Writings of Augustine. The City of God.
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The City of God.
translated by Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D.
Published in 1886 by Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co.
.
Book XVII.
Argument--In this book the history of the city of God is traced during
the period of the kings and prophets from Samuel to David, even to
Christ; and the prophecies which are recorded in the books of Kings,
Psalms, and those of Solomon, are interpreted of Christ and the
church.
Chapter 1.--Of the Prophetic Age.
By the favor of God we have treated distinctly of His promises made to
Abraham, that both the nation of Israel according to the flesh, and
all nations according to faith, should be his seed, and the City of
God, proceeding according to the order of time, will point [980] out
how they were fulfilled. Having therefore in the previous book come
down to the reign of David, we shall now treat of what remains, so far
as may seem sufficient for the object of this work, beginning at the
same reign. Now, from the time when holy Samuel began to prophesy,
and ever onward until the people of Israel was led captive into
Babylonia, and until, according to the prophecy of holy Jeremiah, on
Israel's return thence after seventy years, the house of God was built
anew, this whole period is the prophetic age. For although both the
patriarch Noah himself, in whose days the whole earth was destroyed by
the flood, and others before and after him down to this time when
there began to be kings over the people of God, may not underservedly
be styled prophets, on account of certain things pertaining to the
city of God and the kingdom of heaven, which they either predicted or
in any way signified should come to pass, and especially since we read
that some of them, as Abraham and Moses, were expressly so styled, yet
those are most and chiefly called the days of the prophets from the
time when Samuel began to prophesy, who at God's command first
anointed Saul to be king, and, on his rejection, David himself, whom
others of his issue should succeed as long as it was fitting they
should do so. If, therefore, I wished to rehearse all that the
prophets have predicted concerning Christ, while the city of God, with
its members dying and being born in constant succession, ran its
course through those times, this work would extend beyond all bounds.
First, because the Scripture itself, even when, in treating in order
of the kings and of their deeds and the events of their reigns, it
seems to be occupied in narrating as with historical diligence the
affairs transacted, will be found, if the things handled by it are
considered with the aid of the Spirit of God, either more, or
certainly not less, intent on foretelling things to come than on
relating things past. And who that thinks even a little about it does
not know how laborious and prolix a work it would be, and how many
volumes it would require to search this out by thorough investigation
and demonstrate it by argument? And then, because of that which
without dispute pertains to prophecy, there are so many things
concerning Christ and the kingdom of heaven, which is the city of God,
that to explain these a larger discussion would be necessary than the
due proportion of this work admits of. Therefore I shall, if I can,
so limit myself, that in carrying through this work, I may, with God's
help, neither say what is superfluous nor omit what is necessary.
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Footnotes
[980] Has pointed.
Chapter 2.--At What Time the Promise of God Was Fulfilled Concerning
the Land of Canaan, Which Even Carnal Israel Got in Possession.
In the preceding book we said, that in the promise of God to Abraham
two things were promised from the beginning, the one, name ly, that
his seed should possess the land of Canaan, which was intimated when
it was said, "Go into a land that I will show thee, and I will make of
thee a great nation;" [981] but the other far more excellent,
concerning not the carnal but the spiritual seed, by which he is the
father, not of the one nation of Israel, but of all nations who follow
the footsteps of his faith, which began to be promised in these words,
"And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." [982]And
thereafter we showed by yet many other proofs that these two things
were promised. Therefore the seed of Abraham, that is, the people of
Israel according to the flesh, already was in the land of promise; and
there, not only by holding and possessing the cities of the enemies,
but also by having kings, had already begun to reign, the promises of
God concerning that people being already in great part fulfilled: not
only those that were made to those three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and whatever others were made in their times, but those also
that were made through Moses himself, by whom the same people was set
free from servitude in Egypt, and by whom all bygone things were
revealed in his times, when he led the people through the wilderness.
But neither by the illustrious leader Jesus the son of Nun, who led
that people into the land of promise, and, after driving out the
nations, divided it among the twelve tribes according to God's
command, and died; nor after him, in the whole time of the judges, was
the promise of God concerning the land of Canaan fulfilled, that it
should extend from some river of Egypt even to the great river
Euphrates; nor yet was it still prophesied as to come, but its
fulfillment was expected. And it was fulfilled through David, and
Solomon his son, whose kingdom was extended over the whole promised
space; for they subdued all those nations, and made them tributary.
And thus, under those kings, the seed of Abraham was established in
the land of promise according to the flesh, that is, in the land of
Canaan, so that nothing yet remained to the complete fulfillment of
that earthly promise of God, except that, so far as pertains to
temporal prosperity, the Hebrew nation should remain in the same land
by the succession of posterity in an unshaken state even to the end of
this mortal age, if it obeyed the laws of the Lord its God. But since
God knew it would not do this, He used His temporal punishments also
for training His few faithful ones in it, and for giving needful
warning to those who should afterwards be in all nations, in whom the
other promise, revealed in the New Testament, was about to be
fulfilled through the incarnation of Christ.
Footnotes
[981] Gen. xii. 1, 2.
[982] Gen. xii. 3.
Chapter 3.--Of the Three-Fold Meaning of the Prophecies, Which are to
Be Referred Now to the Earthly, Now to the Heavenly Jerusalem, and Now
Again to Both.
Wherefore just as that divine oracle to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
all the other prophetic signs or sayings which are given in the
earlier sacred writings, so also the other prophecies from this time
of the kings pertain partly to the nation of Abraham's flesh, and
partly to that seed of his in which all nations are blessed as
fellow-heirs of Christ by the New Testament, to the possessing of
eternal life and the kingdom of the heavens. Therefore they pertain
partly to the bond maid who gendereth to bondage, that is, the earthly
Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children; but partly to the
free city of God, that is, the true Jerusalem eternal in the heavens,
whose children are all those that live according to God in the earth:
but there are some things among them which are understood to pertain
to both,--to the bond maid properly, to the free woman figuratively.
[983]
Therefore prophetic utterances of three kinds are to be found;
forasmuch as there are some relating to the earthly Jerusalem, some to
the heavenly, and some to both. I think it proper to prove what I say
by examples. The prophet Nathan was sent to convict king David of
heinous sin, and predict to him what future evils should be consequent
on it. Who can question that this and the like pertain to the
terrestrial city, whether publicly, that is, for the safety or help of
the people, or privately, when there are given forth for each one's
private good divine utterances whereby something of the future may be
known for the use of temporal life? But where we read, "Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that I will make for the house of Israel,
and for the house of Judah, a new testament: not according to the
testament that I settled for their fathers in the day when I laid hold
of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they
continued not in my testament, and I regarded them not, saith the
Lord. For this is the testament that I will make for the house of
Israel: after those days, saith the Lord, I will give my laws in
their mind, and will write them upon their hearts, and I will see to
them; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people;"
[984] --without doubt this is prophesied to the Jerusalem above, whose
reward is God Himself, and whose chief and entire good it is to have
Him, and to be His. But this pertains to both, that the city of God
is called Jerusalem, and that it is prophesied the house of God shall
be in it; and this prophecy seems to be fulfilled when king Solomon
builds that most noble temple. For these things both happened in the
earthly Jerusalem, as history shows, and were types of the heavenly
Jerusalem. And this kind of prophecy, as it were compacted and
commingled of both the others in the ancient canonical books,
containing historical narratives, is of very great significance, and
has exercised and exercises greatly the wits of those who search holy
writ. For example, what we read of historically as predicted and
fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, we must also
inquire the allegorical meaning of, as it is to be fulfilled in the
seed of Abraham according to faith. And so much is this the case,
that some have thought there is nothing in these books either foretold
and effected, or effected although not foretold, that does not
insinuate something else which is to be referred by figurative
signification to the city of God on high, and to her children who are
pilgrims in this life. But if this be so, then the utterances of the
prophets, or rather the whole of those Scriptures that are reckoned
under the title of the Old Testament, will be not of three, but of two
different kinds. For there will be nothing there which pertains to
the terrestrial Jerusalem only, if whatever is there said and
fulfilled of or concerning her signifies something which also refers
by allegorical prefiguration to the celestial Jerusalem; but there
will be only two kinds one that pertains to the free Jerusalem, the
other to both. But just as, I think, they err greatly who are of
opinion that none of the records of affairs in that kind of writings
mean anything more than that they so happened, so I think those very
daring who contend that the whole gist of their contents lies in
allegorical significations. Therefore I have said they are threefold,
not two-fold. Yet, in holding this opinion, I do not blame those who
may be able to draw out of everything there a spiritual meaning, only
saving, first of all, the historical truth. For the rest, what
believer can doubt that those things are spoken vainly which are such
that, whether said to have been done or to be yet to come, they do not
beseem either human or divine affairs? Who would not recall these to
spiritual understanding if he could, or confess that they should be
recalled by him who is able?
Footnotes
[983] Gal. iv. 22-31.
[984] Heb. viii. 8-10.
Chapter 4.--About the Prefigured Change of the Israelitic Kingdom and
Priesthood, and About the Things Hannah the Mother of Samuel
Prophesied, Personating the Church.
Therefore the advance of the city of God, where it reached the times
of the kings, yielded a figure, when, on the rejection of Saul, David
first obtained the kingdom on such a footing that thenceforth his
descendants should reign in the earthly Jerusalem in continual
succession; for the course of affairs signified and foretold, what is
not to be passed by in silence, concerning the change of things to
come, what belongs to both Testaments, the Old and the New,--where the
priesthood and kingdom are changed by one who is a priest, and at the
same time a king, new and everlasting, even Christ Jesus. For both
the substitution in the ministry of God, on Eli's rejection as priest,
of Samuel, who executed at once the office of priest and judge, and
the establishment of David in the kingdom, when Saul was rejected,
typified this of which I speak. And Hannah herself, the mother of
Samuel, who formerly was barren, and afterwards was gladdened with
fertility, does not seem to prophesy anything else, when she
exultingly pours forth her thanksgiving to the Lord, on yielding up to
God the same boy she had born and weaned with the same piety with
which she had vowed him. For she says, "My heart is made strong in
the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God; my mouth is enlarged over
mine enemies; I am made glad in Thy salvation. Because there is none
holy as the Lord; and none is righteous as our God: there is none
holy save Thee. Do not glory so proudly, and do not speak lofty
things, neither let vaunting talk come out of your mouth; for a God of
knowledge is the Lord, and a God preparing His curious designs. The
bow of the mighty hath He made weak, and the weak are girded with
strength. They that were full of bread are diminished; and the hungry
have passed beyond the earth: for the barren hath born seven; and she
that hath many children is waxed feeble. The Lord killeth and maketh
alive: He bringeth down to hell, and bringeth up again. The Lord
maketh poor and maketh rich: He bringeth low and lifteth up. He
raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from
the dunghill, that He may set him among the mighty of [His] people,
and maketh them inherit the throne of glory; giving the vow to him
that voweth, and He hath blessed the years of the just: for man is
not mighty in strength. The Lord shall make His adversary weak: the
Lord is holy. Let not the prudent glory in his prudence and let not
the mighty glory in his might; and let not the rich glory in his
riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, to understand and
know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the
earth. The Lord hath ascended into the heavens, and hath thundered:
He shall judge the ends of the earth, for He is righteous: and He
giveth strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of His Christ."
[985]
Do you say that these are the words of a single weak woman giving
thanks for the birth of a son? Can the mind of men be so much averse
to the light of truth as not to perceive that the sayings this woman
pours forth exceed her measure? Moreover, he who is suitably
interested in these things which have already begun to be fulfilled
even in this earthly pilgrimage also, does he not apply his mind, and
perceive, and acknowledge, that through this woman--whose very name,
which is Hannah, means "His grace"--the very Christian religion, the
very city of God, whose king and founder is Christ, in fine, the very
grace of God, hath thus spoken by the prophetic Spirit, whereby the
proud are cut off so that they fall, and the humble are filled so that
they rise, which that hymn chiefly celebrates? Unless perchance any
one will say that this woman prophesied nothing, but only lauded God
with exulting praise on account of the son whom she had obtained in
answer to prayer. What then does she mean when she says, "The bow of
the mighty hath He made weak, and the weak are girded with strength;
they that were full of bread are diminished, and the hungry have gone
beyond the earth; for the barren hath born seven, and she that hath
many children is waxed feeble?" Had she herself born seven, although
she had been barren? She had only one when she said that; neither did
she bear seven afterwards, nor six, with whom Samuel himself might be
the seventh, but three males and two females. And then, when as yet
no one was king over that people, whence, if she did not prophesy, did
she say what she puts at the end, "He giveth strength to our kings,
and shall exalt the horn of His Christ?"
Therefore let the Church of Christ, the city of the great King, [986]
full of grace, prolific of offspring, let her say what the prophecy
uttered about her so long before by the mouth of this pious mother
confesses, "My heart is made strong in the Lord, and my horn is
exalted in my God." Her heart is truly made strong, and her horn is
truly exalted, because not in herself, but in the Lord her God. "My
mouth is enlarged over mine enemies;" because even in pressing straits
the word of God is not bound, not even in preachers who are bound.
[987]"I am made glad," she says, "in Thy salvation." This is
Christ Jesus Himself, whom old Simeon, as we read in the Gospel,
embracing as a little one, yet recognizing as great, said, "Lord, now
lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy
salvation." [988]Therefore may the Church say, "I am made glad in
Thy salvation. For there is none holy as the Lord, and none is
righteous as our God;" as holy and sanctifying, just and justifying.
[989]"There is none holy beside Thee;" because no one becomes so
except by reason of Thee. And then it follows, "Do not glory so
proudly, and do not speak lofty things, neither let vaunting talk come
out of your mouth. For a God of knowledge is the Lord." He knows you
even when no one knows; for "he who thinketh himself to be something
when he is nothing deceiveth himself." [990]These things are said
to the adversaries of the city of God who belong to Babylon, who
presume in their own strength, and glory in themselves, not in the
Lord; of whom are also the carnal Israelites, the earth-born
inhabitants of the earthly Jerusalem, who, as saith the apostle,
"being ignorant of the righteousness of God," [991] that is, which
God, who alone is just, and the justifier, gives to man, "and wishing
to establish their own," that is, which is as it were procured by
their own selves, not bestowed by Him, "are not subject to the
righteousness of God," just because they are proud, and think they are
able to please God with their own, not with that which is of God, who
is the God of knowledge, and therefore also takes the oversight of
consciences, there beholding the thoughts of men that they are vain,
[992] if they are of men, and are not from Him. "And preparing," she
says, "His curious designs." What curious designs do we think these
are, save that the proud must fall, and the humble rise? These
curious designs she recounts, saying, "The bow of the mighty is made
weak, and the weak are girded with strength." The bow is made weak,
that is, the intention of those who think themselves so powerful, that
without the gift and help of God they are able by human sufficiency to
fulfill the divine commandments; and those are girded with strength
whose in ward cry is, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak."
[993]
"They that were full of bread," she says, "are diminished, and the
hungry have gone beyond the earth." Who are to be understood as full
of bread except those same who were as if mighty, that is, the
Israelites, to whom were committed the oracles of God? [994]But
among that people the children of the bond maid were diminished,--by
which word minus, although it is Latin, the idea is well expressed
that from being greater they were made less,--because, even in the
very bread, that is, the divine oracles, which the Israelites alone of
all nations have received, they savor earthly things. But the nations
to whom that law was not given, after they have come through the New
Testament to these oracles, by thirsting much have gone beyond the
earth, because in them they have savored not earthly, but heavenly
things. And the reason why this is done is as it were sought; "for
the barren," she says, "hath born seven, and she that hath many
children is waxed feeble." Here all that had been prophesied hath
shone forth to those who understood the number seven, which signifies
the perfection of the universal Church. For which reason also the
Apostle John writes to the seven churches, [995] showing in that way
that he writes to the totality of the one Church; and in the Proverbs
of Solomon it is said aforetime, prefiguring this, "Wisdom hath
builded her house, she hath strengthened her seven pillars." [996]
For the city of God was barren in all nations before that child arose
whom we see. [997]We also see that the temporal Jerusalem, who had
many children, is now waxed feeble. Because, whoever in her were sons
of the free woman were her strength; but now, forasmuch as the letter
is there, and not the spirit, having lost her strength, she is waxed
feeble.
"The Lord killeth and maketh alive:" He has killed her who had many
children, and made this barren one alive, so that she has born seven.
Although it may be more suitably understood that He has made those
same alive whom He has killed. For she, as it were, repeats that by
adding, "He bringeth down to hell, and bringeth up." To whom truly
the apostle says, "If ye be dead with Christ, seek those things which
are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." [998]
Therefore they are killed by the Lord in a salutary way, so that he
adds, "Savor things which are above, not things on the earth;" so that
these are they who, hungering, have passed beyond the earth. "For ye
are dead," he says: behold how God savingly kills! Then there
follows, "And your life is hid with Christ in God:" behold how God
makes the same alive! But does He bring them down to hell and bring
them up again? It is without controversy among believers that we best
see both parts of this work fulfilled in Him, to wit our Head, with
whom the apostle has said our life is hid in God. "For when He spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," [999] in that way,
certainly, He has killed Him. And forasmuch as He raised Him up again
from the dead, He has made Him alive again. And since His voice is
acknowledged in the prophecy, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,"
[1000] He has brought Him down to hell and brought Him up again. By
this poverty of His we are made rich; [1001] for "the Lord maketh poor
and maketh rich." But that we may know what this is, let us hear what
follows: "He bringeth low and lifteth up;" and truly He humbles the
proud and exalts the humble. Which we also read elsewhere, "God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." [1002]This is
the burden of the entire song of this woman whose name is interpreted
"His grace."
Farther, what is added, "He raiseth up the poor from the earth," I
understand of none better than of Him who, as was said a little ago,
"was made poor for us, when He was rich, that by His poverty we might
be made rich." For He raised Him from the earth so quickly that His
flesh did not see corruption. Nor shall I divert from Him what is
added, "And raiseth up the poor from the dunghill." For indeed he who
is the poor man is also the beggar. [1003]But by the dunghill from
which he is lifted up we are with the greatest reason to understand
the persecuting Jews, of whom the apostle says, when telling that when
he belonged to them he persecuted the Church, "What things were gain
to me, those I counted loss for Christ; and I have counted them not
only loss, but even dung, that I might win Christ." [1004]Therefore
that poor one is raised up from the earth above all the rich, and that
beggar is lifted up from that dunghill above all the wealthy, "that he
may sit among the mighty of the people," to whom He says, "Ye shall
sit upon twelve thrones," [1005] "and to make them inherit the throne
of glory." For these mighty ones had said, "Lo, we have forsaken all
and followed Thee." They had most mightily vowed this vow.
But whence do they receive this, except from Him of whom it is here
immediately said, "Giving the vow to him that voweth?" Otherwise they
would be of those mighty ones whose bow is weakened. "Giving," she
saith, "the vow to him that voweth." For no one could vow anything
acceptable to God, unless he received from Him that which he might
vow. There follows, "And He hath blessed the years of the just," to
wit, that he may live for ever with Him to whom it is said, "And Thy
years shall have no end." For there the years abide; but here they
pass away, yea, they perish: for before they come they are not, and
when they shall have come they shall not be, because they bring their
own end with them. Now of these two, that is, "giving the vow to him
that voweth," and "He hath blessed the years of the just," the one is
what we do, the other what we receive. But this other is not received
from God, the liberal giver, until He, the helper, Himself has enabled
us for the former; "for man is not mighty in strength." "The Lord
shall make his adversary weak," to wit, him who envies the man that
vows, and resists him, lest he should fulfill what he has vowed.
Owing to the ambiguity of the Greek, it may also be understood "his
own adversary." For when God has begun to possess us, immediately he
who had been our adversary becomes His, and is conquered by us; but
not by our own strength, "for man is not mighty in strength."
Therefore "the Lord shall make His own adversary weak, the Lord is
holy," that he may be conquered by the saints, whom the Lord, the Holy
of holies, hath made saints. For this reason, "let not the prudent
glory in his prudence, and let not the mighty glory in his might, and
let not the rich glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory
in this,--to understand and know the Lord, and to do judgment and
justice in the midst of the earth." He in no small measure
understands and knows the Lord who understands and knows that even
this, that he can understand and know the Lord, is given to him by the
Lord. "For what hast thou," saith the apostle, "that thou hast not
received? But if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if
thou hadst not received it?" [1006]That is, as if thou hadst of
thine own self whereof thou mightest glory. Now, he does judgment and
justice who lives aright. But he lives aright who yields obedience to
God when He commands. "The end of the commandment," that is, to which
the commandment has reference, "is charity out of a pure heart, and a
good conscience, and faith unfeigned." Moreover, this "charity," as
the Apostle John testifies, "is of God." [1007]Therefore to do
justice and judgment is of God. But what is "in the midst of the
earth?" For ought those who dwell in the ends of the earth not to do
judgment and justice? Who would say so? Why, then, is it added, "In
the midst of the earth?" For if this had not been added, and it had
only been said, "To do judgment and justice," this commandment would
rather have pertained to both kinds of men,--both those dwelling
inland and those on the sea-coast. But lest any one should think
that, after the end of the life led in this body, there remains a time
for doing judgment and justice which he has not done while he was in
the flesh, and that the divine judgment can thus be escaped, "in the
midst of the earth" appears to me to be said of the time when every
one lives in the body; for in this life every one carries about his
own earth, which, on a man's dying, the common earth takes back, to be
surely returned to him on his rising again. Therefore "in the midst
of the earth," that is, while our soul is shut up in this earthly
body, judgment and justice are to be done, which shall be profitable
for us hereafter, when "every one shall receive according to that he
hath done in the body, whether good or bad." [1008]For when the
apostle there says "in the body," he means in the time he has lived in
the body. Yet if any one blaspheme with malicious mind and impious
thought, without any member of his body being employed in it, he shall
not therefore be guiltless because he has not done it with bodily
motion, for he will have done it in that time which he has spent in
the body. In the same way we may suitably understand what we read in
the psalm, "But God, our King before the worlds, hath wrought
salvation in the midst of the earth;" [1009] so that the Lord Jesus
may be understood to be our God who is before the worlds, because by
Him the worlds were made, working our salvation in the midst of the
earth, for the Word was made flesh and dwelt in an earthly body.
Then after Hannah has prophesied in these words, that he who glorieth
ought to glory not in himself at all, but in the Lord, she says, on
account of the retribution which is to come on the day of judgment,
"The Lord hath ascended into the heavens, and hath thundered: He
shall judge the ends of the earth, for He is righteous." Throughout
she holds to the order of the creed of Christians: For the Lord
Christ has ascended into heaven, and is to come thence to judge the
quick and dead. [1010]For, as saith the apostle, "Who hath ascended
but He who hath also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He
that descended is the same also that ascended up above all heavens,
that He might fill all things." [1011]Therefore He hath thundered
through His clouds, which He hath filled with His Holy Spirit when He
ascended up. Concerning which the bond maid Jerusalem--that is, the
unfruitful vineyard--is threatened in Isaiah the prophet that they
shall rain no showers upon her. But "He shall judge the ends of the
earth" is spoken as if it had been said, "even the extremes of the
earth." For it does not mean that He shall not judge the other parts
of the earth, who, without doubt, shall judge all men. But it is
better to understand by the extremes of the earth the extremes of man,
since those things shall not be judged which, in the middle time, are
changed for the better or the worse, but the ending in which he shall
be found who is judged. For which reason it is said, "He that shall
persevere even unto the end, the same shall be saved." [1012]He,
therefore, who perseveringly does judgment and justice in the midst of
the earth shall not be condemned when the extremes of the earth shall
be judged. "And giveth," she saith, "strength to our kings," that He
may not condemn them in judging. He giveth them strength whereby as
kings they rule the flesh, and conquer the world in Him who hath
poured out His blood for them. "And shall exalt the horn of His
Christ." How shall Christ exalt the horn of His Christ? For He of
whom it was said above, "The Lord hath ascended into the heavens,"
meaning the Lord Christ, Himself, as it is said here, "shall exalt the
horn of His Christ." Who, therefore, is the Christ of His Christ?
Does it mean that He shall exalt the horn of each one of His believing
people, as she says in the beginning of this hymn, "Mine horn is
exalted in my God?" For we can rightly call all those christs who are
anointed with His chrism, forasmuch as the whole body with its head is
one Christ. [1013]These things hath Hannah, the mother of Samuel,
the holy and much-praised man, prophesied, in which, indeed, the
change of the ancient priesthood was then figured and is now
fulfilled, since she that had many children is waxed feeble, that the
barren who hath born seven might have the new priesthood in Christ.
Footnotes
[985] 1 Sam. ii. 1-10.
[986] Ps. xlviii. 2.
[987] 2 Tim. ii. 9; Eph. vi. 20.
[988] Luke ii. 25-30.
[989] Rom. iii. 26?
[990] Gal. vi. 3.
[991] Rom. x. 3.
[992] Ps. xciv. 11; 1 Cor. iii. 20.
[993] Ps. vi. 2.
[994] Rom. iii. 2.
[995] Rev. i. 4.
[996] Prov. ix. 1.
[997] By whom we see her made fruitful.
[998] Col. iii. 1-3.
[999] Rom. viii. 32.
[1000] Ps. xvi. 10; Acts ii. 27, 31.
[1001] 2 Cor. viii. 9.
[1002] Jas. iv. 6; 1 Pet. v. 5.
[1003] For the poor man is the same as the beggar.
[1004] Phil. iii. 7, 8.
[1005] Matt. xix. 27, 28.
[1006] 1 Cor. iv. 7.
[1007] 1 John iv. 7.
[1008] 2 Cor. v. 10.
[1009] Ps. lxxiv. 12.
[1010] Acts x. 42.
[1011] Eph. iv. 9, 10.
[1012] Matt. xxiv. 13.
[1013] 1 Cor. xii. 12.
Chapter 5.--Of Those Things Which a Man of God Spake by the Spirit to
Eli the Priest, Signifying that the Priesthood Which Had Been
Appointed According to Aaron Was to Be Taken Away.
But this is said more plainly by a man of God sent to Eli the priest
himself, whose name indeed is not mentioned, but whose office and
ministry show him to have been indubitably a prophet. For it is thus
written: "And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said, Thus saith
the Lord, I plainly revealed myself unto thy father's house, when they
were in the land of Egypt slaves in Pharaoh's house; and I chose thy
father's house out of all the sceptres of Israel to fill the office of
priest for me, to go up to my altar, to burn incense and wear the
ephod; and I gave thy father's house for food all the offerings made
by fire of the children of Israel. Wherefore then hast thou looked at
mine incense and at mine offerings with an impudent eye, and hast
glorified thy sons above me, to bless the first-fruits of every
sacrifice in Israel before me? Therefore thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, I said thy house and thy father's house should walk before me
for ever: but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me; for them that
honor me will I honor, and he that despiseth me shall be despised.
Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thy seed, and the seed of
thy father's house, and thou shalt never have an old man in my house.
And I will cut off the man of thine from mine altar, so that his eyes
shall be consumed, and his heart shall melt away; and every one of thy
house that is left shall fall by the sword of men. And this shall be
a sign unto thee that shall come upon these thy two sons, Hophni and
Phinehas; in one day they shall die both of them. And I will raise me
up a faithful priest, that shall do according to all that is in mine
heart and in my soul; and I will build him a sure house, and he shall
walk before my Christ for ever. And it shall come to pass that he who
is left in thine house shall come to worship him with a piece of
money, saying, Put me into one part of thy priesthood, that I may eat
bread." [1014]
We cannot say that this prophecy, in which the change of the ancient
priesthood is foretold with so great plainness, was fulfilled in
Samuel; for although Samuel was not of another tribe than that which
had been appointed by God to serve at the altar, yet he was not of the
sons of Aaron, whose offspring was set apart that the priests might be
taken out of it. And thus by that transaction also the same change
which should come to pass through Christ Jesus is shadowed forth, and
the prophecy itself in deed, not in word, belonged to the Old
Testament properly, but figuratively to the New, signifying by the
fact just what was said by the word to Eli the priest through the
prophet. For there were afterwards priests of Aaron's race, such as
Zadok and Abiathar during David's reign, and others in succession,
before the time came when those things which were predicted so long
before about the changing of the priesthood behoved to be fulfilled by
Christ. But who that now views these things with a believing eye does
not see that they are fulfilled? Since, indeed, no tabernacle, no
temple, no altar, no sacrifice, and therefore no priest either, has
remained to the Jews, to whom it was commanded in the law of God that
he should be ordained of the seed of Aaron; which is also mentioned
here by the prophet, when he says, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
I said thy house and thy father's house shall walk before me for
ever: but now the Lord saith, That be far from me; for them that
honor me will I honor, and he that despiseth me shall be despised."
For that in naming his father's house he does not mean that of his
immediate father, but that of Aaron, who first was appointed priest,
to be succeeded by others descended from him, is shown by the
preceding words, when he says, "I was revealed unto thy father's
house, when they were in the land of Egypt slaves in Pharaoh's house;
and I chose thy father's house out of all the sceptres of Israel to
fill the office of priest for me." Which of the fathers in that
Egyptian slavery, but Aaron, was his father, who, when they were set
free, was chosen to the priesthood? It was of his lineage, therefore,
he has said in this passage it should come to pass that they should no
longer be priests; which already we see fulfilled. If faith be
watchful, the things are before us: they are discerned, they are
grasped, and are forced on the eyes of the unwilling, so that they are
seen: "Behold the days come," he says, "that I will cut off thy seed,
and the seed of thy father's house, and thou shall never have an old
man in mine house. And I will cut off the man of thine from mine
altar, so that his eyes shall be consumed and his heart shall melt
away." Behold the days which were foretold have already come. There
is no priest after the order of Aaron; and whoever is a man of his
lineage, when he sees the sacrifice of the Christians prevailing over
the whole world, but that great honor taken away from himself, his
eyes fail and his soul melts away consumed with grief.
