Collected Works 6

I. It happened recently: a disputation was held between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte. In alternating turns, with a contentious tug-of-war, each drew the day out into evening. As certain persons on the sides of both clamoured, the truth was obscured by a kind of cloud. It seemed good, therefore, that what could be less fully clarified through the concourse of the disputation should be settled by writing, with the questions reconsidered by more careful examination of the readings. For the occasion of defending that divine grace is granted even to the Gentiles had this prerogative here, that a man from the Gentiles, and not a Jew of the lineage of the Israelites, had undertaken to claim for himself the law of God.

For this is enough: that the Gentiles can be admitted to the law of God, lest Israel should still be proud, in that the Gentiles are reckoned as a drop from a bucket or dust from a threshing-floor. Although we have God Himself as a fitting promiser and faithful surety, who promised to Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, and that from the womb of Rebecca two peoples and two nations should proceed -- namely, of the Jews, that is, of Israel, and of the Gentiles, that is, ours. Each, therefore, was called both a people and a nation, lest anyone should dare to claim for himself the privilege of grace from the appellation of a name.

For God destined that two peoples and two nations should proceed from the womb of one woman, nor did He distinguish grace in the appellation of a name, but in the bringing forth of the birth, so that he who was to proceed first from the womb should be made subject to the lesser, that is, to the later-born. For thus God spoke to Rebecca, saying: 'Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided from thy womb; and people shall overcome people, and the greater shall serve the lesser.'

And so, since the people or nation of the Jews is prior in time and greater through the grace of the first favour in the law, but ours is understood to be lesser in age of years, inasmuch as in the last span of the age it has attained the knowledge of the divine mercy, beyond doubt, according to the edict of the divine utterance, the prior, greater people -- that is, the Jewish -- must of necessity serve the lesser, and the lesser people -- that is, the Christian -- overcome the greater. For according to the records of the divine Scriptures also, the people of the Jews, that is, the more ancient, having forsaken God, served idols, and, having abandoned the Godhead, was given over to images, the people saying to Aaron: 'Make us gods to go before us.'

And when the gold from the women's necklaces and the men's rings had been melted in the fire, and there had come forth for them a bullock's head, to this figment all Israel, having forsaken God, gave honour, saying: 'These are the gods that brought us out of the land of Egypt.' For thus also in later times, when kings ruled over them, both under Jeroboam they worshipped golden calves and groves and gave themselves over to Baal. Whence it is proved that they were always marked as guilty of the crime of idolatry, out of the record of the divine Scriptures. But our people, that is, the later, having forsaken the idols which it formerly served, was converted to the same God from whom Israel, as we recalled above, had departed.

For thus the lesser people, that is, the later, overcame the greater people, in that it obtains the grace of the divine favour from which Israel was rejected. II. Let us therefore join the contest and bound the sum of the question with definite lines. For why should God, the founder of the universe, the governor of the whole world, the fashioner of man, the sower of all the nations, be believed to have given the law through Moses to one people only, and not be said to have assigned it to all nations? For unless He had given it to all, in no way would He permit even proselytes from the Gentiles to have access to it.

But as befits the goodness of God and His equity, inasmuch as He is the fashioner of the human race, He gave the same law to all nations, which at certain appointed times He commanded to be observed -- when He willed, and through whom He willed, and as He willed. For in the beginning of the world itself He gave a law to Adam and Eve, that they should not eat of the fruit of the tree planted in the midst of paradise; and that if they should do the contrary, they would die the death. This law would have sufficed for them, had it been kept. For in this law given to Adam we recognize all the precepts established which afterward sprouted forth, given through Moses -- that is: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,' and: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' and:

'Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not defraud, thou shalt not bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother,' and: 'Thou shalt not covet what is another's.' For the primordial law was given to Adam and Eve in paradise, as it were the womb of all the precepts of God. In short, if they had loved the Lord their God, they would not have acted against His precept; if they had loved their neighbour, that is, themselves, they would not have believed the persuasion of the serpent, and thus would not have committed homicide upon themselves by falling away from immortality through acting against God's precept;

they would also have abstained from theft, if they had not secretly tasted of the fruit of the tree, nor sought to hide themselves beneath the tree from the sight of the Lord their God, nor become partakers with the devil who falsely asserted, by believing him that they would be like God; and thus they would neither have offended God as a Father, who had fashioned them out of the mire of the earth as it were from a mother's womb; if they had not coveted what was another's, they would not have tasted of the forbidden fruit. Therefore in this general and primordial law of God, which He had ordained to be observed in the fruit of the tree, we recognize that all the precepts of the later law were specially implanted, which, brought forth in their own times, germinated.

For it belongs to the same One afterward to superimpose a law who beforehand had sent forth a precept, since it is also His to instruct afterward who had before undertaken to form the just. For what wonder is it if He augments the discipline who instituted it, if He perfects it who began it? In short, before the law of Moses written on tablets of stone, I maintain that there was a law not written, which was naturally understood and kept by the fathers. For whence was Noah found just, if the justice of the natural law did not precede in him? Whence was Abraham reckoned the friend of God, if not from the equity and justice of the natural law? Whence was Melchizedek named priest of the Most High God, if before the priesthood of the Levitical law there were not Levites who offered sacrifices to God?

For thus, after the patriarchs mentioned above, the Law was given to Moses at that time, after they had departed from Egypt, after an interval spanning many periods of time. Indeed, the Law was given four hundred and thirty years after Abraham.

From this we understand that God's law existed already before Moses, and not only on Horeb, nor first on Sinai and in the wilderness, but that a still more ancient one existed first in paradise, and afterward was given to the patriarchs, and likewise to the Jews at fixed times, when He willed, and at fixed times was reformed; so that we should no longer regard the law of Moses as though it were the primary law, but rather the one that followed, which at a fixed time God set forth also for the nations, which He had promised through the prophets, and reformed for the better, and forewarned would come; so that, just as at a fixed time the Law was given through Moses, so it may be believed to have been observed and kept only for a season. And let us not take away this power of God, which reforms the precepts of the Law according to the condition of the times, unto man's salvation.

