Since, then, the expectation of the calling of the nations, declared long ago to Abraham, lay in reserve to be fulfilled once the rulers and leaders from the Jewish nation had ceased, and their rule had passed over to the Romans and to Herod, who has been shown to be of the nations -- fittingly the evangelist Luke, noting the times of the cessation of the Jewish rulers, records that the beginning of Christ's teaching took place in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate governing Judea; and Matthew too, hinting at this very thing, signifies the same.
Having, then, described the birth of our Lord and Savior, he adds: 'Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east arrived at Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?' By these words he clearly sets forth both the rule of the alien over them, and the calling by God of the alien nations from the east.
For at one and the same time aliens held rule over the Jews, and it was aliens, arriving from the east, who recognized and worshiped the Christ of God, long prophesied. Clearly, then, through these things the prophecy of Jacob is shown to have reached its fulfillment, accomplished at the very end of the constitution of the Jewish nation, just as he himself declared to his own sons, saying: 'Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days' -- we understanding by 'last days' the final period of the constitution of the Jewish nation.
What, then, was destined to befall them? The failing of Judah's rule, and the overthrow of their whole nation; the cessation and ending of their leaders, and the dissolution of the royal and ruling dignity of his tribe; but the rule and kingdom of Christ, ruling not over Israel, but over all the nations, according to the words 'and he shall be the expectation of nations.'
And who would not confess that these things have thus been so plainly fulfilled at the appearing of our Savior -- seeing that those who, of old, before the birth of Christ, were resplendent with rulers and leaders of their own, and with understanding hearers of the divine readings, and with kings of their own, and with high priests and prophets, and that the tribe of Judah itself, being royal, prevailing over its enemies and foes, ruling and leading the whole nation -- those who once shone brightly among them have, from that time to this day, been made subject and tributary to the Romans? For the Christ of God has plainly appeared, and from that time the so-called expectation of the nations has been proclaimed to all the nations.
Or let someone say otherwise — unless it was at the manifestation of Jesus our Savior that the venerable things among the Jews, their metropolis together with the temple and the sacred rite performed therein, along with their own leaders and rulers, ceased; while from that time the hope and expectation of the nations throughout the whole inhabited world has been made manifest, when indeed there came the things laid up for the Lord.
But what are the things signified through Judah — 'your brothers shall praise you', 'your hands shall be upon the back of your enemies', 'Judah is a lion's whelp; from a shoot, my son, you have gone up; having lain down, you slept as a lion, and as a lion's whelp — who shall rouse him?' For these are the things laid up for him according to another sense, which let us also proceed to consider, first taking note of this, that the divine oracles are accustomed to address Christ by different names. For at one time they call him Jacob: 'Jacob my servant, I will lay hold of him; my chosen one, my soul has accepted him; he shall bring forth judgment to the nations,' and so forth.
to which is added: 'until he set judgment upon the earth, and in his name shall the nations hope'; and at another time they call him Solomon and David — Solomon, as in the seventy-first Psalm, which is inscribed 'for Solomon', but plainly contains the things concerning Christ.
For 'he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the world, and all the nations shall serve him', and whatever else the Psalm contains following these words would fit Christ alone.
And again, in the eighty-eighth Psalm Christ is proclaimed as 'David', since not to David but to him alone would the things said in it be fitting, such as: 'He shall call upon me, You are my Father'; 'and I will make him my firstborn, high above the kings of the earth. Forever I will keep my mercy for him.'
and again: 'His seed shall remain forever, and his throne as the sun before me, and as the moon established forever.' Thus, then, as one among countless other names of Christ, by which the divine oracles designate him, he can likewise be called 'Judah' through the passage before us, because he indeed became of the tribe of Judah.
For it is evident, according to the Apostle, that our Savior and Lord has arisen out of the tribe of Judah. To this Judah, then, in this sense, were the things prophesied reserved.
