Demonstration of the Gospel

Here, then, Theodotus, divine treasure among bishops, holy man of God: with God, and with our Savior himself, the Word of God, after the first Preparation for the gospel argument, which we have worked out in fifteen books in all, we now carry through this great undertaking. Receive the request, dear friend, and labor with us in your prayers as we now attempt to present the Demonstration of the Gospel from the predictions laid up among the Hebrews from of old.

How and in what way? By using as witnesses those men beloved of God, whom you surely know to be celebrated among people: I mean Moses and those godlike men who shone after him, the blessed prophets and revealers of sacred things; and by choosing to show from them that they foresaw by the divine Spirit the things that came to light long ages afterward and were accomplished through the Savior’s gospel demonstration, and the things that are still being fulfilled before our eyes in our own day. They beheld what was not present as though present, and what did not yet exist at all as though it plainly existed; and not only that, but they also announced beforehand in writing to those who came after them what was one day to be, so that others too might know from them and be able to recognize the future, and might look day by day for the fulfillment of the oracles.

And what are these things? They would be countless, and of every other kind besides, about all things, public and private, about each individual and about things universal, especially concerning the affairs of the Hebrews, and again concerning the foreign nations: the rise of cities, changes of times, reversals of affairs, the coming of future blessings and the onset of their opposites, the enslavement of nations, sieges of cities, the overthrow and establishment of whole kingdoms, and countless other things that were to happen long ages later, which they proclaimed beforehand.

But the present occasion does not require us to set out the proof of these things. Postponing most of them to another time, the proof will quietly gain credence, from the truth of the things that will be set out, even for the things passed over in silence.

It is time, then, to say which of the prophetic predictions would be well suited for the present to contribute to the demonstration of the gospel.

They said that Christ, by name, and the Word of God, himself God and Lord, and a kind of Angel of great counsel, would one day come among human beings, and would become the teacher of true knowledge of God and of piety toward God the Creator of all to all the nations throughout the whole inhabited world, Greek and barbarian alike, which is what the preaching of the gospel contains; and that this same one would be a child and would be called Son of Man; and they told the family from which he would descend, and the strange manner of his birth from a virgin. And, most astonishing of all, they did not pass over in silence the place of his birth in Bethlehem, which is celebrated to this day by all who hasten from the ends of the earth to see it, but proclaimed this too in plain words, just as they also foretold, as if by the events themselves, the times of his appearing, in which he in fact came into this life.

You can, if you take up the study in hand, see with your own eyes that the prophetic predictions set out contain all together the wonderful works of our Savior Jesus Christ himself attested by the inspired evangelists, and his divine and all-virtuous teachings about true piety.

And why should one be surprised, when they also expressly proclaim the new way of piety announced by him to all people, the call of his disciples, and the teaching of a new covenant?

Yes, and besides this, they foretold the unbelief and contradiction of the Jews toward him, the uprisings of rulers, the envy of teachers, the betrayal by one disciple, the slanders of enemies, the accusations of false informers, the condemnations of judges, shameful insults, cruel scourgings, abusive reviling, and above all the shameful death; and, on his side, his wonderful silence, his gentleness and endurance, and his indescribably great patience and forbearance.

All these things, plainly concerning one person who would come at some time in the last days and suffer such things among men, the most ancient oracles of the Hebrews set forth clearly through what they foretold. They also bear witness to the return to life from the dead of the one they point to after his death, his appearing to his disciples, his imparting of the divine Spirit to them, his ascent into heaven, the establishment of his kingdom enthroned with the Father, and his glorious second coming, which is still to be, at the consummation of the age.

In addition to all this you will hear the laments and wailings of each of the prophets, mourning and bewailing in various ways all the evils that were to come upon the Jewish nation because of its impiety toward the one foretold: that their kingdom, which had lasted from their fathers down to those times, would suffer complete overthrow after their outrage against Christ; that their ancestral laws would be abolished; that they would be deprived of their ancient worship; that they would fall from the self-government inherited from their forefathers; that from free men they would become slaves of their enemies; that their royal metropolis would be burned with fire; that their venerable and holy temple would suffer burning and utter desolation; that their city would be settled by foreign nations instead of its former inhabitants; that they would be scattered among all the nations through the whole world; and that no end of their evils and no relief from their misfortunes would any longer be hoped for. Things plain even to a blind man, as the saying goes, still now show the sight of the words in the facts themselves, from the very first day on which they raised godless hands against Christ and drew upon themselves the beginning of their evils.

But the inspired men did not let their predictions rest on gloomy things, nor did they stretch their foreknowledge only as far as sorrowful things. Turning again to brightness, they proclaimed beforehand good news for all people together at the coming of Christ: in place of the rejection of one nation, they announced the knowledge of God to every nation and race of men, escape from demons, deliverance from ignorance and error, the shining forth of light and piety; that the disciples of Christ would fill the whole world with his teaching; how their gospel would be preached to all people, containing a new and strange way of piety; that churches of Christ would be established through them among all the nations; that the Christian people would be called by one name throughout the whole world; and that the uprisings of rulers and kings of each age against the church of Christ would have no power to destroy it, since it is strengthened by God.

When so many things have been uttered by the theologians of the Hebrews and their outcomes are displayed openly to all to this day, who would not wonder at the inspiration of these men? Who would not confess that the lessons and doctrines of their piety and philosophy are authoritative and true, since they furnish their proof not in elegant phrases, nor in cleverness of speech or deceptive tricks of syllogisms, but in simple and guileless teaching, whose genuineness and sincerity of truth is shown by the virtue and knowledge of God of those inspired men?

Those, then, who were able to see from far off, countless ages before, the things that came to light long ages afterward, not by a human but by a divine Spirit, how would they not deserve to be believed also concerning the doctrines in which they instructed their pupils? Now I know well that all who have sincerely received our Savior and Lord Jesus as truly being the Christ of God find it easy, first, to persuade themselves that they have believed in him only in accordance with the prophetic testimonies about him, and then to put this same thing forward to all with whom they enter into discussion; but they cannot easily confirm their claim by demonstrations.

Hence I have of necessity come forward to this task myself, and with God’s help, as promised, I will try to present the complete treatment of the whole Demonstration of the Gospel from those very theologians among the Hebrews. My writing is not undertaken, as someone might say, against the Jews; far from it, very far indeed! Rather, it is actually on their side, if they are fair-minded. For it establishes the Christian case by the witness of the prediction made long ago, and theirs by the fulfillment in events of the prophecies found among them.

It would suit the children of the Greeks too, if they are fair-minded, through the wonderful foreknowledge of future things and the outcome of events according to the predictions. It shows at once the divine and unerring character of our truth, and at the same time it stops the tongues of liars by a more rational demonstration, in which the slanderers insist we have no share, while they wear themselves out daily with all their might in their treatises against us. They say, at any rate, that we can offer nothing by way of demonstration, but require those who come to us to rely on faith alone.

Against such a slander, then, the present treatise will not be without reason; and it will also refute the false doctrines and blasphemies of the godless heresies against the divine prophets, through the agreement of the old with the new.

The longer and detailed interpretation of the prophetic sayings my discussion will now put off, leaving it to those who wish to examine them and who can explain the manner of it. Using as teacher the divine precept that says, “Sum up much in few words,” it will strive to follow this, merely setting out starting points for the study of the passages and a clear interpretation of what bears urgently on the subject at hand.

Enough of preface; now I will begin the demonstrations. Since a great crowd of slanderers was pouring in against us, saying that we can offer no clear sample of truth by demonstrations, but require those who come to us to rely on faith alone, and that we persuade them to do nothing more than, like irrational cattle, shut their eyes and follow boldly and bravely, without examination, whatever we say, and that for this reason they are called “believers” (the faithful) on account of their irrational faith, I reasonably divided the accusations against us, and in the Preparation for the whole work set out first that of the polytheistic nations, who charge us with having become apostates from our ancestral gods, and say loudly that we have preferred barbarian things to Greek ones in embracing the oracles of the Hebrews.

The second was the accusation of the Jews themselves, by which they too might seem justly to blame us, because, while making use of their scriptures, we do not pursue the same way of life as they.

Having distinguished these, we met the first as well as we could in the Preparation for the Gospel. We admitted that we were formerly Greeks, or that, being from other nations, we held the views of the Greeks, and were enslaved from our fathers to the error of many gods; yet we showed that we changed not by an irrational and unexamined impulse, but by judgment and sober reasoning, and that our zeal for the oracles of the Hebrews had arisen with discernment and good reason.

Now it is time to fortify ourselves against the second and to take up the remaining inquiry. This concerns those of the circumcision; it has not yet been examined, but here, at the proper point, it will be completed in the studies of the Demonstration of the Gospel.

Come, then, calling on the God of all, Jews and Greeks alike, through our Savior himself, let us first consider what the manner of our own piety is; at the same time we will supply the solutions to all the questions raised.

It has been said already in the Preparation that Christianity is neither a form of Hellenism nor of Judaism, but bears its own character of piety, and that this is not new or outlandish, but most ancient, and familiar and known to those beloved of God before the times of Moses who were attested for piety and righteousness. Nevertheless, let us now examine again what Hellenism and Judaism are, and consider under which of these we would find classed the men before Moses who were beloved of God and attested for their piety.

Judaism one might reasonably call the way of life ordered according to the law of Moses, dependent on the one God over all; and Hellenism, to put it briefly, the superstition of all the nations, according to their ancestral customs, toward many gods.

What, then, shall we say about the men beloved of God before Moses and before Judaism, whom Moses recorded? For instance about Enoch, to whom he bears witness, saying, “And Enoch pleased God”; and about Noah, of whom again he says, “Noah was a righteous man in his generation”; and about Shem and Japheth, concerning whom he writes this: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; and may God enlarge Japheth.”

And further, about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with whom it is reasonable to count Job as well, and any others who pursued a life like theirs? Must they have been Jews or Greeks? They could not reasonably be called Jews, since the legislation of Moses had not yet been introduced into life.

For if Judaism was nothing other than the way of life according to Moses, and Moses appeared long after the men mentioned, it is clear that those attested for piety before his times would not be Jews. But neither is it fitting to consider them Greeks, since they were not held fast by the superstition of many gods.

For Abraham is said to have left completely his father’s house and kindred and to have devoted himself to the one God alone, whom he also confesses, saying, “I will stretch out my hand to God the Most High, who created heaven and earth.”

And Jacob is recorded by Moses as saying to his household and all who were with him: “Put away the foreign gods from among you, and let us rise and go up to Bethel, and we will make there an altar to the Lord who heard me in the day of affliction, who was with me and saved me on the way on which I went. And they gave Jacob the foreign gods that were in their hands, and the earrings that were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the terebinth that is in Shechem, and destroyed them to this day.”

If, then, they had become strangers to the error of idolatry, and were shown to have been outside Judaism, yet, being neither Greeks nor Jews, they are attested to have been beloved of God and righteous and pious if ever any were, it is time to think of a third form of piety by which they probably succeeded.

Consider, then, whether this was not the very order we have shown to lie between Judaism and Hellenism as a third: most ancient and the oldest of all, but lately proclaimed to all the nations through our Savior.

And this would be Christianity: being neither a form of Hellenism nor of Judaism, but what lies between them, the most ancient constitution of piety, and a most ancient philosophy, yet lately given as law to all people throughout the whole world. So the one who turns from Hellenism to Christianity does not fall into Judaism; nor again does one who withdraws from the Jewish self-chosen worship at once become a Greek. Rather, one who moves from either order, from Hellenism or from Judaism, comes over to the middle law and life, that of the men of old who were beloved of God and righteous, which our Savior and Lord renewed after it had lain dormant for a long time, in accordance with the oracles of Moses himself and the other prophets concerning these very things.

In the oracles to Abraham, at any rate, Moses himself records the prophecy that in later times not the descendants of Abraham, nor the Jews from his seed, but all the tribes of the earth and all the nations would be counted worthy of blessings from God by the same manner of piety as Abraham’s.

He writes thus: “And the Lord said to Abraham, Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father’s house, and come into the land that I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed; and I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse; and in you all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.” And again God said, “Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing? Abraham shall become a great and numerous nation, and in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”

How could all the nations and all the tribes of the earth be blessed in Abraham, if they had nothing in common with him, either in manner of soul or in bodily kinship? For what kinship according to the flesh did Scythians, say, or Egyptians, or Ethiopians, or Indians, or Britons, or Spaniards have with Abraham? Or how could these nations, and those still more remote than these, be blessed on account of kinship with Abraham according to the flesh?

Nor was it likely that all the nations would share with Abraham the blessing of the soul. How could they, when some of them were defiled by lawless marriages with mothers and unions with daughters, others by licentious intercourse of males with males, others placed piety in human sacrifices and in deifying irrational animals, in images of lifeless matter, and in superstitions about wandering spirits; some thought it good and pious to burn the aged alive, others to hand over their dearest to the dogs, others even to eat the dead?

How then could those brought up in such a brutish life share in the blessing of the one beloved of God, unless they were to change from their brutishness and one day partake of the same manner of piety as Abraham? For he too, being of another nation and a stranger to the piety he later pursued, is said to have been changed, to have turned from his ancestral superstition, and to have left his house and kindred and ancestral customs, and the way of life in which he had been born and raised, and to have followed God, who also gave him the recorded oracles.

If, then, Moses, who came after Abraham and laid down a constitution for the Jewish nation through the legislation he published, had enacted such things as had been achieved by those beloved of God before him, and such as could suit all the nations, so that all the tribes of the earth and all the nations could worship God according to Moses’ ordinance, one could say that the oracles foretold that those from all nations who worshiped God and embraced Judaism, and became like them according to the law, would be blessed with Abraham’s blessing, and we too ought to keep what Moses ordained. But since the constitution of Moses was suited not to the other nations but only to the Jews, and not even to all of them, but only to those living in the land of Judea, another way besides the law of Moses had by all means to be established, by living according to which the nations throughout the world would share, like Abraham, an equal blessing with him.

That the Mosaic ordinance, as I said, suited the Jews, and not all of them (not those in the dispersion), but only those living in Palestine, will be clear to you if you reason as follows. Moses says somewhere in his legislation, “Three times a year every male of yours shall appear before the Lord your God.” And still more clearly he specifies where all were to meet three times a year, saying, “Three times a year every male of yours shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord shall choose.”

You see that he commands them to meet not in every city, nor wherever it happened, but “in the place which the Lord your God shall choose.” There he legislates that they gather at three seasons of each year, and he fixes the seasons at which they had to meet in the place where his worship was performed: first at Passover; second fifty days later at the feast called Pentecost; and third in the seventh month after Passover, on the Day of Atonement, on which all Jews still now keep the fast. And he curses those who do not abide by what is legislated.

So those who were all to meet three times a year in Jerusalem and fulfill the ordinances must surely have lived not far from Judea, but around its borders. And if it was impossible for Jews living farthest from Palestine to carry out what was legislated, much more was it impossible for it to suit all the nations and those at the ends of the earth.

Listen in what way the same lawgiver again commands a woman after childbirth to come and offer sacrifices to God, speaking thus: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: A woman who conceives and bears a male shall be unclean seven days.”

Then, after saying some things in between, he adds: “And when the days of her purification are fulfilled for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb a year old for a whole burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for sin, to the door of the tent of witness, to the priest, and he shall offer them before the Lord. And the priest shall make atonement for her and cleanse her from the flow of her blood. This is the law of her who bears a male or a female.”

Besides this, the same lawgiver commands that one defiled by a funeral and by touching the dead be cleansed in no other way than by the ashes of a heifer, after keeping apart from ordinary life for seven whole days.

He says, at any rate: “And it shall be a perpetual statute for the sons of Israel and for the proselytes who are joined to them in their midst. Whoever touches the dead body of any human soul shall be unclean seven days. He shall be purified on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean.

But if he is not purified on the third day and on the seventh, he shall not be clean. Everyone who touches the dead body of a human soul, if he dies and is not purified, has defiled the tent of witness of the Lord; that soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of sprinkling was not sprinkled on him. He is unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.

And this is the law: If a man dies in a house, everyone who enters the house and all that is in the house shall be unclean seven days. And every open vessel that has no binding fastened on it shall be unclean. And whoever touches, on the face of the field, one slain by the sword, or a corpse, or a human bone, or a tomb, shall be unclean seven days. And for the unclean they shall take some of the burnt ashes of purification and pour it into a vessel, and they shall take hyssop, and a clean man shall dip it and sprinkle it on the house and the vessels and the persons who are there, and on the one who touched the human bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the tomb.

And the clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day, and he shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water, and he shall be unclean until evening. And a man who is defiled and not purified, that soul shall be utterly destroyed from the congregation, because the water of sprinkling was not sprinkled on him. And it shall be a perpetual statute for you.”

Having legislated this, Moses goes on to teach the manner of the water of sprinkling, commanding that a red heifer without blemish be wholly burned, and that some of its ashes be put into the water by which those defiled by a corpse must be cleansed.

Where the heifer must be burned, where the woman after childbirth must offer the sacrifices, and where the other ordinances must be carried out, namely not indifferently in every place but in one alone which he himself designates, is clear from what he legislates, saying: “And the place which the Lord your God shall choose, for his name to be called upon there, there you shall bring all that I command you today.”

And next he gives an exact injunction, adding: “Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your whole burnt offerings in any place you see, but in the place which the Lord your God shall choose in one of your cities; there you shall offer your whole burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you today.”

And he adds, saying: “You may not eat in all your cities the tithe of your grain and of your wine and of your oil, the firstborn of your cattle and of your sheep, and all your vows that you vow, and your thank offerings, and the firstfruits of your hands; but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God shall choose for himself, you and your sons and your daughter, your servant and your maidservant, and the proselyte who is in your cities.”

And going further, he makes the point secure where he says: “But your holy things, if you have any, and your vows, you shall take and come to the place which the Lord your God shall choose for himself.”

And again: “You shall tithe a tenth of all the produce of your seed, the produce of your field year by year, and you shall eat it before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, for his name to be called upon there.”

Then, reckoning what must be done if the place he designates is far off and the yield of the crops large, and how the yearly fruits for the offering must be brought from home to the place of God, he lays down this law about it too:

“If the way is too long for you, and you cannot carry them, because the place which the Lord your God shall choose for his name to be called upon there is far from you, because the Lord your God will bless you, then you shall sell them for silver, and take the silver in your hands, and go to the place which the Lord your God shall choose, and you shall spend the silver on whatever your soul desires, on oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink or whatever your soul desires, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God.”

And again he seals the matter of the place, saying something like this: “Every firstborn that is born among your cattle and among your sheep, the males, you shall consecrate to the Lord your God. You shall not work with your firstborn calf, and you shall not shear the firstborn of your sheep. Before the Lord your God you shall eat it year by year, in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, you and your household.”

After this again, see how he enjoins that the feasts too be celebrated nowhere else on earth but only in the place designated. He says, then: “Keep the month of new grain, and you shall keep the Passover to the Lord your God, sheep and oxen, in the place which the Lord your God shall choose.”

And again he reminds them, saying: “You may not sacrifice the Passover in any of your cities which the Lord your God gives you, but at the place which the Lord your God shall choose; there you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at the setting of the sun, at the time when you came out of the land of Egypt; and you shall boil it and eat it in the place which the Lord your God shall choose.”

Such is the law of the feast of Passover. Hear what that of Pentecost says: “You shall count for yourself seven full weeks, from when you begin to put the sickle to the harvest, and you shall keep the feast of weeks to the Lord your God, as your hand is able, whatever he gives you, according as the Lord your God has blessed you.

And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your servant and your maidservant, and the Levite who is in your cities, and the proselyte and the orphan and the widow who are among you, in the place which the Lord your God shall choose for himself, for his name to be called upon there.

And hear where he commands the third feast to be kept: “You shall keep the feast of tabernacles for yourself seven days, when you gather in from your threshing floor and from your winepress; and you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your servant and your maidservant, and the widow, in the place which the Lord your God shall choose for himself.”

Having marked the place in so many ways, and having said so many times that they must meet there with their whole family and household, how could this suit those of Judea who lived even a little way off, not to mention the nations throughout the whole world? Especially since he grants no pardon to those who transgress what is prescribed, but brings a curse on all who do not keep everything, saying in these very words: “Cursed is he who does not abide by all that is written in this law, to do it.”

Consider in another way too how impossible the legislation of Moses was for all people. Having distinguished the voluntary and grievous sins, and attached punishments to each of those worthy of the greatest penalty, he lays down laws by which he corrects in another way those who offend involuntarily.

Of these, one runs thus: “If one soul of the people of the land sins involuntarily by doing one of all the commandments of the Lord which is not to be done, and offends, and the sin he has sinned becomes known to him, he shall bring as his gift a female kid of the goats without blemish; he shall bring it for his sin which he sinned, in the place where they slay the whole burnt offerings, and the priest shall take some of the blood.”

And see how here too one who has stumbled in something against his will must come to the place where they slay the whole burnt offerings; and this was the one he had already mentioned many times before, saying: “which the Lord your God shall choose.”

That this could not be carried out by all people on earth the lawgiver himself saw clearly and indicated precisely, not bringing the law forward indefinitely against everyone, but saying: “If a soul of the people of the land sins involuntarily.”

And he lays down a second law, which runs thus: “If a soul hears the voice of an oath, and he is a witness, having either seen or known, if he does not report it, he shall bear his sin.” What then must this man do, but take the victim in hand and hasten to the purifications? And where again but in the place where they slay the whole burnt offerings?

And third, again: “A soul,” he says, “that touches any unclean thing, or the carcasses of unclean cattle, and takes from it, and he is defiled and offends; or touches the uncleanness of a man, any uncleanness of his by touching which he is defiled, and it escaped him, but afterward he knew and offended.”

What then was fitting for the defiled person to do, but again come to the place and offer, for the sin he had sinned, a female from the flock, a ewe lamb or a she-goat, for sin?

The same law applied also to a soul who swears, pronouncing with the lips to do evil or to do good, in anything whatever that a man may pronounce with an oath, and it escapes him, and then he knows it and sins in one of these, and confesses the sin he has sinned: this one too, he says, is to take the same victim and hasten to the place, and the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin, and his sin shall be forgiven him.

And another law besides those mentioned makes this distinction: “A soul that is unaware through forgetfulness and sins involuntarily in the holy things of the Lord shall bring a ram for his trespass to the Lord.” He will bring it again to the high priest, clearly in the chosen place.

And he adds a sixth law to these, saying: “A soul that sins and does one of all the commandments that ought not to be done, and did not know it, and offends and bears his sin, shall again bring a ram to the high priest, and the priest shall make atonement for him for the ignorance in which he erred, and he did not know it, and it shall be forgiven him.”

And next he states a seventh: “A soul that sins, and wholly disregards the commandments of the Lord, and lies to his neighbor about a deposit, or about a partnership or robbery, or has wronged his neighbor in some way, or has found something lost and lies about it, and swears falsely about any one of all the things a man may do so as to sin in them: when he has sinned and offended, he shall restore the thing he seized by robbery, or the wrong he did, or the deposit that was entrusted to him, or the lost thing he found, from any matter about which he swore falsely, and he shall repay the principal itself and a fifth besides.”

After confessing the sin and after repaying, he would have to hasten again, putting everything aside, to the place which the Lord God shall choose, and to offer a ram without blemish for the trespass; and the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him.

These things the admirable Moses set out precisely, concerning those who sin involuntarily and those who sin in ignorance, keeping them far apart from deliberate offenses, for which he also fixes inexorable punishments to restrain his people.

For one who did not grant pardon for involuntary sins before the sin was confessed, and then exacted from the sinner a kind of small penalty through the prescribed sacrifice, and heightened both the zeal and the reverence of those who chose to worship God according to him by the immediate journey to the holy place, how would he not much more restrain the impulses toward deliberate acts? What conclusion then should be drawn from this, when, as has been said, Moses sums up everything and charges them, saying: “Cursed is everyone who does not abide in all the things written in the law, to do them”?

Must, then, those from the ends of the earth who were to worship God according to Moses, in order to escape the curse and obtain the blessing promised to Abraham, do all these things? Must they meet in Jerusalem three times a year? Must women from all the nations who had chosen to worship God, just after they had ceased from childbirth and its pains, set out on so long a journey to offer the sacrifice prescribed by Moses for each child born? Must those who had touched a dead body, or sworn falsely, or done something involuntarily, come from the ends of the earth, run and hasten to the prescribed purification, in order to escape the charge of the curse?

But you see that even for those living around Jerusalem and dwelling only in Judea the life according to Moses was hard to achieve, not to mention its being possible for the other nations to carry out. Hence with good reason our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Son of God, after his resurrection from the dead, having said to his disciples, “Make disciples of all the nations,” adds, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

For he did not order them to teach all the nations the ordinances of Moses, but whatever he himself commanded; and these were the things contained in his Gospels. With good reason, then, his disciples and apostles too, in their deliberation about the nations, acknowledge that the ordinances of Moses cannot suit the nations, since they had not been easy to achieve either for themselves or for their fathers. Peter says, at any rate, in the Acts: “Now then, why do you tempt God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?”

With good reason, too, Moses himself, on account of these very things, said that another prophet besides himself would be raised up, and announces the good news that this one would be the lawgiver of all the nations, hinting at Christ; and he urges his own people to obey him, prophesying this too as follows: “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers like me; you shall listen to him in all that he says to you. And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from its people.”

And he proclaims again that this prophet, clearly Christ, coming forth from the Jews, would rule over all the nations, saying: “How fair are your houses, Jacob, your tents, Israel, like shady glens, and like a garden by a river, like tents which the Lord pitched. A man shall come forth from his seed, and he shall rule over many nations, and his kingdom shall be exalted.”

And he shows also from which tribe, of the twelve in all among the Hebrews, the foretold lawgiver of the nations, Christ, would come forth, namely from Judah, and at what times, namely after the failure of those who ruled the Jewish nation by succession from their forefathers, saying: “A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until the things laid up for him come; and he is the expectation of the nations.”

And what expectation was this but the one promised to Abraham, that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in him? So Moses himself is shown to have known precisely that the legislation he had ordained was too weak to suit all the nations, and that for the fulfillment of the oracles to Abraham another prophet was needed.

And this was the one whom he announced beforehand in his good news, testifying in advance that he would come forth from the tribe of Judah and rule over many nations.

For these reasons, then, we have chosen and loved the sacred books of the Hebrews, since they contain the oracles about us of the nations and are thus our own as well; especially since not only Moses foretold the lawgiver of the nations who would come after him, but the prophets after him too, all of them, to put it briefly, proclaimed similar things, as David does, saying: “Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them; let the nations know that they are men.”

See how he too mentions a second lawgiver of the nations. Therefore elsewhere he also calls on the nations to sing not the old song of Moses but another, new one, saying: “Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth; declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all the gods. For all the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens. Bring to the Lord, you families of the nations, bring to the Lord glory to his name.”

And again: “Say among the nations that the Lord reigns; for he has established the world, which shall not be moved.”

And again: “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. The Lord has made known his salvation; before the nations he has revealed his righteousness. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

And see how in these words he proclaims the new song not to the Jewish nation but to all the nations, while the old song through Moses belonged to the Jews alone. This new song Jeremiah, another prophet of the Hebrews, calls a new covenant, saying: “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not abide in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with Israel, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their mind, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Do you see how he too distinguishes two covenants, naming one old and the other new, and says that the new will not be like the old, which he made with the fathers? For the old was legislated for the Jews who had fallen away from the piety of their forefathers, who had imitated the Egyptian life and manners and had slipped into the error of many gods and the superstition of the nations about idols; it was meant to raise up the fallen and set upright, with suitable teachings, those lying prostrate. “For the law,” he says, “is not laid down for the righteous, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners,” and the like.

