In all which places the name of Christ, who has already come, reigns—inasmuch as before Him the gates of all cities are opened, and to Him none are shut, before whom the iron bars have been broken to pieces and the bronze doors have been opened. Although these things are also to be understood spiritually—namely, that the hearts of individuals, besieged in various ways by the devil, have been unbarred by faith in Christ—yet they have also been manifestly fulfilled, inasmuch as in all these places the people of the name of Christ dwell. For who could have reigned over all nations, save Christ the Son of God, who was announced as about to reign over all forever? For if Solomon reigned, yet it was only within the bounds of Judea: from Beersheba even to Dan the borders of his kingdom are marked;
if indeed Darius reigned over the Babylonians and Parthians, he had no power over all nations beyond the bounds of his own kingdom; if Pharaoh, or whoever succeeded him in the hereditary kingdom, reigned over the Egyptians, there only did he obtain the dominion of his kingdom; if Nebuchadnezzar with his petty kings, he had the bounds of his kingdom from India even to Ethiopia; if Alexander of Macedon, he held no more than all Asia and the other regions which he had afterward conquered; if the Germans, even to this day they are not allowed to cross their own frontiers. The Britons are shut in within the compass of their own ocean, the nations of the Moors and the savage tribes of the Gaetuli are besieged by the Romans, lest they overstep the borders of their own regions.
What shall I say of the Romans themselves, who fortify their empire with the garrisons of their legions, and cannot extend the forces of their kingdom beyond those nations? But the name of Christ is everywhere extended, everywhere believed, worshipped by all the nations enumerated above, everywhere reigns, everywhere is adored; it is bestowed equally upon all everywhere; with Him there is no greater favour for a king, no lesser gladness for any barbarian; no separate merits of anyone's dignities or birth; He is equal to all, king to all, judge to all, God and Lord to all. Nor should you doubt to believe what we assert, when you see it come to pass. VIII.
And so we must inquire into the foretold times both of Christ's future nativity and of His passion and of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem—that is, of its devastation. For Daniel says that both the holy city and the holy one are to be cut off with a leader who is to come, and the pinnacle to be destroyed unto ruin. The times, therefore, of Christ the leader who was to come must be inquired into, which we shall investigate in Daniel; and when these have been reckoned, we shall prove that He has come both from the times prescribed and from the fitting signs and from His works; which we shall also prove from the consequent things which were announced as about to come after His coming, so that we may believe that all the precepts have now been fulfilled.
Thus, therefore, Daniel prophesied concerning Him, so as to show when and at what time He was to set the nations free, and that after His passion the city itself was to be cut off. For he speaks thus: In the first year under Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who reigned over the kingdom of the Chaldeans, I Daniel understood in the books the number of the years. And 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 made me understand, and spoke with me and said: Daniel, now I have come forth to imbue you with understanding; at the beginning of your supplication the word went forth.
And I have come to announce to you, because you are a man greatly beloved; and think upon the word and understand the vision: seventy weeks have been cut short upon your people and upon the holy city, until transgression grow old and sins be sealed and iniquities be expiated and everlasting righteousness be brought in and vision and prophet be sealed and the Holy of Holies be anointed. And you shall know and perceive and understand: from the going forth of the word for restoring and building Jerusalem unto Christ the leader, seven and a half weeks and sixty-two and a half weeks; and it shall return and be built in breadth and rampart, and the times shall be renewed.
And after these sixty-two and a half weeks the anointing shall be cut off and shall be no more, and He shall cut off both the city and the sanctuary with a leader who is coming, and they shall be cut off as in a cataclysm unto the end of the war which shall be cut off unto ruin. And He shall confirm a covenant among many; in one week and a half of a week my sacrifice and libation shall be taken away, and in the holy place the abomination of desolation, and unto the end of the time consummation shall be given upon this desolation. Let us consider, then, how he truly foretells the seventy weeks that were to come; in which, if they should receive Him, it shall be built in breadth and length and the times shall be renewed.
But God, foreseeing what was to be—since they would not only fail to receive Him but would even persecute Him and deliver Him up to death—recapitulated and said that within sixty-two and a half weeks He should be born and the Holy of Holies be anointed, but that when the seven and a half weeks should be fulfilled, He should have to suffer and the city to be cut off after one and a half weeks—by which, that is, the seven and a half weeks were completed. For he speaks thus: and the city and the sanctuary shall be cut off with a leader who is to come, and the pinnacle to be destroyed unto ruin. Whence, then, do we show that Christ came within sixty-two and a half weeks?
