Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 18

[I] The promises of God, which were made to Abraham — to whose seed, as we have learned by God's own promising, both the nation of Israel is owed according to the flesh, and all the nations according to faith — in what manner they are fulfilled, the City of God, running its course through the order of the ages, will make plain. Since, therefore, the preceding book was brought to a close down to the reign of David, we now, beginning from that same reign, so far as seems sufficient for the work we have undertaken, treat of the remaining things that follow. This period, then — from the time when the holy Samuel began to prophesy, and thenceforward until the people of Israel were led captive into Babylon, and thence, after the Israelites returned according to the prophecy of the holy Jeremiah after seventy years, the house of God was restored — this whole period is that of the prophets.

For although both Noah the patriarch himself, in whose days the whole earth was destroyed by the flood, and others before and after, down to this time when kings began to be among the people of God, on account of certain things that were to come to pass through them — whether signified by some symbolic act or foretold — which pertained to the City of God and the kingdom of heaven, may not undeservedly be called prophets (especially since we read that some of them are more expressly so named, as Abraham, as Moses): yet the days of the prophets are chiefly and most especially called those from the time when Samuel began to prophesy, who both anointed Saul first, and, when he was rejected, David himself as king by God's command, from whose stock the rest were to succeed, for as long as it behoved them so to succeed.

Therefore, as to what things were foretold by the prophets concerning Christ, while the City of God ran through these times, its members dying and passing away and being born and succeeding — if I should wish to commemorate them all, one is carried on to an immensity; first, because Scripture itself, which, arranging in order the kings and their deeds and events, seems to be occupied as though with historical diligence in narrating things done, if it be considered and handled with the aid of God's Spirit, will be found intent no less — or rather more, or at least not less — upon foretelling things to come than upon setting forth things past;

(and how laborious and lengthy it is to track this out by scrutiny and to demonstrate it by discussion, and how many volumes it requires, who is ignorant that even moderately considers these things?) then, because those very things which are not doubted to pertain to prophecy are so many concerning Christ and the kingdom of heaven, which is the City of God, that to lay this open a greater disputation would be needed than the measure of this work demands. Accordingly I will so govern my pen, if I can, that in carrying out this work in the will of God I may neither say the things that are superfluous nor pass over the things that are sufficient.

[II] In the preceding book we said that from the beginning, in the promises of God to Abraham, two things were promised: one, namely, that his seed should possess the land of Canaan (which is signified where it is said: Go into the land which I will show thee, and I will make thee into a great nation); but the other far more excellent, not of a carnal but of a spiritual seed, through which he is the father not of the one Israelite nation only, but of all nations which follow the footsteps of his faith; which began to be promised in these words: And in thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed; and thereafter by very many other testimonies we showed that these two things were promised.

Therefore Abraham's seed, that is, the people of Israel according to the flesh, was already in the land of promise, and there had already begun to reign, not only by holding and possessing the cities of their adversaries, but even by having kings; the promises of God concerning that people being now fulfilled in great part — not only those which were made to those three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and whatever others in their times, but also those which had been made through Moses himself, through whom that same people was freed from Egyptian servitude and through whom all things past were revealed, in his times, when he was leading the people through the wilderness.

But neither through the distinguished leader Joshua the son of Nun — through whom that people was led into the land of promise, and, the nations being conquered, he divided it among the twelve tribes as God had commanded, and then died — nor after him throughout the whole time of the judges, had the promise of God been fulfilled concerning the land of Canaan from a certain river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates; nor yet was it as yet being prophesied as future, but was being awaited as to be fulfilled. And it was fulfilled through David and his son Solomon, whose kingdom was extended over as great a space as had been promised; for they subdued all those peoples and made them tributary.

Thus, therefore, in the land of promise according to the flesh, that is, in the land of Canaan, under these kings the seed of Abraham had been so established that thereafter nothing remained by which that earthly promise of God might be fulfilled, except that in that same land, as far as pertains to temporal prosperity, the Hebrew nation should remain, through the succession of posterity, in an unshaken state, unto the end of this mortal age — if it obeyed the laws of the Lord its God.

But since God knew that it would not do this, he used even its temporal punishments both to exercise in it the few of his own faithful ones, and to admonish those who were afterwards to be in all nations — as to that of which they needed to be admonished — in whom he was to fulfil the other promise, the New Testament being revealed through the incarnation of Christ.

[III] Wherefore, just as those divine oracles to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and whatever other prophetic signs or sayings were made in the preceding sacred writings, so also the rest of the prophecies from this time of the kings pertain partly to the nation of Abraham's flesh, but partly to that seed of his in which all nations are blessed as co-heirs of Christ through the New Testament, to possess eternal life and the kingdom of heaven; partly, then, to the bondwoman who bears children into bondage, that is, the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children; but partly to the free City of God, that is, the true Jerusalem, eternal in the heavens, whose children, living according to God, are pilgrims on earth.

But there are among them certain things which are understood to pertain to both — to the bondwoman properly, to the free woman figuratively. The utterances of the prophets, then, are found to be threefold: since some pertain to the earthly Jerusalem, some to the heavenly, and some to both. I see that what I say must be proved by examples. Nathan the prophet was sent to reprove king David for his grievous sin and to foretell to him the evils that ensued as future. Who would doubt that these and such-like things — whether publicly, that is, for the welfare or utility of the people, or privately, when each one for his own affairs merited divine utterances by which something future might be known for the use of temporal life — pertained to the earthly city? But where it is read:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a New Testament, not according to the testament which I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in my testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord. For this is the testament which I will establish for the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: giving my laws into their mind, and I will write them upon their hearts; and I will see them, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: without doubt the Jerusalem above is prophesied, whose reward is God himself, and to have him and to be his own is there the highest and the whole good.