But the new covenant leads by the hand those who have been raised up through our Savior, by the grace and gift of God, to walk and hasten toward the promised kingdom of God, calling all people equally to one and the same share in good things. This new covenant Isaiah, again another prophet of the Hebrews, calls a new law, saying: “For out of Zion shall go forth a law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and he shall judge between the nations; and all the nations shall come, and all the peoples shall be gathered and shall say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob.”

What would the law be that went forth from Zion, different from the one legislated in the desert through Moses on Mount Sinai, but the gospel word that went forth from Zion through our Savior Jesus Christ and his apostles and passed through all the nations? For it is evident that from Jerusalem and Mount Zion next to it, where our Savior and Lord spent most of his time and did most of his teaching, the law of his new covenant began and, going forth from there, shone out to all people, in accordance with his own words, which he spoke to his disciples, saying: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

And what were these but the lessons and teachings of the new covenant? Since, then, it has been shown that this is so, it is time now to see the manner of the new covenant and of the new song and law that were proclaimed beforehand.

The old covenant and the law through Moses have been shown to be suited only to the Jewish nation, and to it only while living in its own land, but neither to the other nations throughout the world nor to Jews settled in foreign lands. The manner of the new covenant, on the other hand, had surely to be established as beneficial for life to all nations, so that those who were to live by it would in no way and from no side be hindered, whether by country or by race or by place or by anything else at all.

Such has proved to be the law and life legislated by our Savior Jesus Christ, renewing the most ancient piety, older than Moses, by which the God-beloved Abraham and his forefathers are shown to have lived.

If, at any rate, you are willing to compare the life of Christians and the worship of God laid down by Christ for all nations with the manner of those around Abraham who were attested for piety and righteousness, you will find it to be the same.

For they withdrew from the error of many gods and turned away from the superstition surrounding images; they looked beyond the whole visible creation and made gods neither of the sun nor of the moon nor of any part of the universe, but raised themselves to the one supreme God, the Most High himself, the Creator of heaven and earth.

Moses himself confirms this in his histories of ancient times, recording Abraham as saying: “I will stretch out my hand to God the Most High, who created heaven and earth.”

And before this, he introduces Melchizedek, whom he says was priest of God the Most High, blessing Abraham in this way: “Blessed be Abraham by God the Most High, who created heaven and earth.”

You would find Enoch too and Noah justified and pleasing to God in the same manner as Abraham. And Job, “a righteous man, true, blameless, God-fearing, keeping away from every evil deed,” is attested before the times of Moses. He, having undergone a test of his piety toward the God of all through the sudden loss of his possessions, left a very great example of a pious way of life to those after him, uttering that philosophical saying: “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, naked also I shall depart. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it has come to pass. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

And he uttered these words in reverence for the Lord of all, whom the same man, going on, describes clearly when he says: “For he is wise in mind, mighty and great, who shakes the earth under heaven from its foundations, and its pillars totter; who speaks to the sun, and it does not rise, and seals up the stars; who alone stretched out the heaven.”

If, then, the word of Christ has lately commanded all the nations to worship, as they did, this very God alone, the God of those beloved of God long ago and before Moses, it is evident that we have become sharers in the same piety as they; and sharing in the piety, clearly we shall also share in the blessing.

But they too are attested to have known the Word of God, whom we love to call Christ; indeed they were counted worthy, in a very special way, of his visible presence and divine appearance.

Hear, at any rate, how Moses himself again calls the one who appeared to those beloved of God, and who often gave them the recorded oracles, sometimes God and Lord, and sometimes the Angel of God, plainly showing that this was not the God over all, but a second one, proclaimed God and Lord of the God-beloved men, but Angel of the supreme Father.

He says, then, in these very words: “And Jacob went to Haran, and he came to a place and slept there, for the sun had set; and he took some of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and slept in that place and dreamed; and behold, a ladder set firmly on the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending on it.

And the Lord was set firmly upon it, and said: I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; do not fear. The land on which you are sleeping I will give to you and to your seed, and your seed shall be as the sand of the earth.”

After this he adds next: “And Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone which he had put under his head, and set it up as a pillar.”

Then, going on, he names this very God and Lord who appeared to him the Angel of God. Jacob says, at any rate: “And the Angel of God said to me in sleep, Jacob; and I said, What is it?”

And, he says: “I have seen all that Laban does to you. I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God, where you anointed a pillar to me and vowed a vow to me there.”

This same one, appearing to Abraham too, is proclaimed God and Lord, initiating the God-beloved man into the supreme authority of the Father, and teaching certain things as about another God; these we shall examine at the proper time.

And it is not right to say that the one who spoke to Job after his sufficient trial was any other than this one. For first, appearing to him through whirlwind and clouds, he showed himself to be the God of all; and going on, he displays himself, so that Job says: “Hear me, Lord, that I too may speak. Before, I heard the report of your voice, but now my eye has seen you.”

If it is not possible to say that the God beyond, the invisible and unbegotten and King of all, is seen by mortal nature, who would the one indicated be except God the Word, whom we properly name Lord after the Father? And why need we collect more on this, when one can take the proofs of these things from the sacred books? These we too shall read at leisure in accordance with the present subject, to demonstrate that it was no other than the Word of God who was seen by the God-beloved forefathers.

So, after [the knowledge] of the Creator of all, the doctrine about Christ too has been handed down in common to us and to them. Hence you will find that those very men beloved of God before Moses were called christs, just as we are called Christians. Hear too how the oracle in the Psalms speaks of them: “When they were few in number, very few, and sojourners in it, and they went from nation to nation and from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no man to wrong them, and he rebuked kings on their account, saying, Touch not my christs, and do no evil among my prophets.”

For the whole context of the passage shows that these things were said of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; so that they shared with us in the name of Christ as well.

Moreover, just as the life of virtue and the way of living in piety has been proclaimed to all the nations through Christ’s admonition, apart from the Mosaic ordinance, so the same manner of piety was achieved by those men of old.

So they did not care about circumcision of the body, since neither do we; nor about abstaining from eating certain animals, since neither do we. For instance, Moses introduces Melchizedek as priest of God the Most High, not circumcised in body, not anointed with the ointment prepared according to Moses, not knowing what a sabbath is, nor understanding at all any of the things later enjoined on the whole Jewish nation through Moses, but living plainly according to the gospel of Christ.

Nevertheless, Moses says he was priest of God the Most High, and greater than Abraham; he is introduced, at any rate, blessing Abraham. Such a man too was Noah, “a righteous man in his generation,” whom the God of all preserved as a living seed for the human race in the destruction of the flood, when all on earth were perishing.

He, at any rate, knew nothing of the Jewish customs, either circumcision of the body or the other things ordained by Moses; yet he was proclaimed righteous, if anyone was.

And before him Enoch, who is said to have pleased God and to have been translated so that his death was not found: he too, being such a man, was not circumcised in body, nor did he follow the legislation of Moses, but plainly appears to have lived in a Christian and not a Jewish way. And Abraham himself, born after those named and later than them in time, but advanced in age, for the sake of those who were to be born from him was the first to undergo circumcision of the body, as a kind of seal, a mark of his line, handing on this sign to be borne by those who would be born from him according to the flesh.

But before begetting children and before circumcision, he too is shown to have lived in a Christian and not a Jewish way, through his withdrawal from idols, his confession of the one God over all, and through his virtuous life alone.

He is attested, at any rate, to have kept the ordinances and commandments, the statutes and laws of God before the Mosaic ordinance. The God who gave oracles says to Isaac: “And I will give to your seed all this land, and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham your father obeyed my voice and kept my commandments and my ordinances and my statutes and my laws.”

For even before the law of Moses there were other ordinances of God, and statutes not like those in Moses, other laws and commandments of Christ, by which they were justified. That these were not the same as those legislated through Moses, Moses clearly shows when he says to the people: “Hear, Israel, the statutes and judgments that I speak in your ears this day, and you shall learn them and take care to do them. The Lord your God made a covenant with you in Horeb; not with your fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with you.”

And see how precisely he says “this covenant,” since he had not made the same one with their fathers. If he had said absolutely that no covenant had been given to their fathers, his statement would have been false; for a covenant was given to Abraham and to Noah, as the sacred oracles testify. For this reason Moses, with an addition, says that this one was not given to their fathers, hinting at another, better and different, through which they were shown to be beloved of God.

For instance, Abraham is attested by Moses himself to have achieved righteousness through faith in the God of all, when he says: “And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.”

That he received the sign of circumcision after achieving righteousness and after being attested for piety, so that it contributed nothing to his justification for piety, the text clearly shows. You would also find Joseph, before the times of Moses, living in the palaces of the Egyptians without scruple, and not in a Jewish way.

And if you like, you would find that the leader and lawgiver of the Jewish nation himself, Moses, from early childhood lived with the daughter of the Egyptian king and ate Egyptian food without scruple.

What need is there to speak of the thrice-blessed Job, that true man, the blameless, the righteous, the God-fearing? What was the cause of his supreme piety and righteous conduct? Surely not the precepts of Moses? Not at all. Was it then the observance of the sabbath day, or the keeping of some other Jewish self-chosen worship? How could it be, since he was older in time than Moses and his legislation? For Moses is reckoned the seventh generation from Abraham, but Job the fifth, preceding Moses by two generations.

Look, then, at this man’s life too, which brings in nothing of Moses’ legislation and yet is no stranger to the gospel teaching of our Savior. He says, at any rate, recounting his own life in his defense before his companions: “For I rescued the poor from the hand of the powerful, and I helped the orphan who had no helper. The mouth of the widow blessed me, and I had put on righteousness, and I clothed myself with judgment like a cloak. I was an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame; I was a father to the powerless.”

These are exactly the lessons proclaimed to all of us through the gospel teaching. Moreover, as one who knew well “weeping with those who weep,” and “Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh,” and “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it,” which are contained in the lessons of the gospel teaching, he showed kindness toward those in distress in life, saying: “I wept over every powerless person; I groaned when I saw a man in need.”

Then again, where the gospel teaching forbids unseemly laughter, the blessed man anticipated it, saying: “If I had walked with mockers, if my foot had hastened to deceit — but I stand in a just balance, and the Lord knows my innocence.”

Since the word in Moses legislates, saying, “You shall not commit adultery,” and decrees death against adulterers, while the word of the gospel teaching, intensifying the law, says, “It was said to the ancients, You shall not commit adultery; but I say to you, not even to desire at all” —

consider well the man of whom we are now speaking, who, living according to the gospel of Christ, guarded himself even against looking with desire too licentiously, and took pride in this, saying: “If my heart went after my eye toward the wife of another man.”

And he gives the reason next, adding: “For the passion of a man to defile another man’s wife is ungovernable. For it is a fire burning in all the members, and wherever it enters, it destroys from the roots.”

And he shows the incorruptibility of his character thus: “If I touched bribes with my hands, then let me sow and others eat, and may I be rootless on the earth.”

How he treated his own household can be learned from what he teaches, saying: “If I made light of the cause of my manservant or maidservant when they contended with me.”

And again he gives the reason: “For what shall I do if God makes inquiry of me? Were they not made in the flesh as I was? We were made in the same womb.”

To these he adds: “I did not make the widow’s eye waste away. If I ate my morsel alone and did not share it with the orphan; if I saw the naked perishing and did not clothe him.”

And again, a little further on, he says: “If I trusted in a precious stone, if I rejoiced when great wealth came to me, if I laid my hand on countless things.”

And again he adds the reason: “Or do we not see the sun shining and failing, and the moon waning?”

Then again, where the gospel teaching says, “It was said to the ancients, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies,” the admirable man, anticipating it by a teaching grown from within, fulfilled it in deed. Therefore he says: “If I rejoiced at the fall of my enemy, and my heart said, Well done! then let my ear hear my curse.”

And he adds: “The stranger did not lodge outside, and my door was open to everyone who came,” since he was no stranger to him who said, “I was a stranger, and you took me in.”

Hear too what he says about involuntary offenses: “If, having sinned involuntarily, I hid my sin — for I was not abashed before the throng of the multitude so as not to confess it before them. If I let the powerless go out of my door with an empty lap; if I did not fear the hand of the Lord; if I did not tear up the bond I held against anyone and give it back, taking nothing from the debtor.”

These and the like (for from one man one may infer the life of the rest) were the celebrated prizes of piety of the men beloved of God before Moses, for which they were counted worthy to be friends of God and prophets.

Since they were such, what further need was there of the precepts in Moses, handed down to base and wicked men? Through all this, then, the word of Christ has clearly been shown to have proclaimed to all the nations the most ancient manner of the forefathers’ piety, so that the new covenant is no other than that most ancient pious way of life before the times of Moses. So it is at once old and new: most ancient, because of what has been shown; and new again, because, having been hidden, as it were, from people through the long intervening times, it has come to life again through our Savior’s teaching.

During this intervening time, while the manner of the new covenant happened to be hidden from people and to lie dormant, as it were, the law of Moses, which came in meanwhile like a guardian and steward of infant and immature souls, or like a physician to the whole Jewish nation worn down by a terrible Egyptian disease, handed down a lower and imperfect life to the very descendants of Abraham, since they were unable to achieve what their forefathers had.

For since, during their stay among the Egyptians after the death of their God-beloved forefathers, they had been led away by Egyptian ways and had fallen, as I said, into the superstition of many gods, so that they seemed to have no advantage over the Egyptians but had become like them in every respect, both in the error of idols and in their other undertakings, Moses, with good reason, drawing them up as from a pit of evils, turned them away from godless polytheism and led them up to God, the Creator of all, setting forth that first step of piety as an introduction and entrance hall to more perfect things.

Then he did not permit them to murder, to commit adultery, to steal, to swear falsely, to rage with lust, males for males, or to have intercourse with mothers, sisters, or daughters, or any such things that people then were free to do without fear.

Taking them over from a savage and brutish life, he was the first on earth to establish in writing a more rational and well-ordered constitution for those times, when not even such a way of life was yet evident to all people.

Then, having forbidden idolatry to them as to imperfect people, he commanded them to serve the one God over all with sacrifices and certain more bodily things, legislating that his worship be carried out through certain more secret symbols of its own. And, wonderfully perceiving by the divine Spirit that it must not extend without limit, he confined it to one place, determining that his ordinances be carried out nowhere else but in one place only, namely the one in Jerusalem, and no longer outside it.

Hence to this day it is not lawful for the children of the Hebrews anywhere else, outside their demolished metropolis, to sacrifice according to the law, or to build a temple or altar, or to anoint priests or kings, or to hold the assemblies and feasts according to Moses, or to be cleansed from defilement, or released from trespass, or to bring gifts to God, or to propitiate him according to what is legislated.

Therefore they have fittingly become subject to the curse of Moses, trying to keep some things in part but transgressing the law as a whole, since Moses declared expressly: “Cursed is everyone who does not abide in all the things written in the law, to do them.”

They have fallen into all these things because Moses himself foresaw by the divine Spirit that, when the new covenant through Christ had been renewed and proclaimed to all the nations, his legislation would be superfluous. With good reason he confined it to one place, so that if they were ever deprived of it and shut out from their own freedom, they would no longer be able to carry out his ordinances in a foreign land, and so would of necessity have to receive the second covenant proclaimed through Christ.

Just as Moses had foretold this, Christ came into life and the teaching of the new covenant was set before all the nations; and immediately the Romans, taking the city by siege, destroyed Jerusalem and the temple there. At once the whole Mosaic ordinance was dissolved, the things of the old covenant were removed, and the curse pursued those who, out of season, transgressed by practicing the law of Moses and forcing themselves into it; and at the same time and in the same way the ordinances of the new and perfect teaching were brought in in its place.

Therefore with good reason our Savior and Lord says to those who think that God must be worshiped only in Jerusalem or on certain mountains or in designated places: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem; for God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

And when he had said this, immediately and not long after, Jerusalem was besieged, and the sanctuary there, with its altar and the worship according to Moses, was taken away according to Moses’ own ordinance. Then the archetypal piety of the God-beloved men before Moses appeared and shone out to all people, and with it the blessing promised through it to all the nations, leading those who approach it from the first step and first elements of the Mosaic worship to the better and more perfect life.

For those blessed and God-beloved men, I mean those around Abraham, did not worship in a designated place, nor through symbols and types, but, as our Savior and Lord says, “in spirit and truth”; and this has come to all the nations through our Savior’s appearing, as the ancient prophets also foresaw. Zephaniah, at any rate, says plainly: “The Lord will appear against them, and will utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and they shall worship him, each from his own place.”

And Malachi at once addresses those of the circumcision and foretells this about the nations, saying: “I have no pleasure, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept sacrifice from your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice.”

For what else does the offering of incense and sacrifice to God in every place show, but that not in Jerusalem, nor exclusively in this one place, but in every land and among all the nations, they would offer to the God over all the incense of prayers and the sacrifice called pure, offered not through blood but through pious deeds?

And Isaiah cries out plainly and shouts, prophesying and saying: “There shall be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt, and the Lord shall be known to the Egyptians, and he will send them a man who will save them; and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and they shall offer sacrifices and vow vows to the Lord and pay them; and they shall turn to the Lord, and he will hear them and heal them.”

Do we seem to you to speak the truth, then, when we say that a change of the law of Moses, or rather its cessation and dissolution, is foretold by the prophetic words?

Moses legislates that an altar and sacrifices be established nowhere on earth but in Judea alone, and in one city of it; but the prophecy says that an altar to the Lord will be set up in the land of Egypt, and that the Egyptians themselves will offer their sacrifices to the Lord of the prophets, no longer to their ancestral gods; and that the cause of their knowledge of God will be not Moses nor any other of the prophets, but a new and fresh man sent from God.

And if the altar is moved contrary to what Moses decided, it is absolutely necessary that there be a change of the law of Moses as well. Then, if the Egyptians sacrifice to the God over all, they will surely be counted worthy of priesthood too; and if Egyptians are priests, the things ordained by Moses about the Levites and the successors of Aaron could no longer be of use to the Egyptians.

It is time, then, that a new legislation is needed to establish what has been indicated. But what? Were these things proclaimed in vain? Or has an outcome followed the words? Consider whether today, I mean in our own time, we do not see with our own eyes not only Egyptians but every race of men who were formerly idolaters, whom the prediction hinted at through the Egyptians, delivered from the error of many gods and demons and calling on the God of the prophets.

And they pray no longer to many lords but to the one and only Lord, according to the sacred oracle; and to him an altar of bloodless and rational sacrifices, according to the new mysteries of the new and fresh covenant, has been raised up throughout the whole inhabited world of mankind, in Egypt itself and among the other nations that were like Egypt in their superstitious error.

Now, in our time, the knowledge of the God of all shining forth seals the indisputable credibility of what was foretold. Seeing these things accomplished in fact and no longer awaited by hearsay, if you seek the time from which the events took their beginning, you will find no other than that of the saving appearance.

This, then, was the one whom the oracle indicated when it said that the God and Lord of all would send the Egyptians a man who would save them; whom the oracles of Moses also indicated when he said, “A man shall come forth from his seed, and he shall rule over many nations”; among which nations the Egyptians too would surely be counted.

But on these matters there would be a long discussion, to be given more completely in its own treatment. For the present let it be observed that the things foretold were fulfilled at no other time than after the appearing of Jesus our Savior.

For from that time until now, among the Egyptians, among Persians, Syrians, and Armenians, among the barbarians living at the ends of the earth, among nations formerly most savage and brutish, and yes, among those living on the islands too (for the prophecy thought them worthy of mention as well), that very way of life of Abraham, the most ancient manner of piety, oldest of all, is eagerly pursued.

And who would not be astonished at the marvel of the thing, if those who from time immemorial paid reverent honor to stones and wood and demons, to man-eating beasts and venomous reptiles, to animals of every kind and hideous monsters, to fire and earth and the lifeless elements of the universe, after our Savior’s coming call upon the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth, the very Lord of the prophets, the God of Abraham and his forefathers?

And those who a little before wallowed in marriages with mothers and unions with daughters, in mutual corruption and every kind of bloodshed, who differed in nothing from savage beasts in their ways, now, changed by the divine power of our Savior and become, as it were, different people, gather in the common schools and learn words of virtue and lessons of self-control. They learn the highest philosophy, which urges them not even to look with licentious eyes, not to be careless even in words, and not to do the common things everyone does; and not only men but women too, poor and rich, learned and unlearned, even children and slaves, are taught in their gatherings in city and countryside, and learn the true way in which it is fitting to revere and serve the God over all in every place, according to the prophecy that said, “And they shall worship him, each from his own place.”

Every barbarian and Greek, then, worships the God over all, not running to Jerusalem, nor discharging his duty with blood and sacrifices, but staying at home and by himself, and rendering to him in spirit and truth the bloodless and pure worship.

And this was the new covenant, not like the old. But do not think that “old” refers to the covenant of the God-beloved men before Moses; it refers to the one legislated by Moses himself for the Jewish nation.

The passage, at any rate, goes on to make clear which one it called old, to which it teaches that the new will bear no resemblance, saying: “I will make a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with the fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.”

Not according to this one, then, he says, the one legislated by Moses; for this was handed down to the Jews at the exodus from Egypt. He might have seemed to introduce the new covenant as contrary to the manner of piety of the God-beloved men around Abraham, had he not marked it precisely, saying: “not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers at that time, when I led them out of the land of Egypt.”

So he prophesied that the new covenant would not be according to the one legislated by Moses at the exodus and during the stay in the desert, but clearly according to that one lived long before, through which those before Moses were shown to have succeeded.

For these reasons, then, confidently divide the choices of those who profess to worship God not into two but into three orders: that of the out-and-out idolaters, who worship idols in the error of many gods; that of those of the circumcision who through Moses have climbed to the first step of piety; and third, that of those who have climbed higher through the gospel teaching. Placing this between the two, no longer think that those who leave the Jews must altogether fall into Hellenism, nor that those who withdraw from the Greeks must of necessity become Jews. Taking the middle, the third, you will find it standing somewhere above, as if it had climbed a very high summit, leaving the others below on either side.

For it has escaped the godless and much-erring superstition of the Greeks, with their unrestrained sexual immorality and disorder; and likewise the self-chosen worship of the Jews given by Moses, imperfect and suited as it were to infants and the weak. And proclaiming its own law, which from the beginning belongs not only to Jews but also to Greeks and barbarians and all the nations under the sun, see what it says:

“O man, and the whole race of mortals: the law of Moses, beginning from one race of men, called first of all the Jewish race to the knowledge of the one God, because of the promise to their God-beloved forefathers, freeing those who obeyed from the bitter slavery of demons. But I, announcing to all people and to the nations throughout the whole world a higher knowledge of God and piety, urge you to live like those around Abraham, and those still older, before the times of Moses, among whom many from foreign nations are remembered as having shone in piety.

And again: the law of Moses ordered those who chose to be pious to hasten from everywhere to one designated place on earth; but I, granting freedom to all, teach them to seek the God over all not in a corner of the earth, nor on mountains, nor in temples made with hands, but that each should revere and worship him at home.

And again: the old law ordered that the God over all be worshiped with sacrifices by the slaughter of animals, with frankincense and fire and certain other similar purifications of the body; but I, handing down the rites of the soul, command that the Divine be honored with a most pure understanding and clear mind, in self-control and a virtuous life, and with right and pious doctrines.

And again: Moses urged the people of that time, as murderers, not to kill; but to those trained beforehand in this and who have achieved the first commandment I legislate the more perfect one, commanding them not even to be held by the passion of anger. And again: Moses enjoined adulterers and the licentious not to commit adultery, nor to lie with males, nor to pursue pleasures contrary to nature, imposing death as the penalty on transgressors; but I want my own not even to look at a woman with licentious desire.

And again: he said, “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to God”; but I say to you, do not swear at all, but let your word be yes, yes, no, no; anything more than these comes from the evil one.

And again: he ordered them to retaliate against wrongdoers and to wrong them in return, saying, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say to you, do not resist the evil person, but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also;

and to the one who wants to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

And again: he urged them to love their friend but hate their enemies; but I, in an abundance of love for mankind and forbearance, legislate that you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become sons of your Father in heaven, who makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

And besides these, he adapted himself to the hardness of the many and gave ordinances suited to the passionate, handing down a way of piety altered from and lower than the ancient one; but I call all back to the pious and God-beloved life of the God-beloved men of long ago.

And on top of all, he promised, as to infants, a land flowing with milk and honey; but I procure the kingdom of heaven for those able to receive it.”

These and similar things the word of the new covenant proclaimed to all the nations through the teaching of Christ. And these were the things the Christ of God urged his disciples to proclaim to all the nations, saying: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

By handing these down to all people, Greeks and barbarians, to keep, he clearly showed what Christianity is, who we are, and what sort of teacher of such words and lessons we have: our Savior and Lord Jesus himself, the Christ of God, who established this new and all-virtuous way of life throughout the whole world, so that not only men but also women, rich and poor, and slaves together with masters learn such things and live as philosophers.

And yet the introducer of this new legislation is recorded to have lived in all things according to the law of Moses. This itself is worthy of wonder: that, being about to establish himself as lawgiver of a new way of life, the new covenant according to his gospel, he did not reject the things of Moses as hostile and contrary. Otherwise he would have been thought to be ordaining things at war with Moses, and so he would have given the godless heretics a pretext for the greatest slander against Moses and the prophets, and those of the circumcision a plausible cause for their plot against him, who in fact contrived the plot to kill him as a transgressor and apostate from the law.

As it is, having lived in all things according to the law of Moses, he used his apostles as ministers of his new legislation. At once he taught that the things of Moses must not be considered foreign or hostile to his own worship of God, and at the same time he became the author and introducer of a new and saving legislation for all people. So he in no way transgressed what Moses had decided, but first brought those things to their end and became their fulfiller, and so passed on to the authority of the law according to the gospel. And we must hear him saying this in this way: “I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.”

For if he had become a transgressor of the law of Moses, he would reasonably have been thought to abolish it and act unlawfully; and being a base and lawless man by nature, he would not have been believed to be the Christ. And if he abolished the things of Moses, how could he have been thought to be the one proclaimed by Moses and the prophets? How could he have had the credibility of a new legislation? He would reasonably have seemed to have come to innovation because of his lawlessness, fleeing the punishment for his transgressions.

As it is, having abolished nothing whatever of what is in the law, but having become its fulfiller and, as one might say, perfect according to Moses, since the ordinances in Moses could no longer suit the other nations for the reasons shown before, and since by the love for mankind of the all-good God of all it was surely necessary that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, he legislated what was suitable and fitting for all. He would not have begrudged proclaiming the things of Moses too to all people through his apostles, had not impossibility stood in the way, as the apostle teaches when he says: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” and so on.

And it was surely impossible for all the nations to meet in Jerusalem three times a year according to the law of Moses, and for a woman after childbirth to hasten from the ends of the earth to make her purification offerings there, and countless other things which one might read over for oneself at leisure.

Since, then, the nations living far from Judea could not keep these things even if they wished, with good reason our Savior and Lord, abolishing none of them by his own action but becoming the fulfiller of what is in the law, and giving proof to those who saw that he was indeed the Christ of God attested by the prophets who arose long ago among the Jews, afterward set before all the nations, through his own disciples, the precepts suited to them.

Hence we too have declined to live as Jews, since it was not legislated for us and cannot suit the nations; but we have gladly accepted the prophecies found among the Jews, as containing the predictions about us. And our Savior and teacher is in another way too the fulfiller of the law of Moses and of the prophets after him.

For since the oracles lacked their conclusions, and the words their fulfillment, he surely had to become the fulfiller of these very things too. For example, the prophecy in Moses says: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me; you shall listen to him in all that that prophet says to you.”

This missing thing he supplied, appearing as a second lawgiver of mankind after Moses, of the true piety toward the God of all. For Moses did not say simply that a prophet would be raised up, but with the addition “like himself”: “For the Lord your God,” he says, “will raise up for you a prophet like me; you shall listen to him.” What else did this show but that the one prophesied would be someone equal to Moses himself?

