Questions on the Old and New Testament 42.1–45.3

God is exalted; it was fitting, then, that he should appear on high, in a place near to heaven. And because fire always seeks higher things, growing upward toward heaven, the Lord of the heavens ought to appear in that which strives from the ground toward the heights. And he made himself appear in a bush because of offenses. For because he had come down to give the law because of sins, and thorns signify sins (“For I waited,” he says, “for it to make grapes, but it made thorns”), and the law had not come to punish at once, but first to show, therefore the fire did not burn the bush, that is, the law given did not make sinners guilty for the past. For because sins too are not from nature but by accident, the material of the bramble, that is, of the thorns, does not have a root armed with thorns. So it was by reason that the Lord appeared thus to Moses.

There is a great distance between the case of Abraham and that of Jephthah. First, Abraham was born lawfully, but Jephthah was illegitimate; for he was the son of a prostitute. Then Abraham was of the best conduct, but Jephthah a chief of robbers. Abraham was a righteous man and proved in temptation; in Jephthah there is no testimony of righteousness.

So Abraham was commanded to offer his son to God, so as to show people how much Abraham believed God, who did not hesitate to kill even his son at his command. For one who could make him be born, against the world’s hope, of a barren old woman, could without doubt raise him from the dead against the world’s reason. By this deed Abraham was heaped with righteousness. For God showed that he had not asked for the boy’s blood, but that his servant Abraham might become greater by this deed. For he wants those who love him to suffer something, so that he may be seen to promote them justly.

But Jephthah, a criminal and improvident man, by a foolish vow promised a gift to God, saying: “Whatever meets me before the doors of my house when I return from the slaughter, this I will offer to God.” Was he compelled to vow? Or did he understand how he ought to make a vow? For what if a dog or an ass had met him, which God forbade to be offered? Or if someone else’s son, or a wife, so that he would pay his vow rejoicing in another’s grief? Therefore what the improvident man had vowed to another’s ruin was turned back on himself by divine judgment. And Jephthah was so senseless that not even afterward did he recognize that he had vowed foolishly, so that his error, which had begun from him, might also be corrected by him. For he should have understood that God does not delight in such a sacrifice, and prayed for his folly, and offered something else that was not against the law. But the fool showed himself faithful as a parricide, though it is plain that foolish faith not only does not profit but does harm. So in his daughter’s fate he himself was slain; hence God too took no notice of such a sacrifice. For if he had forbidden it, he would seem to have wanted him to offer him something else, when he knew that, being unworthy, he ought not to offer. But his daughter gained, because, dying innocent in her father’s evils, she was spared the punishment of the underworld, which she perhaps could not have obtained by living long.

That the triumph of victory followed Jephthah was not his merit nor the people’s; for we do not read that they were suppliants to God for him to give them a defender. Or did God send Jephthah himself, or speak to him? But because the Philistines were praising their gods, as having subjected the children of Israel to them, and reviling the God of Abraham, God therefore took vengeance on the Philistines for the honor of his name, if not for these men’s sake, at least for the merit of Abraham and his own majesty. Or, because the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson when he was going to a prostitute, will he be called worthy, when this is understood to have been done for the destruction of the Philistines?

It is written in the prophet Isaiah: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” But perhaps the Jews may say: “The house of God, that is, the synagogue, is open to all.” We do not resist this, provided that, as always, the circumcised are joined to the law. For the law belongs to those who were commanded to be circumcised after the manner of Abraham. So nothing new could be seen in this saying of the prophet, because whoever came from any nation was not forbidden to join himself to the law from the beginning of Judaism. Nothing new could be thought to have been said by the prophet; rather, it was said superfluously, if gentiles were always admitted to serve the God of Abraham and are never found to have been forbidden. And it is true that those who subjected themselves to the law are shown never not to have been received. If, then, these things are so, the prophet seems to have warned superfluously of what, once handed down, was always kept.

And could anyone be found so dull as to say that so great a prophet spoke of a superfluous and empty thing? I do not know for whom it would be safe even to hear this and not forbid it. For since the Jewish people, because of the sins they committed against the Lord, seeking help from idols, often rebuked by the prophets, would not enter the way of repentance so as to return to God, God indicated, as a reproach to them, that he would open his house to all nations for prayer, to show that, having disowned the Jews, he would put others in their place. For if the nations were always admitted to the law, as was said above, how did the prophet say this would be in the future, unless he signified something other than what had been commanded before? For he could not say of a thing that was done daily that it was going to be. Hence it is plain that this tends to the ruin of the Jews, to whom the prophet showed that, these being removed, others would be called to receive the gift of God’s grace which had been promised to the Jews.