But to both pertains this very thing, that Jerusalem is called the City of God, and that in it a house of God is prophesied as future; and this prophecy seems to be fulfilled when king Solomon builds that most noble temple. For these things both came to pass in the earthly Jerusalem according to history, and were figures of the heavenly Jerusalem.

This kind of prophecy, as it were compacted and mingled from both, in the old canonical books which contain the narratives of things done, avails very greatly and has greatly exercised, and still exercises, the minds of those who search the sacred writings — so that what is read as historically foretold and fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, should also be inquired into, as to what it allegorically signifies to be fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to faith; to such a degree that it has seemed to some that there is nothing in those same books, whether foretold and accomplished, or accomplished though not foretold, which does not intimate something to be referred by a figurative signification to the supernal City of God and its children who are pilgrims in this life.

But if this is so, then the utterances of the prophets — or rather of all those Scriptures which are reckoned under the appellation of the Old Testament — will be twofold, not threefold. For there will be nothing there which pertains only to the earthly Jerusalem, if whatever is said or fulfilled there concerning her or on her account signifies something which is also to be referred by an allegorical prefiguration to the heavenly Jerusalem; but there will be only two kinds: one which pertains to the free Jerusalem, the other which pertains to both.

But to me, just as those seem to err greatly who think that no deeds recorded in that kind of literature signify anything beyond that which they were thus done, so those seem to dare too much who contend that absolutely everything there is wrapped up in allegorical significations. For this reason I have said that they are threefold, not twofold. For I hold this opinion, yet without blaming those who have been able to extract there, from any deed done, a sense of spiritual understanding — provided, at least, that the truth of the history be first preserved. But as for those things which are so said that they cannot be fitting to things done or to be done, whether humanly or divinely, what faithful person would doubt that they are not said in vain?

Who would not recall these to a spiritual understanding, if he can, or acknowledge that they are to be so recalled by one who can? [IV] Therefore, the course of the City of God, when it came to the times of the kings — when David first obtained the kingdom, Saul having been rejected, in such wise that his posterity thereafter reigned in earthly Jerusalem by a long succession — gave a figure, signifying and foretelling by a deed done that which is not to be passed over in silence, concerning the change of things to come, as regards the two testaments, the old and the new, wherein the priesthood and the kingdom were changed through a priest who is also a king, new and everlasting, who is Christ Jesus.

For both Samuel, substituted in God's service when the priest Eli was rejected — discharging at once the office of priest and of judge — and king David, established in the kingdom when Saul was cast off, prefigured this of which I speak. Samuel's mother Hannah also, who was formerly barren and was gladdened by a later fruitfulness, seems to prophesy nothing else when, exulting, she pours out her thanksgiving to the Lord, when with the same devotion with which she had vowed him she returns to God that same boy born and weaned. For she says: My heart is confirmed in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies, I have rejoiced in thy salvation. For there is none holy as the Lord, and there is none righteous as our God;

there is none holy besides thee. Boast not, and speak not lofty things, nor let arrogant speech go forth from your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and a God who prepares his own designs. The bow of the mighty he has made weak, and the weak are girded with strength; the full of bread are diminished, and the hungry have passed over the earth. For the barren has borne seven, and she that had many children is grown feeble. The Lord kills and makes alive, he leads down to the nether world and brings back. The Lord makes poor and enriches, he humbles and exalts. He raises up the poor from the earth, and lifts up the needy from the dunghill, that he may set him with the mighty of the people, and giving them a throne of glory as an inheritance;

granting the vow to him that vows, and he has blessed the years of the righteous, for not in his own strength is man mighty. The Lord shall make his adversary weak, the Lord is holy. Let not the prudent glory in his prudence, and let not the mighty glory in his might, and let not the rich glory in his riches; but in this let him that glories glory, to understand and to know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth. The Lord has ascended into the heavens and has thundered; he himself shall judge the ends of the earth, for he is just; and he gives strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of his Christ. Shall these words then be thought to be those of a mere little woman, giving thanks for a son born to her?

Is the mind of man so turned away from the light of truth that it does not perceive that the words this woman poured forth surpass the measure of a woman? Moreover, he who is fittingly moved by the very things which have now begun to be fulfilled even in this earthly pilgrimage, does he not fix his attention and behold and recognize, through this woman — whose very name, that is, Hannah, is interpreted 'his grace' — the Christian religion itself, the City of God itself, whose king and founder is Christ, and finally the very grace of God, thus speaking by a prophetic spirit, from which the proud are estranged so that they fall, and by which the humble are filled so that they rise, which above all this hymn resounded?