Now we shall count from the first year of Darius, since it was at that very time that the vision was shown to Daniel. For he says: and understand and conjecture, that I am answering these things to you. Hence from the first year of Darius we ought to reckon, when Daniel saw this vision. Let us see, then, how the years are fulfilled unto the coming of Christ: for Darius reigned nineteen years; Artaxerxes forty-one years; then king Ochus, who is also Cyrus, twenty-four years; Argus one year; another Darius, who was also named Melas, twenty-one years; Alexander of Macedon twelve years; then after Alexander, who had reigned also over the Medes and Persians whom he had conquered and had established his kingdom in Alexandria—when he also called it by his own name—
After him Soter reigned there in Alexandria thirty-five years; to him succeeds Philadelphus, reigning thirty-eight years; him Euergetes succeeds for twenty-five years; then Philopator for seventeen years; after him Epiphanes for twenty-four years; likewise another Euergetes for twenty-seven years; likewise another Soter for thirty-eight years; Ptolemy for thirty-seven years; Cleopatra for twenty-two years and five months; likewise Cleopatra also reigned jointly with Augustus for thirteen years; after Cleopatra, Augustus reigned a further forty-three years — for all the years of Augustus's rule were fifty-six — and we see that Christ is born in the forty-first year of Augustus's rule, which was the twenty-eighth year of his reign after the death of Cleopatra.
And this same Augustus survived fifteen years from the time Christ was born, and the remaining span of years will be [up to the day of Christ's nativity, in the forty-first year of Augustus, which was the twenty-eighth year of Augustus after the death of Cleopatra]: they amount to four hundred and thirty-seven years and five months at the day of Christ's nativity. And everlasting righteousness was made manifest, and the Holy of Holies — that is, Christ — was anointed, and vision and prophet were sealed, and sins were forgiven — which are granted through faith in the name of Christ to all who believe in him. But what is the meaning of his saying that vision and prophecy are sealed?
Since all the prophets proclaimed concerning him that he was to come and to suffer, therefore, because the prophecy was fulfilled through his coming, for that reason he said that vision and prophecy were sealed, because he himself is the seal of all the prophets, fulfilling all that they had of old foretold concerning him. For after his coming and his passion there is no longer any vision or prophet to proclaim that Christ is to come. In short, if this is not so, let the Jews produce some volumes of prophets after Christ, some visible miracles of any angels, such as the patriarchs of old beheld up to the coming of Christ, who has now come. From the time he came, vision and prophecy are sealed — that is, established — and rightly the evangelist says:
'The Law and the prophets were until John the Baptist.' For when Christ was baptized — that is, when he sanctified the waters in his own baptism — the whole fullness of the former spiritual charisms yielded place in Christ, as he sealed all the visions and prophecies which by his coming he fulfilled. Hence he most firmly declares that his coming seals vision and prophecy. And so, having shown both the number of years and the period of the sixty-two and a half weeks now fulfilled — at whose completion Christ came, that is, was born — let us see in what event the other seven and a half weeks, which are subdivided in the cutting-off of the former weeks, were fulfilled. For after Augustus, who survived fifteen years after Christ's nativity, the reckoning proceeds:
To him succeeds Tiberius Caesar, who held power twenty-two years, seven months, and twenty-eight days — in the fifteenth year of his reign Christ suffers, being about thirty years old when he suffered. Likewise Gaius Caesar, also called Caligula, three years, eight months, thirteen days; Nero eleven years, nine months, thirteen days; Galba seven months, six days; Otho three months, five days; Vitellius eight months, twenty-eight days. Vespasian in the first year of his rule made war upon the Jews, and this makes fifty-two years and six months — for he reigned twelve years — and thus, on the day of their conquest, the Jews fulfilled the seventy weeks foretold in Daniel.
Therefore, when these times too were completed and the Jews subdued, thereafter the drink-offerings and sacrifices ceased there, which from that time could no longer be celebrated in that place. For the anointing too was there abolished after the passion of Christ; for it had been foretold that the anointing would be there abolished, as it had been prophesied in the Psalms: 'They have destroyed my hands and my feet.' This passion of Christ [and this abolishing] was accomplished within the period of the seventy weeks under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulship of Rubellius Geminus and Rufius Geminus, in the month of March at the season of the Passover, on the eighth day before the Kalends of April, on the first day of unleavened bread, on which they slew the lamb at evening, as had been commanded by Moses.