But what follows belongs properly to the house of Eli, to whom these
things were said: "And every one of thine house that is left shall
fall by the sword of men. And this shall be a sign unto thee that
shall come upon these thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas; in one day
they shall die both of them." This, therefore, is made a sign of the
change of the priesthood from this man's house, by which it is
signified that the priesthood of Aaron's house is to be changed. For
the death of this man's sons signified the death not of the men, but
of the priesthood itself of the sons of Aaron. But what follows
pertains to that Priest whom Samuel typified by succeeding this one.
Therefore the things which follow are said of Christ Jesus, the true
Priest of the New Testament: "And I will raise me up a faithful
Priest that shall do according to all that is in mine heart and in my
soul; and I will build Him a sure house." The same is the eternal
Jerusalem above. "And He shall walk," saith He, "before my Christ
always." "He shall walk" means "he shall be conversant with," just as
He had said before of Aaron's house, "I said that thine house and thy
father's house shall walk before me for ever." But what He says, "He
shall walk before my Christ," is to be understood entirely of the
house itself, not of the priest, who is Christ Himself, the Mediator
and Saviour. His house, therefore, shall walk before Him. "Shall
walk" may also be understood to mean from death to life, all the time
this mortality passes through, even to the end of this world. But
where God says, "Who will do all that is in mine heart and in my
soul," we must not think that God has a soul, for He is the Author of
souls; but this is said of God tropically, not properly, just as He is
said to have hands and feet, and other corporal members. And, lest it
should be supposed from such language that man in the form of this
flesh is made in the image of God, wings also are ascribed to Him,
which man has not at all; and it is said to God, "Hide me under the
shadow of Thy wings," [1015] that men may understand that such things
are said of that ineffable nature not in proper but in figurative
words.
But what is added, "And it shall come to pass that he who is left in
thine house shall come to worship him," is not said properly of the
house of this Eli, but of that Aaron, the men of which remained even
to the advent of Jesus Christ, of which race there are not wanting men
even to this present. For of that house of Eli it had already been
said above, "And every one of thine house that is left shall fall by
the sword of men." How, therefore, could it be truly said here, "And
it shall come to pass that every one that is left shall come to
worship him," if that is true, that no one shall escape the avenging
sword, unless he would have it understood of those who belong to the
race of that whole priesthood after the order of Aaron? Therefore, if
it is of these the predestinated remnant, about whom another prophet
has said, "The remnant shall be saved;" [1016] whence the apostle also
says, "Even so then at this time also the remnant according to the
election of grace is saved;" [1017] since it is easily understood to
be of such a remnant that it is said, "He that is left in thine
house," assuredly he believes in Christ; just as in the time of the
apostle very many of that nation believed; nor are there now wanting
those, although very few, who yet believe, and in them is fulfilled
what this man of God has here immediately added, "He shall come to
worship him with a piece of money;" to worship whom, if not that Chief
Priest, who is also God? For in that priesthood after the order of
Aaron men did not come to the temple or altar of God for the purpose
of worshipping the priest. But what is that he says, "With a piece of
money," if not the short word of faith, about which the apostle quotes
the saying, "A consummating and shortening word will the Lord make
upon the earth?" [1018]But that money is put for the word the psalm
is a witness, where it is sung, "The words of the Lord are pure words,
money tried with the fire." [1019]
What then does he say who comes to worship the priest of God, even the
Priest who is God? "Put me into one part of Thy priesthood, to eat
bread." I do not wish to be set in the honor of my fathers, which is
none; put me in a part of Thy priesthood. For "I have chosen to be
mean in Thine house;" [1020] I desire to be a member, no matter what,
or how small, of Thy priesthood. By the priesthood he here means the
people itself, of which He is the Priest who is the Mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus. [1021]This people the Apostle
Peter calls "a holy people, a royal priesthood." [1022]But some
have translated, "Of Thy sacrifice," not "Of Thy priesthood," which no
less signifies the same Christian people. Whence the Apostle Paul
says, "We being many are one bread, one body." [1023] [And again he
says, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice." [1024] ] What,
therefore, he has added, to "eat bread," also elegantly expresses the
very kind of sacrifice of which the Priest Himself says, "The bread
which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." [1025]The
same is the sacrifice not after the order of Aaron, but after the
order of Melchisedec: [1026]let him that readeth understand. [1027]
Therefore this short and salutarily humble confession, in which it
is said, "Put me in a part of Thy priesthood, to eat bread," is itself
the piece of money, for it is both brief, and it is the Word of God
who dwells in the heart of one who believes. For because He had said
above, that He had given for food to Aaron's house the sacrificial
victims of the Old Testament, where He says, "I have given thy
father's house for food all things which are offered by fire of the
children of Israel," which indeed were the sacrifices of the Jews;
therefore here He has said, "To eat bread," which is in the New
Testament the sacrifice of the Christians.
Footnotes
[1014] 1 Sam. ii. 27-36.
[1015] Ps. xvii. 8.
[1016] Isa. x. 21.
[1017] Rom. xi. 5.
[1018] Isa. xxxviii. 22; Rom. ix. 28.
[1019] Ps. xii. 6.
[1020] Ps. lxxxiv. 10.
[1021] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[1022] 1 Pet. ii. 9.
[1023] 1 Cor. x. 17.
[1024] Rom. xii. 1.
[1025] John vi. 51.
[1026] Heb. vii. 11, 27.
[1027] Matt. xxiv. 15.
Chapter 6.--Of the Jewish Priesthood and Kingdom, Which, Although
Promised to Be Established for Ever, Did Not Continue; So that Other
Things are to Be Understood to Which Eternity is Assured.
While, therefore, these things now shine forth as clearly as they were
loftily foretold, still some one may not vainly be moved to ask, How
can we be confident that all things are to come to pass which are
predicted in these books as about to come, if this very thing which is
there divinely spoken, "Thine house and thy father's house shall walk
before me for ever," could not have effect? For we see that
priesthood has been changed; and there can be no hope that what was
promised to that house may some time be fulfilled, because that which
succeeds on its being rejected and changed is rather predicted as
eternal. He who says this does not yet understand, or does not
recollect, that this very priesthood after the order of Aaron was
appointed as the shadow of a future eternal priesthood; and therefore,
when eternity is promised to it, it is not promised to the mere shadow
and figure, but to what is shadowed forth and prefigured by it. But
lest it should be thought the shadow itself was to remain, therefore
its mutation also behoved to be foretold.
In this way, too, the kingdom of Saul himself, who certainly was
reprobated and rejected, was the shadow of a kingdom yet to come which
should remain to eternity. For, indeed, the oil with which he was
anointed, and from that chrism he is called Christ, is to be taken in
a mystical sense, and is to be understood as a great mystery; which
David himself venerated so much in him, that he trembled with smitten
heart when, being hid in a dark cave, which Saul also entered when
pressed by the necessity of nature, he had come secretly behind him
and cut off a small piece of his robe, that he might be able to prove
how he had spared him when he could have killed him, and might thus
remove from his mind the suspicion through which he had vehemently
persecuted the holy David, thinking him his enemy. Therefore he was
much afraid lest he should be accused of violating so great a mystery
in Saul, because he had thus meddled even his clothes. For thus it is
written: "And David's heart smote him because he had taken away the
skirt of his cloak." [1028]But to the men with him, who advised him
to destroy Saul thus delivered up into his hands, he saith, "The Lord
forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's christ, to
lay my hand upon him, because he is the Lord's christ." Therefore he
showed so great reverence to this shadow of what was to come, not for
its own sake, but for the sake of what it prefigured. Whence also
that which Samuel says to Saul, "Since thou hast not kept my
commandment which the Lord commanded thee, whereas now the Lord would
have prepared thy kingdom over Israel for ever, yet now thy kingdom
shall not continue for thee; and the Lord will seek Him a man after
His own heart, and the Lord will command him to be prince over His
people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded
thee," [1029] is not to be taken as if God had settled that Saul
himself should reign for ever, and afterwards, on his sinning, would
not keep this promise; nor was He ignorant that he would sin, but He
had established his kingdom that it might be a figure of the eternal
kingdom. Therefore he added, "Yet now thy kingdom shall not continue
for thee." Therefore what it signified has stood and shall stand; but
it shall not stand for this man, because he himself was not to reign
for ever, nor his offspring; so that at least that word "for ever"
might seem to be fulfilled through his posterity one to another. "And
the Lord," he saith, "will seek Him a man," meaning either David or
the Mediator of the New Testament, [1030] who was figured in the
chrism with which David also and his offspring was anointed. But it
is not as if He knew not where he was that God thus seeks Him a man,
but, speaking through a man, He speaks as a man, and in this sense
seeks us. For not only to God the Father, but also to His
Only-begotten, who came to seek what was lost, [1031] we had been
known already even so far as to be chosen in Him before the foundation
of the world. [1032]"He will seek Him" therefore means, He will
have His own (just as if He had said, Whom He already has known to be
His own He will show to others to be His friend). Whence in Latin
this word (quærit) receives a preposition and becomes acquirit
(acquires), the meaning of which is plain enough; although even
without the addition of the preposition quærere is understood as
acquirere, whence gains are called quæstus.
Footnotes
[1028] 1 Sam. xxiv. 5, 6.
[1029] 1 Sam. xiii. 13, 14.
[1030] Heb. ix. 15.
[1031] Luke xix. 10.
[1032] Eph. i. 4.
Chapter 7.--Of the Disruption of the Kingdom of Israel, by Which the
Perpetual Division of the Spiritual from the Carnal Israel Was
Prefigured.
Again Saul sinned through disobedience, and again Samuel says to him
in the word of the Lord, "Because thou hast despised the word of the
Lord, the Lord hath despised thee, that thou mayest not be king over
Israel." [1033]And again for the same sin, when Saul confessed it,
and prayed for pardon, and besought Samuel to return with him to
appease the Lord, he said, "I will not return with thee: for thou
hast despised the word of the Lord, and the Lord will despise thee
that thou mayest not be king over Israel. And Samuel turned his face
to go away, and Saul laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and rent
it. And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom from
Israel out of thine hand this day, and will give it to thy neighbor,
who is good above thee, and will divide Israel in twain. And He will
not be changed, neither will He repent: for He is not as a man, that
He should repent; who threatens and does not persist." [1034]He to
whom it is said, "The Lord will despise thee that thou mayest not be
king over Israel," and "The Lord hath rent the kingdom from Israel out
of thine hand this day," reigned forty years over Israel,--that is,
just as long a time as David himself,--yet heard this in the first
period of his reign, that we may understand it was said because none
of his race was to reign, and that we may look to the race of David,
whence also is sprung, according to the flesh, [1035] the Mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. [1036]
But the Scripture has not what is read in most Latin copies, "The Lord
hath rent the kingdom of Israel out of thine hand this day," but just
as we have set it down it is found in the Greek copies, "The Lord hath
rent the kingdom from Israel out of thine hand;" that the words "out
of thine hand" may be understood to mean "from Israel." Therefore
this man figuratively represented the people of Israel, which was to
lose the kingdom, Christ Jesus our Lord being about to reign, not
carnally, but spiritually. And when it is said of Him, "And will give
it to thy neighbor," that is to be referred to the fleshly kinship,
for Christ, according to the flesh, was of Israel, whence also Saul
sprang. But what is added, "Good above thee," may indeed be
understood, "Better than thee," and indeed some have thus translated
it; but it is better taken thus, "Good above thee," as meaning that
because He is good, therefore He must be above thee, according to that
other prophetic saying, "Till I put all Thine enemies under Thy feet."
[1037]And among them is Israel, from whom, as His persecutor,
Christ took away the kingdom; although the Israel in whom there was no
guile may have been there too, a sort of grain, as it were, of that
chaff. For certainly thence came the apostles, thence so many
martyrs, of whom Stephen is the first, thence so many churches, which
the Apostle Paul names, magnifying God in their conversion.
Of which thing I do not doubt what follows is to be understood, "And
will divide Israel in twain," to wit, into Israel pertaining to the
bond woman, and Israel pertaining to the free. For these two kinds
were at first together, as Abraham still clave to the bond woman,
until the barren, made fruitful by the grace of God, cried, "Cast out
the bond woman and her son." [1038]We know, indeed, that on account
of the sin of Solomon, in the reign of his son Rehoboam, Israel was
divided in two, and continued so, the separate parts having their own
kings, until that whole nation was overthrown with a great
destruction, and carried away by the Chaldeans. But what was this to
Saul, when, if any such thing was threatened, it would be threatened
against David himself, whose son Solomon was? Finally, the Hebrew
nation is not now divided internally, but is dispersed through the
earth indiscriminately, in the fellowship of the same error. But that
division with which God threatened the kingdom and people in the
person of Saul, who represented them, is shown to be eternal and
unchangeable by this which is added, "And He will not be changed,
neither will He repent: for He is not as a man, that He should
repent; who threatens and does not persist,"--that is, a man threatens
and does not persist, but not God, who does not repent like man. For
when we read that He repents, a change of circumstance is meant,
flowing from the divine immutable foreknowledge. Therefore, when God
is said not to repent, it is to be understood that He does not change.
We see that this sentence concerning this division of the people of
Israel, divinely uttered in these words, has been altogether
irremediable and quite perpetual. For whoever have turned, or are
turning, or shall turn thence to Christ, it has been according to the
foreknowledge of God, not according to the one and the same nature of
the human race. Certainly none of the Israelites, who, cleaving to
Christ, have continued in Him, shall ever be among those Israelites
who persist in being His enemies even to the end of this life, but
shall for ever remain in the separation which is here foretold. For
the Old Testament, from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage,
[1039] profiteth nothing, unless because it bears witness to the New
Testament. Otherwise, however long Moses is read, the veil is put
over their heart; but when any one shall turn thence to Christ, the
veil shall be taken away. [1040]For the very desire of those who
turn is changed from the old to the new, so that each no longer
desires to obtain carnal but spiritual felicity. Wherefore that great
prophet Samuel himself, before he had anointed Saul, when he had cried
to the Lord for Israel, and He had heard him, and when he had offered
a whole burnt-offering, as the aliens were coming to battle against
the people of God, and the Lord thundered above them and they were
confused, and fell before Israel and were overcome; [then] he took one
stone and set it up between the old and new Massephat [Mizpeh], and
called its name Ebenezer, which means "the stone of the helper," and
said, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." [1041]Massephat is
interpreted "desire." That stone of the helper is the mediation of
the Saviour, by which we go from the old Massephat to the new,--that
is, from the desire with which carnal happiness was expected in the
carnal kingdom to the desire with which the truest spiritual happiness
is expected in the kingdom of heaven; and since nothing is better than
that, the Lord helpeth us hitherto.
Footnotes
[1033] 1 Sam. xv. 23.
[1034] 1 Sam. xv. 26-29.
[1035] Rom. i. 3.
[1036] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[1037] Ps. cx. 1.
[1038] Gen. xxi. 10.
[1039] Gal. iv. 25.
[1040] 2 Cor. iii. 15, 16.
[1041] 1 Sam. vii. 9-12.
Chapter 8.--Of the Promises Made to David in His Son, Which are in No
Wise Fulfilled in Solomon, But Most Fully in Christ.
And now I see I must show what, pertaining to the matter I treat of,
God promised to David himself, who succeeded Saul in the kingdom,
whose change prefigured that final change on account of which all
things were divinely spoken, all things were committed to writing.
When many things had gone prosperously with king David, he thought to
make a house for God, even that temple of most excellent renown which
was afterwards built by king Solomon his son. While he was thinking
of this, the word of the Lord came to Nathan the prophet, which he
brought to the king, in which, after God had said that a house should
not be built unto Him by David himself, and that in all that long time
He had never commanded any of His people to build Him a house of
cedar, he says, "And now thus shalt thou say unto my servant David,
Thus saith God Almighty, I took thee from the sheep-cote that thou
mightest be for a ruler over my people in Israel: and I was with thee
whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies from
before thy face, and have made thee a name, according to the name of
the great ones who are over the earth. And I will appoint a place for
my people Israel, and will plant him, and he shall dwell apart, and
shall be troubled no more; and the son of wickedness shall not humble
him any more, as from the beginning, from the days when I appointed
judges over my people Israel. And I will give thee rest from all
thine enemies, and the Lord will tell [hath told] thee, because thou
shall build an house for Him. And it shall come to pass when thy days
be fulfilled, and thou shall sleep with thy fathers, that I will raise
up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I
will prepare his kingdom. He shall build me an house for my name; and
I will order his throne even to eternity. I will be his Father, and
he shall be my son. And if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him
with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of men: but my
mercy I will not take away from him, as I took it away from those whom
I put away from before my face. And his house shall be faithful, and
his kingdom even for evermore before me, and his throne shall be set
up even for evermore." [1042]
He who thinks this grand promise was fulfilled in Solomon greatly
errs; for he attends to the saying, "He shall build me an house," but
he does not attend to the saying, "His house shall be faithful, and
his kingdom for evermore before me." Let him therefore attend and
behold the house of Solomon full of strange women worshipping false
gods, and the king himself, aforetime wise, seduced by them, and cast
down into the same idolatry: and let him not dare to think that God
either promised this falsely, or was unable to foreknow that Solomon
and his house would become what they did. But we ought not to be in
doubt here, or to see the fulfillment of these things save in Christ
our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,
[1043] lest we should vainly and uselessly look for some other here,
like the carnal Jews. For even they understand this much, that the
son whom they read of in that place as promised to David was not
Solomon; so that, with wonderful blindness to Him who was promised and
is now declared with so great manifestation, they say they hope for
another. Indeed, even in Solomon there appeared some image of the
future event, in that he built the temple, and had peace according to
his name (for Solomon means "pacific"), and in the beginning of his
reign was wonderfully praiseworthy; but while, as a shadow of Him that
should come, he foreshowed Christ our Lord, he did not also in his own
person resemble Him. Whence some things concerning him are so written
as if they were prophesied of himself, while the Holy Scripture,
prophesying even by events, somehow delineates in him the figure of
things to come. For, besides the books of divine history, in which
his reign is narrated, the 72d Psalm also is inscribed in the title
with his name, in which so many things are said which cannot at all
apply to him, but which apply to the Lord Christ with such evident
fitness as makes it quite apparent that in the one the figure is in
some way shadowed forth, but in the other the truth itself is
presented. For it is known within what bounds the kingdom of Solomon
was enclosed; and yet in that psalm, not to speak of other things, we
read, "He shall have dominion from sea even to sea, and from the river
to the ends of the earth," [1044] which we see fulfilled in Christ.
Truly he took the beginning of His reigning from the river where John
baptized; for, when pointed out by him, He began to be acknowledged by
the disciples, who called Him not only Master, but also Lord.
Nor was it for any other reason that, while his father David was still
living, Solomon began to reign, which happened to none other of their
kings, except that from this also it might be clearly apparent that it
was not himself this prophecy spoken to his father signified
beforehand, saying, "And it shall come to pass when thy days be
fulfilled, and thou shall sleep with thy fathers, that I will raise up
thy seed which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will prepare His
kingdom." How, therefore, shall it be thought on account of what
follows, "He shall build me an house," that this Solomon is
prophesied, and not rather be understood on account of what precedes,
"When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I
will raise up thy seed after thee," that another pacific One is
promised, who is foretold as about to be raised up, not before David's
death, as he was, but after it? For however long the interval of time
might be before Jesus Christ came, beyond doubt it was after the death
of king David, to whom He was so promised, that He behoved to come,
who should build an house of God, not of wood and stone, but of men,
such as we rejoice He does build. For to this house, that is, to
believers, the apostle saith, "The temple of God is holy, which temple
ye are." [1045]
Footnotes
[1042] 2 Sam. vii. 8-16.
[1043] Rom. i. 3.
[1044] Ps. lxxii. 8.
[1045] 1 Cor. iii. 17.
Chapter 9.--How Like the Prophecy About Christ in the 89th Psalm is to
the Things Promised in Nathan's Prophecy in the Books of Samuel.
Wherefore also in the 89th Psalm, of which the title is, "An
instruction for himself by Ethan the Israelite," mention is made of
the promises God made to king David, and some things are there added
similar to those found in the Book of Samuel, such as this, "I have
sworn to David my servant that I will prepare his seed for ever."
[1046]And again, "Then thou spakest in vision to thy sons, and
saidst, I have laid help upon the mighty One, and have exalted the
chosen One out of my people. I have found David my servant, and with
my holy oil I have anointed him. For mine hand shall help him, and
mine arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not prevail against
him, and the son of iniquity shall harm him no more. And I will beat
down his foes from before his face, and those that hate him will I put
to flight. And my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and in my
name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand also in the sea,
and his right hand in the rivers. He shall cry unto me, Thou art my
Father, my God, and the undertaker of my salvation. Also I will make
him my first-born, high among the kings of the earth. My mercy will I
keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall be faithful (sure)
with him. His seed also will I set for ever and ever, and his throne
as the days of heaven." [1047]Which words, when rightly understood,
are all understood to be about the Lord Jesus Christ, under the name
of David, on account of the form of a servant, which the same Mediator
assumed [1048] from the virgin of the seed of David. [1049]For
immediately something is said about the sins of his children, such as
is set down in the Book of Samuel, and is more readily taken as if of
Solomon. For there, that is, in the Book of Samuel, he says, "And if
he commit iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with
the stripes of the sons of men; but my mercy will I not take away from
him," [1050] meaning by stripes the strokes of correction. Hence that
saying, "Touch ye not my christs." [1051]For what else is that
than, Do not harm them? But in the psalm, when speaking as if of
David, He says something of the same kind there too. "If his
children," saith He, "forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if
they profane my righteousnesses, and keep not my commandments; I will
visit their iniquities with the rod, and their faults with stripes:
but my mercy I will not make void from him." [1052]He did not say
"from them," although He spoke of his children, not of himself; but he
said "from him," which means the same thing if rightly understood.
For of Christ Himself, who is the head of the Church, there could not
be found any sins which required to be divinely restrained by human
correction, mercy being still continued; but they are found in His
body and members, which is His people. Therefore in the Book of
Samuel it is said, "iniquity of Him," but in the psalm, "of His
children," that we may understand that what is said of His body is in
some way said of Himself. Wherefore also, when Saul persecuted His
body, that is, His believing people, He Himself saith from heaven,
"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" [1053]Then in the following
words of the psalm He says, "Neither will I hurt in my truth, nor
profane my covenant, and the things that proceed from my lips I will
not disallow. Once have I sworn by my holiness, if I lie unto David,"
[1054] --that is, I will in no wise lie unto David; for Scripture is
wont to speak thus. But what that is in which He will not lie, He
adds, saying, "His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the
sun before me, and as the moon perfected for ever, and a faithful
witness in heaven." [1055]
Footnotes
[1046] Ps. lxxxix. 3, 4.
[1047] Ps. lxxxix. 19-29.
[1048] Phil. ii. 7.
[1049] Matt. i. 1, 18; Luke i. 27.
[1050] 2 Sam. vii. 14, 15.
[1051] Ps. cv. 15.
[1052] Ps. lxxxix. 30-33.
[1053] Acts ix. 4.
[1054] Ps. lxxxix. 34, 35.
[1055] Ps. lxxxix. 36, 37.
Chapter 10.--How Different the Acts in the Kingdom of the Earthly
Jerusalem are from Those Which God Had Promised, So that the Truth of
the Promise Should Be Understood to Pertain to the Glory of the Other
King and Kingdom.
That it might not be supposed that a promise so strongly expressed and
confirmed was fulfilled in Solomon, as if he hoped for, yet did not
find it, he says, "But Thou hast cast off, and hast brought to
nothing, O Lord." [1056]This truly was done concerning the kingdom
of Solomon among his posterity, even to the overthrow of the earthly
Jerusalem itself, which was the seat of the kingdom, and especially
the destruction of the very temple which had been built by Solomon.
But lest on this account God should be thought to have done contrary
to His promise, immediately he adds, "Thou hast delayed Thy Christ."
[1057]Therefore he is not Solomon, nor yet David himself, if the
Christ of the Lord is delayed. For while all the kings are called His
christs, who were consecrated with that mystical chrism, not only from
king David downwards, but even from that Saul who first was anointed
king of that same people, David himself indeed calling him the Lord's
christ, yet there was one true Christ, whose figure they bore by the
prophetic unction, who, according to the opinion of men, who thought
he was to be understood as come in David or in Solomon, was long
delayed, but who, according as God had disposed, was to come in His
own time. The following part of this psalm goes on to say what in the
meantime, while He was delayed, was to become of the kingdom of the
earthly Jerusalem, where it was hoped He would certainly reign: "Thou
hast overthrown the covenant of Thy servant; Thou hast profaned in the
earth his sanctuary. Thou hast broken down all his walls; Thou hast
put his strong-holds in fear. All that pass by the way spoil him; he
is made a reproach to his neighbors. Thou hast set up the right hand
of his enemies; Thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice. Thou hast
turned aside the help of his sword, and hast not helped him in war.
Thou hast destroyed him from cleansing; Thou hast dashed down his seat
to the ground. Thou hast shortened the days of his seat; Thou hast
poured confusion over him." [1058]All these things came upon
Jerusalem the bond woman, in which some also reigned who were children
of the free woman, holding that kingdom in temporary stewardship, but
holding the kingdom of the heavenly Jerusalem, whose children they
were, in true faith, and hoping in the true Christ. But how these
things came upon that kingdom, the history of its affairs points out
if it is read.
Footnotes
[1056] Ps. lxxxix. 38.
[1057] Ps. lxxxix. 38.
[1058] Ps. lxxxix. 39-45.
Chapter 11.--Of the Substance of the People of God, Which Through His
Assumption of Flesh is in Christ, Who Alone Had Power to Deliver His
Own Soul from Hell.
But after having prophesied these things, the prophet betakes him to
praying to God; yet even the very prayer is prophecy: "How long,
Lord, dost Thou turn away in the end?" [1059]"Thy face" is
understood, as it is elsewhere said, "How long dost Thou turn away Thy
face from me?" [1060]For therefore some copies have here not
"dost," but "wilt Thou turn away;" although it could be understood,
"Thou turnest away Thy mercy, which Thou didst promise to David." But
when he says, "in the end," what does it mean, except even to the
end? By which end is to be understood the last time, when even that
nation is to believe in Christ Jesus, before which end what He has
just sorrowfully bewailed must come to pass. On account of which it
is also added here, "Thy wrath shall burn like fire. Remember what is
my substance." [1061]This cannot be better understood than of Jesus
Himself, the substance of His people, of whose nature His flesh is.
"For not in vain," he says, "hast Thou made all the sons of men."
[1062]For unless the one Son of man had been the substance of
Israel, through which Son of man many sons of men should be set free,
all the sons of men would have been made wholly in vain. But now,
indeed, all mankind through the fall of the first man has fallen from
the truth into vanity; for which reason another psalm says, "Man is
like to vanity: his days pass away as a shadow;" [1063] yet God has
not made all the sons of men in vain, because He frees many from
vanity through the Mediator Jesus, and those whom He did not foreknow
as to be delivered, He made not wholly in vain in the most beautiful
and most just ordination of the whole rational creation, for the use
of those who were to be delivered, and for the comparison of the two
cities by mutual contrast. Thereafter it follows, "Who is the man
that shall live, and shall not see death? shall he snatch his soul
from the hand of hell?" [1064]Who is this but that substance of
Israel out of the seed of David, Christ Jesus, of whom the apostle
says, that "rising from the dead He now dieth not, and death shall no
more have dominion over Him?" [1065]For He shall so live and not
see death, that yet He shall have been dead; but shall have delivered
His soul from the hand of hell, whither He had descended in order to
loose some from the chains of hell; but He hath delivered it by that
power of which He says in the Gospel, "I have the power of laying down
my life, and I have the power of taking it again." [1066]
Footnotes
[1059] Ps. lxxxix. 46.
[1060] Ps. xiii. 1.
[1061] Ps. lxxxix. 46, 47.
[1062] Ps. lxxxix. 47.
[1063] Ps. cxliv. 4.
[1064] Ps. lxxxix. 48.
[1065] Rom. vi. 9.
[1066] John x. 18.
Chapter 12.--To Whose Person the Entreaty for the Promises is to Be
Understood to Belong, When He Says in the Psalm, "Where are Thine
Ancient Compassions, Lord?" Etc.
But the rest of this psalm runs thus: "Where are Thine ancient
compassions, Lord, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth?
Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants, which I have borne in my
bosom of many nations; wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O
Lord, wherewith they have reproached the change of Thy Christ." [1067]
Now it may with very good reason be asked whether this is spoken in
the person of those Israelites who desired that the promise made to
David might be fulfilled to them; or rather of the Christians, who are
Israelites not after the flesh but after the Spirit. [1068]This
certainly was spoken or written in the time of Ethan, from whose name
this psalm gets its title, and that was the same as the time of
David's reign; and therefore it would not have been said, "Where are
Thine ancient compassions, Lord, which Thou hast sworn unto David in
Thy truth?" unless the prophet had assumed the person of those who
should come long afterwards, to whom that time when these things were
promised to David was ancient. But it may be understood thus, that
many nations, when they persecuted the Christians, reproached them
with the passion of Christ, which Scripture calls His change, because
by dying He is made immortal. The change of Christ, according to this
passage, may also be understood to be reproached by the Israelites,
because, when they hoped He would be theirs, He was made the Saviour
of the nations; and many nations who have believed in Him by the New
Testament now reproach them who remain in the old with this: so that
it is said, "Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants;" because
through the Lord's not forgetting, but rather pitying them, even they
after this reproach are to believe. But what I have put first seems
to me the most suitable meaning. For to the enemies of Christ who are
reproached with this, that Christ hath left them, turning to the
Gentiles, [1069] this speech is incongruously assigned, "Remember,
Lord, the reproach of Thy servants," for such Jews are not to be
styled the servants of God; but these words fit those who, if they
suffered great humiliations through persecution for the name of
Christ, could call to mind that an exalted kingdom had been promised
to the seed of David, and in desire of it, could say not despairingly,
but as asking, seeking, knocking, [1070] "Where are Thine ancient
compassions, Lord, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth?
Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants, that I have borne in my
bosom of many nations;" that is, have patiently endured in my inward
parts. "That Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they
have reproached the change of Thy Christ," not thinking it a change,
but a consumption. [1071]But what does "Remember, Lord," mean, but
that Thou wouldst have compassion, and wouldst for my patiently borne
humiliation reward me with the excellency which Thou swarest unto
David in Thy truth? But if we assign these words to the Jews, those
servants of God who, on the conquest of the earthly Jerusalem, before
Jesus Christ was born after the manner of men, were led into
captivity, could say such things, understanding the change of Christ,
because indeed through Him was to be surely expected, not an earthly
and carnal felicity, such as appeared during the few years of king
Solomon, but a heavenly and spiritual felicity; and when the nations,
then ignorant of this through unbelief, exulted over and insulted the
people of God for being captives, what else was this than ignorantly
to reproach with the change of Christ those who understand the change
of Christ? And therefore what follows when this psalm is concluded,
"Let the blessing of the Lord be for evermore, amen, amen," is
suitable enough for the whole people of God belonging to the heavenly
Jerusalem, whether for those things that lay hid in the Old Testament
before the New was revealed, or for those that, being now revealed in
the New Testament, are manifestly discerned to belong to Christ. For
the blessing of the Lord in the seed of David does not belong to any
particular time, such as appeared in the days of Solomon, but is for
evermore to be hoped for, in which most certain hope it is said,
"Amen, amen;" for this repetition of the word is the confirmation of
that hope. Therefore David understanding this, says in the second
Book of Kings, in the passage from which we digressed to this psalm,
[1072] "Thou hast spoken also for Thy servant's house for a great
while to come." [1073]Therefore also a little after he says, "Now
begin, and bless the house of Thy servant for evermore," etc., because
the son was then about to be born from whom his posterity should be
continued to Christ, through whom his house should be eternal, and
should also be the house of God. For it is called the house of David
on account of David's race; but the selfsame is called the house of
God on account of the temple of God, made of men, not of stones, where
shall dwell for evermore the people with and in their God, and God
with and in His people, so that God may fill His people, and the
people be filled with their God, while God shall be all in all,
Himself their reward in peace who is their strength in war.
Therefore, when it is said in the words of Nathan, "And the Lord will
tell thee what an house thou shalt build for Him," [1074] it is
afterwards said in the words of David, "For Thou, Lord Almighty, God
of Israel, hast opened the ear of Thy servant, saying, I will build
thee an house." [1075]For this house is built both by us through
living well, and by God through helping us to live well; for "except
the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." [1076]
And when the final dedication of this house shall take place, then
what God here says by Nathan shall be fulfilled, "And I will appoint a
place for my people Israel, and will plant him, and he shall dwell
apart, and shall be troubled no more; and the son of iniquity shall
not humble him any more, as from the beginning, from the days when I
appointed judges over my people Israel." [1077]
Footnotes
[1067] Ps. lxxxix. 49-51.
[1068] Rom. iii. 28, 29.
[1069] Acts xiii. 46.
[1070] Matt. vii. 7, 8.
[1071] Another reading, "consummation."
[1072] See above, chap. viii.
[1073] 2 Sam. vii. 19.
[1074] 2 Sam. vii. 8.
[1075] 2 Sam. vii. 2.
[1076] Ps. cxxvii. 1.
[1077] 2 Sam. vii. 10, 11.
Chapter 13.--Whether the Truth of This Promised Peace Can Be Ascribed
to Those Times Passed Away Under Solomon.
Whoever hopes for this so great good in this world, and in this earth,
his wisdom is but folly. Can any one think it was fulfilled in the
peace of Solomon's reign? Scripture certainly commends that peace
with excellent praise as a shadow of that which is to come. But this
opinion is to be vigilantly opposed, since after it is said, "And the
son of iniquity shall not humble him any more," it is immediately
added, "as from the beginning, from the days in which I appointed
judges over my people Israel." [1078]For the judges were appointed
over that people from the time when they received the land of promise,
before kings had begun to be there. And certainly the son of
iniquity, that is, the foreign enemy, humbled him through periods of
time in which we read that peace alternated with wars; and in that
period longer times of peace are found than Solomon had, who reigned
forty years. For under that judge who is called Ehud there were
eighty years of peace. [1079]Be it far from us, therefore, that we
should believe the times of Solomon are predicted in this promise,
much less indeed those of any other king whatever. For none other of
them reigned in such great peace as he; nor did that nation ever at
all hold that kingdom so as to have no anxiety lest it should be
subdued by enemies: for in the very great mutability of human affairs
such great security is never given to any people, that it should not
dread invasions hostile to this life. Therefore the place of this
promised peaceful and secure habitation is eternal, and of right
belongs eternally to Jerusalem the free mother, where the genuine
people of Israel shall be: for this name is interpreted "Seeing God;"
in the desire of which reward a pious life is to be led through faith
in this miserable pilgrimage. [1080]
Footnotes
[1078] 2 Sam. vii. 10-11.
[1079] Judg. iii. 30.
[1080] Israel--a prince of God; Peniel--the face of God (Gen. xxxii.
28-30).
Chapter 14.--Of David's Concern in the Writing of the Psalms.
In the progress of the city of God through the ages, therefore, David
first reigned in the earthly Jerusalem as a shadow of that which was
to come. Now David was a man skilled in songs, who dearly loved
musical harmony, not with a vulgar delight, but with a believing
disposition, and by it served his God, who is the true God, by the
mystical representation of a great thing. For the rational and
well-ordered concord of diverse sounds in harmonious variety suggests
the compact unity of the well-ordered city. Then almost all his
prophecy is in psalms, of which a hundred and fifty are contained in
what we call the Book of Psalms, of which some will have it those only
were made by David which are in scribed with his name. But there are
also some who think none of them were made by him except those which
are marked "Of David;" but those which have in the title "For David"
have been made by others who assumed his person. Which opinion is
refuted by the voice of the Saviour Himself in the Gospel, when He
says that David himself by the Spirit said Christ was his Lord; for
the 110th Psalm begins thus, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at
my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool." [1081]And
truly that very psalm, like many more, has in the title, not "of
David," but "for David." But those seem to me to hold the more
credible opinion, who ascribe to him the authorship of all these
hundred and fifty psalms, and think that he prefixed to some of them
the names even of other men, who prefigured something pertinent to the
matter, but chose to have no man's name in the titles of the rest,
just as God inspired him in the management of this variety, which,
although dark, is not meaningless. Neither ought it to move one not
to believe this that the names of some prophets who lived long after
the times of king David are read in the inscriptions of certain psalms
in that book, and that the things said there seem to be spoken as it
were by them. Nor was the prophetic Spirit unable to reveal to king
David, when he prophesied, even these names of future prophets, so
that he might prophetically sing something which should suit their
persons; just as it was revealed to a certain prophet that king Josiah
should arise and reign after more than three hundred years, who
predicted his future deeds also along with his name. [1082]
Footnotes
[1081] Ps. cx. 1, quoted in Matt. xxii. 44.
[1082] 1 Kings xiii. 2; fulfilled 2 Kings xxiii. 15-17.
Chapter 15.--Whether All the Things Prophesied in the Psalms
Concerning Christ and His Church Should Be Taken Up in the Text of
This Work.
And now I see it may be expected of me that I shall open up in this
part of this book what David may have prophesied in the Psalms
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ or His Church. But although I have
already done so in one instance, I am prevented from doing as that
expectation seems to demand, rather by the abundance than the scarcity
of matter. For the necessity of shunning prolixity forbids my setting
down all things; yet I fear lest if I select some I shall appear to
many, who know these things, to have passed by the more necessary.
Besides, the proof that is adduced ought to be supported by the
context of the whole psalm, so that at least there may be nothing
against it if everything does not support it; lest we should seem,
after the fashion of the centos, to gather for the thing we wish, as
it were, verses out of a grand poem, what shall be found to have been
written not about it, but about some other and widely different
thing. But ere this could be pointed out in each psalm, the whole of
it must be expounded; and how great a work that would be, the volumes
of others, as well as our own, in which we have done it, show well
enough. Let him then who will, or can, read these volumes, and he
will find out how many and great things David, at once king and
prophet, has prophesied concerning Christ and His Church, to wit,
concerning the King and the city which He has built.
Chapter 16.--Of the Things Pertaining to Christ and the Church, Said
Either Openly or Tropically in the 45th Psalm.
For whatever direct and manifest prophetic utterances there may be
about anything, it is necessary that those which are tropical should
be mingled with them; which, chiefly on account of those of slower
understanding, thrust upon the more learned the laborious task of
clearing up and expounding them. Some of them, indeed, on the very
first blush, as soon as they are spoken, exhibit Christ and the
Church, although some things in them that are less intelligible remain
to be expounded at leisure. We have an example of this in that same
Book of Psalms: "My heart bubbled up a good matter: I utter my words
to the king. My tongue is the pen of a scribe, writing swiftly. Thy
form is beautiful beyond the sons of men; grace is poured out in Thy
lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee for evermore. Gird Thy sword
about Thy thigh, O Most Mighty. With Thy goodliness and Thy beauty go
forward, proceed prosperously, and reign, because of Thy truth, and
meekness, and righteousness; and Thy right hand shall lead Thee forth
wonderfully. Thy sharp arrows are most powerful: in the heart of the
king's enemies. The people shall fall under Thee. Thy throne, O God,
is for ever and ever: a rod of direction is the rod of Thy kingdom.
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hast hated iniquity: therefore
God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of exultation above Thy
fellows. Myrrh and drops, and cassia from Thy vestments, from the
houses of ivory: out of which the daughters of kings have delighted
Thee in Thine honor." [1083]Who is there, no matter how slow, but
must here recognize Christ whom we preach, and in whom we believe, if
he hears that He is God, whose throne is for ever and ever, and that
He is anointed by God, as God indeed anoints, not with a visible, but
with a spiritual and intelligible chrism? For who is so untaught in
this religion, or so deaf to its far and wide spread fame, as not to
know that Christ is named from this chrism, that is, from this
anointing? But when it is acknowledged that this King is Christ, let
each one who is already subject to Him who reigns because of truth,
meekness, and righteousness, inquire at his leisure into these other
things that are here said tropically: how His form is beautiful
beyond the sons of men, with a certain beauty that is the more to be
loved and admired the less it is corporeal; and what His sword,
arrows, and other things of that kind may be, which are set down, not
properly, but tropically.
Then let him look upon His Church, joined to her so great Husband in
spiritual marriage and divine love, of which it is said in these words
which follow, "The queen stood upon Thy right hand in gold-embroidered
vestments, girded about with variety. Hearken, O daughter, and look,
and incline thine ear; forget also thy people, and thy father's
house. Because the King hath greatly desired thy beauty; for He is
the Lord thy God. And the daughters of Tyre shall worship Him with
gifts; the rich among the people shall entreat Thy face. The daughter
of the King has all her glory within, in golden fringes, girded about
with variety. The virgins shall be brought after her to the King:
her neighbors shall be brought to Thee. They shall be brought with
gladness and exultation: they shall be led into the temple of the
King. Instead of thy fathers, sons shall be born to thee: thou shalt
establish them as princes over all the earth. They shall be mindful
of thy name in every generation and descent. Therefore shall the
people acknowledge thee for evermore, even for ever and ever." [1084]
I do not think any one is so stupid as to believe that some poor
woman is here praised and described, as the spouse, to wit, of Him to
whom it is said, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a rod of
direction is the rod of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with
the oil of exultation above Thy fellows;" [1085] that is, plainly,
Christ above Christians. For these are His fellows, out of the unity
and concord of whom in all nations that queen is formed, as it is said
of her in another psalm, "The city of the great King." [1086]The
same is Sion spiritually, which name in Latin is interpreted
speculatio (discovery); for she descries the great good of the world
to come, because her attention is directed thither. In the same way
she is also Jerusalem spiritually, of which we have already said many
things. Her enemy is the city of the devil, Babylon, which is
interpreted "confusion." Yet out of this Babylon this queen is in all
nations set free by regeneration, and passes from the worst to the
best King,--that is, from the devil to Christ. Wherefore it is said
to her, "Forget thy people and thy father's house." Of this impious
city those also are a portion who are Israelites only in the flesh and
not by faith, enemies also of this great King Himself, and of His
queen. For Christ, having come to them, and been slain by them, has
the more become the King of others, whom He did not see in the flesh.
Whence our King Himself says through the prophecy of a certain psalm,
"Thou wilt deliver me from the contradictions of the people; Thou wilt
make me head of the nations. A people whom I have not known hath
served me: in the hearing of the ear it hath obeyed me." [1087]
Therefore this people of the nations, which Christ did not know in His
bodily presence, yet has believed in that Christ as announced to it;
so that it might be said of it with good reason, "In the hearing of
the ear it hath obeyed me," for "faith is by hearing." [1088]This
people, I say, added to those who are the true Israelites both by the
flesh and by faith, is the city of God, which has brought forth Christ
Himself according to the flesh, since He was in these Israelites
only. For thence came the Virgin Mary, in whom Christ assumed flesh
that He might be man. Of which city another psalm says, "Mother Sion,
shall a man say, and the man is made in her, and the Highest Himself
hath founded her." [1089]Who is this Highest, save God? And thus
Christ, who is God, before He became man through Mary in that city,
Himself founded it by the patriarchs and prophets. As therefore was
said by prophecy so long before to this queen, the city of God, what
we already can see fulfilled, "Instead of thy fathers, sons are born
to thee; thou shall make them princes over all the earth;" [1090] so
out of her sons truly are set up even her fathers [princes] through
all the earth, when the people, coming together to her, confess to her
with the confession of eternal praise for ever and ever. Beyond
doubt, whatever interpretation is put on what is here expressed
somewhat darkly in figurative language, ought to be in agreement with
these most manifest things.
Footnotes
[1083] Ps. xlv. 1-9.
[1084] Ps. xlv. 9-17.
[1085] Ps. xlv. 7.
[1086] Ps. xlviii. 2.
[1087] Ps. xviii. 43.
[1088] Rom. x. 5.
[1089] Ps. lxxxvii. 5.
[1090] Ps. xlv. 16.
Chapter 17.--Of Those Things in the 110th Psalm Which Relate to the
Priesthood of Christ, and in the 22d to His Passion.
Just as in that psalm also where Christ is most openly proclaimed as
Priest, even as He is here as King, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit
Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool."
[1091]That Christ sits on the right hand of God the Father is
believed, not seen; that His enemies also are put under His feet doth
not yet appear; it is being done, [therefore] it will appear at last:
yea, this is now believed, afterward it shall be seen. But what
follows, "The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of
Sion, and rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies," [1092] is so
clear, that to deny it would imply not merely unbelief and mistake,
but downright impudence. And even enemies must certainly confess that
out of Sion has been sent the law of Christ which we call the gospel,
and acknowledge as the rod of His strength. But that He rules in the
midst of His enemies, these same enemies among whom He rules
themselves bear witness, gnashing their teeth and consuming away, and
having power to do nothing against Him. Then what he says a little
after, "The Lord hath sworn and will not repent," [1093] by which
words He intimates that what He adds is immutable, "Thou art a priest
for ever after the order of Melchizedek," [1094] who is permitted to
doubt of whom these things are said, seeing that now there is nowhere
a priesthood and sacrifice after the order of Aaron, and everywhere
men offer under Christ as the Priest, which Melchizedek showed when he
blessed Abraham? Therefore to these manifest things are to be
referred, when rightly understood, those things in the same psalm that
are set down a little more obscurely, and we have already made known
in our popular sermons how these things are to be rightly understood.
So also in that where Christ utters through prophecy the humiliation
of His passion, saying, "They pierced my hands and feet; they counted
all my bones. Yea, they looked and stared at me." [1095]By which
words he certainly meant His body stretched out on the cross, with the
hands and feet pierced and perforated by the striking through of the
nails, and that He had in that way made Himself a spectacle to those
who looked and stared. And he adds, "They parted my garments among
them, and over my vesture they cast lots." [1096]How this prophecy
has been fulfilled the Gospel history narrates. Then, indeed, the
other things also which are said there less openly are rightly
understood when they agree with those which shine with so great
clearness; especially because those things also which we do not
believe as past, but survey as present, are beheld by the whole world,
being now exhibited just as they are read of in this very psalm as
predicted so long before. For it is there said a little after, "All
the ends of the earth shall remember, and turn unto the Lord, and all
the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him; for the kingdom
is the Lord's, and He shall rule the nations."
Footnotes
[1091] Ps. cx. 1.
[1092] Ps. cx. 2.
[1093] Ps. cx. 4.
[1094] Ps. cx. 4.
[1095] Ps. xxii. 16, 17.
[1096] Ps. xxii. 18, 19.
Chapter 18.--Of the 3d, 41st, 15th, and 68th Psalms, in Which the
Death and Resurrection of the Lord are Prophesied.
About His resurrection also the oracles of the Psalms are by no means
silent. For what else is it that is sung in His person in the 3d
Psalm, "I laid me down and took a sleep, [and] I awaked, for the Lord
shall sustain me?" [1097]Is there perchance any one so stupid as to
believe that the prophet chose to point it out to us as something
great that He had slept and risen up, unless that sleep had been
death, and that awaking the resurrection, which behoved to be thus
prophesied concerning Christ? For in the 41st Psalm also it is shown
much more clearly, where in the person of the Mediator, in the usual
way, things are narrated as if past which were prophesied as yet to
come, since these things which were yet to come were in the
predestination and foreknowledge of God as if they were done, because
they were certain. He says, "Mine enemies speak evil of me; When
shall he die, and his name perish? And if he came in to see me, his
heart spake vain things: he gathered iniquity to himself. He went
out of doors, and uttered it all at once. Against me all mine enemies
whisper together: against me do they devise evil. They have planned
an unjust thing against me. Shall not he that sleeps also rise
again?" [1098]These words are certainly so set down here that he
may be understood to say nothing else than if he said, Shall not He
that died recover life again? The previous words clearly show that
His enemies have mediated and planned His death, and that this was
executed by him who came in to see, and went out to betray. But to
whom does not Judas here occur, who, from being His disciple, became
His betrayer? Therefore because they were about to do what they had
plotted,--that is, were about to kill Him,--he, to show them that with
useless malice they were about to kill Him who should rise again, so
adds this verse, as if he said, What vain thing are you doing? What
will be your crime will be my sleep. "Shall not He that sleeps also
rise again?" And yet he indicates in the following verses that they
should not commit so great an impiety with impunity, saying, "Yea, the
man of my peace in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath enlarged the
heel over me;" [1099] that is, hath trampled me under foot. "But
Thou," he saith, "O Lord, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I
may requite them." [1100]Who can now deny this who sees the Jews,
after the passion and resurrection of Christ, utterly rooted up from
their abodes by warlike slaughter and destruction? For, being slain
by them, He has risen again, and has requited them meanwhile by
temporary discipline, save that for those who are not corrected He
keeps it in store for the time when He shall judge the quick and the
dead. [1101]For the Lord Jesus Himself, in pointing out that very
man to the apostles as His betrayer, quoted this very verse of this
psalm, and said it was fulfilled in Himself: "He that ate my bread
enlarged the heel over me." But what he says, "In whom I trusted,"
does not suit the head but the body. For the Saviour Himself was not
ignorant of him concerning whom He had already said before, "One of
you is a devil." [1102]But He is wont to assume the person of His
members, and to ascribe to Himself what should be said of them,
because the head and the body is one Christ; [1103] whence that saying
in the Gospel, "I was an hungered, and ye gave me to eat." [1104]
Expounding which, He says, "Since ye did it to one of the least of
mine, ye did it to me." [1105]Therefore He said that He had
trusted, because his disciples then had trusted concerning Judas; for
he was numbered with the apostles. [1106]
But the Jews do not expect that the Christ whom they expect will die;
therefore they do not think ours to be Him whom the law and the
prophets announced, but feign to themselves I know not whom of their
own, exempt from the suffering of death. Therefore, with wonderful
emptiness and blindness, they contend that the words we have set down
signify, not death and resurrection, but sleep and awaking again. But
the 16th Psalm also cries to them, "Therefore my heart is jocund, and
my tongue hath exulted; moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope:
for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou give Thine
Holy One to see corruption." [1107]Who but He that rose again the
third day could say his flesh had rested in this hope; that His soul,
not being left in hell, but speedily returning to it, should revive
it, that it should not be corrupted as corpses are wont to be, which
they can in no wise say of David the prophet and king? The 68th Psalm
also cries out, "Our God is the God of Salvation: even of the Lord
the exit was by death." [1108]What could be more openly said? For
the God of salvation is the Lord Jesus, which is interpreted Saviour,
or Healing One. For this reason this name was given, when it was said
before He was born of the virgin: "Thou shall bring forth a Son, and
shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their
sins." [1109]Because His blood was shed for the remission of their
sins, it behoved Him to have no other exit from this life than death.
Therefore, when it had been said, "Our God is the God of salvation,"
immediately it was added, "Even of the Lord the exit was by death," in
order to show that we were to be saved by His dying. But that saying
is marvellous, "Even of the Lord," as if it was said, Such is that
life of mortals, that not even the Lord Himself could go out of it
otherwise save through death.
Footnotes
[1097] Ps. iii. 5.
[1098] Ps. xli. 5-8.
[1099] Ps. xli. 9.
[1100] Ps. xli. 10.
[1101] 2 Tim. iv. 1; 2 Pet. iv. 5.
[1102] John vi. 70.
[1103] 1 Cor. xii. 12.
[1104] Matt. xxv. 35.
[1105] Matt. xxv. 40.
[1106] Acts. i. 17.
[1107] Ps. xvi. 9, 10.
[1108] Ps. lxviii. 20.
[1109] Matt. i. 21.
Chapter 19.--Of the 69th Psalm, in Which the Obstinate Unbelief of the
Jews is Declared.
But when the Jews will not in the least yield to the testimonies of
this prophecy, which are so manifest, and are also brought by events
to so clear and certain a completion, certainly that is fulfilled in
them which is written in that psalm which here follows. For when the
things which pertain to His passion are prophetically spoken there
also in the person of Christ, that is mentioned which is unfolded in
the Gospel: "They gave me gall for my meat; and in my thirst they
gave me vinegar for drink." [1110]And as it were after such a feast
and dainties in this way given to Himself, presently He brings in
[these words]: "Let their table become a trap before them, and a
retribution, and an offence: let their eyes be dimmed that they see
not, and their back be always bowed down," [1111] etc. Which things
are not spoken as wished for, but are predicted under the prophetic
form of wishing. What wonder, then, if those whose eyes are dimmed
that they see not do not see these manifest things? What wonder if
those do not look up at heavenly things whose back is always bowed
down that they may grovel among earthly things? For these words
transferred from the body signify mental faults. Let these things
which have been said about the Psalms, that is, about king David's
prophecy, suffice, that we may keep within some bound. But let those
readers excuse us who knew them all before; and let them not complain
about those perhaps stronger proofs which they know or think I have
passed by.
Footnotes
[1110] Ps. lxix. 21; Matt. xxvii. 34, 48.
[1111] Ps. lxix. 22, 23.
Chapter 20.--Of David's Reign and Merit; And of His Son Solomon, and
that Prophecy Relating to Christ Which is Found Either in Those Books
Which are Joined to Those Written by Him, or in Those Which are
Indubitably His.
David therefore reigned in the earthly Jerusalem, a son of the
heavenly Jerusalem, much praised by the divine testimony; for even his
faults are overcome by great piety, through the most salutary humility
of his repentance, that he is altogether one of those of whom he
himself says, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and
whose sins are covered." [1112]After him Solomon his son reigned
over the same whole people, who, as was said before, began to reign
while his father was still alive. This man, after good beginnings,
made a bad end. For indeed "prosperity, which wears out the minds of
the wise," [1113] hurt him more than that wisdom profited him, which
even yet is and shall hereafter be renowned, and was then praised far
and wide. He also is found to have prophesied in his books, of which
three are received as of canonical authority, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
and the Song of Songs. But it has been customary to ascribe to
Solomon other two, of which one is called Wisdom, the other
Ecclesiasticus, on account of some resemblance of style,--but the more
learned have no doubt that they are not his; yet of old the Church,
especially the Western, received them into authority,--in the one of
which, called the Wisdom of Solomon, the passion of Christ is most
openly prophesied. For indeed His impious murderers are quoted as
saying, "Let us lie in wait for the righteous, for he is unpleasant to
us, and contrary to our works; and he upbraideth us with our
transgressions of the law, and objecteth to our disgrace the
transgressions of our education. He professeth to have the knowledge
of God, and he calleth himself the Son of God. He was made to reprove
our thoughts. He is grievous for as even to behold; for his life is
unlike other men's and his ways are different. We are esteemed of him
as counterfeits; and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness.
He extols the latter end of the righteous; and glorieth that he hath
God for his Father. Let us see, therefore, if his words be true; and
let us try what shall happen to him, and we shall know what shall be
the end of him. For if the righteous be the Son of God, He will
undertake for him, and deliver him out of the hand of those that are
against him. Let us put him to the question with contumely and
torture, that we may know his reverence, and prove his patience. Let
us condemn him to the most shameful death; for by His own sayings He
shall be respected. These things did they imagine, and were mistaken;
for their own malice hath quite blinded them." [1114] But in
Ecclesiasticus the future faith of the nations is predicted in this
manner: "Have mercy upon us, O God, Ruler of all, and send Thy fear
upon all the nations: lift up Thine hand over the strange nations,
and let them see Thy power. As Thou wast sanctified in us before
them, so be Thou sanctified in them before us, and let them
acknowledge Thee, according as we also have acknowledged Thee; for
there is not a God beside Thee, O Lord." [1115]We see this prophecy
in the form of a wish and prayer fulfilled through Jesus Christ. But
the things which are not written in the canon of the Jews cannot be
quoted against their contradictions with so great validity.
But as regards those three books which it is evident are Solomon's and
held canonical by the Jews, to show what of this kind may be found in
them pertaining to Christ and the Church demands a laborious
discussion, which, if now entered on, would lengthen this work
unduly. Yet what we read in the Proverbs of impious men saying, "Let
us unrighteously hide in the earth the righteous man; yea, let us
swallow him up alive as hell, and let us take away his memory from the
earth: let us seize his precious possession," [1116] is not so
obscure that it may not be understood, without laborious exposition,
of Christ and His possession the Church. Indeed, the gospel parable
about the wicked husbandmen shows that our Lord Jesus Himself said
something like it: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the
inheritance shall be ours." [1117] In like manner also that passage in
this same book, on which we have already touched [1118] when we were
speaking of the barren woman who hath born seven, must soon after it
was uttered have come to be understood of only Christ and the Church
by those who knew that Christ was the Wisdom of God. "Wisdom hath
builded her an house, and hath set up seven pillars; she hath
sacrificed her victims, she hath mingled her wine in the bowl; she
hath also furnished her table. She hath sent her servants summoning
to the bowl with excellent proclamation, saying, Who is simple, let
him turn aside to me. And to the void of sense she hath said, Come,
eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for you."
[1119]Here certainly we perceive that the Wisdom of God, that is,
the Word co-eternal with the Father, hath builded Him an house, even a
human body in the virgin womb, and hath subjoined the Church to it as
members to a head, hath slain the martyrs as victims, hath furnished a
table with wine and bread, where appears also the priesthood after the
order of Melchizedek, and hath called the simple and the void of
sense, because, as saith the apostle, "He hath chosen the weak things
of this world that He might confound the things which are mighty."
[1120]Yet to these weak ones she saith what follows, "Forsake
simplicity, that ye may live; and seek prudence, that ye may have
life." [1121]But to be made partakers of this table is itself to
begin to have life. For when he says in another book, which is called
Ecclesiastes, "There is no good for a man, except that he should eat
and drink," [1122] what can he be more credibly understood to say,
than what belongs to the participation of this table which the
Mediator of the New Testament Himself, the Priest after the order of
Melchizedek, furnishes with His own body and blood? For that
sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which
were slain as a shadow of that which was to come; wherefore also we
recognize the voice in the 40th Psalm as that of the same Mediator
speaking through prophesy, "Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not
desire; but a body hast Thou perfected for me." [1123]Because,
instead of all these sacrifices and oblations, His body is offered,
and is served up to the partakers of it. For that this Ecclesiastes,
in this sentence about eating and drinking, which he often repeats,
and very much commends, does not savor the dainties of carnal
pleasures, is made plain enough when he says, "It is better to go into
the house of mourning than to go into the house of feasting." [1124]
And a little after He says, "The heart of the wise is in the house of
mourning, and the heart of the simple in the house of feasting."
[1125]But I think that more worthy of quotation from this book
which relates to both cities, the one of the devil, the other of
Christ, and to their kings, the devil and Christ: "Woe to thee, O
land," he says, "when thy king is a youth, and thy princes eat in the
morning! Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of
nobles, and thy princes eat in season, in fortitude, and not in
confusion!" [1126]He has called the devil a youth, because of the
folly and pride, and rashness and unruliness, and other vices which
are wont to abound at that age; but Christ is the Son of nobles, that
is, of the holy patriarchs, of those belonging to the free city, of
whom He was begotten in the flesh. The princes of that and other
cities are eaters in the morning, that is, before the suitable hour,
because they do not expect the seasonable felicity, which is the true,
in the world to come, desiring to be speedily made happy with the
renown of this world; but the princes of the city of Christ patiently
wait for the time of a blessedness that is not fallacious. This is
expressed by the words, "in fortitude, and not in confusion," because
hope does not deceive them; of which the apostle says, "But hope
maketh not ashamed." [1127]A psalm also saith, "For they that hope
in Thee shall not be put to shame." [1128]But now the Song of Songs
is a certain spiritual pleasure of holy minds, in the marriage of that
King and Queen-city, that is, Christ and the Church. But this
pleasure is wrapped up in allegorical veils, that the Bridegroom may
be more ardently desired, and more joyfully unveiled, and may appear;
to whom it is said in this same song, "Equity hath delighted Thee;
[1129] and the bride who there hears, "Charity is in thy delights."
[1130]We pass over many things in silence, in our desire to finish
this work.
Footnotes
[1112] Ps. xxxii. 1.
[1113] Sallust, Bell. Cat. c. xi.
[1114] Wisd. ii. 12-21.