Unless perhaps someone is going to say that this woman prophesied nothing at all, but only praised God in exultant proclamation on account of the son whom she obtained by her prayer. What then does she mean when she says: 'He has made the bow of the mighty weak, and the weak are girded with strength; those full of bread are brought low, and the hungry have passed over the earth; for the barren has borne seven, and she that was rich in children has grown weak'? Had she herself borne seven, though she had been barren? She had but one when she said these things; nor did she afterward bear seven, or six so that Samuel himself would be the seventh, but three males and two females. Then, when as yet no one reigned over that people, consider what she set at the end:

'He gives strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of His Christ' — whence did she say this, if she was not prophesying? Let the Church of Christ therefore speak, the city of the great King, full of grace, fruitful in offspring; let her acknowledge and speak what was so long before prophesied of her through the mouth of this devout mother: 'My heart is strengthened in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God.' Truly is the heart strengthened and the horn truly exalted, because it is not in herself but in the Lord her God. 'My mouth is enlarged over my enemies,' because even in the straits of tribulations the word of God is not bound, nor bound in its bound heralds. 'I have rejoiced,' she says, 'in Thy salvation.' This is Christ, that Jesus whom Simeon, as we read in the Gospel, an old man embracing the little child, recognized as the Great One:

'Now,' he said, 'Lord, Thou dost dismiss Thy servant in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.' Let the Church therefore say: 'I have rejoiced in Thy salvation; for there is none holy as the Lord, and there is none righteous as our God' — as one holy and sanctifying, righteous and justifying. 'There is none holy besides Thee,' for no one becomes holy except by Thee. And so it follows: 'Do not boast, and do not speak lofty things, neither let arrogant speech come forth from your mouth; for the Lord is the God of knowledge.' He knows you, even where no one knows; 'for whoever thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceives himself.'

These things are said against the adversaries of the City of God who belong to Babylon, who presume upon their own strength, who glory in themselves and not in the Lord; among whom are also the carnal Israelites, earth-born citizens of the earthly Jerusalem, who, as the Apostle says, being ignorant of the righteousness of God (that is, the righteousness which God gives to man, He who alone is righteous and justifying) and wishing to establish their own (that is, as though won by themselves for themselves, not imparted by Him), have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God — surely because they are proud, thinking that they can please God by their own means and not by God's, He who is the God of knowledge and therefore also the judge of consciences, seeing there the thoughts of men, that they are vain, if they are of men and are not from Him.

'And He prepares,' she says, 'His devices.' What devices do we suppose these to be, save that the proud should fall and the humble should rise? These very devices she carries out, saying: 'The bow of the mighty has been made weak, and the weak are girded with strength.' The bow has been made weak — that is, the intention of those who seem to themselves so mighty that they can fulfil the divine commandments by human sufficiency without God's gift and aid; and those are girded with strength whose inward voice is: 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak.' 'Those full of bread,' she says, 'are brought low, and the hungry have passed over the earth.' Who are to be understood as full of bread, save those same seemingly mighty ones, that is, the Israelites, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted?

But among that people the children of the handmaid are brought low (by which phrase, though less correct in Latin, is well expressed the fact that from being greater they were made less), because even in those very loaves — that is, in the divine oracles which the Israelites alone at that time received out of all the nations — they savour earthly things. But the Gentiles, to whom that law had not been given, after they came to those oracles through the New Testament, by much hungering passed over the earth, because in them they savoured not earthly but heavenly things. And, as though the reason were sought why this came to pass: 'Because,' she says, 'the barren has borne seven, and she that was rich in children has grown weak.'

Here the whole of what was being prophesied shone forth to those who recognize the number seven, by which the perfection of the whole Church is signified. On this account also the Apostle John writes to seven churches, thereby showing that he is writing to the fulness of the one Church; and in the Proverbs of Solomon, prefiguring this beforehand, Wisdom 'has built herself a house and set up seven pillars.' For the City of God was barren in all the nations before this offspring, which we behold, arose. We behold also that the earthly Jerusalem, which was rich in children, is now made weak; for whatever children of the free woman were in her were her strength; but now, because there is the letter and there is not the spirit, having lost her strength she is made weak.

'The Lord kills and makes alive; He has killed her who was rich in children, and has made alive this barren one who bore seven.' Although it may more fittingly be understood that He makes alive the very same whom He has killed. For she as it were repeated this by adding: 'He brings down to hell and brings back.' For those to whom the Apostle says, 'If you are dead with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God,' are surely killed by the Lord for their good; to whom he adds, 'Savour the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth,' so that they themselves may be those who, being hungry, passed over the earth. 'For you are dead,' he says — behold in what manner God kills for our good; then it follows: 'And your life is hidden with Christ in God;'

Behold in what manner God makes those same ones alive. But did He bring the same ones down to hell and bring them back? Both of these, without controversy among the faithful, we see rather fulfilled in Him — namely, in our Head, with whom the Apostle said our life is hidden in God. For He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, in this manner surely killed Him; and because He raised Him from the dead, He made the same One alive again. And because in the prophecy His voice is recognized: 'Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,' He brought the same One down to hell and brought Him back. By this His poverty we have been enriched. 'For the Lord makes poor and makes rich.' Now that we may know what this means, let us hear what follows: 'He humbles and exalts' —

surely He humbles the proud and exalts the humble. For what is read elsewhere, 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble,' this whole discourse of her contains, whose name is interpreted as 'His grace.' But now, as for what is added: 'He raises up the poor man from the earth,' I understand this of no one better than of Him who for our sake became poor, though He was rich, that by His poverty, as was said a little before, we might be enriched. For He raised Him from the earth so quickly that His flesh did not see corruption. Nor will I alienate from Him what is added: 'And from the dunghill He lifts up the needy.' For the same one who is poor is needy;

but the dunghill from which he is lifted up is most rightly understood to be the persecuting Jews, in whose number when the Apostle had said that he had persecuted the Church: 'The things which were gain to me,' he says, 'these I have counted loss for Christ; and not only detriments, but I have even esteemed them as dung, that I might gain Christ.' From the earth therefore was raised up that poor man above all the rich, and from that dunghill was lifted up above all the wealthy that needy man, that he might sit with the mighty of the people, to whom He says: 'You shall sit upon twelve seats' — and giving them the seat of glory as an inheritance; for those mighty ones had said: 'Behold, we have left all and have followed Thee.' This vow they had most mightily vowed.