Moses was the lawgiver of piety toward the God over all. So it was fitting that the one prophesied, who was to be like Moses, should appear as a lawgiver comparable to him.

At any rate, of the countless prophets who came after Moses, none is attested to have been like Moses, for all referred their hearers back to him. Scripture testifies, at any rate, that there has not arisen a prophet like Moses; so neither Jeremiah nor Isaiah nor any other of the prophets could be like him, since not one of them was shown to be a lawgiver.

While the prophet and lawgiver like Moses who was to be raised up was awaited, this Jesus, the Christ of God, came, legislating for all the nations and accomplishing things beyond the law.

For “It was said to the ancients, You shall not commit adultery; but I say to you, do not even desire”; and “It was said to the ancients, You shall not murder; but I say to you, do not even be angry”; and “to worship no longer in Jerusalem but in every place”; and “to serve not with frankincense and sacrifices but in spirit and truth”; and all such things contained in his teaching belonged plainly to an all-wise and most perfect lawgiver.

Therefore his hearers were astonished, says the divine scripture, because he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes and Pharisees. So he supplied this oracle that was lacking in Moses’ prophecy, and likewise the other prophecies about him and about the calling of the nations.

He has become, then, the fulfiller of the law and the prophets, fulfilling the prophecies about himself and bringing the former law to a stand, and appearing as the founder of the second law, that of the new covenant proclaimed to all the nations; so that he became the cause, at once of the end and of the beginning, of the two systems, I mean Judaism and Christianity. This too is worthy of wonder, since the divine prediction proclaims it thus: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, chosen, a cornerstone, precious; and whoever believes in him shall not be put to shame.”

Who would the cornerstone be but this living and very precious stone, who by his teaching has established one building out of two? For, bringing to a stand the Mosaic building that had extended up to him, he joined to it from the other side our building according to the gospel.

Hence he is fittingly named the cornerstone. And in the Psalms too it is said: “The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner. This was from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

There the oracle clearly showed the plot from the Jewish nation which the one prophesied suffered, declaring that he would be rejected by those building the old wall, certain scribes and Pharisees, chief priests and all the rulers among the Jews; but prophesying that after the dishonor and rejection from them he would become the head of the corner, established as founder of the new covenant, in keeping with the interpretations given.

So in departing from Hellenism we have not fallen into Judaism; nor would we err in accepting the law of Moses and the Hebrew prophets while not living in a Jewish way, but according to the way of life of the God-beloved men before Moses.

For in this too we show Moses and the prophets after him to be truthful, receiving the Christ foretold by them and obeying his laws, praying to walk in the footsteps of his teaching, and in this doing what is pleasing to Moses himself.

He, having foretold that the Lord God would raise up a prophet like himself, adds: “And every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from its people.” Immediately the Jews, not receiving the prophet nor listening to his holy words, suffered utter destruction, undergoing what accorded with the prediction.

For they neither received the law of Christ, that of the new covenant, nor could they keep the precepts of Moses without transgression. Therefore they have become subject to the curse of Moses, because it is not even possible for them to carry out what is legislated in Moses, since their metropolis has been taken away and the Mosaic worship, permitted to be performed only there, has been shut off.

But we, having received the one proclaimed by Moses and the other prophets and praying to obey him, would be fulfillers of Moses’ command in which he said: “You shall listen to him. And every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from its people.”

What the prophet ordained, which we must obey, we heard a little earlier: his all-wise, perfect, and heavenly precepts. These he did not see fit to set down on tablets of stone like Moses, nor with ink and paper, but in the purified souls of his disciples, which possess an intellectual nature. Writing in them the laws of the new covenant, he fulfilled in deed the prophecy spoken through Jeremiah: “I will make a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: I will put my laws into their mind, and write them on their heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

The one, then, wrote on lifeless tablets; the other wrote the perfect precepts of the new covenant in living minds. His disciples, at their Teacher’s bidding, made their teaching suitable to the hearing of the many. What had been enjoined by the perfect Teacher on those who had passed beyond the ordinary condition, they handed on to those able to receive it; but what they judged suited to those whose souls were still subject to passions and needed treatment, they handed down to be kept, condescending to the weakness of the majority, partly in writing and partly through unwritten ordinances. So two ways of life were legislated in the church of Christ. The one is above nature and beyond the common human way of living: it admits no marriage, no begetting of children, no acquisition or holding of property, but is wholly and entirely different from the common and customary conduct of all people, and devoted to the service of God alone, out of an abundance of heavenly love.

Those who pursue this way seem to have died to the life of mortals; carrying only the body on earth, but having transferred their soul in thought to heaven, they look down on human life like heavenly beings. They act as priests to the God over all on behalf of the whole race, not with sacrifices of oxen and blood, nor with libations and savor of burnt fat, nor again with smoke and devouring fire and the destruction of bodies, but with right doctrines of true piety, with a purified disposition of soul, and further with virtuous deeds and words. By these they propitiate the Divine and perform their priestly service for themselves and for those of their race.

Such, then, is the perfect form of the Christian way of life. The other, lower and more human, condescends to chaste marriages and the begetting of children, attends to household management, gives instructions about what they must do to those who serve as soldiers in a just cause, and cares for farms and trade and the rest of civic life along with the worship of God. For these, times of ascetic practice and days for instruction and hearing the divine words are set apart.

And to these a second grade of piety has been assigned, giving benefit suited to such a life, so that no one is left without a share in the saving appearance, but every race of men, Greeks and barbarians alike, enjoys the gospel teaching.

This being so, one might reasonably ask: if we say that our Savior’s gospel teaching prescribes worshiping God as the men of old before Moses did, and that we and they have one piety and the same knowledge of God, why did they give very great attention to marriage and begetting children, while we neglect this part?

And again, they are recorded as propitiating God with animal sacrifices, while we are forbidden to do this, as something unholy. For these two points alone, which carry no small weight, might seem to contradict what we have said, as if in these respects we did not keep the ancient manner of piety.

To these objections a solution can be gathered from the oracles of the Hebrews themselves. Those attested for piety before Moses are recorded to have lived when human life was at its beginning and was being established; but our times are driving toward the end.

Therefore they were eager for the increase of their descendants into a great population, since at that time the human race was growing, multiplying, and advancing to its prime; but we need not care much about this, since affairs are now waning and declining and driving toward their last end, as the gospel teaching expressly says that the consummation of life is at the doors, and proclaims that a renewal and rebirth of another age is all but about to arrive.

This, then, is one answer; a second would be this. For the ancients, who led a relaxed and free life, nothing prevented them from managing house and children along with leisure for divine things, since they could worship God without distraction along with their wives, children, and households, and were in no way drawn away by outside things from their purpose toward higher things. But in our case countless outside things drag us down, pull us about into strange cares, and draw us away from zeal for what pleases God.

That this is the cause of the restraint of marriage the word of the gospel teaching shows, saying: “This I say, brothers: the time has been shortened; from now on, let those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who weep as though not weeping, and those who rejoice as though not rejoicing, and those who buy as though not possessing, and those who use this world as though not using it to the full. For the form of this world is passing away. I want you to be free from care. The unmarried man cares for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but the married man cares for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided.

And the unmarried woman and the virgin care for the things of the Lord, that she may please the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to throw a noose on you, but for what is seemly and for devoted attendance on the Lord without distraction.”

Here, at any rate, he expressly shows the cause of abstaining from marriage, blaming the difficulty of the times and of outside affairs, none of which befell the ancients. And besides these there would be a third reason why those beloved of God long ago took very great care to beget children.

When the rest of mankind had given themselves to wickedness, had fallen into a savage, inhuman, and brutish life, and had slipped into an utterly impious and godless way, they, very few and easily counted, being left, as we said before, withdrew from the life of the many and from common intercourse with the rest of mankind.

Living apart from the other nations and by themselves, they established a strange polity and a philosophical and truly God-fearing life, unmixed with other people.

So, in order that a living seed of their own fear of God might be preserved from them for those who came after, and that their piety might not fail and perish with the death of those men, they reasonably took thought for begetting and rearing children, so that they might become teachers and guides of their own children, considering it important to leave to those after them successors in piety and heirs of their own virtue.

From this came countless prophets and righteous men, and our Savior and Lord himself, and his disciples and apostles, who appeared from their teaching.

And if some bad ones came from them too, like stalks growing up along with the wheat, the sowers and those who reared them are not therefore to be blamed; for we know that some of the Savior’s disciples also fell away by a turning of their own free will.

The reason for the begetting of children by the God-beloved men of old has been stated; and we must say that it no longer has a place in our time, when, with God, through our Savior’s gospel teaching, we can see with our own eyes countless nations and peoples in cities, countries, and fields hastening together and running to the godly instruction of the gospel teaching. For them it is well if the teachers and heralds of the word of piety, freed from all the bonds of life and its many anxious cares, can suffice.

Especially for these, then, withdrawal from marriage is now necessarily pursued, for the sake of leisure for higher things, since they are occupied with a divine and incorporeal begetting of children, having undertaken the rearing not of one or two children but of a countless multitude at once, their education according to God, and the care of the rest of their conduct of life.

In addition to all this, if one examines closely the lives of the ancients of whom we are speaking, one would find that they begot children at the beginning of their lives but soon held back and stopped. For it is written that Enoch pleased God after he begot Methuselah; the scripture records precisely that the man in question pleased God after the birth of his son, and gives no testimony that children were born to him after that.

And Noah, a righteous man, after the birth of his children, saved alone with his household in the destruction of everything on earth, and living very many years afterward, is nowhere presented as having had children. Isaac too is said, after becoming father of twins by one wife, to have stopped intercourse with his wife at that point. And Joseph, though he lived among the Egyptians, did not become father of more than two children, taking one wife, their mother.

And Moses himself and his brother Aaron are recorded as having had children before the appearance of God, but after the divine oracles one can no longer find children born to them.

What need to speak of Melchizedek, of whom no child at all, no family, no succession is recorded? Nor of Joshua, Moses’ successor, nor of very many other prophets.

As to the question of the begetting of children by Abraham and Jacob, we have given an account at more leisure elsewhere, where we discussed the many wives and many children of the God-beloved men of old; to that we now refer those eager to learn, noting only this much: that even under the laws of the new covenant the begetting of children is not altogether forbidden, but in this too things similar to the God-beloved men of old have been ordained. For the word says that the bishop must be the husband of one wife.

Nevertheless, those who are consecrated and occupied with the service of God should thereafter abstain from marital intercourse; but for those who have not been counted worthy of so great a priestly office, the word makes allowance, all but openly proclaiming to all: “Marriage is honorable and the marriage bed undefiled, but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.” Let this be said on the first question.

As to our not sacrificing animals to the God over all, although the God-beloved men of old, whom we cite, did so out of zeal for piety, this account may be given by us. The sacred words of the Hebrews do not hold the same view as was held among the Greeks about the worship of the Divine by the ancient and first men.

They said that the first men sacrificed no living thing at all and burned no incense to the gods, but, taking in their hands green shoots and, as it were, the down of fruitful nature, burned grass and leaves and roots in fire to the sun and the stars of heaven; and that later men, advancing far in lawlessness, bloodied the altars with the slaughter of animals, and that this sacrifice was unholy and unjust and in no way pleasing to God, since the soul of irrational animals differs in nothing from the rational soul of human beings. Therefore they said that those who sacrifice animals deserve to be punished for murder, since the same and a similar soul exists both in a human being and in an irrational animal.

Such, then, was the account of the Greeks about the ancients; but that of the Hebrew scripture is not such. For it records that the very first men, as soon as they came into being, at the first establishment of life honored the Divine with sacrifices of animals.

It says, then: “And it came to pass after some days that Cain brought of the fruits of the earth a sacrifice to the Lord; and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his sheep. And God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts; but to Cain and his sacrifices he paid no heed.”

Here you will observe that the one who sacrificed an animal is said to have been more acceptable than the one who brought to God a sacrifice from the earth. And Noah at once offered whole burnt offerings on the altar from all the clean cattle and from all the clean birds, and the Lord smelled a pleasing odor. Abraham too is recorded to have sacrificed; so that, according to the testimony of the divine scripture, sacrifice through animals was the very first thing devised by those beloved of God long ago.

I think the reasoning for this was not an ordinary one, nor humanly moved, but suggested by divine inspiration. For since, being pious in their ways, near to God, and enlightened in soul by the divine Spirit, they saw that they needed great treatment for the cleansing of mortal offenses, they considered that a ransom for their salvation was owed to the giver of life and soul.

Then, having nothing better or more precious than their own soul to consecrate, they offered for the time being in its place the sacrifice of irrational animals, bringing substitutes for their own soul. They did not think they sinned or did wrong in this, since they had been taught that the soul of irrational animals is not like the rational and intellectual power of human beings, and had learned that it is nothing other than their blood and the vital power in the blood, which they gave, offering it to God as a soul for a soul.

Moses shows this very clearly somewhere, saying: “The soul of all flesh is its blood, and I have given you the blood upon the altar to make atonement for your sins; for their blood shall make atonement in place of the soul. Therefore I have said to the sons of Israel, No soul among you shall eat blood.”

Attend carefully, then, to how it is said here: “I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for the blood shall make atonement in place of the soul.” For he says clearly that the blood of the slaughtered animals makes atonement in place of the human soul. The law about sacrifices too suggests this very thing to one who examines it attentively.

It commands, at any rate, that everyone who sacrifices lay his hands on the head of the victim and bring the animal to the priest holding it by the head, as though offering the victim on behalf of his own head. It says, then, in each case: “He shall bring it before the Lord, and he shall lay his hands on the head of the gift.”

And so it is observed for every victim; no sacrifice is offered otherwise. By this the text shows that the animals sacrificed were offered as substitutes for their own soul. And he who taught that the blood of irrational animals is their soul shows that they in no way share a rational and intellectual essence as humans do, for its constitution is from matter and bodies, like the plants and growths of the earth.

In one word, then, Moses again says that God said: “Let the earth bring forth grass of the field, bearing seed, and fruit-bearing trees.” And again similarly: “Let the earth bring forth quadrupeds and reptiles and wild beasts of the earth according to their kind.”

So we must think that irrational animals are of the same kind, the same nature, and the same substance as the growths and plants of the earth; and therefore those who sacrifice animals do no wrong at all. It was said to Noah, at any rate, that he should eat flesh like the green plants of the field.

So long, then, as the better, the great, precious, and divinely fitting victim was not yet present among men, it was proper to render to God, through sacrifices of animals, ransoms for their own life and substitutes for their own nature. So did those who had foreseen by the divine Spirit that a great victim would one day come to men, the cleansing of the whole world; being prophets, they performed its symbols for the time being and prefigured what was to come. But when the perfect had come, in accordance with the prophets’ oracles, the first things ceased and were at once dissolved by the better and true sacred service.

This was the Christ of God, foretold from ancient times to come among men and to be slaughtered like a sheep for the whole human race. As the prophet Isaiah says of him: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer, silent.”

And he adds: “This one bears our sins and is pained for us; and we reckoned him to be in toil and in affliction and in suffering. But he was wounded because of our sins and bruised because of our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his bruise we were healed. And the Lord gave him up for our sins. For he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.”

Jeremiah, another prophet of the Hebrews, utters similar things in the person of Christ, saying: “I was like an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed.” John the Baptist seals their predictions at our Savior’s appearing. For seeing him, and pointing him out to those present as the one prophesied, he cried out: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

Since, then, according to the testimonies of the prophets, there has been found the great and precious ransom of Jews and Greeks alike, the cleansing of the whole world, the substitute for the life of all men, the victim pure of every stain and sin, the Lamb of God, the God-beloved and holy sheep, the prophesied lamb, through whose divine and mystical teaching all of us from the nations have found the forgiveness of our former sins (and therefore those of the Jews who have hoped in him are set free from the curse of Moses); we, who fittingly celebrate daily the memorial of him, the remembrance of his body and blood, and have been counted worthy of a sacrifice and sacred service better than that of the ancients, no longer think it right to fall back on the first and weak elements, which contain symbols and images but not the truth itself.

With good reason, too, those of the Jews themselves who have taken refuge in the Christ of God, if they no longer return to the precepts of Moses, but live according to the new covenant, would be outside the curse laid down by Moses, since the Lamb of God has taken upon himself not only the sin of the world but also the curse incurred by transgressing the commandments of Moses. So the Lamb of God became both sin and curse: sin for the sinners of the world, and curse for those who do not abide in all that is written in the law of Moses.

Therefore the apostle says: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us,” and “Him who knew no sin he made sin for us.”

For what was the cleansing of the world, the substitute for sinners, not going to become, he who was led like a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb led to be sacrificed, and all this for us and because of us? Hence the God-beloved men of old, in the absence of the better things, rightly devoted themselves to the symbols, as our Savior himself teaches, saying: “Many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

But we, having received the true things and the archetypes of the images through the mysterious dispensation of Christ, shall no longer need the old.

He alone, then, of all who ever were, being the Word of God, before the world and high priest of all intellectual and rational creation, set apart from the human flock, as a sheep and lamb, the one who shares our passions; and he inscribed on him the sins of all of us, and fastened on him the curse imposed in the law of Moses. For since Moses declared, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” he himself suffered this for us, becoming a curse for us; and indeed he made him sin for us.

For “him who knew no sin he made sin for us,” laying on him for our sake all the punishments that hung over us: bonds and dishonor and insults, scourges and cruel blows, and above all the trophy of the curse.

After all this, having offered to the Father a kind of wonderful victim and chosen sacrifice, he offered it up for the salvation of us all, and handed down to us too a memorial to offer continually to God instead of a sacrifice.

This too the wonderful David among the prophets, foreseeing the future by the divine Spirit, prophesied, saying: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he attended to me and heard my supplication; and he brought me up out of the pit of misery and from the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps; and he put a new song into my mouth, a hymn to our God.”

And he makes clear what the new song is, saying next: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of me; to do your will, O God, I desired.” And he adds: “I proclaimed righteousness in the great assembly.”

Having taught plainly that, instead of the ancient sacrifices and whole burnt offerings, the incarnate presence of Christ and the body prepared for him has been offered to God, he proclaims this very thing to his church as good news, as a great mystery announced beforehand in the roll of the book by the prophetic voice. Having received, then, according to the ordinances of the new covenant, the memorial of this victim, of his body and of the saving blood, we are taught again by the prophet David to say: “You prepared a table before me in the presence of those who afflict me; you anointed my head with oil, and your cup inebriates me like the best wine.”

In these words, at any rate, both the mystical anointing and the holy victims of Christ’s table are plainly signified, through which we have been taught to offer to the God over all, throughout our whole life, through his supreme high priest over all, the bloodless and rational sacrifices acceptable to him.

The great prophet Isaiah too wonderfully foreknew and foretold this very thing by the divine Spirit. He too speaks thus: “O Lord my God, I will glorify you, I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things.”

And he makes clear what these truly wonderful things are, saying next: “The Lord of hosts will make for all the nations; they shall drink gladness, they shall drink wine, they shall be anointed with ointment. Hand over all these things to the nations; for this counsel is upon all the nations.”

Such were the wonders of Isaiah, promising the anointing of good fragrance and ointment not to Israel but to all the nations; whence, from the anointing with ointment, they were also counted worthy of the name of Christians. And he prophesies the gladness of wine for the nations, hinting at the mystery of Christ’s new covenant, which is openly celebrated among all the nations at the present time.

Again, the prophetic oracles proclaim these incorporeal and intellectual sacrifices, running somewhat thus: “Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High; and call upon me in the day of affliction, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

And again: “The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice.” And again: “A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit.”

All these things, then, prophesied from of old, are now fulfilled by all the nations through the gospel teaching of our Savior, the truth bearing witness to the prophetic voice by which God, rejecting the sacrifices according to Moses, prophesies what was to be in our own time, saying: “Therefore from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice.”

We sacrifice, therefore, to the God over all a sacrifice of praise; we sacrifice the divine, holy, and sacred victim; we sacrifice in a new way, according to the new covenant, the pure sacrifice. And a sacrifice to God is said to be a broken spirit: “A broken and humbled heart God will not despise.”

And indeed we offer the prophetic incense, bringing to him in every place the fragrant fruit of all-virtuous theology, offering it through our prayers, as the prophet teaches who said: “Let my prayer be set forth as incense before you.”

So we both sacrifice and offer incense: at one time celebrating the memorial of the great victim according to the mysteries he handed down, and bringing to God thanksgiving for our salvation through pious hymns and prayers; at another consecrating ourselves wholly to him and to his high priest, the Word, … we make it our practice to keep [ourselves] for him; and we bring him a mind cleansed of every passion and every stain of wickedness, and we worship him with sincere thoughts and unfeigned disposition and with true doctrines. For we have been taught that these things please him more than a multitude of sacrifices performed with blood and smoke and burnt fat.

Having set out in the preceding book the way of true piety put forward to all people through the gospel teaching, and the way of life in Christ, and having shown and, I think, convinced the reader that not even if they wished could all the nations live according to the Jewish ordinances, I now take up the argument again from the beginning and return to the testimonies from the prophetic words, to make a fuller answer to our accusers of the circumcision. For they said we have no share in the promises written among them: the prophets were theirs, the Christ whom they like to call Savior and Redeemer was proclaimed for them, and they expect the written promises to be fulfilled for them; while we have no part in them, being of foreign race, and the worst things are prophesied for us through all the prophecies.

Against this, come, let us make our reply to them from the prophetic books they themselves possess. That the Christ of God was promised among them, and that his coming proclaims redemption to Israel, we too would not deny, since this is plainly set forth, by common agreement, throughout their whole scripture. But to exclude the nations from the good things expected through Christ, as if they had been promised to Israel alone and not also to the nations, is no longer right to concede to them, since they say this contrary to the testimony of the divine scriptures.

First, then, since they are accustomed to gather the more favorable sayings about themselves and to recite them by heart, let us set against them the proofs about the nations from the prophecies themselves, showing that countless predictions foretold good and saving things for all the nations, and that they said the promises to the nations would be fulfilled in no other way than through the coming of Christ alone.

If we stopped the argument there, we would have shown that the expectation of the Christ of God should be said to belong no more to them than to us. But when the hope of the promises has been shown to be equal for Jews and Greeks, so that in this respect those from the nations who will be saved through Christ fall in no way short of those of the circumcision, we shall go further and prove, over and above, that the divine oracles foretell, at the coming of Christ and the calling of the nations, the complete falling away and rejection of the whole Jewish nation, prophesying better things for only a few of them, easily counted; and that they show that their city will be captured, temple and all, and all their sacred things destroyed, which has plainly come to pass in fact.

How the sacred words prophesy together and at the same time, at the coming of Christ, both redemption from evils and enjoyment of good things for Israel, and on the other hand deprivation of good things and falling away from the worship of God, we shall explain at the proper time. Meanwhile let us go to the first point, selecting a few out of countless prophecies to prove what has been said.

Since, then, they are accustomed to put forward to us the more favorable prophecies about themselves, as though what was foretold had been promised to them alone, it is time for us too to bring forward and set against them the promises about the nations, which are found as follows in their prophets. 1. From Genesis. That the nations of the earth will be blessed in the same manner as Abraham’s name.

“And the Lord said, I will not hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing. Abraham shall become a great and numerous nation, and in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” The oracle says he will not hide a secret mystery unknown to the many, but will reveal it to the God-beloved man. This was the blessing of all the nations, which was hidden long ago because in Abraham’s time all the nations were held fast by unspeakable error and superstition; but now in our time it has come to light, when, through our Savior’s gospel teaching, whoever worships God in the same manner as Abraham shares in a blessing equal to his.

That it was not possible for all the nations to live according to the legislation of Moses we have discussed most fully in the preceding book, so that no one should suppose the oracle was spoken about the proselytes among the Jews.

Having established there at the same time that the blessing prophesied to Abraham concerning all the nations would apply only to those from all the nations who come through Christ, we will refer those eager to learn to that discussion now too. 2. From the same. That all the nations of the earth will be blessed in the seed that would come forth by succession from Isaac.

And the Lord, giving an oracle to Isaac, says among other things this also: “And I will establish my oath to Abraham your father, and I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your seed all this land, and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”

Our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, was born of the seed of Isaac according to the flesh; in him all the nations of the earth are blessed, having learned through him the God of all, and having been taught through him in turn to bless the God-beloved men. Therefore they are blessed in return, enjoying a blessing equal to those they bless, according to the word of God that said to Abraham: “Those who bless you are blessed.” 3. From the same. About very many nations and gatherings of nations that would arise from Jacob, although only the Jewish nation came from him.

“And God said to him” (clearly to Jacob), “I am the Lord God; increase and multiply into nations, and gatherings of nations shall come from you.”

On the surface, only one nation, the Jewish, arose from Jacob. How then would the oracle be true, speaking in the plural? But since the Christ of God, born of Jacob’s seed, gathered many gatherings of nations through his gospel teaching, the prophecy has fittingly been fulfilled in him and through him already before, and will be still more hereafter. 4. From Deuteronomy. Declaration of the godly gladness of the nations.

“Rejoice, heavens, with him, and let all the sons of God worship him. Rejoice, nations, with his people, and let all the angels of God strengthen him.” Instead of “Rejoice, nations, with his people,” Aquila says, “Shout, nations, his people,” and Theodotion, “Exult, nations, his people.” 5. From Psalm [21]. That the ends of the earth and all the nations will turn to God, and that the generation to come and the people to be born will receive his righteousness.

“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him; for the kingdom is the Lord’s, and he rules over the nations.”

And next he adds: “The generation to come shall be told of the Lord, and they shall declare his righteousness to a people that shall be born, whom the Lord has made.” This is clear and needs no interpretation. 6. From Psalm [46]. Proclamation of piety and self-control to the nations, and God’s reign over the nations.

“Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with a voice of exultation; for the Lord Most High is awesome, a great King over all the earth.”

And next he adds: “For God is King of all the earth; sing praises with understanding. God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne. The rulers of the peoples are gathered together with the God of Abraham.” This too is clear and needs no interpretation. 7. From Psalm 85. Declaration of the piety of the nations.

“There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, and there are no works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name; for you are great and do wonders; you alone are God.” This too is likewise clear. 8. From Psalm 95. Declaration of the piety of all the nations, and of a new song, and of God’s reign, and the setting right of the world.

“Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name; proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all the gods.”

And he adds: “Bring to the Lord, you families of the nations, bring to the Lord glory to his name.” And next: “Say among the nations, The Lord reigns; for he has set the world aright.” 9. From [Zechariah]. The knowledge, by all the nations and by the Egyptians, the most superstitious of all, of the only true God, and of the spiritual worship and feast according to the divine law.

“And it shall be that all who are left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up year by year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be that whoever of all the tribes of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they too shall be added to those.

And if the tribe of Egypt does not go up and does not come, upon them too shall be the fall with which the Lord will strike all the nations that do not go up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the sin of Egypt and the sin of all the nations that do not go up to keep the feast of tabernacles.”

This too clearly contains the calling of all the nations, provided that what is said about Jerusalem and the feast of tabernacles is understood in the spiritual sense only; it will receive the appropriate interpretation at the proper time. 10. From [Isaiah]. Declaration of the choosing of the apostles and of the calling of the nations.

“Drink this first; do it quickly. Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, and the rest who are beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations, the people sitting in darkness, see a great light; you who dwell in the land and shadow of death, a light will shine upon you.” 11. From [Isaiah]. Declaration of the calling of the nations.

“Hear me, islands, and attend, nations. After a long time it shall stand, says the Lord.” Next he adds, concerning both the nations and the Christ: “Behold, I have given you as a covenant of the race, as a light of the nations, that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth.”

You would find for yourself countless other passages scattered through all the prophets in promises to the nations, which there is no occasion now either to collect or to interpret; but those set out are enough to establish the point at hand.