[1115] Ecclus. xxxvi. 1-5.
[1116] Prov. i. 11-13.
[1117] Matt. xxi. 38.
[1118] Ch. 4.
[1119] Prov. ix. 1-5 (ver. 1 is quoted above in ch. 4).
[1120] 1 Cor. i. 27.
[1121] Prov. ix. 6.
[1122] Eccles. ii. 24; iii. 13; v. 18; viii. 15.
[1123] Ps. xl. 6.
[1124] Eccles. vii. 2.
[1125] Eccles. vii. 4.
[1126] Eccles. x. 16, 17.
[1127] Rom. v. 5.
[1128] Ps. lxix. 6?
[1129] Cant. i. 4.
[1130] Cant. vii. 6.
Chapter 21.--Of the Kings After Solomon, Both in Judah and Israel.
The other kings of the Hebrews after Solomon are scarcely found to
have prophesied, through certain enigmatic words or actions of theirs,
what may pertain to Christ and the Church, either in Judah or Israel;
for so were the parts of that people styled, when, on account of
Solomon's offence, from the time of Rehoboam his son, who succeeded
him in the kingdom, it was divided by God as a punishment. The ten
tribes, indeed, which Jeroboam the servant of Solomon received, being
appointed the king in Samaria, were distinctively called Israel,
although this had been the name of that whole people; but the two
tribes, namely, of Judah and Benjamin, which for David's sake, lest
the kingdom should be wholly wrenched from his race, remained subject
to the city of Jerusalem, were called Judah, because that was the
tribe whence David sprang. But Benjamin, the other tribe which, as
was said, belonged to the same kingdom, was that whence Saul sprang
before David. But these two tribes together, as was said, were called
Judah, and were distinguished by this name from Israel which was the
distinctive title of the ten tribes under their own king. For the
tribe of Levi, because it was the priestly one, bound to the servitude
of God, not of the kings, was reckoned the thirteenth. For Joseph,
one of the twelve sons of Israel, did not, like the others, form one
tribe, but two, Ephraim and Manasseh. Yet the tribe of Levi also
belonged more to the kingdom of Jerusalem, where was the temple of God
whom it served. On the division of the people, therefore, Rehoboam,
son of Solomon, reigned in Jerusalem as the first king of Judah, and
Jeroboam, servant of Solomon, in Samaria as king of Israel. And when
Rehoboam wished as a tyrant to pursue that separated part with war,
the people were prohibited from fighting with their brethren by God,
who told them through a prophet that He had done this; whence it
appeared that in this matter there had been no sin either of the king
or people of Israel, but the accomplished will of God the avenger.
When this was known, both parts settled down peaceably, for the
division made was not religious but political.
Chapter 22.--Of Jeroboam, Who Profaned the People Put Under Him by the
Impiety of Idolatry, Amid Which, However, God Did Not Cease to Inspire
the Prophets, and to Guard Many from the Crime of Idolatry.
But Jeroboam king of Israel, with perverse mind, not believing in God,
whom he had proved true in promising and giving him the kingdom, was
afraid lest, by coming to the temple of God which was in Jerusalem,
where, according to the divine law, that whole nation was to come in
order to sacrifice, the people should be seduced from him, and return
to David's line as the seed royal; and set up idolatry in his kingdom,
and with horrible impiety beguiled the people, ensnaring them to the
worship of idols with himself. Yet God did not altogether cease to
reprove by the prophets, not only that king, but also his successors
and imitators in his impiety, and the people too. For there the great
and illustrious prophet Elijah and Elisha his disciple arose, who also
did many wonderful works. Even there, when Elijah said, "O Lord, they
have slain Thy prophets, they have digged down Thine altars; and I am
left alone, and they seek my life," it was answered that seven
thousand men were there who had not bowed the knee to Baal. [1131]
Footnotes
[1131] 1 Kings xix. 10, 14, 15.
Chapter 23.--Of the Varying Condition of Both the Hebrew Kingdoms,
Until the People of Both Were at Different Times Led into Captivity,
Judah Being Afterwards Recalled into His Kingdom, Which Finally Passed
into the Power of the Romans.
So also in the kingdom of Judah pertaining to Jerusalem prophets were
not lacking even in the times of succeeding kings, just as it pleased
God to send them, either for the prediction of what was needful, or
for correction of sin and instruction in righteousness; [1132] for
there, too, although far less than in Israel, kings arose who
grievously offended God by their impieties, and, along with their
people, who were like them, were smitten with moderate scourges. The
no small merits of the pious kings there are praised indeed. But we
read that in Israel the kings were, some more, others less, yet all
wicked. Each part, therefore, as the divine providence either ordered
or permitted, was both lifted up by prosperity and weighed down by
adversity of various kinds; and it was afflicted not only by foreign,
but also by civil wars with each other, in order that by certain
existing causes the mercy or anger of God might be manifested; until,
by His growing indignation, that whole nation was by the conquering
Chaldeans not only overthrown in its abode, but also for the most part
transported to the lands of the Assyrians,--first, that part of the
thirteen tribes called Israel, but afterwards Judah also, when
Jerusalem and that most noble temple was cast down,--in which lands it
rested seventy years in captivity. Being after that time sent forth
thence, they rebuilt the overthrown temple. And although very many
stayed in the lands of the strangers, yet the kingdom no longer had
two separate parts, with different kings over each, but in Jerusalem
there was one prince over them; and at certain times, from every
direction wherever they were, and from whatever place they could, they
all came to the temple of God which was there. Yet not even then were
they without foreign enemies and conquerors; yea, Christ found them
tributaries of the Romans.
Footnotes
[1132] 2 Tim. iii. 16.
Chapter 24.--Of the Prophets, Who Either Were the Last Among the Jews,
or Whom the Gospel History Reports About the Time of Christ's
Nativity.
But in that whole time after they returned from Babylon, after
Malachi, Haggai, and Zechariah, who then prophesied, and Ezra, they
had no prophets down to the time of the Saviour's advent except
another Zechariah, the father of John, and Elisabeth his wife, when
the nativity of Christ was already close at hand; and when He was
already born, Simeon the aged, and Anna a widow, and now very old;
and, last of all, John himself, who, being a young man, did not
predict that Christ, now a young man, was to come, but by prophetic
knowledge pointed Him out though unknown; for which reason the Lord
Himself says, "The law and the prophets were until John." [1133]But
the prophesying of these five is made known to us in the gospel, where
the virgin mother of our Lord herself is also found to have prophesied
before John. But this prophecy of theirs the wicked Jews do not
receive; but those innumerable persons received it who from them
believed the gospel. For then truly Israel was divided in two, by
that division which was foretold by Samuel the prophet to king Saul as
immutable. But even the reprobate Jews hold Malachi, Haggai,
Zechariah, and Ezra as the last received into canonical authority.
For there are also writings of these, as of others, who being but a
very few in the great multitude of prophets, have written those books
which have obtained canonical authority, of whose predictions it seems
good to me to put in this work some which pertain to Christ and His
Church; and this, by the Lord's help, shall be done more conveniently
in the following book, that we may not further burden this one, which
is already too long.
Footnotes
[1133] Matt. xi. 13.
.
Book XVIII.
Argument--Augustin traces the parallel courses of the earthly and
heavenly cities from the time of Abraham to the end of the world; and
alludes to the oracles regarding Christ, both those uttered by the
Sibyls, and those of the sacred prophets who wrote after the
foundation of Rome, Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and their successors.
Chapter 1.--Of Those Things Down to the Times of the Saviour Which
Have Been Discussed in the Seventeen Books.
I Promised to write of the rise, progress, and appointed end of the
two cities, one of which is God's, the other this world's, in which,
so far as mankind is concerned, the former is now a stranger. But
first of all I undertook, so far as His grace should enable me, to
refute the enemies of the city of God, who prefer their gods to Christ
its founder, and fiercely hate Christians with the most deadly
malice. And this I have done in the first ten books. Then, as
regards my threefold promise which I have just mentioned, I have
treated distinctly, in the four books which follow the tenth, of the
rise of both cities. After that, I have proceeded from the first man
down to the flood in one book, which is the fifteenth of this work;
and from that again down to Abraham our work has followed both in
chronological order. From the patriarch Abraham down to the time of
the Israelite kings, at which we close our sixteenth book, and thence
down to the advent of Christ Himself in the flesh, to which period the
seventeenth book reaches, the city of God appears from my way of
writing to have run its course alone; whereas it did not run its
course alone in this age, for both cities, in their course amid
mankind, certainly experienced chequered times together just as from
the beginning. But I did this in order that, first of all, from the
time when the promises of God began to be more clear, down to the
virgin birth of Him in whom those things promised from the first were
to be fulfilled, the course of that city which is God's might be made
more distinctly apparent, without interpolation of foreign matter from
the history of the other city, although down to the revelation of the
new covenant it ran its course, not in light, but in shadow. Now,
therefore, I think fit to do what I passed by, and show, so far as
seems necessary, how that other city ran its course from the times of
Abraham, so that attentive readers may compare the two.
Chapter 2.--Of the Kings and Times of the Earthly City Which Were
Synchronous with the Times of the Saints, Reckoning from the Rise of
Abraham.
The society of mortals spread abroad through the earth everywhere, and
in the most diverse places, although bound together by a certain
fellowship of our common nature, is yet for the most part divided
against itself, and the strongest oppress the others, because all
follow after their own interests and lusts, while what is longed for
either suffices for none, or not for all, because it is not the very
thing. For the vanquished succumb to the victorious, preferring any
sort of peace and safety to freedom itself; so that they who chose to
die rather than be slaves have been greatly wondered at. For in
almost all nations the very voice of nature somehow proclaims, that
those who happen to be conquered should choose rather to be subject to
their conquerors than to be killed by all kinds of warlike
destruction. This does not take place without the providence of God,
in whose power it lies that any one either subdues or is subdued in
war; that some are endowed with kingdoms, others made subject to
kings. Now, among the very many kingdoms of the earth into which, by
earthly interest or lust, society is divided (which we call by the
general name of the city of this world), we see that two, settled and
kept distinct from each other both in time and place, have grown far
more famous than the rest, first that of the Assyrians, then that of
the Romans. First came the one, then the other. The former arose in
the east, and, immediately on its close, the latter in the west. I
may speak of other kingdoms and other kings as appendages of these.
Ninus, then, who succeeded his father Belus, the first king of
Assyria, was already the second king of that kingdom when Abraham was
born in the land of the Chaldees. There was also at that time a very
small kingdom of Sicyon, with which, as from an ancient date, that
most universally learned man Marcus Varro begins, in writing of the
Roman race. For from these kings of Sicyon he passes to the
Athenians, from them to the Latins, and from these to the Romans. Yet
very little is related about these kingdoms, before the foundation of
Rome, in comparison with that of Assyria. For although even Sallust,
the Roman historian, admits that the Athenians were very famous in
Greece, yet he thinks they were greater in fame than in fact. For in
speaking of them he says, "The deeds of the Athenians, as I think,
were very great and magnificent, but yet somewhat less than reported
by fame. But because writers of great genius arose among them, the
deeds of the Athenians were celebrated throughout the world as very
great. Thus the virtue of those who did them was held to be as great
as men of transcendent genius could represent it to be by the power of
laudatory words." [1134]This city also derived no small glory from
literature and philosophy, the study of which chiefly flourished
there. But as regards empire, none in the earliest times was greater
than the Assyrian, or so widely extended. For when Ninus the son of
Belus was king, he is reported to have subdued the whole of Asia, even
to the boundaries of Libya, which as to number is called the third
part, but as to size is found to be the half of the whole world. The
Indians in the eastern regions were the only people over whom he did
not reign; but after his death Semiramis his wife made war on them.
Thus it came to pass that all the people and kings in those countries
were subject to the kingdom and authority of the Assyrians, and did
whatever they were commanded. Now Abraham was born in that kingdom
among the Chaldees, in the time of Ninus. But since Grecian affairs
are much better known to us than Assyrian, and those who have
diligently investigated the antiquity of the Roman nation's origin
have followed the order of time through the Greeks to the Latins, and
from them to the Romans, who themselves are Latins, we ought on this
account, where it is needful, to mention the Assyrian kings, that it
may appear how Babylon, like a first Rome, ran its course along with
the city of God, which is a stranger in this world. But the things
proper for insertion in this work in comparing the two cities, that
is, the earthly and heavenly, ought to be taken mostly from the Greek
and Latin kingdoms, where Rome herself is like a second Babylon.
At Abraham's birth, then, the second kings of Assyria and Sicyon
respectively were Ninus and Europs, the first having been Belus and
Ægialeus. But when God promised Abraham, on his departure from
Babylonia, that he should become a great nation, and that in his seed
all nations of the earth should be blessed, the Assyrians had their
seventh king, the Sicyons their fifth; for the son of Ninus reigned
among them after his mother Semiramis, who is said to have been put to
death by him for attempting to defile him by incestuously lying with
him. Some think that she founded Babylon, and indeed she may have
founded it anew. But we have told, in the sixteenth book, when or by
whom it was founded. Now the son of Ninus and Semiramis, who
succeeded his mother in the kingdom, is also called Ninus by some, but
by others Ninias, a patronymic word. Telexion then held the kingdom
of the Sicyons. In his reign times were quiet and joyful to such a
degree, that after his death they worshipped him as a god by offering
sacrifices and by celebrating games, which are said to have been first
instituted on this occasion.
Footnotes
[1134] Sallust, Bell. Cat. c. 8.
Chapter 3.--What Kings Reigned in Assyria and Sicyon When, According
to the Promise, Isaac Was Born to Abraham in His Hundredth Year, and
When the Twins Esau and Jacob Were Born of Rebecca to Isaac in His
Sixtieth Year.
In his times also, by the promise of God, Isaac, the son of Abraham,
was born to his father when he was a hundred years old, of Sarah his
wife, who, being barren and old, had already lost hope of issue.
Aralius was then the fifth king of the Assyrians. To Isaac himself,
in his sixtieth year, were born twin-sons, Esau and Jacob, whom
Rebecca his wife bore to him, their grandfather Abraham, who died on
completing a hundred and seventy years, being still alive, and
reckoning his hundred and sixtieth year. [1135]At that time there
reigned as the seventh kings,--among the Assyrians, that more ancient
Xerxes, who was also called Balæus; and among the Sicyons, Thuriachus,
or, as some write his name, Thurimachus. The kingdom of Argos, in
which Inachus reigned first, arose in the time of Abraham's
grandchildren. And I must not omit what Varro relates, that the
Sicyons were also wont to sacrifice at the tomb of their seventh king
Thuriachus. In the reign of Armamitres in Assyria and Leucippus in
Sicyon as the eighth kings, and of Inachus as the first in Argos, God
spoke to Isaac, and promised the same two things to him as to his
father,--namely, the land of Canaan to his seed, and the blessing of
all nations in his seed. These same things were promised to his son,
Abraham's grandson, who was at first called Jacob, afterwards Israel,
when Belocus was the ninth king of Assyria, and Phoroneus, the son of
Inachus, reigned as the second king of Argos, Leucippus still
continuing king of Sicyon. In those times, under the Argive king
Phoroneus, Greece was made more famous by the institution of certain
laws and judges. On the death of Phoroneus, his younger brother
Phegous built a temple at his tomb, in which he was worshipped as God,
and oxen were sacrificed to him. I believe they thought him worthy of
so great honor, because in his part of the kingdom (for their father
had divided his territories between them, in which they reigned during
his life) he had founded chapels for the worship of the gods, and had
taught them to measure time, by months and years, and to that extent
to keep count and reckoning of events. Men still uncultivated,
admiring him for these novelties, either fancied he was, or resolved
that he should be made, a god after his death. Io also is said to
have been the daughter of Inachus, who was afterwards called Isis,
when she was worshipped in Egypt as a great goddess; although others
write that she came as a queen out of Ethiopia, and because she ruled
extensively and justly, and instituted for her subjects letters and
many useful things, such divine honor was given her there after she
died, that if any one said she had been human, he was charged with a
capital crime.
Footnotes
[1135] In the Hebrew text, Gen. xxv. 7, a hundred and seventy-five
years.
Chapter 4.--Of the Times of Jacob and His Son Joseph.
In the reign of Balæus, the ninth king of Assyria, and Mesappus, the
eighth of Sicyon, who is said by some to have been also called
Cephisos (if indeed the same man had both names, and those who put the
other name in their writings have not rather confounded him with
another man), while Apis was third king of Argos, Isaac died, a
hundred and eighty years old, and left his twin-sons a hundred and
twenty years old. Jacob, the younger of these, belonged to the city
of God about which we write (the elder being wholly rejected), and had
twelve sons, one of whom, called Joseph, was sold by his brothers to
merchants going down to Egypt, while his grandfather Isaac was still
alive. But when he was thirty years of age, Joseph stood before
Pharaoh, being exalted out of the humiliation he endured, because, in
divinely interpreting the king's dreams, he foretold that there would
be seven years of plenty, the very rich abundance of which would be
consumed by seven other years of famine that should follow. On this
account the king made him ruler over Egypt, liberating him from
prison, into which he had been thrown for keeping his chastity intact;
for he bravely preserved it from his mistress, who wickedly loved him,
and told lies to his weakly credulous master, and did not consent to
commit adultery with her, but fled from her, leaving his garment in
her hands when she laid hold of him. In the second of the seven years
of famine Jacob came down into Egypt to his son with all he had, being
a hundred and thirty years old, as he himself said in answer to the
king's question. Joseph was then thirty-nine, if we add seven years
of plenty and two of famine to the thirty he reckoned when honored by
the king.
Chapter 5.--Of Apis King of Argos, Whom the Egyptians Called Serapis,
and Worshipped with Divine Honors.
In these times Apis king of Argos crossed over into Egypt in ships,
and, on dying there, was made Serapis, the chief god of all the
Egyptians. Now Varro gives this very ready reason why, after his
death, he was called, not Apis, but Serapis. The ark in which he was
placed when dead, which every one now calls a sarcophagus, was then
called in Greek soros, and they began to worship him when buried in it
before his temple was built; and from Soros and Apis he was called
first [Sorosapis, or] Sorapis, and then Serapis, by changing a letter,
as easily happens. It was decreed regarding him also, that whoever
should say he had been a man should be capitally punished. And since
in every temple where Isis and Serapis were worshipped there was also
an image which, with finger pressed on the lips, seemed to warn men to
keep silence, Varro thinks this signifies that it should be kept
secret that they had been human. But that bull which, with wonderful
folly, deluded Egypt nourished with abundant delicacies in honor of
him, was not called Serapis, but Apis, because they worshipped him
alive without a sarcophagus. On the death of that bull, when they
sought and found a calf of the same color,--that is, similarly marked
with certain white spots,--they believed it was something miraculous,
and divinely provided for them. Yet it was no great thing for the
demons, in order to deceive them, to show to a cow when she was
conceiving and pregnant the image of such a bull, which she alone
could see, and by it attract the breeding passion of the mother, so
that it might appear in a bodily shape in her young, just as Jacob so
managed with the spotted rods that the sheep and goats were born
spotted. For what men can do with real colors and substances, the
demons can very easily do by showing unreal forms to breeding animals.
Chapter 6.--Who Were Kings of Argos, and of Assyria, When Jacob Died
in Egypt.
Apis, then, who died in Egypt, was not the king of Egypt, but of
Argos. He was succeeded by his son Argus, from whose name the land
was called Argos and the people Argives, for under the earlier kings
neither the place nor the nation as yet had this name. While he then
reigned over Argos, and Eratus over Sicyon, and Balæus still remained
king of Assyria, Jacob died in Egypt a hundred and forty-seven years
old, after he had, when dying, blessed his sons and his grandsons by
Joseph, and prophesied most plainly of Christ, saying in the blessing
of Judah, "A prince shall not fail out of Judah, nor a leader from his
thighs, until those things come which are laid up for him; and He is
the expectation of the nations." [1136]In the reign of Argus,
Greece began to use fruits, and to have crops of corn in cultivated
fields, the seed having been brought from other countries. Argus also
began to be accounted a god after his death, and was honored with a
temple and sacrifices. This honor was conferred in his reign, before
being given to him, on a private individual for being the first to
yoke oxen in the plough. This was one Homogyrus, who was struck by
lightning.
Footnotes
[1136] Gen. xlix. 10.
Chapter 7.--Who Were Kings When Joseph Died in Egypt.
In the reign of Mamitus, the twelfth king of Assyria, and Plemnæus,
the eleventh of Sicyon, while Argus still reigned over the Argives,
Joseph died in Egypt a hundred and ten years old. After his death,
the people of God, increasing wonderfully, remained in Egypt a hundred
and forty-five years, in tranquillity at first, until those who knew
Joseph were dead. Afterward, through envy of their increase, and the
suspicion that they would at length gain their freedom, they were
oppressed with persecutions and the labors of intolerable servitude,
amid which, however, they still grew, being multiplied with God-given
fertility. During this period the same kingdoms continued in Assyria
and Greece.
Chapter 8.--Who Were Kings When Moses Was Born, and What Gods Began to
Be Worshipped Then.
When Saphrus reigned as the fourteenth king of Assyria, and Orthopolis
as the twelfth of Sicyon, and Criasus as the fifth of Argos, Moses was
born in Egypt, by whom the people of God were liberated from the
Egyptian slavery, in which they behoved to be thus tried that they
might desire the help of their Creator. Some have thought that
Prometheus lived during the reign of the kings now named. He is
reported to have formed men out of clay, because he was esteemed the
best teacher of wisdom; yet it does not appear what wise men there
were in his days. His brother Atlas is said to have been a great
astrologer; and this gave occasion for the fable that he held up the
sky, although the vulgar opinion about his holding up the sky appears
rather to have been suggested by a high mountain named after him.
Indeed, from those times many other fabulous things began to be
invented in Greece; yet, down to Cecrops king of Athens, in whose
reign that city received its name, and in whose reign God brought His
people out of Egypt by Moses, only a few dead heroes are reported to
have been deified according to the vain superstition of the Greeks.
Among these were Melantomice, the wife of king Criasus, and Phorbas
their son, who succeeded his father as sixth king of the Argives, and
Iasus, son of Triopas, their seventh king, and their ninth king,
Sthenelas, or Stheneleus, or Sthenelus,--for his name is given
differently by different authors. In those times also, Mercury, the
grandson of Atlas by his daughter Maia, is said to have lived,
according to the common report in books. He was famous for his skill
in many arts, and taught them to men, for which they resolved to make
him, and even believed that he deserved to be, a god after death.
Hercules is said to have been later, yet belonging to the same period;
although some, whom I think mistaken, assign him an earlier date than
Mercury. But at whatever time they were born, it is agreed among
grave historians, who have committed these ancient things to writing,
that both were men, and that they merited divine honors from mortals
because they conferred on them many benefits to make this life more
pleasant to them. Minerva was far more ancient than these; for she is
reported to have appeared in virgin age in the times of Ogyges at the
lake called Triton, from which she is also styled Tritonia, the
inventress truly of many works, and the more readily believed to be a
goddess because her origin was so little known. For what is sung
about her having sprung from the head of Jupiter belongs to the region
of poetry and fable, and not to that of history and real fact. And
historical writers are not agreed when Ogyges flourished, in whose
time also a great flood occurred,--not that greatest one from which no
man escaped except those who could get into the ark, for neither Greek
nor Latin history knew of it, yet a greater flood than that which
happened afterward in Deucalion's time. For Varro begins the book I
have already mentioned at this date, and does not propose to himself,
as the starting-point from which he may arrive at Roman affairs,
anything more ancient than the flood of Ogyges, that is, which
happened in the time of Ogyges. Now our writers of chronicles--first
Eusebius, and afterwards Jerome, who entirely follow some earlier
historians in this opinion--relate that the flood of Ogyges happened
more than three hundred years after, during the reign of Phoroneus,
the second king of Argos. But whenever he may have lived, Minerva was
already worshipped as a goddess when Cecrops reigned in Athens, in
whose reign the city itself is reported to have been rebuilt or
founded.
Chapter 9.--When the City of Athens Was Founded, and What Reason Varro
Assigns for Its Name.
Athens certainly derived its name from Minerva, who in Greek is called
'Athene, and Varro points out the following reason why it was so
called. When an olive-tree suddenly appeared there, and water burst
forth in another place, these prodigies moved the king to send to the
Delphic Apollo to inquire what they meant and what he should do. He
answered that the olive signified Minerva, the water Neptune, and that
the citizens had it in their power to name their city as they chose,
after either of these two gods whose signs these were. On receiving
this oracle, Cecrops convoked all the citizens of either sex to give
their vote, for it was then the custom in those parts for the women
also to take part in public deliberations. When the multitude was
consulted, the men gave their votes for Neptune, the women for
Minerva; and as the women had a majority of one, Minerva conquered.
Then Neptune, being enraged, laid waste the lands of the Athenians, by
casting up the waves of the sea; for the demons have no difficulty in
scattering any waters more widely. The same authority said, that to
appease his wrath the women should be visited by the Athenians with
the three-fold punishment--that they should no longer have any vote;
that none of their children should be named after their mothers; and
that no one should call them Athenians. Thus that city, the mother
and nurse of liberal doctrines, and of so many and so great
philosophers, than whom Greece had nothing more famous and noble, by
the mockery of demons about the strife of their gods, a male and
female, and from the victory of the female one through the women,
received the name of Athens; and, on being damaged by the vanquished
god, was compelled to punish the very victory of the victress, fearing
the waters of Neptune more than the arms of Minerva. For in the women
who were thus punished, Minerva, who had conquered, was conquered too,
and could not even help her voters so far that, although the right of
voting was henceforth lost, and the mothers could not give their names
to the children, they might at least be allowed to be called
Athenians, and to merit the name of that goddess whom they had made
victorious over a male god by giving her their votes. What and how
much could be said about this, if we had not to hasten to other things
in our discourse, is obvious.
Chapter 10.--What Varro Reports About the Term Areopagus, and About
Deucalion's Flood.
Marcus Varro, however, is not willing to credit lying fables against
the gods, lest he should find something dishonoring to their majesty;
and therefore he will not admit that the Areopagus, the place where
the Apostle Paul disputed with the Athenians, got this name because
Mars, who in Greek is called AAres, when he was charged with the crime
of homicide, and was judged by twelve gods in that field, was
acquitted by the sentence of six; because it was the custom, when the
votes were equal, to acquit rather than condemn. Against this
opinion, which is much most widely published, he tries, from the
notices of obscure books, to support another reason for this name,
lest the Athenians should be thought to have called it Areopagus from
the words" Mars" and "field," [1137] as if it were the field of Mars,
to the dishonor of the gods, forsooth, from whom he thinks lawsuits
and judgments far removed. And he asserts that this which is said
about Mars is not less false than what is said about the three
goddesses, to wit, Juno, Minerva, and Venus, whose contest for the
palm of beauty, before Paris as judge, in order to obtain the golden
apple, is not only related, but is celebrated in songs and dances amid
the applause of the theatres, in plays meant to please the gods who
take pleasure in these crimes of their own, whether real or fabled.
Varro does not believe these things, because they are incompatible
with the nature of the gods and of morality; and yet, in giving not a
fabulous but a historic reason for the name of Athens, he inserts in
his books the strife between Neptune and Minerva as to whose name
should be given to that city, which was so great that, when they
contended by the display of prodigies, even Apollo dared not judge
between them when consulted; but, in order to end the strife of the
gods, just as Jupiter sent the three goddesses we have named to Paris,
so he sent them to men, when Minerva won by the vote, and yet was
defeated by the punishment of her own voters, for she was unable to
confer the title of Athenians on the women who were her friends,
although she could impose it on the men who were her opponents. In
these times, when Cranaos reigned at Athens as the successor of
Cecrops, as Varro writes, but, according to our Eusebius and Jerome,
while Cecrops himself still remained, the flood occurred which is
called Deucalion's, because it occurred chiefly in those parts of the
earth in which he reigned. But this flood did not at all reach Egypt
or its vicinity.
Footnotes
[1137] Ares and pagos.
Chapter 11.--When Moses Led the People Out of Egypt; And Who Were
Kings When His Successor Joshua the Son of Nun Died.
Moses led the people out of Egypt in the last time of Cecrops king of
Athens, when Ascatades reigned in Assyria, Marathus in Sicyon, Triopas
in Argos; and having led forth the people, he gave them at Mount Sinai
the law he received from God, which is called the Old Testament,
because it has earthly promises, and because, through Jesus Christ,
there was to be a New Testament, in which the kingdom of heaven should
be promised. For the same order behoved to be observed in this as is
observed in each man who prospers in God, according to the saying of
the apostle, "That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is
natural," since, as he says, and that truly, "The first man of the
earth, is earthly; the second man, from heaven, is heavenly." [1138]
Now Moses ruled the people for forty years in the wilderness, and died
a hundred and twenty years old, after he had prophesied of Christ by
the types of carnal observances in the tabernacle, priesthood, and
sacrifices, and many other mystic ordinances. Joshua the son of Nun
succeeded Moses, and settled in the land of promise the people he had
brought in, having by divine authority conquered the people by whom it
was formerly possessed. He also died, after ruling the people
twenty-seven years after the death of Moses, when Amyntas reigned in
Assyria as the eighteenth king, Coracos as the sixteenth in Sicyon,
Danaos as the tenth in Argos, Ericthonius as the fourth in Athens.
Footnotes
[1138] 1 Cor. xv. 46, 47.
Chapter 12.--Of the Rituals of False Gods Instituted by the Kings of
Greece in the Period from Israel's Exodus from Egypt Down to the Death
of Joshua the Son of Nun.