But whence came this to them, save from Him of whom it is here immediately said: 'Granting the vow to him who vows'? Otherwise they would be among those mighty ones whose bow has been made weak. 'Granting,' she says, 'the vow to him who vows.' For no one could vow to the Lord anything right, unless he received from Him that which he should vow. It follows: 'And He has blessed the years of the just,' that he may live with Him without end, He to whom it is said: 'And Thy years shall not fail.' For there the years stand fast, but here they pass away, nay, they perish; for before they come, they are not; and when they have come, they will not be, because they come with their own ending. Of these two, that is, 'granting the vow to him who vows' and 'He has blessed the years of the just,' the one is what we do, the other what we receive.

But this latter is not received from God the bestower, unless with Him as helper the former is first accomplished: 'For not in his own strength is a man mighty. The Lord shall make his adversary weak' — namely, him who envies and resists the man who vows, that he may not be able to fulfil what he has vowed. It can also be understood from the ambiguous Greek as 'his own adversary.' For when the Lord has begun to possess us, assuredly the adversary who had been ours becomes His and shall be overcome by us — but not by our own powers, because not in his own strength is a man mighty. The Lord therefore shall make His adversary weak, the Lord who is holy; that he may be overcome by the saints, whom the Lord, holy of holies, makes holy.

And on this account 'let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might, and let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glories glory in this, to understand and know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth.' In no small measure does he understand and know the Lord who understands and knows that this too is given him by the Lord, namely, that he should understand and know the Lord. 'For what hast thou,' says the Apostle, 'which thou hast not received? But if thou hast also received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received?' — that is, as though it were from thyself that thou hast whereof to glory. Moreover, he does judgment and justice who lives rightly. And he lives rightly who obeys God who commands;

and the end of the commandment — that is, that to which the commandment is referred — is charity, out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. Furthermore, this charity, as the Apostle John testifies, is from God. To do judgment and justice, therefore, is from God. But what is meant by 'in the midst of the earth'? For surely those who dwell in the farthest parts of the earth ought not to fail to do judgment and justice. Who would say this? Why then is it added, 'in the midst of the earth'? Whereas, if it were not added and it were only said, 'to do judgment and justice,' this commandment would rather pertain to both kinds of men, both the inlanders and those by the sea.

But lest anyone should think that after the end of the life which is lived in this body there remains time for doing the judgment and justice which he did not do while he was in the flesh, and that thus the divine judgment can be escaped: 'in the midst of the earth' seems to me to be said as meaning 'while each one lives in the body.' For in this life each one carries about his own earth, which, when the man dies, the common earth receives, and will surely restore to him when he rises again. Accordingly, in the midst of the earth — that is, while our soul is enclosed within this earthly body — judgment and justice must be done, which will profit us hereafter, when each one receives according to those things which he has done through the body, whether good or evil. For the Apostle there said 'through the body' meaning during the time in which he lived in the body.

For if anyone with malignant mind and impious thought should blaspheme, and yet not carry it out with any members of the body, he will not on that account be free of guilt because he did not accomplish it by any motion of the body, since he did this during that time in which he also possessed a body. In this way that too can fittingly be understood which is read in the Psalm: 'But God our King before the ages has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth' — so that the Lord Jesus may be taken as our God, who is before the ages, because through Him the ages were made, working our salvation in the midst of the earth, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt in an earthly body.

Then, after it had been prophesied in these words of Hannah how he ought to glory who glories — not in himself, of course, but in the Lord — on account of the recompense which is to be at the day of judgment: 'The Lord,' she says, 'has ascended into the heavens and has thundered; He Himself shall judge the ends of the earth, because He is just.' She has surely kept the order of the confession of the faithful. For the Lord Christ ascended into heaven, and from thence He is to come to judge the living and the dead. For who ascended, as the Apostle says, except He who also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same also who ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. Through His clouds therefore He thundered, which, when He had ascended, He filled with the Holy Spirit.

Concerning these clouds He threatened, in the prophet Isaiah, against the handmaid Jerusalem, that is, the ungrateful vineyard, that they should not rain upon her. But it was so said, 'He Himself shall judge the ends of the earth,' as if it were said, 'even the ends of the earth.' For He will not fail to judge the other parts, who without doubt will judge all men. But the ends of the earth are better understood as the ends of man; since those things will not be judged which in the intervening time are changed for better or for worse, but the extremities in which each one, who is to be judged, shall be found. On this account it is said: 'He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.' He therefore who perseveringly does judgment and justice in the midst of the earth shall not be condemned when the ends of the earth are judged.