The point was to show those of the circumcision, who boast greatly of themselves and take pride in God’s having preferred them alone to the other nations and counted them alone worthy of the divine promises, that nothing better than all the others has been promised to them specially in the divine pledges. Since, then, the nations have been shown to be counted worthy of the divine promises, come, let us now see that through which the nations are said to attain God’s calling and the divine promises; for it is good to see also the cause said to procure good things for the nations.

What would this be but the coming of Christ, through whom those of the circumcision also acknowledge that their own redemption will come? We must show, then, that the expectation of the calling of the nations too was nothing other than the Christ of God himself, who would appear as Savior not only to the Jews but to all the nations. For now I will use bare testimonies of the prophets without any interpretation, intending to interpret each one at length at leisure, when, with God, having collected all the predictions about the nations together, I come to interpret them.

12. From Psalm 2. Declaration of the plot against Christ, and that he is proclaimed Son of God, and receives the nations as an inheritance from the Father. “Why did the nations rage, and the peoples devise vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ,” and so on. To these he adds: “The Lord said to me, You are my Son; today I have begotten you.

Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.” 13. From Psalm [71]. Declaration of Christ’s kingdom, and of the calling of the nations, and the blessing of all the tribes of the earth.

“O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king’s son, to judge your people,” and so on; to which he adds: “And he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the inhabited world.” And again: “All the nations shall serve him.”

And again: “In him all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed; all the nations shall call him blessed.” And at the end of the psalm: “And all the earth shall be filled with his glory. So be it, so be it.” 14. From Psalm 97. Declaration of a new song, and of the arm of God, and the manifestation of his salvation to all the nations; and “salvation” in the Hebrew language signifies the name of the Son.

“Sing to the Lord a new song, for the Lord has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have saved him. The Lord has made known his salvation; before the nations he has revealed his righteousness. He has remembered his mercy to Jacob and his truth to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout to the Lord, all the earth.”

And he adds: “Let the sea be moved, and its fullness, the world and all who dwell in it. The rivers shall clap their hands together; the mountains shall exult before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in uprightness.” 15. From Genesis. That after the failure of the kingdom of the Jews, Christ himself, arriving, will become the expectation of the nations.

“A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is laid up; and he is the expectation of the nations.” 16. From [Zephaniah]. Declaration of the appearing of Christ, the destruction of idolatry, and the piety of the nations toward God.

“The Lord will appear against them, and will utterly destroy all the gods of the nations, and they shall worship him, each from his own place, all the islands of the nations.” 17. From [Zephaniah]. Declaration of the day of Christ’s resurrection, and the gathering of the nations, and the knowledge of God by all people, and one way of piety, and that Ethiopians will bring him sacrifices.

“Therefore wait for me, says the Lord, for the day of my resurrection as a witness. For my judgment is on the gatherings of nations, to receive kings, to pour out on them my anger, all the anger of my wrath. For in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. For then I will turn to the peoples a tongue for its generation, that all may call on the name of the Lord, to serve him under one yoke. From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia they shall bring me sacrifices.” 18. From [Zechariah]. Declaration of Christ’s coming, and the flight of many nations to him for refuge, and that peoples formed from the nations will belong to the Lord.

“Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and will dwell in your midst, says the Lord. And many nations shall flee to the Lord for refuge in that day, and shall be his people; and they shall dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.” 19. From Isaiah. Declaration of the birth of Christ, who would come forth from the root of Jesse, and the calling through him of all the nations.

“There shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from the root, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him,” and so on; to which he adds: “And in that day there shall be the root of Jesse, and he who rises to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope.” 20. From the same. Declaration of Christ’s coming and of the benefit that came through him to all the nations.

“Behold my servant, I will uphold him; my chosen one, my soul has accepted him. I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth judgment to the nations. He will not cry out, nor lift up his voice, nor will his voice be heard outside. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoking wick he will not quench; but he will bring forth judgment to truth. He will shine out and not be broken, until he establishes judgment on the earth; and in his name the nations will hope.”

And next he adds: “I the Lord God have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand and strengthen you; and I have given you as a covenant of the race, as a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the bound from their bonds, and those who sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the Lord God; this is my name; my glory I will not give to another, nor my praises to carved images. The former things, behold, have come, and new things which I now declare; and before they were declared, they were made known to you.” 21. From [Isaiah]. Declaration of Christ, and of his birth, and of the calling of the nations.

“Hear me, islands, and attend, nations. After a long time it shall stand, says the Lord. From my mother’s womb he called my name, and he made my mouth like a sharp sword, and hid me under the shelter of his hand; he made me like a chosen arrow and covered me in his quiver.”

And he adds: “Behold, I have given you as a covenant of the race, as a light of the nations, that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth.” 22. From [Isaiah]. Declaration of Christ’s coming and of the calling of the nations.

“Thus says the Lord who delivered you, Israel: Sanctify him who despises his own life, who is abhorred by the nations, the servants of rulers. Kings shall see him, and rulers shall rise up and worship him,” and so on.

To this he adds: “In an acceptable time I heard you, and in a day of salvation I helped you; and I have given you as a covenant of the nations, to establish the land and to inherit desolate inheritances, saying to those in bonds, Come out, and to those in darkness, Be revealed. And they shall be fed in all the ways, and in all the paths shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger or thirst, nor shall the scorching heat or the sun strike them; but he who has mercy on them will comfort them, and lead them through springs of water. And I will make every mountain a road and every path a pasture for them.

Behold, these shall come from afar, these from the north and the sea, and others from the land of the Persians. Rejoice, heavens, and let the earth exult; let the mountains break forth into gladness, for the Lord has had mercy on his people and has comforted the humble of his people.” 23. Of the same. Declaration of Christ and calling of the nations.

“Give ear and follow my ways; hear me, and your soul shall live in good things; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the sure holy things of David. Behold, I have given him as a witness to the nations, a ruler and commander to the nations. Nations that do not know you shall call upon you, and peoples who do not understand you shall flee to you for refuge, for the sake of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.”

Having learned from these passages, then, that the coming of Christ was prepared beforehand to be saving not for the Jews alone but for all the nations, come, let us demonstrate the third point too: how, for the times of his appearing, not only better things were prophesied for the nations, but the opposite for those of the circumcision.

Their own oracles, at any rate, expressly foretell that there would be a falling away and rejection of the Jewish nation because of their unbelief in Christ, so that we appear no longer equal to them, but even superior, over and above. Here too I will use bare citations of the prophets without any study of them, both because of their clarity and because I intend to make a very full examination of them at leisure. 24. From Jeremiah. Declaration of the rejection of the Jewish nation, and of the adoption of the nations in their place.

“Thus says the Lord: Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the everlasting paths of the Lord, and see which is the good way, and walk in it, and you shall find purification for your souls. And they said, We will not walk in it. I have set watchmen over you: Hear the sound of the trumpet. And they said, We will not hear. Therefore the nations have heard, and those who shepherd their flocks among them.” 25. From the same. Declaration of the piety of the nations and accusation of the impiety of the Jewish nation; and prediction of the evils that overtook them after the coming of Christ.

“O Lord, my strength and my help and my [refuge] in the day of evils: to you nations shall come from the end of the earth and shall say, How false were the idols our fathers acquired, and there is no profit in them. Will a man make gods for himself? And these are not gods.

Therefore behold, I will show them at this time; I will make known to them my hand and my power, and they shall know that my name is the Lord. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with a point of adamant, engraved on the breast of their heart, when they remember their groves by the leafy tree and on the high hills and mountains in the field. Your strength and your treasures I will give for plunder, and your high places because of your sins in all your borders. And you shall be left alone and brought low from your inheritance which I gave you.

And I will enslave you to your enemies in a land you did not know; for a fire has been kindled in my anger, it shall burn for ever.” 26. From Amos. On the scattering of the Jewish nation among all the nations, and on the renewal at the coming and kingdom of Christ, and the calling of all the nations that took place with it.

“Behold, I command, and I will sift the house of Israel among the nations as grain is sifted in a sieve, and not a fragment shall fall to the ground. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, Evils shall not come near us nor come upon us. In that day I will raise up the tent of David that is fallen, and rebuild its ruins,

and raise up what was torn down, and rebuild it as in the days of old, so that the rest of mankind may seek me, and all the nations upon whom my name is called, says the Lord who does all these things.” 27. From Micah. Accusation of the rulers of the Jewish nation, and declaration against their metropolis; the appearing of Christ and of the house of God, his church; the going forth of the word and the law; and declaration of all the nations.

“Hear now these things, you leaders of the house of Jacob, and the remnant of the house of Israel, who abhor judgment and pervert all that is right, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with [iniquity]. Her leaders judged for bribes, and her priests answered for hire, and her prophets divined for silver; and they leaned on the Lord, saying, Is not the Lord among us? Evils shall not come upon us.

Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall be like a fruit-watcher’s hut, and the mountain of the house like a grove of the forest. And it shall be in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, ready on the tops of the mountains; and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and they will show us his way, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth a law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” 28. From Zechariah. Declaration of Christ’s coming, and the destruction of the Jews’ preparation for war, and peace for the nations and the Lord’s kingdom to the ends of the world.

“Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; proclaim, daughter of Jerusalem; behold, your king comes to you, just and saving; he is gentle, and riding on a beast of burden and a young colt. And he will destroy the chariots from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and the bow of war; and there shall be abundance of peace from the nations; and he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth.”

29. From Malachi. Rejection of the Jewish nation and refusal of their bodily worship according to the law of Moses, [and acceptance] of the spiritual worship handed down through Christ to all the nations. “I have no pleasure in you, says the Almighty, and I will not accept sacrifice from your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice. For my name is great among the nations, says the Lord Almighty, but you profane it.” 30. From Isaiah. The falling away of the Jewish nation, and the manifestation of the word of God, of a new law, and of his house, and declaration of the piety of all the nations.

“The daughter of Zion shall be left like a booth in a vineyard, and like a fruit-watcher’s hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.” And next he adds: “How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.”

And besides these: “For they shall be like a terebinth that has shed its leaves, and like a garden without water. And their strength shall be like a stalk of tow, and their works like sparks of fire; and the lawless and the sinners shall be burned together, and there shall be none to quench it.”

To all these he adds: “And in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God on the tops of the mountains; and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall come to it. And many nations shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will declare to us his way, and we will walk in it. For out of Zion shall go forth a law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and he shall judge between the nations.” 31. From the same. The destruction of the glory of the Jewish people, and the turning of the nations from idolatry to the God of all; and concerning the desolation of the Jewish cities and their unbelief toward God.

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: And it shall be as when someone gathers ears of grain in a rocky valley, and stubble is left in it; or like two or three olives left at the top of the highest branch, or four or five left on its branches.

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: In that day man will trust in him who made him, and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel; and they will not trust in the altars, nor in the works of their hands which their fingers made; and they will not look to the trees or to their abominations in that day. Your cities shall be abandoned, as the Amorites and the Hivites abandoned them before the sons of Israel.

And they shall be desolate, because you have forsaken God your Savior and have not remembered the Lord your God. Therefore you will plant an unfaithful plant, and in the day you plant it you will go astray.” 32. Of the same. Declaration of the destruction of the Jewish cities and the godly gladness of the nations.

“O Lord my God, I will glorify you, I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, an ancient and true counsel. So be it, Lord! For you have made cities a heap, strong cities, so that their foundations fall. The city of the ungodly shall never be rebuilt. Therefore the poor people will bless you, and cities of wronged men will bless you. For you have become a helper to every lowly city, and a shelter to those disheartened by want.

And the Lord of hosts will make for all the nations on this mountain: they shall drink gladness, they shall drink wine, they shall be anointed with ointment on this mountain. Hand over all these things to the nations, for this counsel is upon all the nations. Death, having prevailed, swallowed them up, and again God has taken away every tear from every face; the reproach of the people God has taken away from all the earth; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.” 33. Of the same. Promise of good things to the church from the nations, formerly desolate; and despair of the Jewish nation, reproof of their sins, and the calling of all the nations.

“Do not remember the former things, and do not consider the old; for behold, I make new things, which shall now spring forth, and you shall know them; and I will make a way in the desert and rivers in the dry land. And the beasts of the field shall bless me, sirens and daughters of ostriches; for I have given water in the desert to give drink to my chosen race, my people whom I acquired, to declare my praises.

Not now have I called you, Jacob, nor have I made you weary, Israel. You did not bring me the sheep of your whole burnt offering, nor did you glorify me with your sacrifices; you did not serve me with gifts, nor did I weary you with frankincense; nor did you buy me incense with silver, nor did I desire the fat of your sacrifices; but in your sins and in your iniquities I stood over you.”

And in what follows he says: “Turn to me and be saved, you from the end of the earth. I am, and there is no other. By myself I swear: truly righteousness shall go forth from my mouth; my words shall not be turned back; for to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear by the true God, saying, Righteousness and glory shall come to him; and all who separate themselves from the Lord shall be put to shame.” 34. Of the same. Declaration of Christ’s coming to mankind, reproof of the Jewish nation, and promise of good things to all the nations.

“Thus says the Lord: What is this bill of divorce of your mother, with which I sent her away? Or to which creditor have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your sins, and for your iniquities I sent away your mother. Because I came, and there was no man; I called, and there was none to answer,” and so on.

To this he adds: “You who walk in darkness and have no light, trust in the name of the Lord and lean upon your God. Behold, all of you kindle a fire and strengthen a flame. Walk by the light of your fire and by the flame you have kindled. Because of me these things have happened to you; you shall lie down in grief,” and so on.

To this he adds: “Hear me, hear me, my people; and you kings, give ear to me; for a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment for a light of the nations. My righteousness draws near quickly, and my salvation shall go forth as a light, and on my arm the nations shall hope.” 35. From the same. Reproof of the impieties of the Jewish nation and their falling away from piety, and declaration of the calling of all the nations.

“Is the hand of the Lord not strong to save, or is his ear heavy so that he cannot hear? But your sins stand between you and God, and because of your sins he has turned his face from you so as not to have mercy. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with sins,

and your lips have spoken lawlessness, and your tongue meditates injustice. No one speaks just things, nor is there true judgment; they trust in vanities and speak empty things, for they conceive trouble and bring forth lawlessness;

they have broken asps’ eggs and weave a spider’s web; and whoever wishes to eat of their eggs, having broken one, found it addled, and in it a basilisk. Their web shall not become a garment, nor shall they clothe themselves with their works; for their works are works of lawlessness. Their feet run to wickedness, swift to shed blood, and their thoughts are the thoughts of fools; ruin and misery are in their ways; their paths, which they travel, are crooked, and they do not know peace.

Therefore judgment has departed from them, and righteousness shall not overtake them. While they waited for light, darkness came to them; waiting for brightness, they walked in untimely gloom. They shall grope for the wall like the blind, and grope as though they had no eyes; they shall fall at noon as at midnight; they shall groan like the dying; they shall go together like a bear and a dove,” and so on.

To this he adds: “And those from the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and those from the rising of the sun his glorious name.” But since there are very many prophecies on the same subject, we will be content with the testimonies set out, and will take them up again at the proper time and smooth them out, considering meanwhile that, having used the passages abundantly and the testimonies from them, we have sufficiently shown that the Jews have no advantage over the other nations.

For if they say that they alone share in the blessing of the God-beloved Abraham because their race descends from him, it has been promised that the nations too will be given a blessing equal not only to Abraham’s but also to Isaac’s and Jacob’s, since he expressly foretold that all the nations would be blessed like them, and called the other nations to one and the same gladness with the blessed and God-beloved men, as in “Rejoice, nations, with his people”;

and “The rulers of the peoples are gathered together with the God of Abraham.” Or if they boast of the kingdom of God, as though they had become his portion, it is prophesied that God will reign over all the other nations too: “Say among the nations,” he says, “the Lord reigns”;

and again, “God reigns over all the nations.” Or if they say they were chosen to perform sacred rites and serve God, it must be shown that the word promised to give the nations too an equal share in the service, saying: “Bring to the Lord, you [families] of the nations, bring to the Lord glory and honor; take up sacrifices and enter his courts.

To these you will join the oracle in Isaiah which said: “There shall be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt … and the Egyptians shall know the Lord, and they shall offer sacrifices and vow vows to the Lord and pay them.” There you will note that it is prophesied that an altar to the Lord will be established outside Jerusalem, in the land [of Egypt], and that the Egyptians will sacrifice there and vow vows and pay them to the Lord.

And not only in Egypt, but in the true Jerusalem itself, whatever it is understood to be, all the nations, even the Egyptians, most superstitious of all, are called by the prophecy to celebrate the feast of tabernacles understood in the spiritual sense.

And if long ago “his people Jacob became the Lord’s portion, Israel the lot of his inheritance,” yet it is said that later all the nations too will be given to the Lord as his lot, since the Father says to him: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.” For it is prophesied that he will rule not over Judea but from sea to sea and to the ends of the world, and that “all the nations shall serve him, and in him all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.”

The cause of this was that the God of all made known his salvation before all the nations. We have already noted before that the name Jesus, rendered from the Hebrew language, is interpreted “salvation,” so that the salvation of God is nothing other than the name of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Simeon too bears witness to this in the Gospel. Taking the child, Jesus himself, in his arms, he prayed: “Now, Master, you let your servant depart in peace according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared before the face of all peoples, a light for revelation to the nations.” This same salvation the psalmist too indicated, saying: “The Lord has made known his salvation; before the nations he has revealed his righteousness.”

And according to Isaiah, all people, having seen this very salvation, are said to worship the God of all, who has bestowed his salvation ungrudgingly on all; and to worship him not in the Jerusalem below, in Palestine, but each from his own place, and all those in the islands of the nations. Then will be fulfilled the oracle that says all people will call no longer on their ancestral gods, nor on idols and demons, but on the name of the Lord, and serve him under one yoke; and from the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia they will bring him the rational and bloodless sacrifices through the new covenant of Christ, offered not in the Jerusalem below, nor at the altar there, but at the ends of Ethiopia that are named.

And if it is a great thing to be and to be called God’s people, and this is one of the greatest divine promises, that he should say of those worthy of him, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” and if Israel formerly took pride, with reason, in being alone God’s people, yet the Lord at his coming promises to bestow this good on the nations too, saying: “Behold, I come and will dwell in your midst, and many nations shall flee to the Lord for refuge, and shall be his people.”

Of these it will also fit to say: “And I will say to Not-my-people, You are my people; and he will say, You are the Lord my God.” And if Christ, and no other, is the one prophesied to spring from the root of Jesse, and this is acknowledged by the Hebrews themselves, so that no one at all disputes it, see how he too is declared to rise up to rule not over Israel but over the nations, and it is said that the nations, not Israel, will hope in him, since he was the expectation of the nations.

Therefore he is also said to bring forth judgment to the nations and to become a light of the nations; and again, in his name the nations will hope; and he is to be given for salvation not to the Jews alone but to all people to the end of the earth.

Therefore it was also said to him by the Father who sent him: “I have given you as a covenant of the race, as a light of the nations, to establish the land and to inherit desolate inheritances.” And he calls him a witness to the nations, so that all the nations who had never learned anything about Christ, having come to know the dispensation concerning him and what power was in him, would call on him, and peoples who did not know him before would flee to him for refuge.

And why need I lengthen the discussion, when anyone who likes to read over the prophetic sayings, both those I have set out and those found in the divine scriptures that I shall mention at leisure, can from them at once silence those of the circumcision who say that God’s promises were given to them alone, while we from the nations are superfluous and strangers to the divine pledges? For it has been shown, on the contrary, that it was prophesied that all the nations would enjoy the coming of Christ, while the Jewish multitudes would fall away from the promise to their forefathers because of their unbelief in Christ, a few of them believing in our Savior and Lord and therefore attaining through him the promised spiritual redemption.

Of these the wonderful apostle too teaches somewhere, saying: “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved; for he is completing and cutting short a word in righteousness, for the Lord will make a word cut short upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”

After other things he adds, saying: “Has God rejected his people? By no means! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew.

Or do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel: Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life, to take it? But what does the divine answer say? I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.”

By these words the apostle clearly shows that, at the falling away of the whole Jewish nation, he himself and the apostles like him, and the evangelists of our Savior, and all who still now from the Jews believe in Christ, are the seed named by the prophet, as in “If the Lord of hosts had not left a seed”; and that this is the remnant of the whole, pointed to in the other prophecies too, which he says has been preserved according to the election of grace.

Concerning this remnant, come, let us again unfold the passages from the prophets, so that it may be shown by more witnesses that God did not promise that the coming of Christ would be saving for the whole Jewish nation indiscriminately, but for a few, very rare, who believed in our Savior and Lord, just as the event followed in accordance with the predictions. 36. From Isaiah. That the divine promises extend not to the whole Jewish nation, but to a few of them.

“Your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your country, strangers devour it before you, and it is made desolate, overthrown by foreign peoples. The daughter of Zion shall be left like a booth in a vineyard and like a fruit-watcher’s hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. And if the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”

The great and wonderful prophet, beginning his own book, teaches that the whole subject of the prophecy contains a vision and contemplation against Judea and against Jerusalem. Then he reproves the whole Jewish nation, first saying: “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its lord’s manger; but Israel has not known me, and the people has not understood me.”

Then, bewailing the whole nation, he adds: “Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, an evil seed, lawless sons.”

Having used these reproofs against them at the beginning of the book, and having taught beforehand the causes of the prediction that was to be brought against them, he next begins, saying, “Your land is desolate,” though it was not desolate in the times when he prophesied; “your [cities] burned with fire,” though this had not yet happened either; nor were strangers then devouring their country; and yet he says, “Your country, strangers devour it before you,” and so on.

If, then, you go to the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ and to the times from then until now, you would find everything said being fulfilled. For the daughter of Zion (this was the worship performed on the mountain called Zion) has, since the coming of Jesus our Savior, been left like a booth in a vineyard and like a fruit-watcher’s hut in a cucumber field, and more desolate than these, if possible; and strangers devour their country before them, sometimes exacting tribute and taxes from them, sometimes making the land formerly of the Jews their own property. Moreover, the beautiful temple of their metropolis has been ruined, overthrown by foreign peoples; their cities have been burned with fire; and Jerusalem has truly become a besieged city.

But since, when these things happened to them, the band of the apostles and those of the Hebrews who believed in Christ were preserved from them like fruitful seed, and, going through the whole world and to every race of men, filled every city, place, and country with their own Israelite seed, so that from them grew the ears of grain, the churches founded in the name of our Savior, the divine prophet fittingly adds to the threats pronounced against them: “If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”

This the holy apostle gathers together and interprets clearly in the letter to the Romans: “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will make a word, completing and cutting it short, upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”

To this he adds again, saying: “Has God rejected his people? By no means! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel: Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life, to take it? But what does the divine answer say to him? I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.”

That the prophecy points to no other time than that of the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ is shown next: after saying, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah,” he names the whole Jewish people the people of Gomorrah and their leaders rulers of Sodom, and brings in a rejection of the Mosaic worship and the manner of the covenant proclaimed to all people through our Savior, I mean that through the washing of regeneration; and a word and law plainly new is introduced in the prediction concerning such things.

He says, then: “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give heed to the law of God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?” and so on. Having abolished these things, which belong to the Mosaic legislation, he introduces in their place another way of forgiveness of sins, that through the saving washing and the life proclaimed with it, saying: “Wash, become clean, remove the wickedness from your souls,” and so on.

And why he named them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah he himself showed at once, saying: “For your hands are full of blood.”

And again, a little further on, he says: “They have declared and displayed their lawlessness like that of Sodom. Woe to their soul, for they have taken evil counsel against themselves, saying, Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us.”

He very clearly mentions some blood and a plot against one righteous man. Whose, then, but our Savior Jesus Christ’s, on account of whom and after whom all that was foretold overtook them? 37. Of the same Isaiah.

“And in that day God will shine forth in counsel with glory upon the earth, to exalt and glorify what is left of Israel; and what is left of Israel shall be in Zion, and what is left in Jerusalem; all who are written for life in Jerusalem shall be called holy.”

And what the remnant of Israel would be, the prophet himself made clear, saying, “all who are written in Jerusalem and are called holy.” What, then, is this day in which God is said to glorify and exalt the remnant of Israel, those who will be called holy and written for life? It will be clear to you if you run through the whole account of the passage.

At the beginning of the whole book, then, the prophet, having seen the vision against Judea and against Jerusalem, having enumerated at great length the impieties of the whole Jewish nation, and having threatened and described their overthrow and the utter desolation of Jerusalem, brings the vision against them to a close, saying: “For they shall be like a terebinth that has shed its leaves, and like a garden without water. And their strength shall be like a stalk of tow, and their works like sparks of fire; and the lawless and the sinners shall be burned together, and there shall be none to quench it.”

Having concluded the prediction against them there, he pauses; and from another beginning he takes up a second subject, and uses this kind of preface: “The word that came to Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem,” or, as Symmachus translated, “on behalf of Judea and on behalf of Jerusalem.” Perhaps someone will suppose that, having foretold gloomy things about them, he changes to speak more favorable things about these same people.

But the sequence of what follows would not permit one to say this, since it contains nothing whatever favorable on behalf of the Jewish nation or of the so-called Israel, nor on behalf of Judea or Jerusalem; on the contrary, it contains countless reproaches and accusations against Israel and gloomy threats against Jerusalem, and prophesies the saving call and knowledge of the God over all for all, and besides this shows the appearing of a new mountain and the manifestation of another house of God besides the one in Jerusalem.

He says, then, after saying “concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem”: “In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God on the tops of the mountains; and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall come to it; and many nations shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob.”

Such things he prophesies about all the nations. Hear what he adds next about the Jews: “For he has forsaken his people, the house of the God of Jacob, because their land was filled, as from the beginning, with divinations, like that of the foreigners, and many foreign children were born to them.

For their land was filled with silver and gold, and there was no number of their treasures,” and so on, more than these; to which he adds: “And they worshiped what their fingers made, and man stooped and was humbled, and I will not forgive them. And now enter into the rocks and hide in the earth from before the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he arises to shatter the earth.”

By this he clearly teaches that there will be a certain arising of the Lord, in which the whole land of the Jewish nation will be shattered.

For the whole discourse was about them, as also what follows, where he says: “For the day of the Lord of hosts is upon everyone insolent and proud, and upon everyone high and lofty,” and what follows. In this day, then, of the arising of the Lord, having foretold what will befall those who exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, he says of this same day: “The Lord will be exalted in that day, and they will hide all things made with hands, carrying them into the caves.”

He is all but showing the rejection of idols, from which the Jews themselves and all other people turned away after our Savior’s appearing, spitting on all superstition. “In that day,” at any rate, he says, “a man will cast away his abominations of gold and silver, which they made to worship vain things.”

He utters this, as is likely, about every human being in general, because of the calling of the nations that was to come.

Then again, specifically about the Jewish nation, under one meaning, he adds next: “Behold now the Master, the Lord of hosts, will take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the mighty man and the mighty woman, the strength of bread and the strength of water; the giant and the strong, and the man of war, and the judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the elder, and the captain of fifty, and the wonderful counselor, and the wise architect, and the intelligent hearer,” and what follows.

Noting this, compare the opening words of the prophecy, where it is said, “The word that came from the Lord to Isaiah son of Amoz, on behalf of Judea and on behalf of Jerusalem,” and see that what follows is rather against them than on their behalf, unless some hidden meaning is contained in these words.

For how, when he is about to take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the mighty man and the mighty woman, the strength of bread and the strength of water, and all that was formerly distinguished among them, would the things prophesied be on behalf of Judea and on behalf of Jerusalem? And how are the things said next on their behalf: “Jerusalem is forsaken, and Judea has fallen, and their tongues are with lawlessness, disobeying the things of the Lord”?