During this period, that is, from Israel's exodus from Egypt down to
the death of Joshua the son of Nun, through whom that people received
the land of promise, rituals were instituted to the false gods by the
kings of Greece, which, by stated celebration, recalled the memory of
the flood, and of men's deliverance from it, and of that troublous
life they then led in migrating to and fro between the heights and the
plains. For even the Luperci, [1139] when they ascend and descend the
sacred path, are said to represent the men who sought the mountain
summits because of the inundation of water, and returned to the
lowlands on its subsidence. In those times, Dionysus, who was also
called Father Liber, and was esteemed a god after death, is said to
have shown the vine to his host in Attica. Then the musical games
were instituted for the Delphic Apollo, to appease his anger, through
which they thought the regions of Greece were afflicted with
barrenness, because they had not defended his temple which Danaos
burnt when he invaded those lands; for they were warned by his oracle
to institute these games. But king Ericthonius first instituted games
to him in Attica, and not to him only, but also to Minerva, in which
games the olive was given as the prize to the victors, because they
relate that Minerva was the discoverer of that fruit, as Liber was of
the grape. In those years Europa is alleged to have been carried off
by Xanthus king of Crete (to whom we find some give another name), and
to have borne him Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, and Minos, who are more
commonly reported to have been the sons of Jupiter by the same woman.
Now those who worship such gods regard what we have said about Xanthus
king of Crete as true history; but this about Jupiter, which the poets
sing, the theatres applaud, and the people celebrate, as empty fable
got up as a reason for games to appease the deities, even with the
false ascription of crimes to them. In those times Hercules was held
in honor in Tyre, but that was not the same one as he whom we spoke of
above. In the more secret history there are said to have been several
who were called Father Liber and Hercules. This Hercules, whose great
deeds are reckoned as twelve (not including the slaughter of Antæus
the African, because that affair pertains to another Hercules), is
declared in their books to have burned himself on Mount OEta, because
he was not able, by that strength with which he had subdued monsters,
to endure the disease under which he languished. At that time the
king, or rather tyrant Busiris, who is alleged to have been the son of
Neptune by Libya the daughter of Epaphus, is said to have offered up
his guests in sacrifice to the gods. Now it must not be believed that
Neptune committed this adultery, lest the gods should be criminated;
yet such things must be ascribed to them by the poets and in the
theatres, that they may be pleased with them. Vulcan and Minerva are
said to have been the parents of Ericthonius king of Athens, in whose
last years Joshua the son of Nun is found to have died. But since
they will have it that Minerva is a virgin, they say that Vulcan,
being disturbed in the struggle between them, poured out his seed into
the earth, and on that account the man born of it received that name;
for in the Greek language eris is "strife," and chthon "earth," of
which two words Ericthonius is a compound. Yet it must be admitted
that the more learned disprove and disown such things concerning their
gods, and declare that this fabulous belief originated in the fact
that in the temple at Athens, which Vulcan and Minerva had in common,
a boy who had been exposed was found wrapped up in the coils of a
dragon, which signified that he would become great, and, as his
parents were unknown, he was called the son of Vulcan and Minerva,
because they had the temple in common. Yet that fable accounts for
the origin of his name better than this history. But what does it
matter to us? Let the one in books that speak the truth edify
religious men, and the other in lying fables delight impure demons.
Yet these religious men worship them as gods. Still, while they deny
these things concerning them they cannot clear them of all crime,
because at their demand they exhibit plays in which the very things
they wisely deny are basely done, and the gods are appeased by these
false and base things. Now, even although the play celebrates an
unreal crime of the gods, yet to delight in the ascription of an
unreal crime is a real one.
Footnotes
[1139] The priests who officiated at the Lupercalia.
Chapter 13.--What Fables Were Invented at the Time When Judges Began
to Rule the Hebrews.
After the death of Joshua the son of Nun, the people of God had
judges, in whose times they were alternately humbled by afflictions on
account of their sins, and consoled by prosperity through the
compassion of God. In those times were invented the fables about
Triptolemus, who, at the command of Ceres, borne by winged snakes,
bestowed corn on the needy lands in flying over them; about that beast
the Minotaur, which was shut up in the Labyrinth, from which men who
entered its inextricable mazes could find no exit; about the Centaurs,
whose form was a compound of horse and man; about Cerberus, the
three-headed dog of hell; about Phryxus and his sister Hellas, who
fled, borne by a winged ram; about the Gorgon, whose hair was composed
of serpents, and who turned those who looked on her into stone; about
Bellerophon, who was carried by a winged horse called Pegasus; about
Amphion, who charmed and attracted the stones by the sweetness of his
harp; about the artificer Dædalus and his son Icarus, who flew on
wings they had fitted on; about OEdipus, who compelled a certain
four-footed monster with a human face, called a sphynx, to destroy
herself by casting herself headlong, having solved the riddle she was
wont to propose as insoluble; about Antæus, who was the son of the
earth, for which reason, on falling on the earth, he was wont to rise
up stronger, whom Hercules slew; and perhaps there are others which I
have forgotten. These fables, easily found in histories containing a
true account of events, bring us down to the Trojan war, at which
Marcus Varro has closed his second book about the race of the Roman
people; and they are so skillfully invented by men as to involve no
scandal to the gods. But whoever have pretended as to Jupiter's rape
of Ganymede, a very beautiful boy, that king Tantalus committed the
crime, and the fable ascribed it to Jupiter; or as to his impregnating
Danäe as a golden shower, that it means that the woman's virtue was
corrupted by gold: whether these things were really done or only
fabled in those days, or were really done by others and falsely
ascribed to Jupiter, it is impossible to tell how much wickedness must
have been taken for granted in men's hearts that they should be
thought able to listen to such lies with patience. And yet they
willingly accepted them, when, indeed, the more devotedly they
worshipped Jupiter, they ought the more severely to have punished
those who durst say such things of him. But they not only were not
angry at those who invented these things, but were afraid that the
gods would be angry at them if they did not act such fictions even in
the theatres. In those times Latona bore Apollo, not him of whose
oracle we have spoken above as so often consulted, but him who is
said, along with Hercules, to have fed the flocks of king Admetus; yet
he was so believed to be a god, that very many, indeed almost all,
have believed him to be the selfsame Apollo. Then also Father Liber
made war in India, and led in his army many women called Bacchæ, who
were notable not so much for valor as for fury. Some, indeed, write
that this Liber was both conquered and bound and some that he was
slain in Persia, even telling where he was buried; and yet in his
name, as that of a god, the unclean demons have instituted the sacred,
or rather the sacrilegious, Bacchanalia, of the outrageous vileness of
which the senate, after many years, became so much ashamed as to
prohibit them in the city of Rome. Men believed that in those times
Perseus and his wife Andromeda were raised into heaven after their
death, so that they were not ashamed or afraid to mark out their
images by constellations, and call them by their names.
Chapter 14.--Of the Theological Poets.
During the same period of time arose the poets, who were also called
theologues, because they made hymns about the gods; yet about such
gods as, although great men, were yet but men, or the elements of this
world which the true God made, or creatures who were ordained as
principalities and powers according to the will of the Creator and
their own merit. And if, among much that was vain and false, they
sang anything of the one true God, yet, by worshipping Him along with
others who are not gods, and showing them the service that is due to
Him alone, they did not serve Him at all rightly; and even such poets
as Orpheus, Musæus, and Linus, were unable to abstain from dishonoring
their gods by fables. But yet these theologues worshipped the gods,
and were not worshipped as gods, although the city of the ungodly is
wont, I know not how, to set Orpheus over the sacred, or rather
sacrilegious, rites of hell. The wife of king Athamas, who was called
Ino, and her son Melicertes, perished by throwing themselves into the
sea, and were, according to popular belief, reckoned among the gods,
like other men of the same times, [among whom were] Castor and
Pollux. The Greeks, indeed, called her who was the mother of
Melicertes, Leucothea, the Latins, Matuta; but both thought her a
goddess.
Chapter 15.--Of the Fall of the Kingdom of Argos, When Picus the Son
of Saturn First Received His Father's Kingdom of Laurentum.
During those times the kingdom of Argos came to an end; being
transferred to Mycene, from which Agamemnon came, and the kingdom of
Laurentum arose, of which Picus son of Saturn was the first king, when
the woman Deborah judged the Hebrews; but it was the Spirit of God who
used her as His agent, for she was also a prophetess, although her
prophecy is so obscure that we could not demonstrate, without a long
discussion, that it was uttered concerning Christ. Now the Laurentes
already reigned in Italy, from whom the origin of the Roman people is
quite evidently derived after the Greeks; yet the kingdom of Assyria
still lasted, in which Lampares was the twenty-third king when Picus
first began to reign at Laurentum. The worshippers of such gods may
see what they are to think of Saturn the father of Picus, who deny
that he was a man; of whom some also have written that he himself
reigned in Italy before Picus his son; and Virgil in his well-known
book says,
"That race indocile, and through mountains high
Dispersed, he settled, and endowed with laws,
And named their country Latium, because
Latent within their coasts he dwelt secure.
Tradition says the golden ages pure
Began when he was king." [1140]
But they regard these as poetic fancies, and assert that the father of
Picus was Sterces rather, and relate that, being a most skillful
husbandman, he discovered that the fields could be fertilized by the
dung of animals, which is called stercus from his name. Some say he
was called Stercutius. But for whatever reason they chose to call him
Saturn, it is yet certain they made this Sterces or Stercutius a god
for his merit in agriculture; and they likewise received into the
number of these gods Picus his son, whom they affirm to have been a
famous augur and warrior. Picus begot Faunus, the second king of
Laurentum; and he too is, or was, a god with them. These divine
honors they gave to dead men before the Trojan war.
Footnotes
[1140] Æneid, viii. 321.
Chapter 16.--Of Diomede, Who After the Destruction of Troy Was Placed
Among the Gods, While His Companions are Said to Have Been Changed
into Birds.
Troy was overthrown, and its destruction was everywhere sung and made
well known even to boys; for it was signally published and spread
abroad, both by its own greatness and by writers of excellent style.
And this was done in the reign of Latinus the son of Faunus, from whom
the kingdom began to be called Latium instead of Laurentum. The
victorious Greeks, on leaving Troy destroyed and returning to their
own countries, were torn and crushed by divers and horrible
calamities. Yet even from among them they increased the number of
their gods for they made Diomede a god. They allege that his return
home was prevented by a divinely imposed punishment, and they prove,
not by fabulous and poetic falsehood, but by historic attestation,
that his companions were turned into birds. Yet they think that, even
although he was made a god, he could neither restore them to the human
form by his own power, nor yet obtain it from Jupiter his king, as a
favor granted to a new inhabitant of heaven. They also say that his
temple is in the island of Diomedæa, not far from Mount Garganus in
Apulia, and that these birds fly round about this temple, and worship
in it with such wonderful obedience, that they fill their beaks with
water and sprinkle it; and if Greeks, or those born of the Greek race,
come there, they are not only still, but fly to meet them; but if they
are foreigners, they fly up at their heads, and wound them with such
severe strokes as even to kill them. For they are said to be well
enough armed for these combats with their hard and large beaks.
Chapter 17.--What Varro Says of the Incredible Transformations of Men.
In support of this story, Varro relates others no less incredible
about that most famous sorceress Circe, who changed the companions of
Ulysses into beasts, and about the Arcadians, who, by lot, swam across
a certain pool, and were turned into wolves there, and lived in the
deserts of that region with wild beasts like themselves. But if they
never fed on human flesh for nine years, they were restored to the
human form on swimming back again through the same pool. Finally, he
expressly names one Demænetus, who, on tasting a boy offered up in
sacrifice by the Arcadians to their god Lycæus according to their
custom, was changed into a wolf, and, being restored to his proper
form in the tenth year, trained himself as a pugilist, and was
victorious at the Olympic games. And the same historian thinks that
the epithet Lycæus was applied in Arcadia to Pan and Jupiter for no
other reason than this metamorphosis of men into wolves, because it
was thought it could not be wrought except by a divine power. For a
wolf is called in Greek lukos, from which the name Lycæus appears to
be formed. He says also that the Roman Luperci were as it were sprung
of the seed of these mysteries.
Chapter 18.--What We Should Believe Concerning the Transformations
Which Seem to Happen to Men Through the Art of Demons.
Perhaps our readers expect us to say something about this so great
delusion wrought by the demons; and what shall we say but that men
must fly out of the midst of Babylon? [1141]For this prophetic
precept is to be understood spiritually in this sense, that by going
forward in the living God, by the steps of faith, which worketh by
love, we must flee out of the city of this world, which is altogether
a society of ungodly angels and men. Yea, the greater we see the
power of the demons to be in these depths, so much the more
tenaciously must we cleave to the Mediator through whom we ascend from
these lowest to the highest places. For if we should say these things
are not to be credited, there are not wanting even now some who would
affirm that they had either heard on the best authority, or even
themselves experienced, something of that kind. Indeed we ourselves,
when in Italy, heard such things about a certain region there where
landladies of inns, imbued with these wicked arts, were said to be in
the habit of giving to such travellers as they chose, or could manage,
something in a piece of cheese by which they were changed on the spot
into beasts of burden, and carried whatever was necessary, and were
restored to their own form when the work was done. Yet their mind did
not become bestial, but remained rational and human, just as Apuleius,
in the books he wrote with the title of The Golden Ass, has told, or
feigned, that it happened to his own self that, on taking poison, he
became an ass, while retaining his human mind.
These things are either false, or so extraordinary as to be with good
reason disbelieved. But it is to be most firmly believed that
Almighty God can do whatever He pleases, whether in punishing or
favoring, and that the demons can accomplish nothing by their natural
power (for their created being is itself angelic, although made malign
by their own fault), except what He may permit, whose judgments are
often hidden, but never unrighteous. And indeed the demons, if they
really do such things as these on which this discussion turns, do not
create real substances, but only change the appearance of things
created by the true God so as to make them seem to be what they are
not. I cannot therefore believe that even the body, much less the
mind, can really be changed into bestial forms and lineaments by any
reason, art, or power of the demons; but the phantasm of a man which
even in thought or dreams goes through innumerable changes may, when
the man's senses are laid asleep or overpowered, be presented to the
senses of others in a corporeal form, in some indescribable way
unknown to me, so that men's bodies themselves may lie somewhere,
alive, indeed, yet with their senses locked up much more heavily and
firmly than by sleep, while that phantasm, as it were embodied in the
shape of some animal, may appear to the senses of others, and may even
seem to the man himself to be changed, just as he may seem to himself
in sleep to be so changed, and to bear burdens; and these burdens, if
they are real substances, are borne by the demons, that men may be
deceived by beholding at the same time the real substance of the
burdens and the simulated bodies of the beasts of burden. For a
certain man called Præstantius used to tell that it had happened to
his father in his own house, that he took that poison in a piece of
cheese, and lay in his bed as if sleeping, yet could by no means be
aroused. But he said that after a few days he as it were woke up and
related the things he had suffered as if they had been dreams, namely,
that he had been made a sumpter horse, and, along with other beasts of
burden, had carried provisions for the soldiers of what is called the
Rhoetian Legion, because it was sent to Rhoetia. And all this was
found to have taken place just as he told, yet it had seemed to him to
be his own dream. And another man declared that in his own house at
night, before he slept, he saw a certain philosopher, whom he knew
very well, come to him and explain to him some things in the Platonic
philosophy which he had previously declined to explain when asked.
And when he had asked this philosopher why he did in his house what he
had refused to do at home, he said, "I did not do it, but I dreamed I
had done it." And thus what the one saw when sleeping was shown to
the other when awake by a phantasmal image.
These things have not come to us from persons we might deem unworthy
of credit, but from informants we could not suppose to be deceiving
us. Therefore what men say and have committed to writing about the
Arcadians being often changed into wolves by the Arcadian gods, or
demons rather, and what is told in song about Circe transforming the
companions of Ulysses, [1142] if they were really done, may, in my
opinion, have been done in the way I have said. As for Diomede's
birds, since their race is alleged to have been perpetuated by
constant propagation, I believe they were not made through the
metamorphosis of men, but were slyly substituted for them on their
removal, just as the hind was for Iphigenia, the daughter of king
Agamemnon. For juggleries of this kind could not be difficult for the
demons if permitted by the judgment of God; and since that virgin was
afterwards, found alive it is easy to see that a hind had been slyly
substituted for her. But because the companions of Diomede were of a
sudden nowhere to be seen, and afterwards could nowhere be found,
being destroyed by bad avenging angels, they were believed to have
been changed into those birds, which were secretly brought there from
other places where such birds were, and suddenly substituted for them
by fraud. But that they bring water in their beaks and sprinkle it on
the temple of Diomede, and that they fawn on men of Greek race and
persecute aliens, is no wonderful thing to be done by the inward
influence of the demons, whose interest it is to persuade men that
Diomede was made a god, and thus to beguile them into worshipping many
false gods, to the great dishonor of the true God; and to serve dead
men, who even in their lifetime did not truly live, with temples,
altars, sacrifices, and priests, all which, when of the right kind,
are due only to the one living and true God.
Footnotes
[1141] Isa. xlviii. 20.
[1142] Virgil, Eclogue, viii. 70.
Chapter 19.--That Æneas Came into Italy When Abdon the Judge Ruled
Over the Hebrews.
After the capture and destruction of Troy, Æneas, with twenty ships
laden with the Trojan relics, came into Italy, when Latinus reigned
there, Menestheus in Athens, Polyphidos in Sicyon, and Tautanos in
Assyria, and Abdon was judge of the Hebrews. On the death of Latinus,
Æneas reigned three years, the same kings continuing in the
above-named places, except that Pelasgus was now king in Sicyon, and
Samson was judge of the Hebrews, who is thought to be Hercules,
because of his wonderful strength. Now the Latins made Æneas one of
their gods, because at his death he was nowhere to be found. The
Sabines also placed among the gods their first king, Sancus, [Sangus],
or Sanctus, as some call him. At that time Codrus king of Athens
exposed himself incognito to be slain by the Peloponnesian foes of
that city, and so was slain. In this way, they say, he delivered his
country. For the Peloponnesians had received a response from the
oracle, that they should overcome the Athenians only on condition that
they did not slay their king. Therefore he deceived them by appearing
in a poor man's dress, and provoking them, by quarrelling, to murder
him. Whence Virgil says, "Or the quarrels of Codrus." [1143]And
the Athenians worshipped this man as a god with sacrificial honors.
The fourth king of the Latins was Silvius the son of Æneas, not by
Creüsa, of whom Ascanius the third king was born, but by Lavinia the
daughter of Latinus, and he is said to have been his posthumous
child. Oneus was the twenty-ninth king of Assyria, Melanthus the
sixteenth of the Athenians, and Eli the priest was judge of the
Hebrews; and the kingdom of Sicyon then came to an end, after lasting,
it is said, for nine hundred and fifty-nine years.
Footnotes
[1143] Virgil, Eclogue, v. 11.
Chapter 20.--Of the Succession of the Line of Kings Among the
Israelites After the Times of the Judges.
While these kings reigned in the places mentioned, the period of the
judges being ended, the kingdom of Israel next began with king Saul,
when Samuel the prophet lived. At that date those Latin kings began
who were surnamed Silvii, having that surname, in addition to their
proper name, from their predecessor, that son of Æneas who was called
Silvius; just as, long afterward, the successors of Cæsar Augustus
were surnamed Cæsars. Saul being rejected, so that none of his issue
should reign, on his death David succeeded him in the kingdom, after
he had reigned forty years. Then the Athenians ceased to have kings
after the death of Codrus, and began to have a magistracy to rule the
republic. After David, who also reigned forty years, his son Solomon
was king of Israel, who built that most noble temple of God at
Jerusalem. In his time Alba was built among the Latins, from which
thereafter the kings began to be styled kings not of the Latins, but
of the Albans, although in the same Latium. Solomon was succeeded by
his son Rehoboam, under whom that people was divided into two
kingdoms, and its separate parts began to have separate kings.
Chapter 21.--Of the Kings of Latium, the First and Twelfth of Whom,
Æneas and Aventinus, Were Made Gods.
After Æneas, whom they deified, Latium had eleven kings, none of whom
was deified. But Aventinus, who was the twelfth after Æneas, having
been laid low in war, and buried in that hill still called by his
name, was added to the number of such gods as they made for
themselves. Some, indeed, were unwilling to write that he was slain
in battle, but said he was nowhere to be found, and that it was not
from his name, but from the alighting of birds, that hill was called
Aventinus. [1144]After this no god was made in Latium except
Romulus the founder of Rome. But two kings are found between these
two, the first of whom I shall describe in the Virgilian verse:
"Next came that Procas, glory of the Trojan race." [1145]
That greatest of all kingdoms, the Assyrian, had its long duration
brought to a close in his time, the time of Rome's birth drawing
nigh. For the Assyrian empire was transferred to the Medes after
nearly thirteen hundred and five years, if we include the reign of
Belus, who begot Ninus, and, content with a small kingdom, was the
first king there. Now Procas reigned before Amulius. And Amulius had
made his brother Numitor's daughter, Rhea by name, who was also called
Ilia, a vestal virgin, who conceived twin sons by Mars, as they will
have it, in that way honoring or excusing her adultery, adding as a
proof that a she-wolf nursed the infants when exposed. For they think
this kind of beast belongs to Mars so that the she-wolf is believed to
have given her teats to the infants, because she knew they were the
sons of Mars her lord; although there are not wanting persons who say
that when the crying babes lay exposed, they were first of all picked
up by I know not what harlot, and sucked her breasts first (now
harlots were called lupæ, she-wolves, from which their vile abodes are
even yet called lupanaria), and that afterwards they came into the
hands of the shepherd Faustulus, and were nursed by Acca his wife.
Yet what wonder is it, if, to rebuke the king who had cruelly ordered
them to be thrown into the water, God was pleased, after divinely
delivering them from the water, to succor, by means of a wild beast
giving milk, these infants by whom so great a city was to be founded?
Amulius was succeeded in the Latian kingdom by his brother Numitor,
the grandfather of Romulus; and Rome was founded in the first year of
this Numitor, who from that time reigned along with his grandson
Romulus.
Footnotes
[1144] Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 43.
[1145] Æneid,vi. 767.
Chapter 22.--That Rome Was Founded When the Assyrian Kingdom Perished,
at Which Time Hezekiah Reigned in Judah.
To be brief, the city of Rome was founded, like another Babylon, and
as it were the daughter of the former Babylon, by which God was
pleased to conquer the whole world, and subdue it far and wide by
bringing it into one fellowship of government and laws. For there
were already powerful and brave peoples and nations trained to arms,
who did not easily yield, and whose subjugation necessarily involved
great danger and destruction as well as great and horrible labor. For
when the Assyrian kingdom subdued almost all Asia, although this was
done by fighting, yet the wars could not be very fierce or difficult,
because the nations were as yet untrained to resist, and neither so
many nor so great as afterward; forasmuch as, after that greatest and
indeed universal flood, when only eight men escaped in Noah's ark, not
much more than a thousand years had passed when Ninus subdued all Asia
with the exception of India. But Rome did not with the same quickness
and facility wholly subdue all those nations of the east and west
which we see brought under the Roman empire, because, in its gradual
increase, in whatever direction it was extended, it found them strong
and warlike. At the time when Rome was founded, then, the people of
Israel had been in the land of promise seven hundred and eighteen
years. Of these years twenty-seven belong to Joshua the son of Nun,
and after that three hundred and twenty-nine to the period of the
judges. But from the time when the kings began to reign there, three
hundred and sixty-two years had passed. And at that time there was a
king in Judah called Ahaz, or, as others compute, Hezekiah his
successor, the best and most pious king, who it is admitted reigned in
the times of Romulus. And in that part of the Hebrew nation called
Israel, Hoshea had begun to reign.
Chapter 23.--Of the Erythræan Sibyl, Who is Known to Have Sung Many
Things About Christ More Plainly Than the Other Sibyls. [1146]
Some say the Erythræan sibyl prophesied at this time. Now Varro
declares there were many sibyls, and not merely one. This sibyl of
Erythræ certainly wrote some things concerning Christ which are quite
manifest, and we first read them in the Latin tongue in verses of bad
Latin, and unrhythmical, through the unskillfulness, as we afterwards
learned, of some interpreter unknown to me. For Flaccianus, a very
famous man, who was also a proconsul, a man of most ready eloquence
and much learning, when we were speaking about Christ, produced a
Greek manuscript, saying that it was the prophecies of the Erythræan
sibyl, in which he pointed out a certain passage which had the initial
letters of the lines so arranged that these words could be read in
them: 'Iesous Christos Theou uios soter, which means, "Jesus Christ
the Son of God, the Saviour." And these verses, of which the initial
letters yield that meaning, contain what follows as translated by some
one into Latin in good rhythm:
Judgment shall moisten the earth with the sweat of its standard,
Ever enduring, behold the King shall come through the ages,
Sent to be here in the flesh, and Judge at the last of the world.
O God, the believing and faithless alike shall behold Thee
Uplifted with saints, when at last the ages are ended.
Seated before Him are souls in the flesh for His judgment.
Hid in thick vapors, the while desolate lieth the earth.
Rejected by men are the idols and long hidden treasures;
Earth is consumed by the fire, and it searcheth the ocean and heaven;
Issuing forth, it destroyeth the terrible portals of hell.
Saints in their body and soul freedom and light shall inherit;
Those who are guilty shall burn in fire and brimstone for ever.
Occult actions revealing, each one shall publish his secrets;
Secrets of every man's heart God shall reveal in the light.
Then shall be weeping and wailing, yea, and gnashing of teeth;
Eclipsed is the sun, and silenced the stars in their chorus.
Over and gone is the splendor of moonlight, melted the heaven,
Uplifted by Him are the valleys, and cast down the mountains.
Utterly gone among men are distinctions of lofty and lowly.
Into the plains rush the hills, the skies and oceans are mingled.
Oh, what an end of all things! earth broken in pieces shall perish;
Swelling together at once shall the waters and
flames flow in rivers.
Sounding the archangel's trumpet shall peal down from heaven,
Over the wicked who groan in their guilt and their manifold sorrows.
Trembling, the earth shall be opened, revealing chaos and hell.
Every king before God shall stand in that day to be judged.
Rivers of fire and brimstone shall fall from the heavens.
In these Latin verses the meaning of the Greek is correctly given,
although not in the exact order of the lines as connected with the
initial letters; for in three of them, the fifth, eighteenth, and
nineteenth, where the Greek letter U occurs, Latin words could not be
found beginning with the corresponding letter, and yielding a suitable
meaning. So that, if we note down together the initial letters of all
the lines in our Latin translation except those three in which we
retain the letter U in the proper place, they will express in five
Greek words this meaning, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour."
And the verses are twenty-seven, which is the cube of three. For
three times three are nine; and nine itself, if tripled, so as to rise
from the superficial square to the cube, comes to twenty-seven. But
if you join the initial letters of these five Greek words, 'Iesous
Christos Theou uios soter, which mean, "Jesus Christ the Son of God,
the Saviour," they will make the word ichdus, that is, "fish," in
which word Christ is mystically understood, because He was able to
live, that is, to exist, without sin in the abyss of this mortality as
in the depth of waters. [1147]
But this sibyl, whether she is the Erythræan, or, as some rather
believe, the Cumæan, in her whole poem, of which this is a very small
portion, not only has nothing that can relate to the worship of the
false or feigned gods, but rather speaks against them and their
worshippers in such a way that we might even think she ought to be
reckoned among those who belong to the city of God. Lactantius also
inserted in his work the prophecies about Christ of a certain sibyl,
he does not say which. But I have thought fit to combine in a single
extract, which may seem long, what he has set down in many short
quotations. She says, "Afterward He shall come into the injurious
hands of the unbelieving, and they will give God buffets with profane
hands, and with impure mouth will spit out envenomed spittle; but He
will with simplicity yield His holy back to stripes. And He will hold
His peace when struck with the fist, that no one may find out what
word, or whence, He comes to speak to hell; and He shall be crowned
with a crown of thorns. And they gave Him gall for meat, and vinegar
for His thirst: they will spread this table of inhospitality. For
thou thyself, being foolish, hast not understood thy God, deluding the
minds of mortals, but hast both crowned Him with thorns and mingled
for Him bitter gall. But the veil of the temple shall be rent; and at
midday it shall be darker than night for three hours. And He shall
die the death, taking sleep for three days; and then returning from
hell, He first shall come to the light, the beginning of the
resurrection being shown to the recalled." Lactantius made use of
these sibylline testimonies, introducing them bit by bit in the course
of his discussion as the things he intended to prove seemed to
require, and we have set them down in one connected series,
uninterrupted by comment, only taking care to mark them by capitals,
if only the transcribers do not neglect to preserve them hereafter.
Some writers, indeed, say that the Erythræan sibyl was not in the time
of Romulus, but of the Trojan war.
Footnotes
[1146] The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of prophecies and
religious teachings in Greek hexameter under the assumed authority and
inspiration of a Sibyl, i.e., a female prophet. They are partly of
heathen, partly of Jewish-Christian origin. They were used by the
fathers against the heathen as genuine prophecies without critical
discrimination, and they appear also in the famous Dies iræ alongside
with David as witnesses of the future judgment ("teste David cum
Sibylla.") They were edited by Alexander, Paris, 2d. ed. 1869, and by
Friedlieb (in Greek and German), Leipzig, 1852. Comp. Ewald: Ueber
Entstehung, Inhalt und Werth der sibyll. Bücher, 1858, and Schürer,
Geschichte der jüd. Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu (Leipzig, 1885), ii. §
33, pp. 700 sqq., Engl. transl. (Hist. of the Jews in the times of
Jesus. Edinburgh and New York, 1886), vol. iii. 271 sqq.--P.S.]
[1147] [Hence the fish was a favorite symbol of the ancient
Christians. See Schaff, Church Hist. (revised ed.), vol. ii. 279
sq.--P.S.]
Chapter 24.--That the Seven Sages Flourished in the Reign of Romulus,
When the Ten Tribes Which Were Called Israel Were Led into Captivity
by the Chaldeans, and Romulus, When Dead, Had Divine Honors Conferred
on Him.