'And He gives,' she says, 'strength to our kings,' that in judging He may not condemn them. He gives them strength whereby they may rule the flesh as kings, and may conquer in Him the world, which shed its blood on their account. 'And He shall exalt the horn of His Christ.' In what manner shall Christ exalt the horn of His Christ? For He of whom it was said above, 'The Lord has ascended into the heavens,' and was understood to be the Lord Christ — He Himself, as is here said, shall exalt the horn of His Christ. Who then is the Christ of Christ? Or shall He exalt the horn of each one of His faithful ones, just as she herself at the beginning of this hymn says, 'My horn is exalted in my God'? For indeed we can rightly call all who are anointed with His chrism 'christs';

yet this whole body, together with its Head, is one Christ. These things Hannah prophesied, the mother of Samuel, a holy man and much praised; in whom indeed was then prefigured the change of the old priesthood, and now it has been fulfilled, when she who was rich in children was made weak, so that the barren, who bore seven, might have a new priesthood in Christ. [V] But this a man of God, sent to the priest Eli himself, speaks more plainly, whose name indeed is passed over in silence, but who is understood, by his office and ministry, without doubt to be a prophet. For thus it is written: 'And there came a man of God to Eli and said: Thus says the Lord: I was revealed, yea revealed, to the house of thy father, when they were servants in the land of Egypt in the house of Pharaoh;

and I chose the house of thy father out of all the tribes of Israel to perform the priestly office for Me, that they should go up to My altar and burn incense and bear the ephod; and I gave to the house of thy father all things that are of the fire of the children of Israel for food. And why hast thou looked upon My incense and upon My sacrifice with a shameless eye, and hast glorified thy sons above Me, to bless the first-fruits of every sacrifice in Israel in My sight? On this account thus says the Lord God of Israel: I said: Thy house and the house of thy father shall pass before Me for ever. And now the Lord says: By no means; but those who glorify Me I will glorify, and he who despises Me shall be despised.

Behold, the days come, and I will destroy thy seed and the seed of thy father's house, and thou shalt not have an elder in My house all thy days, and I will destroy for thee a man from My altar, that his eyes may fail and his soul melt away; and everyone that shall be left of thy house shall fall by the sword of men. And this shall be a sign to thee, which shall come upon thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die. And I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest, who shall do all things that are in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him a faithful house, and he shall pass before My Christ all his days. And it shall come to pass that whoever shall be left in thy house shall come to worship him for an obol of silver, saying: Cast me into some part of thy priesthood, that I may eat bread.'

It cannot be said that this prophecy, in which with such great clearness the change of the old priesthood was foretold, was fulfilled in Samuel. (For although Samuel was not of another tribe than that which had been appointed by the Lord to serve at the altar, yet he was not of the sons of Aaron, whose progeny had been assigned as the source from which the priests should come;

and thus in that deed too the same change which was to come through Christ Jesus was foreshadowed, and the prophecy pertained properly to the Old Testament, but figuratively to the New — the prophecy being itself of a deed and not merely of a word, that is, signifying by a deed that very thing which was said in word to the priest Eli through the prophet.) For there were afterward priests of the line of Aaron, such as Zadok and Abiathar in the reign of David, and others thereafter, before the time came when those things which were foretold so long before concerning the changing of the priesthood had to be brought about through Christ. But who now, beholding these things with a faithful eye, does not see that they have been fulfilled?

Since indeed no tabernacle, no temple, no altar, no sacrifice, and therefore not even any priest, has remained to the Jews, to whom it had been commanded in the law of God that a priest should be ordained from the seed of Aaron. This too was here mentioned when the prophet said: 'Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I said, Thy house and the house of thy father shall pass before Me for ever. And now the Lord says: By no means; but those who glorify Me I will glorify, and he who despises Me shall be despised.' For that he names 'the house of his father,' meaning not his immediate father, but that Aaron who was the first appointed priest, from whose progeny the rest should follow — the preceding words demonstrate, where he says:

'I was revealed to the house of thy father, when they were servants in the land of Egypt in the house of Pharaoh, and I chose the house of thy father out of all the tribes of Israel to perform the priestly office for Me.' Which of this man's fathers was there in that Egyptian servitude, from which, when they had been set free, one was chosen for the priesthood, save Aaron? Of his stock, therefore, He said in this passage that it would come to pass that there should be no more priests; which we now see fulfilled. Let faith be watchful — the facts are at hand, they are discerned, they are grasped, and they are thrust upon the eyes even of those unwilling to see.

'Behold,' he says, 'the days come, and I will destroy thy seed and the seed of thy father's house, and thou shalt not have an elder in My house all thy days, and I will destroy for thee a man from My altar, that his eyes may fail and his soul melt away.' Behold, the days which were foretold have now come. There is no priest according to the order of Aaron; and whoever is a man of his line, when he sees the sacrifice of the Christians flourishing throughout the whole world, but that great honour taken away from himself, his eyes fail and his soul melts away with the wasting of grief. But properly to the house of this Eli, to whom these things were said, pertains what follows: 'And everyone that shall be left of thy house shall fall by the sword of men.'

'And this shall be a sign to thee, which shall come upon thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die.' This, then, was made a sign of the priesthood being changed from the house of this man, by which sign was signified the priesthood of the house of Aaron that was to be changed. For the death of this man's sons signified the death not of men, but of the priesthood itself of the sons of Aaron. But what follows now pertains to that Priest whose figure Samuel bore by succeeding this one. Accordingly, what follows is said of Christ Jesus, the true Priest of the New Testament: 'And I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest, who shall do all things that are in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him a faithful house.' This is the eternal and heavenly Jerusalem.