Finally, let the one who contends that the Sabbath must still be observed as though it were a remedy of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day because of the threat of death, show that in times past the righteous kept the Sabbath or were circumcised, and thereby became friends of God. For if circumcision cleanses a man, then when God made Adam uncircumcised, why did He not circumcise him, even after he sinned, if circumcision cleanses? Surely, when He set him in paradise uncircumcised, He appointed him as the keeper of paradise.

Therefore, since God established Adam neither circumcised nor Sabbath-keeping, He consequently also commended his offspring Abel, uncircumcised and not Sabbath-keeping, who offered Him sacrifices, accepting with favour what he offered in simplicity of heart, and rejecting the sacrifice of his brother Cain, who did not rightly divide what he offered. Noah too, uncircumcised and not Sabbath-keeping, God delivered from the flood. For Enoch also, a most righteous man, neither circumcised nor Sabbath-keeping, He removed from this world—one who has not yet tasted death—so that, as a candidate for eternity, he might already show us that we too can please God without the burden of the law of Moses.

Melchizedek also, priest of the Most High God, uncircumcised and not Sabbath-keeping, was chosen to the priesthood of God. Lot too, Abraham's kinsman, proves it, since for the merits of his righteousness, without observance of the law, he was delivered from the burning of the Sodomites. III. "But Abraham," you say, "was circumcised." Yet he pleased God before he was circumcised, and yet he did not keep the Sabbath. For he had received circumcision, but such as was to be for a sign of that time, not as a prerogative of salvation. Indeed, the patriarchs who followed were uncircumcised, like Melchizedek, who, being uncircumcised, offered bread and wine to Abraham himself—already circumcised—as he returned from battle.

"But even the son of Moses," he says, "would then have been strangled by the angel, had not his mother Zipporah circumcised the infant's foreskin with a flint. Whence," he says, "there is the greatest peril of death, if one does not circumcise the foreskin of the flesh." And yet, if circumcision in every way conferred salvation, Moses himself would not have failed to circumcise his own son on the eighth day, when it is agreed that Zipporah, compelled by the angel, did it on the journey. Let us therefore consider that the enforced circumcision of a single infant could not prescribe for a whole people, nor establish, as it were, a law of this precept unto salvation.

For God, foreseeing that He was to give this circumcision to the people of Israel as a sign, not for salvation, therefore urged the son of Moses, the future leader, to be circumcised, so that when He should begin through him to give the precept of circumcision to the people, the people might not scorn it, seeing this example already honoured in the leader's son. For circumcision was to be given, but as a sign whereby Israel might be distinguished in the last time, when according to their deserts they should be forbidden to enter into the holy city—according to the words of the prophets who say:

Your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire; strangers shall devour your region in your sight, and the daughter of Zion shall be left desolate and overthrown by foreign peoples, like a hut in a vineyard, and like a watchman's lodge in a cucumber field, and like a besieged city. Why so? Because the prophet's following word reproaches them, saying: I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they have rejected me; and: If you stretch out your hands, I will turn my face away from you; and if you multiply prayers, they shall not hear you; for your hands are full of blood; and: Woe, sinful nation, a people full of transgressions, wicked sons; you have forsaken the Lord and provoked to indignation the Holy One of Israel.

This, then, was the providence of God: to give circumcision as a sign whereby they might be distinguished when the time should come that, according to their deserts mentioned above, they should be forbidden admittance into Jerusalem; and because it was foretold that this would be, and because we see it has been done, we recognize it. For just as fleshly circumcision, which was temporal, was imprinted as a sign upon a stubborn people, so spiritual circumcision was given unto salvation to an obedient people, as Jeremiah says: Renew unto yourselves a newness, and do not sow among thorns; be circumcised unto God, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart. And in another place he says:

For behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will establish for the house of Judah and the house of Jacob a new covenant, not such as I gave to their fathers in the day when I led them out of the land of Egypt. From this we understand that the former circumcision, given at that time, was to cease, and that a new law—not such as He had already given to the fathers—was announced as about to proceed forth, just as Isaiah preached, saying that in the last days the mountain of the Lord and the house of God should be made manifest above the summits of the mountains. And it shall be exalted, he says, above the hills, and all nations shall come unto it, and many shall walk and shall say:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob—not of Esau the former son, but of Jacob the later, that is, of our people, whose mountain is Christ, cut out without the hands of hewers, filling the whole earth, as shown in Daniel. Finally, that from this house of the God of Jacob a new law too should proceed forth, Isaiah announces in the following words, saying: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, and He shall judge among the nations—that is, among us who have been called out of the nations; and they shall beat, he says, their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more.

Who, then, are understood to be others than we, who, instructed in the new law, observe these things, the old law being blotted out—whose coming abolition the very deed demonstrates? For the old law avenged itself with the vengeance of the sword, and plucked out an eye for an eye, and requited injury with retaliation; but the new law marked out clemency, and turned the former ferocity of swords and spears into tranquillity, and reformed the former warlike execution against rivals and enemies into the peaceful works of ploughing and tilling the earth. Therefore, just as we showed above that the old law and fleshly circumcision were declared to be about to cease, so also the observance of the new law and of spiritual circumcision shone forth in the pursuit of peace.

