Thus indeed, to speak briefly, the subject-matter concerning our Savior and Lord Jesus the Christ, having a manifold dispensation, will be established from the prophetic sayings among the Hebrews, just as, a little further on, the testimonies drawn from them will show — the new writings confirming the old, and the Gospel testimonies setting their seal upon the testimonies of the prophets. But since these things stand thus, it is time now to go through also the matter of his appellation, in respect of which he has been called Jesus and Christ, and through how many prophecies he was proclaimed beforehand by name.
But let us first consider what the appellation 'Christ' means to signify, before beginning the detailed collection of the prophetic sayings concerning the subject before us. And I think it fitting first to treat carefully of this appellation 'Christ,' and to articulate the notion concerning it, so that nothing of what is sought concerning this topic may escape us.
Another, then, beginning from a nearer point and from matters close to our own experience, might say that Moses first of all legislated that those consecrated to God should be anointed with prepared myrrh-oil, judging that bodies ought to breathe forth a sweet fragrance and something good, since everything ill-smelling is congenial to defiled and unclean powers, just as, conversely, what is sweet-smelling is congenial to those who love the good.
Whence he also legislated that the priests should use, every day in the temple, an incense compounded to a surpassing degree of fragrance, so that, the air being mingled and the ill smell dispelled, a certain divine emanation might be mingled with those at prayer.
For this very reason he also composed a most fragrant unguent-ointment by the art of perfumery, so that those who were about to preside publicly over the common affairs might be anointed with it, and that Moses first imposed the name 'Christ' upon those so anointed; and this ointment was handed down not only to the high priests, but also afterward to the prophets and kings, to whom alone it was likewise permitted to be anointed with this oil.
For that admirable and truly great hierophant Moses, knowing that all earthly and bodily substance is distinguished only by its qualities, in no way preferred one over another, knowing that all things are the offspring of a single matter, never stationary, nor possessing anything stable in its nature, but always flowing and hastening toward its own dissolution. He therefore did not choose the agreeableness of bodies, nor would he ever have preferred, for its own sake, what is pleasant to the senses; for that would be the affliction of a soul whose pleasure had fallen down and settled upon mere bodies.
Countless indeed are those who, having their bodies made soft and effeminate, being otherwise passionate and licentious and given over to elaborate use of various myrrh-ointments, bring upon their souls every kind of shameful and filthy stench — while conversely, those beloved of God, breathing forth virtue, bring with them a fragrance far superior to earthly aromatics, one arising from self-control and righteousness and all piety, and they have reckoned the odor of material bodies as of no account whatsoever.
Having, then, thoroughly grasped these things, the prophet took no primary concern for myrrh-ointments or incense as such, but, as far as was possible, delivered through bodily things images of better and divine realities to those who were able to learn divine matters only in this way and in no other.
That this very thing is so is written down in the divine oracle, which says: 'See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.' Accomplishing, then, symbols of other things — which he was accustomed to call 'types' — he legislated the anointing by the oil.
The lofty meaning of these things, however, disclosed only in secret, had, so far as it is possible to say, this purport: the discourse current among the Hebrews recognized as the one good and the one truly fragrant and precious thing, the cause of all life, and the one who has granted to all not only being but also well-being — this one thing, the first cause of all things, namely the Most High himself, the all-ruling King and Creator God of the universe.
This all-powerful and all-good power of his supreme and unbegotten Godhead, which supplies every good thing, the divine Spirit calls, by a fitting and appropriate symbolic figure, 'the oil of God'; wherefore it calls the partaker of this power 'Christ' and 'anointed.'
But by 'oil' understand here not pity, nor the grief felt over those in misfortune, but that which the fruit of the plant supplies: something unmixed with any watery moisture, productive of light, a remedy for toils, a release from weariness, a thing that gladdens those who anoint themselves with it, gleaming with sparkling light-like flashes, and making bright and radiant the countenance of those who use it — that of which the divine Scripture speaks, as making the face shine with oil.