And so the whole synagogue of the sons of Israel put him to death, saying to Pilate, when he wished to release him: 'His blood be upon us and upon our children,' and: 'If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar' — so that all things might be fulfilled which had been written concerning him. IX. Let us begin, then, to prove that the nativity of Christ was foretold by the prophets, as Isaiah proclaims: 'Hear, O house of David! It is no small strife for you with men, since God grants a contest; therefore God himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel,' which is interpreted 'God with us';
'he shall eat butter and honey, for before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians.' 'Therefore,' say the Jews, 'let us challenge this prophecy of Isaiah and make a comparison, whether the Christ who has already come corresponds to that first name which Isaiah foretold, and to those signs of him which he proclaimed concerning him; for indeed Isaiah foretells that he must be called Emmanuel, and thereafter that he would take the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians. But this one,' they say, 'who has come was neither called by such a name nor engaged in warfare.' But we, on the contrary, think they must be admonished to consider also what coheres with this passage.
For the interpretation 'God with us' is appended to 'Emmanuel,' so that you should regard not only the sound of the name but also its meaning. For the Hebrew sound which is Emmanuel has as its interpretation 'God with us.' Ask, then, whether this expression 'God with us,' which is Emmanuel, is current in Christ from the time Christ shone forth — and, I think, you will not deny it. For those who from Judaism believe in Christ, from the time they believe in him, when they wish to say 'Emmanuel,' signify that God is with us; and thus it is established that he who was foretold as Emmanuel has already come, because that which Emmanuel signifies has come — that is, God with us.
They are equally led astray by the sound of the name when they so take 'the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria and the kingdom of the Assyrians' as though these portended Christ a warrior, not noticing that Scripture prefaces it: 'For before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians.' For you must first consider the indication of age, whether that age could exhibit Christ as already a man, let alone a commander; as though the infant were about to summon to arms by his wailing, and would give the signal of war not with a trumpet but with a rattle, and would point out the enemy not from horseback or from a wall, but from the back or neck of his nurse or bearer, and thus would subdue Damascus and Samaria in exchange for the breast.
It would be another matter if among you infants burst forth into battle — anointed first, I suppose, in the sun, then armed in swaddling-clothes and paid their wages in butter, who would know how to hurl a lance before they could be lanced. But if in truth nature nowhere grants this — to serve as a soldier before becoming a man, to take the strength of Damascus before knowing a father — it follows that the utterance must be seen as figurative. 'But nature does not allow a virgin to give birth,' they say, 'and yet the prophet must be believed.' And rightly so; for he built up faith beforehand in an incredible thing by saying that it would be a sign: 'Therefore,' he says, 'a sign shall be given you: behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son.' But a sign from God, unless it had been some monstrous novelty, would not seem a sign.
In short, if, whenever you are eager to draw certain people away from this divine prophecy or to pervert any of the simple, you dare to lie, as though Scripture contained not that a virgin but a young woman would conceive and bear — here too you are refuted, since a daily occurrence, namely the pregnancy and childbirth of a young woman, could not be seen as any sign at all. Rightly, then, is a virgin mother believed to have been set before us as a sign; but an infant warrior not equally so. For here too there would be no rationale of a sign; rather, once the sign of a new nativity had been assigned, thereafter, after the sign, a different order of the infant is declared — that he would eat honey and butter. Nor is this by any means a sign; it belongs to infancy.
'But that he would receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians — this is the marvelous sign.' Preserve the measure of his age, and seek the meaning of the prophecy; nay rather, restore to the truth what you are unwilling to believe, and the prophecy which is disowned is understood to be fulfilled. Let those eastern Magi be believed, who honored the infancy of Christ with gifts of gold and frankincense as a king, and the infant received the strength of Damascus without battle or arms. For besides that it is known to all that the strength of the East — that is, its power — is wont to abound in gold and perfumes, it is certain that in the divine Scriptures gold constitutes the strength of the other nations as well, as he says through Zechariah:
'And Judah shall be arrayed at Jerusalem and shall gather all the might of the peoples round about, gold and silver.' For concerning this gift of gold David too says: 'And there shall be given to him of the gold of Arabia,' and again: 'The kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts to him.' And the East for the most part had kings as its Magi, and Damascus was formerly reckoned to Arabia, before it was transferred to Syrophoenicia by the division of the Syrias.