For, He says, a people whom I did not know has served me; in the hearing of the ear it has obeyed me, the prophets have announced. But what people was it that did not know God, if not ours, we who formerly did not know God? And who in the hearing of the ear obeyed Him, if not we, who, having forsaken idols, turned to God? For Israel, who had been known to God, and who had been exalted by Him in Egypt, and carried across the Red Sea, and fed in the wilderness with manna for forty years, reduced to a likeness of eternity, neither defiled by human sufferings nor fed with the foods of this world, but fed with the bread of angels—that is, manna—and sufficiently bound to God by His benefits, forgot the Lord and their God, saying to Aaron: Make us gods to go before us;

for as for that Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, he has forsaken us, and we do not know what has happened to him. And therefore we, who formerly were not the people of God, have become His people by receiving the new law spoken of above and the new circumcision foretold beforehand. IV. It follows, then, that inasmuch as the abolition of fleshly circumcision and of the old law is shown to have been discharged in its own times, so likewise the observance of the Sabbath too may be shown to have been temporary. For the Jews say that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, resting in it from all His works which He had made, and that from this Moses too said to the people: Remember the day of the Sabbaths, to sanctify it;

you shall do no servile work in it, except that which pertains to the soul. Whence we understand rather that we ought to keep the Sabbath from every servile work always, and not only on every seventh day but through all time. And by this we must inquire what Sabbath God wills us to keep. For the Scriptures point to an eternal Sabbath and a temporal Sabbath. For the prophet Isaiah says: My soul hates your Sabbaths. And in another place he says: You have profaned my Sabbaths. Whence we discern that the temporal Sabbath is human, and the eternal Sabbath is to be reckoned divine, of which He proclaims through Isaiah: And it shall be, he says, month from month and day from day and Sabbath from Sabbath, and all flesh shall come to worship in Jerusalem, says the Lord.

This we understand to have been fulfilled in the times of Christ, when all flesh—that is, every nation—came to worship God the Father in Jerusalem through Jesus Christ His Son, just as it was foretold through the prophets: Behold, proselytes shall come to you through me. Thus, therefore, before this temporal Sabbath there was also an eternal Sabbath foreshown and foretold, just as before fleshly circumcision there was also a spiritual circumcision foreshown.

Finally, let them show, as we have already spoken beforehand, that Adam kept the Sabbath, or that Abel, offering to God a holy victim, pleased Him by a religious observance of the Sabbath, or that Enoch, when translated, was a keeper of the Sabbath, or that Noah, the builder of the ark on account of the impending flood, observed the Sabbath, or that Abraham, in observance of the Sabbath, offered his son Isaac, or that Melchizedek in his priesthood received the law of the Sabbath. But the Jews will say that from the time this precept was given through Moses, from then on it was to be observed. It is therefore manifest that the precept was not eternal but temporal, which was one day to cease.

Finally, so far is this solemnity from being celebrated in the rest of the seventh day, that Joshua the son of Nun, at the time when he was warring down the city of Jericho, said that a command had been given to him by God, that he should charge the people that the priests should carry the ark of God's covenant around the circuit of the city for seven days, and that thus, when the circuit of the seventh day was completed, the walls of the city would fall of their own accord. And so it was done, and when the space of the seventh day was finished, as had been foretold, the walls of the city fell. From this it is manifestly shown that within the number of these seven days the Sabbath day had fallen—

for seven days, from wherever they take their beginning, must of necessity include the Sabbath day within themselves—on which day not only did the priests work, but also the plunder of the city was made by the edge of the sword by all the people of Israel; nor is there any doubt that they performed servile work, since they were carrying off the spoils of war by God's command. For also in the times of the Maccabees they acted bravely by fighting on the Sabbaths, and overcame their alien foes, and by fighting on the Sabbaths recalled the law of their fathers to its former state of life; nor would I suppose that they defended any other law than that in which they had remembered it was prescribed concerning the Sabbath day.

Whence it is manifest that precepts of this kind grew strong for a season and for the necessity of the present cause, and that God had not given them a law of this kind for observance throughout perpetual time. V. Thus too we have shown that sacrifices, both of earthly offerings and of spiritual ones, were foretold; and indeed that from the beginning earthly sacrifices were foreshown in Cain, the elder son, that is, of Israel, but that the different sacrifices of the younger son, Abel, that is, of our people, were displayed. For the elder-born Cain offered to God gifts from the fruit of the earth, but the younger son Abel from the fruit of his sheep. And God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts, but upon Cain and his gifts He did not look. And God said to Cain: Why has your countenance fallen?

If indeed you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, have you not sinned? Be still; for unto you shall be its turning, and you shall rule over it. And then Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go into the field. And he went with him there, and killed him. And then God said to Cain: Where is Abel your brother? And he said: I do not know; am I my brother's keeper? To whom God said: The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth. Wherefore cursed is the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood. And groaning and trembling shall you be upon the earth, and everyone who finds you shall kill you. From this act, therefore, we perceive that even then, from the beginning, the twofold sacrifices of the two peoples were foreshown.

Finally, when through Moses the priestly law was written down in Leviticus, we find it prescribed to the people of Israel that sacrifices should be offered to God in no other place than in the land of promise, which the Lord God was to give to their fathers, so that when Israel had been brought in, there should be celebrated the sacrifices and burnt offerings, both for sins and for souls, and nowhere else except in the holy land. Why, then, does the Spirit afterward foretell through the prophets that it should come to pass that in every place and in every land sacrifices should be offered to God? As through Malachi, one of the twelve prophets, He says:

I will not receive a sacrifice from your hands, for from the rising of the sun even unto its setting my name is glorified among all nations, says the Lord Almighty, and in every place clean sacrifices are offered to my name. Likewise in the Psalms of David: Bring to God, you families of the nations—doubtless because the preaching of the apostles was to go forth into all the earth—bring to God glory and honour, bring to God the sacrifice of His name; take up an offering and enter into His courts. For that not with earthly sacrifices but with spiritual ones sacrifice must be made to God, we read thus as it is written: A contrite and humbled heart is a sacrifice to God; and elsewhere: Sacrifice to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High.

Thus, therefore, spiritual sacrifices of praise are designated, and a contrite heart is shown to be an acceptable sacrifice to God. And so, just as fleshly sacrifices are understood to be rejected—of which Isaiah too speaks, saying: To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord; for even if you bring me fine flour, he says, it is a vain supplication, an abomination to me; and again he says: Your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, and the fat of he-goats and the blood of bulls I do not want, nor that you come to be seen by me; for who has required these things at your hands?—so spiritual sacrifices are proclaimed as accepted, as the prophets announce. But of the fleshly sacrifices, concerning which it was foretold:

I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord; I will not accept sacrifices from your hands, for from the rising of the sun even unto its setting my name is glorified among all nations, says the Lord. But of the spiritual sacrifices He adds, saying: And in every place clean sacrifices are offered to my name, says the Lord. VI.

