Prophetic Extracts 1.1–1.6

… having gone through the testimonies concerning our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ drawn from reason and from life, it confirmed them by clear, trustworthy, and true demonstrations and syllogisms, using at the end only very brief testimonies from the divine Scriptures that are believed both among the Jews and among us; for no other line of reasoning called for setting out abundant proofs from them to those who still wholly disbelieve the divine Scriptures. But the work now in hand, meant for those who, as a result of the demonstration in those books, ought to believe the sacred Scriptures as already divine and inspired by God, has been laboured over to fill up what was lacking in them, containing in summary a collection … of the prophecies concerning our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which it seemed good to gather into one from the Old Testament; … and in some places also, through hidden meanings, the things foretold about him … him and the dispensations concerning him. And not … which are shown to have reached their fulfilment. Such … beginning; and scattered not only in prophecies … laid up in histories; … will be useful to not a few …; since it is not easy, except from a … reading through of the Scriptures, for all of them to come to hand for those who wish to have them on their lips and carry them in memory.

It should be known that before the present undertaking we composed Chronological Canons, setting beside them an epitome of every kind of history of Greeks and barbarians, and through them we established the antiquity of Moses and of the prophets after him. Taking the work now in hand to follow in order on those, we have fittingly come after that one to the present treatise. One might gracefully liken it to the natural industry of the wise bee, to which the sacred word in Proverbs sends us when it says: “Or go to the bee, and see how she is a worker, and how she carries on her work as a solemn thing; whose labours kings and private persons use for health; she is desired by all and held in esteem; though she is weak in strength, she was advanced because she honoured wisdom.” For just as that worker, attested as having honoured wisdom, gathers from the flourishing shoots what is suitable, and from the gathering and working of them all provides her labours, healthful, as the Scripture says, to kings and private persons alike, so I think the Prophetic Extracts concerning Christ, being a culling of flowers from the rational meadows of God, will contain something of the same kind: in the bare words they preserve the well-moulded craftsmanship of the wax, while the thoughts stored up in it, like the sweet and most healthful product of that wise creature, are kept somewhere within, in secret. For which of the faithful would not agree that the saving citations concerning the Word of God surpass with an incomparable superiority every pleasure and benefit that comes through bodies, since they serve for acquiring an orthodoxy that is truly profitable and healthful? This must be cherished not only by those advanced in their habit of mind, who are called kings, but also by those below them, who are only now approaching the divine word for the first time. For these especially, I think, the treatise will be suitable, so that from it they may make exact the certainty of the teachings in which they were instructed; for the persuasion of a simple and pure faith holds most firmly when someone, having first laid in the reasoning the foundations that come through demonstration, [leads them] to acquire … an exact grasp and knowledge of what is believed … for this reason, I say … it seemed necessary … to set out after the … of each prophecy …, as by way of an introduction, a brief account … as concise as possible concerning … the refutation of those who boast that they believe the … Scriptures as divine, yet do not accept … Jesus as being himself the one prophesied; raising difficulties … against them, I mean those of the circumcision, and those from the heresies …, and refutations of what they might say when they try to explain the divine utterances in a more mythical way. There will also be, in brief, a moderate exposition of our own, sometimes containing a demonstration that the sacred predictions of God have been fulfilled in our Saviour alone, and sometimes indicating the opinion we hold about the passages to be set out.

But as we are about to take these up, we must first make a distinction: in some places the sacred writings teach that the Word of God existed beforehand, not only before the incarnation but before every generated substance, calling him God and Lord after the Father, as the preaching of the church also holds, in agreement with the testimony of the Gospel, which says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being”; in other places they announce beforehand his two comings: the first, in which they plainly foretold that he would have neither form nor beauty, that he would be led like a sheep to the slaughter, and they say clearly that he would be condemned to death because of the iniquities of the former people, as indeed the dispensations of his first coming in the times of Tiberius are shown to be; and the second, no longer like the first, but more divine and far surpassing it in glory, which will take place with an escort of angels and the array from heaven. In these matters the reader should with good sense hold as a rule and a goal the apostolic preaching, which keeps the doctrines of the truth complete and inviolate: that is, the doctrines concerning the first and unbegotten nature of the God of the universe, and concerning the pre-existence of the divine Word and the service he rendered in the creation of all generated things, as being Word.

… apart from the four letters, unpronounceable among the Hebrews, whose combination signifies the name that is ineffable but is called, by a looser use, “Lord”; this has never yet been used of an angelic power, as you will observe throughout the whole inspired Scripture, wherever God, or the Lord indicated by the four letters, is recorded to have spoken with anyone. [One must ask] whether what is indicated should be referred to the unbegotten nature of the God of the universe, or to his Word, whom, as being second cause of all things, the divine Scripture is accustomed to call both God and Lord in the sense signified by the name that is ineffable among the Hebrews. And indeed, in the present passage, where the word says, “The Lord came down,” and “The Lord said” what is recorded, one might reasonably ask whether what is indicated refers to one of the angels or to the first cause. But it cannot refer to angels: first, because here too “Lord” is used for the unpronounceable title; second, because it shows him addressing his words to others who are below him. Again, the sense is unfitting for the Father and God of the universe; for it would not befit him to say, “Come, and let us go down and confuse their language,” and “The Lord came down to see the city” would in no way suit being said of the supreme authority. It remains, then, to understand that in these passages too the divine Word is indicated. He, entrusted by the Father with the providence and administration of all things, never ceased ministering, sometimes by himself and sometimes through angels who serve him, what tends toward the Father's will for the benefit and salvation of the universe. The things in this passage belong to a mystical and secret contemplation, and this is not the time to unfold them.

The first recorded oracle given to Abraham is when the Lord said to him: “Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house to the land that I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be blessed; and I will bless those who bless you,” and what follows. The second, when the Lord appeared to him and said to him: “To your offspring I will give this land.” And the third, when the Lord said to Abraham, after Lot had separated from him, what is recorded. The fourth, in which it is said: “After these words the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision of the night, saying, ‘Do not fear, Abram; I am shielding you’”; and after other things: “I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of the Chaldeans.” The fifth, when the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him: “I am your God; be well pleasing before me,” and the rest. The sixth, in which again the Lord appeared to him by the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent at midday; “and looking up with his eyes he saw, and behold, three men were standing above him; and when he saw them he ran from the door of his tent to meet them, and bowed down to the ground and said, ‘Lord, if I have found favour before you, do not pass by your servant; let a little water be brought, and let them wash your feet.’” Then after some things it is added that “rising up from there they looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went along with them, escorting them. And the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing? Abraham will surely become a great and numerous nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed; for I knew that he will command his sons and his house after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him.’ And the Lord said, ‘The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has been multiplied.’” And a little after: “And the men turned away from there and came to Sodom; but Abraham was standing before the Lord. And Abraham drew near and said, ‘Do not destroy the righteous with the ungodly, so that the righteous will be as the ungodly. If there are fifty righteous in the city, will you destroy them? Will you not spare the whole place for the sake of the fifty righteous, if they are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to kill the righteous with the ungodly, so that the righteous will be as the ungodly. Far be it! Shall not you who judge all the earth do justice?’” And after other things the Scripture says: “The Lord went away when he had ceased speaking with Abraham. And the two angels came into Sodom in the evening; and Lot was sitting by the gate of Sodom.”

It is worth considering whether it is some ordinary angel who is indicated in these passages as the one who gave the oracles to Abraham, or the God of the universe himself, or some third besides these, the Word of God, whom the sacred Scripture is accustomed to call Lord and God after the supreme Father and God of the universe; and further to ask which of the three men who appeared to Abraham was the one to whom he said, “Lord, if I have found favour before you,” and again, “Far be it! Shall not you who judge all the earth do justice?” Of him the divine Scripture, having related it not only a first but a second and a third time, says, “The Lord appeared to him,” the title “Lord” standing for the name that is unpronounced in the Hebrew, which has never been used of an angelic power. When, for example, Lot is recorded as saying to the angels who came to Sodom, “I pray, lord, since your servant has found mercy before you,” the word “lord” stands in the Hebrew, but not with the four letters that the Hebrews use for the ineffable name of God; it is written with other syllables, with which the Hebrews also write the one who among humans is called lord in a relative sense, as the lord of a servant. But the name used, with the four letters, of the supreme authority of God, which has nothing like these and which appears in the recorded visions of God to Abraham, clearly shows that it was neither an angel nor some divine power a little above an angel that gave him the oracles, but God himself, whose ineffable pronunciation, the very one that appears in these passages through the four letters, the high priest alone wore on his forehead, bearing on the golden plate what is called “the engraving of a seal: Holiness of the Lord.” That the divine Scripture does not use such a title of angels indifferently is evident from its very careful practice of recording sometimes that God himself, or the Lord indicated by the tetragram, appeared and spoke to the righteous, and at other times that those seen were angels.

So the one who appeared to Hagar in her wandering was clearly an angel; for it was fitting that for her, since she fell very far short of Abraham and could see nothing greater than an angelic vision, the vision should be suited to her through the presence of the angel, but for Abraham through the greater manifestation of God himself. And the rest of God's sayings to Abraham would not fit if one tried to refer them to angels, but would befit God alone to say, such as “And I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you,” and the like; and above all “I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of the Chaldeans,” and “I am God; be well pleasing before me,” and what follows; and no one could ever be so foolish as to suppose that an angel said these things. And so, when the three men stood by Abraham as he sat at the oak, Abraham approaches them, yet he says, not to the three but to one only, “Lord, if I have found favour before you.” And none of the others is introduced conversing with Abraham, since it was not fitting for the servants to speak in the presence of their lord; the Lord alone gives the oracle, who also says, “Shall I hide from Abraham my servant,” and the rest. Then the men who were with the Lord, clearly the angels, turned away and went down alone to Sodom, the Lord not going with them (for how could the kind and gracious God sojourn among the ungodly?); but he, remaining in company and conversation with the righteous friend of God, rejoices in his converse and also shelters his most humane prayer, in which Abraham, by saying “Far be it! You who judge all the earth,” shows most clearly that he knew well and exactly that he was conversing not with an angel, nor with a lesser divine power, but with God himself. Next the word, distinguishing matters exactly, calls those who went to Sodom plainly angels, adding that “the two angels came into Sodom in the evening”; and in what follows it records that neither the Lord nor God was seen by Lot or spoke with him, but the angels. So it is wholly evident that the one whom Scripture testifies appeared to Abraham was Lord and God, and not one of the angels.

Now all who wish to cut apart the harmony of the Old Testament with the New seize on these passages as a godsend and think they clearly show from them that the Father of Christ, who they say is confessed invisible by the Gospel's voice, is other than the God of Moses and the prophets, who appeared in various ways, now to Abraham, now to Isaac (to whom too he gave oracles foretelling things like those given to Abraham), and likewise to Jacob, and perhaps also to Isaiah, who said, “I saw the Lord of Sabaoth,” and similarly to the other prophets. But we (since in the ancient prophets of God themselves there appears a divine oracle spoken in the person of God, saying, “For I am the Lord your God, and I have not changed”; and “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord”; and to Moses, giving an oracle, he says, “No one shall see my face and live”), we will raise this difficulty both against those already mentioned and against those of the circumcision, and further against those who do not accept that a second divinity, that of the Son, pre-exists after the unbegotten nature: how could the God who, (according to) these prophecies, is unchanging and immutable, who again says that he alone fills heaven and earth, and who is clearly shown by the Law itself to be invisible, according to “No one shall see my face and live,” be changed again, and, as though turning his own substance, become containable (in) some small parts of the earth, and be seen now by Abraham, now by the other prophets? For if these things were referred to the God of the universe, they would seem to disagree not only with the Gospel's voice but also with the prophetic voices, which declared him uncontainable, unchanging, and invisible to humans; unless one should say that God himself was not seen at all by those recorded, but only made them imagine it, so that they seemed to see and hear without truly beholding any of the things they thought appeared, nor truly hearing, but were deceived in these things and supposed and seemed that they heard: which is unfitting and foreign to the truthful and unerring nature of the God of the universe. Further, it is shown to be untenable because God himself is related to say concerning Abraham: “For I knew that he will command his sons and his house after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him.” Beyond dispute, then, the Lord himself speaks these words as about another Lord; how then is it possible to suppose that the God of the universe said them? About what other Lord besides himself could the words be said? It is clear from these considerations that what is indicated does not seem to belong to the God of the universe; and it has been shown that it does not belong to the nature of angels either; for the word, as I said, knows how to be accurate about the appearance of angels, clearly marking the visions given through them. If, then, these things seem to fit neither the angelic nature nor the supreme and unbegotten nature of the God of the universe, a single solution would remain: that we keep unchangeableness, immutability, and invisibility for the unbegotten substance, and transfer the oracles recorded as from God to the Word of God, who, we believe, appeared in various ways even before the incarnation for the salvation of humans and carried out the dispensations recorded in the divine Scriptures; and to him alone, after the God of the universe, we have found the four-lettered title applied, since this divine designation also fits the only-begotten and heir of the Father. Abraham, then, knowing well, being wise and attested by God himself to be a prophet, that “he has given all judgment to the Son,” bows down to him and says to him alone, apart from the others, “Far be it! Shall not you who judge all the earth do justice?”, which it would be unfitting and most implausible to think was said to an angel, who is below the divine Word; whereas it would be most fitting for the divine Word alone to say, with the rest, “Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing?” and “For I knew that he will command his sons and his house after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him.” And it befits him to say these things as a teacher: that everything done in holiness by humans may rightly be referred only to the worship of the God and Father of the universe, from whom all good things are supplied to the godly on earth for their benefit and salvation. These things the divine Word says, teaching about another Lord, his own Father; for he also confessed him as his own Lord and God to his own disciples, saying, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” The Law and all Scripture are full of this pattern of the Lord, that is, of the divine Word, speaking as about another Lord, clearly the Father. Since the matters in these passages need much and very deep contemplation, these remarks are enough for the present undertaking.