'And he shall pass,' he says, 'before My Christ all his days.' By 'shall pass' he meant 'shall converse [dwell]'; just as above he had said of the house of Aaron: 'I said, Thy house and the house of thy father shall pass before Me for ever.' But when he says, 'He shall pass before My Christ,' this is surely to be understood of that house itself, not of that Priest who is Christ Himself, the Mediator and Saviour. His house, therefore, shall pass before Him. 'Shall pass' can also be understood of passing from death to life, all the days during which this mortality is enacted unto the end of this world. But when God says, 'Who shall do all things that are in My heart and in My soul,' let us not suppose that God has a soul, since He is the Creator of the soul;

but this is said of God tropically, not properly, just as 'hand' and 'foot' and other members of the body. And lest on this account it be believed that man was made to the image of God in the shape of this flesh, wings also are added, which surely man does not have, and it is said to God: 'Under the shadow of Thy wings Thou wilt protect me' — so that men may understand that of that ineffable nature these things are said not by proper but by transferred names of things. But what is added, 'And it shall come to pass that whoever shall be left in thy house shall come to worship him,' is said not properly of the house of this Eli, but of that of Aaron, from which men remained until the coming of Jesus Christ, and of which line even now to this day there are not lacking. For of that house of this Eli it had already been said above:

'And everyone that shall be left of thy house shall fall by the sword of men.' In what manner then could it here be truly said, 'And it shall come to pass that whoever shall be left in thy house shall come to worship him,' if that is true, that by the avenging sword no one from thence was to be left? Unless because he wished those to be understood who belong to the stock, but of that whole priesthood according to the order of Aaron. Therefore, if it is of those predestined remnants of whom another prophet said, 'The remnant shall be saved' (whence also the Apostle says, 'So then at this present time also there is a remnant made according to the election of grace'), because he is well understood to be of such remnants of whom it was said, 'Whoever shall be left in thy house' — he assuredly believes in Christ;

just as in the times of the apostles very many from that nation itself believed, and now too there are not lacking those who, though very rarely, yet believe; and there is fulfilled what this man of God immediately added in continuation: 'He shall come to worship him for an obol of silver.' To worship whom, save that highest Priest who is also God? For in that priesthood according to the order of Aaron men did not come to this end at the temple or altar of God, that they might worship the priest. But what is meant by 'an obol of silver,' save the brevity of the word of faith, of which the Apostle recalls it was said: 'The Lord shall make a consummating and abridging word upon the earth'? And that silver stands for utterance, the Psalm bears witness, where it is sung: 'The words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried by fire.'

What then does he say, who comes to worship the priest of God — nay, the Priest who is God? 'Cast me into a part of thy priesthood, that I may eat bread.' I will not be placed in the honour of my fathers, which is now nothing; cast me into a part of thy priesthood. For I have chosen to be an abject one in the house of God; I desire to be some member, however small, of thy priesthood. For by 'priesthood' he here means the very people, of which people that One is the priest, the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. To which people the Apostle Peter says: 'A holy people, a royal priesthood.' Although some have interpreted it 'of thy sacrifice,' not 'of thy priesthood'; which nonetheless signifies the same Christian people. Whence the Apostle Paul says:

'We being many are one bread, one body.' What therefore he added, 'that I may eat bread,' he has elegantly expressed the very kind of sacrifice also, of which the Priest Himself says: 'The bread which I shall give is My flesh for the life of the world.' This is the sacrifice; not according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchizedek — let him who reads understand. This brief confession, then, and wholesomely humble, by which it is said, 'Cast me into a part of thy priesthood, that I may eat bread' — this is the obol of silver, because it is both brief and is the utterance of the Lord dwelling in the heart of the believer. For because he had said above that he had given foods to the house of Aaron from the victims of the Old Testament, where he says:

'I gave to the house of thy father all things that are of the fire of the children of Israel for food' (for these had been the sacrifices of the Jews): therefore he here said 'that I may eat bread,' which is in the New Testament the sacrifice of the Christians. [VI] Since, then, these things were foretold at that time with such great sublimity, and now shine forth with such great clearness, yet not without reason can anyone be moved and say: How do we trust that all things will come to pass which in those books have been foretold as to come, if this very thing which was there divinely said, 'Thy house and the house of thy father shall pass before Me for ever,' could not have its fulfilment?

since we see that that priesthood was changed, and that what was promised to that house cannot be hoped ever to be fulfilled, because that which succeeds it, once it was reproved and changed, is rather proclaimed to be eternal. He who says this does not yet understand, or does not recollect, that even that priesthood itself according to the order of Aaron was established as a shadow of the future eternal priesthood; and on this account, when eternity was promised to it, it was promised not to the shadow and figure itself, but to that which was shadowed and figured through it. But lest the shadow itself should be thought to be about to remain, therefore its change too had to be prophesied.

The kingdom too, in this manner, even of Saul himself, who was certainly reproved and rejected, was a shadow of the future kingdom that was to remain in eternity. For that oil, with which he was anointed and from which chrism he was called 'christ' (anointed), is to be received mystically and understood as a great sacrament; which David so venerated in him alone that his heart smote him with trembling when, hidden in a dark cave which Saul also had entered under the pressing necessity of nature, he secretly cut off from behind a tiny piece of his garment, that he might have something whereby to show how he had spared him when he could have killed him, and thus might remove the suspicion from his mind, by which, thinking holy David to be his enemy, he was vehemently persecuting him.