And what was promised, the prophet Isaiah teaches, saying: “There will come from Zion one who will deliver and turn away impiety from Jacob; and this is my covenant with them.” So this covenant is the abolition of sins. For this is the new covenant which was promised through Jeremiah, saying: “Behold, the days will come, says the Lord, and I will accomplish for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I arranged with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not remain in my covenant, and I neglected them, says the Lord.” This is their transgression: when they made the image of the calf, then they broke the covenant. Hence the tablets on which the law had been given were broken under the mountain, because they deserved to receive heavy precepts.

But because God is clement and merciful, he promised through the prophets that he would change the law, so as to give another covenant different from the one he had given before; so that not only what was heavy might be changed but also the things given in figure, that is, the sabbath and circumcision; so that, having been long oppressed, they might, relieved in everything, give thanks to God as suppliants. And because, persisting in their fathers’ transgression, they would not turn their minds from idols, he declares that the nations, with the remnant who kept faith, would enjoy the covenant he had said was coming; so that the faithless Jews would be tormented, weighed down in two ways: for they were burdened for a time with precepts, and in the future they will pay fitting penalties, because they were found faithful neither in the old covenant nor in the new.

So he said that he would give a new covenant, so that the old, which had been given to the fathers, would cease. And therefore one who serves God in this covenant keeps neither sabbath nor new moons nor circumcision nor distinctions of foods, but has only the fear of God in faith, because he is justified not by the law but by faith, as the prophet Habakkuk says: “For the righteous will live by my faith”; so that one no longer uses many precepts to win God’s favor, but few, Isaiah again saying the same in this sense; for he says: “If the number of the children of Israel is like the sand of the sea, the remnant of them will be saved. For he finishes and cuts short the word in equity, because God will make a shortened word in the whole world.” To the remnant who persevered in faith in the promise while the rest distrusted, he showed the shortened word of the law, that is, the new covenant which he promised; which would not otherwise be called a covenant unless it too was likewise confirmed by the testimony of blood, as the old covenant was, so that the name of both is one; but in the old there are many precepts, in the new few; as he promised, so that, since he had said Abraham would be the father of many nations, the children would be justified in the same way as the father was justified; so that, the things that began after Abraham’s faith ceasing, those who receive the faith by which the same Abraham was justified would be children of Abraham, as the Lord said. This is neither wonderful nor unheard of, that people are justified without care for sabbath and circumcision and the other commandments of this kind.

For it was not by this that Enoch pleased God so as to be translated, nor was Noah alone found righteous in the flood by keeping these things, nor was Abraham himself justified after he was circumcised: “For Abraham believed God,” it says, “and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Then he was circumcised, so that it would be a sign in him that he believed, when he was old, that he would have a son. So it is not circumcision that commends Abraham, but faith. And therefore for believers faith suffices for justification, so that they are children of Abraham in faith, not in circumcision, because these have no need of circumcision. For what Abraham believed is not believed in this. But the Jews were commanded to be circumcised so that they might have the sign of Abraham’s faith, not of their own faith, but so that they might be known as his children according to the flesh; yet if they believe, they will be his children unto justification too.

For what does it profit one who is powerless to be called the son of a mighty man, except that it rather harms? For it is a disgrace to be the son of a dignitary without honor. For circumcision of the flesh is of so little merit that God says through the prophet Jeremiah that he will punish all the circumcised as uncircumcised, if they have not been circumcised in heart. But he is not indignant with those who, circumcised in heart, are uncircumcised in the flesh, because no one has pleased God without circumcision of the heart. Whoever, then, are circumcised in the flesh signify the race of Abraham according to the flesh; but those who are circumcised in heart signify the race of God according to faith, because, circumcised from every worldly error, they confess God as their parent. What, then, does circumcision of the flesh profit, when, if faith is lacking in a Jew, he cannot attain to Abraham’s merit? Or what does uncircumcision harm, since no one attains to Abraham’s righteousness except one who has emulated his faith?

