being burnt, These things have been done to you, you will sleep in sorrow.’ 13.28 It follows, as the Jews were declared as going to suffer these things on account of the Christ, and we find them having been suffered and we perceive that the Jews linger in dispersion, that it is obvious that those things happened to the Jews on account of the Christ, by the agreement of the sense of the Scriptures with the course of events and the order of the times. 13.29 Or, if the Christ has not yet come, the Christ on whose account it is prophesied that they are to suffer these things, it follows that when he does come they will suffer them. But where by that time will there be a daughter of Sion to be made desolate, who today is not in Judaea? Where are the cities to be burned with fire? They are already in ruinous heaps. Where is the dispersion of that clan? It is already in exile. Give back to Judaea its position that the Christ may find it so. Only this way can you claim that he who has come is a different Christ.
14.1 Nowlearn guidance from the totality of your error. We say that there are two conditions of the Christ set forth by the prophets, giving a prior indication of an equal number of advents: one of them, the first, in humility, [1392] when ‘he was led like a sheep to sacrifice, and as a lamb itself is without a voice before the shearer, thus he did not open his mouth, and hewas not even respectable to look at’. 14.2 In fact, he says
We have announced concerning him: [He is] like a little boy, like a root in thirsty ground. There was also no appearance nor glory to him, and we saw him, and he had no appearance or beauty, but his appearance was without honour, [he was] more rejected than the children of men, a man placed in affliction, and knowing how to bear infirmity.
That is to say, [he was] set by the Father ‘as a stumbling stone’, and ‘made a little lower than the angels’, by the Father, declaring himself, ‘a worm and no man, a human disgrace and the outcast of the people’. 14.3 These marks of degradation apply to his first advent, as the marks of exaltation apply to the second, when he will become no longer a stumbling stone or a rock of scandal, but the chief cornerstone, taken back again after rejection and set on high at the summit, that rock in fact mentioned by Daniel, which was cut from the mountain, which will crush and crumble the image of the kingdoms of this world. 14.4 Concerning this second advent the same prophet speaks
And behold, one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, came even to the Ancient of days and he was in his presence, and the attendants brought him forward, and there was given to him royal power and all the earth after its kind and all glory to serve him. His power that shall not be taken away is eternal, and his kingdom is one that shall not be corrupted.
14.5 Then certainly he will have an honourable appearance, and unfading beauty, more than the children of men. For it says, Fairer [1393] in beauty beyond the sons of men, grace is poured forth in your lips; therefore God has blessed you for ever. Gird the sword upon your thigh, O most high in your suitability and your beauty’, while the Father, now that [the Father] has made him a little lower than the angels, also has crowned him with glory and honour and has put all things under his feet. 14.6 Then they will know him whom they have pierced and will strike their breasts, tribe to tribe, because in fact they formerly failed to recognize him in the humility of his human condition. ‘And he is a man,’ says Jeremiah, ‘and who will know him?’ Because also, Isaiah says, ‘Who will explain his nativity?’ 14.7 So also in Zechariah, in the presence of Joshua, yes truly, in the mystery of its own name, the truest priest of the Father, Christ, is marked out for two advents by two styles of appearance. He was at first clothed in filthy garments, which means the indignity of suffering and mortal flesh, when also the devil, who put it into the heart of Judas the traitor, and who had tempted him after his baptism, was standing as his adversary. Afterwards, he was stripped of his previous filthy garments and dressed in priestly robe and turban and crown, which means his second coming, as he is shown obtaining glory and dignity. 14.8 Nor will you be able to call him the son of Jehozadak, who was never in a filthy garment but was always arrayed with the priestly garment and was never deprived of the priestly office. However, that Joshua is the Christ, the high priest of God the Father, who, in his first coming, came [1394] in the humility of suffering human form, even in the period before his suffering. He was even proven through everything a victim for us all, who, after his resurrection when he was clothed in a robe, is named priest of God the Father for eternity.
14.9 In fact, thus also let me make an interpretation of the two goats that were offered at the fast. Do these not also show the two conditions of the Christ who is already come? They are indeed of the same age and appearance on account of the one and the same aspect of the Lord, because he will return in no other form, seeing that he has to be recognized by those from whom he has suffered injury. One of them, however, which was surrounded with scarlet, cursed and spat upon and perforated and punctured, was driven outside the city by the people to ruin, marked with obvious emblems of the suffering of Christ, who, having been surrounded with a scarlet garment, spat upon and knocked about with every physical violence, was crucified outside the city. The other, however, made an offering for offences, and given as food only to the priests of the temple, is marked with the proof of his second manifestation, because when all offences have been done away, the priests of the spiritual temple—that is, the church—were to enjoy as it were a feast of our Lord’s grace, while the rest remain without a taste of salvation. 14.10 Therefore, seeing that the first advent was foretold under obscurity by many figures and destroyed by every sort of indignity, while the second was both clearly told of, and was worthy of God, they set their eyes on that one alone that they were able to understand and believe easily—that is, the second—which is in honour and glory, and thus were, as might have been expected, deceived about of the more obscure, admittedly less dignified—that is, the first. Thus even until this day they refuse to admit that their Christ has come, because he has not come in majesty, being unaware that he was first also to come in humility.
[1395] 14.11 It is sufficient so far to have run through Christ’s condition in these things in the meantime, such that it is proven that he is such a one as was announced. And so now from that accord of the divine Scriptures, we may understand also that the things that were declared as going to be after the Christ may be believed to have been accomplished by reason of the divine arrangement. In fact, in no way would the things have happened that were declared as following on his coming, unless he had come after whom they had to be accomplished. 14.12 Therefore, if you perceive all the tribes after that time [of Christ] emerging from the depths of human error towards God the creator and [God’s] Christ, a point you would not dare to deny as being prophesied, because immediately the Father’s promise in the psalms, just as now we have mentioned already, meets you saying, ‘You are my son, this day I have begotten you. Seek for me and I shall give you the Gentiles for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.’ Neither can you claim Solomon, the son of David, for that proclamation, more than Christ, the son of God, nor the ends of the earth having been promised to the son of David, who ruled only within Judaea, more than to Christ, the son of God, who now has enlightened the whole world with the light of his gospel. 14.13 Furthermore, an eternal throne agrees more with Christ, the Son of God, than with Solomon, who was in fact a temporal king who ruled in Israel only. For today, the tribes that did not know him are invoking Christ, and today the people are taking refuge in Christ, of whom formerly they were ignorant. Moreover, you are not able to contend [1396] that what you see is done will be done. 14.14 Either deny that these were prophesied, when they are seen openly, or that they were fulfilled, when they are read. Or if you do not deny either of these, they have been fulfilled in him for whom they were prophesied.