What then were these things? First, to be praised by his brothers; second, to lay his hands upon the back of his enemies; third, to be worshiped by the sons of his father. And these indeed reached their fulfillment at the time when, while yet performing his extraordinary powers and prodigious wonders, he was admired and praised and worshiped by his own disciples and apostles, whom he did not hesitate to call brothers — speaking through the Psalm, 'I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will praise you', and commanding the women around Mary to announce to them as to brothers: 'Tell my brothers', he says, 'that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.'
Thus indeed his brothers at first praised him only as a wondrous man on account of his marvels, supposing him, as was likely, to be one of the prophets; but when, in the meantime, seeing his amazing extraordinary works, and how he destroyed the enemy and avenger — death, the ruler of this age — together with the rest of the invisible and hostile powers, then, believing him at that point to be God, they worshiped him.
And the hands of our Savior were upon the back of his enemies when he performed all his deeds — his powers and extraordinary works — for the destruction of demons and evil spirits. But also when he stretched out his hands upon the cross, in this way too his hands were upon the back of his enemies, as they fled and yielded their backs to him; and even more so when, having given up his spirit to the Father, fleshless and stripped of the body which he had assumed, he went down to the region of his enemies, being Life itself, about to destroy death and the powers that rose up against him — powers which had presumably supposed him at first to be a common man, like the many, and so had surrounded him and, as it were, rushed upon him as upon any ordinary man; but when they recognized that he had turned out to be of a nature superior to man and more divine, and had yielded their backs to him, against whom, letting loose his divinely-inspired and sharpened arrows, he drove them as they fled — so that on this account it was said, 'Your hands are upon the back of your enemies.'
And if even now countless enemies of our Savior still, at various times, attempt to make war upon his Church, yet he routs these also by an invisible hand and divine power, so that concerning them too it may be said, 'Your hands are upon the back of your enemies.'
And since he had now already received the prizes of victory over his enemies, then also was fulfilled the saying, 'The sons of your father shall worship you' — namely, all the angels in heaven, the ministering spirits and the divine powers, and on earth the apostles and evangelists, and after them all those from the nations who through him have inscribed the one and only true Father as God — who, having learned that Christ is God the Word, confess that they worship him as God.
But since it was necessary that the mysteries both of his birth and of his death be included in the prophecy concerning him, fittingly, after what has already been said, Jacob, prophesying, adds: 'Judah is a lion's whelp; from a shoot, my son, you have gone up; having lain down, you slept as a lion and as a whelp — who shall rouse him?' Now he calls him 'a lion's whelp' because he was born of a royal tribe.
For he was indeed of the seed of David according to the flesh. 'From a shoot, my son, you have gone up', it says, since he sprang up from the seed and root of Jacob, who was uttering this prophecy — being first God the Word, and becoming, in a second stage, the son of man, through the dispensation which he undertook on our behalf.
And 'having lain down, you slept as a lion and as a whelp' would also be indicative of his death, since it is the custom of Scripture, according to a certain characteristic idiom, to call death 'sleep' in countless other instances as well.
And 'who shall rouse him?' is said with wonder concerning his resurrection from the dead. For he who says 'who shall rouse him?' clearly knows that he will be raised; and he adds it with wonder — 'who then is he who will do this and raise him up?' — stirring us up to inquire who it might be who will raise our Lord, who accepted death on our behalf, from the dead.
And who else could this be but the God and Father of all, to whom alone the resurrection of our Savior must be attributed, according to the Scripture that says, 'whom the Father raised from the dead'? Instead of 'Judah is a lion's whelp; from a shoot, my son, you have gone up; having lain down, you slept', Aquila, most expressively, says: 'A lion's cub is Judah; from the prey, my son, you have gone up; having bowed, you lay down.'
And Symmachus says: 'Judah is a lion's whelp; from the capture of a wild beast, my son, you have gone up; having crouched, you were made firm.' Through these it is clearly shown that the resurrection from the dead, and the escape of our Savior from Hades — as it were from the capture of some wild beast — are signified.
And 'to crouch and be made firm', but not 'to fall down', shows at once, through 'to crouch', his death, and through 'to be made firm', that he was not dragged down in the same way as the souls of the rest of men. All these things, then, were reserved beforehand for Christ; yet, until they had not yet reached fulfillment, the nation of the Jews still stood together, and their rulers and leaders, and those who carefully and intelligently examined the divine prophecies concerning Christ, still flourished among them.