While Romulus reigned, Thales the Milesian is said to have lived,
being one of the seven sages, who succeeded the theological poets, of
whom Orpheus was the most renowned, and were called Sophoi, that is,
sages. During that time the ten tribes, which on the division of the
people were called Israel, were conquered by the Chaldeans and led
captive into their lands, while the two tribes which were called
Judah, and had the seat of their kingdom in Jerusalem, remained in the
land of Judea. As Romulus, when dead, could nowhere be found, the
Romans, as is everywhere notorious, placed him among the gods,--a
thing which by that time had already ceased to be done, and which was
not done afterwards till the time of the Cæsars, and then not through
error, but in flattery; so that Cicero ascribes great praises to
Romulus, because he merited such honors not in rude and unlearned
times, when men were easily deceived, but in times already polished
and learned, although the subtle and acute loquacity of the
philosophers had not yet culminated. But although the later times did
not deify dead men, still they did not cease to hold and worship as
gods those deified of old; nay, by images, which the ancients never
had, they even increased the allurements of vain and impious
superstition, the unclean demons effecting this in their heart, and
also deceiving them by lying oracles, so that even the fabulous crimes
of the gods, which were not once imagined by a more polite age, were
yet basely acted in the plays in honor of these same false deities.
Numa reigned after Romulus; and although he had thought that Rome
would be better defended the more gods there were, yet on his death he
himself was not counted worthy of a place among them, as if it were
supposed that he had so crowded heaven that a place could not be found
for him there. They report that the Samian sibyl lived while he
reigned at Rome, and when Manasseh began to reign over the
Hebrews,--an impious king, by whom the prophet Isaiah is said to have
been slain.
Chapter 25.--What Philosophers Were Famous When Tarquinius Priscus
Reigned Over the Romans, and Zedekiah Over the Hebrews, When Jerusalem
Was Taken and the Temple Overthrown.
When Zedekiah reigned over the Hebrews, and Tarquinius Priscus, the
successor of Ancus Martius, over the Romans, the Jewish people was led
captive into Babylon, Jerusalem and the temple built by Solomon being
overthrown. For the prophets, in chiding them for their iniquity and
impiety, predicted that these things should come to pass, especially
Jeremiah, who even stated the number of years. Pittacus of Mitylene,
another of the sages, is reported to have lived at that time. And
Eusebius writes that, while the people of God were held captive in
Babylon, the five other sages lived, who must be added to Thales, whom
we mentioned above, and Pittacus, in order to make up the seven.
These are Solon of Athens, Chilo of Lacedæmon, Periander of Corinth,
Cleobulus of Lindus, and Bias of Priene. These flourished after the
theological poets, and were called sages, because they excelled other
men in a certain laudable line of life, and summed up some moral
precepts in epigrammatic sayings. But they left posterity no literary
monuments, except that Solon is alleged to have given certain laws to
the Athenians, and Thales was a natural philosopher, and left books of
his doctrine in short proverbs. In that time of the Jewish captivity,
Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Xenophanes, the natural philosophers,
flourished. Pythagoras also lived then, and at this time the name
philosopher was first used.
Chapter 26.--That at the Time When the Captivity of the Jews Was
Brought to an End, on the Completion of Seventy Years, the Romans Also
Were Freed from Kingly Rule.
At this time, Cyrus king of Persia, who also ruled the Chaldeans and
Assyrians, having somewhat relaxed the captivity of the Jews, made
fifty thousand of them return in order to rebuild the temple. They
only began the first foundations and built the altar; but, owing to
hostile invasions, they were unable to go on, and the work was put off
to the time of Darius. During the same time also those things were
done which are written in the book of Judith, which, indeed, the Jews
are said not to have received into the canon of the Scriptures. Under
Darius king of Persia, then, on the completion of the seventy years
predicted by Jeremiah the prophet, the captivity of the Jews was
brought to an end, and they were restored to liberty. Tarquin then
reigned as the seventh king of the Romans. On his expulsion, they
also began to be free from the rule of their kings. Down to this time
the people of Israel had prophets; but, although they were numerous,
the canonical writings of only a few of them have been preserved among
the Jews and among us. In closing the previous book, I promised to
set down something in this one about them, and I shall now do so.
Chapter 27.--Of the Times of the Prophets Whose Oracles are Contained
in Books and Who Sang Many Things About the Call of the Gentiles at
the Time When the Roman Kingdom Began and the Assyrian Came to an End.
In order that we may be able to consider these times, let us go back a
little to earlier times. At the beginning of the book of the prophet
Hosea, who is placed first of twelve, it is written, "The word of the
Lord which came to Hosea in the days of Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and
Hezekiah, kings of Judah." [1148]Amos also writes that he
prophesied in the days of Uzziah, and adds the name of Jeroboam king
of Israel, who lived at the same time. [1149]Isaiah the son of
Amos--either the above-named prophet, or, as is rather affirmed,
another who was not a prophet, but was called by the same name--also
puts at the head of his book these four kings named by Hosea, saying
by way of preface that he prophesied in their days. [1150]Micah
also names the same times as those of his prophecy, after the days of
Uzziah; [1151] for he names the same three kings as Hosea
named,--Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We find from their own writings
that these men prophesied contemporaneously. To these are added Jonah
in the reign of Uzziah, and Joel in that of Jotham, who succeeded
Uzziah. But we can find the date of these two prophets in the
chronicles, [1152] not in their own writings, for they say nothing
about it themselves. Now these days extend from Procas king of the
Latins, or his predecessor Aventinus, down to Romulus king of the
Romans, or even to the beginning of the reign of his successor Numa
Pompilius. Hezekiah king of Judah certainly reigned till then. So
that thus these fountains of prophecy, as I may call them, burst forth
at once during those times when the Assyrian kingdom failed and the
Roman began; so that, just as in the first period of the Assyrian
kingdom Abraham arose, to whom the most distinct promises were made
that all nations should be blessed in his seed, so at the beginning of
the western Babylon, in the time of whose government Christ was to
come in whom these promises were to be fulfilled, the oracles of the
prophets were given not only in spoken but in written words, for a
testimony that so great a thing should come to pass. For although the
people of Israel hardly ever lacked prophets from the time when they
began to have kings, these were only for their own use, not for that
of the nations. But when the more manifestly prophetic Scripture
began to be formed, which was to benefit the nations too, it was
fitting that it should begin when this city was founded which was to
rule the nations.
Footnotes
[1148] Hos. i. 1.
[1149] Amos i. 1.
[1150] Isa. i. 1. Isaiah's father was Amoz, a different name.
[1151] Mic. i. 1.
[1152] The chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome.
Chapter 28.--Of the Things Pertaining to the Gospel of Christ Which
Hosea and Amos Prohesied.
The prophet Hosea speaks so very profoundly that it is laborious work
to penetrate his meaning. But, according to promise, we must insert
something from his book. He says, "And it shall come to pass that in
the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there
they shall be called the sons of the living God." [1153]Even the
apostles understood this as a prophetic testimony of the calling of
the nations who did not formerly belong to God; and because this same
people of the Gentiles is itself spiritually among the children of
Abraham, and for that reason is rightly called Israel, therefore he
goes on to say, "And the children of Judah and the children of Israel
shall be gathered together in one, and shall appoint themselves one
headship, and shall ascend from the earth." [1154]We should but
weaken the savor of this prophetic oracle if we set ourselves to
expound it. Let the reader but call to mind that cornerstone and
those two walls of partition, the one of the Jews, the other of the
Gentiles, [1155] and he will recognize them, the one under the term
sons of Judah, the other as sons of Israel, supporting themselves by
one and the same headship, and ascending from the earth. But that
those carnal Israelites who are now unwilling to believe in Christ
shall afterward believe, that is, their children shall (for they
themselves, of course, shall go to their own place by dying), this
same prophet testifies, saying, "For the children of Israel shall
abide many days without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice,
without an altar, without a priesthood, without manifestations."
[1156]Who does not see that the Jews are now thus? But let us hear
what he adds: "And afterward shall the children of Israel return, and
seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall be amazed at
the Lord and at His goodness in the latter days." [1157] Nothing is
clearer than this prophecy, in which by David, as distinguished by the
title of king, Christ is to be understood, "who is made," as the
apostle says, "of the seed of David according to the flesh." [1158]
This prophet has also foretold the resurrection of Christ on the third
day, as it behoved to be foretold, with prophetic loftiness, when he
says, "He will heal us after two days, and in the third day we shall
rise again." [1159]In agreement with this the apostle says to us,
"If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above."
[1160]Amos also prophesies thus concerning such things: "Prepare
thee, that thou mayst invoke thy God, O Israel; for lo, I am binding
the thunder, and creating the spirit, and announcing to men their
Christ." [1161]And in another place he says, "In that day will I
raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and build up the
breaches thereof: and I will raise up his ruins, and will build them
up again as in the days of old: that the residue of men may inquire
for me, and all the nations upon whom my name is invoked, saith the
Lord that doeth this." [1162]
Footnotes
[1153] Hos. i. 10.
[1154] Hos. i. 11.
[1155] Gal. ii. 14-20.
[1156] Hos. iii. 4.
[1157] Hos. iii. 5.
[1158] Rom. i. 3.
[1159] Hos. vi. 2.
[1160] Col. iii. 1.
[1161] Amos iv. 12, 13.
[1162] Amos ix. 11, 12; Acts xv. 15-17.
Chapter 29.--What Things are Predicted by Isaiah Concerning Christ and
the Church.
The prophecy of Isaiah is not in the book of the twelve prophets, who
are called the minor from the brevity of their writings, as compared
with those who are called the greater prophets because they published
larger volumes. Isaiah belongs to the latter, yet I connect him with
the two above named, because he prophesied at the same time. Isaiah,
then, together with his rebukes of wickedness, precepts of
righteousness, and predictions of evil, also prophesied much more than
the rest about Christ and the Church, that is, about the King and that
city which he founded; so that some say he should be called an
evangelist rather than a prophet. But, in order to finish this work,
I quote only one out of many in this place. Speaking in the person of
the Father, he says, "Behold, my servant shall understand, and shall
be exalted and glorified very much. As many shall be astonished at
Thee." [1163] This is about Christ.
But let us now hear what follows about the Church. He says, "Rejoice,
O barren, thou that barest not; break forth and cry, thou that didst
not travail with child: for many more are the children of the
desolate than of her that has an husband." [1164]But these must
suffice; and some things in them ought to be expounded; yet I think
those parts sufficient which are so plain that even enemies must be
compelled against their will to understand them.
Footnotes
[1163] Isa. lii. 13; liii. 13. Augustin quotes these passages in
full.
[1164] Isa. liv. 1-5.
Chapter 30.--What Micah, Jonah, and Joel Prophesied in Accordance with
the New Testament.
The prophet Micah, representing Christ under the figure of a great
mountain, speaks thus: "It shall come to pass in the last days, that
the manifested mountain of the Lord shall be prepared on the tops of
the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people
shall hasten unto it. Many nations shall go, and shall say, Come, let
us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God
of Jacob; and He will show us His way, and we will go in His paths:
for out of Zion shall proceed the law, and the word of the Lord out of
Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong
nations afar off." [1165]This prophet predicts the very place in
which Christ was born, saying, "And thou, Bethlehem, of the house of
Ephratah, art the least that can be reckoned among the thousands of
Judah; out of thee shall come forth unto me a leader, to be the prince
in Israel; and His going forth is from the beginning, even from the
days of eternity. Therefore will He give them [up] even until the
time when she that travaileth shall bring forth; and the remnant of
His brethren shall be converted to the sons of Israel. And He shall
stand, and see, and feed His flock in the strength of the Lord, and in
the dignity of the name of the Lord His God: for now shall He be
magnified even to the utmost of the earth." [1166]
The prophet Jonah, not so much by speech as by his own painful
experience, prophesied Christ's death and resurrection much more
clearly than if he had proclaimed them with his voice. For why was he
taken into the whale's belly and restored on the third day, but that
he might be a sign that Christ should return from the depths of hell
on the third day?
I should be obliged to use many words in explaining all that Joel
prophesies in order to make clear those that pertain to Christ and the
Church. But there is one passage I must not pass by, which the
apostles also quoted when the Holy Spirit came down from above on the
assembled believers according to Christ's promise. He says, "And it
shall come to pass after these things, that I will pour out my Spirit
upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and
your old men shall dream, and your young men shall see visions: and
even on my servants and mine handmaids in those days will I pour out
my Spirit." [1167]
Footnotes
[1165] Mic. iv. 1-3.
[1166] Mic. v. 2-4.
[1167] Joel ii. 28, 29.
Chapter 31.--Of the Predictions Concerning the Salvation of the World
in Christ, in Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk.
The date of three of the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk,
is neither mentioned by themselves nor given in the chronicles of
Eusebius and Jerome. For although they put Obadiah with Micah, yet
when Micah prophesied does not appear from that part of their writings
in which the dates are noted. And this, I think, has happened through
their error in negligently copying the works of others. But we could
not find the two others now mentioned in the copies of the chronicles
which we have; yet because they are contained in the canon, we ought
not to pass them by.
Obadiah, so far as his writings are concerned, the briefest of all the
prophets, speaks against Idumea, that is, the nation of Esau, that
reprobate elder of the twin sons of Isaac and grandsons of Abraham.
Now if, by that form of speech in which a part is put for the whole,
we take Idumea as put for the nations, we may understand of Christ
what he says among other things, "But upon Mount Sion shall be safety,
and there shall be a Holy One." [1168]And a little after, at the
end of the same prophecy, he says, "And those who are saved again
shall come up out of Mount Sion, that they may defend Mount Esau, and
it shall be a kingdom to the Lord." [1169]It is quite evident this
was fulfilled when those saved again out of Mount Sion--that is, the
believers in Christ from Judea, of whom the apostles are chiefly to be
acknowledged--went up to defend Mount Esau. How could they defend it
except by making safe, through the preaching of the gospel, those who
believed that they might be "delivered from the power of darkness and
translated into the kingdom of God?" [1170]This he expressed as an
inference, adding, "And it shall be to the Lord a kingdom." For Mount
Sion signifies Judea, where it is predicted there shall be safety, and
a Holy One, that is, Christ Jesus. But Mount Esau is Idumea, which
signifies the Church of the Gentiles, which, as I have expounded,
those saved again out of Sion have defended that it should be a
kingdom to the Lord. This was obscure before it took place; but what
believer does not find it out now that it is done?
As for the prophet Nahum, through him God says, "I will exterminate
the graven and the molten things: I will make thy burial. For lo,
the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings and announceth peace are
swift upon the mountains! O Judah, celebrate thy festival days, and
perform thy vows; for now they shall not go on any more so as to
become antiquated. It is completed, it is consumed, it is taken
away. He ascendeth who breathes in thy face, delivering thee out of
tribulation." [1171]Let him that remembers the gospel call to mind
who hath ascended from hell and breathed the Holy Spirit in the face
of Judah, that is, of the Jewish disciples; for they belong to the New
Testament, whose festival days are so spiritually renewed that they
cannot become antiquated. Moreover, we already see the graven and
molten things, that is, the idols of the false gods, exterminated
through the gospel, and given up to oblivion as of the grave, and we
know that this prophecy is fulfilled in this very thing.
Of what else than the advent of Christ, who was to come, is Habakkuk
understood to say, "And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the
vision openly on a tablet of boxwood, that he that readeth these
things may understand. For the vision is yet for a time appointed,
and it will arise in the end, and will not become void: if it tarry,
wait for it; because it will surely come, and will not be delayed?"
[1172]
Footnotes
[1168] Obad. 17.
[1169] Obad. 21.
[1170] Col. i. 13.
[1171] Nah. i. 14; ii. 1.
[1172] Hab. ii. 2, 3.
Chapter 32.--Of the Prophecy that is Contained in the Prayer and Song
of Habakkuk.
In his prayer, with a song, to whom but the Lord Christ does he say,
"O Lord, I have heard Thy hearing, and was afraid: O Lord, I have
considered Thy works, and was greatly afraid?" [1173]What is this
but the inexpressible admiration of the foreknown, new, and sudden
salvation of men? "In the midst of two living creatures thou shalt be
recognized." What is this but either between the two testaments, or
between the two thieves, or between Moses and Elias talking with Him
on the mount? "While the years draw nigh, Thou wilt be recognized; at
the coming of the time Thou wilt be shown," does not even need
exposition. "While my soul shall be troubled at Him, in wrath Thou
wilt be mindful of mercy." What is this but that He puts Himself for
the Jews, of whose nation He was, who were troubled with great anger
and crucified Christ, when He, mindful of mercy, said, "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do? [1174]"God shall come
from Teman, and the Holy One from the shady and close mountain."
[1175]What is said here, "He shall come from Teman," some interpret
"from the south," or "from the southwest," by which is signified the
noonday, that is, the fervor of charity and the splendor of truth.
"The shady and close mountain" might be understood in many ways, yet I
prefer to take it as meaning the depth of the divine Scriptures, in
which Christ is prophesied: for in the Scriptures there are many
things shady and close which exercise the mind of the reader; and
Christ comes thence when he who has understanding finds Him there.
"His power covereth up the heavens, and the earth is full of His
praise." What is this but what is also said in the psalm, "Be Thou
exalted, O God, above the heavens; and Thy glory above all the earth?"
[1176]"His splendor shall be as the light." What is it but that
the fame of Him shall illuminate believers? "Horns are in His
hands." What is this but the trophy of the cross? "And He hath
placed the firm charity of His strength" [1177] needs no exposition.
"Before His face shall go the word, and it shall go forth into the
field after His feet." What is this but that He should both be
announced before His coming hither and after His return hence? "He
stood, and the earth was moved." What is this but that "He stood" for
succor, "and the earth was moved" to believe? "He regarded, and the
nations melted;" that is, He had compassion, and made the people
penitent. "The mountains are broken with violence;" that is, through
the power of those who work miracles the pride of the haughty is
broken. "The everlasting hills flowed down;" that is, they are
humbled in time that they may be lifted up for eternity. "I saw His
goings [made] eternal for his labors;" that is, I beheld His labor of
love not left without the reward of eternity. "The tents of Ethiopia
shall be greatly afraid, and the tents of the land of Midian;" that
is, even those nations which are not under the Roman authority, being
suddenly terrified by the news of Thy wonderful works, shall become a
Christian people. "Wert Thou angry at the rivers, O Lord? or was Thy
fury against the rivers? or was Thy rage against the sea?" This is
said because He does not now come to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved. [1178]"For Thou shall mount upon
Thy horses, and Thy riding shall be salvation;" that is, Thine
evangelists shall carry Thee, for they are guided by Thee, and Thy
gospel is salvation to them that believe in Thee. "Bending, Thou wilt
bend Thy bow against the sceptres, saith the Lord;" that is, Thou wilt
threaten even the kings of the earth with Thy judgment. "The earth
shall be cleft with rivers;" that is, by the sermons of those who
preach Thee flowing in upon them, men's hearts shall be opened to make
confession, to whom it is said, "Rend your hearts and not your
garments." [1179]What does "The people shall see Thee and grieve"
mean, but that in mourning they shall be blessed? [1180]What is
"Scattering the waters in marching," but that by walking in those who
everywhere proclaim Thee, Thou wilt scatter hither and thither the
streams of Thy doctrine? What is "The abyss uttered its voice?" Is
it not that the depth of the human heart expressed what it perceived?
The words, "The depth of its phantasy," are an explanation of the
previous verse, for the depth is the abyss; and "Uttered its voice" is
to be understood before them, that is, as we have said, it expressed
what it perceived. Now the phantasy is the vision, which it did not
hold or conceal, but poured forth in confession. "The sun was raised
up, and the moon stood still in her course;" that is, Christ ascended
into heaven, and the Church was established under her King. "Thy
darts shall go in the light;" that is, Thy words shall not be sent in
secret, but openly. For He had said to His own disciples, "What I
tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the light." [1181]"By
threatening thou shall diminish the earth;" that is, by that
threatening Thou shall humble men. "And in fury Thou shall cast down
the nations;" for in punishing those who exalt themselves Thou dashest
them one against another. "Thou wentest forth for the salvation of
Thy people, that Thou mightest save Thy Christ; Thou hast sent death
on the heads of the wicked." None of these words require exposition.
"Thou hast lifted up the bonds, even to the neck." This may be
understood even of the good bonds of wisdom, that the feet may be put
into its fetters, and the neck into its collar. "Thou hast struck off
in amazement of mind the bonds" must be understood for, He lifts up
the good and strikes off the bad, about which it is said to Him, "Thou
hast broken asunder my bonds," [1182] and that "in amazement of mind,"
that is, wonderfully. "The heads of the mighty shall be moved in it;"
to wit, in that wonder. "They shall open their teeth like a poor man
eating secretly." For some of the mighty among the Jews shall come to
the Lord, admiring His works and words, and shall greedily eat the
bread of His doctrine in secret for fear of the Jews, just as the
Gospel has shown they did. "And Thou hast sent into the sea Thy
horses, troubling many waters," which are nothing else than many
people; for unless all were troubled, some would not be converted with
fear, others pursued with fury. "I gave heed, and my belly trembled
at the voice of the prayer of my lips; and trembling entered into my
bones, and my habit of body was troubled under me." He gave heed to
those things which he said, and was himself terrified at his own
prayer, which he had poured forth prophetically, and in which he
discerned things to come. For when many people are troubled, he saw
the threatening tribulation of the Church, and at once acknowledged
himself a member of it, and said, "I shall rest in the day of
tribulation," as being one of those who are rejoicing in hope, patient
in tribulation. [1183]"That I may ascend," he says, "among the
people of my pilgrimage," departing quite from the wicked people of
his carnal kinship, who are not pilgrims in this earth, and do not
seek the country above. [1184]"Although the fig-tree," he says,
"shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of
the olive shall lie, and the fields shall yield no meat; the sheep
shall be cut off from the meat, and there shall be no oxen in the
stalls." He sees that nation which was to slay Christ about to lose
the abundance of spiritual supplies, which, in prophetic fashion, he
has set forth by the figure of earthly plenty. And because that
nation was to suffer such wrath of God, because, being ignorant of the
righteousness of God, it wished to establish its own, [1185] he
immediately says, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in God
my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He will set my feet in
completion; He will place me above the heights, that I may conquer in
His song," to wit, in that song of which something similar is said in
the psalm, "He set my feet upon a rock, and directed my goings, and
put in my mouth a new song, a hymn to our God." [1186]He therefore
conquers in the song of the Lord, who takes pleasure in His praise,
not in his own; that "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."
[1187]But some copies have, "I will joy in God my Jesus," which
seems to me better than the version of those who, wishing to put it in
Latin, have not set down that very name which for us it is dearer and
sweeter to name.
Footnotes
[1173] Hab. iii. 2.
[1174] Luke xxiii. 34.
[1175] Hab. iii. 3.
[1176] Ps. lvii. 5, 11.
[1177] Hab. iii. 4.
[1178] John iii. 17.
[1179] Joel ii. 13.
[1180] Matt. v. 4.
[1181] Matt. x. 27.
[1182] Ps. cxvi. 16.
[1183] Rom. xii. 12.
[1184] Heb. xi. 13, 16.
[1185] Rom. x. 3.
[1186] Ps. xl. 2, 3.
[1187] Jer. ix. 23, 24, as in 1 Cor. i. 31.
Chapter 33.--What Jeremiah and Zephaniah Have, by the Prophetic
Spirit, Spoken Before Concerning Christ and the Calling of the
Nations.
Jeremiah, like Isaiah, is one of the greater prophets, not of the
minor, like the others from whose writings I have just given
extracts. He prophesied when Josiah reigned in Jerusalem, and Ancus
Martius at Rome, when the captivity of the Jews was already at hand;
and he continued to prophesy down to the fifth month of the captivity,
as we find from his writings. Zephaniah, one of the minor prophets,
is put along with him, because he himself says that he prophesied in
the days of Josiah; but he does not say till when. Jeremiah thus
prophesied not only in the times of Ancus Martius, but also in those
of Tarquinius Priscus, whom the Romans had for their fifth king. For
he had already begun to reign when that captivity took place.
Jeremiah, in prophesying of Christ, says, "The breath of our mouth,
the Lord Christ, was taken in our sins," [1188] thus briefly showing
both that Christ is our Lord and that He suffered for us. Also in
another place he says, "This is my God, and there shall none other be
accounted of in comparison of Him; who hath found out all the way of
prudence, and hath given it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His
beloved: afterwards He was seen on the earth, and conversed with
men." [1189]Some attribute this testimony not to Jeremiah, but to
his secretary, who was called Baruch; but it is more commonly ascribed
to Jeremiah. Again the same prophet says concerning Him, "Behold the
days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise up unto David a righteous
shoot, and a King shall reign and shall be wise, and shall do judgment
and justice in the earth. In those days Judah shall be saved, and
Israel shall dwell confidently: and this is the name which they shall
call Him, Our righteous Lord." [1190]And of the calling of the
nations which was to come to pass, and which we now see fulfilled, he
thus spoke: "O Lord my God, and my refuge in the day of evils, to
Thee shall the nations come from the utmost end of the earth, saying,
Truly our fathers have worshipped lying images, wherein there is no
profit." [1191]But that the Jews, by whom He behoved even to be
slain, were not going to acknowledge Him, this prophet thus
intimates: "Heavy is the heart through all; and He is a man, and who
shall know Him?" [1192]That passage also is his which I have quoted
in the seventeenth book concerning the new testament, of which Christ
is the Mediator. For Jeremiah himself says, "Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will complete over the house of Jacob a new
testament," and the rest, which may be read there. [1193]
For the present I shall put down those predictions about Christ by the
prophet Zephaniah, who prophesied with Jeremiah. "Wait ye upon me,
saith the Lord, in the day of my resurrection, in the future; because
it is my determination to assemble the nations, and gather together
the kingdoms." [1194]And again he says, "The Lord will be terrible
upon them, and will exterminate all the gods of the earth; and they
shall worship Him every man from his place, even all the isles of the
nations." [1195]And a little after he says, "Then will I turn to
the people a tongue, and to His offspring, that they may call upon the
name of the Lord, and serve Him under one yoke. From the borders of
the rivers of Ethiopia shall they bring sacrifices unto me. In that
day thou shall not be confounded for all thy curious inventions, which
thou hast done impiously against me: for then I will take away from
thee the haughtiness of thy trespass; and thou shalt no more magnify
thyself above thy holy mountain. And I will leave in thee a meek and
humble people, and they who shall be left of Israel shall fear the
name of the Lord." [1196]These are the remnant of whom the apostle
quotes that which is elsewhere prophesied: "Though the number of the
children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be
saved." [1197]These are the remnant of that nation who have
believed in Christ.
Footnotes
[1188] Lam. iv. 20.
[1189] Bar. iii. 35-37.
[1190] Jer. xxiii. 5, 6.
[1191] Jer. xvi. 19.
[1192] Jer. xvii. 9.
[1193] Jer. xxxi. 31; see Bk. xvii. 3.
[1194] Zeph. iii. 8.
[1195] Zeph. ii. 11.
[1196] Zeph. iii. 9-12.
[1197] Isa. x. 22; Rom. ix. 27.
Chapter 34.--Of the Prophecy of Daniel and Ezekiel, Other Two of the
Greater Prophets.
Daniel and Ezekiel, other two of the greater prophets, also first
prophesied in the very captivity of Babylon. Daniel even defined the
time when Christ was to come and suffer by the exact date. It would
take too long to show this by computation, and it has been done often
by others before us. But of His power and glory he has thus spoken:
"I saw in a night vision, and, behold, one like the Son of man was
coming with the clouds of heaven, and He came even to the Ancient of
days, and He was brought into His presence. And to Him there was
given dominion, and honor, and a kingdom: and all people, tribes, and
tongues shall serve Him. His power is an everlasting power, which
shall not pass away, and His kingdom shall not be destroyed." [1198]
Ezekiel also, speaking prophetically in the person of God the Father,
thus foretells Christ, speaking of Him in the prophetic manner as
David, because He assumed flesh of the seed of David, and on account
of that form of a servant in which He was made man, He who is the Son
of God is also called the servant of God. He says, "And I will set up
over my sheep one Shepherd, who will feed them, even my servant David;
and He shall feed them, and He shall be their shepherd. And I the
Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince in the midst of
them. I the Lord have spoken." [1199]And in another place he says,
"And one King shall be over them all: and they shall no more be two
nations, neither shall they be divided any more into two kingdoms:
neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, and
their abominations, and all their iniquities. And I will save them
out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and will
cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
And my servant David shall be king over them, and there shall be one
Shepherd for them all." [1200]
Footnotes
[1198] Dan. vii. 13, 14.
[1199] Ezek. xxxiv. 23.
[1200] Ezek. xxxvii. 22-24.
Chapter 35.--Of the Prophecy of the Three Prophets, Haggai, Zechariah,
and Malachi.
There remain three minor prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who
prophesied at the close of the captivity. Of these Haggai more openly
prophesies of Christ and the Church thus briefly: "Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, Yet one little while, and I will shake the heaven, and
the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will move all nations,
and the desired of all nations shall come." [1201]The fulfillment
of this prophecy is in part already seen, and in part hoped for in the
end. For He moved the heaven by the testimony of the angels and the
stars, when Christ became incarnate. He moved the earth by the great
miracle of His birth of the virgin. He moved the sea and the dry
land, when Christ was proclaimed both in the isles and in the whole
world. So we see all nations moved to the faith; and the fulfillment
of what follows, "And the desired of all nations shall come," is
looked for at His last coming. For ere men can desire and and wait
for Him, they must believe and love Him.