But at such a time, when the mountain of the Lord must be proclaimed to all the nations, and the house of God on the mountain, to which all the nations come together and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob,” the prophecy, having used such accusations against the Jewish nation and threatened them with the worst, adds to all this the words we set out before. It teaches that, when the whole Jewish nation was about to fall away from the worship of God, some among them would be left who would not share the evils with the rest; on the contrary, as saved out of wicked and lawless men, and having shown the tested and pure quality of their piety, they will be counted worthy to be written with God and will be called holy servants of God.

By this he means the apostles, disciples, and evangelists of our Savior, and all the others of the circumcision who believed in him at the time when their whole nation fell away.

The passage hints at this when it says: “In that day” (clearly the day in which all that was foretold about the calling of the nations and the falling away of the Jews will happen) “God will shine forth in counsel with glory upon the earth, to exalt and glorify what is left of Israel; and what is left shall be in Zion, and what is left in Jerusalem; all who are written for life in Jerusalem shall be called.” Because of them, who came forth from Jerusalem and from Judea, the preface of the prophecy is fittingly said to be on behalf of Judea and on behalf of Jerusalem; or else because of the true Jerusalem and the Judea understood spiritually in correspondence with it, about which we shall learn at the proper time.

And who, seeing the divine power of our Savior’s apostles and evangelists, by which “their sound went out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world,” and how all the churches of Christ from then until now have their words and teachings on their lips, and the laws of Christ’s new covenant proclaimed through them, would not bear witness to the truth of the prophecy, which said that God would visibly, in counsel and with glory over all the earth, exalt and glorify what is left of Israel, and that what is left in Zion and what is left in Jerusalem, those written for life, would be called holy? Instead of the Seventy’s “in counsel with glory,” Aquila and Theodotion agree in rendering “into power and glory,” showing the power given by God to the apostles and the glory with God that followed it, as in: “The Lord will give a word to those who proclaim good news with great power.”

And the event itself: “Hearing you will hear, and not understand; and seeing you will see, and not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and turn, and I heal them. And I said, How long, O Lord? And he said, Until cities are made desolate for lack of inhabitants, and houses for lack of men, and the land is left desolate. And after this God will remove men far away, and those left on the land will be multiplied.”

See, then, here too how those left on the land, when all the rest becomes desolate, are said alone to be multiplied. These would be our Savior’s disciples from the Hebrews, who went out to all people and who, left behind like seed, bore abundant fruit: the churches of the nations throughout the whole world. And see how he says at the same time that these alone, left over from the falling away of the Jews, will be multiplied, while those others will be utterly desolate.

“For their land,” he says, “shall be left desolate.” This was also said to them earlier by the same prophet: “Your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your country, strangers devour it before you.”

And when were these things fulfilled, if not from the times of our Savior? For so long as they had not yet dared their impieties against him, their land was not desolate, nor their cities burned with fire, nor were strangers devouring their country. But from that divine utterance by which our Savior and Lord himself foretold what would happen to them, saying, “Your house is left to you desolate,” from then on, not long after the prediction, they were besieged by the Romans and reduced to desolation.

And the prophetic word exposes the cause of their desolation, all but interpreting it clearly and showing the cause of their falling away. For when our Savior taught among them, they heard him but did not hear with the ears of the mind, nor understand who he was; they saw him with the eyes of the flesh but did not behold him with those of the soul; they made their heart fat, and all but closed the eyes of their understanding, and made their ears heavy, as the prophecy says. For this reason he says their cities will be made desolate for lack of inhabitants and the land will become desolate, but a few of them will be left, preserved like fruitful and living seed, who, going out to all people, are said to be multiplied on the earth.

Nevertheless he says that even after the going out of these, namely our Savior’s apostles, a tenth part would still remain in the very land of Judea, and after that they would again be for plunder, like a terebinth and like an acorn when it falls from its husk. By this, I think, the passage shows that after the first siege, which they are recorded to have suffered in the times of the apostles under the Roman emperor Vespasian, they were besieged a second time under Hadrian and utterly shut out of the place, so that they were not even permitted to set foot on the soil of Jerusalem. Hinting at this, then, he says: “And again it shall be for plunder, like a terebinth and like an acorn when it falls from its husk.”

“And it shall be in that day, a man shall rear a heifer and two sheep; and because they produce very much milk, he shall eat butter; and everyone left on the land shall eat honey.”

If you seek the day indicated here, you would find it to be the very time of our Savior’s appearing. For the prophet, having said, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son,” prophesies in between very many things that will happen in the same day, that is, around the time of our Savior’s appearing.

For he says that invisible powers and certain enemies and foes, named flies and bees by the laws of allegory, will come upon the land of the Jews, and that the Lord, with the razor of the enemies, will shave the head of the Jewish nation, as of a great body, and the hair of the feet and the beard, and, in a word, all their adornment.

When these things happen in the prophesied day of the one to be born of the virgin, he prophesies that the man left from the destruction of the whole nation, that is, everyone from among them who has believed in the Christ of God, will rear a heifer and two sheep, and because they produce very much milk will eat butter and honey. You will understand these things too, in a mystical sense, as fulfilled in our Savior’s apostles.

Each of them, in the churches he established with the power of Christ, reared two sheep, that is, two orders coming like sheep into Christ’s flock, the one still being instructed in the first elements and the other already illuminated through the washing; and besides these one heifer, the church’s governing body of those who preside, rearing them on divine and rational food; and from them he gathered fruitful milk and honey, the fruit of the food he had labored over.

How the divine word is accustomed to liken the multitudes of the less perfect to sheep, there is no need to say, since all scripture teaches it. But how it compares the leader of the church, who cultivates the many, to the ox that works the land, the holy apostle establishes, saying:

“Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? For the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing.”

If anyone stumbles at such figurative interpretations, it is time for him not to understand the so-called flies or bees, nor the razor, nor the beard, nor the hair of the feet in a spiritual sense either, and to fall into absurd and incoherent fables. But if these must be received in no other way than by spiritual understanding alone, it is clear that what follows must be so too.

“In that day the mountains and the hills and the forests shall be quenched, and it shall devour from soul to flesh; and the one who flees shall be like one fleeing from a burning flame; and those left of them shall be a number, and a little child shall write them down. And it shall be in that day that what is left of Israel shall no longer be added, and those of Jacob who are saved shall no longer trust in those who wronged them, but shall trust in God, the Holy One of Israel, in truth; and what is left of Israel shall return to the mighty God.

And though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, their remnant shall be saved. For he is completing and cutting short a word in righteousness, for God will make a word cut short in the whole world.”

Here too note that in the threat of gloomy things he says, “The one who flees shall be like one fleeing from a burning flame; and those left of them shall be a number, and a little child shall write them down.” By this he shows the rarity of those who would escape the destruction of the people of the circumcision and the burning of Jerusalem. These left over, he says, shall be a number;

that is, they will be few enough to count, being so small and easily numbered. So many, in comparison with the whole multitude of the Jewish nation, have been those who believed in our Savior and Lord, who were also counted worthy to be written down by him, as the passage shows, saying, “And a child shall write them down”; having taught before who the child was, in the words, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,” and “before the child knows how to call father or mother.”

And since here he says a child will write them down, it was fittingly said earlier, “And what is left in Zion and what is left in Jerusalem, all who are written for life, shall be called holy.” As there it was named what is left, and the same were written for life, so here too those left of them shall be a number, and a child shall write them down.

This remnant of Israel, and those saved from Jacob, he says, will no longer [trust] in those who wronged them, but will trust in God, the Holy One of Israel.

And see whether it was not with this trust that those who came out of the Jewish nation, the disciples and apostles of our Savior left over from the falling away of Israel, paying no regard to the rulers of this age or to the rulers of the people of the circumcision who had long wronged them, went out to all the nations proclaiming the word of Christ, with trust in God,

(since, according to the prophecy, they trusted in God the Holy One of Israel in truth, for not deceitfully nor with hypocrisy, but in truth they gave themselves wholly to hope) and not only went out from their own country but accomplished what was set before them.

This same remnant, then, became as it were the seed of Jacob’s falling away, trusting in the mighty God; and this very remnant, when their whole nation had become as the sand of the sea, but not like the stars of heaven, was counted worthy of salvation with God, as the apostle bore witness, saying: “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved.”

For two promises were given to Abraham through the oracle about those who would come from him: that they would be like the stars of heaven and like the sand of the sea; those beloved of God shining like the heavenly lights (such were the men of old, the prophets, and the apostles of our Savior, to whom he bore witness, saying, “You are the light of the world”), and the earthborn and groveling being compared to the sand of the earth.

Fittingly, then, the prophetic word says here that when the whole multitude of the sons of Israel, falling from its dignity and from the greatness of virtue and becoming wholly groveling, is compared to the sand of the sea, then their remnant alone will be saved. About this remnant we have exercised ourselves at great length.

He says these things will happen when the Lord himself, cutting short and completing a word, makes it over the whole world: plainly showing the preaching of the gospel, in which, when the whole Mosaic cycle of images, symbols, and bodily worship had been taken away, the concise word of the gospel, handed down to all people, confirmed the truth of the prophecy.

“And in that day there shall be the root of Jesse, and he who rises to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope, and his rest shall be honor. And it shall be in that day that the Lord will again show his hand, to be zealous for and seek what is left of the remnant of his people, whatever is left from the Assyrians, and from Egypt, and from Babylonia, and from Ethiopia, and from the Elamites, and from the rising of the sun, and from the islands of the sea. And he will lift up a sign to the nations, and will gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”

Often, when certain things are said to happen on a notable day, that is, at a conspicuous time, we have shown by reasoning out the sequence of what is indicated that they refer to the coming of God, at which, the divine words show, the whole Jewish nation would fall away and a rare few of them, left over, would be saved.

The passage in hand shows most plainly both the day and the time signified by it, and what happened at it. For, prophesying the birth of Christ from the seed of David, it foretells at the same time the falling away of the Jews. It says this:

“Behold now the Master, the Lord of hosts, will throw the glorious into confusion with might, and the lofty shall be humbled, and the lofty shall fall by the sword, and Lebanon with its lofty ones shall fall.” By Lebanon here he hints at Jerusalem, as we have shown elsewhere, which the passage threatens will fall with all its venerable and glorious things. And having set this out first, he adds next: “And a rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from the root,” and so on.

Very clearly he presents the birth of Christ from the root of Jesse (he was the father of David); at which birth he first proclaims the calling of the nations through a riddle, in the prophetic manner. For “The wolf shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,” and the like, signified nothing other than the change of nations savage and cruel in their ways, differing in nothing from beasts, to a pious, gentle, and sociable way of life.

This very thing he teaches later more plainly, saying: “The whole [earth] has been filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water covers the seas.”

And still interpreting itself, the prophetic word adds: “And in that day there shall be the root of Jesse, and he who rises to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope, and his rest shall be honor.”

Since, then, above he indicated covertly the falling away of the Jewish nation, and after this the calling of the nations, sometimes covertly, sometimes openly, he fittingly takes up the discourse again and mentions those of the circumcision who believe in Christ, so as not to shut them out altogether from hope in Christ. “For there shall be,” he says, “one who rises to rule the nations.”

And who was the one who rises but the root of Jesse, whom he clearly says will rule the nations, not Israel? Since, then, he had taught in various ways the turning of the nations to the one who sprang and sprouted from the root of Jesse, but had said nothing favorable yet about those of the circumcision, he fittingly supplies what was lacking in the prediction, saying: “And it shall be in that day” (that is, at the time of the appearing of the one sprung from the root of Jesse) “the Lord will again show his hand, to seek and be zealous for what is left of the remnant of the people, whatever is left from these and those enemies.” For this Aquila has: “And it shall be in that day that the Lord will add his hand a second time to acquire the remnant of his people which shall be left from the Assyrians,” and what follows.

You will understand these things too by considering the enemies of God’s people as certain intelligible and spiritual ones, either evil demons or powers opposed to the Word, who, invisibly presiding over the nations named, long ago besieged the souls of Israel, surrounding them with various passions, dragging them away and taking them captive into a life like the conduct of foreigners.

When nearly the whole people had been taken captive in soul by those indicated, those who were guarded and left unwounded and unharmed will, according to the prophecy, obtain the promise indicated, seeing the hand of the Lord and becoming his possession, according to the oracle that says: “The Lord will again show his hand, to be zealous for what is left of the remnant of the people.”

And what will the Lord add? Besides what he once showed long before, when the hand of the Lord came through the prophets, he will add to these too, as saved from the fall of the whole people, what was lacking to the former. These were the mysteries of the new covenant, shown by the hand of the Lord to those left from the people. “And also to be zealous,” he says, “for what is left of the remnant of the people.”

Instead of this, Aquila and Theodotion agree: “to acquire,” he says, “the remnant of his people, whatever he leaves from the Assyrians” and from the other hostile nations. And this remnant of the people, he says, “will lift up a sign to the nations,”

the Lord clearly showing his own sign among all the nations through them; and through them he will gather the lost of Israel and the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth, those who have fled for refuge to the Christ of God through the preaching of his apostles; he says that those gathered are from among those long ago estranged and separated from the Israel and Judah understood spiritually.

For the character of such souls shows the true Israel of God, just as, conversely, a base and wicked disposition makes the Israel according to the flesh deserve the names rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah.

The remnant chosen by grace, then, and what the prophecy calls the remnant left of the people, proclaimed the Lord’s sign to all the nations; and drawing such souls of the nations from destruction to the knowledge of the Lord, it gathered one people to God, which is still now being assembled by the power of Christ from the four corners of the earth.

And these very disciples and apostles of our Savior, saved from among the lost of the Jewish nation, being from different tribes but counted worthy of one calling, one grace, and one Holy Spirit, will cast away all the jealousy which the tribes of the Hebrew nation formerly had toward one another, as the prophecy says.

Joined together, then, in the same mind and the same judgment, they went through not only the mainland but also the islands of the nations, plundering and taking captive from every side all human souls into subjection to Christ, in accordance with the oracle that said: “And they shall fly in the ships of foreigners, plundering the sea together and those from the rising of the sun.”

The rest of the prophecy you will examine in a manner corresponding to this, testing each word for yourself, setting aside all that is incoherent and low in it, and understanding the meaning of the Spirit as the Spirit of God himself suggests it to you. For the time does not allow us to linger longer on these passages, since we are hastening to complete the subject before us.

“And I will command evils for the whole world, and for the ungodly their sins; and I will destroy the insolence of the lawless and humble the insolence of the proud; and those who are left shall be more precious than unrefined gold, and a man shall be more precious than the stone of Sophir.”

And next he adds: “And those who are left shall be like a fleeing gazelle, and like a wandering sheep.”

By these words too the passage shows most clearly how few will be saved at the time of the destruction of the ungodly, so that there is no room to suppose that all those of the circumcision without distinction, and the whole Jewish nation, will obtain the promises of God.

“And it shall be in that day that there shall be a failing of the glory of Jacob, and the fat things of his glory shall be shaken. And it shall be as when someone gathers standing grain and reaps the seed of the ears; and it shall be as when someone gathers ears in a rocky valley, and stubble is left in it; or like two or three olives at the top of the highest branch, or four or five left on its branches. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: In that day man will trust in him who made him, and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel; and they will not trust in the altars, nor in the works of their hands, which their fingers made.”

By these words it is plainly prophesied that the glory of Israel and all their fat things will be destroyed, but again a few, easily counted, like a few olives left on a tree, will be left; and these would be those of them who believed in our Lord. And accordingly, after what is said about them, it is prophesied about the whole human race turning from the error of idols and coming to know the God of Israel.

“Hear, islands, you who are left and in pain; hear what I have heard from the Lord of hosts; the God of Israel has declared it to us.”

See how here too he does not call all those of the circumcision to hear the secret things, but only those he names left and in pain, such as were those who, according to the apostle, groan and weep over the wickedness of human life.

“The lofty of the earth mourned, and the earth acted lawlessly because of its inhabitants. Therefore those who dwell on the earth shall be poor, and few men shall be left.” Here too, having reproved those of the people of the circumcision who transgressed the law and the covenant of God, and having threatened them with what is written, he prophesies that few men of them will be left. These would be what the apostle calls the remnant chosen by grace.

“Cities shall be left desolate, and abandoned houses shall perish. All these things shall be in the land among the nations, as when someone gleans an olive tree, so they shall glean them; and if the vintage ceases, these shall cry aloud; but those left on the land shall rejoice together with the glory of the Lord.” Here too those left alone are said to rejoice, all the rest being handed over to what is prophesied.

“The crown of insolence, the hirelings of Ephraim, shall be trampled underfoot. And the fallen flower of the hope of glory on the top of the high mountain shall be like an early fig; whoever sees it will want to swallow it before he takes it in his hand. In that day the Lord of hosts shall be the crown of hope, woven of glory, for the remnant of his people; for they shall be left in a spirit of judgment.”

Here too he prophesies that the Lord will be a crown of hope and glory to the remnant of the people, not to their whole nation, but only to those signified by the remnant, naming the others besides the remnant of the people a crown of insolence and hirelings of Ephraim.

“And those left in Judea shall take root downward and bear seed upward; for out of Jerusalem shall be those who are left, and those who are saved out of Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”

He prophesies that those left of the Jewish nation according to the election of grace will take root downward and bear seed upward, most clearly showing the choice of our Savior’s apostles and disciples. For these, left from those of the circumcision, laid down the roots of their teaching downward into the earth, so that their instruction was fixed and rooted throughout the whole world, and they urged that the seed and the fruit be carried upward to the heavenly promises.

And these same, left from the Jewish nation while the rest perished, are said alone to be saved. All this the zeal of the Lord did. For the zeal of the Lord, choosing them in order to provoke to jealousy the ungodly of the circumcision, provoked those others to jealousy through these, according to what is said in Moses: “They provoked me to jealousy with what is no god; and I will provoke them to jealousy with what is no nation; with a foolish nation I will anger them.”

“Thus says the Lord: As the grape will be found in the cluster, and they will say, Do not destroy it, for a blessing of the Lord is in it, so I will do for the sake of him who serves me; for his sake I will not destroy them all. And I will bring out the seed from Jacob and from Judah, and it shall inherit my holy mountain.

And my chosen ones and my servants shall inherit it and dwell there. And there shall be in the forest folds for flocks, and the valley of Achor for a resting place for herds, for my people who sought me. But you who forsook me and forget my holy mountain, and prepare a table for Fortune and fill a mixed cup for the demon, I will hand you over to the sword.

You shall all fall in slaughter, because I called you and you did not obey, and you did evil before me and chose what I did not desire.”

Here too the passage makes a distinction: it says that a small seed from Jacob will obtain the promises, and that the chosen are those who dwelt in the forest, so naming the calling of the nations, among whom are the Lord’s chosen and the seed of Jacob (these would be the apostles and disciples of our Savior); while all the others besides these are subject to the threats indicated. The passage all but shows most plainly that God’s promises will not come upon the whole Jewish nation at random, but only upon the seed named and those called God’s chosen, since many are called, but few chosen.

And the passage next prophesies that a new name will now be given to them, saying to the ungodly: “For your name shall be left for a surfeit to my chosen ones, and the Lord will destroy you; but those who serve me shall be called by a new name.” The new name, then, which was not known among the ancients, what would it be but the name of Christians, blessed throughout the whole world, taken from the name of our Savior Jesus Christ? 50. From Micah.

“And it shall be from the drop of this people; Jacob shall be gathered with all. I will surely receive the remnant of Israel; I will set their return together.”

In agreement with what was set out from Isaiah, Micah too names not simply all, but only the remnant, as those whom God receives. And as in Isaiah the remnant from them was named seed, so here he names those of them who will be saved a drop.

By this too the band of the apostles is indicated, having become as it were a drop and seed of the Jewish nation; from which drop all who throughout the world have come to know the Christ of God and received his teaching have been counted worthy of the prophesied gathering, having found redemption from their enemies.

“And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are least among the thousands of Judah; from you shall come forth for me a leader to be ruler in Israel, and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity. Therefore he will give them up until the time when she who is in labor gives birth; and the rest of their brothers shall return …”

And a little later he adds: “And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like dew falling from the Lord, and like lambs on the grass, that no one may be gathered or resist among the sons of men. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, and like a young lion among flocks of sheep, as when he passes through and, singling out, seizes, and there is none to deliver. Your hand shall be lifted up against those who afflict you, and all your enemies shall be utterly destroyed.”

Nothing could be plainer than these words, which proclaim at once the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem, his existence before the ages, the virgin’s giving birth, the calling of his apostles and disciples, and the preaching about Christ proclaimed through them throughout the whole world.

For when the ruler indicated, whose goings forth the passage shows to be from the days of eternity, comes forth from Bethlehem, and the holy virgin who bears him gives birth, he says that not all those of the circumcision, but only the rest, will be saved; and that they will become a remnant of Jacob and will be given like dew to all the nations. “For the remnant of Jacob,” he says, “shall be among the nations like dew falling from the Lord and like lambs on the grass.”

Instead of this, Aquila has “and like drops on grass,” and Theodotion “and like snow on grass.” And again, instead of “that no one may be gathered or resist among the sons of men, nor a son of man stumble,” Theodotion says, “who will not wait for man and will not hope in a son of man,” and Aquila, “who will not await a man and not [hope] in sons of men.”

By these renderings the whole hope of our Savior’s apostles was not in a man, but in their Savior and Lord, and he was the [Word] of God …

To this he adds next: “And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest and like a young lion among flocks of sheep, as when he passes through and, singling out, seizes, and there is none to deliver.” By this, I think, the boldness and fearlessness of the apostolic preaching is indicated.

Like a lion and a young lion, then, falling upon the forest of the nations and the flocks of human sheep, and separating the worthy from the unworthy, they brought them under the word of Christ; to whom next is addressed what follows: “Your hand shall be lifted up against those who afflict you, and all your enemies shall be utterly destroyed.” This too one can see with one’s eyes. For though countless people have afflicted the word of Christ and still now make war on it, it has been exalted and has become stronger than all.

Moreover, the hand of Christ has been lifted up against all who afflicted him, and all his enemies who from time to time rise up against his church are said to be utterly destroyed. 52. From Zephaniah.

“For then I will turn to the peoples [a tongue] for the name of the Lord, to serve him under one yoke. From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia I will receive those who supplicate me; the sons of the dispersed shall bring me sacrifices. In that day you shall not be put to shame for all your practices by which you acted impiously against me; for then I will take away from you the contemptible things of your insolence, and you shall no longer boast upon my holy mountain; and I will leave in you a meek and humble people.

And the remnant of Israel shall reverence the name of the Lord, and they shall do no injustice and speak no vain things, and a deceitful tongue shall not be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and there shall be none to make them afraid.”

Here too the Lord promises to leave for himself a meek and humble people, meaning none other than those of the circumcision who have believed in his Christ; and again, that only the remnant of Israel will be saved, together with the calling of the other nations, which he indicated at the beginning of the prophecy. 53. From Zechariah.

“Behold, a day comes, and your spoils shall be divided in you. And I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to war, and the city shall be taken, and the houses plundered, and the women defiled; and half of the city shall go out into captivity, but the remnant of my people shall not be utterly destroyed from the city.”

This too agrees with what was set out before, fulfilled in the destruction of the whole Jewish nation which overtook them after the coming of Christ. Zechariah prophesies these things after the return from Babylon, foretelling the last siege of the people, which would happen under the Romans; at it, when the whole Jewish nation would fall into the hands of their enemies, he says only the remnant of the people will be saved, plainly meaning the apostles of our Savior themselves. 54. From Jeremiah.

“Return, you rebellious sons, says the Lord, for I will be lord over you, and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you into Zion; and I will give you shepherds after my heart, and they shall shepherd you with knowledge. And it shall be, when you are multiplied and increased, says the Lord, in those days they shall no longer say, The ark of the covenant of the Lord of Israel; it shall not come to mind, nor be named, nor be made any more.”

Here too he prophesies at once the turning of Israel that would take place at the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, in which, choosing one from a city and two from a family, very few indeed and small in number, [he made them] shepherds of the nations that believed in him and increased on the earth in the calling of the nations that would come through them.

No longer, he says, will they say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” For they will no longer run back to the more bodily worship of Moses, since a new covenant will have been handed down to them. 55. From the same.

“They multiplied their impieties, they grew strong in their turnings away. For which of these shall I be merciful to you? Your sons have forsaken me and sworn by those who are no gods; and I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery and lodged in the houses of harlots. They became horses, each neighing after his neighbor’s wife. Shall I not punish for these things, says the Lord, or shall not my soul take vengeance on such a nation? Go up upon her ramparts and slaughter, but do not make a full end; leave her supports, for they are the Lord’s.”

Here too are shown at once the accusation of their whole nation and the siege that overtook them, and again the remnant, which he calls her support, as belonging to the Lord. This was the remnant made strong and firm through faith in the Christ of God, so as not to suffer the same things that their whole nation had suffered. 56. From Ezekiel.

“And the slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the Lord, when there are among you those who escape the sword among the nations, and in your dispersion in the countries; and those of you who escape shall remember me among the nations where they were taken captive.”

It seems to me that this too agrees with the other prophecies. For whom would you call those who escape but what elsewhere was named the remnant, and the drop and the dew of that people? By these the establishment of our Savior’s apostles was indicated. They, at any rate, escaping from [the destruction] of their whole nation, remembered God even in their dispersion, so that it is agreed that what is written was said about them. 57. From the same.

“Thus says Adonai the Lord: [I will cast them far off] among the nations, and I will scatter them among all the nations, and I will scatter them over all the earth; and I will be to them a little sanctuary in the countries where they enter.”

Here too he has called the same people by another name, calling those of them who would escape and be left “a little sanctuary.” 58. From the same.

“And all who help them I will scatter to every wind, and I will draw out a sword after them; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them in the countries. And I will leave of them men few in number from the sword and from famine and from death, that they may recount all their iniquities among the nations where they enter; and they shall know that I am the Lord.”

At the dispersion of the whole people he says here too that he will leave for himself a few in number, meaning none other than those spoken of before. 59. From the same. “Thus says Adonai the Lord: Even if I send my four evil punishments upon Jerusalem, sword and famine and evil beasts and death, to destroy from it man and beast, behold, there shall be left in it those who have escaped.”

This too would not differ from what was said before. 60. From the same.

“So I will judge you, says the Lord, and I will make you pass under my rod, and I will bring you in by number into my covenant, and I will pick out from you the rebels and the ungodly; for I will bring them out of their sojourning, but they shall not enter the land of Israel.”

Clearly here too he testifies that a few in number will come under God’s rod, while the rest of Israel will fall away from the promises. But having shown that the divine words did not foretell the promises of good things at random, indiscriminately, to all from the Jewish nation, bad and ungodly as well as those not such, but to a rare few of them, easily counted, whether those of them who believed in our Savior and Lord or those justified before his coming, I think I have sufficiently shown that the divine promises were not fulfilled for all Jews indiscriminately, and that the words of the prophets fit them no more than those from the nations who have received the Christ of God. What the meaning of the divine promises was I will set out at the proper time.

These things I have collected of necessity to refute those of the circumcision who, from irrational boasting, insist that Christ will come for them alone and not for all people, and to demonstrate that our own zeal for their oracles is reasonable.

In the preceding book I established the reason why we do not live as Jews, even though we delight in their prophetic scriptures; and I discussed in it, as well as I could, what kind of life was proclaimed through Christ to all the nations, and the antiquity of the manner of the gospel way of life.

Now that we have completed these things, it is time at last to take up more secret discourses, those about the mystical dispensation concerning our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God: that we may learn why he made his appearing to all people now and not before, and what was the cause of his beginning the calling of the nations not long ago but recently, after the long age; and whatever else belongs to the secret theology concerning him; and further the matters of his becoming man. These, first of all, from another starting point of discourse, as against unbelievers, calling on the Word of God himself as our helper, come, let us consider.

