Prophetic Extracts 1.7–1.10

“And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until morning.” Then, a little later, when Jacob has said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me,” he says to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” And he said to him, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name, for you have prevailed with God, and are mighty with men.” And again, a little after: “Jacob called the name of that place ‘Form of God’; for I have seen God face to face, and my life was preserved.” To which the Scripture adds: “And the sun rose upon him as the Form of God passed by.”

To Abraham the Lord gives oracles from the beginning in waking vision; he speaks with him often, and is recorded to have appeared to him three times, and not at night but in the middle of the day; the third time, indeed, he is his guest at noon itself. But to Jacob he first appears at the setting of the sun, in the middle of the night, in sleep, as he was going down to Mesopotamia, when in the vision he saw the ladder to heaven and the angels ascending and descending on it, and the Lord standing firm upon it, and he hears the Lord saying to him, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father,” and the rest, which, as the sequel shows, he spoke to him through an angel. The second time was in Mesopotamia, when the Lord indicated by the tetragram again stood by and said to him, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.” This he said to him in sleep and through an angel, as Jacob himself teaches: (together) with the divine voice he calls Leah and Rachel, and after other things he relates to them the oracle he had received, saying, “And the angel of God said to me in sleep, ‘Jacob,’” and what follows, in which he says, “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; now therefore arise, and go out from this land, and depart to the land of your birth.” After this, as he returned from Mesopotamia, first, when it was already morning, the angels of God met him, of whom he also said, “This is the camp of God”; and it is likely that these were the ones he had earlier seen on the ladder. Then the sun that had set earlier rises upon him after the passage set out above, in which the one who said to him, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name, for you have prevailed with God and are mighty with men,” appears wrestling with him in sleep. After the vision, then, the sun rose upon him. And when he had now advanced and been perfected, God no longer gives him oracles in sleep, nor at night, nor through an angel, nor even through a human form, but in the middle of the day and in light he says, “Rise, go up to the place Bethel, and dwell there”; and after all these things the divine Scripture then for the first time testifies that God appeared to him in Luz and blessed him, saying what is recorded. We shall ask at leisure how, after this, when he was about to go down to Egypt, God again said to him in a vision and by night, “Do not fear to go down into Egypt.”

We have set these things out of necessity, for they show that the divine Scripture does not lightly, nor in the case of ordinary men, record that God was seen. Neither for Adam, nor for Enoch who was translated, nor for Noah, nor for Moses himself, has it been recorded that God was seen by any of them, although he is recorded to have spoken with them often; indeed the divine word introduces God as seen by no one else at all except Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob alone. And for Abraham he was not seen at his first oracle, but at the second, the fifth, and the sixth; and for Jacob after all the recorded events; for Isaac, to whom alone the Lord gave oracles twice, he is recorded to have appeared twice, though the second time at night. It is evident from what we said earlier about Abraham that the visions must not be referred to the first cause, but to the divine Word, whom not even (they), the blessed and divine men, were yet able to receive; even to those very men to whom he is said to have appeared, he was seen after a great many preliminary exercises. Who (then) else could he be who, in the passage before us, wrestles with Jacob, contends with him, and as it were fights at his side, than the one who spoke to the fathers in many parts and many ways, the sacred Word of God, who alone after the Father is called Lord and God, and who, blessing Jacob, named him Israel, adding, “for you have prevailed with God”? In this way the divine men saw the Word of God, as did the apostles of our Saviour who said, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the word of life.” Having beheld this Word and Life, Jacob adds, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life was preserved.”