Lest therefore he should be guilty of so great a sacrament violated in Saul, because he had even so handled his garment, he was afraid. For thus it is written: 'And David's heart smote him, because he had taken away the border of his cloak.' But to the men who were with him and were urging him to slay Saul, given into his hands, he said: 'Let it not befall me from the Lord, if I do this word to my lord, the Christ of the Lord, to put forth my hand against him; for he is the Christ of the Lord.' To this shadow of the future, therefore, so great veneration was shown, not for its own sake, but for the sake of that which it prefigured. Whence also that which Samuel said to Saul:

'Because thou hast not kept my commandment, which the Lord commanded thee, whereas now the Lord had prepared thy kingdom over Israel for ever: and now thy kingdom shall not stand for thee, and the Lord shall seek for Himself a man according to His own heart, and the Lord shall command him to be prince over His people, because thou hast not kept the things which the Lord commanded thee' — this is not to be so taken as if God had prepared Saul himself to reign for ever, and afterward was unwilling to keep this for the sinner (for He was not ignorant that he would sin); but He had prepared his kingdom, in which there should be a figure of the eternal kingdom. Therefore he added: 'And now thy kingdom shall not stand for thee.' It has stood, therefore, and shall stand, that which was signified in him;

But it shall not stand for him, because he himself was not to reign forever, nor his offspring, so that at least through descendants succeeding one another it might seem to be fulfilled what was said: 'Forever.' 'And the Lord,' he says, 'shall seek out for himself a man' — signifying either David or the Mediator of the new testament himself, who was prefigured also in the anointing whereby David himself and his offspring were anointed. Yet God does not seek a man for himself as though not knowing where he is; rather he speaks through a man after the manner of men, because even by so speaking he seeks us. For not only to God the Father, but to his Only-begotten as well, who came to seek what was lost, were we already so well known that in him we were chosen before the foundation of the world.

He said therefore 'He shall seek for himself,' that is, 'He shall have as his own.' Hence in the Latin tongue this word takes a preposition and is rendered 'acquires' (adquirit), which makes plain enough what it signifies. And yet even without the addition of the preposition, 'to seek' is understood as 'to acquire'; from which come the words 'gains' and 'profits.' Again Saul sinned through disobedience, and again Samuel said to him in the word of the Lord: 'Because you have spurned the word of the Lord, the Lord has spurned you, that you should not be king over Israel.' And again for the same sin, when Saul confessed it and begged pardon and asked Samuel to return with him to appease God: 'I will not return with you,' he said, 'for you have spurned the word of the Lord, and the Lord will spurn you, that you be not king over Israel.'

And Samuel turned his face to depart, and Saul laid hold of the skirt of his mantle and tore it. And Samuel said to him: 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from your hand this day and will give it to your neighbour who is good above you, and Israel shall be divided in two; and he will not turn nor repent, for he is not as a man that he should repent; he threatens, and does not persist.' This man, to whom it is said, 'The Lord will spurn you, that you be not king over Israel,' and, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from your hand this day,' reigned forty years over Israel — for exactly so long a span of time as David himself did — and he heard this in the first period of his reign;

so that we may understand it was said for this reason, because no one of his stock was to reign, and that we should look to the stock of David, from which arose according to the flesh the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Now Scripture does not have what is read in most Latin manuscripts, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from your hand,' but as it has been set down by us, found in the Greek, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom from Israel out of your hand'; so that this — 'out of your hand' — is understood to mean 'from Israel.' Therefore this man figuratively bore the person of the people of Israel, which people was to lose the kingdom to our Lord Christ Jesus, who was to reign through the new testament not carnally but spiritually. Concerning whom, when it is said:

'And he will give it to your neighbour' — this refers to kinship according to the flesh; for from Israel is Christ according to the flesh, whence also came Saul. But that which was added, 'good above you,' can indeed be understood as 'better than you,' for some have so interpreted it; yet it is better taken thus, 'good above you,' meaning that, because he is good, therefore he is above you, according to that other prophetic saying: 'Until I make all your enemies the footstool under your feet' — among whom is also Israel, from whom, its own persecutor, Christ took away the kingdom; although there was there also an Israel in whom was no guile, a certain kind of wheat, as it were, among those chaff-husks; for from thence assuredly were the apostles, from thence so many martyrs, of whom Stephen was the first;

from thence so many churches, which the apostle Paul mentions as magnifying God at his conversion. Concerning which matter I do not doubt that what follows must be understood: 'And Israel shall be divided in two' — namely into the Israel hostile to Christ and the Israel cleaving to Christ; into the Israel belonging to the bondwoman and the Israel belonging to the freewoman. For these two kinds were at first together, just as Abraham still cleaved to the bondwoman until the barren woman, made fruitful by the grace of Christ, cried out: 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son.'

Indeed, because of the sin of Solomon, in the reign of his son Rehoboam, we know that Israel was divided in two and so continued, each part having its own kings, until that whole nation was overthrown by the Chaldeans in a mighty devastation and carried away. But what has this to do with Saul, since, if any such thing had to be threatened, it should rather have been threatened to David himself, whose son was Solomon? Finally, at the present the Hebrew nation is not divided among itself, but indiscriminately scattered throughout the lands in the fellowship of the same error. But that division which God, under the person of Saul who bore the figure of that kingdom and people, threatened to that same kingdom and people, was signified to be eternal and unchangeable by this which was added:

'And he will not turn nor repent, for he is not as a man that he should repent; he threatens, and does not persist' — that is, a man threatens and does not persist; but not so God, who does not repent as a man does. For where it is read that he repents, a change of things is signified, while the divine foreknowledge remains unchangeable. Where therefore he is said not to repent, he is understood not to change. Through these words we see that a sentence was pronounced from on high, altogether insoluble and wholly perpetual, concerning this division of the people of Israel. For whoever have passed, are passing, or shall pass over from thence to Christ, were not of thence according to God's foreknowledge, not according to the one and same nature of the human race.

Assuredly whoever of the Israelites, cleaving to Christ, persevere in him, will never be with those Israelites who persist in being his enemies to the end of this life; but they shall abide forever in the division which was here foretold. For the old testament from Mount Sinai, gendering unto bondage, profits nothing, except that it bears witness to the new testament. Otherwise, as long as Moses is read, a veil is placed over their hearts; but when anyone passes over from thence to Christ, the veil shall be taken away. For the very intention of those who pass over is changed from the old to the new, so that now each one aims not to receive carnal but spiritual happiness.