Zechariah says of Christ and the Church, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter
of Sion; shout joyfully, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King
shall come unto thee, just and the Saviour; Himself poor, and mounting
an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass: and His dominion shall be from
sea to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth." [1202]
How this was done, when the Lord Christ on His journey used a beast
of burden of this kind, we read in the Gospel, where, also, as much of
this prophecy is quoted as appears sufficient for the context. In
another place, speaking in the Spirit of prophecy to Christ Himself of
the remission of sins through His blood, he says, "Thou also, by the
blood of Thy testament, hast sent forth Thy prisoners from the lake
wherein is no water." [1203]Different opinions may be held,
consistently with right belief, as to what he meant by this lake. Yet
it seems to me that no meaning suits better than that of the depth of
human misery, which is, as it were, dry and barren, where there are no
streams of righteousness, but only the mire of iniquity. For it is
said of it in the Psalms, "And He led me forth out of the lake of
misery, and from the miry clay." [1204]
Malachi, foretelling the Church which we now behold propagated through
Christ, says most openly to the Jews, in the person of God, "I have no
pleasure in you, and I will not accept a gift at your hand. For from
the rising even to the going down of the sun, my name is great among
the nations; and in every place sacrifice shall be made, and a pure
oblation shall be offered unto my name: for my name shall be great
among the nations, saith the Lord." [1205]Since we can already see
this sacrifice offered to God in every place, from the rising of the
sun to his going down, through Christ's priesthood after the order of
Melchisedec, while the Jews, to whom it was said, "I have no pleasure
in you, neither will I accept a gift at your hand," cannot deny that
their sacrifice has ceased, why do they still look for another Christ,
when they read this in the prophecy, and see it fulfilled, which could
not be fulfilled except through Him? And a little after he says of
Him, in the person of God, "My covenant was with Him of life and
peace: and I gave to Him that He might fear me with fear, and be
afraid before my name. The law of truth was in His mouth: directing
in peace He hath walked with me, and hath turned many away from
iniquity. For the Priest's lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall
seek the law at His mouth: for He is the Angel of the Lord Almighty."
[1206]Nor is it to be wondered at that Christ Jesus is called the
Angel of the Almighty God. For just as He is called a servant on
account of the form of a servant in which He came to men, so He is
called an angel on account of the evangel which He proclaimed to men.
For if we interpret these Greek words, evangel is "good news," and
angel is "messenger." Again he says of Him, "Behold I will send mine
angel, and He will look out the way before my face: and the Lord,
whom ye seek, shall suddenly come into His temple, even the Angel of
the testament, whom ye desire. Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord
Almighty, and who shall abide the day of His entry, or who shall stand
at His appearing?" [1207]In this place he has foretold both the
first and second advent of Christ: the first, to wit, of which he
says, "And He shall come suddenly into His temple;" that is, into His
flesh, of which He said in the Gospel, "Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up again." [1208]And of the second
advent he says, "Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord Almighty, and who
shall abide the day of His entry, or who shall stand at His
appearing?" But what he says, "The Lord whom ye seek, and the Angel
of the testament whom ye desire," just means that even the Jews,
according to the Scriptures which they read, shall seek and desire
Christ. But many of them did not acknowledge that He whom they sought
and desired had come, being blinded in their hearts, which were
preoccupied with their own merits. Now what he here calls the
testament, either above, where he says, "My testament had been with
Him," or here, where he has called Him the Angel of the testament, we
ought, beyond a doubt, to take to be the new testament, in which the
things promised are eternal, and not the old, in which they are only
temporal. Yet many who are weak are troubled when they see the wicked
abound in such temporal things, because they value them greatly, and
serve the true God to be rewarded with them. On this account, to
distinguish the eternal blessedness of the new testament, which shall
be given only to the good, from the earthly felicity of the old, which
for the most part is given to the bad as well, the same prophet says,
"Ye have made your words burdensome to me: yet ye have said, In what
have we spoken ill of Thee? Ye have said, Foolish is every one who
serves God; and what profit is it that we have kept His observances,
and that we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord
Almighty? And now we call the aliens blessed; yea, all that do wicked
things are built up again; yea, they are opposed to God and are
saved. They that feared the Lord uttered these reproaches every one
to his neighbor: and the Lord hearkened and heard; and He wrote a
book of remembrance before Him, for them that fear the Lord and that
revere His name." [1209]By that book is meant the New Testament.
Finally, let us hear what follows: "And they shall be an acquisition
for me, saith the Lord Almighty, in the day which I make; and I will
choose them as a man chooseth his son that serveth him. And ye shall
return, and shall discern between the just and the unjust, and between
him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not. For, behold, the
day cometh burning as an oven, and it shall burn them up; and all the
aliens and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that
shall come will set them on fire, saith the Lord Almighty, and shall
leave neither root nor branch. And unto you that fear my name shall
the Sun of Righteousness arise, and health shall be in His wings; and
ye shall go forth, and exult as calves let loose from bonds. And ye
shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be ashes under your feet,
in the day in which I shall do [this], saith the Lord Almighty."
[1210]This day is the day of judgment, of which, if God will, we
shall speak more fully in its own place.
Footnotes
[1201] Hag. ii. 6.
[1202] Zech. ix. 9, 10.
[1203] Zech. ix. 11.
[1204] Ps. xl. 2.
[1205] Mal. i. 10, 11.
[1206] Mal. ii. 5-7.
[1207] Mal. iii. 1, 2.
[1208] John ii. 19.
[1209] Mal. iii. 13-16.
[1210] Mal. iii. 17; iv. 3.
Chapter 36.--About Esdras and the Books of the Maccabees.
After these three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, during the
same period of the liberation of the people from the Babylonian
servitude Esdras also wrote, who is historical rather than
prophetical, as is also the book called Esther, which is found to
relate, for the praise of God, events not far from those times;
unless, perhaps, Esdras is to be understood as prophesying of Christ
in that passage where, on a question having arisen among certain young
men as to what is the strongest thing, when one had said kings,
another wine, the third women, who for the most part rule kings, yet
that same third youth demonstrated that the truth is victorious over
all. [1211]For by consulting the Gospel we learn that Christ is the
Truth. From this time, when the temple was rebuilt, down to the time
of Aristobulus, the Jews had not kings but princes; and the reckoning
of their dates is found, not in the Holy Scriptures which are called
canonical, but in others, among which are also the books of the
Maccabees. These are held as canonical, not by the Jews, but by the
Church, on account of the extreme and wonderful sufferings of certain
martyrs, who, before Christ had come in the flesh, contended for the
law of God even unto death, and endured most grievous and horrible
evils.
Footnotes
[1211] Esdras iii. and iv.
Chapter 37.--That Prophetic Records are Found Which are More Ancient
Than Any Fountain of the Gentile Philosophy.
In the time of our prophets, then, whose writings had already come to
the knowledge of almost all nations, the philosophers of the nations
had not yet arisen,--at least, not those who were called by that name,
which originated with Pythagoras the Samian, who was becoming famous
at the time when the Jewish captivity ended. Much more, then, are the
other philosophers found to be later than the prophets. For even
Socrates the Athenian, the master of all who were then most famous,
holding the pre-eminence in that department that is called the moral
or active, is found after Esdras in the chronicles. Plato also was
born not much later, who far out went the other disciples of
Socrates. If, besides these, we take their predecessors, who had not
yet been styled philosophers, to wit, the seven sages, and then the
physicists, who succeeded Thales, and imitated his studious search
into the nature of things, namely, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and
Anaxagoras, and some others, before Pythagoras first professed himself
a philosopher, even these did not precede the whole of our prophets in
antiquity of time, since Thales, whom the others succeeded, is said to
have flourished in the reign of Romulus, when the stream of prophecy
burst forth from the fountains of Israel in those writings which
spread over the whole world. So that only those theological poets,
Orpheus, Linus, and Musæus, and, it may be, some others among the
Greeks, are found earlier in date than the Hebrew prophets whose
writings we hold as authoritative. But not even these preceded in
time our true divine, Moses, who authentically preached the one true
God, and whose writings are first in the authoritative canon; and
therefore the Greeks, in whose tongue the literature of this age
chiefly appears, have no ground for boasting of their wisdom, in which
our religion, wherein is true wisdom, is not evidently more ancient at
least, if not superior. Yet it must be confessed that before Moses
there had already been, not indeed among the Greeks, but among
barbarous nations, as in Egypt, some doctrine which might be called
their wisdom, else it would not have been written in the holy books
that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, [1212] as
he was, when, being born there, and adopted and nursed by Pharaoh's
daughter, he was also liberally educated. Yet not even the wisdom of
the Egyptians could be antecedent in time to the wisdom of our
prophets, because even Abraham was a prophet. And what wisdom could
there be in Egypt before Isis had given them letters, whom they
thought fit to worship as a goddess after her death? Now Isis is
declared to have been the daughter of Inachus, who first began to
reign in Argos when the grandsons of Abraham are known to have been
already born.
Footnotes
[1212] Acts vii. 22.
Chapter 38.--That the Ecclesiastical Canon Has Not Admitted Certain
Writings on Account of Their Too Great Antiquity, Lest Through Them
False Things Should Be Inserted Instead of True.
If I may recall far more ancient times, our patriarch Noah was
certainly even before that great deluge, and I might not undeservedly
call him a prophet, forasmuch as the ark he made, in which he escaped
with his family, was itself a prophecy of our times. [1213]What of
Enoch, the seventh from Adam? Does not the canonical epistle of the
Apostle Jude declare that he prophesied? [1214]But the writings of
these men could not be held as authoritative either among the Jews or
us, on account of their too great antiquity, which made it seem
needful to regard them with suspicion, lest false things should be set
forth instead of true. For some writings which are said be theirs are
quoted by those who, according to their own humor, loosely believe
what they please. But the purity of the canon has not admitted these
writings, not because the authority of these men who pleased God is
rejected, but because they are not believed to be theirs. Nor ought
it to appear strange if writings for which so great antiquity is
claimed are held in suspicion, seeing that in the very history of the
kings of Judah and Israel containing their acts, which we believe to
belong to the canonical Scripture, very many things are mentioned
which are not explained there, but are said to be found in other books
which the prophets wrote, the very names of these prophets being
sometimes given, and yet they are not found in the canon which the
people of God received. Now I confess the reason of this is hidden
from me; only I think that even those men, to whom certainly the Holy
Spirit revealed those things which ought to be held as of religious
authority, might write some things as men by historical diligence, and
others as prophets by divine inspiration; and these things were so
distinct, that it was judged that the former should be ascribed to
themselves, but the latter to God speaking through them: and so the
one pertained to the abundance of knowledge, the other to the
authority of religion. In that authority the canon is guarded. So
that, if any writings outside of it are now brought forward under the
name of the ancient prophets, they cannot serve even as an aid to
knowledge, because it is uncertain whether they are genuine; and on
this account they are not trusted, especially those of them in which
some things are found that are even contrary to the truth of the
canonical books, so that it is quite apparent they do not belong to
them.
Footnotes
[1213] Heb. xi. 7; 1 Pet. iii. 20, 21.
[1214] Jude 14.
Chapter 39.--About the Hebrew Written Characters Which that Language
Always Possessed.
Now we must not believe that Heber, from whose name the word Hebrew is
derived, preserved and transmitted the Hebrew language to Abraham only
as a spoken language, and that the Hebrew letters began with the
giving of the law through Moses; but rather that this language, along
with its letters, was preserved by that succession of fathers. Moses,
indeed, appointed some among the people of God to teach letters,
before they could know any letters of the divine law. The Scripture
calls these men grammateisagogeis, who may be called in Latin
inductores or introductores of letters, because they, as it were,
introduce them into the hearts of the learners, or rather lead those
whom they teach into them. Therefore no nation could vaunt itself
over our patriarchs and prophets by any wicked vanity for the
antiquity of its wisdom; since not even Egypt, which is wont falsely
and vainly to glory in the antiquity of her doctrines, is found to
have preceded in time the wisdom of our patriarchs in her own wisdom,
such as it is. Neither will any one dare to say that they were most
skillful in wonderful sciences before they knew letters, that is,
before Isis came and taught them there. Besides, what, for the most
part, was that memorable doctrine of theirs which was called wisdom
but astronomy, and it may be some other sciences of that kind, which
usually have more power to exercise men's wit than to enlighten their
minds with true wisdom? As regards philosophy, which professes to
teach men something which shall make them happy, studies of that kind
flourished in those lands about the times of Mercury, whom they called
Trismegistus, long before the sages and philosophers of Greece, but
yet after Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and even after Moses
himself. At that time, indeed, when Moses was born, Atlas is found to
have lived, that great astronomer, the brother of Prometheus, and
maternal grandson of the elder Mercury, of whom that Mercury
Trismegistus was the grandson.
Chapter 40.--About the Most Mendacious Vanity of the Egyptians, in
Which They Ascribe to Their Science an Antiquity of a Hundred Thousand
Years.
In vain, then, do some babble with most empty presumption, saying that
Egypt has understood the reckoning of the stars for more than a
hundred thousand years. For in what books have they collected that
number who learned letters from Isis their mistress, not much more
than two thousand years ago? Varro, who has declared this, is no
small authority in history, and it does not disagree with the truth of
the divine books. For as it is not yet six thousand years since the
first man, who is called Adam, are not those to be ridiculed rather
than refuted who try to persuade us of anything regarding a space of
time so different from, and contrary to, the ascertained truth? For
what historian of the past should we credit more than him who has also
predicted things to come which we now see fulfilled? And the very
disagreement of the historians among themselves furnishes a good
reason why we ought rather to believe him who does not contradict the
divine history which we hold. But, on the other hand, the citizens of
the impious city, scattered everywhere through the earth, when they
read the most learned writers, none of whom seems to be of
contemptible authority, and find them disagreeing among themselves
about affairs most remote from the memory of our age, cannot find out
whom they ought to trust. But we, being sustained by divine authority
in the history of our religion, have no doubt that whatever is opposed
to it is most false, whatever may be the case regarding other things
in secular books, which, whether true or false, yield nothing of
moment to our living rightly and happily.
Chapter 41.--About the Discord of Philosophic Opinion, and the Concord
of the Scriptures that are Held as Canonical by the Church.
But let us omit further examination of history, and return to the
philosophers from whom we digressed to these things. They seem to
have labored in their studies for no other end than to find out how to
live in a way proper for laying hold of blessedness. Why, then, have
the disciples dissented from their masters, and the fellow-disciples
from one another, except because as men they have sought after these
things by human sense and human reasonings? Now, although there might
be among them a desire of glory, so that each wished to be thought
wiser and more acute than another, and in no way addicted to the
judgment of others, but the inventor of his own dogma and opinion, yet
I may grant that there were some, or even very many of them, whose
love of truth severed them from their teachers or fellow-disciples,
that they might strive for what they thought was the truth, whether it
was so or not. But what can human misery do, or how or where can it
reach forth, so as to attain blessedness, if divine authority does not
lead it? Finally, let our authors, among whom the canon of the sacred
books is fixed and bounded, be far from disagreeing in any respect.
It is not without good reason, then, that not merely a few people
prating in the schools and gymnasia in captious disputations, but so
many and great people, both learned and unlearned, in countries and
cities, have believed that God spoke to them or by them, i.e. the
canonical writers, when they wrote these books. There ought, indeed,
to be but few of them, lest on account of their multitude what ought
to be religiously esteemed should grow cheap; and yet not so few that
their agreement should not be wonderful. For among the multitude of
philosophers, who in their works have left behind them the monuments
of their dogmas, no one will easily find any who agree in all their
opinions. But to show this is too long a task for this work.
But what author of any sect is so approved in this demon-worshipping
city, that the rest who have differed from or opposed him in opinion
have been disapproved? The Epicureans asserted that human affairs
were not under the providence of the gods; and the Stoics, holding the
opposite opinion, agreed that they were ruled and defended by favora
ble and tutelary gods. Yet were not both sects famous among the
Athenians? I wonder, then, why Anaxagoras was accused of a crime for
saying that the sun was a burning stone, and denying that it was a god
at all; while in the same city Epicurus flourished gloriously and
lived securely, although he not only did not believe that the sun or
any star was a god, but contended that neither Jupiter nor any of the
gods dwelt in the world at all, so that the prayers and supplications
of men might reach them! Were not both Aristippus and Antisthenes
there, two noble philosophers and both Socratic? yet they placed the
chief end of life within bounds so diverse and contradictory, that the
first made the delight of the body the chief good, while the other
asserted that man was made happy mainly by the virtue of the mind.
The one also said that the wise man should flee from the republic; the
other, that he should administer its affairs. Yet did not each gather
disciples to follow his own sect? Indeed, in the conspicuous and
well-known porch, in gymnasia, in gardens, in places public and
private, they openly strove in bands each for his own opinion, some
asserting there was one world, others innumerable worlds; some that
this world had a beginning, others that it had not; some that it would
perish, others that it would exist always; some that it was governed
by the divine mind, others by chance and accident; some that souls are
immortal, others that they are mortal,--and of those who asserted
their immortality, some said they transmigrated through beasts, others
that it was by no means so; while of those who asserted their
mortality, some said they perished immediately after the body, others
that they survived either a little while or a longer time, but not
always; some fixing supreme good in the body, some in the mind, some
in both; others adding to the mind and body external good things; some
thinking that the bodily senses ought to be trusted always, some not
always, others never. Now what people, senate, power, or public
dignity of the impious city has ever taken care to judge between all
these and other well-nigh innumerable dissensions of the philosophers,
approving and accepting some, and disapproving and rejecting others?
Has it not held in its bosom at random, without any judgment, and
confusedly, so many controversies of men at variance, not about
fields, houses, or anything of a pecuniary nature, but about those
things which make life either miserable or happy? Even if some true
things were said in it, yet falsehoods were uttered with the same
licence; so that such a city has not amiss received the title of the
mystic Babylon. For Babylon means confusion, as we remember we have
already explained. Nor does it matter to the devil, its king, how
they wrangle among themselves in contradictory errors, since all alike
deservedly belong to him on account of their great and varied impiety.
But that nation, that people, that city, that republic, these
Israelites, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted, by no means
confounded with similar licence false prophets with the true prophets;
but, agreeing together, and differing in nothing, acknowledged and
upheld the authentic authors of their sacred books. These were their
philosophers, these were their sages, divines, prophets, and teachers
of probity and piety. Whoever was wise and lived according to them
was wise and lived not according to men, but according to God who hath
spoken by them. If sacrilege is forbidden there, God hath forbidden
it. If it is said, "Honor thy father and thy mother," [1215] God hath
commanded it. If it is said, "Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou
shall not kill, Thou shall not steal," [1216] and other similar
commandments, not human lips but the divine oracles have enounced
them. Whatever truth certain philosophers, amid their false opinions,
were able to see, and strove by laborious discussions to persuade men
of,--such as that God had made this world, and Himself most
providently governs it, or of the nobility of the virtues, of the love
of country, of fidelity in friendship, of good works and everything
pertaining to virtuous manners, although they knew not to what end and
what rule all these things were to be referred,--all these, by words
prophetic, that is, divine, although spoken by men, were commended to
the people in that city, and not inculcated by contention in
arguments, so that he who should know them might be afraid of
contemning, not the wit of men, but the oracle of God.
Footnotes
[1215] Ex. xx. 12.
[1216] Ex. xx. 13-15, the order as in Mark x. 19.
Chapter 42.--By What Dispensation of God's Providence the Sacred
Scriptures of the Old Testament Were Translated Out of Hebrew into
Greek, that They Might Be Made Known to All the Nations.
One of the Ptolemies, kings of Egypt, desired to know and have these
sacred books. For after Alexander of Macedon, who is also styled the
Great, had by his most wonderful, but by no means enduring power,
subdued the whole of Asia, yea, almost the whole world, partly by
force of arms, partly by terror, and, among other kingdoms of the
East, had entered and obtained Judea also, on his death his generals
did not peaceably divide that most ample kingdom among them for a
possession, but rather dissipated it, wasting all things by wars.
Then Egypt began to have the Ptolemies as her kings. The first of
them, the son of Lagus, carried many captive out of Judea into Egypt.
But another Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, who succeeded him, permitted
all whom he had brought under the yoke to return free; and more than
that, sent kingly gifts to the temple of God, and begged Eleazar, who
was the high priest, to give him the Scriptures, which he had heard by
report were truly divine, and therefore greatly desired to have in
that most noble library he had made. When the high priest had sent
them to him in Hebrew, he afterwards demanded interpreters of him, and
there were given him seventy-two, out of each of the twelve tribes six
men, most learned in both languages, to wit, the Hebrew and Greek and
their translation is now by custom called the Septuagint. It is
reported, indeed, that there was an agreement in their words so
wonderful, stupendous, and plainly divine, that when they had sat at
this work, each one apart (for so it pleased Ptolemy to test their
fidelity), they differed from each other in no word which had the same
meaning and force, or, in the order of the words; but, as if the
translators had been one, so what all had translated was one, because
in very deed the one Spirit had been in them all. And they received
so wonderful a gift of God, in order that the authority of these
Scriptures might be commended not as human but divine, as indeed it
was, for the benefit of the nations who should at some time believe,
as we now see them doing.
Chapter 43.--Of the Authority of the Septuagint Translation, Which,
Saving the Honor of the Hebrew Original, is to Be Preferred to All
Translations.
For while there were other interpreters who translated these sacred
oracles out of the Hebrew tongue into Greek, as Aquila, Symmachus, and
Theodotion, and also that translation which, as the name of the author
is unknown, is quoted as the fifth edition, yet the Church has
received this Septuagint translation just as if it were the only one;
and it has been used by the Greek Christian people, most of whom are
not aware that there is any other. From this translation there has
also been made a translation in the Latin tongue, which the Latin
churches use. Our times, however, have enjoyed the advantage of the
presbyter Jerome, a man most learned, and skilled in all three
languages, who translated these same Scriptures into the Latin speech,
not from the Greek, but from the Hebrew. [1217]But although the
Jews acknowledge this very learned labor of his to be faithful, while
they contend that the Septuagint translators have erred in many
places, still the churches of Christ judge that no one should be
preferred to the authority of so many men, chosen for this very great
work by Eleazar, who was then high priest; for even if there had not
appeared in them one spirit, without doubt divine, and the seventy
learned men had, after the manner of men, compared together the words
of their translation, that what pleased them all might stand, no
single translator ought to be preferred to them; but since so great a
sign of divinity has appeared in them, certainly, if any other
translator of their Scriptures from the Hebrew into any other tongue
is faithful, in that case he agrees with these seventy translators,
and if he is not found to agree with them, then we ought to believe
that the prophetic gift is with them. For the same Spirit who was in
the prophets when they spoke these things was also in the seventy men
when they translated them, so that assuredly they could also say
something else, just as if the prophet himself had said both, because
it would be the same Spirit who said both; and could say the same
thing differently, so that, although the words were not the same, yet
the same meaning should shine forth to those of good understanding;
and could omit or add something, so that even by this it might be
shown that there was in that work not human bondage, which the
translator owed to the words, but rather divine power, which filled
and ruled the mind of the translator. Some, however, have thought
that the Greek copies of the Septuagint version should be emended from
the Hebrew copies; yet they did not dare to take away what the Hebrew
lacked and the Septuagint had, but only added what was found in the
Hebrew copies and was lacking in the Septuagint, and noted them by
placing at the beginning of the verses certain marks in the form of
stars which they call asterisks. And those things which the Hebrew
copies have not, but the Septuagint have, they have in like manner
marked at the beginning of the verses by horizontal spit-shaped marks
like those by which we denote ounces; and many copies having these
marks are circulated even in Latin. [1218]But we cannot, without
inspecting both kinds of copies, find out those things which are
neither omitted nor added, but expressed differently, whether they
yield another meaning not in itself unsuitable, or can be shown to
explain the same meaning in another way. If, then, as it behoves us,
we behold nothing else in these Scriptures than what the Spirit of God
has spoken through men, if anything is in the Hebrew copies and is not
in the version of the Seventy, the Spirit of God did not choose to say
it through them, but only through the prophets. But whatever is in
the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew copies, the same Spirit chose
rather to say through the latter, thus showing that both were
prophets. For in that manner He spoke as He chose, some things
through Isaiah, some through Jeremiah, some through several prophets,
or else the same thing through this prophet and through that.
Further, whatever is found in both editions, that one and the same
Spirit willed to say through both, but so as that the former preceded
in prophesying, and the latter followed in prophetically interpreting
them; because, as the one Spirit of peace was in the former when they
spoke true and concordant words, so the selfsame one Spirit hath
appeared in the latter, when, without mutual conference they yet
interpreted all things as if with one mouth.
Footnotes
[1217] [Jerome was an older contemporary of Augustin, and next to him
the most influential of the Latin fathers. He is the author of the
Latin translation of the Scriptures, which under the name of the
Vulgate is still the authorized Bible of the Roman church. He died at
Bethlehem, 419, eleven years before Augustin.--P.S.]
[1218] Var. reading, "both in Greek and Latin."
Chapter 44.--How the Threat of the Destruction of the Ninevites is to
Be Understood Which in the Hebrew Extends to Forty Days, While in the
Septuagint It is Contracted to Three.
But some one may say, "How shall I know whether the prophet Jonah said
to the Ninevites, `Yet three days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,' or
forty days?" [1219]For who does not see that the prophet could not
say both, when he was sent to terrify the city by the threat of
imminent ruin? For if its destruction was to take place on the third
day, it certainly could not be on the fortieth; but if on the
fortieth, then certainly not on the third. If, then, I am asked which
of these Jonah may have said, I rather think what is read in the
Hebrew, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Yet the
Seventy, interpreting long afterward, could say what was different and
yet pertinent to the matter, and agree in the self-same meaning,
although under a different signification. And this may admonish the
reader not to despise the authority of either, but to raise himself
above the history, and search for those things which the history
itself was written to set forth. These things, indeed, took place in
the city of Nineveh, but they also signified something else too great
to apply to that city; just as, when it happened that the prophet
himself was three days in the whale's belly, it signified besides,
that He who is Lord of all the prophets should be three days in the
depths of hell. Wherefore, if that city is rightly held as
prophetically representing the Church of the Gentiles, to wit, as
brought down by penitence, so as no longer to be what it had been,
since this was done by Christ in the Church of the Gentiles, which
Nineveh represented, Christ Himself was signified both by the forty
and by the three days: by the forty, because He spent that number of
days with His disciples after the resurrection, and then ascended into
heaven, but by the three days, because He rose on the third day. So
that, if the reader desires nothing else than to adhere to the history
of events, he may be aroused from his sleep by the Septuagint
interpreters, as well as the prophets, to search into the depth of the
prophecy, as if they had said, In the forty days seek Him in whom thou
mayest also find the three days,--the one thou wilt find in His
ascension, the other in His resurrection. Because that which could be
most suitably signified by both numbers, of which one is used by Jonah
the prophet, the other by the prophecy of the Septuagint version, the
one and self-same Spirit hath spoken. I dread prolixity, so that I
must not demonstrate this by many instances in which the seventy
interpreters may be thought to differ from the Hebrew, and yet, when
well understood, are found to agree. For which reason I also,
according to my capacity, following the footsteps of the apostles, who
themselves have quoted prophetic testimonies from both, that is, from
the Hebrew and the Septuagint, have thought that both should be used
as authoritative, since both are one, and divine. But let us now
follow out as we can what remains.
Footnotes
[1219] Jon. iii. 4.
Chapter 45.--That the Jews Ceased to Have Prophets After the
Rebuilding of the Temple, and from that Time Until the Birth of Christ
Were Afflicted with Continual Adversity, to Prove that the Building of
Another Temple Had Been Promised by Prophetic Voices.
The Jewish nation no doubt became worse after it ceased to have
prophets, just at the very time when, on the rebuilding of the temple
after the captivity in Babylon, it hoped to become better. For so,
indeed, did that car nal people understand what was foretold by Haggai
the prophet, saying, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater
than that of the former." [1220]Now, that this is said of the new
testament, he showed a little above, where he says, evidently
promising Christ, "And I will move all nations, and the desired One
shall come to all nations." [1221]In this passage the Septuagint
translators giving another sense more suitable to the body than the
Head, that is, to the Church than to Christ, have said by prophetic
authority, "The things shall come that are chosen of the Lord from all
nations," that is, men, of whom Jesus saith in the Gospel, "Many are
called, but few are chosen." [1222]For by such chosen ones of the
nations there is built, through the new testament, with living stones,
a house of God far more glorious than that temple was which was
constructed by king Solomon, and rebuilt after the captivity. For
this reason, then, that nation had no prophets from that time, but was
afflicted with many plagues by kings of alien race, and by the Romans
themselves, lest they should fancy that this prophecy of Haggai was
fulfilled by that rebuilding of the temple.
For not long after, on the arrival of Alexander, it was subdued, when,
although there was no pillaging, because they dared not resist him,
and thus, being very easily subdued, received him peaceably, yet the
glory of that house was not so great as it was when under the free
power of their own kings. Alexander, indeed, offered up sacrifices in
the temple of God, not as a convert to His worship in true piety, but
thinking, with impious folly, that He was to be worshipped along with
false gods. Then Ptolemy son of Lagus, whom I have already mentioned,
after Alexander's death carried them captive into Egypt. His
successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, most benevolently dismissed them; and
by him it was brought about, as I have narrated a little before, that
we should have the Septuagint version of the Scriptures. Then they
were crushed by the wars which are explained in the books of the
Maccabees. Afterward they were taken captive by Ptolemy king of
Alexandria, who was called Epiphanes. Then Antiochus king of Syria
compelled them by many and most grievous evils to worship idols, and
filled the temple itself with the sacrilegious superstitions of the
Gentiles. Yet their most vigorous leader Judas, who is also called
Maccabæus, after beating the generals of Antiochus, cleansed it from
all that defilement of idolatry.
But not long after, one Alcimus, although an alien from the sacerdotal
tribe, was, through ambition, made pontiff, which was an impious
thing. After almost fifty years, during which they never had peace,
although they prospered in some affairs, Aristobulus first assumed the
diadem among them, and was made both king and pontiff. Before that,
indeed, from the time of their return from the Babylonish captivity
and the rebuilding of the temple, they had not kings, but generals or
principes. Although a king himself may be called a prince, from his
principality in governing, and a leader, because he leads the army,
but it does not follow that all who are princes and leaders may also
be called kings, as that Aristobulus was. He was succeeded by
Alexander, also both king and pontiff, who is reported to have reigned
over them cruelly. After him his wife Alexandra was queen of the
Jews, and from her time downwards more grievous evils pursued them;
for this Alexandra's sons, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, when contending
with each other for the kingdom, called in the Roman forces against
the nation of Israel. For Hyrcanus asked assistance from them against
his brother. At that time Rome had already subdued Africa and Greece,
and ruled extensively in other parts of the world also, and yet, as if
unable to bear her own weight, had, in a manner, broken herself by her
own size. For indeed she had come to grave domestic seditions, and
from that to social wars, and by and by to civil wars, and had
enfeebled and worn herself out so much, that the changed state of the
republic, in which she should be governed by kings, was now imminent.