The preliminaries to the demonstration of the gospel having been sufficiently worked through by me, the manner of our Savior’s gospel teaching having been shown, the reason given why we, embracing the oracles of the Jews, have declined their way of life, and it having been established besides that the prophetic scriptures among them foresaw and recorded our future calling through Christ, so that we claim them as our own and not as foreign, it is now time to enter upon the subject itself and begin what was promised.

And what were these but the matters of the dispensation of Jesus, the Christ of God, as man, and the teachings of the Hebrew prophets about the theology concerning him, and the predictions about his appearing among men, which we will show forthwith, from the plain fulfillments, apply to him alone; having first of necessity considered how the prophets took up the mention of the gospel in connection with Christ.

A witness to what has been indicated would be Isaiah in these very words, crying out in the person of Christ: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind.” This prophecy our Savior once read through in the synagogue before the crowd of the Jews, and, rolling up the book, said: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

And beginning his own teaching from there, he proclaimed good news to the poor, putting first among his beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And to those troubled by evil spirits, and long held captive, as it were, by demons, he proclaimed release, calling all to freedom and loosing from the bonds of wickedness, when he said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

And he gave recovery of sight to the blind, granting sight to those whose bodily eyes were destroyed, and in the spiritual sense granting to those formerly blind to the truth the light of true piety to see. The prophecy quoted, then, shows that Christ would be first the author and founder of the gospel work; and the same prophet prophesies that after him his disciples would be servants of the same task, saying: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things, or of those who bring good news of peace!”

There he said with great precision that the feet of those bringing the good news of Christ’s good things would be beautiful. For how would they not be beautiful, who in a short and brief time were to run round the whole world and fill every place with the pious teaching about the Savior of the world? And that they did not use human words to persuade their hearers, but that the power of God worked with them in the gospel preaching, another prophet proclaims: “The Lord will give a word to those who proclaim good news with great power.”

And again Isaiah: “Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem; lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with lordship; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. Like a shepherd he will tend his flock, and in his arm he will gather the lambs and comfort those that are with young.”

What meaning these words have we will learn as we proceed in order according to the gospel teaching. At any rate, the gospel and even the name “gospel” have been shown to be attested by the prophetic words; and you have plain and clear proofs of whom the gospel would begin from, namely from Christ himself; through whom it would be proclaimed, namely through his apostles; and by what power it would prevail, namely not human. This too was established by the words: “The Lord will give a word to those who proclaim good news with great power.”

What remains, then, but to set out beforehand a few out of many of the things prophesied about Christ among the Hebrews from of old, so that you may know what the gospel announced would be in later times; and at the same time the wonder of the prophets’ foreknowledge of the future, and the fulfillments of the predictions, how they are shown to be fulfilled in our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God?

Moses, first of the prophets, announces the good news that another prophet like himself will be raised up. For since his legislation belonged only to the Jewish nation, and to it only in the land of Judea or around it, not to those living far off in foreign lands, as has been seen from what we worked through before; and since the God not only of the Jews but also of the nations had surely to provide for life what would be profitable to all the nations for knowledge of him and piety; he fittingly prophesies by an oracle that he will raise up from the Jewish nation another prophet, in no way falling short of his own dispensation, God himself having spoken in this way:

“I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and I will put my word in his mouth, and he shall speak to them whatever I command him. And the man who does not listen to his words, whatever the prophet speaks in my name, I will take vengeance on him.”

And Moses himself, interpreting God’s oracle to the people, says similar things: “A prophet from among your brothers like me the Lord your God will raise up; you shall listen to him in all that you asked of the Lord God in Horeb on the day of the assembly.”

Did any of the prophets after Moses, then, Isaiah, say, or Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, or Daniel, or any other of the twelve, become a lawgiver like Moses? Not at all. Did any of them do things like Moses? It cannot be said. Each of them, at any rate, from the first to the last, referred their hearers to Moses, made their reproof of the people on account of transgressions of Moses’ law, and urged nothing else than to hold fast to what was legislated in Moses.

None of them, then, was like him; and Moses speaks definitely about one. Whom, then, does the oracle prophesy would be a prophet like Moses, but only our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ? How this was said it is necessary to consider.

Moses was the first leader of the Jewish nation. Finding them devoted to the polytheistic error of the Egyptians, he was the first to turn them from it, forbidding idolatry with inexorable penalties; he was the first to proclaim to them the theology of the sole rule of God, ordering them to worship only the Creator and Maker of all; and having ordained for them a certain conduct of godly life, he was shown to be the first and only lawgiver of a pious polity for them. And Jesus Christ likewise, and far better than Moses, was the first to lead the other nations in the teaching of piety, and the first to bring about the overthrow of idolatry throughout the whole world; he was the first to set before all people the knowledge and worship of the one God, King of all, and he was shown to be the first introducer and lawgiver of a new life and polity befitting the godly.

And the other things too, about the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, and all the other philosophical doctrines, which Moses first handed down to the Jewish nation, Jesus Christ first proclaimed, in a manner more worthy of God, to the other nations through his disciples; so that Moses is fittingly proclaimed the first and only lawgiver of piety for the Jews, and Jesus Christ for all the nations, according to the prophecy about him that says: “Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them; let the nations know that they are men.”

Again, Moses confirmed the piety he proclaimed by wonderful works and miracles; and likewise Christ, using the recorded miracles to produce faith in those who saw them, established the new lessons of his gospel teaching.

Again, Moses brought the Jewish nation from bitter slavery under the Egyptians into freedom; and Jesus Christ called the whole human race to freedom from the impious and Egyptian idolatry under the evil demons.

Again, Moses promised a holy land and a blessed life, dear to God, in it to those who kept the laws. Likewise Jesus Christ says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” promising a far better land, truly holy and dear to God, not the land of Judea (for it differed in nothing from the rest), but the heavenly land suited to God-loving souls, to those who undertook the life he proclaimed. Making this plainer, he proclaimed the kingdom of heaven to those he called blessed.

And you would find other deeds too done by our Savior with a power greater than that of Moses, yet similar to those Moses performed;

as, for example, Moses fasted forty days in succession, as scripture testifies, saying: “And Moses was there before the Lord forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water.”

Likewise Christ too. It is written, at any rate: “And he was led into the desert forty days, being tempted by the devil, and he ate nothing in those days.” And again, Moses provided food for the people in the desert. Scripture says, at any rate: “Behold, I give you bread from heaven.”

And a little later: “When the dew ceased around the camp, behold, on the face of the desert, fine, like white coriander, like frost on the ground.” And our Savior and Lord says to his disciples: “Why do you reason among yourselves, you of little faith, that you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand, nor remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you took up? Nor the seven of the four thousand, and how many baskets you took up?”

Again, Moses passed through the midst of the sea and led the people. Scripture says, at any rate: “Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove back the sea with a strong south wind all day, and made the sea dry, and the water was divided; and the sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on dry ground, and the water was a wall to them on the right and a wall on the left.”

Likewise, and in a manner still more worthy of God, Jesus the Christ of God walked on the sea and made Peter walk on it. It is written, at any rate: “In the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them, walking on the sea. And seeing him walking on the sea they were troubled.”

And a little later: “And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the waters. And he said, Come. And Peter got down from the boat and walked on the waters.”

Again, Moses congealed the sea with a strong south wind. Scripture says, at any rate: “Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove back the sea with a strong south wind.” And it adds: “The waves were congealed in the midst of the sea.”

Likewise, and far better, our Savior rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. Again, when Moses came down from the mountain his face was seen full of glory. It is written, at any rate: “As Moses came down from the mountain, he did not know that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified while he spoke with him. And Aaron and all the elders of the sons of Israel saw Moses, and the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified.”

Likewise, and in a far more excellent way, our Savior, leading his disciples up a very high mountain, was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as the light. Again, Moses cleansed a leper. It is written, at any rate: “And behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow.”

And a little later: “And Moses cried to the Lord, saying, O God, I beg you, heal her.”

Likewise, and with greater power of authority, the Christ of God, when a leper came to him and said, “If you will, you can make me clean,” answered, “I will; be clean.” And his leprosy was cleansed. Again, Moses said the law was written by the finger of God. It is written, at any rate: “And he gave Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone written by the finger of God.”

And in Exodus: “The magicians said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God.” Likewise Jesus the Christ of God said to the Pharisees: “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God.”

On top of all this, Moses renamed the son of Nun Joshua, and likewise the Savior renamed Simon Peter. And again, Moses appointed seventy leaders for the people. Scripture says, at any rate: “Gather for me seventy men from the elders of Israel, and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them. And he gathered seventy men.”

Likewise the Savior appointed seventy disciples of his and sent them two by two before his face. And again, Moses sent out twelve men to spy out the land; likewise, and far better, our Savior sent out twelve apostles to visit all the nations. Again, Moses legislates, saying: “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not swear falsely.”

But our Savior, intensifying the law, forbids not only murder but even anger; instead of not committing adultery, he urges not even to look at a woman with licentious desire; and instead of not stealing, he commands to give one’s own goods to the needy. And going beyond not swearing falsely, he legislates not to swear at all.

And why need I lengthen the discussion to show that Moses and Jesus our Savior and Lord did similar things, close to one another, when anyone who wishes can collect them at leisure? For they say that no one knew of Moses’ death, nor his burial, just as no one knew of our Savior’s change into divinity after his return to life.

If, then, through so many things no one else but our Savior alone has been shown to have done things like Moses, see how we must refer to him alone, and to no other, the prophecy in Moses through which God foretold that he would raise up one like him, saying: “I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and I will put my word in his mouth, and he shall speak to them as I command him. And the man who does not listen to his words, whatever the prophet speaks in my name, I will take vengeance on him.”

And Moses himself, interpreting God’s voice to the people, said: “A prophet from your brothers the Lord your God will raise up; you shall listen to him in all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly.”

That none of the prophets after Moses before our Savior arose like Moses the ancient scripture clearly teaches, saying: “And there did not arise again a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and wonders.”

It has been shown, then, that the divine Spirit prophesied through Moses about our Savior, since he alone, and no other, has been shown to have become like Moses, in accordance with Moses’ own words. Consider also another recorded prophecy.

For since countless multitudes among all the nations call our Savior and Lord, who became man according to the flesh from the seed of Israel, Lord, confessing him Lord because of his divine power, Moses, foreseeing this too by the divine Spirit, proclaimed it in his writing thus: “A man shall come forth from his seed” (he means Israel’s) “and he shall rule over nations, and his kingdom shall be exalted.”

If, then, no other of the rulers and kings of the circumcision ever became lord of many nations (for no history shows this), while the truth cries out and proclaims of our Savior alone that countless multitudes from all the nations confess him Lord, and not with their lips only but with most sincere disposition, what then prevents us from saying that he is the one prophesied? And that Moses does not foretell these things without limit, nor overshadow the prediction into an infinite and unmeasured time, but defines very precisely the fulfillment of what was prophesied within set times, hear what he prophesies about this too: “A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is laid up; and he is the expectation of the nations.”

By this he declares that leaders and rulers from the Jewish nation would not fail in succession until the coming of the one expected, and that when their rulers had failed, the one prophesied would be present.

By Judah he now means not the tribe, but, since in later times the whole Jewish nation was called by a kind of name from the royal tribe of Judah, so that they are called Jews to this day, he very wonderfully and prophetically named the whole nation of the Jews, just as we too call them Jews.

Then he says that rulers and leaders would not fail from their nation before the one prophesied was present; but when he arrived, the rule of the Jews would at once be dissolved, and he himself would be the expectation no longer of the Jews but of the nations. And this you could not apply to the prophets, but to our Savior and Lord alone.

For at the same time he came among men and the kingdom of the Jews was destroyed; at once the ruler from their ancestral succession and the leader according to their own laws failed, when Augustus first ruled the Romans as sole ruler and Herod, from a foreign nation, was established as their king.

And they failed, while he has appeared as the expectation of the nations throughout the whole world, according to the divine prediction, so that still now all from all the nations who have believed in him place in him the hope of their godly expectation.

So much, then, and more besides, Moses proclaims as good news to us all about Christ. And in kinship with him Isaiah too foretells this, definitely, about one who would arise from the seed and succession of King David: “A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, [a flower] shall come up from his root, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,” and the rest.

Then, going on, he prophesies in the prophetic manner the change that would come about through Christ’s teaching to gentleness and mildness in the foreign nations, barbarians and Greeks, and the most savage and brutish men. He says, then: “And the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the bull and the lion together,”

and the like; which he interprets just after, making them clear, saying: “And there shall be he who rises to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope.”

For he clearly shows that the irrational cattle and the wild beasts mentioned before are none other than the nations, because of their brutish ways; over which nations he says the one rising from the seed of Jesse will rule, from whom our Savior and Lord is descended, in whom the nations that believe in him still now hope, in agreement with the prediction: “And there shall be he who rises to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope.”

Set this beside the passages in Moses, distinguishing them: fit “there shall be he who rises to rule the nations” to “A man shall come forth from his seed, and he shall rule over many nations”; and “in him the nations shall hope” to “and he shall be the expectation of the nations.”

For what difference is there between saying “in him the nations shall hope” and “he shall be the expectation of the nations”? Again, the same Isaiah prophesies this about Christ: “Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased; he will bring forth judgment to the nations.” And he adds: “until he establishes judgment on the earth; and in his name the nations shall hope.”

Here the prophet states a second time that the nations will hope in Christ, having said above, “in him the nations shall hope,” and here, “and in his name the nations shall hope.” It was also said to David that someone would rise from the fruit of his body, about whom God says next: “He shall call upon me, You are my Father; and I will make him firstborn.”

And about him again it is said: “And he shall rule from sea [to sea], and from the rivers to the ends of the world.” And again: “All the nations shall serve him, and in you all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.” And a definite place of the birth of the one prophesied is foretold by Micah, who says: “And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are too few to be among the thousands of Judah; from you shall come forth for me a leader, who will shepherd my people Israel; and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.”

It is agreed by all that Jesus the Christ was born in Bethlehem, so that a cave is even shown there by the local people to those who come from abroad to see it.

This place, where he was to be born, had been foretold; and the wonder of his birth Isaiah presents sometimes through riddles, sometimes more plainly. Through riddles, when he says: “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 thirsty land.”

For this Aquila translated as follows: “And he shall be proclaimed like a suckling before him, and like a root from untrodden ground”; and Theodotion: “And he shall go up like a nursing child before him, and like a root in a thirsty land.”

For by these words the prophet, having mentioned the arm of the Lord, which was the Word of God, says, “Before him we announced him as a nursing and suckling child, and as a root from untrodden ground.” The suckling and nursing child plainly indicates the birth of Christ, and the untrodden and thirsty ground the virgin who bore him, whom no man had approached; from whom, though untrodden, came forth the blessed root, the suckling and nursing child.

These things he hinted at in shadowed form; but the same prophet interprets the meaning more plainly when he says: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they shall call his name God with us.” For this is what Emmanuel means.

Such things were studied long ago among the Hebrews about Christ’s birth among men. Do they then describe the one prophesied as some glorious potentate, or tyrant, or anyone else among those of great power in life? That cannot be said, since he did not appear as such.

But such as he appeared in life, such they also prophesied he would be, falling short of the truth in nothing. Having said, then, “We announced before him as a child, as a root in a thirsty land,” Isaiah next joins, saying: “He has no form or glory, and we saw him, and he had no form or beauty. And his form was dishonored and failing beyond the sons of men. A man being in affliction and knowing how to bear sickness, he was dishonored and not esteemed.”

What remains, then, after this? If they foretold his tribe and family, the manner of his birth, the wonder of the virgin, and the manner of his life, it followed next that they should not pass over his death in silence either. What, then, does Isaiah prophesy about this?

“A man,” he says, “being in affliction and knowing how to bear sickness, was dishonored and not esteemed. This one bears our sins and is pained for us; and we reckoned him to be in toil and in affliction and in suffering. But he was wounded for our sins and bruised because of our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his bruise we were healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord gave him up for our sins; and he, because he was afflicted, does not open his mouth. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer, silent, so he does not open his mouth. Who will declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth,” and the rest.

By this he signifies that Christ, being free of all offense, would take upon himself the sins of men. Therefore he will suffer the lot of sinners and be pained for us, not for himself.

And if he is wounded, struck with blasphemous words, this too will be the work of our sins; since he was bruised because of our sins, so that we, when he had taken on our faults and the wounds of our wickedness, might be healed by his bruise. These were the causes of what the sinless one would suffer among men. But the Jews who contrived his death the wonderful prophet, suspecting nothing, openly convicts, plainly lamenting and saying: “Because of the iniquities of my people he was led to death.”

Then, since immediately and not long after their outrage against Christ utter destruction overtook them when they were besieged by the Romans, not passing over this either he adds: “And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death.”

It would have been enough to end the prophecy with this, if he had seen nothing more to come after Christ’s death. But since he was very soon to return and come to life again after his death or after his burial, he adds this too about him, saying next: “And the Lord wills to cleanse him from the affliction; if you give an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed. And the Lord wills to take away from the toil of his soul, to show him light.”

Having said above, “a man in affliction and knowing how to bear sickness,” now, after his death and burial, “the Lord,” he says, “wills to cleanse him from the affliction.” And how will it be? “If you give an offering for sin,” he says, “your soul shall see a long-lived seed.”

For not all are permitted to see the long-lived seed of Christ, but only those who confess and bring to God offerings for sins. For only their soul will see Christ’s long-lived seed, that is, his eternal life after death, or his word sown throughout the whole world, which will be long-lived and endure for ever.

Again, having said above, “And we reckoned him to be in toil,” now, after his slaughter and death, he says: “And the Lord wills to take away from the toil of his soul, to show him light.” Since, then, the Lord, the God of all, has willed to cleanse him from the affliction and show him light, having willed it he would surely do what he willed.

For there is nothing he wills that does not happen; and he willed [to cleanse] him and show him light. He did these things, then, and having cleansed him showed him light. And since he willed, and willing took away the toil of his soul and showed him light, the prophet fittingly adds: “Therefore he shall inherit many and divide the spoils of the strong.”

Here at last he mentions the inheritance of Christ too, in agreement with the second psalm, in which the word, having prophesied by name the plot contrived against him, saying, “The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ,” adds next: “The Lord said to me, You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.”

These nations, then, the prophet too hinted at, saying, “Therefore he shall inherit many,” and he adds, “and divide the spoils of the strong.” For he rescued the souls held in subjection by the opposing powers, which formerly ruled the nations, and distributed them like spoils to his own disciples.

Therefore Isaiah says of them: “And they shall rejoice before you as those who divide spoils.” And the psalmist: “The Lord will give a word to those who proclaim good news with great power. The King of the hosts of the beloved, … in the beauty of the house to divide spoils.”

Fittingly, then, here too he says of Christ, “Therefore he shall inherit many and divide the spoils of the strong.” And for what reason he teaches next, saying: “Because his soul was given up to death, and he was reckoned among the lawless; and he bore the sins of many, and was given up because of their sins.”

For in return for these things the Father, rewarding him for his obedience and endurance, has granted him what lay in store; for he became obedient to the Father to the point of death. Therefore it is prophesied that he will inherit many, and not before, but after his soul was given up to death and he was reckoned among the lawless. For these reasons it is said that he will inherit many and divide the spoils of the strong.

I consider that by these words the resurrection from the dead of the one prophesied is shown beyond dispute. For how could one who was led away, given up to death because of the iniquities of the Jewish people, reckoned with the lawless and given to burial, then be cleansed by the Lord, see light from him, inherit many, and distribute spoils to his own? And David too, prophesying in the person of Christ, speaks elsewhere about his return to life after death: “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption.”

And again: “O Lord, you brought up my soul from Hades; you saved me from those who go down to the pit.” And again: “You who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may declare all your praises.”

I think that not even the most unreasonable could contradict all this. Moreover, the conclusion of Isaiah’s prophecy announces good news to the soul long barren and bereft of God, or rather to the church from the nations, in keeping with the interpretation of what has been said.

For since Christ endured everything for her sake, he fittingly adds after the predictions about him: “Rejoice, barren one who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not in labor; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband. For the Lord said, Enlarge the place of your tent, and fix the curtains of your courts; do not spare; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes; spread out further to the right and to the left, and your seed shall inherit nations.”

These words announce the good news of the church from the nations, spread throughout the whole world and stretching from the rising of the sun to its setting, showing this most clearly by the words “and your seed shall inherit nations.”

Since the matters of this passage need more elaboration, let this suffice for us for the present; you could collect very much on the subject for yourself at leisure, and the present treatise of the Demonstration of the Gospel will hand down and interpret each point at the proper time.

Meanwhile, for the present, what has been said suffices concerning the prophets’ prediction and foreknowledge of our Savior, and how he was proclaimed as good news to all people: they foretold the arrival of a prophet and the piety of a lawgiver like Moses, his race and tribe and the place from which he would come, the time at which he was prophesied to come, his birth, his [death], his return to life, and his rule over all the nations; all of which has been shown,

and will be shown still more by what follows, to have been fulfilled in our Savior and Lord alone.

These things, then, have been set out from the sacred oracles for those who believe them. But to those who disbelieve the prophetic scriptures we shall reply separately, examining him for the time being as a common man, like the rest, so that when he appears far superior, with incomparable pre-eminence, to all who have ever been helpers among men, we may then in due course discuss his nature too, showing from plain proofs that the power in him was not of human nature; after which we will treat his theology as far as we are able to behold it. Since, then, most of the unbelievers still do not cease calling him a sorcerer and deceiver and blaspheming him with countless other slanders, come, let us answer them too, adding nothing of our own, but making our citations from his own words and the teaching he handed down.

We must ask them whether any other such deceiver has ever been recorded who became for those he deceived a teacher of gentleness and forbearance, of self-control and the rest of virtue; and whether it is right to call by these names one who did not allow even looking at women with licentious desire; and whether he was a deceiver who handed down the highest philosophy, teaching his pupils to share their possessions with the needy and to value diligence highly; and whether he was a deceiver who roused them from vulgar, herd-like, and tumultuous company, and taught them to embrace only the study of the divine oracles.

And one who turns people from every lie and urges them to honor truth before everything, so that they have no need even of true oaths, much less to swear falsely (“for let your yes be yes, your no no”), how could he justly be called a deceiver? And why need I say more now, when from what was said before one can know the character of the way of life he sowed in the world, from which every lover of truth would confess him not a deceiver, but truly a divine man and the introducer of a divine and pious philosophy, not the common and vulgar one?

For it has been shown in the first book of the present work that he alone renewed the life of the God-beloved Hebrews of old, which had all but perished from among men, and spread it not to a few and moderate numbers but over the whole world; through which it is possible to show among men throughout the whole world countless imitators of those God-beloved men around Abraham, not from Greeks only but also from barbarians, of their godly way of life.

Such, then, are the more ethical parts of his teaching. Come, let us see whether the deceiver in him was perhaps concerned with the most important doctrines.

Is he not recorded as devoted himself to the one God, King of all, Creator of heaven and earth and the whole world, and as leading his pupils to him? And to this day do not the words of his teaching lead every Greek and barbarian upward in mind to the supreme God, looking beyond all visible nature?

Was this, then, the deceiver? Or is it because he does not permit one who has been thrown headlong from the supreme and only true theology, truly led astray, to worship many gods? But this doctrine is not new nor his own, but dear long ago to the God-beloved Hebrews, as has been shown in the Preparation; from whom even the children of the recent philosophers, greatly benefited, have embraced the doctrine. Indeed, the most learned of the Greeks themselves take pride in oracles of their own gods which mention the Hebrews thus: “Only the Chaldeans obtained wisdom, and the Hebrews, who worship in purity a self-born king, God.”

He called the same people Chaldeans because of Abraham, since he was a Chaldean by race, as is recorded. If, then, long ago the children of the Hebrews, who were especially attested for wisdom even by the oracles, raised their reverence to the one God, Creator of all, why must we call this man a deceiver, and not confess him a wonderful teacher of piety, who, by an invisible and divine power, brought forward and spread to all people what was formerly known only to the God-beloved Hebrews, so that no longer, as of old, a few, easily counted, hold right views about God, but countless multitudes of barbarians, formerly most savage, and of learned men and Greeks, who have been taught by his power alone to worship like the prophets and righteous men of old?

But let us consider a third point, whether this was the reason they call him a deceiver: that he did not ordain honoring the Divine with sacrifices of oxen, slaughter of irrational animals, blood and fire, or exhalations from the earth, considering these low and earthly and in no way proper to the immortal nature, but judging that the most pleasing and sweet of all sacrifices to God is the keeping of his own commandments, through which he taught those purified in body and soul, adorned with a clear mind and pious doctrines, to imitate likeness to God, saying expressly: “You shall be perfect, as your Father is perfect.”

If any of the Greeks blames these things, let him know that he does not think like his own teachers, who, as is likely, benefited from us, since they lived after us in time, I mean after the teaching set forth to us by our Savior. Hear what they acknowledged in writing. From Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food.

“To the God over all, as a wise man said, we offer nothing perceptible by the senses, neither burning incense nor naming anything; for there is nothing material that is not at once impure to the immaterial. Therefore not even speech uttered by the voice is proper to him, nor inward speech when it is defiled by passion of the soul; but we shall worship him in pure silence and with pure thoughts about him. We must therefore, united with him and made like him, offer our own conduct as a holy sacrifice to God, which is also our hymn and our salvation. This sacrifice, then, is performed in the soul’s freedom from passion and in the contemplation of God.” From the theology of Apollonius of Tyana.

“In this way, then, a person would best pay the proper attention to the Divine and obtain from him favor and kindness beyond any other man: if to God, whom we call [the First], who is one and separate from all, after whom the others must be acknowledged, he sacrifices nothing at all, kindles no fire, and names nothing perceptible by the senses (for he needs nothing, not even from beings better than we are; nor is there any plant the earth sends up, or animal it or the air nourishes, to which some defilement does not belong); but uses toward him always only the better word, I mean that which does not pass through the mouth, and asks good things from the most beautiful of beings through the most beautiful thing in us; and this is mind, which needs no instrument.”

If, then, these things are acknowledged even by the distinguished philosophers and theologians among the Greeks, how could he be a deceiver who handed down to his pupils not only words but, much earlier, the deeds corresponding to the words, by which they were to serve the Divine according to right reason? How and with what reasoning the ancient Hebrews are recorded to have sacrificed we discussed in the first book of the present work, and we will be content with that.

And since, besides the things examined, we have learned from Christ that the world came into being, and that heaven itself and the sun and moon and stars are works of God, and that we must worship not these but their Maker, we must consider whether we have been deceived in being taught by him to think in this way.

And yet this too was the doctrine of the Hebrews, and the most eminent of the philosophers agreed with them, declaring that heaven itself, the sun, moon, and stars, and the whole world came into being and were made by the Maker of all. He also taught us to expect a consummation and a change of this universe for the better, this too in accordance with the scriptures of the Hebrews.

What then? Does not Plato too know that heaven itself, the sun, the moon, and the other stars are of a nature that can be dissolved and destroyed, even if he says they will not be dissolved because the one who fastened them together does not will it?

If, then, he willed them to be of such a nature, and taught us to believe that we have an immortal soul, in no way like the irrational animals but bearing images of the powers of God, and trained every barbarian and unlearned person to hold, be disposed, and think so, has he not made those throughout the world who share his views wiser than those who knit their brows, who declared that the soul in human beings differs in substance in no way from that of a gnat, a worm, or a fly, and that the soul of those most philosophical men themselves differs in no way, as far as nature and substance go, from the soul of a snake, a viper, a bear, a leopard, or a pig?

And besides this, constantly reminding us of the divine tribunal and the judgment to come, and describing inexorable punishments and penalties for the ungodly, and promises of God to the godly of eternal life, the kingdom of heaven, and a blessed life with God, whom would he deceive? Would he not rather urge people to hasten toward virtue for the sake of the prizes expected by the godly, and to turn from all wickedness because of the punishments hanging over the ungodly?