To this, then, comparing by analogy the power of the supreme Governor and all-ruling God, the account calls Christ and anointed — being himself anointed — the one who was first and alone anointed with this power in its entirety, and who has partaken of the divine and, for all others, incommunicable fragrance of the Father, and who alone was begotten from him as God the Word, and who, by participation in the unbegotten, first, and greater one who begot him, has been declared God from God. Wherefore also in the Psalms, addressing this very one who was anointed by the Father, the oracle cries out thus: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.'
But indeed, while the nature of oil is single, that of myrrh-ointment signifies the coming together of many ingredients into one. In this way, then, the first and unbegotten power of the all-ruling God, insofar as it is conceived as something simple and uncompounded, unmixed with any other substance, has been compared to the single term 'oil'; but insofar as it happens to comprehend within itself the most numerous conceptions at once — such as creative and kingly, provident and judicial, benevolent to man and saving, and countless others besides that are contemplated by conception — it has fittingly again been likened, in its power comprehending many good qualities, to myrrh-ointment, which the divine oracles teach us that the true and only high priest of God made use of.
Moses himself, indeed, being the first deemed worthy to behold divine things in secret, was commanded to establish on earth, as images and symbols, the rites concerning the first and only anointed one and high priest of God, which had been performed for him by God in his theophanies — rites of the things perceived in the visions of God — so that those deemed worthy of these things might have, by means of the symbols, a means of prior training until they attained to the beholding of the true realities.
Having thus for the time being set apart for him, among men on earth, a man suited to serve God as priest, he first named this man 'Christ,' with reference to the contemplation of intelligible realities; and having declared this man superior to the rest of men by means of a certain fragrant anointing, he openly and expressly proclaimed that the whole nature of what is begotten, considered in itself, and much more the human nature, falling short of the unbegotten power, has need of the fragrance that comes from the Greater One.
But it is not lawful for anyone to attain to the supreme and first power; for this privilege was reserved for the only-begotten and firstborn one alone; but for those who come after him it was possible to enjoy the good things in no other way than solely through participation in the second power. Therefore the symbol found in Moses was a symbol of the divine Spirit.
'Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit' — of which he thought that priests and prophets and kings ought above all to be zealous to partake, in order that they might be consecrated to God not only on their own behalf, but on behalf of the whole nation as well.
But that the symbols found in Moses were symbols of more divine realities, and that it was possible, even without earthly myrrh-ointment, for those possessed by the divine Spirit to be called 'christs,' come, let us examine somewhat more precisely.
David, in the 104th Psalm, taking up the histories concerning Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, calls these very God-beloved patriarchs — who lived even before the times of Moses — 'christs,' for no other reason than the influence of the divine Spirit, of which they were partakers.
Having narrated, then, how they sojourned as strangers among foreign peoples, and how, though plotted against, they obtained God as their savior — according to what is set forth in Moses — he calls them at once prophets and Christs, though Moses did not yet exist among men, nor had the law of the prepared myrrh used in his rite yet been legislated. Hear, then, what the Psalm says: 'Remember his wonders which he has done, his marvels, and the judgments of his mouth; O seed of Abraham, his servants, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones.'
He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth. He remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded for a thousand generations, which he covenanted with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac. And he established it to Jacob for a statute, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying, 'To you I will give the land of Canaan, the portion of your inheritance.' And they went about from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people. He allowed no man to wrong them, and he rebuked kings on their account: 'Touch not my Christs, and do no evil to my prophets.'
This, then, is what David says; but Moses narrates what kind of kings he rebuked, saying: 'And the Lord afflicted Pharaoh with great afflictions, and his house, on account of Sarah, Abraham's wife.'
And again he writes concerning the king of Gerar: 'And God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said, Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is Abraham's wife.'
You see how through these words David — or rather the divine Spirit through him — addressed the men of old who were beloved of God and were prophets as Christs, though they had not been anointed with earthly myrrh. For how could they have been, when Moses ordained such a rite only in later times? Hear also how Isaiah, quite as plainly, prophesies concerning the Christ, that he would be sent by God to men as redeemer and savior, and would come to proclaim release to those held captive in soul, and recovery of sight to those blind in understanding.