Whose strength Christ then received by receiving its insignia — namely gold and perfumes — while the spoils of Samaria were the Magi themselves, who, when they had recognized him and honored him with gifts and worshipped him on bended knee as Lord and King, under the testimony of the star as indicator and guide, were made the spoils of Samaria — that is, of idolatry — by believing, of course, in Christ. For he marked idolatry by the name of Samaria, as a thing infamous on account of the idolatry with which it had then fallen away from God under king Jeroboam. Nor is this new in the divine Scriptures, to use figuratively a transference of names drawn from a comparison of crimes.
For he calls your rulers 'the rulers of Sodom,' and names your people 'the people of Gomorrah,' although those cities had long since been destroyed. And elsewhere through the prophet he says to the people of Israel: 'Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite' — from whose stock they were not descended, but on account of a like impiety — those whom at another time he had even called his sons: 'I have begotten and exalted sons.' So too Egypt is sometimes understood by him as the whole world under the reproach of superstition; so too Babylon in our John is a figure of the city of Rome, likewise great and proud in her rule and a warrior against the saints.
In this way, then, he also designated the Magi by the appellation of Samaritans, as despoiled of what they had shared with the Samaritans — namely, as we have said, idolatry against the Lord. But 'against the king of the Assyrians' means against the devil, who even now thinks himself to reign if he can drive the saints from the religion of God. This interpretation of ours will be assisted, since elsewhere too the Scriptures designate Christ a warrior by the terms of certain weapons and words of that kind; yet the Jews will be convicted by a comparison of the remaining senses. 'Gird thyself,' says David, 'with the sword upon thy thigh.' But what do you read above concerning Christ? 'Fair in beauty above the sons of men, grace is poured upon thy lips.'
But it is quite absurd if, of one whom he was girding with a sword for war, he flattered concerning the seasonableness of his beauty and the grace of his lips. Concerning him, adding further, he said: 'Stretch forth, and prosper, and advance, and reign,' and adds: 'because of thy gentleness and righteousness.' Who wields the sword and does not practice things contrary to gentleness and righteousness — that is, deceit and harshness and injustice, which are proper, of course, to the business of battles? Let us see, then, whether that sword is another whose act is another — namely the divine word of God, twice-sharpened, as by the two testaments of the old law and the new law, sharp with the equity of wisdom, rendering to each according to his deed.
It was therefore permitted also to Christ, God's own, in the Psalms — apart from warlike affairs — to be girded figuratively with the sword of God's word, to whom the foretold seasonableness suits together with the grace of his lips, whom he was then being girded upon the thigh in David, when he was being proclaimed as about to come upon the earth by the decree of God the Father: 'Thy right hand,' he says, 'shall lead thee gloriously' — namely the power of spiritual grace, from which the knowledge of Christ is drawn forth; 'thine arrows,' he says, 'are sharp' — God's precepts flying everywhere — 'threatening the exposure of every heart,' and pricking and piercing every conscience; 'the peoples shall fall under thee' — worshipping, of course. Thus Christ is mighty in war and bearing arms; thus he shall receive the spoils not of Samaria alone but of all the nations.
Recognize the spoils too as figurative, whose arms too you have learned to be allegorical; and thus, to this extent, the Christ who came was not a warrior, because he was not foretold as such by Isaiah. 'But if the Christ,' they say, 'who is believed to be coming is not called Jesus, why is he who came called Jesus Christ?' Yet both names will be established in the Christ of God, in whom he is found also called Jesus. Learn too the pattern of your own error: when Moses's successor was appointed, Auses son of Nun, he is indeed transferred from his former name and begins to be called Jesus. 'Certainly,' you say. This, we say, was first a figure of the future.