Therefore, since it is manifest both that a temporal Sabbath was shown and an eternal Sabbath foretold, that fleshly circumcision too was foretold and spiritual circumcision foreshown, that a temporal law also and an eternal law were announced, that fleshly sacrifices and spiritual sacrifices were foreshown, it follows that, all these precepts having been given in the preceding time to the people of Israel after the fleshly manner, there should come upon them a time in which the precepts of the ancient law and of the old ceremonies should cease, and the promise of the new law and the recognition of spiritual sacrifices and the pledge of the new covenant should come upon us, as a light shone forth for us from on high, we who were sitting in darkness and were held in the shadow of death.

And so a necessity presses upon us that, since we have said beforehand that a new law was foretold by the prophets—and not such as had already been given to their fathers at the time when He brought them out of the land of Egypt—we ought to show and prove both that that old law has ceased and that the promised new law is now at work; and indeed it must first be inquired whether a giver of the new law is awaited, and an heir of the new covenant, and a priest of the new sacrifices, and a purifier of the new circumcision, and an observer of the eternal Sabbath, who should restrain the old law and establish the new covenant and offer new sacrifices and repress the ancient ceremonies and suppress the old circumcision with its Sabbath, and announce a new kingdom which shall not be corrupted.

For it must be inquired whether the lawgiver of the new law, the observer of the spiritual Sabbath, the high priest of the eternal sacrifices, the ruler of the eternal kingdom, has come or not, so that if He has already come, He must be served; if He has not yet come, He must be awaited—provided it be manifest that by His coming the precepts of the old law are to be suppressed and the beginnings of the new law are to arise. And first of all it must be determined that the ancient law and the prophets could not cease unless He had come who was announced through that same law and through those same prophets as about to come. VII. Therefore let us join the contest at this step: whether the Christ who was announced as about to come has already come, or is still to be hoped for as coming.

That this very thing may be proved, we must also inquire into the times when the prophets announced that Christ would come, so that, if we recognize that He came within those times, we may without doubt believe that He is the very one whom the prophets sang would come, in whom we—the nations, that is—were announced as about to believe; and when it has been established that He came, let us believe without doubt that the new law also was given by Him, and let us not deny that a new covenant was ordained for us in Him and through Him. For we know that the Jews too do not deny that Christ will come, inasmuch as they extend their hope to His coming. Nor need this be inquired into at greater length, since all the prophets of old prophesied concerning Him, as Isaiah: Thus says the Lord God to Christ my Lord:

whose right hand I have held, that the nations may hearken to Him; I will break in pieces the might of kings, I will open before Him the gates, and cities shall not be closed to Him. This very thing we now see already fulfilled. For whose right hand does God the Father hold, if not Christ His Son, whom also all nations have heard—that is, in whom all nations have believed—whose preachers, the apostles, are shown in the Psalms of David: Into all the earth, he says, their sound has gone out, and to the ends of the earth their words? For in what other has the universality of nations believed than in Christ who has already come?

For in whom have the nations believed—the Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and those who dwell in Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, and the inhabitants of Pontus and Asia and Pamphylia, those tarrying in Egypt and dwelling in the regions of Africa which are beyond Cyrene, Romans and sojourners, then also the Jews in Jerusalem and the other nations—so that now the diverse peoples of the Gaetuli and the many territories of the Moors, all the bounds of the Spains and the various nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans but made subject to Christ, and of the Sarmatians and Dacians and Germans and Scythians, and of many hidden nations and provinces and many islands unknown to us, which we are scarcely able to enumerate?

In all which places the name of Christ, who has already come, reigns—inasmuch as before Him the gates of all cities are opened, and to Him none are shut, before whom the iron bars have been broken to pieces and the bronze doors have been opened. Although these things are also to be understood spiritually—namely, that the hearts of individuals, besieged in various ways by the devil, have been unbarred by faith in Christ—yet they have also been manifestly fulfilled, inasmuch as in all these places the people of the name of Christ dwell. For who could have reigned over all nations, save Christ the Son of God, who was announced as about to reign over all forever? For if Solomon reigned, yet it was only within the bounds of Judea: from Beersheba even to Dan the borders of his kingdom are marked;

if indeed Darius reigned over the Babylonians and Parthians, he had no power over all nations beyond the bounds of his own kingdom; if Pharaoh, or whoever succeeded him in the hereditary kingdom, reigned over the Egyptians, there only did he obtain the dominion of his kingdom; if Nebuchadnezzar with his petty kings, he had the bounds of his kingdom from India even to Ethiopia; if Alexander of Macedon, he held no more than all Asia and the other regions which he had afterward conquered; if the Germans, even to this day they are not allowed to cross their own frontiers. The Britons are shut in within the compass of their own ocean, the nations of the Moors and the savage tribes of the Gaetuli are besieged by the Romans, lest they overstep the borders of their own regions.

What shall I say of the Romans themselves, who fortify their empire with the garrisons of their legions, and cannot extend the forces of their kingdom beyond those nations? But the name of Christ is everywhere extended, everywhere believed, worshipped by all the nations enumerated above, everywhere reigns, everywhere is adored; it is bestowed equally upon all everywhere; with Him there is no greater favour for a king, no lesser gladness for any barbarian; no separate merits of anyone's dignities or birth; He is equal to all, king to all, judge to all, God and Lord to all. Nor should you doubt to believe what we assert, when you see it come to pass. VIII.