For this one, again, the prophet teaches to have become Christ not by prepared myrrh, but by the intelligible and God-befitting anointing of the Father's deity — anointed not by men, but by the Father.
He speaks, then, in his own person: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim release to captives, to heal the brokenhearted, and recovery of sight to the blind.'
Let this, then, first be observed: that Isaiah likewise, in the same manner as David, declares of him who he said would come to men and proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, that he became Christ not by prepared myrrh, but by the unbegotten, paternal, and all-good power. And according to a certain prophetic custom, the prophet proclaims the future as though it were past, and speaks as though of himself the one prophesying.
Thus far, then, we have learned that those who are truly and rightly called Christs were anointed by God, not by men, and with the divine Spirit, not with prepared oil.
But it is time to observe that the account current among the Hebrews knows the true Christ of God to possess a certain divine power greater than human nature. Hear, then, again how David declares that he knows of a certain eternal priest of God, proclaims him his own Lord, and confesses him to be enthroned together with the Most High God, in the hundred and ninth Psalm, where he speaks somewhat as follows: 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord shall send forth for you a scepter of power out of Zion, and you shall rule in the midst of your enemies. With you is dominion in the day of your power, in the splendor of your holy ones. Out of the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten you. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.' And observe how in these words David, who was king of the whole Hebrew nation and, besides his kingship, was adorned with the divine Spirit, perceived one so great and marvelously wondrous — the one signified and beheld by him through the Spirit — that he addressed him as his own Lord. For he says: 'The Lord said to my Lord.'
But he also knows him to be an eternal high priest, and priest of the Most High God, and enthroned together with the God over all, and his offspring; and among the Hebrews it was impossible to be consecrated priest to God apart from anointing, wherefore it was their custom to call all such persons Christs. The priest, therefore, signified in the Psalm would be Christ.
For how could he have been attested to be a priest without having first become Christ? Moreover, he is said to be a priest forever. But this could no longer apply to human nature; for it does not belong to man to endure forever, since our race is mortal and perishable.
The one signified here, then, was some priest of God greater than man, who received from God, with the confirmation of an oath, a priesthood enduring and without end. For, it says, 'the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.'
For since Moses relates that Melchizedek became priest of the Most High God, not anointed with prepared myrrh, and became priest of the Most High God long before the legislation given through Moses, and was, in virtue, far greater than the celebrated Abraham—
(For it says: 'And Melchizedek of Salem, priest of the Most High God, blessed Abraham.' And beyond all dispute, says the apostle, 'the lesser is blessed by the greater.') Since, then, Melchizedek — whoever he was — is introduced as such a figure, not anointed with prepared myrrh, but consecrated priest to the Most High God, it follows fittingly that he who is prophesied through David 'according to the order of Melchizedek' is declared to be someone great, surpassing all nature — being priest of the God over all and enthroned together with the unbegotten power, Lord of the prophet and king, and priest not simply, but eternal priest of the Father.
The divine apostle also says, examining the matters concerned, in which words, wishing the more abundantly to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his counsel, God mediated by an oath, that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. And again: 'The others became priests without the taking of an oath, but this one with an oath, through him who said to him, The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.' And the former ones became priests in greater number, because they were prevented by death from continuing; but this one, because he remains forever, holds his priesthood unchangeable. Whence he is also able to save completely those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
By these things it is established that there exists, among existing things, and subsists among intelligible realities, a certain divine power, which — according to the oracles of the Hebrews — is consecrated priest to the God of all, established to serve as priest to the God over all, not by earthly and human myrrh, but by a certain God-befitting and divinely inspired virtue and power.
Thus the one prophesied through the Psalm has plainly appeared to be a certain eternal priest, and Son of the Most High God, as having been begotten by the Most High God himself, and enthroned together in his kingdom.
It has also been shown that the Christ spoken of through Isaiah did not become such by men, but was anointed by the Father himself and through the divinely inspired Spirit, and was sent as redeemer of the captivity of men.