“Judah, may your brothers praise you; your hands shall be on the back of your enemies; the sons of your father will bow down to you. A lion's whelp is Judah; from a shoot, my son, you went up; lying down you slept as a lion and as a whelp; who will rouse him? A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until there come the things laid up for him; and he is the expectation of nations,” and what follows. We must hear Jacob's word as that of the Holy Spirit, foretelling the things about Christ and addressing him in person in the words beginning “Judah, may your brothers praise you.” That the patriarch was not addressing his words to the one son is clear to those who attend to the Scripture, which says in narrative: “And Jacob called his sons and said, ‘Gather together, that I may tell you what will happen to you at the last of the days.’” So he announces that he will prophesy to them about things to come. It is clear on other grounds as well that the words of the prophecy do not fit the patriarch Judah. For when, or why, did his brothers bow down to him, and for what achievement, or when, did they praise him? How would anyone explain the rest of the prophecy as fitting him? Nor would anyone reasonably refer the words to the tribe, since rulers of the people were not appointed from the tribe of Judah alone. The judges after Moses, who came from various tribes, continued as leaders for nearly five hundred years; after them Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, reigned first of all; and so after these the kings from the tribe of Judah reigned for not quite five hundred years; then, after the captivity to Babylon, those from the tribe of Levi presided over affairs for more than five hundred years, down to the coming of Christ. Why, then, would the prophecy say these things about the tribe of Judah rather than about the rest? So what is indicated would not fit the tribe either. But we know that the true Judah who appeared at the last of the days is our Saviour and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, who is also called Judah as a steward of the concepts applied to him; just as in one sense he is called Israel, in another Jacob, and David, and at other times in other ways. Him the holy apostles, and all who were counted worthy of the Spirit of adoption, praised and worshipped; and his hands, which we take symbolically to be his deeds, have come to be upon the back of his enemies, that is, of the spiritual enemies as they flee from him. He is also called a lion's whelp, either because of his birth according to the flesh from a royal tribe and from the root of David, a birth that took place in the likeness of sinful flesh, or because of the divinity of which he emptied himself when he became man, on account of which the words “From a shoot, my son, you went up” were fittingly uttered by Jacob. When, then, he indicated the Saviour's birth from a shoot and from his root, he named him a lion's whelp, saying, “A lion's whelp is Judah; from a shoot, my son, you went up”; but when he prophesies his delay and the sleep of his passion, he calls him both, as a lion and as a whelp, in the words “Lying down he slept as a lion and as a whelp”; for then he was lifted up not only as coming from a royal race but as being himself king, since the nations confessed, even if those of the circumcision were unwilling, that he was indeed the King of Israel. It might also be put another way: since the one who was taking up war against the opposing powers and was about to destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, needed to have present with him, born according to the flesh from the shoot of Jacob, the divinity of the Word, the divinity is fittingly compared to a lion, because it has subdued and conquered all the wild and untamed powers, and to a lion's whelp the bit of flesh that he had taken from the royal tribe of Judah. But again, if our adversary the devil is like a roaring lion, see whether every sinner might not be called his whelp, since everyone who commits sin has been born of the devil. Since, then, the Saviour too came in the likeness of sinful flesh and became a curse for us, and “him who knew no sin he made sin for us,” see whether, for these reasons, according to some deeper sense, the prophecy does not declare that at the time of the passion he became neither a lion nor a whelp, but “as” a lion and a whelp; for he himself also compares his own passion to the serpent's, saying, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” After this, in silence as it were, it hints at the mystery of his resurrection through the words “Who will rouse him?” And it has become clear to us from the outcome who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead: evidently his God and Father.

Next come the words beginning “A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs.” If we read these as beginning afresh, they would be said of all those of the Jewish race who led the people, and on this understanding the sense of the words before us would be something like this: the rulers and leaders from among the Jews appointed over the Jewish people will not cease until there comes the one who is the cause of the expectation of the nations, that is, the Christ; when he has come, those mentioned must fail. This being so, let us examine our own times, whether kings and leaders can now be found. But it is evident to all that the Jewish nation, along with the rest, is subject to the Roman governors (province by province), and not one of them has been entrusted with the authority to rule. This began from the times of our Saviour's birth. Up to King Herod we find in the histories Hebrews from among the Hebrews ruling their whole nation, leading in succession from Moses himself: first those called judges, then next the kings down to the captivity to Babylon, after which the high priests took over the rule and continued down to the reign of Augustus. In his reign, when Herod, the first of foreign race, had been entrusted by the Romans with the kingship over them, our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was born. From that time, then, down to the present, ruler and leader are clearly shown to have failed among the Jews. It is clear that our prophesied Saviour has come, from whose times not only have the rulers of the Jews failed, but also all the worship they performed in Jerusalem according to the law of Moses. And clearly the expectation of the nations who through him have taken refuge with the God of the universe began to be fulfilled in fact from the times of his coming, according to Jacob's prophecy.

This holds if we read the words beginning “A ruler shall not fail from Judah” as beginning afresh. But if we join the present words to the preceding sense as following on from it, then, Christ being understood as Judah according to what was shown before, it would follow to take “A ruler shall not fail from Judah” of the rulers and leaders of the church after Christ, who, the prophecy says, will not fail until there come the things laid up for him; as if it said more plainly: until there come the things laid up for him, when the consummation is at hand, and he receives the kingdom over the universe. That the divine Spirit calls the disciples of Christ leaders is clear from what is said about Judas: “But you, a man of like soul, my leader and my familiar friend.” Attending to these things, those who have believed the sacred words as divine and true should in no way be alarmed, nor should their faith be shaken by the persecutions that come from time to time, especially the present one, which has blown against us more violently than any ever did, and has displayed such things against the churches and the whole people as no one has recorded either from Scripture or from the tradition of the ancients. We say this because it might perhaps seem that in the present persecution the very opposite of what was said has happened, since it seems that now no assembly has been held together, nor the order of the rulers of the church. Since, then, the inspired Scripture does not lie, we must be persuaded that those mentioned have not wholly failed, even if to some they seem to have failed. For the God who said to the prophet, “I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal,” when the prophet supposed that he alone was left after the rest had been killed, the same God now also watches over those worthy of his providence, preserving for us too a remnant according to the election of grace, those guarded by him and seen by him alone; of whom we too might say, “If the Lord of Sabaoth had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.” For to think that those who preside over the word, whom the prophecy has named rulers and leaders, have failed altogether is impossible, because a limit has been set: they will not fail until there come the things laid up for him, that is, the things promised to Christ by the Father, who said to him, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet”; when also every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. For then the expectation of the nations who at the present time have believed in him will have its season to receive the promises they expected, in the expected kingdom of heaven. So much for this. The rest, beginning “binding his colt to a vine,” which depends on allegorical interpretation, we shall leave for the lovers of learning to investigate, having already said more than enough, not in keeping with the purpose we set ourselves, yet of necessity, for a clear account of what is in the passage.

“And Moses was tending the sheep of Jethro his father-in-law.” And a little after: “And they came to the mountain of God, Horeb; and an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire.” And after other things: “When the Lord saw that he was approaching to see, he called him out of the middle of the bush, saying.” And again: “And the Lord said to him, ‘I am He Who Is.’” And after a great deal: “And God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Lord; and I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, and my name, Lord, I did not make known to them; and I established my covenant with them,’” and what follows. With very careful observance it is recorded here that it was not the Lord but the angel who appeared to Moses, through whom the Lord, giving oracles as through an interpreter, teaches that it is not some lesser power that gives the oracles but He Who Is himself. Who He Who Is is, he shows more clearly when he says, “I am the Lord; and I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God; and my name, Lord, I did not make known to them.” This seems to me to have some such sense as this: “To you I say, for the time being making known only my name, ‘I am the Lord’; but to your fathers I did not make known my name, for they were worthy of something greater than such knowledge; I myself appeared to them, and through myself I established my covenant with them.” Who it was that appeared to the fathers is evident from what has been shown before: examined in this way, the argument proved that it was the Word, God, who was in the beginning with God. So the same one appears now as well, yet not in the same way as to the forefathers. To them, as greater and more perfect, he appeared himself, and through himself he established his covenant with them; but in the case of Moses it was not the Lord who appeared but the angel, though it was no longer the angel who called him, but the Lord. For the Lord was the one giving the commands, while the angel was the one ministering the divine words. Hence, among other things, the holy apostle said wonderfully that the law was “ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator,” and “For if the word spoken through angels proved firm.” So an angel is clearly introduced, and the Lord giving oracles through him; and not once in the whole legislation would you find the Scripture noting that God or the Lord was seen by Moses, a thing said, as is plain, only of the three patriarchs. From this it is clear that the whole legislation, given to the people of that time as to souls still infants and beginners, was handed down as through tutors and stewards, and that divine things were hinted to them in types and images through symbols, because they were unable to receive the more mystical and spiritual teaching. To them, as to children brought up in Egyptian ways and still needing much correction, God was said to be fire, according to “Our God is a consuming fire,” which is nowhere said in the case of the patriarchs. And when he orders them to purify themselves so that they may see the glory of the Lord, it is not said simply, as in the case of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that God appeared to them; these very things are recorded with great terror and display: “And it came to pass on the third day, toward dawn, that there were voices and lightnings and a dark cloud on the mountain, and the sound of the trumpet resounded loudly, and all the people in the camp were terrified. And Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood beneath the mountain. (And) Mount Sinai was all smoking, because God had come down upon it in fire; and its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace; and all the people were exceedingly amazed. And the sounds of the trumpet grew very much stronger as they went on. Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice. And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, onto the top of the mountain; and the Lord called Moses,” and what follows. That the Lord came down is attested by these words; but that he was also seen is no longer said, a thing reserved for the patriarchs alone. So there had been a coming of the Lord, but the vision was not of him; it was, clearly, of the angels who escorted him, through whom he usefully made the vision fearful and astonishing for the people, taking forethought to strengthen in them reverence, fear, and faith toward him, for keeping and observing the laws about to be given them. That the angels who ministered to the Lord in the giving of the law were many, Moses himself shows in the blessings, saying, “The Lord has come from Sinai, and has appeared to us from Seir, and has hastened from Mount Paran with the myriads of Kadesh; at his right hand angels with him,” and what follows. For this reason Stephen too, in the Acts, addressing the people, says, “You who received the law as ordinances of angels and did not keep it.”