And so we must inquire into the foretold times both of Christ's future nativity and of His passion and of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem—that is, of its devastation. For Daniel says that both the holy city and the holy one are to be cut off with a leader who is to come, and the pinnacle to be destroyed unto ruin. The times, therefore, of Christ the leader who was to come must be inquired into, which we shall investigate in Daniel; and when these have been reckoned, we shall prove that He has come both from the times prescribed and from the fitting signs and from His works; which we shall also prove from the consequent things which were announced as about to come after His coming, so that we may believe that all the precepts have now been fulfilled.

Thus, therefore, Daniel prophesied concerning Him, so as to show when and at what time He was to set the nations free, and that after His passion the city itself was to be cut off. For he speaks thus: In the first year under Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who reigned over the kingdom of the Chaldeans, I Daniel understood in the books the number of the years. And while I was still speaking in prayer, behold the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying, and he touched me about the hour of the evening sacrifice, and made me understand, and spoke with me and said: Daniel, now I have come forth to imbue you with understanding; at the beginning of your supplication the word went forth.

And I have come to announce to you, because you are a man greatly beloved; and think upon the word and understand the vision: seventy weeks have been cut short upon your people and upon the holy city, until transgression grow old and sins be sealed and iniquities be expiated and everlasting righteousness be brought in and vision and prophet be sealed and the Holy of Holies be anointed. And you shall know and perceive and understand: from the going forth of the word for restoring and building Jerusalem unto Christ the leader, seven and a half weeks and sixty-two and a half weeks; and it shall return and be built in breadth and rampart, and the times shall be renewed.

And after these sixty-two and a half weeks the anointing shall be cut off and shall be no more, and He shall cut off both the city and the sanctuary with a leader who is coming, and they shall be cut off as in a cataclysm unto the end of the war which shall be cut off unto ruin. And He shall confirm a covenant among many; in one week and a half of a week my sacrifice and libation shall be taken away, and in the holy place the abomination of desolation, and unto the end of the time consummation shall be given upon this desolation. Let us consider, then, how he truly foretells the seventy weeks that were to come; in which, if they should receive Him, it shall be built in breadth and length and the times shall be renewed.

But God, foreseeing what was to be—since they would not only fail to receive Him but would even persecute Him and deliver Him up to death—recapitulated and said that within sixty-two and a half weeks He should be born and the Holy of Holies be anointed, but that when the seven and a half weeks should be fulfilled, He should have to suffer and the city to be cut off after one and a half weeks—by which, that is, the seven and a half weeks were completed. For he speaks thus: and the city and the sanctuary shall be cut off with a leader who is to come, and the pinnacle to be destroyed unto ruin. Whence, then, do we show that Christ came within sixty-two and a half weeks?

Now we shall count from the first year of Darius, since it was at that very time that the vision was shown to Daniel. For he says: and understand and conjecture, that I am answering these things to you. Hence from the first year of Darius we ought to reckon, when Daniel saw this vision. Let us see, then, how the years are fulfilled unto the coming of Christ: for Darius reigned nineteen years; Artaxerxes forty-one years; then king Ochus, who is also Cyrus, twenty-four years; Argus one year; another Darius, who was also named Melas, twenty-one years; Alexander of Macedon twelve years; then after Alexander, who had reigned also over the Medes and Persians whom he had conquered and had established his kingdom in Alexandria—when he also called it by his own name—

After him Soter reigned there in Alexandria thirty-five years; to him succeeds Philadelphus, reigning thirty-eight years; him Euergetes succeeds for twenty-five years; then Philopator for seventeen years; after him Epiphanes for twenty-four years; likewise another Euergetes for twenty-seven years; likewise another Soter for thirty-eight years; Ptolemy for thirty-seven years; Cleopatra for twenty-two years and five months; likewise Cleopatra also reigned jointly with Augustus for thirteen years; after Cleopatra, Augustus reigned a further forty-three years — for all the years of Augustus's rule were fifty-six — and we see that Christ is born in the forty-first year of Augustus's rule, which was the twenty-eighth year of his reign after the death of Cleopatra.

And this same Augustus survived fifteen years from the time Christ was born, and the remaining span of years will be [up to the day of Christ's nativity, in the forty-first year of Augustus, which was the twenty-eighth year of Augustus after the death of Cleopatra]: they amount to four hundred and thirty-seven years and five months at the day of Christ's nativity. And everlasting righteousness was made manifest, and the Holy of Holies — that is, Christ — was anointed, and vision and prophet were sealed, and sins were forgiven — which are granted through faith in the name of Christ to all who believe in him. But what is the meaning of his saying that vision and prophecy are sealed?

Since all the prophets proclaimed concerning him that he was to come and to suffer, therefore, because the prophecy was fulfilled through his coming, for that reason he said that vision and prophecy were sealed, because he himself is the seal of all the prophets, fulfilling all that they had of old foretold concerning him. For after his coming and his passion there is no longer any vision or prophet to proclaim that Christ is to come. In short, if this is not so, let the Jews produce some volumes of prophets after Christ, some visible miracles of any angels, such as the patriarchs of old beheld up to the coming of Christ, who has now come. From the time he came, vision and prophecy are sealed — that is, established — and rightly the evangelist says:

'The Law and the prophets were until John the Baptist.' For when Christ was baptized — that is, when he sanctified the waters in his own baptism — the whole fullness of the former spiritual charisms yielded place in Christ, as he sealed all the visions and prophecies which by his coming he fulfilled. Hence he most firmly declares that his coming seals vision and prophecy. And so, having shown both the number of years and the period of the sixty-two and a half weeks now fulfilled — at whose completion Christ came, that is, was born — let us see in what event the other seven and a half weeks, which are subdivided in the cutting-off of the former weeks, were fulfilled. For after Augustus, who survived fifteen years after Christ's nativity, the reckoning proceeds:

To him succeeds Tiberius Caesar, who held power twenty-two years, seven months, and twenty-eight days — in the fifteenth year of his reign Christ suffers, being about thirty years old when he suffered. Likewise Gaius Caesar, also called Caligula, three years, eight months, thirteen days; Nero eleven years, nine months, thirteen days; Galba seven months, six days; Otho three months, five days; Vitellius eight months, twenty-eight days. Vespasian in the first year of his rule made war upon the Jews, and this makes fifty-two years and six months — for he reigned twelve years — and thus, on the day of their conquest, the Jews fulfilled the seventy weeks foretold in Daniel.