In the doctrinal parts of his words we have received that there are, after the supreme God, certain powers, incorporeal and intellectual in nature, rational and all-virtuous, forming a chorus around the King of all, many of whom have been sent even to men by the Father’s bidding for certain saving dispensations. These we have been taught to recognize and honor according to the measure of their worth, rendering reverent worship to the God and King of all alone.

Besides this, we have learned from him that certain hostile powers, enemies of the human race, fly about the air around the earth and dwell with the wicked: powers of demons and evil spirits and their rulers, whom we have been trained to flee with all our strength, even if they seize for themselves the names and honors of gods; and all the more for this very reason, their fighting against God and hatred of God, they are to be shunned, as we have shown with very many proofs in the Preparation. Such are the things found in the doctrinal teachings of our Savior, plainly the pious lessons of the God-beloved men and prophets of the Hebrews of old.

If, then, these things are venerable, useful, philosophical, full of virtue, on what grounds could the name of deceiver reasonably be attached to their teacher? But let these things be examined for now as of a man common in nature, showing his venerable and beneficial teaching. Come, let us consider the more divine things too.

Let us consider, then, how many and what wonderful works he performed while living among men: at one time cleansing lepers in body by divine power, at another driving out by the command of his word the demons in men, and again freely granting healing to the sick and to those worn down by every kind of infirmity.

And once he said to a paralytic, “Rise, take up your bed and walk,” and he did as commanded.

At other times again he granted to the blind the power of seeing the light. And once a woman with a flow of blood, worn down by the disease for long cycles of years, since she saw countless crowds surrounding him and in no way allowing her to come and fall at his knees and ask for release from the disease, thinking only to touch the edge of his garment, slipped through; and taking hold of the fringe she took hold at once of the cure of her ills, and was immediately well, carrying away a very great proof of our Savior’s divine power.

Another, a royal official, falling before Jesus for his son who was ill, received him back at once safe and well; and again another, a ruler of the Jewish synagogue, received his daughter, though she was already dead.

Why need I say how another, dead four days, was raised by the power of Jesus? Or how he made his way on the sea as on a highway of land while his disciples were sailing, and how, when they were storm-tossed, he rebuked the sea and the surge and the winds, and all was still at once, as if cowering at a master’s voice?

And having filled to satisfaction five thousand men, besides a countless crowd of women and children, from five loaves, so that the leftovers were enough to fill twelve baskets, whom would he not astonish, and fittingly call out to seek his secret power? But so that my discourse may not now stretch to great length, let his death be set out above all, which was not like that of other men.

For he did not perish by disease, nor by noose or fire, nor on the very trophy of the cross did he have his legs cut through with iron like the other criminals, nor at all did he undergo a violent death suffering any of the things that usually kill men at the hands of others; but when he had simply given up his body willingly to those plotting against him, he was lifted up from the earth at once, and then on the scaffold, crying out with a loud voice and committing his spirit to the Father, saying in these very words, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” so, released and free, he made his departure from the body of himself.

Then, when his body had been taken by his acquaintances and given proper burial, on the third day he took it back again, he who had willingly departed before.

And he showed himself again in flesh, in body, the very same as he was before, to his own disciples; and having conversed with them briefly and spent some time with them, he went up to where he had come from, making his journey to heaven before their eyes. To them he also gave instructions about what to do, and appointed them teachers of all the nations in the supreme worship of God.

Such were the much-praised wonders of our Savior’s virtue; these the proofs of the divinity in him; these we too have wondered at with sober reasoning, and accepted with a judgment tested and examined.

These things have been examined and tested by us also through other evident facts that disclose every argument, through which our Lord himself still now is accustomed to show some small signs of his power to whom he judges fit; and also by the more rational method which we usually apply to those who do not accept what has been said, but either disbelieve them altogether and say nothing of the kind was done by him, or say it was done, but by sorcery, to deceive the onlookers, as by a deceiver. If we must now briefly oppose those described, we will not fall short in zeal, but will answer them in another way.

If they say that our Savior did nothing wonderful at all, nothing marvelous of what his followers testified, let us see whether their argument will be credible, when they cannot give the reason why the one was called teacher and the others disciples. For one who teaches professes some lesson, and disciples, eager for lessons, give themselves over to the teacher.

What reason, then, can be given for Jesus’ disciples spending their time with him, and what the necessity of their zeal for him, and of what lessons did they call him teacher? Or is this clear? Surely it was the things they learned from him and carried out to others. And his precepts were those of a philosophical life, which he sketched for them, saying, “Acquire neither gold nor silver in your belts, nor a bag for the road,” and the like; and he urged them, entrusting themselves to the providence that governs all, to have no anxiety about their needs; and he urged them to think of things better than what Moses enjoined on the Jews.

For Moses legislated not to murder for people quick to murder; likewise not to commit adultery, for the most lustful and licentious; and again not to steal, for the most servile. But they must consider that such laws do not apply to them, and value highly the soul’s freedom from passion, cutting off the shoots of wickedness from below, from the depth of the mind itself, as from the roots; to try to master anger and every shameful desire, or rather not even to be angry, through the soul’s perfect freedom from passion, nor to look at a woman with licentious desire; and, contrary to stealing, even to give their own goods to those in need; and not to take pride in not defrauding one another, but to bear without resentment those who first defraud them.

And why need I collect all that he taught and they learned? He urged them, besides other things, to hold to truth so that they would not need even true oaths, much less to swear falsely; but to make their character appear more trustworthy than any oath, going as far as yes and no, using words with truth.

We must ask, then, what reason one could have to suspect that the hearers of such teachings, who became teachers of the same lessons, invented what they testified their teacher did.

And what credibility is there in thinking that all of them lied in agreement, twelve in number the chosen ones, and seventy the others, whom he is said to have sent two by two before his face into every place and country where he himself was to come? No reason compels us to disbelieve so great a number of men who embraced a pious and venerable life, disregarded all their own, and instead of their dearest, I mean wife and children and all their family, chose the life without possessions, and carried out to all people a testimony about their teacher in agreement, as from one mouth.

This would be the chief, first, and true argument; but let us consider the opposite too. Let him be the teacher and them the disciples; then, as a hypothesis, let him teach not what has been said, but the opposite: to break the law, to be impious, to wrong, to be greedy, to defraud, and whatever other evil might be named; and above all to take care to escape notice, and to hide his character very cleverly under the pretense of venerable teaching and a new profession of piety. And let them pursue these things, and things still worse, because of the readiness of wickedness and its being self-taught; and let them exalt their teacher greatly with invented words, sparing no lie, and ascribing falsely to him all the marvels and miracles, so that they themselves might be admired and called blessed, as having been counted worthy to become disciples of such a man.

Come, then, let us see whether, if they were such, the undertaking could hold together. They say that bad is not friend to bad, nor indeed to good. Whence, then, was the agreement of bad men found in so great a number of men? Whence their unanimous testimony about the same things, their like-mindedness unto death? And who would have paid any attention at all to a sorcerer teaching such things and making such promises? You might say that the others were sorcerers no less than their leader. Did they not, then, see the end of their teacher and what death he suffered? Why, then, even after that most shameful end of his, did they remain, making a god of the one among the dead, or what did they desire, to suffer the same? And who ever, for no reason, would choose such an evident punishment?

And granted that they honored him while he was still with them and spending time with them, and, as one might say, leading them astray by deceit: why, then, did they make a god of him after his death, and much more then than before? For while he remained among men they are said to have abandoned and denied him once, when the plot against him was contrived; but after he had departed from among men they gladly chose to die rather than give up their good testimony on his behalf.

If, then, they knew nothing good of their teacher, no life, no lesson, no deed, no work worthy of praise, and had not been benefited by him in anything, except as far as wickedness and the deceiving of men, how did they die eagerly testifying venerable and glorious things about him, when each could have lived untroubled and passed a life free of danger at his own hearth with his dearest?

And how would deceivers and impostors count it welcome to die for another, whom they knew more exactly than anyone to have been, as one might say, the cause of no good to them, but a teacher of all wickedness? A man who shares in reason and virtue might reasonably endure a glorious death for a good achievement; but one wicked in character, fond of passions and pleasures, pursuing only this temporary life and its pleasures, would never choose death before life, nor endure punishments for his own dearest, much less for one condemned for baseness.

How, then, did the disciples of the man in question, if he was a deceiver and sorcerer, not ignorant that he was such, and themselves held in their souls by a worse kind of wickedness, endure to accept at the hands of their own countrymen every outrage and every kind of punishment for their testimony to him, this not being proper to the nature of the base?

And consider this too: if they were themselves deceivers and impostors, and add that they were uneducated and utterly unlearned, or rather barbarians, understanding no more than the Syrian language, how did they go out into the whole world? Or with what purpose did they imagine daring this? And by what power did they accomplish what they undertook?

Grant that rustic men wallowing in their own land might deceive and be deceived, and the matter not be dropped quietly; but to proclaim to all the name of Jesus and teach his marvelous deeds in country and city, and that some of them should take as their lot the Roman empire and the very imperial city itself, others the Persian, others the Armenian, others the Parthian nation, and again the Scythian, and some even reach the very ends of the world, arriving at the land of the Indians, and others crossing the Ocean to the so-called British Isles: this I no longer think to be a human thing, much less the work of common and unlearned men, and far less of deceivers and sorcerers.

And they, having experienced a base and perverting teacher and having seen the outcome of his end, what words did they use to one another to invent agreeing stories about him? For with one mouth they all testified to cleansings of lepers, expulsions of demons, raisings of the dead, sight for the blind, and countless other healings of the sick done by him, and above all his return to life after death, seen by them first.

For how did they testify with one mouth that these things had happened, when they had not happened nor been heard of in their times, confirming their confession even to death? Or did they perhaps come together, make a conspiracy at the same time, and agree with one another to invent and falsely tell of things that had not happened?

And with what words is it plausible to say they made their agreement? Perhaps with such as these: “Friends, the man who yesterday and the day before, a deceiver and a teacher of error, underwent the ultimate punishment before the eyes of us all, what sort of man he was we know most exactly of all, having been initiated into his secrets. He seemed venerable to the many, and thought himself to have something more than the many; but he brought nothing great or worthy of a resurrection, unless one names the deceit and treachery of his character, and his teaching us perverse things, and his pride through deceit.

In return for this, come, let us give each other our right hands and all agree together to carry out to all people a unanimous deception about him, and let us say we saw him grant sight to the blind, which none of us ever witnessed; and give hearing to the deaf, which none of us ever heard; and cleanse lepers and raise the dead. In a word, let us insist that what we neither saw done by him nor heard said were truly done.

But since his last end had a notorious and conspicuous death, so that it cannot be hidden, let us undo this too without shame, testifying quite shamelessly that after he came to life again from the dead he was with all of us and shared a common hearth and table. Let shamelessness and brazenness be kept by us all; let our resolve remain until death. For what is absurd in dying for nothing? What harm is there in receiving scourges and tortures on the body for no good reason, and, if need be, experiencing prisons, dishonors, and insults for nothing true? Let this be our practice already.

Let us all lie together in agreement, and invent for the benefit of no one, neither ourselves nor those deceived, nor even of the one falsely deified by us.

Let us extend the lie not only to our own countrymen, but go out to all people and fill the whole world with our inventions about him. And from now on let us legislate for all the nations things contrary to their age-old beliefs about their ancestral gods.

Let us command the Romans themselves, first of all, not to worship those whom their forefathers held to be gods; let us go on to Greece too and preach against their wise men; let us not spare the Egyptians either, but make war on their gods, not holding up against them the things Moses once did against them,

but setting against them, as a kind of terror, the death of our teacher; and the age-old repute of their gods, which has gone out from them to all people, let us overthrow not with phrases and words but by the power of our crucified teacher. Let us go off to the rest of the barbarian land too, and overturn everything among them all. And let none of us fall short in zeal.

For the prize of our daring is not small, since no ordinary rewards await us, but the punishments, as is likely, under the laws of each people: bonds, that is, and tortures and prisons, fire and sword, crosses and wild beasts. For these we must be most eager, and advance to meet the evils together, since we have our teacher as an example.

For what could be finer than to become enemies of gods and men for no reason, never to enjoy anything pleasant, nor to profit from our dearest, nor to get money, nor to have hope of any good at all, but to be deceived and deceive at random and in vain? For this was the advantage: to be carried against all the nations, to make war on the gods acknowledged by all from time immemorial, and to proclaim that the teacher before our own eyes is God and the Son of God, for whom we are ready to die ourselves, though we have learned nothing true or useful from him.

In this way, then, we must honor him all the more, though he [benefited] us in nothing; we must do everything to glorify his name, endure every insult and punishment, and accept every manner of death for nothing true. For truth is perhaps an evil, and falsehood has the opposite of evil.

Therefore let us say that he raised the dead, cleansed lepers, drove out demons, and performed other marvelous works, though we know nothing of the kind about him, but invent everything ourselves, deceiving whom we can; and if anyone is not persuaded, we at least draw upon ourselves the wages of the deception for what we have agreed.”

Do these things seem plausible to you, or do such things seem to hold to true reason? Could anyone persuade himself that common and unlearned men, having invented such things and agreed together, went to the Roman empire? Or that human nature, which has the love of life as its own, could ever endure a self-chosen death for nothing? Or that our Savior’s disciples went to such an extreme of madness as to have seen nothing marvelous done by him, but to have invented all such things together by agreement, and then, having composed false phrases about him, to be ready to endure death for them? But what do you say? That they did not expect or suppose they would suffer anything terrible from their testimony about Jesus, and therefore went out fearlessly to preach him? But it was not likely that those who introduced the overthrow of the gods to Romans, Greeks, and barbarians alike would fail to expect that they would suffer everything for his sake.

The history about them shows clearly that after their teacher’s death some plotters seized them, first put them in prison, and then released them, ordering them to speak to no one in the name of Jesus; but learning afterward that they were publicly speaking to the crowd about him, they seized them and scourged them, rebuking them for their teaching.

Then Peter again answered them: “We must obey God rather than men.” After this Stephen is killed with stones, having spoken boldly before the Jewish crowd, and no ordinary persecution arises against those who honored the name of Jesus.

And again at another time Herod, king of the Jews, killed James the brother of John with the sword, and the same man put Peter in chains, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles. And when these had suffered this, the other disciples, holding fast to Jesus, remained, proclaiming him and his marvelous works to all still more.

After these, James the brother of the Lord, whom the former inhabitants of Jerusalem called the Just because of his excellence in virtue, when asked by the high priests and teachers of the Jewish nation what opinion he held about Christ, and answering that he was the Son of God, was himself stoned by them.

And Peter is crucified head downward at Rome, Paul is beheaded, and John is consigned to an island. And when these had suffered this, none of the rest departed from his purpose, but, praying that they too might meet the same fate as those mentioned for the sake of piety toward God, they bore witness to Jesus and his marvelous works with boldness all the more.

And indeed, if they were lies invented by agreement, it is worth wondering how so great a number kept agreement over the inventions even to death, and none of them ever, fearing what befell those put to death before, left the fellowship, or preached against the others, bringing to light what had been agreed; but even the one who dared to betray him while living at once brought justice on himself with his own hand.

And how is this not full of astonishment, that deceivers and unlearned men, knowing how to speak and understand no more than their native language, should not only dare to think of going out on a circuit of all the nations, but, having gone out, should succeed in the undertaking? Consider too what it means that no one anywhere put forward a discordant account of the deeds of Jesus.

For if in all disputed matters, both in legal courts and in common disputes, the agreement of witnesses confirms what is disputed (“at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established”), how would the truth not be established here, when there were twelve apostles and seventy disciples, and a countless multitude besides, all showing wonderful agreement, and bearing witness to what was done by Jesus not without sweat, but through endurance of tortures and every outrage and death; and above all being attested by God, who still now and for all ages strengthens the word they proclaimed?

Let these things be worked out, then, from an absurd starting point granted by concession. For to suppose the opposite of what is written, and to say that Jesus was a teacher not of sober words but of injustice, greed, and all licentiousness, and that his disciples, taught such things by him, became the most unscrupulous and wicked of men who ever lived, was conceded by us as a hypothesis. This was the most absurd thing of all, as if, when Moses says in his laws, “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness,” someone should slander him, saying that he said these things in irony and pretense;

that he wanted his subjects to murder and commit adultery and do the opposite of what he legislates, but pretended and feigned and played the part of a venerable life. In this way one might slander the precepts of the Greek philosophers too, their life of endurance, and all their words, saying that they were disposed and lived contrary to what they wrote, and pretended hypocritically to choose the philosophic life.

In this way one might slander, in a word, all the histories of the ancients, rejecting the truth in them and taking what they show in the opposite sense.

But as no sensible person would hesitate to declare such a man mad, so too with the words and teachings of the Savior, if anyone, distorting the truth, tried to attach to him an opinion contrary to what he taught.

Nevertheless this too was granted as a hypothesis, so that, even over and above and by an absurd concession, the incoherence of the opposing argument might appear.

This having been refuted, come, let us return to the truth of the sacred scriptures and look at the character of Jesus’ disciples. How would anyone sensible not judge them worthy of all acceptance: men admittedly common and unlearned in speech, who yet came to a love of pious and philosophical teaching, and embraced a life of endurance and toil, achieved through fasting, abstinence from wine and meat, and much other humbling of the body, through prayers and supplications to God, and much earlier through supreme self-control and purity of body and soul?

And who would not admire them for renouncing, through an abundance of philosophy, even the wives permitted them by law, being neither drawn down by natural pleasure nor enslaved by desire for children and descendants, since they longed not for mortal offspring but for immortal?

And who would not be astonished at their freedom from love of money? One can infer this from the fact that they did not flee but embraced a teacher who forbade the possession of gold and silver and legislated that they should not increase their property even to a second tunic. Someone hearing this might perhaps have refused the hardness of the command; but they are shown to have turned the word into deed. At any rate, when a lame man once asked Peter and those with him for alms (he was one of those who begged food through utter poverty), Peter, having nothing to give, confessed that he was free of all possession of gold and silver, saying: “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk.”

And when their teacher foretold gloomy things to them, and they attended to what he said to them, “In the world you have tribulation,” and again, “You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice,” how were they not plainly firm and deep in character, not fleeing the exercises of the soul nor pursuing what leads to pleasure? And how does it not show that the teacher did not win them over by charming them with deceit and holding out what was agreeable, but put into them the choice of his way of life by prophesying with free and true speech what would happen? Such too were the things that would happen to them for his name’s sake, in which he foretold and testified that they would be led before governors, reach even to kings, and endure every kind of punishment, for nothing base, nor for any other reasonable cause, but entirely for his name’s sake.

One can be astonished at the prediction, seeing it at work to this day; for the confession of the name of Jesus usually inflames the anger of rulers.

For even if nothing base has been done by one who confesses Christ, they punish him nonetheless, torturing him for his name as worse than all criminals; but if anyone abjures the name and denies being one of Christ’s disciples, he is released at once, free, even if he is caught guilty of countless offenses.

And why need I collect countless things in trying to describe the character of our Savior’s apostles, when what has been said suffices to prove the point? Adding this further, I will pass on to the other band of slanderers.

The apostle Matthew did not start his former life from a respectable occupation, but from those engaged in tax-collecting and greed. None of the evangelists made this known, not his fellow apostle John, nor Luke, nor Mark, but Matthew himself, publishing his own life and becoming his own accuser.

Hear, at any rate, how he mentions himself expressly by name in the gospel written by him, speaking this way: “And as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man sitting at the tax office, named Matthew, and said to him, Follow me; and he rose and followed him. And it came to pass, as he reclined in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners reclined with Jesus and his disciples.” And again, going on, listing the catalogue of the disciples, he adds to himself the name of tax collector.

He says, then: “The names of the twelve apostles are these: first Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector.”

So Matthew, through an abundance of modesty showing the truthfulness of his own character, called himself a tax collector, not hiding his former life, and listed himself second after his partner.

For being paired with Thomas, as Peter with Andrew, James with John, and Philip with Bartholomew, he places Thomas before himself, honoring his fellow apostle as better, while the other evangelists did the opposite. Hear Luke, at any rate, how, mentioning Matthew, he does not call him a tax collector nor place him under Thomas, but, knowing him to be greater, lists him first and brings in Thomas second.

As Mark too did. His words run thus: “And when it was day, he called his disciples, and choosing twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he also called Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas.”

So Luke honored Matthew, according to what was handed down to him by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. And you would find John like Matthew.

For in his letters he makes no mention of his own name, or calls himself the elder, but nowhere apostle or evangelist; and in the gospel, indicating the one whom Jesus loved, he did not name himself. And Peter did not even undertake to write a gospel, through excess of reverence.

Mark, having become his acquaintance and pupil, is said to have recorded Peter’s accounts of the deeds of Jesus. And coming to that part of the story where Jesus asked who people said he was, and what opinion his disciples themselves held about him, and Peter answered that he was the Christ, Mark writes that Jesus made no answer and said nothing to him, but that he warned them to tell no one about him.

For Mark was not present at what Jesus said, and Peter did not think it right to bring forward on his own testimony what Jesus said to him and about him. What was said to him Matthew shows in these words: “But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it; and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Though so much was said to Peter by Jesus, Mark mentions none of it, since Peter, as is likely, did not declare these things in his teachings. See what he says when Jesus asked: “Peter answered and said to him, You are the Christ. And he warned them to tell no one about him.”

These things, then, Peter fittingly thought should be passed over in silence; therefore Mark too left them out. But his denial he proclaimed to all people, since he also wept bitterly over it.

You would find Mark, at any rate, recording this about him: “And while Peter was in the courtyard, one of the high priest’s maidservants came to him, and seeing him warming himself, she looked at him and said, You too were with Jesus the Nazarene. But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you are saying. And he went out into the outer forecourt, and a cock crowed. And the maidservant, seeing him again, began to say to those standing by, This man is one of them.

But he denied it again. And after a little while those standing by said again to Peter, Truly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean. But he began to curse and swear, I do not know this man of whom you speak. And immediately a cock crowed a second time.”

Mark writes this, but Peter testifies it about himself; for everything in Mark is said to be a record of Peter’s discourses. Those, then, who declined what seemed likely to bring them good repute, but recorded for all ages the slanders against themselves and the accusations of their offenses, which no one afterward would have known unless he had learned them from their own voice, publishing them against themselves, how would they not justly be acknowledged to have been free of all self-love and lying, and to have given clear and evident proofs of a truth-loving disposition?

And those who think such men invented and lied, and try to blaspheme them as deceivers, how would they not become ridiculous, caught as friends of envy and malice and enemies of truth itself? For they suppose that men who showed through their own words so guileless, unfeigned, and truly pure a character were crafty and clever sophists, who invented what was not and generously ascribed to their teacher what he did not do. It seems to me well said that one must either believe Jesus’ disciples in everything or not at all; and if these men alone are to be disbelieved, then so must all who ever, among Greeks or barbarians, wrote lives, words, and memoirs of those in each age renowned for good achievements; or else it is reasonable to believe the others and disbelieve these alone.

And how is the envy not evident? What then? Did those who lied about their teacher, and handed down in their writing what did not happen, also lie about his sufferings? I mean the betrayal by one disciple, the accusation by false informers, the mockery and ridicule of the judges, the insults and blows to his face, the scourges on his back, the crown of thorns put on him for dishonor, the scarlet robe thrown around him in the form of a cloak, and at last his carrying the very trophy of the cross, being fixed on it and pierced through hands and feet, given vinegar to drink, struck on the cheek with a reed, and reviled by the onlookers?

But either these things too, and all similar things recorded with them, must have been invented by his disciples, or we must believe them as most truthful in these things and disbelieve them in the glorious and more venerable ones.

And on what ground will the contrary opinion about them stand? For to say that the same men tell the truth and at the same time lie is nothing other than to say contraries about the same things at once.

What, then, is the proof of this? If their aim had been to invent and to adorn their teacher with false words, they would never have recorded what was mentioned before, nor shown to later generations that he was grieved and distressed and troubled in soul, that they themselves abandoned him and went off, or that Peter, preferred above all as his apostle and disciple, without tortures or threats from rulers, denied him three times. These things, even if others said them, those whose only aim was to bestow more venerable things on their teacher should surely have denied.

And if they appear truth-loving in the sad narratives about him, much more would they be so in the more glorious ones. For those who had once chosen to lie should rather have escaped the painful things, either by silence or by denying them, since later generations could not otherwise have exposed what was passed over in silence.

For why did they not lie and say that Judas, who betrayed him with a kiss, daring to show the sign of betrayal, was at once turned to stone; that the one who dared to strike him had his right hand withered on the spot; and that the high priest Caiaphas, as joining in with the false accusers against him, was struck blind?

And why did they not all lie that nothing sad really happened to him, but that he became invisible, laughing at their court, while the plotters, misled by a God-sent illusion, thought they were acting against him when he was not present? What then? Would it not have been more venerable than inventing that he performed such marvelous works to write that nothing human or mortal happened to him, but that, having ordered everything by divine power, he made his return to heaven with more divine glory? For those who believed their other narratives would not have disbelieved these.

Those, then, who falsified nothing of the truth in the unseemly and sad matters, how would they not deserve to stand beyond base suspicion also in the rest, in which they testified to his marvelous works? The testimony of these men about our Savior is sufficient. But nothing prevents us, over and above, from using as a witness Josephus, of the Hebrews, who in the eighteenth book of the Jewish Antiquities, recounting events in the times of Pilate, mentions our Savior in these words:

“At about that time there arises Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man. For he was a doer of marvelous works, a teacher of men who revere the truth. And he won over many of the Jews and many also of the Greeks. This was the Christ. And when Pilate, on the indictment of the leading men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him at first did not cease.

For he appeared to them on the third day alive again, the divine prophets having said these and countless other things about him. Hence to this day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.”

If, then, according to the historian too, he is attested to have made his own not only the twelve apostles and the seventy disciples, but to have brought over many of the Jews and many of the Greeks, he would clearly have possessed something beyond other men.

For how else would he have brought over many of the Jews and the Greeks, unless he had used certain wonderful and marvelous works and a strange teaching? The book of the Acts of the Apostles also testifies that there were many tens of thousands of Jewish men persuaded that he was the Christ of God, the one proclaimed by the prophets. And history holds that there was a very great church of Christ in Jerusalem, formed of Jews, until the times of the siege under Hadrian.

The first bishops who presided there in succession are said, at any rate, to have been Jews, whose names are still remembered among the local people. So by this too every slander against his disciples is dissolved, since, by their own account and apart from their testimony, it is acknowledged that Jesus the Christ of God himself brought countless multitudes of Jews and Greeks under himself by the marvelous works he performed.

Having said this much to the first order of unbelievers, come, let us oppose the second band too. This was that of those who agree that Jesus did the marvelous works, but by sorcery, to deceive the onlookers, astonishing those present like a wonder-worker or a sorcerer.

First of all we must ask these what they would say to what has gone before. Is it possible to conceive that a man who was a teacher of a venerable and all-virtuous way of life, and of sound and true doctrines, such as we have described, was a sorcerer in character? And if he was a trickster and sorcerer, deceiver and charlatan, how would he have become the cause of such teaching for all the nations, as we see with our eyes and receive with our ears to this day? And who would choose to join things that cannot be joined? For a sorcerer, truly unholy and foul in character, attempting forbidden and unholy things, does everything for shameful and sordid gain.

Was our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, then guilty of any such things? How, or in what way, when he said to his own disciples, as they testify, “Acquire neither gold nor silver in your belts, nor a bag for the road, nor sandals”? [How] would they have obeyed him when he said this, and thought fit to hand it down in written memoirs, if they had seen their teacher making money and doing the opposite of what he taught others?

They would long ago have laughed at him, spat on his words, and rightly left his discipleship, if they had seen him solemnly legislating such things for them while the lawgiver himself in no way followed his own words.

Again, the sorcerer and true deceiver gives himself to forbidden and unholy things in pursuit of unholy and unlawful pleasures, so as by his tricks to overcome certain women and drag them into his wickedness. But of our Savior and Lord one cannot even say how highly he regarded self-control, since again his disciples testify that he urged not even looking at a woman with licentious desire, saying: “It was said to the ancients, You shall not commit adultery; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

And once, when they saw him speaking of necessity with a Samaritan woman for the benefit and salvation of many, they marveled that he was talking with a woman, and at another time before. The account of our Savior shows the gravity and austerity of his character; and a great proof of his self-control was that teaching too by which he taught people to be pure, cutting off passionate desires from the very depth of the mind, saying: “There are eunuchs who were born so, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”

Again, the sorcerer and true deceiver of the people attempts and does everything to court reputation and to make a show, boasting that he knows and has more than the many. But that our Savior and Lord was not mad for glory, boastful, or showy would be evident from the fact that when he healed he urged them to tell no one nor to make him known to many, and from his pursuing stays on mountains and retreats and fleeing the harmful company of the many in the cities.

If, then, he undertook his teaching neither for glory nor for money nor for pleasure, what room is left for the suspicion that he was a deceiver and sorcerer? And consider this again: a sorcerer, when he imparts his wickedness to others, what kind of men does he make? Are they not sorcerers, deceivers, and poisoners like himself in everything? Who, then, has ever found the whole race of Christians practicing sorcery or poisoning from his teaching?

That cannot be said; on the contrary, they pursue philosophical words, as has been shown. The one, then, who has become the cause for others of a venerable and self-controlled life and of the highest piety, who could justly be considered anything but the first of philosophers and the teacher of pious men? For every teacher is surely better than those he teaches; so our Savior and Lord would be acknowledged a philosopher and truly pious, far from a deceiver and sorcerer.

If, then, he was such, how else would he have undertaken his miracles but by a divine and secret power and the highest piety toward the God of all, whom he is shown, from his words about him, to have honored and revered above all as Father? And so far did his disciples who followed him from the beginning, and their successors afterward, stand from base and wicked suspicion, that they do not even, for the sick, [use incantations,] as many try to do many things, or use inscriptions on metal leaves and amulets, or attend to those who profess to charm with spells, or provide themselves with remedies for their afflictions by fumigations of roots and herbs and other such means.

All these things, at any rate, have been driven out of Christ’s teaching; nor can one ever see a Christian using an amulet, or charms, or inscriptions on curious metal leaves, or other things whose use the many have considered indifferent.

What reason, then, compels us to think that they were disciples of such a sorcerer and deceiver as teacher? Indeed, for anyone who professes something, the company of his pupils is a great proof.

Skilled and knowledgeable men, at any rate, surely show the one who caused their knowledge to be far superior to themselves; so medical men would be witnesses to their teacher’s success in the subject; and whom else would geometers inscribe as their master but a geometer, and arithmeticians an arithmetician? In the same way the pupils of a sorcerer would be the greatest witnesses to him, practicing things like their teacher.

But in so many years no disciple of Jesus has ever appeared as a sorcerer, although the governors and kings of each age have made an exact examination of our affairs through the test of tortures.

So far was anyone from being a sorcerer that the one compelled by them merely to sacrifice was let go free and out of all danger. And if none of our own time, nor of those ancient disciples of Jesus, was ever convicted of sorcery, neither was the teacher such. And so that our argument may not proceed from unwritten sources, receive the proofs from written history too.

The first disciples of Jesus, in the book of their own Acts, are recorded [to have so changed] those who came to their teaching from the nations that many who had formerly been accused of sorcery changed their character so much as to dare to bring into the open their forbidden books and hand them over to the fire before all.

Hear how the scripture has it: “And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them before all; and they counted up their value and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.”

Such were our Savior’s disciples, bringing such power of words to their discourses to their hearers as to reach the depth of their soul, to take hold of and wound each one’s conscience, so that they no longer kept things hidden but brought their secrets into the open and became accusers of themselves and of their former wickedness.

And such too were those taught by them, pure and sincere in disposition, so that nothing treacherous lay hidden in them, but they took pride and spoke boldly about their change from worse to better.

Those, then, who handed over their magic books to the fire and voted their complete destruction, how would they not be plain to all as having no further interest in sorcery, and as free from then on of all suspicion of it? Since, then, our Savior’s disciples have appeared to have been such, how much more their teacher?

And if you wish to judge from his followers altogether what sort of man their leader was, you have still now countless disciples of Jesus’ words, among whom are very great multitudes of men who have fought against the natural pleasures of the body and kept their mind unwounded by every shameful passion, who, growing old their whole life in continence, have presented brilliant proofs of the nourishment they received from his words.

And not only men follow this philosophy with him, but one cannot say how many tens of thousands of women throughout the whole world, like priestesses of the God of all, have embraced the highest wisdom and, seized by love of heavenly wisdom, have disregarded offspring of the flesh, and, devoting all their care to the soul, have consecrated themselves wholly, body and soul, to the King and God of all, practicing complete purity and virginity.

The children of the Greeks carry about, here and there, one man who left his own country to be grazed by sheep on the pretext of philosophy: this was their Democritus. And one Crates is admired among them, because he left his property to his fellow citizens and boasted, “Crates sets Crates free.”

But the zealous followers of the words of Jesus, numbering tens of thousands and not one or two, have sold their possessions and shared them with the poor and needy. We ourselves are witnesses of this, having been in the company of such people and having seen with our own eyes the achievements of the discipleship of Jesus in deeds themselves, and not in words only.

What need is there to say how many tens of thousands, even of barbarians themselves and not of Greeks only, have through the words of Jesus risen above all the error of many gods and have borne witness that they know as God only the Father and Maker of this universe? Of old, Plato alone among the philosophers knew him, yet confessed that he did not dare to publish this to everyone, saying expressly: “To find the Father and Maker of this universe is a hard task, and having found him, it is impossible to declare him to all.”

To him the matter seemed a hard task to find, and so it truly was, a very great one; and it was impossible for him to declare it to all, because he did not possess such power of piety as the disciples of Jesus had. For them, through the cooperation of their Teacher, it became easy to find and to know the Father and Maker of all things, and, having found him, to carry the knowledge out to every race of mankind, to reveal it, fill the world with it, and proclaim it to all. So, from their teaching, even now at the present time, in all the nations on earth countless multitudes, not only of men but also of women and children, of household slaves and country folk, so far disbelieve Plato as to know the Maker and Creator of this universe as the only God, to worship him alone, and to confess God through Christ alone. These were the achievements of the “new and novel sorcerer”; such were the “sorceries” of the one supposed to be a deceiver; and such were the disciples of Jesus, from whom one must recognize what sort of teacher he was.

Come, let us examine the argument in this way too. You call him a sorcerer, sir, and you name him a clever poisoner and a deceiver. Was he, then, himself the first and only inventor of the practice, or must the cause by all means, as follows logically, be traced back to teachers? If with no one teaching him he became the first and only inventor of the undertaking, learning nothing at all from others and borrowing nothing from the ancients, how must one not confess him to be of a divine nature, since without books, discourses, or teachers, self-taught and self-instructed, he appeared as the discoverer of such things? For it is impossible to take up the learning even of a manual craft or a rational science, or indeed of the first letters of the alphabet, without a guide and teacher, unless one has gone beyond common nature.

At any rate, no one ever came before us as a self-taught teacher of grammar, nor a rhetorician who had not learned, nor a physician by nature, nor a carpenter, nor a craftsman of any other art; and yet these are small and human things. But to say that the teacher of true piety to mankind, who performed such wonders during the time he dwelt in this life and worked such astonishing marvels as we have just recounted, sprang up such as he was of himself, neither borrowing from the ancients nor helped by recent teachers who had done similar things before him, what else is this but the testimony and confession of people who admit that the one in question was truly a divine being and surpassed all human nature?

But you say that he attended deceiving teachers, and that the wisdom of the Egyptians and the secret lore of those long reputed among them did not escape him, and that, having gathered from them, he was shown to be such a man as the account presents. What then? Have any others appeared, greater than he, earlier in time, and his teachers, whether in Egypt or anywhere else?

Why, then, did not their fame too reach all mankind before the accusation against him, or why is their renown not still sung even now as our Savior’s is? Which sorcerer from the beginning of time, barbarian or Greek, ever became the teacher of such pupils and the author of such laws and doctrines as the power of our Savior has displayed? And who is ever recorded as having performed so many healings and such astonishing benefits as our Savior is remembered to have done?

Whose followers and eyewitnesses of the events confirmed, by the test of fire and sword, the truth of what they testified, as the disciples of our Savior did, who endured every outrage, bore every kind of torture, and finally confirmed with their own blood the things they had testified about him?

Further, let the one who stands on the side of the argument opposed to us say which sorcerer ever so much as conceived the idea of founding a new nation under his own name. And not only to conceive this but to accomplish what he intended: how would that not surpass all human nature? And to lay down laws against idolatry in opposition to the decrees of kings and of ancient lawgivers, philosophers, poets, and theologians, to make these laws prevail, and to show them unconquerable and undefeated for a long age: what sorcerer ever thought of this? But our Savior and Lord did not conceive it and then fail to dare to attempt it; nor did he attempt it and then fail to achieve it.

With one word and one utterance he said to his disciples, “Go and make disciples of all the nations in my name, teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you,” and he added the deed to the word. At once, in a short time, every race of Greeks and barbarians alike was being made disciples, and laws were sown among all the nations contrary to the superstition of the ancients: laws hostile to demons and enemies of all the error of many gods; laws that brought Scythians, Persians, and other barbarians to self-control and turned them from every lawless and brutish way of life; laws that overturned the customs held from of old among the Greeks themselves and proclaimed a new and true piety.

What, then, did the sorcerers of old, before the times of Jesus, or indeed after them, ever dare that was like this or even close to it, so that one might reasonably say he was helped by others in the arts of sorcery? But if no one could name anyone who was like him, since no one was the cause of such great virtue in him, it is time, then, to confess that a strange and divine nature visited our life, which alone and first accomplished things never before recorded among men. But let this matter end here.

Again we must turn to our opponent, and ask whether he has ever seen with his eyes or learned by hearsay of sorcerers and poisoners practicing sorcery without libations, sacrifices, and the invocation and presence of demons. Can anyone, then, bring such a charge against our Savior, or against his words, or against those who even now emulate his life? Is it not plain even to a blind man that we who hold the doctrines of Jesus practice the very opposite of these things, more ready to give up our life in death than to offer sacrifice to demons, and sooner departing from life than consenting to be enslaved to the evil demons?

Who does not know how we love to drive away every work of demons with the very name of Jesus and with the purest prayers? This word of Jesus and the teaching that comes from him have made all of us far stronger than this invisible power, and have prepared us to be enemies and foes of the demons, not their friends or familiars, still less their subjects and underlings.

How, then, could he who made us such have himself been a slave of demons? How could he have sacrificed to evil spirits? Or how could he have called on demons as helpers in his wonders, when even to this day every demon and every unclean spirit shudders at the name of Jesus as at something that punishes and torments its own nature, and withdraws and gives way before the power of that name?

So also long ago, during the time he dwelt in this life, the demons could not bear his presence, and one cried from here and another from there, “Ah, what have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come before the time to torment us?” But a man wholly devoted to sorcery, and surely engaging in forbidden practices, would plainly be unholy in character, defiled, shameful, godless, unjust, and impious. Being such, from where or how would he teach others about piety, or self-control, or the knowledge of God, or the judgment seat and judgment of the God over all? Would he not champion the opposite of all these, acting in keeping with his own wickedness, and deny God, God’s providence, and God’s judgment, and mock the teachings about virtue and the immortality of the soul?

If, then, anything of this kind could be seen in our Savior and Lord, there would be nothing to say. But if he is shown in every deed and word calling upon God, the Father and Maker of all, and preparing his pupils to be like this; if he was himself self-controlled and a teacher of self-controlled words; and if he was a doer and herald of righteousness, truth, love for mankind, and every virtue, and one who brought in the worship of God the King of all: how does it not follow that we should think he did none of his wonders by sorcery, and confess that he did them by an ineffable and truly divine power?

But you drive on to such harshness that you pay no attention to sound reasoning and logical argument and are not persuaded by probable evidence, perhaps suspecting us who say these things. Then at least listen to your own demons, the very gods who give oracles, bearing witness to our Savior, not of sorcery as you do, but of piety, wisdom, and ascent into heaven. What confession of theirs could be more trustworthy for you than the writing of our own enemy, which he set down in the third book of the work he entitled On the Philosophy from Oracles, recounting word for word as follows?

“What we are about to say may perhaps seem paradoxical to some. For the gods have declared Christ to have been most pious and to have become immortal, and they speak of him with praise.” And lower down he adds: “At any rate, when some asked about Christ whether he is a god, Hecate says: ‘That the immortal soul goes on after the body, you know; but when cut off from wisdom it wanders forever. That soul belongs to a man foremost in piety.’ So she said he was most pious, and that his soul, like those of others, was made immortal after death, and that the Christians worship it in ignorance. And when they asked further why he was punished, she gave the oracle: ‘The body is ever exposed to feeble torments; but the soul of the pious sits in the heavenly plain.’”

And after the oracle he adds next: “He himself, then, was pious and went to heaven, as the pious do. So you will not blaspheme him, but you will pity the folly of men.”

So says Porphyry even now. Was this man, then, a deceiver? Let at least the friendly words of your own people put you to shame. You have, therefore, our Savior Jesus, the Christ of God, acknowledged even by your own people not as a sorcerer or poisoner, but as pious, most righteous, wise, and a dweller in the vaults of heaven.

How, then, could such a one have become the doer of astonishing works otherwise than by divine power? The sacred oracles bear him witness to this, testifying that the Word of God and the supreme Power of God dwelt in human form and shape, or rather in flesh and body itself, and accomplished the whole saving dispensation among men.

You yourself would learn the divine character of his power if you considered who and how great he must be by nature, who took to himself humble men from fishing and a lowly life and used them as ministers for achieving a thing that surpasses all words.

For having conceived what no one ever had, to sow his own laws and a strange teaching among all the nations and to show himself the teacher of every race of men in the worship of the one God over all, he thought fit to use the most rustic and humble men of all as servants of his plan. One might well suppose that he did this in a most unreasonable way.

For how could men who could not even open their mouths become teachers even of a single person, let alone of an assembly of men? How could those who had had no education at all speak to a crowd? But this, then, was what displayed the divine plan and the divine power at work in them. At any rate, when he called them first he said, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

And when he had gained them as followers, he breathed divine power into them and filled them with strength and courage. And, as one who was truly the Word of God and himself God, the doer of such great wonders, he made them hunters of intelligent and rational souls, adding the deed to the saying, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Having now made them both workers and teachers of piety, he sent them out to all the nations, appointing them heralds of his teaching.

And who would not be astonished, and reasonably disbelieve, at the strangeness of the wonder? For no one of all the distinguished men who ever lived, no king, no lawgiver, no philosopher, no Greek, no barbarian, is recorded to have conceived anything like this, or even to have imagined anything similar. Each would have been content if he had established his own profession in his own land alone, and could make the laws he thought good prevail even in his own single nation. But he, who conceived nothing mortal and human, see whether he did not truly again utter the voice of God, saying word for word to those most humble disciples of his, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.”

“And how,” the disciples would surely have answered their Teacher, “will this be possible for us? How, tell us, shall we preach to the Romans? How shall we converse with the Egyptians? What language shall we use with the Greeks, men brought up in the Syrian tongue alone?

And the Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Indians, and whatever barbarian nations there may be, how shall we persuade them to depart from their ancestral gods and to worship the one Maker of all? With what sufficiency of speech shall we take courage and set out on this? Or what hope of success shall we have when we dare to legislate against the laws laid down from all ages among all the nations about their own gods? And by what power can we prevail in so bold an undertaking?”

When the disciples of Jesus would likely have said or thought these things, the Teacher gave them the solution of their difficulties by adding a single phrase, saying they would succeed “in my name.” For he did not command them simply and without qualification to make disciples of all the nations, but with the necessary addition, “in his name.”

For since the power of his name was such that the apostle said, “God has given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth,” he rightly showed the excellence of the power in his name, hidden from most people, when he said to his disciples, “Go and make disciples of all the nations in my name.”

Then he also foretold the future very exactly, saying, “This gospel must be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations.” Yet the word was spoken then in a corner of the earth, and only those present heard it. How, then, was he believed when he said this to them, unless they had gained proof of the truth of his words from the other divine works he had done? For if you reason it out, you must admit that they believed what he said.

For no one disobeyed his command; but obeying his nod, they made disciples of every race of men according to what had been commanded, setting out from their own land to all the nations, and in a short time the words could be seen as deeds. The gospel, at any rate, was preached in a short time in the whole world as a testimony to the nations, and barbarians and Greeks received the writings about Jesus in their native characters and native speech.

And yet who would not reasonably be puzzled as to what, then, was the manner of teaching of Jesus’ disciples? Did they go into the middle of a city, then stand in the marketplace, raise their voices and call together the passers-by, and then address the people? And what, then, was the speech of their address, by which the hearers could plausibly have been persuaded? And how could men address the people who were unskilled in speaking and had no share in any education?

But suppose they did not speak to crowds but individually to whoever they met. What words, then, and of what kind, did they use to persuade their hearers, since their struggle was no small one if they did not deny the shameful death of the one they proclaimed?

For if they had concealed this, and had not confessed to everyone what things and how many he suffered at the hands of the Jews, and had brought forward only the dignified and glorious things (I mean his wonders, his astonishing deeds, and his philosophical teachings), even so their message would not have been easy, to make their hearers readily assent, when they heard a foreign speech and were hearing new words for the first time from men who offered nothing trustworthy in witness of what they said. Still, what they said would have seemed more plausible.

But as it was, at one time they said that the God they proclaimed had come to be in a human body and was by nature nothing other than the Word of God, and therefore had done such astonishing mighty works as God; and at another time, in contrast, that he had endured insults and dishonor, and finally the most shameful punishment of the cross, reserved for the worst criminals of all. Who would not reasonably have spat on them as men contradicting themselves?

Who was so foolish as easily to believe men who said they had seen him come back to life from the dead after his death, one who could not even defend himself while he was among the living? And who would ever have been persuaded by those unlearned and humble men when they said that one must despise the ancestral gods, condemn as folly everything held from all ages, and trust only them and what the crucified one had commanded, saying that he was the only beloved and only-begotten Son of the only God over all?

For my part, then, examining the message by myself with love of truth, I find in it no persuasive power, nothing dignified, nothing trustworthy, nor even anything plausible enough to be able to persuade even one of the foolish.

But when I look again at the power of the message, how it has persuaded countless multitudes, and how churches of tens of thousands were founded by those very humble and rustic disciples of Jesus, established not in obscure and unknown places but in the most distinguished cities, I mean in imperial Rome itself, in Alexandria and Antioch, throughout all Egypt and Libya, Europe and Asia, in villages and countryside and among all kinds of nations, I am compelled of necessity to go back to the search for the cause, and to admit that they could not have succeeded in their bold venture otherwise than by a more divine and superhuman power, and by the cooperation of the one who said to them, “Make disciples of all the nations in my name.”

Having said this, he added a promise by which they would take courage and eagerly give themselves to what they had been commanded. He says to them, “And behold, I am with you all the days, until the end of the age.” And he is also said to have breathed the divine Spirit into them, and to have given them a divine power to work wonders, saying at one time, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and at another, “Heal …, cleanse lepers, cast out demons; freely you received, freely give.”

You see for yourself, then, how the message spread through them prevailed, since their own book of the Acts bears witness in agreement and harmony with this. There they themselves are recorded to have astonished those present and watching by the working of wonders accomplished by them through the name of Jesus.

For, as is likely, they first astonished the onlookers by their works; then in this way they made them eager to find out who this was by whose power and name the wonder had happened; then, as they taught, they found them already ahead of their teaching by faith.

For they were not persuaded by words, but, being won over beforehand by the works, they readily accepted what was said. Some, at any rate, are said to have already brought sacrifices of oxen and libations to the disciples of Jesus as if they were gods, and to have thought one of them was Hermes and another Zeus, so much did the display of wonderful works astonish their minds.

And to people so disposed, everything the disciples proclaimed about Jesus was then reasonably believed to be true. And they bore witness to his coming back to life after death not with bare and unproven words, but persuaded by its very working, presenting the works of one who lives.

And if they also proclaimed him to be God and the Son of God, existing with the Father before his coming among men, how would the hearers not have assented to this all the more? They would reasonably have thought the opposite incredible and impossible, reckoning that what was being done could not be thought the work of a mortal nature, but of God, even if no one said so.

This, then, and nothing else, was the very thing we were asking: by what power the disciples of Jesus prevailed over their first hearers, how they persuaded Greeks and barbarians alike to think of him as the Word of God, and how in the midst of cities and throughout the countryside they established schools of the worship of the one God over all.

And yet who would not marvel, reckoning with himself and considering that it was not a human thing that most of the nations of the world never at any other time came under the single rule of the Romans, but only from the times of Jesus?

For at the same time as his wonderful coming among men, the power of Rome happened to reach its height, when Augustus first became sole ruler over most of the nations. In his time, when Cleopatra was captured, the succession of the Ptolemies in Egypt came to an end, and from then until now the kingdom of Egypt, established from all ages and, so to speak, from the very first beginnings of mankind, has been destroyed.

From then on the Jewish nation too became subject to the Romans, and likewise the Syrians, Cappadocians, Macedonians, Bithynians, and Greeks, and, in a word, all the rest who are under the Roman rule.

Who would not admit that this coincided not without God with the teaching about our Savior, considering that it would not have been easy for his disciples to make their journeys to foreign lands while the nations were divided from one another and had no intercourse among them because of their many separate rulers? When these were removed, they accomplished their task now without fear and in safety, since the God over all had made their journey easy beforehand and had restrained the passions of the superstitious in the cities by fear of the greater empire.

For reckon that if nothing had prevented those infatuated with the error of many gods from warring against the teaching of Christ, you would long ago have seen civil strife in cities and countryside, and persecutions and wars of no ordinary kind, if the superstitious had held power over the Christians in their own hands.

But as it was, this too was the work of the God over all, to subdue the enemies of his own word by a greater fear of the supreme authority; for he wills it to advance daily and to grow among all men.

And again, so that it should not be thought to survive only by the permission of the rulers, whenever one of them, seized by wickedness, set himself to war against the word of Christ, God also allowed him to do what he desired, both to display the athletes of piety and to make it plain to all that the establishment of the word came not from human counsel but from the power of God.

Indeed, who would not marvel at what usually happens in such times? In earlier times the athletes of piety became conspicuous and distinguished before all men, being counted worthy of the prizes from God; while the enemies of piety paid the fitting penalties, driven mad by heaven-sent scourges and wasting away in their whole body with terrible and painful diseases, so that they were driven even to confess their impiety against Christ.

And all the rest who had been counted worthy of the divine name and boasted of holding the doctrines of Christ, after being exercised for a short while by the trials and having shown the genuineness and sincerity of their conviction, received back their own freedom, while the saving word shone out more brightly every day through them and prevailed in the very midst of its enemies,

rising up not only against visible enemies but also against invisible ones, whatever evil demons and their rulers there may be about the dark air around the earth. These too the genuine disciples of Christ drive out through purity of life, prayers to God, and his divine name, [giving proofs] of the wonderful signs long ago recorded as done by him, and in this showing to those able to perceive it the proofs of his divine excellence.

But now that these matters have been treated beforehand in due season, the time calls us to take up the more mystical theology about him, and to contemplate the divine Word, whoever he was who performed the wonders through the man who appeared.

Since what pertains to the incarnation of our Savior has been worked out sufficiently in the preceding book, the third of the Demonstration of the Gospel, it is now time to take up more secret matters as well: the more mystical theology concerning him.

The doctrine concerning the first and eternal God, alone unbegotten, cause of the universe over all, ruler of all and king of all, is common to all human beings. But the doctrine concerning Christ is peculiar to the Hebrews and to us, and shared between us. In part they confess him as we do even now, following the Scriptures they possess; in part they fall far away, neither perceiving his divinity, nor knowing the reasons for his coming, nor grasping the times at which it was foretold that he would come among men.

For they still expect him to come in the future, while we show that he has already come once; and, trusting the predictions and teachings of the God-inspired prophets, we pray to see his second coming with divine glory. Since the account of him is twofold, the one part would be recent, introduced among men only yesterday or the day before; the other is older than all time and all ages.

For God, since he alone is good and the source and fountain of all good, wished to make many sharers in his treasures. He was about to bring forth the whole rational creation: certain bodiless, intellectual, and divine powers, angels and archangels, immaterial and wholly pure spirits, and besides these human souls, endowed with a nature free and unconstrained in its own choice of good or of its opposite; and whatever bodily instruments were to serve them, suited to the conduct of various lives; and he was to assign to all of these their own regions and places (to those who remained good, the better ones; to the others, in turn, those that fitted them, correctives for their inclination toward the opposite). So, foreseeing the future by his foreknowledge, as God, and perceiving that all these, before they came to be, would need a head, as in a great body, he thought it necessary to set over them one steward of all creation, ruler and king of the universe, as the divine oracles teach, uttered by the theologians and prophetic men among the Hebrews of old.

From them one may learn that there is one principle of all things; or rather, that which is above even a principle, prior to the first, more original than the monad, beyond every name: ineffable, inexpressible, incomprehensible, good, the cause of all, the maker, the benefactor, the provider, the savior, he himself being the one and only God, from whom are all things and on account of whom all things are; “for in him we live and move and have our being.”

Whatever he wills: this would be the sole cause of the coming into being and existence of all begotten things. For they belong to one who wills; and he wills because he is good by nature. And nothing is natural to the good except to will what is good.

And willing these things, he is also able. Therefore, willing and able at once, he himself established for himself, without hindrance or impediment, everything good and beneficial among things seen and unseen, putting forth his own will and power as a kind of matter and substance for the coming into being and constitution of the universe. So it can no longer reasonably be said that any existing thing is from things that do not exist; for nothing could come from what is not. How could what is not become for another the cause of being? But whatever exists at all has received its being from the one who alone is and pre-exists, who also said, “I am he who is.”

For since he alone is, and always is, he became the cause of being for all who have received their being from him, by willing and by being able, bestowing on all of them, from himself, richly and ungrudgingly, their substance, their powers, and their forms.

And so, first of all existing things, he brings into being his own offspring, the firstborn Wisdom, wholly intellectual, rational, and all-wise; or rather mind itself, reason itself, wisdom itself, and whatever it is lawful to conceive among begotten things as beauty itself and goodness itself. This he first puts forth from himself as the foundation of the things that were to come into being after it: the perfect handiwork of the perfect, the wise masterwork of the wise, the good offspring of the good Father. And what else is this but the protector and guardian of those which afterwards received their being through it, savior and physician, and pilot who has taken hold of the tillers of the whole creation?

Hence the oracles, speaking of God, rightly declare him to be begotten God, since he alone bears in himself the image of the ineffable and incomprehensible Godhead; because of this he both is God and is called God, on account of his likeness to the first. In this way too they say he was appointed by the Father as a good servant, so that through one all-wise and living instrument, a skilful and knowing rule, all things might be directed by him: bodies and bodiless things together, animate and inanimate, rational with irrational, mortal with immortal, and whatever else subsists and is woven together with these; and so that all things, gathered and bound together, might be joined in harmony under one all-wise bond, as by one power of the universe, one living and ensouled law and reason present in all and pervading all: the very Word and Law of God.

Since the Father is one, the Son too must be one and not many: one perfect, only-begotten God from God, and not more. For among many there would be otherness and difference and the introduction of what is inferior. Therefore the one God is Father of one perfect and only-begotten Son, not of many gods or sons,

since, where the substance of light is one, one must necessarily posit as one also the perfect radiance begotten from it.