“And the angel of God who went before the sons of Israel moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud also moved from before their face and went and stood behind them, and came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of the sons of Israel.” Then, in what follows, the divine Scripture teaches what the cloud was, saying, “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I come to you in a (pillar) of cloud, so that the people may hear me speaking to you and may believe you’”; and again, “And God led them by day in a pillar of cloud, to show them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light”; and again, “And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud.” By these words, then, the angel who went before the sons of Israel was clearly other than the cloud; and the cloud was something other than the angel, being, as it were, a bodily instrument of the Lord himself, through which, though he is himself bodiless by nature and beyond every sensible and material substance, he deemed his servant worthy of his own converse through a sensible voice. And the Lord himself, giving the reason for such a dispensation, says to Moses, “So that the people may hear me speaking to you and may believe you.” With the people, being more bodily, he conversed through a sensible voice; but with the patriarchs, who needed neither cloud nor pillar of fire, the manner both of the vision and of his converse with them was different. That it was not some angelic power that gave oracles through the cloud, but God himself, is shown, besides what has been demonstrated already, by the Scripture that runs as follows: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go and lead the people to the place I told you of; behold, my angel will go before your face.’” And again: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go, go up from here, you and the people,’” and what follows, “and I will send my angel before your face along with you.” For it in no way befits an angel to say these things, but God alone, the Lord indicated throughout the whole history by the tetragram.

Did the Maker of the universe, then, the God of all things, descend so far as to ride upon a bodily mountain and, like a tutor, walk beside humans, he who fills heaven and earth? Or is this neither possible nor holy to think, while it is both more reverent and possible to suppose that it was the divine Word, the minister of the Father's will, who, since “Jacob became the portion” of him, the Lord, “and Israel the measured lot of his inheritance,” took care as for his portion and inheritance, emptying himself and diminishing his natural greatness to accommodate himself, even before the incarnation, to the salvation of humans? If we attend with good sense, we shall find him sometimes referring the commands to his own person, as when he says, “You shall not appear before me empty”; and “You shall make me an altar of earth”; and “I will come to you and bless you”; and sometimes speaking as about another Lord, clearly his God and Father, as in the Decalogue, when he says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”; and “On the seventh day, sabbaths to the Lord your God; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the Lord blessed the seventh day”; and again, “Honour your father and your mother, that it may be well with you, and that you may be long-lived on the land that the Lord your God gives you.” For how could it fail to be evident that the Lord, not through an angel but himself in person, is believed to have spoken these words in the Decalogue, teaching the people the worship due to his own supreme Father, the God of the universe?