So they glory superfluously in circumcision of the flesh, when they see that it has no merit with God. And if, as has been shown, it is better to have faith than circumcision, the nations are better than the Jews, because these have faith, the Jews circumcision. And whom, do you think, would Abraham rather recognize as children: those who are like him according to the flesh, or those who are like him in faith? But faith bears witness to Abraham, and therefore he glories not in the flesh but in faith. And so he receives as children those he sees to be imitators of his glory. For how can he call those children whom he sees shrinking from that by which he pleased God and was justified? He could judge them not children but enemies; for they seem envious of him, spurning the faith by which he was glorified.

Nor is it a wonder if the distrustful Jews are found not accepting the new covenant, since we know that they were not faithful in the old one either. For they were always rebellious and insolent against God, and therefore they received such precepts as would press down their necks, which were inflexible. For they never wanted to hope for good things from God, whose great benefits and such wonderful mighty works they had known. Hence it is that the prophet Ezekiel says among other things: “I lifted my hand against them in the desert, that they should be scattered among the nations and dispersed in the lands, because they did not do my ordinances and rejected my precepts”; and in what follows: “And I gave them precepts that were not good, and ordinances by which they shall not live.” He shows for what reason such great and harsh precepts were given them: so that, because they proved ungrateful for such great goods, they might be pressed down, as justice dictated, by more severe precepts. He called them “not good,” though they are just, because they did not profit them for justification but for ruin; and punishment, though justly inflicted, is nevertheless not good to the one who suffers it. Yet after these things, because God is kind, he promised to give a new covenant, in which the abridgment of the law would justify believers as Abraham was justified; so that, the new moons and sabbath and circumcision and the other precepts ceasing (not those of the natural law, that is, against murder, adultery, and such), they might be justified as Abraham was. For, Abraham’s faith being renewed, he wanted all things to cease, so that the time might be such as it had been when Abraham believed.

But perhaps the Jews may say: “If the things given by Moses are said to cease through the abridgment of the law, surely circumcision was not given by Moses so as to cease? And therefore we have the sign of our father, because we are children of Abraham, which ought not to cease, for the sake of the testimony of descent.” Circumcision was indeed to be kept in its own time, that is, before the new covenant which had been promised was given. But when, by the gift of God’s grace, the burdens of the law were ordered to cease, what need is there to be circumcised? For this reason a new law was given, that is, a spiritual one, so that fleshly things might cease and those receiving it might receive its sign; so that, as in the old covenant they had the sign of Abraham, from whom the old covenant began, so in the new they might have the sign of the Savior, who is the founder of the new covenant. For just as from Abraham they were called Hebrews, so from Christ they are called Christians. Whoever, then, are still called Hebrews have not received the new covenant which God promised, bringing to nothing the benefit and mercy of God, who, no longer willing that his people be reckoned by the name of a man, deigned to establish them under the name of his Son.

With what audacity, then, do the Jews say that we use not our own law but theirs, when David says: “I will confess to you among the nations,” and again: “Feast, you nations, with his people”? And the Lord says to the prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came out of the womb I sanctified you and appointed you a prophet among the nations.” Judaism certainly has its own designations: for that people is signified either in Jacob, or in Samaria, or in Jerusalem, or in Judah, or in Israel. But as to the nations, it is plain that it signifies them otherwise than the Jews.

So Jeremiah is our prophet. For although in all the prophets God showed that the nations would be sharers in his gift, yet to Jeremiah he speaks specially, because he gave him to us as a prophet. For he signified the coming new covenant, which would profit the nations more than the Jews, which now appears declared. For since the new covenant is preached in the whole earth, a believing Jew is found so rarely and with such difficulty that all the churches of the new covenant are named churches of the nations, as had been said in the prophet Hosea: “I will call not my people my people, and the unloved beloved.” So, the Jews being rejected, he calls the nations with that grace of mercy by which he also deigned to call Abraham. For Abraham did not know the Lord without being called. So he who deigned to call Abraham is the same who deigned to call the nations.

Why then do they say, “The law is ours,” when it is plain that the gift of God belongs to all who will? So let this rashness of usurpation cease, because the grace of God is common to all. With what shame do they deny that our Christ was promised in the law, when they see in him all the signs which the law foretold? For according to the promise to Abraham all nations who believe in him are justified; and according to Isaiah’s prophecy he was born of a virgin, in Bethlehem, of the tribe of Judah, as had been promised, of the seed of David; and, according to what Jeremiah prophesied, he preached the new covenant which God had promised would come; and after showing all the signs of mighty works he humbled himself according to the words of the prophets, and having suffered all that was foretold, he rose on the third day, as it is written in the prophet.