But when the things laid up for Judah had come, and the one prophesied appeared upon the earth, having come to be from the seed and shoot of him who uttered this prophecy, and, having lain down and slept — or, according to Symmachus, having crouched — was made firm and was raised up, having laid his hands upon the back of his invisible and intelligible enemies; and when his brothers and disciples, who at first praised and marveled at him, later also confessed him to be God and worshiped him as God — then were the things laid up for him fulfilled, so that on this account it was said, 'until there come the things laid up for him.'
For indeed, from that time until now, since the things laid up for him have come to pass, the rulers and leaders of the nation of the Jews have ceased, and rulers of the nations have been set up over their head; while, conversely, the nations, having come to know Christ of God, have inscribed him as their Savior and expectation.
After all these things it is further said: 'Binding his colt to the vine, and the foal of his she-ass to the tendril, he shall wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape. His eyes are sparkling from wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk.'
I think that by these words is intimated, by 'the colt', the chorus of the apostles and disciples of our Savior; and by 'the vine', to which he tied the colt, his divine and invisible power, which he himself set forth and taught, saying: 'I am the true vine, my Father is the vinedresser.' And the 'tendril' of the vine mentioned would be the teaching of God the Word, by which he tied the foal of the ass — the new people from the nations, who are the offspring of his apostles.
One might also say that this reached its fulfillment even according to the letter, when, according to Matthew, the Lord said to his own disciples: 'Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; loose them and bring them to me.'
And it is truly possible, indeed, when one attends to the account, to marvel at the prophet's prediction, who by the divine Spirit had foreseen that the one prophesied would not, like some renowned king among men, ride upon chariots and horses, but upon a donkey and a colt, like some common and poor man among the many.
For this too another of the prophets marveled at, saying: 'Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; behold, your king comes to you, gentle, mounted upon a beast of burden and a young colt.' Now consider also whether 'he shall wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape' does not perhaps, as in a hidden manner, hint at his mysterious passion, in which he washed his robe and his garment in a bath — through which is signified the washing away of the old defilements of those who have believed in him.
For through the wine, which was the symbol of his blood, he cleanses from their former evils those who are baptized into his death and who have believed on his blood, washing off and scouring away their old robe and garment, so that they, having been redeemed by the precious blood of the divine and spiritual grape, and by the wine of the vine that was given, might strip off the old man together with his deeds, and put on the new man who is being renewed unto knowledge according to the image of him who created him.
And 'his eyes are sparkling from wine', and 'his teeth are whiter than milk', I think, again in a hidden manner, contain the mysteries of the new covenant of our Savior. The gladness, then, that comes from the mystic wine which he himself gave to his own disciples, saying, 'Take, drink; this is my blood which is poured out for you for the remission of sins; do this in remembrance of me' — this, it seems to me, is signified by 'his eyes are sparkling from wine'; and 'his teeth are whiter than milk' signifies the brightness and purity of the mysterious food.
For since he no longer admitted the sacrifices through blood, nor those legislated by Moses through the slaughter of various animals, but delivered instead the use of bread as a symbol of his own body, he fittingly hinted at the brightness and purity of the food, saying, 'and his teeth are whiter than milk.' Of this another prophet also made mention, saying: 'Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me.'
But these things, requiring more thorough examination and a longer interpretation, one might investigate at leisure; the present occasion requiring that so much be said, in order to show, along with the rest, that the times of the coming of our Savior, known long ago by the ancient prophets, have clearly been handed down in the divine Scripture. From Daniel.
'And while I was still speaking and praying, and confessing my sins and the sins of my people Israel, and casting down my supplication before the Lord my God concerning the holy mountain of my God — 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 gave me understanding, and spoke with me, and said, Daniel, now I have come forth to give you understanding.'
'At the beginning of your supplication the word went forth, and I have come to declare it to you, because you are a man of desires; and consider the word, and understand the vision, that you are a man of desires.'