Therefore, when these times too were completed and the Jews subdued, thereafter the drink-offerings and sacrifices ceased there, which from that time could no longer be celebrated in that place. For the anointing too was there abolished after the passion of Christ; for it had been foretold that the anointing would be there abolished, as it had been prophesied in the Psalms: 'They have destroyed my hands and my feet.' This passion of Christ [and this abolishing] was accomplished within the period of the seventy weeks under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulship of Rubellius Geminus and Rufius Geminus, in the month of March at the season of the Passover, on the eighth day before the Kalends of April, on the first day of unleavened bread, on which they slew the lamb at evening, as had been commanded by Moses.

And so the whole synagogue of the sons of Israel put him to death, saying to Pilate, when he wished to release him: 'His blood be upon us and upon our children,' and: 'If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar' — so that all things might be fulfilled which had been written concerning him. IX. Let us begin, then, to prove that the nativity of Christ was foretold by the prophets, as Isaiah proclaims: 'Hear, O house of David! It is no small strife for you with men, since God grants a contest; therefore God himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel,' which is interpreted 'God with us';

'he shall eat butter and honey, for before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians.' 'Therefore,' say the Jews, 'let us challenge this prophecy of Isaiah and make a comparison, whether the Christ who has already come corresponds to that first name which Isaiah foretold, and to those signs of him which he proclaimed concerning him; for indeed Isaiah foretells that he must be called Emmanuel, and thereafter that he would take the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians. But this one,' they say, 'who has come was neither called by such a name nor engaged in warfare.' But we, on the contrary, think they must be admonished to consider also what coheres with this passage.

For the interpretation 'God with us' is appended to 'Emmanuel,' so that you should regard not only the sound of the name but also its meaning. For the Hebrew sound which is Emmanuel has as its interpretation 'God with us.' Ask, then, whether this expression 'God with us,' which is Emmanuel, is current in Christ from the time Christ shone forth — and, I think, you will not deny it. For those who from Judaism believe in Christ, from the time they believe in him, when they wish to say 'Emmanuel,' signify that God is with us; and thus it is established that he who was foretold as Emmanuel has already come, because that which Emmanuel signifies has come — that is, God with us.

They are equally led astray by the sound of the name when they so take 'the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria and the kingdom of the Assyrians' as though these portended Christ a warrior, not noticing that Scripture prefaces it: 'For before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians.' For you must first consider the indication of age, whether that age could exhibit Christ as already a man, let alone a commander; as though the infant were about to summon to arms by his wailing, and would give the signal of war not with a trumpet but with a rattle, and would point out the enemy not from horseback or from a wall, but from the back or neck of his nurse or bearer, and thus would subdue Damascus and Samaria in exchange for the breast.

It would be another matter if among you infants burst forth into battle — anointed first, I suppose, in the sun, then armed in swaddling-clothes and paid their wages in butter, who would know how to hurl a lance before they could be lanced. But if in truth nature nowhere grants this — to serve as a soldier before becoming a man, to take the strength of Damascus before knowing a father — it follows that the utterance must be seen as figurative. 'But nature does not allow a virgin to give birth,' they say, 'and yet the prophet must be believed.' And rightly so; for he built up faith beforehand in an incredible thing by saying that it would be a sign: 'Therefore,' he says, 'a sign shall be given you: behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son.' But a sign from God, unless it had been some monstrous novelty, would not seem a sign.

In short, if, whenever you are eager to draw certain people away from this divine prophecy or to pervert any of the simple, you dare to lie, as though Scripture contained not that a virgin but a young woman would conceive and bear — here too you are refuted, since a daily occurrence, namely the pregnancy and childbirth of a young woman, could not be seen as any sign at all. Rightly, then, is a virgin mother believed to have been set before us as a sign; but an infant warrior not equally so. For here too there would be no rationale of a sign; rather, once the sign of a new nativity had been assigned, thereafter, after the sign, a different order of the infant is declared — that he would eat honey and butter. Nor is this by any means a sign; it belongs to infancy.

'But that he would receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians — this is the marvelous sign.' Preserve the measure of his age, and seek the meaning of the prophecy; nay rather, restore to the truth what you are unwilling to believe, and the prophecy which is disowned is understood to be fulfilled. Let those eastern Magi be believed, who honored the infancy of Christ with gifts of gold and frankincense as a king, and the infant received the strength of Damascus without battle or arms. For besides that it is known to all that the strength of the East — that is, its power — is wont to abound in gold and perfumes, it is certain that in the divine Scriptures gold constitutes the strength of the other nations as well, as he says through Zechariah:

'And Judah shall be arrayed at Jerusalem and shall gather all the might of the peoples round about, gold and silver.' For concerning this gift of gold David too says: 'And there shall be given to him of the gold of Arabia,' and again: 'The kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts to him.' And the East for the most part had kings as its Magi, and Damascus was formerly reckoned to Arabia, before it was transferred to Syrophoenicia by the division of the Syrias.

Whose strength Christ then received by receiving its insignia — namely gold and perfumes — while the spoils of Samaria were the Magi themselves, who, when they had recognized him and honored him with gifts and worshipped him on bended knee as Lord and King, under the testimony of the star as indicator and guide, were made the spoils of Samaria — that is, of idolatry — by believing, of course, in Christ. For he marked idolatry by the name of Samaria, as a thing infamous on account of the idolatry with which it had then fallen away from God under king Jeroboam. Nor is this new in the divine Scriptures, to use figuratively a transference of names drawn from a comparison of crimes.

