Prophetic Extracts 2.2–2.12

“Why did the nations rage, and the peoples meditate vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.” In the Acts of the Apostles, those who heard Peter and John relate the wonders that had happened to them testified that this prophecy too had been fulfilled. For giving thanks for the marvels they heard, they added to the words set out above, saying, “For truly in this city there gathered together against your holy servant, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the nations and the peoples of Israel.” Not only, then, did those who plotted against our Saviour at that time gather together against him, but also the kings and rulers, and whole nations and peoples, who have followed from then until now, by blaspheming him and plotting against his teaching. We must be persuaded that not only the visible kings and rulers among humans plotted against him, but much more the spiritual and invisible rulers of this age, who were at work then and are still at work now: both the nations and the peoples of the circumcision, who meditated on the law of God emptily and in vain, taking counsel not only against the Christ of God but, through him, against the Father who sent him. Concerning all of them the psalm adds: “He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them. Then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his wrath he will trouble them.” After this, Christ himself, teaching us the dispensation that took place concerning him after the passion, says, “But I was set up as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain, declaring the decree of the Lord.” We must not, however, according to the grovelling notions of the Jews, think that Christ's kingdom is like those of humans and will be established on a bodily Mount Zion. For to the one who asked whether he was a king, he answered, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Hence he promised a kingdom of heaven to those who believed in him; and that Mount Zion is heavenly was taught not only by the apostle but by a great many other prophecies. Micah, for instance, having foretold that because of the impieties of the former people “Zion will be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem will be like a garden-watchman's hut, and the mountain of the house a thicket of the forest,” next adds, about another Zion and Jerusalem, “And in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, and peoples will come to it, and many nations will go, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Of this mountain, then, Christ says here too, “But I was set up as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain.” By whom he was set up is clear: by the Father, who said to him, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you,” and “Ask of me, and I will give you nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.” That the prophecy is true and the promise unfailing can be seen from those who, in so short a time, have come from every nation to the worship of God through our Saviour. Or else let those who shamelessly dare to look away from what has actually happened say to whom they could apply the prophecy, if they do not accept that it is so. For they could not show that King David, of whom some have thought these things are said, suffered any such thing, with rulers and kings, nations and peoples plotting against him. And when, or for what great exploits, did the Lord say to David, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you”? And how could “Ask of me, and I will give you nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession” be said as to him, when his kingdom was clearly limited to Israel alone and the borders of Judea? Let them answer, too, why they do not accept the Christ who has come. Is it because he suffered, so that they must expect another who will suffer nothing like what he suffered? Then how would the prophecies be fulfilled which foretell that the Christ of God would suffer a great many things, in many other passages and not least in the psalm in hand? Or must we think that he sowed the teaching about the God of the universe in the inhabited world without divine help? Can one even conceive that a human impulse, the bare undertaking of an ordinary person, had such strength and power that, by his teaching alone, without a cooperating divinity, it disposed souls of hearers of every kind toward the God of the universe long ago, and still now persuades them to abandon their ancestral customs and a lawless, savage, and licentious life, and to devote themselves to the worship of God alone, preferring it not only to their property but even to life itself, which all hold dear? I do not think that anyone willing to judge with even moderate fairness will fail to agree that such great things have come about through our Saviour with the cooperation of a divine power beyond the human. From these things both the divinity of the Lord who became man is demonstrated, and the evidence is clearly shown that he has received from the Father the nations for his inheritance and the ends of the earth for his possession, in keeping with the prophecy in hand. To explain everything in the psalm is not for the present occasion, especially since it has already received a very full explanation.

It is easy to take the third psalm too as referring to Christ, since, in keeping with those before it, it teaches about the plot against him through “Lord, why have those who afflict me multiplied?” and about his resurrection, which is shown through “I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord will help me.” Each verse of the psalm, given its proper explanation, would fit Christ. And there is reason too in its being placed third to foretell the Lord's resurrection, following the prophecies before it: for the first, as we have shown, teaches his blameless life and his conduct without sin; the second the events of the passion; and so the third, next after these, foretells his resurrection.