Pompey then, a most illustrious prince of the Roman people, having
entered Judea with an army, took the city, threw open the temple, not
with the devotion of a suppliant, but with the authority of a
conqueror, and went, not reverently, but profanely, into the holy of
holies, where it was lawful for none but the pontiff to enter. Having
established Hyrcanus in the pontificate, and set Antipater over the
subjugated nation as guardian or procurator, as they were then called,
he led Aristobulus with him bound. From that time the Jews also began
to be Roman tributaries. Afterward Cassius plundered the very
temple. Then after a few years it was their desert to have Herod, a
king of foreign birth, in whose reign Christ was born. For the time
had now come signified by the prophetic Spirit through the mouth of
the patriarch Jacob, when he says, "There shall not be lacking a
prince out of Judah, nor a teacher from his loins, until He shall come
for whom it is reserved; and He is the expectation of the nations."
[1223]There lacked not therefore a Jewish prince of the Jews until
that Herod, who was the first king of a foreign race received by
them. Therefore it was now the time when He should come for whom that
was reserved which is promised in the New Testament, that He should be
the expectation of the nations. But it was not possible that the
nations should expect He would come, as we see they did, to do
judgment in the splendor of power, unless they should first believe in
Him when He came to suffer judgment in the humility of patience.
Footnotes
[1220] Hag. ii. 9.
[1221] Hag. ii. 7.
[1222] Matt. xxii. 14.
[1223] Gen. xlix. 10.
Chapter 46.--Of the Birth of Our Saviour, Whereby the Word Was Made
Flesh; And of the Dispersion of the Jews Among All Nations, as Had
Been Prophesied.
While Herod, therefore, reigned in Judea, and Cæsar Augustus was
emperor at Rome, the state of the republic being already changed, and
the world being set at peace by him, Christ was born in Bethlehem of
Judah, man manifest out of a human virgin, God hidden out of God the
Father. For so had the prophet foretold: "Behold, a virgin shall
conceive in the womb, and bring forth a Son, and they shall call His
name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us." [1224]He
did many miracles that He might commend God in Himself, some of which,
even as many as seemed sufficient to proclaim Him, are contained in
the evangelic Scripture. The first of these is, that He was so
wonderfully born, and the last, that with His body raised up again
from the dead He ascended into heaven. But the Jews who slew Him, and
would not believe in Him, because it behoved Him to die and rise
again, were yet more miserably wasted by the Romans, and utterly
rooted out from their kingdom, where aliens had already ruled over
them, and were dispersed through the lands (so that indeed there is no
place where they are not), and are thus by their own Scriptures a
testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ.
And very many of them, considering this, even before His passion, but
chiefly after His resurrection, believed on Him, of whom it was
predicted, "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand
of the sea, the remnant shall be saved." [1225]But the rest are
blinded, of whom it was predicted, "Let their table be made before
them a trap, and a retribution, and a stumbling-block. Let their eyes
be darkened lest they see, and bow down their back alway." [1226]
Therefore, when they do not believe our Scriptures, their own, which
they blindly read, are fulfilled in them, lest perchance any one
should say that the Christians have forged these prophecies about
Christ which are quoted under the name of the sibyl, or of others, if
such there be, who do not belong to the Jewish people. For us,
indeed, those suffice which are quoted from the books of our enemies,
to whom we make our acknowledgment, on account of this testimony
which, in spite of themselves, they contribute by their possession of
these books, while they themselves are dispersed among all nations,
wherever the Church of Christ is spread abroad. For a prophecy about
this thing was sent before in the Psalms, which they also read, where
it is written, "My God, His mercy shall prevent me. My God hath shown
me concerning mine enemies, that Thou shalt not slay them, lest they
should at last forget Thy law: disperse them in Thy might." [1227]
Therefore God has shown the Church in her enemies the Jews the grace
of His compassion, since, as saith the apostle, "their offence is the
salvation of the Gentiles." [1228]And therefore He has not slain
them, that is, He has not let the knowledge that they are Jews be lost
in them, although they have been conquered by the Romans, lest they
should forget the law of God, and their testimony should be of no
avail in this matter of which we treat. But it was not enough that he
should say, "Slay them not, lest they should at last forget Thy law,"
unless he had also added, "Disperse them;" because if they had only
been in their own land with that testimony of the Scriptures, and not
every where, certainly the Church which is everywhere could not have
had them as witnesses among all nations to the prophecies which were
sent before concerning Christ.
Footnotes
[1224] Isa. vii. 14, as in Matt. i. 23.
[1225] Isa. x. 22, as in Rom. ix. 27, 28.
[1226] Ps. lxix. 22, 23; Rom. xi. 9, 10.
[1227] Ps. lxix. 10, 11.
[1228] Rom xi. 11.
Chapter 47.--Whether Before Christian Times There Were Any Outside of
the Israelite Race Who Belonged to the Fellowship of the Heavenly
City.
Wherefore if we read of any foreigner--that is, one neither born of
Israel nor received by that people into the canon of the sacred
books--having prophesied something about Christ, if it has come or
shall come to our knowledge, we can refer to it over and above; not
that this is necessary, even if wanting, but because it is not
incongruous to believe that even in other nations there may have been
men to whom this mystery was revealed, and who were also impelled to
proclaim it, whether they were partakers of the same grace or had no
experience of it, but were taught by bad angels, who, as we know, even
confessed the present Christ, whom the Jews did not acknowledge. Nor
do I think the Jews themselves dare contend that no one has belonged
to God except the Israelites, since the increase of Israel began on
the rejection of his elder brother. For in very deed there was no
other people who were specially called the people of God; but they
cannot deny that there have been certain men even of other nations who
belonged, not by earthly but heavenly fellowship, to the true
Israelites, the citizens of the country that is above. Because, if
they deny this, they can be most easily confuted by the case of the
holy and wonderful man Job, who was neither a native nor a proselyte,
that is, a stranger joining the people of Israel, but, being bred of
the Idumean race, arose there and died there too, and who is so
praised by the divine oracle, that no man of his times is put on a
level with him as regards justice and piety. And although we do not
find his date in the chronicles, yet from his book, which for its
merit the Israelites have received as of canonical authority, we
gather that he was in the third generation after Israel. And I doubt
not it was divinely provided, that from this one case we might know
that among other nations also there might be men pertaining to the
spiritual Jerusalem who have lived according to God and have pleased
Him. And it is not to be supposed that this was granted to any one,
unless the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
[1229] was divinely revealed to him; who was pre-announced to the
saints of old as yet to come in the flesh, even as He is announced to
us as having come, that the self-same faith through Him may lead all
to God who are predestinated to be the city of God, the house of God,
and the temple of God. But whatever prophecies concerning the grace
of God through Christ Jesus are quoted, they may be thought to have
been forged by the Christians. So that there is nothing of more
weight for confuting all sorts of aliens, if they contend about this
matter, and for supporting our friends, if they are truly wise, than
to quote those divine predictions about Christ which are written in
the books of the Jews, who have been torn from their native abode and
dispersed over the whole world in order to bear this testimony, so
that the Church of Christ has everywhere increased.
Footnotes
[1229] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
Chapter 48.--That Haggai's Prophecy, in Which He Said that the Glory
of the House of God Would Be Greater Than that of the First Had Been,
[1230] Was Really Fulfilled, Not in the Rebuilding of the Temple, But
in the Church of Christ.
This house of God is more glorious than that first one which was
constructed of wood and stone, metals and other precious things.
Therefore the prophecy of Haggai was not fulfilled in the rebuilding
of that temple. For it can never be shown to have had so much glory
after it was rebuilt as it had in the time of Solomon; yea, rather,
the glory of that house is shown to have been diminished, first by the
ceasing of prophecy, and then by the nation itself suffering so great
calamities, even to the final destruction made by the Romans, as the
things above-mentioned prove. But this house which pertains to the
new testament is just as much more glorious as the living stones, even
believing, renewed men, of which it is constructed are better. But it
was typified by the rebuilding of that temple for this reason, because
the very renovation of that edifice typifies in the prophetic oracle
another testament which is called the new. When, therefore, God said
by the prophet just named, "And I will give peace in this place,"
[1231] He is to be understood who is typified by that typical place;
for since by that rebuilt place is typified the Church which was to be
built by Christ, nothing else can be accepted as the meaning of the
saying, "I will give peace in this place," except I will give peace in
the place which that place signifies. For all typical things seem in
some way to personate those whom they typify, as it is said by the
apostle, "That Rock was Christ." [1232]Therefore the glory of this
new testament house is greater than the glory of the old testament
house; and it will show itself as greater when it shall be dedicated.
For then "shall come the desired of all nations," [1233] as we read in
the Hebrew. For before His advent He had not yet been desired by all
nations. For they knew not Him whom they ought to desire, in whom
they had not believed. Then, also, according to the Septuagint
interpretation (for it also is a prophetic meaning), "shall come those
who are elected of the Lord out of all nations." For then indeed
there shall come only those who are elected, whereof the apostle
saith, "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of
the world." [1234]For the Master Builder who said, "Many are
called, but few are chosen," [1235] did not say this of those who, on
being called, came in such a way as to be cast out from the feast, but
would point out the house built up of the elect, which henceforth
shall dread no ruin. Yet because the churches are also full of those
who shall be separated by the winnowing as in the threshing-floor, the
glory of this house is not so apparent now as it shall be when every
one who is there shall be there always.
Footnotes
[1230] Hag. ii. 9.
[1231] Hag. ii. 9.
[1232] 1 Cor. x. 4; Ex. xvii. 6.
[1233] Hag. ii. 7.
[1234] Eph. i. 4.
[1235] Matt. xxii. 11-14.
Chapter 49.--Of the Indiscriminate Increase of the Church, Wherein
Many Reprobate are in This World Mixed with the Elect.
In this wicked world, in these evil days, when the Church measures her
future loftiness by her present humility, and is exercised by goading
fears, tormenting sorrows, disquieting labors, and dangerous
temptations, when she soberly rejoices, rejoicing only in hope, there
are many reprobate mingled with the good, and both are gathered
together by the gospel as in a drag net; [1236] and in this world, as
in a sea, both swim enclosed without distinction in the net, until it
is brought ashore, when the wicked must be separated from the good,
that in the good, as in His temple, God may be all in all. We
acknowledge, indeed, that His word is now fulfilled who spake in the
psalm, and said, "I have announced and spoken; they are multiplied
above number." [1237]This takes place now, since He has spoken,
first by the mouth of his forerunner John, and afterward by His own
mouth, saying, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." [1238]
He chose disciples, whom He also called apostles, [1239] of lowly
birth, unhonored, and illiterate, so that whatever great thing they
might be or do, He might be and do it in them. He had one among them
whose wickedness He could use well in order to accomplish His
appointed passion, and furnish His Church an example of bearing with
the wicked. Having sown the holy gospel as much as that behoved to be
done by His bodily presence, He suffered, died, and rose again,
showing by His passion what we ought to suffer for the truth, and by
His resurrection what we ought to hope for in adversity; saving always
the mystery of the sacrament, by which His blood was shed for the
remission of sins. He held converse on the earth forty days with His
disciples, and in their sight ascended into heaven, and after ten days
sent the promised Holy Spirit. It was given as the chief and most
necessary sign of His coming on those who had believed, that every one
of them spoke in the tongues of all nations; thus signifying that the
unity of the catholic Church would embrace all nations, and would in
like manner speak in all tongues.
Footnotes
[1236] Matt. xiii. 47-50.
[1237] Ps. xl. 5.
[1238] Matt. iii. 2; iv. 17.
[1239] Luke vi. 13.
Chapter 50.--Of the Preaching of the Gospel, Which is Made More Famous
and Powerful by the Sufferings of Its Preachers.
Then was fulfilled that prophecy, "Out of Sion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem;" [1240] and the prediction
of the Lord Christ Himself, when, after the resurrection, "He opened
the understanding" of His amazed disciples "that they might understand
the Scriptures, and said unto them, that thus it is written, and thus
it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day,
and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His
name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." [1241]And again,
when, in reply to their questioning about the day of His last coming,
He said, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the
Father hath put in His own power; but ye shall receive the power of
the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even unto the ends of
the earth." [1242]First of all, the Church spread herself abroad
from Jerusalem; and when very many in Judea and Samaria had believed,
she also went into other nations by those who announced the gospel,
whom, as lights, He Himself had both prepared by His word and kindled
by His Holy Spirit. For He had said to them, "Fear ye not them which
kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." [1243]And that
they might not be frozen with fear, they burned with the fire of
charity. Finally, the gospel of Christ was preached in the whole
world, not only by those who had seen and heard Him both before His
passion and after His resurrection, but also after their death by
their successors, amid the horrible persecutions, diverse torments and
deaths of the martyrs, God also bearing them witness, both with signs
and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, [1244]
that the people of the nations, believing in Him who was crucified for
their redemption, might venerate with Christian love the blood of the
martyrs which they had poured forth with devilish fury, and the very
kings by whose laws the Church had been laid waste might become
profitably subject to that name they had cruelly striven to take away
from the earth, and might begin to persecute the false gods for whose
sake the worshippers of the true God had formerly been persecuted.
Footnotes
[1240] Isa. ii. 3.
[1241] Luke xxiv. 45-47.
[1242] Acts i. 7, 8.
[1243] Matt. x. 28.
[1244] Heb. ii. 4.
Chapter 51.--That the Catholic Faith May Be Confirmed Even by the
Dissensions of the Heretics.
But the devil, seeing the temples of the demons deserted, and the
human race running to the name of the liberating Mediator, has moved
the heretics under the Christian name to resist the Christian
doctrine, as if they could be kept in the city of God indifferently
without any correction, just as the city of confusion indifferently
held the philosophers who were of diverse and adverse opinions.
Those, therefore, in the Church of Christ who savor anything morbid
and depraved, and, on being corrected that they may savor what is
wholesome and right, contumaciously resist, and will not amend their
pestiferous and deadly dogmas, but persist in defending them, become
heretics, and, going without, are to be reckoned as enemies who serve
for her discipline. For even thus they profit by their wickedness
those true catholic members of Christ, since God makes a good use even
of the wicked, and all things work together for good to them that love
Him. [1245]For all the enemies of the Church, whatever error blinds
or malice depraves them, exercise her patience if they receive the
power to afflict her corporally; and if they only oppose her by wicked
thought, they exercise her wisdom: but at the same time, if these
enemies are loved, they exercise her benevolence, or even her
beneficence, whether she deals with them by persuasive doctrine or by
terrible discipline. And thus the devil, the prince of the impious
city, when he stirs up his own vessels against the city of God that
sojourns in this world, is permitted to do her no harm. For without
doubt the divine providence procures for her both consolation through
prosperity, that she may not be broken by adversity, and trial through
adversity, that she may not be corrupted by prosperity; and thus each
is tempered by the other, as we recognize in the Psalms that voice
which arises from no other cause, "According to the multitude of my
griefs in my heart, Thy consolations have delighted my soul." [1246]
Hence also is that saying of the apostle, "Rejoicing in hope, patient
in tribulation." [1247]
For it is not to be thought that what the same teacher says can at any
time fail, "Whoever will live piously in Christ shall suffer
persecution." [1248]Because even when those who are without do not
rage, and thus there seems to be, and really is, tranquillity, which
brings very much consolation, especially to the weak, yet there are
not wanting, yea, there are many within who by their abandoned manners
torment the hearts of those who live piously, since by them the
Christian and catholic name is blasphemed; and the dearer that name is
to those who will live piously in Christ, the more do they grieve that
through the wicked, who have a place within, it comes to be less loved
than pious minds desire. The heretics themselves also, since they are
thought to have the Christian name and sacraments, Scriptures, and
profession, cause great grief in the hearts of the pious, both because
many who wish to be Christians are compelled by their dissensions to
hesitate, and many evil-speakers also find in them matter for
blaspheming the Christian name, because they too are at any rate
called Christians. By these and similar depraved manners and errors
of men, those who will live piously in Christ suffer persecution, even
when no one molests or vexes their body; for they suffer this
persecution, not in their bodies, but in their hearts. Whence is that
word, "According to the multitude of my griefs in my heart;" for he
does not say, in my body. Yet, on the other hand, none of them can
perish, because the immutable divine promises are thought of. And
because the apostle says, "The Lord knoweth them that are His; [1249]
for whom He did foreknow, He also predestinated [to be] conformed to
the image of His Son," [1250] none of them can perish; therefore it
follows in that psalm, "Thy consolations have delighted my soul."
[1251]But that grief which arises in the hearts of the pious, who
are persecuted by the manners of bad or false Christians, is
profitable to the sufferers, because it proceeds from the charity in
which they do not wish them either to perish or to hinder the
salvation of others. Finally, great consolations grow out of their
chastisement, which imbue the souls of the pious with a fecundity as
great as the pains with which they were troubled concerning their own
perdition. Thus in this world, in these evil days, not only from the
time of the bodily presence of Christ and His apostles, but even from
that of Abel, whom first his wicked brother slew because he was
righteous, [1252] and thenceforth even to the end of this world, the
Church has gone forward on pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the
world and the consolations of God.
Footnotes
[1245] Rom. viii. 28.
[1246] Ps. xciv. 19.
[1247] Rom. xii. 12.
[1248] 2 Tim. iii. 12.
[1249] 2 Tim. ii. 19.
[1250] Rom. viii. 29.
[1251] Ps. xciv. 19.
[1252] 1 John iii. 12.
Chapter 52.--Whether We Should Believe What Some Think, That, as the
Ten Persecutions Which are Past Have Been Fulfilled, There Remains No
Other Beyond the Eleventh, Which Must Happen in the Very Time of
Antichrist.
I do not think, indeed, that what some have thought or may think is
rashly said or believed, that until the time of Antichrist the Church
of Christ is not to suffer any persecutions besides those she has
already suffered,--that is, ten,--and that the eleventh and last shall
be inflicted by Antichrist. They reckon as the first that made by
Nero, the second by Domitian, the third by Trajan, the fourth by
Antoninus, the fifth by Severus, the sixth by Maximin, the seventh by
Decius, the eighth by Valerian, the ninth by Aurelian, the tenth by
Diocletian and Maximian. For as there were ten plagues in Egypt
before the people of God could begin to go out, they think this is to
be referred to as showing that the last persecution by Antichrist must
be like the eleventh plague, in which the Egyptians, while following
the Hebrews with hostility, perished in the Red Sea when the people of
God passed through on dry land. Yet I do not think persecutions were
prophetically signified by what was done in Egypt, however nicely and
ingeniously those who think so may seem to have compared the two in
detail, not by the prophetic Spirit, but by the conjecture of the
human mind, which sometimes hits the truth, and sometimes is
deceived. But what can those who think this say of the persecution in
which the Lord Himself was crucified? In which number will they put
it? And if they think the reckoning is to be made exclusive of this
one, as if those must be counted which pertain to the body, and not
that in which the Head Himself was set upon and slain, what can they
make of that one which, after Christ ascended into heaven, took place
in Jerusalem, when the blessed Stephen was stoned; when James the
brother of John was slaughtered with the sword; when the Apostle Peter
was imprisoned to be killed, and was set free by the angel; when the
brethren were driven away and scattered from Jerusalem; when Saul, who
afterward became the Apostle Paul, wasted the Church; and when he
himself, publishing the glad tidings of the faith he had persecuted,
suffered such things as he had inflicted, either from the Jews or from
other nations, where he most fervently preached Christ everywhere?
Why, then, do they think fit to start with Nero, when the Church in
her growth had reached the times of Nero amid the most cruel
persecutions; about which it would be too long to say anything? But
if they think that only the persecutions made by kings ought to be
reckoned, it was king Herod who also made a most grievous one after
the ascension of the Lord. And what account do they give of Julian,
whom they do not number in the ten? Did not he persecute the Church,
who forbade the Christians to teach or learn liberal letters? Under
him the elder Valentinian, who was the third emperor after him, stood
forth as a confessor of the Christian faith, and was dismissed from
his command in the army. I shall say nothing of what he did at
Antioch, except to mention his being struck with wonder at the freedom
and cheerfulness of one most faithful and steadfast young man, who,
when many were seized to be tortured, was tortured during a whole day,
and sang under the instrument of torture, until the emperor feared
lest he should succumb under the continued cruelties and put him to
shame at last, which made him dread and fear that he would be yet more
dishonorably put to the blush by the rest. Lastly, within our own
recollection, did not Valens the Arian, brother of the foresaid
Valentinian, waste the catholic Church by great persecution throughout
the East? But how unreasonable it is not to consider that the Church,
which bears fruit and grows through the whole world, may suffer
persecution from kings in some nations even when she does not suffer
it in others! Perhaps, however, it was not to be reckoned a
persecution when the king of the Goths, in Gothia itself, persecuted
the Christians with wonderful cruelty, when there were none but
catholics there, of whom very many were crowned with martyrdom, as we
have heard from certain brethren who had been there at that time as
boys, and unhesitatingly called to mind that they had seen these
things? And what took place in Persia of late? Was not persecution
so hot against the Christians (if even yet it is allayed) that some of
the fugitives from it came even to Roman towns? When I think of these
and the like things, it does not seem to me that the number of
persecutions with which the Church is to be tried can be definitely
stated. But, on the other hand, it is no less rash to affirm that
there will be some persecutions by kings besides that last one, about
which no Christian is in doubt. Therefore we leave this undecided,
supporting or refuting neither side of this question, but only
restraining men from the audacious presumption of affirming either of
them.
Chapter 53.--Of the Hidden Time of the Final Persecution.
Truly Jesus Himself shall extinguish by His presence that last
persecution which is to be made by Antichrist. For so it is written,
that "He shall slay him with the breath of His mouth, and empty him
with the brightness of His presence." [1253]It is customary to ask,
When shall that be? But this is quite unreasonable. For had it been
profitable for us to know this, by whom could it better have been told
than by God Himself, the Master, when the disciples questioned Him?
For they were not silent when with Him, but inquired of Him, saying,
"Lord, wilt Thou at this time present the kingdom to Israel, or when?"
[1254]But He said, "It is not for you to know the times, which the
Father hath put in His own power." When they got that answer, they
had not at all questioned Him about the hour, or day, or year, but
about the time. In vain, then, do we attempt to compute definitely
the years that may remain to this world, when we may hear from the
mouth of the Truth that it is not for us to know this. Yet some have
said that four hundred, some five hundred, others a thousand years,
may be completed from the ascension of the Lord up to His final
coming. But to point out how each of them supports his own opinion
would take too long, and is not necessary; for indeed they use human
conjectures, and bring forward nothing certain from the authority of
the canonical Scriptures. But on this subject He puts aside the
figures of the calculators, and orders silence, who says, "It is not
for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own
power."
But because this sentence is in the Gospel, it is no wonder that the
worshippers of the many and false gods have been none the less
restrained from feigning that by the responses of the demons, whom
they worship as gods, it has been fixed how long the Christian
religion is to last. For when they saw that it could not be consumed
by so many and great persecutions, but rather drew from them wonderful
enlargements, they invented I know not what Greek verses, as if poured
forth by a divine oracle to some one consulting it, in which, indeed,
they make Christ innocent of this, as it were, sacrilegious crime, but
add that Peter by enchantments brought it about that the name of
Christ should be worshipped for three hundred and sixty-five years,
and, after the completion of that number of years, should at once take
end. Oh the hearts of learned men! Oh, learned wits, meet to believe
such things about Christ as you are not willing to believe in Christ,
that His disciple Peter did not learn magic arts from Him, yet that,
although He was innocent, His disciple was an enchanter, and chose
that His name rather than his own should be worshipped through his
magic arts, his great labors and perils, and at last even the shedding
of his blood! If Peter the enchanter made the world so love Christ,
what did Christ the innocent do to make Peter so love Him? Let them
answer themselves then, and, if they can, let them understand that the
world, for the sake of eternal life, was made to love Christ by that
same supernal grace which made Peter also love Christ for the sake of
the eternal life to be received from Him, and that even to the extent
of suffering temporal death for Him. And then, what kind of gods are
these who are able to predict such things, yet are not able to avert
them, succumbing in such a way to a single enchanter and wicked
magician (who, as they say, having slain a yearling boy and torn him
to pieces, buried him with nefarious rites), that they permitted the
sect hostile to themselves to gain strength for so great a time, and
to surmount the horrid cruelties of so many great persecutions, not by
resisting but by suffering, and to procure the overthrow of their own
images, temples, rituals, and oracles? Finally, what god was it--not
ours, certainly, but one of their own--who was either enticed or
compelled by so great wickedness to perform these things? For those
verses say that Peter bound, not any demon, but a god to do these
things. Such a god have they who have not Christ.
Footnotes
[1253] Isa. xi. 4; 2 Thess. i. 9.
[1254] Acts i. 6, 7.
Chapter 54.--Of the Very Foolish Lie of the Pagans, in Feigning that
the Christian Religion Was Not to Last Beyond Three Hundred and
Sixty-Five Years.
I might collect these and many similar arguments, if that year had not
already passed by which lying divination has promised, and deceived
vanity has believed. But as a few years ago three hundred and
sixty-five years were completed since the time when the worship of the
name of Christ was established by His presence in the flesh, and by
the apostles, what other proof need we seek to refute that falsehood?
For, not to place the beginning of this period at the nativity of
Christ, because as an infant and boy He had no disciples, yet, when He
began to have them, beyond doubt the Christian doctrine and religion
then became known through His bodily presence, that is, after He was
baptized in the river Jordan by the ministry of John. For on this
account that prophecy went before concerning Him: "He shall reign
from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the
earth." [1255]But since, before He suffered and rose from the dead,
the faith had not yet been defined to all, but was defined in the
resurrection of Christ (for so the Apostle Paul speaks to the
Athenians, saying, "But now He announces to men that all everywhere
should repent, because He hath appointed a day in which to judge the
world in equity, by the Man in whom He hath defined the faith to all
men, raising Him from the dead" [1256] ), it is better that, in
settling this question, we should start from that point, especially
because the Holy Spirit was then given, just as He behoved to be given
after the resurrection of Christ in that city from which the second
law, that is, the new testament, ought to begin. For the first, which
is called the old testament was given from Mount Sinai through Moses.
But concerning this which was to be given by Christ it was predicted,
"Out of Sion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord out of
Jerusalem;" [1257] whence He Himself said that repentance in His name
behoved to be preached among all nations, but yet beginning at
Jerusalem. [1258]There, therefore, the worship of this name took
its rise, that Jesus should be believed in, who died and rose again.
There this faith blazed up with such noble beginnings, that several
thousand men, being converted to the name of Christ with wonderful
alacrity, sold their goods for distribution among the needy, thus, by
a holy resolution and most ardent charity, coming to voluntary
poverty, and prepared themselves, amid the Jews who raged and thirsted
for their blood, to contend for the truth even to death, not with
armed power, but with more powerful patience. If this was
accomplished by no magic arts, why do they hesitate to believe that
the other could be done throughout the whole world by the same divine
power by which this was done? But supposing Peter wrought that
enchantment so that so great a multitude of men at Jerusalem was thus
kindled to worship the name of Christ, who had either seized and
fastened Him to the cross, or reviled Him when fastened there, we must
still inquire when the three hundred and sixty-five years must be
completed, counting from that year. Now Christ died when the Gemini
were consuls, on the eighth day before the kalends of April. He rose
the third day, as the apostles have proved by the evidence of their
own senses. Then forty days after, He ascended into heaven. Ten days
after, that is, on the fiftieth after his resurrection, He sent the
Holy Spirit; then three thousand men believed when the apostles
preached Him. Then, therefore, arose the worship of that name, as we
believe, and according to the real truth, by the efficacy of the Holy
Spirit, but, as impious vanity has feigned or thought, by the magic
arts of Peter. A little afterward, too, on a wonderful sign being
wrought, when at Peter's own word a certain beggar, so lame from his
mother's womb that he was carried by others and laid down at the gate
of the temple, where he begged alms, was made whole in the name of
Jesus Christ, and leaped up, five thousand men believed, and
thenceforth the Church grew by sundry accessions of believers. Thus
we gather the very day with which that year began, namely, that on
which the Holy Spirit was sent, that is, during the ides of May. And,
on counting the consuls, the three hundred and sixty-five years are
found completed on the same ides in the consulate of Honorius and
Eutychianus. Now, in the following year, in the consulate of Mallius
Theodorus, when, according to that oracle of the demons or figment of
men, there ought already to have been no Christian religion, it was
not necessary to inquire, what perchance was done in other parts of
the earth. But, as we know, in the most noted and eminent city,
Carthage, in Africa, Gaudentius and Jovius, officers of the Emperor
Honorius, on the fourteenth day before the kalends of April, overthrew
the temples and broke the images of the false gods. And from that
time to the present, during almost thirty years, who does not see how
much the worship of the name of Christ has increased, especially after
many of those became Christians who had been kept back from the faith
by thinking that divination true, but saw when that same number of
years was completed that it was empty and ridiculous? We, therefore,
who are called and are Christians, do not believe in Peter, but in Him
whom Peter believed,--being edified by Peter's sermons about Christ,
not poisoned by his incantations; and not deceived by his
enchantments, but aided by his good deeds. Christ Himself, who was
Peter's Master in the doctrine which leads to eternal life, is our
Master too.
But let us now at last finish this book, after thus far treating of,
and showing as far as seemed sufficient, what is the mortal course of
the two cities, the heavenly and the earthly, which are mingled
together from the beginning down to the end. Of these, the earthly
one has made to herself of whom she would, either from any other
quarter, or even from among men, false gods whom she might serve by
sacrifice; but she which is heavenly and is a pilgrim on the earth
does not make false gods, but is herself made by the true God of whom
she herself must be the true sacrifice. Yet both alike either enjoy
temporal good things, or are afflicted with temporal evils, but with
diverse faith, diverse hope, and diverse love, until they must be
separated by the last judgment, and each must receive her own end, of
which there is no end. About these ends of both we must next treat.
Footnotes
[1255] Ps. lxxii. 8.
[1256] Acts xvii. 30, 31.
[1257] Isa. ii. 3.
[1258] Luke xxiv. 47.
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