For he calls your rulers 'the rulers of Sodom,' and names your people 'the people of Gomorrah,' although those cities had long since been destroyed. And elsewhere through the prophet he says to the people of Israel: 'Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite' — from whose stock they were not descended, but on account of a like impiety — those whom at another time he had even called his sons: 'I have begotten and exalted sons.' So too Egypt is sometimes understood by him as the whole world under the reproach of superstition; so too Babylon in our John is a figure of the city of Rome, likewise great and proud in her rule and a warrior against the saints.

In this way, then, he also designated the Magi by the appellation of Samaritans, as despoiled of what they had shared with the Samaritans — namely, as we have said, idolatry against the Lord. But 'against the king of the Assyrians' means against the devil, who even now thinks himself to reign if he can drive the saints from the religion of God. This interpretation of ours will be assisted, since elsewhere too the Scriptures designate Christ a warrior by the terms of certain weapons and words of that kind; yet the Jews will be convicted by a comparison of the remaining senses. 'Gird thyself,' says David, 'with the sword upon thy thigh.' But what do you read above concerning Christ? 'Fair in beauty above the sons of men, grace is poured upon thy lips.'

But it is quite absurd if, of one whom he was girding with a sword for war, he flattered concerning the seasonableness of his beauty and the grace of his lips. Concerning him, adding further, he said: 'Stretch forth, and prosper, and advance, and reign,' and adds: 'because of thy gentleness and righteousness.' Who wields the sword and does not practice things contrary to gentleness and righteousness — that is, deceit and harshness and injustice, which are proper, of course, to the business of battles? Let us see, then, whether that sword is another whose act is another — namely the divine word of God, twice-sharpened, as by the two testaments of the old law and the new law, sharp with the equity of wisdom, rendering to each according to his deed.

It was therefore permitted also to Christ, God's own, in the Psalms — apart from warlike affairs — to be girded figuratively with the sword of God's word, to whom the foretold seasonableness suits together with the grace of his lips, whom he was then being girded upon the thigh in David, when he was being proclaimed as about to come upon the earth by the decree of God the Father: 'Thy right hand,' he says, 'shall lead thee gloriously' — namely the power of spiritual grace, from which the knowledge of Christ is drawn forth; 'thine arrows,' he says, 'are sharp' — God's precepts flying everywhere — 'threatening the exposure of every heart,' and pricking and piercing every conscience; 'the peoples shall fall under thee' — worshipping, of course. Thus Christ is mighty in war and bearing arms; thus he shall receive the spoils not of Samaria alone but of all the nations.

Recognize the spoils too as figurative, whose arms too you have learned to be allegorical; and thus, to this extent, the Christ who came was not a warrior, because he was not foretold as such by Isaiah. 'But if the Christ,' they say, 'who is believed to be coming is not called Jesus, why is he who came called Jesus Christ?' Yet both names will be established in the Christ of God, in whom he is found also called Jesus. Learn too the pattern of your own error: when Moses's successor was appointed, Auses son of Nun, he is indeed transferred from his former name and begins to be called Jesus. 'Certainly,' you say. This, we say, was first a figure of the future.

For because Jesus Christ was to bring the second people — which we are, the nations formerly dwelling in the wilderness of the world — into the land of promise flowing with honey and milk, that is, into the possession of eternal life, than which nothing is sweeter; and this was to come about not through Moses, that is, not through the discipline of the law, but through Jesus, that is, through the grace of the new law, when we had been circumcised with a rock's edge — that is, with the precepts of Christ, for Christ was in many ways and figures foretold as a rock — therefore that man who was being prepared as an image of this mystery was also inaugurated with the figure of the Lord's name, so that he should be named Jesus. For he who spoke to Moses was himself the Son of God, who was also always seen;

for no one ever saw God the Father and lived. And therefore it is established that it was the very Son of God who spoke to Moses and said to the people: 'Behold, I send my angel before thy face' — that is, before the face of the people — 'to keep thee on the way and to bring thee into the land which I have prepared for thee. Give heed to him and hear him, and be not disobedient to him; for he will not hide from thee, since my name is upon him' — for it was Jesus, not Moses, who was to lead the people into the land of promise. He called him an angel indeed on account of the greatness of the mighty works he was to perform — which mighty works Jesus son of Nun did, and you yourselves have read of them —

and on account of the office of a prophet, namely one announcing the divine will, just as the Spirit through the prophet also calls John, the forerunner of Christ who was to be, an angel, saying in the person of the Father: 'Behold, I send my angel before thy face' — that is, before Christ's face — 'who shall prepare thy way before thee.' Nor is it new for the Holy Spirit to call those angels whom God sets in charge as ministers of his power. For this same John was not only called the angel of Christ but also a lamp shining before Christ. 'For I have prepared a lamp for my Christ,' David proclaims; whom Christ himself, coming to fulfill the prophets, mentions to the Jews:

'He was,' he says, 'a burning and shining lamp,' inasmuch as he not only prepared his ways in the wilderness but also, by pointing out the Lamb of God, enlightened the minds of men with his proclamation, so that they might understand him to be the Lamb whom Moses announced as about to suffer. So too was Jesus, on account of the future mystery of his name. For he confirmed this name of his which he himself had given him, since he had commanded that thenceforth he be called not angel nor Auses but Jesus. Thus, therefore, both names suit the Christ of God, so that he should be called also Jesus. And since the virgin from whom Christ had to be born was to draw her descent from the seed of David, as we mentioned above, the prophet plainly says in what follows:

'And there shall be born,' he says, 'a rod out of the root of Jesse' — which is Mary — 'and a flower shall ascend from the root, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, the spirit of counsel and might; the spirit of the fear of God shall fill him.' For to no man did the whole sum of spiritual endowments belong except to Christ — likened indeed to a flower for glory on account of grace, but reckoned from the stock of Jesse through Mary, who was, of course, to be counted from there. For she was of the country of Bethlehem and of the house of David, as Mary — from whom Christ is born — was registered in the census among the Romans.