On account of which that great prophet Samuel himself, before he had anointed Saul king, when he cried out to the Lord for Israel and the Lord heard him, and when, as he was offering the burnt-offering and foreigners were drawing near to battle against the people of God, the Lord thundered over them, and they were confounded and were smitten before Israel and overcome — took a single stone and set it up between the new Mizpah and the old, and called its name Ebenezer, which in Latin is 'the stone of the helper,' and said: 'Thus far the Lord has helped us.' Mizpah is interpreted 'intention.'

That stone of the helper is the mediation of the Saviour, through whom one must pass over from the old Mizpah to the new — that is, from the intention by which false carnal blessedness was awaited in a carnal kingdom, to the intention by which, through the new testament, the most true spiritual blessedness is awaited in the kingdom of heaven; and since nothing is better than this, thus far God helps. Now I see that it must be shown what God promised to David himself, who succeeded Saul in the kingdom, and by whose change that final change was figured, on account of which all things were divinely spoken and all things written — insofar as it pertains to the matter we are treating.

When many prosperous things had befallen King David, he thought to build a house for God — namely that most highly renowned temple which was afterward built by his son King Solomon. As he was thinking on this, the word of the Lord came to Nathan the prophet, which he was to convey to the king. When God had said that a house was not to be built for him by David himself, nor had he for so long a time commanded anyone among his people that a house of cedar should be made for him: 'And now,' he says, 'thus shall you say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord almighty:'

'I took you from the sheepfold, that you should be leader over my people, over Israel, and I was with you in all things wherein you walked, and I cut off all your enemies from before your face, and I made you renowned according to the name of the great ones who are upon the earth; and I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them, and they shall dwell apart, and shall be troubled no more; and the son of iniquity shall not proceed to humble them, as from the beginning, from the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies, and the Lord will declare to you that you shall build a house for him.'

'And it shall come to pass, when your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come from your womb, and I will prepare his kingdom. He shall build me a house for my name, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And if his iniquity come, I will reprove him with the rod of men and with the strokes of the sons of men; but my mercy I will not remove from him, as I removed it from those from whom I removed it from before my face; and his house shall be faithful, and his kingdom forever before me, and his throne shall be set up forever.' Whoever thinks this so great a promise was fulfilled in Solomon errs greatly.

For he attends to what was said, 'He shall build me a house,' since Solomon built that most noble temple, and does not attend to: 'His house shall be faithful, and his kingdom forever before me.' Let him therefore attend and behold Solomon's house full of foreign women worshipping false gods, and the king himself, once wise, seduced by them into that same idolatry and cast down; and let him not dare to suppose that God either promised this falsely, or could not foreknow that such would be Solomon and his house.

But we ought not to doubt on this account, even if we did not already see these things being fulfilled in Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh — lest here we vainly and emptily seek some other person, as the carnal Jews do. For they themselves so far understand that the son who, in this passage, they read was promised to King David was not Solomon, that, though he who was promised has now been declared with so great a manifestation, they yet say with a marvellous blindness that they hope for another. Indeed some image of the future thing was made even in Solomon, in that he built the temple and had peace according to his name (for Solomon is 'peaceable' in Latin), and in the beginning of his reign he was marvellously praiseworthy;

but by that same person of his he was foretelling, through a shadow of the future, Christ the Lord himself — he was not exhibiting him. Hence certain things are written about him as though these were foretold of Christ himself, while holy Scripture, prophesying by the very deeds done, in a certain way delineates in him a figure of things to come. For besides the books of divine history, where he is narrated to have reigned, the seventy-first psalm is also inscribed with the title of his name; in which so many things are said that cannot at all be fitting to him, but to Christ the Lord are fitting with the most manifest clarity, so that it evidently appears that in him some figure or other was shadowed forth, but in Christ the very truth itself was presented.

For it is known within what bounds Solomon's kingdom was enclosed; and yet in that psalm we read — to be silent about other things — 'He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth,' which we see fulfilled in Christ. For from the river he took the beginning of his dominion, where, being baptized by John, and John pointing him out, he began to be recognized by the disciples, who called him not only Master but also Lord. Nor was it for any other reason that Solomon began to reign while his father David was still living — which befell the sons of those kings — save that from this too it should shine forth clearly enough that he is not the one whom this prophecy signifies, which speaks to his father, saying:

'And it shall come to pass, when your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come from your womb, and I will prepare his kingdom.' How then, on account of what follows, 'He shall build me a house,' is this Solomon to be thought the one prophesied, and not rather, on account of what precedes, 'When your days are fulfilled and you shall sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you,' is another peaceable one understood to have been promised, who was foretold as to be raised up not before, like this one, but after David's death?

For however long an interval of time intervened before Jesus Christ should come, without doubt it behoved him, who was thus promised to David, to come after King David's death — him who should build a house for God, not of wood and stones, but of men, such a house as we rejoice that he builds. For to this house the apostle speaks, that is, to Christ's faithful: 'For the temple of God is holy, which you are.' On account of which also, in the eighty-eighth psalm, whose title is 'An instruction of Ethan the Israelite himself,' the promises of God made to King David are commemorated; and to those which are set down in the book of Kingdoms certain things similar are there said, such as this: 'I have sworn to David my servant: Forever will I prepare your seed'; and again: