'If you believed Moses, you would believe Me also; for he wrote of Me.' For by taking the law carnally and not knowing that its earthly promises were figures of heavenly things, they fell into those murmurings, so that they dared to say: 'He who serves God is foolish, and what profit is it that we have kept His commandments and that we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now we call the strangers blessed, and all who work iniquity are built up.' By these words of theirs the prophet was in a way compelled to foretell the last judgment, wherein the wicked will not be blessed even falsely, but will appear most openly wretched, and the good will not labor under even any temporary misery, but will enjoy a clear and everlasting blessedness.
For he had reported some such words of theirs even earlier, when they said: 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such please Him.' To these murmurings against God, I say, they came by receiving the law of Moses carnally. Whence also that man in the seventy-second Psalm says that his feet were almost moved and his steps had well nigh slipped—into a fall, that is—because he was envious at sinners, beholding the peace of sinners; so that among other things he said: 'How does God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?' He said also: 'Have I then cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands among the innocent?' But in order to resolve this most difficult question, which arises when the good seem to be wretched and the wicked happy:
'This,' he says, 'was a labor before me, until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning the last things.' For in the last judgment it will not be so; but in the open misery of the unrighteous and the open felicity of the righteous, something far different from what now is will appear. And when He had admonished them to remember the law of Moses (since He foresaw that for a long time yet they would not receive it spiritually, as they ought), He immediately added: 'And behold, I will send to you Elijah the Tishbite, before the great and glorious day of the Lord come, who shall turn the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his neighbor, lest perchance I come and smite the earth utterly.'
That through this great and wondrous prophet Elijah, the law being expounded to them, the Jews in the last time before the judgment will believe in the true Christ, that is, in our Christ—this is most widely known in the discourses and hearts of the faithful. For not without reason is he hoped to be coming before the advent of the Judge and Savior, who is also, not without reason, believed even now to be living. For he was carried off from human affairs in a chariot of fire, as the holy Scripture most evidently testifies. When therefore he shall have come, by expounding the law spiritually, which the Jews now understand carnally, he will turn 'the heart of the father to the son,' that is, the heart of the fathers to the sons; for the Seventy translators put the singular for the plural;
and the meaning is that the sons too, that is the Jews, may understand the law in the same way as the fathers understood it, that is the prophets, among whom was Moses himself; for thus the heart of the fathers will be turned to the sons, when the understanding of the fathers shall be brought over to the understanding of the sons; and the heart of the sons to their fathers, while these too consent to that which those perceived; where the Seventy said: 'And the heart of a man to his neighbor.' For fathers and sons are indeed very close to one another. And yet in the words of the Seventy translators, who translated prophetically, another and even more choice sense can be found, so that it may be understood that Elijah will turn the heart of God the Father to the Son;
not indeed by bringing it about that the Father should love the Son, but by teaching that the Father loves the Son; so that the Jews too may love the same Christ who is ours, whom before they hated. For now toward the Jews God has His heart turned away from our Christ, because they think thus. To them, then, His heart will then be turned toward the Son, when they themselves, with heart converted, shall have learned the love of the Father for the Son. As for what follows: 'And the heart of a man to his neighbor,' that is, Elijah will turn also the heart of a man to his neighbor—what is better understood than the heart of man toward the man Christ? For though our God is in the form of God, taking the form of a servant He deigned to become also our neighbor. This, then, Elijah will do. 'Lest perchance,' He says, 'I come and smite the earth utterly.'
For 'the earth' means those who are of an earthly mind, as the carnal Jews are even now; from which fault came those murmurings against God: 'Because the wicked please Him,' and: 'He who serves God is foolish.' There are many other testimonies of the divine Scriptures concerning the last judgment of God, which, if I should collect them all, it would be far too long. Let it be enough, therefore, that we have proved this to have been foretold in both the New and the Old sacred writings. But that the judgment is to be through Christ, that is, that Christ as judge is to come from heaven, is not so evidently expressed in the Old as in the New, for this reason: that when there the Lord God says He is to come, or the Lord God is said to be coming, Christ is not consequently understood.
For the Lord God is both Father and Son and Holy Spirit; nevertheless we ought not to leave this matter without testimony. First, then, it must be shown how Jesus Christ speaks as the Lord God in the prophetic books, and yet Jesus Christ evidently appears, so that even when He does not so appear, and yet the Lord God is said to be coming to that last judgment, Jesus Christ may be understood. There is a passage in the prophet Isaiah which evidently shows this that I say. For God says through the prophet: 'Hear Me, O Jacob and Israel, whom I call. I am the first, and I am for ever; and My hand founded the earth, and My right hand established the heaven.'
'I will call them, and they shall stand up together, and all shall be gathered together and shall hear. Who has declared these things to them? Loving you, I have done your will upon Babylon, that I might take away the seed of the Chaldeans. And I have spoken, and I have called; I have brought him, and made his way prosperous. Draw near to Me and hear these things. From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; when they came to pass, I was there. And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.' Assuredly it is He who was speaking as the Lord God; and yet Jesus Christ would not be understood, unless He had added: 'And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.' For He said this according to the form of a servant, using a verb of past time concerning a future thing, just as it is read in the same prophet:
'Like a sheep He was led to the slaughter.' For he did not say 'He shall be led,' but in place of what was to come he put a verb of past time. And prophecy constantly speaks thus. There is another passage in Zechariah which evidently shows this: that the Almighty sent the Almighty; who, whom, save God the Father God the Son? For thus it is written: 'Thus says the Lord Almighty: After the glory He has sent Me upon the nations that despoiled you; for he who touches you touches, as it were, the apple of His eye. Behold, I will bring My hand upon them, and they shall be spoils to those whom they had served; and you shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent Me.' Behold, the Lord Almighty says that He was sent by the Lord Almighty.
Who here would dare to understand any but Christ speaking, namely to the sheep of the house of Israel that had perished? For He says in the Gospel: 'I am not sent but to the sheep that have perished of the house of Israel'; whom here He compared to the apple of God's eye, on account of the most excellent affection of His love; of which kind of sheep the apostles themselves also were. But after the glory of His resurrection—which, before it came to pass, the evangelist says: 'Jesus was not yet glorified'—He was sent also upon the nations in His apostles, and thus was fulfilled what is read in the Psalm:
'You shall deliver Me from the contradictions of the people; You shall set Me at the head of the nations'; so that those who had despoiled the Israelites, and whom the Israelites had served when subjected to the nations, should not in turn be despoiled in the same way, but themselves become spoils of the Israelites (for this He had promised to the apostles, saying: 'I will make you fishers of men,' and to one of them: 'From henceforth,' He says, 'you shall be catching men'); they should become spoils, then, but for good, like vessels snatched from that strong one, but bound more strongly. Again, the Lord speaking through the same prophet says: 'And it shall be in that day, I will seek to take away all the nations that come against Jerusalem, and I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of mercy;'
'and they shall look upon Me because they have insulted Me, and they shall mourn over Him with a mourning as over one most dear, and they shall grieve with grief as over an only-begotten son.' Is it not God's alone to take away all the enemy nations of the holy city Jerusalem, which come against it, that is, are opposed to it, or, as others have translated, come upon it, that is, that they may subject it to themselves; or to pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of that same city the spirit of grace and of mercy? This surely is God's, and is spoken in the person of God through the prophet; and yet this God, doing these things so great and so divine, Christ shows to be Himself by adding and saying:
'And they shall look upon Me because they have insulted Me, and they shall mourn over Him with a mourning as over one most dear' (or beloved) 'and they shall grieve with grief as over an only-begotten son.' For the Jews will repent in that day—even those who are to receive the spirit of grace and mercy—that they insulted Christ in His passion, when they shall look upon Him coming in His majesty and recognize Him to be the same whom formerly, in His lowly state, they mocked in their forefathers; although those very forefathers of theirs, the authors of that so great impiety, shall also see Him rising again, but now to be punished, not still to be corrected. Not, therefore, in this place are they themselves to be understood, where it is said:
'And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of mercy; and they shall look upon Me because they have insulted Me'; but rather those who come of their stock, who through Elijah at that time are to believe. But just as we say to the Jews, 'You killed Christ,' although it was their forefathers who did it: so these too will grieve as if they themselves in a manner did what those did from whose stock they descend. Although therefore, having received the spirit of grace and mercy, being now faithful they will not be condemned with their impious forefathers, they will nevertheless grieve as if they themselves had done what was done by those. They will grieve, then, not from the guilt of the crime, but from an affection of piety. To be sure, where the Seventy translators said:
'And they shall look upon Me because they have insulted Me,' it was thus translated from the Hebrew: 'And they shall look upon Me, whom they pierced'; by which word indeed Christ crucified more evidently appears. But that insult which the Seventy preferred to set down was not absent from His whole passion. For to Him, when seized and bound and condemned and clothed in the reproach of an ignominious garment and crowned with thorns and struck on the head with a reed and adored in mockery with bent knees and bearing His own cross and now hanging on the wood, they assuredly offered insult. Accordingly, not following one interpretation but joining both, since we read that they both insulted and pierced Him, we more fully recognize the truth of the Lord's passion.
When, therefore, in the prophetic writings God is read to be coming to execute the last judgment, even though no other distinction be added, Christ alone ought to be understood on account of the very judgment, because even if the Father shall judge, He will judge through the advent of the Son of Man. For He Himself, by the manifestation of His presence, judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, who shall be manifested as man about to judge, just as He was as man judged. For who else is He of whom likewise God speaks through Isaiah under the name of Jacob and Israel, from whose seed He took a body? which is written thus: 'Jacob is My servant, I will uphold him; Israel is My chosen, My soul has taken him up. I have put My Spirit upon him; He shall bring forth judgment to the nations.'
'He shall not cry, nor cease, nor shall His voice be heard outside. A bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not quench; but in truth He shall bring forth judgment. He shall shine forth and not be broken, until He set judgment in the earth; and in His name shall the nations hope.' In the Hebrew there is not read 'Jacob and Israel'; but where there is read 'My servant,' doubtless the Seventy translators, wishing to admonish in what sense it is to be taken—namely, that it was said on account of the form of a servant, in which the Most High presented Himself as most lowly—put the name of that very man to signify Him from whose race that same form of a servant was taken up. The Holy Spirit was given upon Him, which also, as the Gospel testifies, was shown in the form of a dove;
He brought forth judgment to the nations, because He foretold what was to come, which was hidden from the nations; in meekness He did not cry out, yet He did not cease from proclaiming the truth; but His voice was not heard outside, nor is it heard, since indeed by those who are cut off outside from His body He is not obeyed; and His very persecutors the Jews—who, having lost their integrity, are likened to a bruised reed, and, having lost their light, to smoking flax—He did not break, He did not quench, because He spared them, He who had not yet come to judge them, but to be judged by them. In truth indeed He brought forth judgment, foretelling to them when they were to be punished, if they should persist in their malice. His face shone forth on the mountain, His fame throughout the world;
nor was He broken or crushed, because neither in Himself nor in His Church did He yield to persecutors so as to cease to exist; and therefore it has not come to pass, nor will it come to pass, what His enemies said or say: 'When shall He die, and His name perish?'—'Until He set judgment in the earth.' Behold, that hidden thing which we were seeking is made manifest; for this is the last judgment, which He shall set in the earth, when He Himself shall come from heaven, of which we now see fulfilled what was here placed last: 'And in His name shall the nations hope.' Surely by that which cannot be denied, let that also be believed which is impudently denied.
For who would have hoped that even those who as yet refuse to believe in Christ now behold with us, and, since they cannot deny it, gnash with their teeth and pine away? Who, I say, would have hoped that the nations would hope in the name of Christ, when He was being held, bound, beaten, mocked, crucified—when even the disciples themselves had lost the hope which they had already begun to have in Him? What then scarcely one thief hoped upon the cross, now the nations, spread far and wide, do hope, and, that they may not die eternally, are signed with that very cross on which He died.
No one, therefore, either denies or doubts that through Christ Jesus there is to be such a last judgment as is foretold in these sacred writings, except one who, by some incredible animosity or blindness, does not believe those very writings, which have already demonstrated their truth to the whole world. In that judgment, then, or about that judgment, we have learned that these things are to come: Elijah the Tishbite, the faith of the Jews, Antichrist about to persecute, Christ about to judge, the resurrection of the dead, the separation of the good and the evil, the conflagration of the world and its renewal. That all these things are indeed to come, we must believe;
but by what manner and in what order they come, the experience of the events will then teach us more than the understanding of men can now perfectly attain. Yet I think they will come in the order in which they have been recounted by me. Two books pertaining to this work remain to us, that with the Lord's help we may complete what we have promised; of which one will be concerning the punishment of the wicked, the other concerning the felicity of the righteous; in which especially, as God shall grant, the human arguments will be refuted, which the wretched seem to themselves cleverly to gnaw at against the divine predictions and promises, and which despise the nourishments of a wholesome faith as though false and ridiculous.
But those who are wise according to God hold, of all things which seem incredible to men and yet are contained in the holy Scriptures—whose truth has already been asserted in many ways—the greatest argument to be the truthful omnipotence of God, whom they hold for certain could in no way have lied in those writings, and can do that which is impossible to the unbeliever.