Moses, then, having beheld this one by the divine Spirit, established among men images and symbols of him, for the time being anointing and rubbing with prepared myrrh, in place of the divine Spirit, the priest advanced among men, and calling him Christ and anointed, in reference to the true one.
That these things are so, who could be a more trustworthy witness than Moses himself? For in his own writing he teaches that God and the Lord, who declared himself to him, expressly enjoined him, in accordance with the intelligible and heavenly vision shown to him, to establish on earth a more bodily form of worship, containing an image of the intelligible and incorporeal realities. It is said, indeed, that he sketched out in outline a certain pattern of the order of the angels and divine powers in heaven, since the oracle told him: 'You shall make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.'
Did he, then, just as with the other things, in the same way bring forward the high priest also, anointing him with earthly myrrh, and thus fashion a shadowy and image-like — but not the true — Christ and high priest, a copy in imitation of the heavenly Christ and high priest?
But that the Christ properly so called was not a man, but a certain Son of God, honored with a seat at the right hand of the paternal deity, and far greater not only than mortal and human nature, but than every intellectual being among created things, I think I have clearly demonstrated.
Nevertheless, in keeping with what was said before, the same David, in the forty-fourth Psalm, using a superscription concerning the Beloved and those who were to be changed, proclaims one and the same to be at once God and King and Christ, writing thus: 'My heart has overflowed with a good word; I speak my works to the king. My tongue is the pen of a swift-writing scribe. You are beautiful beyond the sons of men.'
To which he adds next: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.'
Observe, then, more carefully how, according to the superscription of the Psalm, the discourse is introduced as being concerning the Beloved, while at the same time urging the hearer toward understanding of what is about to be said. And the cause of the dispensation of the discourse is also indicated, when it says: 'For the end, concerning those who were to be changed, for understanding, concerning the Beloved.'
Whom else could you say those who were to be changed are, concerning whom the Psalm speaks, than those who were destined to be transformed from their former life and manner, and to be transferred and changed through the one prophesied? And this one was the Beloved of God, concerning whom the Psalm serves as our introduction to the understanding of the prophecy. But if you should be at a loss as to who this Beloved was, concerning whom the prophecy was made in the Psalm, the discourse will set it before you at once, at your very feet, beginning immediately and saying: 'My heart has overflowed with a good word.' One might say, then, that this signifies that very one — the Word who was in the beginning with God, of whom the great evangelist John speaks theologically, declaring: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'
Now the phrase 'My heart has overflowed with a good word,' if it is spoken in the person of the Father and God of all, would intimate the only-begotten Word of God, as a Son subsisting from the Father — but not by way of emanation, or by division, or by cutting, or by diminution, or according to any of the things conceived of in the case of bodies; for such notions are impious and altogether removed from that ineffable generation.
But according to what we have understood before, we must interpret this passage likewise: just as it was said that he was begotten 'from the womb' of God and 'before the morning star,' we hear such expressions figuratively, and it is necessary to accept the like sense only according to the contemplation of intelligible things. And in the phrase 'My heart has overflowed with a good word' — this too is uttered only according to the understanding of the divine Spirit; concerning which it is fitting for us now also to say the customary and pious word applied to each of the things theologically spoken concerning him: 'Who shall declare his generation?' — even though the divine Scriptures, in accordance with our familiar mortal and human speech, both apply the word 'to be begotten' and adopt the term 'womb.'
For these expressions belong only to contemplation according to the understanding, and are subject to no rule other than that of allegory; just as one might say that 'My heart has overflowed with a good word' was spoken concerning the constitution and coming-into-being of the first Word, since it is not lawful to understand 'heart,' in the case of the God of all, otherwise than as we conceive it among ourselves in any different sense. One, then, might say that this is he who was in the beginning with God, signified in the Psalm — a Word fittingly called 'good,' as being the offspring of the all-good Father.
But if we proceed a little further in the Psalm, we shall find that this very one prophesied of — this Beloved of God — is again said to have been anointed, not in the manner it was done by Moses, nor as by any man, but by the Most High himself, the God over all and his Father. For it continues, proceeding further: 'Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.'
