For if indeed that one too, when he comes, should suffer the same things as the one who has already come, why should the one be believed rather than the other, or the other disbelieved rather than the one? But if, being shut out from this line of reply, they should refer the oracle to David or to one of the kings who arose from him over the Judean nation, this too must be shown: that neither David nor any other of those ever renowned among the Hebrews is recorded either to have been styled son of God, or to have been begotten by God, according to what is proclaimed in the Psalm, nor to have ruled all nations and kings, and to have been plotted against by rulers and peoples. But if none of them can be shown to fit, while all these things are established in actual fact — the Christ of God having endured them long ago, and even now, still today, being warred upon by kings and rulers, nations and peoples — what stands in the way of his being the one prophesied through the oracle which said: 'The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together, against the Lord and against his Christ'? To him alone would also fit what follows in the Psalm, where it is said: '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.'
For indeed these words too, without dispute, have received their fulfillment in him alone, when the sound of his disciples went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.
The discourse expressly names Christ in this prophecy, as though in his own person teaching that he is the Son of God, through the words: 'The Lord said to me: You are my Son; today I have begotten you.' To which you may set alongside also the passage in Proverbs, again spoken in his own person somewhat as follows: 'Before the mountains were established, and before all the hills, he begets me' — as well as the words addressed to him by the Father in the hundred and ninth Psalm, according to: 'Out of the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten you.'
Observe, then, how the sacred Scriptures proclaim by name this same one, at once Christ and Son of God, plotted against by men, and destined to receive the nations for an inheritance, and to hold sway over the ends of the earth — signifying his dispensation toward mankind by two proofs, both through the plot against him and through the subjection of the nations under him. From the nineteenth Psalm. Christ named by name, obtaining all his petitions from the Father.
'May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. Now I know that the Lord has saved his Christ; he will hear him from his holy heaven.' Since it is now proposed to set forth through how many passages Christ has been proclaimed by name in the prophecies, I fittingly adduce these words also, which plainly proclaim Christ.
The whole Psalm sends up a prayer, in the person of holy men, addressed to the person of Christ. For since, having become man for our sake and on our behalf, he took upon himself every insult, we are taught to join in prayer with him as he prays and beseeches the Father on our behalf, warding off, as it were, the wars waged against us, whether visible or invisible. Wherefore we too say to him, from the Psalm, thus: 'May the Lord hear you in the day of your affliction; may the name of the God of Jacob shield you. May he send you help from his holy place, and support you out of Zion.'
Then, since it is fitting for him, being a great high priest, to perform on our behalf the spiritual priestly services in doxologies and theologies, and since, as a priest, he offered up to God and the Father, on our behalf, both himself and the man whom he had taken from the earth, as a whole burnt offering, for this reason we say to him: 'May he remember all your sacrifice, and make your burnt offering rich.'
And since all that he purposes is salutary and beneficial for the world, we fittingly exclaim to him: 'May the Lord grant you according to your heart,' saying also, 'and fulfill all your counsel.'
To which, next, confessing his resurrection from the dead, we say: 'Let us exult in your salvation.' For what else could be understood by the 'salvation' of Christ, if not his resurrection from the dead, by which he also raises up all those who had previously fallen? Whence we also say: 'And in the name of our God we shall be magnified'; and, 'May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.'
After all these things we are taught to say: 'Now I know that the Lord has saved his Christ' — not having known this before, except when we first came to understand his salvation, having comprehended the power of his resurrection. From the twenty-seventh Psalm. Christ named by name, having the Lord as his Father and protector. 'The Lord is the strength of his people, and the protector of the salvation of his Christ.'
And the Psalm now in hand also refers to Christ, containing the very prayer of Christ himself, which he prayed at the time of his passion. Wherefore, at the beginning of the Psalm, it says: 'To you, O Lord, I have cried; my God, be not silent toward me, lest I become like those who go down into the pit.'
But toward the end it prophesies his resurrection from the dead, saying: 'Blessed be the Lord, for he has heard the voice of my petition. The Lord is my helper and my protector; my heart has hoped in him, and I have been helped, and my flesh has flourished again, and with my own will I shall give thanks to him.' To which the divine and prophetic Spirit adds: 'The Lord is the strength of his people, and the protector of the salvation of his Christ.'
Teaching us that all the recorded wonders of Christ in the divine Scriptures, which came about for the salvation of men — whether teachings or writings, or the mysteries now so named connected with his resurrection from the dead — came to pass by the nod and power of the Father, who in all the paradoxical and saving words and deeds protects his own Christ. From the eighty-third Psalm. Christ named by name, invoking God as overseer; the day of his resurrection being one, and his Church the one house of God.
'Behold, O God our protector, and look upon the face of your Christ; for one day in your courts is better than thousands. I have chosen rather to be cast aside in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of sinners.'
Those who know that Christ is the Word and Wisdom and true Light and Life of God, then, upon considering his incarnation, were astonished at the paradox of his will, so as to declare also: 'We have seen him, and he had no form nor beauty, but his form was without honor, and inferior to the sons of men — a man in affliction, and knowing how to bear sickness, because his face was turned away, he was dishonored.'
Fittingly, then, they beseech God to look upon the face of Christ, which was dishonored and outraged for our sake, and to become gracious to us for his sake, since he has taken up our sins and suffers pain on our behalf. And they entreat these things almost as if longing, and setting it before themselves in prayer, to see the face of the glory of Christ, and to behold the day of his light — and this was the day of his resurrection from the dead, which, being one and unique, and truly the Lord's and Lordly day, they declare to be better than countless thousands of the days ordinarily so reckoned, or than those legislated by Moses in feasts and new moons and sabbaths — which the divine apostle teaches to be a shadow of the days, but not the day itself. This alone, this one Lord's Day of our Savior, is said not to give light in every place, but in the courts of the Lord alone.
These would be the churches of Christ throughout the whole world, being the courts belonging to the one house of God, in which he who knew such things loves and chooses to be cast aside, declaring the sojourn in these to be far better than that in the tents of sinners — unless, that is, anyone who chooses them declares the synagogues of the Jews, which deny the Christ of God, or the assemblies of the godless heterodox and other unbelieving nations, to be far better than the churches of Christ. From the eighty-eighth Psalm. Christ named by name, treated with contempt and destined to suffer the most shameful things; his people, the price paid for him, being reproached by enemies. 'But you have cast off and rejected, you have put away your Christ; you have overturned the covenant of your servant. You have profaned his sanctuary to the ground' — and so on. To which it adds: 'Remember, remember, O Lord, the reproach of your servants, which I have borne in my bosom, of many nations; wherewith your enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the recompense of your Christ.'
Plainly, then, in these words too Christ is mentioned by name, and the circumstance prophesied concerning his passion. At leisure, examining the whole Psalm closely, we shall show that what is set forth applies to neither of the two alternatives but to our Savior and Lord alone.
And Christ, being named a second time, signifies whom else but the same one, whose recompense — namely, the Church — those called enemies of Christ have reproached, and still reproach even now? For indeed the sufferings of our Savior which he undertook on our behalf, and especially his death and the cross, every adversary of the teaching of Christ is accustomed to cast up to us as a reproach. From the hundred and thirty-first Psalm. Christ named by name, arising out of the seed of David, called the horn of David, putting the Jewish enemies to shame, renewing the sanctuary of the Father. 'The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not annul it: Of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne.'
Then, further on, it says: 'There I will make a horn to spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my Christ. I will clothe his enemies with shame, but upon him shall my sanctuary flourish.'
Here also the Lord swears concerning the one out of the seed of David, which seed he also calls his 'horn.' And again, naming Christ expressly, it says that he has prepared for him a lamp — that is, as is likely, the prophetic word which went before Christ, which alone has risen, in the manner of the light of the sun, upon all men throughout the whole world.
David himself, too, had been prepared beforehand as a lamp for Christ, holding, in comparison with the sun and perfect light, the rank of a lamp. 'And there,' it says, 'I will make a horn spring up,' indicating the place where it signifies that Christ would be born.