And if they ask for the time of the promise, as it was shown to the prophet Daniel, they will find it fulfilled at the time when Christ was born and suffered; because from the first year of Darius king of the Persians to the birth and passion of the Lord and the destruction of Jerusalem, which was carried out by Vespasian, emperor of the Romans, seventy weeks were completed, which are four hundred and ninety years. This reckoning is plain through the reigns and the successors of the empire, as it is also found reckoned by Tertullian in the book he wrote against the Jews; which we have passed over, lest it be to his injury, because he reckoned correctly.

And who would doubt about this number, when about three hundred years are now found beyond it? So it is shameless, after so great a number has been added beyond it, to say of the Savior’s coming, “He has not come.” For under the apostles, or at the very time when the Lord was living among men, malice contradicting the truth could hide itself, so that, though it saw all the signs of the promised Christ in the Savior, it might nevertheless say it doubted about the time, to hide its faithlessness. But afterward, when many years began to grow beyond the promised number, what shamelessness it is to deny that he has come, which is known to have been fulfilled both by signs and by times! For when something is full and does not overflow, a contentious person can say it is not full; but if it overflows, the mouth of the contentious is shut.

So too the Jews in the Savior’s time could say, though deceitfully, that the reckoning from the time of Darius to Christ the Lord had not been made well, so that he could be said to be the one who was promised. For we are mistaken in the years, months, and days of the emperors and have not reckoned them precisely. But when the times grew beyond the prescribed number of years of the promised Christ, no excuse can be put forward for not saying that he who came is the Christ, unless (God forbid) the one who promised is said to have lied. For when the time of the promise has elapsed and it is denied that the one promised has come, what else is the one who promised accused of but lying? But all the signs teach that the one who promised is truthful, which were foretold and are known to be found in Christ. But the Jews, while they are ashamed to amend, do not think of the future judgment. For nothing is worse than to deny that something is true which one understands is not a lie.

“Let us make,” he says, “man in our image and likeness.” To some it seems that this is to be understood from another part of the reading, namely the one in which we read that God said: “Come, let us go down and confound their tongues”; because as far as appears on the surface it is similar: for it is the voice of one speaking in the plural number; but it differs in sense, because the reason is also different. For there he speaks of creating man, whom God wills to be created in his image and likeness. But what he says, “Come, let us go down and confound their tongues,” pertains to this: that men should not understand one another; hence God can be seen to have spoken to the angels, like an emperor to his army. For he spoke in common because he was going to do it through them, as their creator; and therefore he says, “let us confound their tongues.” But when he says, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” he cannot be said to have spoken to angels, because it cannot be said that the image of God and of the angels is one, like that of an emperor and his counts; because those whose image is one cannot be unlike in dignity or nature. Indeed he added: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him,” so that God spoke and God made, not another or a different God, but the same God.

For that one spoke to one signified not another nature but a person. For though God is one, yet there are three persons; and God is one because, whether in the Son or in the Holy Spirit, there is the substance of the one God, because what is from him cannot but be what he is. So it is the person of God the Father who says, “Let us make,” and of the Son who makes man in the image of God, whether the Father’s or his own, it makes no difference, because the image of both is one. So the Son made through the Holy Spirit. For as the Father is said to make through the Son, so also the Son through the Holy Spirit, as he himself says: “For I cast out demons by the Spirit of God.” So the image of the three is one, because, whether Father or Son or Holy Spirit, God is one. And therefore one man was made to the image of the one God. And man is the image of God in this, that as there is one God in heaven, from whom all spiritual things subsist, so there should be one man on earth, from whom the rest should have their fleshly origin.

Yet to some it seems that man was made the image of God in dominion, because he said: “And let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and the whole earth,” although these things are seen to be subject not only to the man but also to the woman, who plainly does not have the image of God. This lacks reason in two ways. For by it God is asserted to have said “Let us make man in our image and likeness” not to the Son but to the heavenly dominions which the apostle mentions, if man has the image of God in dominion; and it is given to the woman too, so that she too would be the image of God, which is absurd. For how can it be said of the woman that she is the image of God, when she is plainly subject to the man’s dominion and has no authority? For she can neither teach, nor be a witness, nor give a pledge, nor judge: how much less command!