How, then, could one call the one here also attested as having been anointed by the God over all, otherwise than Christ? Through these words, then, we now already have two titles of the one being foretold, 'Christ' and 'Beloved,' one and the same being called by them, since the cause of the anointing is named — for which reason he who is signified is said to have been anointed with the oil of gladness. The reason for this it teaches us — which, if you go back a little, or rather if you examine the whole sense of the passage, will become clear to you.
The Psalm, then, addressing this very one prophesied of, Christ and Beloved of God, says the words set forth a little before, in which it was said: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.'
Consider, then, whether this was not addressed plainly to God. For it says, 'You, O God' — that is, 'O God' — 'your throne exists forever and ever, and a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. And since you yourself, O God, have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, your God, has anointed you, and has established you as Christ above all.' The Hebrew text sets this forth even more clearly, which Aquila, translating with precision, rendered somewhat as follows, saying: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and still further; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.'
'You have loved righteousness and hated ungodliness; therefore, O God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows.' Instead, then, of 'God, your God,' the Hebrew wording itself contains 'O God, your God,' so that the whole is: 'You have loved, O God, righteousness, and hated ungodliness; therefore, on this account, he has anointed you, O God, the one who is Most High and greater — himself the God of you as well' — so that both the one anointed and the one anointing exist, the latter being God of all beings, and moreover distinctly the God of him who is anointed.
This would become clear also to one who attends to the Hebrew tongue itself. For in the first instance of the title, where Aquila rendered 'Your throne, O God,' plainly saying 'O God' instead of 'God,' the Hebrew word 'Elohim' is present. And here likewise, in the phrase 'therefore he has anointed you, O God,' the word 'Elohim' has been taken, which signified the vocative case, 'O God.'
But instead of the correct and nominative form of the name, in the passage where it is said 'therefore God, your God, has anointed you,' the Hebrew word 'Eloach' occurs very precisely, so that 'Elohim' is uttered in the vocative case, signifying 'O God,' while 'Eloach' means 'your God' in the nominative — so that the translation reads exactly: 'Therefore he has anointed you, O God, your God.'
Most plainly, then, through these words the discourse, addressing God, says that he was anointed by God with the oil of gladness above all those who ever shared the same title with him.
In these words, then, you plainly have God being anointed and becoming Christ — not coming to this by prepared myrrh nor by men, nor even being similar to the rest of mankind.
This same one was also the Beloved of God and his offspring, and has been proclaimed eternal priest and enthroned together with the Father. Who else could this be but the firstborn Word of God, who in the beginning was God with God, who is spoken of theologically throughout the whole of the divinely inspired Scripture, as the discourse, proceeding further, will show at greater length in what follows.
Now that these matters have been considered by us beforehand, concerning the being and the title of Christ, come, let us next resume the proposed subject, and examine through how many prophetic predictions Christ was proclaimed beforehand by name.
From the second Psalm. Showing through how many scriptures Christ was foretold by name as being plotted against by kings and rulers and nations and peoples, as begotten of God, and proclaimed son of man, and as receiving the nations and the ends of the earth as an inheritance from the Father. 'Why did the nations rage, and the peoples devise vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together, against the Lord and against his Christ.'
To which it adds next: 'But I have been established king by him upon Zion, his holy mountain, proclaiming the decree of the Lord. The Lord said to me: You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.'
Most plainly through these words also the divine Spirit proclaims Christ, calling him Son of God according to what was foretold, and at the same time signifying that a certain plot would arise against him, and foretelling the calling of the nations that would come about through him — all of which the actual outcome of events has expressly shown, in deed itself, concerning our Savior Jesus Christ. For even now, still, nations and peoples, kings and rulers, do not yet cease from scheming against him and against his teaching.
But if those of the circumcision refer these things to a future time, it is time for them to confess that the Christ they expect will again be plotted against, according to the present oracle, which says: 'The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together, against the Lord and against his Christ' — which they would not grant, since they expect that the Christ who is to come will be some great ruler and eternal king and their own redeemer.