For when David prayed to foresee, by the Spirit, the place of the birth of Christ, saying: 'Surely I will not go into the tent of my house, I will not go up upon the couch of my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes, nor slumber to my eyelids, nor rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling for the God of Jacob' — the divine Spirit reveals to him the place, Bethlehem. Wherefore it goes on to say:
'Behold, we heard of it at Ephratha' (that is, Bethlehem); 'we found it in the fields of the wood. We will go into his dwellings; we will worship at the place where his feet stood.' Fittingly, then, after the disclosure of these things, it adds: 'There I will make a horn spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my Christ.'
Perhaps, too, he is hinting under another sense at the body which was assumed at Bethlehem by Christ, since the divine power, dwelling in it as in a vessel of clay, shone forth, as through a lamp, the gleams of the divine and rational light unto all men. From Amos. Christ proclaimed by name by God, and made known to all men, while the nation of the Jews renounces him.
Prepare to call upon the God of Israel; for behold, he who establishes the thunder and creates the wind, and declares his Christ unto men, who makes the dawn and the mist, and treads upon the high places of the earth—the Lord God Almighty is his name. Hear the word of the Lord which I take up against you, a lamentation: the house of Israel has fallen, it shall no more rise again; the virgin of Israel has stumbled upon her own land, there is none to raise her up.
This, then, is already the seventh instance in which God, proclaiming Christ by name unto men, is said to establish the thunder and create the wind—the thunder being named for the preaching of the gospel because of its being heard by all men, and likewise the wind being signified as the Spirit of Christ which breathed upon the apostles; which indeed has clearly been fulfilled at the coming of our Saviour, at which God is prophesied to make both dawn and mist together—for those who received the saving light, the dawn; but for those of the circumcision who disobeyed him, the contrary.
against whom the oracle also proclaims beforehand the final sentence, adding a lamentation over the nation of the Jews—a lamentation which indeed overtook them immediately after their impiety against our Saviour Jesus Christ.
For from that time truly, even to this day, the house of Israel has fallen; and a vision has been uttered once for all by God, and a sentence pronounced concerning their fallen house in Jerusalem, and against their whole community, to the effect that they shall no more rise again, nor is there anyone present to raise them up. 'There is none,' he says, 'to raise her up.'
For since they did not receive the Christ of God when he came, he fittingly forsook them and passed over to all the nations, having taught the cause of this change through the words wherein, weeping over them, he all but pleaded his defense, saying: 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her; how often I wished to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing! Behold, your house is left to you desolate.' From Habakkuk. Christ, named by name, saved by the Lord the Father, and himself saving his own Christs. 'You went forth for the salvation of your people, to save your Christs; you cast death upon the heads of the lawless.'
Aquila: 'You went forth for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your people with your Christ.' Since Aquila rendered it in the singular instead of the plural, saying that the God of all had wrought salvation for the people together with his Christ, we have fittingly cited the reading, as it clearly bears upon the question at hand.
But according to the interpretation of the Seventy, there might be many who are styled 'Christs' from him and because of him—concerning whom it is said, 'Touch not my Christs, and do no evil among my prophets'—both those who have believed in him and been deemed worthy of the holy anointing of the regeneration that is in Christ, and those who are able to say, like the sacred apostle, 'We have become partakers of Christ.' From the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Christ, named by name, plotted against by the Jews and recognized by the nations. 'The breath of our countenance, the Lord Christ, was seized in their pits, of whom we said, In his shadow we shall live among the nations.'
The divinely-inspired prophets of God, foreseeing the future by the divine Spirit, prophesied that they themselves, and their own words, would live and would work as though alive among the nations, but not in Israel. Christ, again by name—as being himself the Christ from whom the prophetic Spirit had been supplied to them—they declared would be seized in their pits.
Whose pits? Is it not clear, those of the men of the circumcision who plotted against him? Observe here too how the text foretells that Christ would be seized—a thing which could not apply to the second advent of Christ, which the prophetic words proclaim beforehand will be glorious and accompanied by a divine kingdom. Wherefore it is likely that those of the circumcision go astray in taking what concerns his second appearing as though it referred to his first coming, since the text by no means allows of this.
Since it is not possible to suppose him, at once and in the same respect, both glorious and inglorious, both honoured and a king, and again having no form nor comeliness, but dishonoured beyond the sons of men; and again a Saviour and Redeemer of Israel, and again plotted against by them, and led as a sheep to the slaughter, and delivered over to death because of their transgressions.
But rightly, according to our understanding, as the actual state of affairs shows, the prophecies concerning Christ being divided into two kinds—it is acknowledged that the more human and gloomy have been fulfilled at his first coming, while the more glorious and more divine are still now awaited at his second advent.
And a clear proof of the former is the knowledge of God which has, through him, come to pass in deed among all the nations—which countless prophetic voices in various ways foretell, as indeed does the present one also, in which it is said, as we have quoted, 'In his shadow we shall live among the nations.' From the First Book of Kingdoms. Christ, named by name, exalted by the Lord the Father. 'The Lord went up into the heavens, and thundered; he himself shall judge the ends of the earth, and shall give strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of his Christ.'
The restoration into the heavens, again by name, of Christ—or, indeed, of the Word of God—is here intended; and the divine Scripture foretells both his teaching, resounding like thunder unto all, and his judgment upon all that is to take place thereafter. Following upon this, the Lord himself is said to give strength to our kings. These would be the apostles of Christ, concerning whom you have in the 67th Psalm: 'The Lord shall give the word to those who preach the gospel with great power.'
And here too he makes mention of Christ by name—Christ conceived of according to the human nature, our Saviour—whose horn he says shall be exalted, signifying the invisible power that is in him and his kingdom. For it is the custom of Scripture to call the kingdom a horn. And this too is set down in Psalm 88 (89): 'And in my name shall his horn be exalted.' From the First Book of Kingdoms. Christ, named by name, receiving from the Father a faithful house—his church—and a faithful priest presiding genuinely over his church for all time. 'Behold, the days come,' he says, 'and I will utterly destroy your seed, and the seed of your father's house; and there shall not be an old man in your house.'
Having spoken these words to Eli, the oracle proceeds, after other matters, saying: 'And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do all that is in my heart and in my soul; and I will build for him a faithful house, and he shall walk before my Christ all the days.'
Having threatened removal and rejection to those who did not minister in the right manner, the divine word promises to appoint another priest from another family, who, it says, shall walk before his Christ, or, as Aquila translated, 'shall walk about before the face of his anointed one,' or, as Symmachus renders it, 'shall be turned about before his Christ.'
Who then would this be? Every man who piously approaches the priestly service of the Christ of God—for whom the God of all himself promises to build the house of the church, like a wise master-builder and architect—meaning by this house none other than the church established throughout the whole world by the name of Christ, where every man consecrated as priest through Christ of God is said to do, according to spiritual ministrations, the things pleasing to God's heart and soul; whereas the sacrifices of bulls and goats through blood, performed according to the old typical ordinance, are confessed, through the prophecy of Isaiah, to be hated by God.
So many are the passages through which Christ has been proclaimed beforehand by name. But since in most of them the sufferings of Christ are joined to his title, it is necessary to resume what has already been said concerning the deity that belongs to him, which we set forth above as contained in Psalm 44 (45), entitled 'Concerning the Beloved,' where the text, having first called him to mind as king, adds after other things, concerning the deity of Christ: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre 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.'
For clearly in these words, as we have already shown before, he who is here spoken of, being himself one person, is said to be God, having loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And for this reason he has been anointed by another, greater God, who is his Father, with an oil superior to and different from that of the types, namely, the oil called 'of gladness.'
But he who has been anointed with such an oil, not by men, nor through men, but by the Most High God himself—what else could he fittingly be called but Christ? Accordingly the same one is shown to be named God at once, just as has already been demonstrated earlier in its proper places. And here again mention must be made of Isaiah, who said: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, wherefore he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind.'
We have shown also in these passages that the priests among men in ancient times, when approaching the service of the Divine, were anointed with a prepared oil; but he who is signified through the prophecy is said to have been anointed with the divine power itself.
And all this was referred to our Saviour, Jesus, the only true Christ of God, who, on one occasion in the synagogue of the Jews, took the prophecy and, having read through the passage set before him, taught that the reading had been fulfilled in himself.
For it is written that, when he had read and closed the book, and given it back to the attendant, he sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him. And he began to say to them, 'Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'
In addition to all this, the words of Moses must again be set forth, who, having established his own brother Aaron as high priest according to the pattern shown to him, in accordance with the oracle which said to him, 'You shall make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain,' is manifestly one who, with the eyes of his understanding and by the divine Spirit, discerned the great High Priest of all, the true Christ of God; and who, while sketching out his image together with the rest of the bodily and typical service, honoured the one thus indicated with the title of the true Christ.
This the divine apostle also affirms, saying concerning the laws given through Moses: 'who serve a copy and shadow of heavenly things.' And again: 'For the law has a shadow of the good things to come.' And again: 'Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink, or with regard to a feast, or a new moon, or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.'
For if the laws concerning the indifference of foods, and concerning feasts and the sabbath, being shadowy, preserved an outline of other true and mystical realities, you would not be speaking amiss in saying that the high priest too was taken as a symbol of another high priest, and was named Christ with reference to another who is the sole and truly Christ; falling short of the true one to just this degree, that the true Christ hears from the God of all, 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet'; and 'Rule in the midst of your enemies.'
'And from the womb, before the morning star, I begot you.' 'And the Lord has sworn, and will not repent, You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.' By which words he is clearly shown to be the offspring and Son of God, having come into existence before the morning star and before all creation, and to be an eternal high priest.
But the Christ of Moses, having, as it were in a play, enacted the type for a short time, is reckoned to lie among mortal men, having handed over the truth to another, the sole and true one. And the true Christ, though he had no need of the anointing according to Moses, nor of a manufactured oil and earthly matter, has nevertheless filled the inhabited world with his virtue and his title, establishing among all nations the race that is named after him—the Christians.
But Moses' Christ was not even known among men at all as having been so named, except through the writing of Moses; and he, indeed, only late in time, after the exodus from Egypt, having been purified by certain sprinklings and by blood sacrifices, was anointed with a manufactured oil, Moses himself having anointed him.
But the archetypal and true Christ, from the beginning and unto endless age, wholly through and through, and in every respect like unto himself, differing in nothing whatsoever—he always existed, both before his sojourn among men and likewise after it, anointed not by man nor by any matter that exists among men, but by the God who is over all, with the unbegotten deity itself.
And since we are here examining his title, a fitting seal upon all that has been said would be the oracle found in the most wise Solomon, in the Song of Songs, which says: 'Your name is ointment poured forth.'
For he too, being supplied with divine wisdom, and deemed worthy of more secret contemplations concerning Christ and his church, and having made mention of the one as the heavenly bridegroom and the other as his bride, when the question is raised as to what indeed the bridegroom's name was, cries out, speaking as it were to him: 'Your name, O bridegroom, is ointment'—and not simply ointment, but ointment poured out.
But what name could be more signifying of ointment poured out than the name of Christ? For in no other way could one either become, or be named, Christ, except by the pouring on of ointment. And what kind of ointment this was, with which the one thus designated Christ has been shown to be anointed, has already been set forth by us above. Now that so much has been said concerning the title 'Christ,' let us also, in turn, examine that of 'Jesus.'
Again, Moses was the first who, employing another title for his successor, renamed him Jesus. For it is written: 'These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land; and Moses called Nausen the son of Naue, Jesus; and he sent them.'
Observe then in what manner the prophet, having conceived no small thoughts concerning the nature of names, but having philosophized at great length concerning the divine men who are renamed by him and the reasons for which they are renamed, introduces Abraham as receiving from God, as a prize for virtue, the complete title of 'Father Abraham'—a name whose meaning it is not now the moment to explain.
And so also, having renamed Sarah 'Sarra,' and Isaac, called 'laughter' before his birth, and Jacob, being crowned with the prize of the wrestling-match through the title 'Israel'—and having treated, with divine wisdom and understanding, ten thousand other matters concerning the power and nature of names, more divine than is fitting for man—Moses, though none before him from all ages had made use of the name Jesus, was himself the first who, being divinely inspired, changed the name of him who was to be established as his own successor in the leadership of the people, who had formerly borne another name, and calls him Jesus, not deeming sufficient the title given him at birth from his forebears; for his parents used to call him Nausen.