The first part of the eighth psalm, beginning “O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth,” seems to prophesy the calling of the nations; which is why it is also entitled “For the winepresses,” the winepresses being understood as the churches throughout the inhabited world, in which the rational clusters of the true vine, Christ, and of his branches, as it were, the holy apostles, when pressed, yield the spiritual wine of their teachings, which produces every gladness. For it is not otherwise possible to fit what is said in the psalm to bodily winepresses, since the words contain no sense at all about a vine brought out of Egypt, or the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth, or anything of that kind, as in other passages. The words beginning “What is man, that you remember him, or the son of man, that you visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honour,” and what follows, are applied in the letter to the Hebrews to our Saviour and Lord Jesus, where after “You subjected all things under his feet” it adds, “But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we see Jesus, made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death.” One might say that he was made a little lower than the angels not only because of the suffering of death but also because of his very incarnation, when, “being in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” and he lowered himself so far that, instead of the glory in the form of God, it was said of him, “We saw him, and he had no form or beauty; but his form was without honour, and failing beyond the sons of men.” In return for this the Father crowned him with glory and honour, highly exalting him and granting him the name above every name, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” And he set him over the works of his hands: this too (would fit) the person of our Saviour because of God the Word in him, but not just anyone, since the sacred words are accustomed to count even the heavens among the works of God, according to “And the heavens are the works of your hands.” Besides this, “And he subjected all things under his feet, sheep and all oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea”; by which there seems to be shown, more allegorically, the subjection under the yoke and service of the Word of souls that are more irrational and like secondary cattle, or else of the opposing powers.

The title of the ninth psalm is something like this: “To the end, for the hidden things. A psalm of David.” In place of this Symmachus rendered: “A victory song on the death of the son. A song of David.” And this is more like what the Hebrew seems to have, which runs thus: lamanassē almauth ben masmōra David. It would be well for those of the circumcision who use it to be perplexed as to what death, and what son, the psalm is spoken about by David. To us it clearly appears to prophesy the Saviour's passion; and it appears that the Seventy too understood this and hinted at it more secretly. Aquila, too, himself showing that some great exploit took place at the Saviour's passion, rendered: “To the victory-maker, of the youth of the son. A melody of David.” And anyone who has attended to all the words of the psalm would fit them to Christ, who calls himself poor and needy and prophesies about his resurrection from the dead in the words “Have mercy on me, Lord; see my humiliation from my enemies, you who lift me up from the gates of death, so that I may declare all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion”; what Zion, has been shown to us a little earlier. And in it certain things are prophesied about the nations to be saved through him, as about the poor and needy, among which is this: “Appoint, Lord, a lawgiver over them; let the nations know that they are men.” Here it is worth noting that the nations are not subject to the law of Moses; and the text should be brought against those of the circumcision who accuse those from the nations of not living according to the law of Moses. It should be shown that the prophetic word knows that there will be a lawgiver of the nations other than Moses, since it says as in a prayer, “Appoint, Lord, a lawgiver over them,” clearly over the nations. To this it adds, “Let the nations know that they are men,” as if it said: let the nations take up knowledge and understanding of their rational essence through the lawgiver who is to be appointed for them. This would be Christ, who gave us the new covenant as lawgiver by saying, “It was said to those of old, such and such; but I say to you, such and such.” By a divine and ineffable power he has been able to establish his laws not over one nation or two, nor over some part of the whole inhabited world, nor for a short time, but, as one can gather from what has actually happened, for ever and over all the nations. If anyone does not accept that this is so, let him show whom else, besides our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, he could name, in keeping with the prophecy in hand, as the lawgiver appointed by the God of the universe for the nations, who has become a teacher to all humans of reverence toward the Creator of the universe.

Since in the eleventh psalm the Lord says, “Because of the misery of the poor and the groaning of the needy, now I will arise, says the Lord; I will set him in safety; I will speak boldly in it,” let us examine whether these words too would fit the person of Christ, teaching about his resurrection from the dead, with some such sense as this: “For the sake of the nations that have come to be in the misery of vice, called poor in a blameworthy sense because they are deprived of the riches that are according to God, I emptied myself and took up the contest on their behalf even to death; now I will arise, and having received from the Father authority over all, I will set all who believe in me in salvation, and I will speak boldly in him,” either in the Father, or in what I have done for the salvation of so many through such great exploits. Such might be the sense of the text. But the first words of the psalm, containing “Save me, O God, for the holy one has failed,” and what follows, show what kind of time it was in which he suffered. For at that time the holy one had failed, and truths had diminished from the sons of men; each spoke vain things to his neighbour; and everything after this was fulfilled at that time.

“I foresaw the Lord before me always, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will fill me with gladness with your presence.” That these words too refer to the person of Christ is testified by Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, where he says: “Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to us by God with mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this man, delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you took and killed, fastening him by the hand of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says, ‘I foresaw the Lord before me always.’” Then, after saying some things in between, he adds this word for word: “Men, brothers, one may speak freely to you about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath to set one of the fruit of his loins on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.” Since Peter, then, has given the interpretation of the prophecy as referring to the Saviour, anyone who does not make the search into these things a side matter will be able either to fit the whole wording of the psalm to him in keeping with Peter's understanding, or to read what others have written in commentary on the psalm; for our purpose does not allow us to say anything more on these passages than what has been said.

We have also noted what is said in the sixteenth psalm, “You tested my heart, you visited me by night, you tried me by fire, and no injustice was found in me,” as being spoken in the voice of Christ, since it is not otherwise fitting for a human nature to say this. And all the words in the psalm can be referred to the Saviour by one who looks into them carefully.

Since those of the circumcision will think that the seventeenth psalm too is spoken by no one other than David, because its title seems to show this, we shall press them, as they cannot maintain of him the words, “You will deliver me from the contradiction of the people; you will make me head of nations; a people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me; foreign sons lied to me; foreign sons grew old.” For of what nations could they show David made head? Or what is this people whom he had not known before, yet who served him, obeying him at the hearing of the ear? And who are those called foreign sons who lied to him, and those who grew old and limped away from their paths? But for us nothing at all of what is said in the psalm will be a stumbling block, since we take this prophecy too in the person of Christ, who was made head of the church from the nations, and we see it plainly fulfilled. For we were, we truly were, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, and for that reason unworthy of the knowledge of the Word of God; but now, having come to know God, or rather to be known by him, we who were once far off have been brought near, and we have served the one who formerly did not know us, and at the hearing of the ear we have obeyed him, receiving the word of his new covenant, which he made with us. And wonderfully, after “A people whom I did not know served me” and the calling concerning us, it sets out what concerns the former synagogue through “Foreign sons lied to me,” which is equivalent to “I begot sons and raised them up, but they rejected me.” These also grew old and limped away from their paths, and did not receive the Christ of God, who, rejected by them, was made by the Father head of the nations that served him and obeyed him at the hearing of the ear, according to the prophecy that says elsewhere, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.” I think also that his divinity and his descent to humans are shown in the first parts of the psalm, which, being spoken more secretly, would need no passing or cursory explanation, such as the words “And he bowed the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was under his feet; and he mounted on cherubim and flew, he flew on the wings of the winds,” and whatever else, like these, refers to the Word of God.

“There are no speeches nor words in which their voices are not heard. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their sayings to the ends of the inhabited world.” We ask whose sound has gone out into all the earth, and whose sayings to the ends of the inhabited world, so that no words or speeches are left among any people among whom their voices have not been heard. But no one could point to any others than the holy apostles, in whom the prophecy has been fulfilled, since their teaching about Christ became renowned in all the world under heaven, when, while they lived, with the divine power that worked with them, they preached throughout the whole inhabited world faith in the Christ of God. About him, after foretelling the preaching of his apostles, the word next teaches that he “set his tabernacle in the sun,” the sun being understood as the divinity, in which he set his own abode and, as it were, his dwelling; or else the body he took from the virgin, which was, as it were, the tabernacle of the divine power abiding in it. He also, “like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoiced as a giant to run his course.” For like a bridegroom who, for the sake of his bride, the church, rose from the Father's bosom, and like some brave and strong giant who has fought through the contest set before him, conquered, and overcome his adversaries, he rejoiced on receiving his consort and bride. “His going forth is from the end of the heaven,” and again, “his arrival is to its end”; since “no one else has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man”; and again, “He who came down is the same who also went up far above all the heavens,” according to the holy apostle. “And there is none that shall be hidden from his heat,” concerning which he himself said, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I wish if it is already kindled?” One can easily work out for oneself the rest of the passage in keeping with these remarks.

What is said in the nineteenth psalm, “Now I know that the Lord has saved his anointed,” shows in some way the salvation of our Saviour Jesus Christ from death; for it is said to him also, “Let us rejoice in your salvation.” And the whole passage, given its proper explanation, might be fitted to him.

“O Lord, in your power the king will rejoice,” and what follows, one might say can be referred to David; but “He asked life of you, and you gave him length of days for ever and for ever and ever” no longer fits David, since his death is shown, and the span of his life, which was limited to no long period of years. The king, then, would be Christ, appointed by the Father to reign on the heavenly Mount Zion. He asked the Father for life, not for himself, for he was himself the life, but for all who would believe in him; and the Father granted it to him, so that all who have believed in him can pass from death into eternal life and into the length of the days that are with God, which are for ever and for ever and ever. The rest of what is said in the psalm about the king's glory, which is no small thing, would fit Christ rather than David, given the clarification it deserves.