“And Hagar ran away from her presence,” that is, from Sarah's, “and an angel of the Lord found her at the spring of water”; and in what follows it is said a second time, “And the angel of the Lord said to her”; and a third time, “The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘I will surely multiply your offspring, and it will not be counted for multitude’”; and again, “The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Behold, you are with child and will bear a son, and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your humiliation.’” And after all these words it is said, “And she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are God who looked upon me.’” If the sacred Scripture had not, in its own person, named the one who appeared to Hagar in her wandering “Lord,” in the words “And she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her,” one might have supposed that Hagar mistakenly took the angel for God. But as it is, Scripture testifies that it was the Lord who gave the oracle through the angel just named, through whom, being Lord and God, he fittingly said of himself, “I will surely multiply your offspring”; for it would befit God alone to say this, and no longer an angel. It is likely that Hagar too, attending to this word and understanding that such a voice could belong only to God, said, “You are God who looked upon me.” And a second time, when she runs away with her son, it is written, “An angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her” what is recorded, among which is this: “For I will make it into a nation,” clearly the child; and it would not be credible for the angel to say this, for again the promise is God's. Whose name, then, as Lord did Hagar call, “You are the God who looked upon me,” since here too Scripture has the Hebrews' four-lettered name for “Lord”? Is it not clear from what has already been shown that it was the name of the Word who was in the beginning with God? Being present, and from the beginning overseeing and administering human affairs, he himself in person gave visions to men who were advanced and perfect, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but to those who fell short of their virtue, such as Lot, and Gideon and Manoah in Judges, and others like them, he gave his promises through the divine angels under him, using them as ministers and servants in many parts and many ways. So to Hagar too, since she was not yet able to receive the vision of the divine Word himself, he delivers the recorded oracles through the angel. And if (also) he appears to Jacob through angels, see that he gives oracles in this way at first, as to one still being initiated; but when Jacob had advanced and made progress toward perfection, he gave him a share of his own converse, bare and unveiled, no longer through angels and interpreters, but himself in person: the Lord and God, the Word, who holds the second rank of the Father's divinity, deeming him worthy of his own vision.

“The sun rose upon the earth, and Lot entered Zoar. And the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” I do not think that anyone who has once believed the holy Scriptures to be sacred and inspired by God will invent quibbles about these passages in an attempt to contradict what has been handed down about the Word of God: that he pre-existed with his own subsistence, and that before the incarnation he carried out the dispensations toward humans. For here the Scripture clearly presents two Lords, since the Lord rained from the Lord. One can find the like in the holy apostle, who says, “May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus,” and “May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day.” In these passages we must articulate the doctrine of Father and Son, ascribing to the unbegotten Father of the universe the lordship and supreme authority over all things and over the Son himself, and assigning to the Word the second rank after the Father in rule and dominion over all things that have come into being. Since “Lord” is named twice here, as in “the Lord rained from the Lord,” the tetragram appears twice in the Hebrew, so that it is most plainly admitted that this ineffable sign is used of two persons, clearly the God and Father of the universe and his Word. So it is no longer doubtful that wherever such a title is applied to God, it is used not only of the unbegotten nature but also of the Word who was in the beginning with God.

In his blessing of Jacob, Isaac says, among other things, this: “And let nations serve you, and rulers will bow down to you; and be lord of your brother, and the sons of your father will bow down to you.” What is said as if to Jacob does not seem at all capable of being referred to him, nor to the people of the circumcision descended from him. For what nations served him, and when? Or what rulers bowed down to him? And as to whom would they bow? When did he become lord of his brother? Or who are the sons of his father who are said to bow down to him? Indeed, Isaac is not found to have had any son besides Jacob except Esau alone; how then is it said in the plural, “The sons of your father will bow down to you”? We have noted these things because in the prophecies Christ is often called Jacob, as will be shown in the proper places, and we suspect that these words too may in some way fit the testimonies about him. For just as the holy apostle transferred the things about Isaac to Christ, saying, “Now the promises were given to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, ‘and to offsprings,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘and to your offspring,’ who is Christ,” see whether in the same way what is said here as of Jacob would not fit Christ better. Whether this is so, the lover of learning will discover by examining each phrase by the laws of allegory.