I demand also whether he who was foretold by the prophets as about to come from the stock of Jesse and to display all humility and patience and tranquility has come; and thus that man who is shown to be such will himself be the Christ who came. For concerning him the prophet says: 'A man set amid stripes and knowing how to bear weakness, who was led as a sheep to the sacrifice, and as a lamb before its shearer opened not his mouth.' If he neither strove nor cried out, nor was his voice heard abroad, who did not break the bruised reed — the faith of Israel — who did not quench the smoldering flax — that is, the momentary ardor of the nations — but rather made it shine by the rising of his own light, he can be no other than the one who was foretold.

It behooves us, then, that the activity of the Christ who came be examined against the rule of the Scriptures; for we read that he was marked out, unless I am mistaken, by a twofold operation — of preaching and of power. But concerning each title let it be thus arranged. And so let us specifically discharge the order we have begun, teaching that Christ was announced as a preacher, as through Isaiah: 'Cry aloud,' he says, 'in strength and spare not, lift up thy voice as a trumpet, and declare to my people their misdeeds and to the house of Jacob their sins. Day by day they seek me and desire to know my ways, as a people that had done righteousness and had not forsaken the judgment of God,' and so on — but that he would also perform mighty works from the Father:

'Behold our God shall render judgment, he himself shall come and shall save us; then shall the infirm be healed and the eyes of the blind shall see and the ears of the deaf shall hear and the tongues of the dumb shall be loosed and the lame shall leap like a hart,' and the rest. That Christ performed these things not even you deny, inasmuch as you used to say that you were not stoning him for his works, but because he did these things on the Sabbath. X. As for the outcome of his passion, you plainly dispute it, denying that the passion of the cross was foretold of Christ, and arguing besides that it must not be believed that God would expose his own Son to that kind of death, of which he himself said: 'Cursed is everyone who has hung upon a tree.' But the rationale of the matter precedes the meaning of this curse. For he says in Deuteronomy:

'But if there be in anyone a transgression deserving the judgment of death, and he shall die, and you shall hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain on the tree, but with burial you shall bury him that same day, since cursed by God is everyone who has been hung on a tree; and you shall not defile the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.' Therefore he did not curse Christ in this passion, but made a distinction, so that whoever, on account of some transgression, had incurred the judgment of death and died, hanged upon a tree, this one should be cursed by God — namely, he who was hanged on a tree on account of the deserts of his own transgressions.

But Christ, who spoke no deceit from his mouth and who displayed all righteousness and humility — and, as we recalled foretold of him above — was exposed to that kind of death not for his own deserts, but so that those things which were foretold by the prophets as coming upon him through you might be fulfilled; as in the Psalms the very Spirit of Christ was already singing, saying: 'They repaid me evil for good,' and: 'What I had not seized I then paid back,' and: 'They pierced my hands and my feet,' and: 'They put gall into my drink, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink,' and: 'Upon my garment they cast lots' — just as the other things which you were to commit against him were foretold.

All these things indeed he suffered, having endured them not for any evil deed of his own, but that the Scriptures from the mouth of the prophets might be fulfilled. And assuredly the mystery of his passion had to be prefigured in the prophecies, and the more incredible it was, the more it would prove a scandal if it were nakedly foretold, and the more magnificent, the more it had to be overshadowed, so that the difficulty of understanding might seek grace from God. And so, first of all, Isaac, when he was led by his father as a victim, himself carrying the wood, even then denoted the death of Christ, who was yielded up by his Father as a victim, carrying the wood of his own passion.

Joseph too himself prefigured Christ, even by this alone — that I may not delay my course — that he suffered persecution from his brothers and was sold into Egypt on account of the grace of God, just as Christ was sold by Israel, carnally by his brothers, when he was betrayed by Judas. For Joseph too is blessed by his father in these words: 'His is the beauty of a bull, his horns are the horns of a unicorn; with them he shall winnow the nations together, even to the ends of the earth.' Certainly it was not a rhinoceros that was signified as the unicorn, nor a minotaur as two-horned, but Christ was signified in him — a bull on account of his twofold disposition, to some fierce as judge, to others gentle as savior, whose horns would be the extremities of the cross —

for on the yard-arm of a ship, which is part of a cross, its ends are so called — while the single horn is the central upright, the stake. By this power of the cross, then, and horned in this manner, he now winnows all the nations through faith, taking them from earth to heaven, and then shall winnow them by judgment, casting them down from heaven to earth. The same one will also be a bull elsewhere in the same Scripture. When Jacob extended his blessing upon Simeon and Levi, he prophesies concerning the scribes and Pharisees; for from those two is drawn their lineage. For it is interpreted spiritually thus: 'Simeon and Levi accomplished iniquity out of their sect' — namely, that with which they persecuted Christ;

'into their counsel let not my soul come, and upon their assembly let not my inward parts recline, for in their indignation they slew men' — that is, the prophets — 'and in their lust they hamstrung a bull' — that is, Christ, whom, after the slaughter of the prophets, they slew, and cruelly severed his sinews by fastening him with nails. Otherwise it would be pointless, if after the murders already committed by them he were reproaching them for a butchery of others and not of themselves.

Now indeed, why did Moses, precisely at that time when Joshua was fighting against Amalek, pray sitting with outstretched hands, when in matters so alarming he ought rather to have commended his prayer with knees bent and hands beating his breast and face rolling on the ground — unless it was because there, where the name of the Lord Jesus, who was one day to contend against the devil, was being spoken, the posture of the cross too was necessary, through which Jesus was to bear away the victory?

Again, why did that same Moses, after he had forbidden every likeness of anything, set up a bronze serpent placed on a pole in the posture of one hanging, as a saving spectacle for Israel, at that time when they were being destroyed by serpents after their idolatry — unless it was because here he was pointing to the Lord's cross, by which the serpent, the devil, was designated, and everyone who had been wounded by serpents of that kind — that is, by his angels — was, on account of the sinfulness of transgressions, made whole by being directed to the mysteries of that cross? For whoever then looked upon it was freed from the serpents' bite. Come now, if you have read in the prophet in the Psalms: