So that the Jewish nation, deservedly conquered and scattered throughout the lands — lest these things should be thought fabricated by us — might everywhere carry the codices of our prophets and become, though hostile to our faith, a witness of our truth. How then did the disciples of Christ teach what they did not learn from Christ — as fools in their folly boast — namely, that the superstition of the gentile gods and of images should be abolished? Can it be said that the disciples of Christ invented even those prophecies which are now read in the codices of Christ's enemies? For who overthrew these things but the God of Israel? For to that very people it was said, through the divine words made to Moses: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord.'
'Thou shalt not make to thyself an idol, nor any likeness of anything, neither of things that are in heaven above nor of things that are in the earth beneath.' And that He might also overthrow these things when He should receive power, He is thus commanded: 'Thou shalt not adore their gods, neither shalt thou serve them; thou shalt not do according to their works, but destroying thou shalt destroy them, and breaking thou shalt break their images.' But who would say that Christ and the Christians do not pertain to Israel, since Israel was the grandson of Abraham, to whom first, and then to Isaac his son, and then to Israel himself his grandson, it was said what I have already mentioned: 'In thy seed shall all nations be blessed'?
And this we now see coming to pass in Christ, since from thence sprang that Virgin, of whom the prophet of the people of Israel and of the God of Israel sang, saying: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel.' Now Emmanuel is interpreted 'God with us.' Therefore the God of Israel, who forbade other gods to be worshipped, who forbade idols to be fashioned, who commanded them to be overthrown, who through the prophet foretold that the nations from the ends of the earth would say, 'Truly our fathers worshipped lies, images, in which there is no profit' — He it is who, through the name of Christ and the faith of Christians, commanded, promised, and brought about the overthrow of all these superstitions.
In vain, therefore, do these wretches — because they have been forbidden by their own gods, that is, by demons who fear the name of Christ, to blaspheme Christ — wish to make alien to Him that teaching by which Christians dispute against idols and root out, wherever they can, all those false religions. Let them answer concerning the God of Israel, whom both the books of the Christians and even those of the Jews attest to teach and command these things; concerning Him let them consult their gods, who forbade Christ to be blasphemed; concerning the God of Israel, if they hear anything insulting, let them answer. But whom shall they consult? Or where shall they now consult? Let them read the books of their own.
If they think the God of Israel to be Jupiter, as Varro wrote — to speak for the moment according to their opinion — why then do they not believe Jupiter that idols must be destroyed? If they think Him to be Saturn, why do they not worship Him? Or why do they not worship Him in the manner in which He commanded Himself to be worshipped through those prophets by whom He fulfilled the things He foretold? Why do they not believe Him that images are to be overthrown and that other gods are not to be worshipped?
But if He is neither Jupiter nor Saturn — because, if He were one of them, He would not say so much against the rites of their Jupiter and Saturn — who then is He, who alone is not worshipped by these men for the sake of other gods, and who, when the other gods are overthrown, so manifestly brings it to pass that He alone is worshipped, every proud loftiness being humbled which had raised itself against Christ, persecuting and slaying Christians for the sake of idols? Now certainly they seek where to hide themselves when they wish to sacrifice, or where to shut away their very gods, lest they be found by Christians and broken in pieces. Whence this, if not from fear of the laws and of the kings through whom the God of Israel exerts His power over those now made subject to the name of Christ — as long before He promised, saying through the prophet:
'And all the kings of the earth shall adore Him, all the nations shall serve Him.' Surely now is fulfilled what is repeatedly sung through the prophet: that He would spare His impious people — not indeed the whole of it, for many of the Israelites believed in Christ, since from thence too were His apostles — and would humble every proud and injurious man, that He alone might be exalted, that is, might be made manifest to men as alone lofty and mighty, until the idols should be cast away by the believers and hidden by the unbelievers, when the earth is shattered by fear of Him, that is, when earthly men are broken by fear, dreading the law either of Himself or of those who, believing in Him and reigning over the nations, would forbid such sacrileges.
For these things, which I have briefly stated beforehand that they might be more easily understood, the prophet speaks thus: 'And now thou, house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. For He has forsaken His people, the house of Israel, because their region is filled, as from the beginning, with auguries like those of strangers, and many alien children have been born to them. For their region is filled with silver and gold, and there was no number of their treasures. And the land is filled with horses, and there was no number of their chariots. And the land is filled with the abominations of the works of their own hands, and they adored the things which their own fingers had made. And man has bowed himself down and the mighty man has humbled himself, and I will not forgive them.'
'And now enter into the rocks and hide yourselves in the earth, from before the fear of the Lord and from the majesty of His power, when He shall arise to shatter the earth. For the eyes of the Lord are lofty, but man is lowly. And the loftiness of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of Sabaoth is against every injurious and proud man, and above every high and lifted-up thing, and they shall be humbled; and above every cedar of Lebanon of the lofty and lifted-up, and above every oak-tree of Bashan, and above every mountain and above every high hill, and above every ship of the sea and above every spectacle of the beauty of ships. And the pride of men shall be humbled and shall fall, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.'
'And they shall hide all the things fashioned by their hands in caves and in the clefts of the rocks and in the caverns of the earth, from before the fear of the Lord and from the majesty of His power, when He shall arise to shatter the earth. For in that day man shall cast away his abominations of gold and silver, which they made that they might adore vain and hurtful things, that they may enter into the holes of the solid rock and into the clefts of the rocks, from before the fear of the Lord and from the majesty of His power, when He shall arise to break the earth in pieces.' What do they say of this God of Sabaoth, which is interpreted 'God of powers' or 'of hosts,' because the powers and hosts of angels serve Him?
What do they say of this God of Israel, in that He is the God of that people from whom came the Seed in whom all nations should be blessed? Why do they not worship Him alone, they who contend that all the gods are to be worshipped? Why do they not believe Him, who has both shown the other gods to be false and overthrown them? I heard one of them say that he had read in some philosopher or other — whose name I know not — that from the things which the Jews performed in their sacraments he had understood what God they worshipped: 'the president,' he said, 'of these elements of which this visible and corporeal world is constructed' — whereas it is openly shown by the holy scriptures of His prophets that the God whom the people of Israel was commanded to worship is He who made heaven and earth, and from whom is all true wisdom.
But what need is there to dispute further on this point, since for what I am doing it suffices that, by whatever presumption they opine concerning that God whom they cannot deny to be God? For if He is the president of the elements of which this world consists, why is not rather He alone worshipped, than Neptune, who is president of the sea alone; than, finally, Silvanus, who is of the fields and woods alone; than the Sun, who is of the day alone, or even of the whole celestial heat; than the Moon, who shines forth by power over the night alone, or even over moisture; than Juno, who is said to hold the air alone?
For certainly these presidents of the parts, whoever they are, must needs be under Him who bears the presidency of all the elements and of this whole mass. Yet He forbids all of them to be worshipped. Why then do these men, contrary to the command of their greater, not only wish to worship them, but for the sake of these refuse to worship Him? As yet they find nothing to pronounce constantly and clearly about this God of Israel, nor will they ever find it, until they find Him to be the one true God, by whom all things were created.
Accordingly a certain Lucan, a great declaimer among them in verse, himself too — I believe — long inquiring, whether through his own reflections or through the books of his own people, who indeed the God of the Jews might be, and, because he did not inquire piously, not finding Him, nevertheless preferred to call the God he could not find an uncertain God rather than no god, so great were the proofs of Him that he perceived. For he says: 'And Judaea, given over to the rites of an uncertain god.' And that God, holy and true, the God of Israel, had not yet, through the name of Christ, done such great things among all nations as have followed even to this present day since the times of Lucan. But now who is so hard as not to be bent? Who so torpid as not to catch fire, when that is fulfilled which is written, that there is none who may hide himself from His heat?
For now those things are made manifest with clearest light which, in the very psalm from which I quoted that little verse, were foretold so long before. For by the name of 'heavens' the apostles of Christ were signified, because God presided in them, that they might proclaim the Gospel. Now therefore 'the heavens have declared the glory of God, and the firmament has proclaimed the works of His hands. Day unto day pours forth speech, and night unto night proclaims knowledge. Now there are no languages nor speeches whose voices are not heard. Now their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.'
Now 'in the sun,' that is, in manifestation, 'He has set His tabernacle,' which is His Church, because, that He might do this, He Himself — as it there follows — 'came forth as a bridegroom from His chamber,' that is: the Word, joined to human flesh, came forth from the virginal womb; 'now He rejoiced as a giant to run His course; now from the height of heaven was His going forth, and His return even unto the height of heaven.' And therefore most fittingly there follows the verse which I mentioned a little before: 'And there is none who may hide himself from His heat.'
And still these frail folk, prattling their petty contradictions, choose rather to be turned to ash by this fire, like stubble, than to be purged from filth like gold — even though the deceitful monuments of the false gods have already been brought to nought, and the truthful promises of that 'uncertain god' have already been made certain fact! Let them cease, then — those evil praisers of Christ who are unwilling to be Christians — to say that Christ did not teach that their gods should be forsaken and their images broken. For the God of Israel, of whom it was foretold that He would be called the God of the whole earth, and who is now called the God of the whole earth, foretold this through the prophets as future, and fulfilled it through Christ at the fitting time.
For certainly, if the God of Israel is now called the God of the whole earth, it must needs come to pass that what He commanded be done, once He who commanded became known. But because it was through Christ and in Christ that He became known — so that His Church might be spread throughout the world, and through it the God of Israel might be called the God of the whole earth — let those who wish read a little above in the same prophet; nay, let it be recalled by me as well. For it is not so long that it need be passed over. For many things are said of the presence and humility and passion of Christ and of His body, whose head He is, that is, of His Church, when it is called as it were 'barren, that did not bear.' For through many years the Church,
which was to exist among all nations in her sons, that is, in her saints, did not yet appear, Christ not yet having been announced through the evangelists to those to whom He had not been announced through the prophets; and it is said that the sons of the forsaken one would be more than the sons of her that has a husband — where by the name of 'husband' is signified the law or the king, which the first people of Israel received. Nor had the nations received the law at the time when the prophet spoke, nor had a king of the Christians yet appeared; and yet from those very nations a far more fruitful and numerous multitude of saints has come forth. So then Isaiah speaks, beginning from the humility of Christ and afterwards turning himself to address the Church, up to that verse which we have mentioned, where he says:
'And He that delivered thee, the God of Israel Himself, shall be called the God of the whole earth': 'Behold,' he says, 'My servant shall be in understanding, and shall be exalted and greatly honoured. As many shall marvel over thee, so too shall thy appearance seem unhonoured by men, and thy honour by men. For so shall many nations marvel over Him, and kings shall keep their mouths shut, because they to whom it was not announced concerning Him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand. Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We announced before Him as a child, as a root in a thirsting land; there is no beauty in Him, nor honour. And we saw Him, and He had neither beauty nor comeliness;'
'but His visage was cast down and disfigured, His standing beneath that of all men. A man in stripes and one who knows how to bear infirmities; for which cause His face was turned away, it was insulted and not esteemed as great. He bears our infirmities and is in sorrows for our sake. And we esteemed Him to be in sorrows and in stripes and in punishment. But He was wounded for our sins and was made weak for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; by His bruise we are healed. We all like sheep went astray, and the Lord delivered Him up for our sins. And He, because He was ill-treated, opened not His mouth;'
'He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer was without voice, so He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgment was taken away. Who shall declare His generation? for His life shall be taken from the earth. Because of the iniquities of My people He was led to death. Therefore I will give the wicked for His burial, and the rich for His death, on account of this, that He committed no iniquity, nor was there deceit in His mouth. The Lord wills to cleanse Him from His stripe. If ye shall give up your soul for your offences, ye shall see a seed of longest life.'
'And the Lord wills to take away His soul from sorrows, to show Him light and to form Him through understanding, to justify the Just One who serves many well; and He Himself shall bear their sins. Therefore He shall inherit many, and shall divide the spoils of the mighty, because His soul was delivered up to death and He was reckoned among the wicked; and He Himself bore the sins of many, and for their iniquities He was delivered up. Rejoice, O barren one that dost not bear; break forth and cry aloud, thou that dost not travail, for many are the sons of the forsaken one, more than of her that has a husband. For the Lord has said: Enlarge the place of thy tabernacle and fix firm thy courts; there is no cause that thou shouldst spare. Stretch forth thy cords further, and set up strong stakes.'
Stretch out yet further, both to the right and to the left. For your seed shall inherit the nations, and you shall inhabit the cities that were desolate. There is no cause for you to fear, for you shall prevail; nor be ashamed that you were despised. For you shall forget the confusion forever. You shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood, 'for I am the Lord who made you; the Lord is his name, and he who delivered you, the very God of Israel, shall be called the God of the whole earth.' What can be said against this plainness and clear declaration of things both foretold and fulfilled? If they suppose that his disciples lied concerning the divinity of Christ, will they then doubt concerning the passion of Christ? They are wont not to believe that he rose again;
yet they readily believe that he endured all those human sufferings at the hands of men, because they wish him to be believed to be nothing more than a man. He therefore, like a sheep led to the slaughter, he numbered among the wicked, he wounded for our sins, by whose stripes we were healed, whose face was outraged and held of no account, struck with palms and befouled with spittle, whose form was set upon the cross in disfigurement, he who was led away to death by the iniquities of the people of Israel, he who had no comeliness nor beauty, when he was struck with blows, when he was crowned with thorns, when hanging he was mocked, he who, as a lamb before its shearer has no voice, so opened not his mouth, when it was said to him by those insulting him: Prophesy to us, O Christ.
Surely now he has been exalted, now he has been greatly glorified. Surely now many nations marvel over him. Now the kings have shut their mouths, wherewith they used to promulgate the most savage laws against Christians. Surely those to whom nothing was announced concerning him now see, and those who did not hear now understand. For the nations, to whom the prophets did not make announcement, themselves see the more that the things announced through the prophets are true. And those who did not hear Isaiah himself speaking now understand in his writings of whom he spoke these things.
For among the very nation of the Jews, who believed the report of the prophets, or to whom was the arm of the Lord—which is Christ himself, who was announced through them—revealed, when with their own hands they committed against Christ those crimes which the prophets whom they possessed had foretold would come to pass? Surely now he possesses many by inheritance and divides the spoils of the strong, since he distributes among his own—through the building of his churches and every needful use—those things which the devil and the demons had possessed, once these have been driven out and betrayed. What then do the perverse praisers of Christ and detractors of Christians say to this? Did Christ, by magic arts, bring it about that these things should be foretold so long before through the prophets, or did his disciples invent them?
Was it that the Church, spread abroad through the nations, once barren, might now rejoice with more sons than that synagogue which had received the Law—or a king—as her husband; was it that she might so enlarge the place of her tabernacle, occupying all nations and tongues, that she might stretch out her cords farther than the dominion of the Roman empire extends, even unto the Persians and Indians and other barbarous nations; that his name might be extended among so many peoples, to the right through true Christians and to the left through feigned Christians; that her seed might inherit the nations; that she might now inhabit the cities which had been deserted from the true worship of God and from true religion; that she might not fear the threats and furies of men, when she was clothed in the blood of martyrs as in a purple honor; that she might prevail against so many and so violent and powerful persecutors of hers; that she might not be ashamed that she had been despised, when it was a great crime to become or to be a Christian; that she might forget the confusion forever, because where sin had abounded, grace did much more abound; that she might not be mindful of the reproach of her widowhood, because, though a little while forsaken and exposed to reproaches, she blossoms again in glory so eminent—was it that Christ's disciples feigned all this by magic arts?
Did the disciples of Christ finally feign that the Lord, who made her and delivered her from the dominion of the devil and the demons, the very God of Israel, should now be called the God of the whole earth—a thing which the prophets, whose books are now held in the hands of Christ's enemies, foretold so long before Christ became the Son of Man? From this, then, let them understand—a thing which is not left obscure or doubtful even to the dullest and most stupid—from this, I say, let the perverse praisers of Christ and the cursers of the Christian religion understand that even Christ's disciples both learned and taught, against their gods, those things which the doctrine of Christ contains; for the God of Israel, who is found in the books of the prophets to have commanded that all these things which these men wish to worship should be abominated and overthrown, is himself now called, through Christ and Christ's Church, the God of the whole earth, just as he promised so long before.
For if, in wondrous madness, they suspect that Christ worshipped their gods, and that through these he was able to do such great things, did the God of Israel then also worship their gods, who fulfilled through Christ what he promised concerning himself—that he should be worshipped among all nations—and concerning those gods, that they should be abominated and overthrown? Where are their gods? Where are the oracles of the fanatics and the divinations of the pythons? Where are the auguries or auspices or soothsayings or oracles of the demons? Why is there not brought forth from ancient books of this kind some warning or prediction against the Christian faith and against the truth of our prophets, now made so manifest and so plain among all nations? 'We give offense,' they say.
'our gods, and they have forsaken us; therefore the Christians have prevailed against us, and the felicity of human affairs, worn out and diminished, is slipping away.' Let them read from the books of their own seers that this was certainly bound to befall them through the Christians—but let them read it in a place where, if not Christ (since they wish him to have been a worshipper of their gods), at least the God of Israel is disapproved and detested, who is well known to be the overthrower of those gods. But they will never bring this forth, unless perhaps something they have just now cobbled together.
And when they do bring it forth, it will by that very fact certainly appear—since a matter so great and so unknown is brought forth—that it ought, before that which was foretold had come to pass, to have been recited in the temples of the gods of all nations, so that those who now refuse to be Christians might be forearmed and forewarned. Furthermore, as to their complaint concerning the diminution of the felicity of human affairs in Christian times: if they were to read the books of their own philosophers censuring those very things which are now being withdrawn from them even against their will and amid their murmuring, then indeed they would find great praise for Christian times. For what is diminished of their felicity, save what they were most wickedly and wantonly abusing to the great injury of the Creator?
Unless perhaps these are evil times because, throughout almost all the cities, the theaters are falling—those dens of shamefulness and public professions of vice—and the forums too and the walls where the demons were worshipped. For whence do they fall, save from the lack of those things by whose wanton and sacrilegious use they were built up? Did not their own Cicero, when he was praising a certain actor named Roscius, say that he was so skilled that he alone was worthy to go upon the stage, yet so good a man that he alone was worthy not to approach it? What else did he most openly show, save that that stage was so base that a man ought the less to be there the more he was a good man?
And yet their gods were appeased by such disgrace as he judged ought to be kept away from good men. There is also on this point an open confession of this same Cicero, where he says that Flora, the mother of the games, must be appeased by him with the celebration of games. In these games such great baseness was wont to be exhibited that, in comparison with them, the rest are decent—though even from the very performing of these the good men are forbidden. What sort of mother is this Flora, what kind of goddess is she, whom baseness the more thronged and loosed with more unrestrained rein wins over and propitiates? How much more honorably now did Roscius enter upon the stage than Cicero worshipped such a goddess? If the gods of the nations are offended by the diminution of the abundance of resources which are poured out in celebrating these things, it is apparent what sort they are who delight in such things.
But if they themselves in anger diminish these things, they are more usefully angry than appeased. Wherefore let them either accuse their own philosophers, who reproved such things in luxurious men, or let them break their own gods, who exacted such things of their worshippers—if indeed they now find either any to break or any to hide away. But in Christian times let them cease, by blaspheming, to impute to us the failure of prosperous things, into which vices they were dissolving; lest rather they remind us of that whereby the power of Christ is the more to be praised. I would say much on this point, were not the necessity of the work I have undertaken now compelling me to bring this book to a close and return to the purpose I set out.
For when I set about to resolve the Gospel questions—where to some it seems that the four evangelists do not agree among themselves—as I was able, having set forth the aims of each, there first occurred to me for discussion what some are wont to ask: why we bring forth no writings of Christ himself. For they wish both to have it believed that he himself wrote I know not what other thing which they love, and that he thought nothing against their gods, but rather worshipped them with a magic rite; and that his disciples not only lied concerning him in saying that he was God, through whom all things were made, when he was nothing other than a man, though of most excellent wisdom, but also did not teach concerning their gods what they had learned from him.
Whence it came about that we rather pressed them concerning the God of Israel, who is worshipped through the Church of the Christians by all nations, and who now everywhere overthrows the sacrilegious vanities of these men, just as he foretold so long before through his prophets, and who has fulfilled what he foretold through the name of Christ, in whom he had promised that all nations should be blessed.
From which they ought to understand that Christ could neither know nor teach anything else concerning their gods than what the God of Israel commanded and foretold through the prophets—through whom he promised and sent Christ himself, in whose name, according to the promise he made to the fathers, that all nations should be blessed, it came about that the God of Israel himself should be called the God of the whole earth; and that his disciples did not deviate from the doctrine of their Master, when they forbade the gods of the nations to be worshipped, lest we should either supplicate senseless images, or have fellowship with demons, or serve the creature rather than the Creator with the obedience of religion.