'Seventy weeks have been determined upon your people and upon the holy city, to finish sin, and to seal up sins, and to blot out the iniquities, and to make atonement for iniquities, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.'
'And you shall know and understand, that from the going forth of the word to answer and to build Jerusalem until Christ the leader, there are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; and it shall return, and the street and the wall shall be built, and the times shall be exhausted; and after the sixty-two weeks the anointing shall be utterly destroyed, and there is no judgment in him; and he shall destroy the city and the sanctuary together with the coming leader, and they shall be cut off in a flood, and unto the end of the war, cut short, with desolations; and he shall strengthen a covenant with many for one week, and in the half of the week the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away, and upon the temple shall be the abomination of desolations, and unto the consummation of the time an end shall be given upon the desolation.'
As the seventy-year captivity of the nation of the Jews in Babylon was already drawing to its close, when Daniel prayed, Gabriel the archangel, one of the holy ministers of God, appeared and declared that the renewal of Jerusalem would take place at once, then, and not long afterward; and he limits the time following its renewal to a fixed number of years, and foretells that after the appointed term it will again be destroyed, and that, having undergone a second capture and siege, it will no longer obtain the visitation from God, but will remain desolate, the worship according to the law of Moses being destroyed along with it, and another new covenant being introduced in its place for the life of mankind.
He says to him, then: 'Daniel, now I have come forth to give you understanding; at the beginning of your supplication the word went forth, and I have come to declare it to you, because you are a man of desires; and consider the word, and understand the vision' — clearly stirring him up to a deeper thought and understanding in the contemplation of what is said. He calls it a 'vision', then, because it involves a deeper thought and requires no ordinary understanding.
Wherefore let us also call upon him who grants understanding to men, and having prayed that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened by him, let us take courage for the contemplation according to these passages. 'Seventy weeks have been determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish sin, and to seal up sins, and to blot out the iniquities, and to make atonement for iniquities, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.'
That the time of the seventy weeks, resolved into years, amounts to a number of four hundred and ninety, is, I think, clear to everyone. So great a time, then, was determined upon your people, marking out the entire conclusion of the nation of the Jews.
And he no longer here calls them the people of God, but says to Daniel, 'your people'; for just as, when they once acted impiously and worshiped idols in the wilderness, God no longer called them his own people, but Moses' people, saying, 'Go, get down, for your people has broken the law' — in the same manner here too he teaches the cause for which the aforesaid time was determined against them: this was that they were no longer to be deemed worthy to be called the people of God.
And he adds concerning 'the holy city' as well: we are to understand 'your' again in common, so that what is said is of this kind: 'upon your people and upon your holy city', as if he said, 'the city accounted holy by you.' The Hebrew, at any rate, and the other translators in agreement, contain 'your' attached not only to 'people' but also to 'city.' Aquila, at any rate, says, 'upon your people and upon your sanctified city'; and Symmachus, 'concerning your people and your holy city.'
For since Daniel, in praying, in the words of his supplication, often called the people 'the people of God', and the place of the city 'the holy place of God', the one who now delivers this oracle, reversing this, does not confess the city to be the holy city of God, nor the people to be the people of God, but says 'yours' — meaning, of you who are praying, who have said such things concerning the people and the place and the city. Daniel's words run thus: 'Let your fury and your wrath, I pray, be turned away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy mountain.'
'And your people has become a reproach among all who are round about us.' And again: 'Cause your face to shine upon your desolate sanctuary.' And again: 'Behold the desolation of your city, upon which your name has been called', and further on, 'that your name has been called upon your city and upon your people.'
Having prayed such things, he adds: 'And while I was speaking and praying, behold, Gabriel, whom I had seen in my vision, flying, and he touched me, and said' the things that have been recorded. Clearly, then, through these words the prophet named the city not simply 'a city', but 'the city of God', and the sanctuary 'the sanctuary of God', and the people 'the people of God' — out of his affection toward the people.
Yet Gabriel no longer calls the things thus indicated in the same way as he does; rather, on the contrary, he says 'upon your people', and 'upon your holy city' — well-nigh declaring that the city and the people and the sanctuary are unworthy of the appellation of God.
He teaches, then, that so great a time has been determined first against the people, and then also against the city; and it is shown to be of such length from the renewal of Jerusalem — which took place under Darius, king of the Persians — until the dominion of Augustus of the Romans, and of Herod, king of the Jews, of a foreign race, under whom the birth of our Savior is recorded, as the discourse, proceeding, will show.
Next he adds: 'to finish sin, and to seal up sins, and to blot out iniquities, and to make atonement for iniquities, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.' Now instead of 'to finish sin and to seal up sins', Aquila has rendered 'to complete the faithlessness and to perfect sin.'
For I think that the saying 'Fill up the measure of your fathers', spoken by our Savior to those of the circumcision, is confirmed also by these things. For at the plot which the nation of the Jews dared against him, their sin was completed, and their impiety toward God, according to Aquila's rendering, reached its end.
For formerly, indeed, the longsuffering of God long bore with them, though they committed countless transgressions before the coming of our Savior, as is indeed shown through the words of the prophets. Yet, just as it had been said to Abraham concerning the foreigners who then dwelt in the land of promise — for the sins of the Amorites were not yet fulfilled, and, so long as they were not yet fulfilled, the Amorites were not yet driven out of their ancestral land; but when their sins were fulfilled, then all of them were utterly destroyed in the days of Joshua, the successor of Moses — so also it is to be understood concerning the former people. For as long as their sins were not fulfilled, the forbearance and longsuffering of God bore with them, calling them each time to conversion through the prophets; but when, according to the saving voice, they had filled up the measure of their fathers, then all things gathered together at once brought about their final destruction, just as our Lord himself again teaches, saying: 'All the blood shed from the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zacharias, shall come upon this generation.'
At last of all, then, having dared to lay hands upon the Son of God, they completed their faithlessness and perfected their own sin, according to Aquila's translation; but according to the Seventy, their sin was bound and sealed.
But since he came not only for the fall, but also for the rising of many in Israel, as it is said concerning him: 'Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel', fittingly Daniel next adds, following what has been said: 'and to blot out sins, and to make atonement for iniquities.'
For since it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins, and since the whole race of men had need of a living and true propitiation, of which the mercy-seat constructed by Moses bore the type — and this was our Savior and Lord, the Lamb of God, concerning whom it is said, 'Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.'
And again: 'he himself is the propitiation for our sins' — and not for ours only, but also for the whole world; he himself being also redemption, according to Paul, who says, 'who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.' Fittingly, then, it teaches that his coming was at once the completion and perfection of the sin of those who acted impiously against him, and at the same time the blotting out and cleansing of sins, and the propitiation of the iniquities of those who believed in him.
And Aquila too, having said 'to complete the faithlessness and to perfect the sin', added 'and to make atonement for iniquity', supposing him to be the propitiation for all the iniquity formerly committed through ignorance. Next after these it is said, 'to bring in everlasting righteousness.'
The Word of God himself, then, is eternal righteousness, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, according to the Apostle. Yet, together with his own coming, he also procured righteousness for all men, showing by his works that God is not only the God of the Jews, but also of the nations, since God is one, who will justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.
Wherefore Peter, marveling in truth at those around Cornelius who had been counted worthy of the Holy Spirit, says: 'Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.'
And Paul too says that the gospel is of righteousness, saying: 'For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek; for the righteousness of God is revealed in it.' And in the Psalms it is said concerning Christ: 'In his days shall righteousness spring up, and abundance of peace.'
And his work, too, truly showed forth the righteousness of God, in that he deemed the whole race of men worthy, equally, of the calling that comes from God. But such was not the case with the things given through Moses, which were bestowed on the nation of the Jews alone; wherefore also, having appeared for a season, they have passed away. But the righteousness proclaimed through our Savior, remaining forever, is fittingly called 'eternal righteousness', according to Gabriel, who said, 'and to bring in everlasting righteousness.'