For because Jesus Christ was to bring the second people — which we are, the nations formerly dwelling in the wilderness of the world — into the land of promise flowing with honey and milk, that is, into the possession of eternal life, than which nothing is sweeter; and this was to come about not through Moses, that is, not through the discipline of the law, but through Jesus, that is, through the grace of the new law, when we had been circumcised with a rock's edge — that is, with the precepts of Christ, for Christ was in many ways and figures foretold as a rock — therefore that man who was being prepared as an image of this mystery was also inaugurated with the figure of the Lord's name, so that he should be named Jesus. For he who spoke to Moses was himself the Son of God, who was also always seen;
for no one ever saw God the Father and lived. And therefore it is established that it was the very Son of God who spoke to Moses and said to the people: 'Behold, I send my angel before thy face' — that is, before the face of the people — 'to keep thee on the way and to bring thee into the land which I have prepared for thee. Give heed to him and hear him, and be not disobedient to him; for he will not hide from thee, since my name is upon him' — for it was Jesus, not Moses, who was to lead the people into the land of promise. He called him an angel indeed on account of the greatness of the mighty works he was to perform — which mighty works Jesus son of Nun did, and you yourselves have read of them —
and on account of the office of a prophet, namely one announcing the divine will, just as the Spirit through the prophet also calls John, the forerunner of Christ who was to be, an angel, saying in the person of the Father: 'Behold, I send my angel before thy face' — that is, before Christ's face — 'who shall prepare thy way before thee.' Nor is it new for the Holy Spirit to call those angels whom God sets in charge as ministers of his power. For this same John was not only called the angel of Christ but also a lamp shining before Christ. 'For I have prepared a lamp for my Christ,' David proclaims; whom Christ himself, coming to fulfill the prophets, mentions to the Jews:
'He was,' he says, 'a burning and shining lamp,' inasmuch as he not only prepared his ways in the wilderness but also, by pointing out the Lamb of God, enlightened the minds of men with his proclamation, so that they might understand him to be the Lamb whom Moses announced as about to suffer. So too was Jesus, on account of the future mystery of his name. For he confirmed this name of his which he himself had given him, since he had commanded that thenceforth he be called not angel nor Auses but Jesus. Thus, therefore, both names suit the Christ of God, so that he should be called also Jesus. And since the virgin from whom Christ had to be born was to draw her descent from the seed of David, as we mentioned above, the prophet plainly says in what follows:
'And there shall be born,' he says, 'a rod out of the root of Jesse' — which is Mary — 'and a flower shall ascend from the root, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, the spirit of counsel and might; the spirit of the fear of God shall fill him.' For to no man did the whole sum of spiritual endowments belong except to Christ — likened indeed to a flower for glory on account of grace, but reckoned from the stock of Jesse through Mary, who was, of course, to be counted from there. For she was of the country of Bethlehem and of the house of David, as Mary — from whom Christ is born — was registered in the census among the Romans.
I demand also whether he who was foretold by the prophets as about to come from the stock of Jesse and to display all humility and patience and tranquility has come; and thus that man who is shown to be such will himself be the Christ who came. For concerning him the prophet says: 'A man set amid stripes and knowing how to bear weakness, who was led as a sheep to the sacrifice, and as a lamb before its shearer opened not his mouth.' If he neither strove nor cried out, nor was his voice heard abroad, who did not break the bruised reed — the faith of Israel — who did not quench the smoldering flax — that is, the momentary ardor of the nations — but rather made it shine by the rising of his own light, he can be no other than the one who was foretold.
It behooves us, then, that the activity of the Christ who came be examined against the rule of the Scriptures; for we read that he was marked out, unless I am mistaken, by a twofold operation — of preaching and of power. But concerning each title let it be thus arranged. And so let us specifically discharge the order we have begun, teaching that Christ was announced as a preacher, as through Isaiah: 'Cry aloud,' he says, 'in strength and spare not, lift up thy voice as a trumpet, and declare to my people their misdeeds and to the house of Jacob their sins. Day by day they seek me and desire to know my ways, as a people that had done righteousness and had not forsaken the judgment of God,' and so on — but that he would also perform mighty works from the Father:
'Behold our God shall render judgment, he himself shall come and shall save us; then shall the infirm be healed and the eyes of the blind shall see and the ears of the deaf shall hear and the tongues of the dumb shall be loosed and the lame shall leap like a hart,' and the rest. That Christ performed these things not even you deny, inasmuch as you used to say that you were not stoning him for his works, but because he did these things on the Sabbath. X. As for the outcome of his passion, you plainly dispute it, denying that the passion of the cross was foretold of Christ, and arguing besides that it must not be believed that God would expose his own Son to that kind of death, of which he himself said: 'Cursed is everyone who has hung upon a tree.' But the rationale of the matter precedes the meaning of this curse. For he says in Deuteronomy:
'But if there be in anyone a transgression deserving the judgment of death, and he shall die, and you shall hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain on the tree, but with burial you shall bury him that same day, since cursed by God is everyone who has been hung on a tree; and you shall not defile the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.' Therefore he did not curse Christ in this passion, but made a distinction, so that whoever, on account of some transgression, had incurred the judgment of death and died, hanged upon a tree, this one should be cursed by God — namely, he who was hanged on a tree on account of the deserts of his own transgressions.