Demonstrations 16.1–16.8

Translated by Claude from Jean Parisot's Latin translation (1894) of the Syriac; neither is shown

On the Nations Who Have Taken the Place of the People.

1. The nations of all tongues were called to the inheritance of the Most High before Israel, as God said to Abraham: "I have made you the father of a multitude of nations." Moses too proclaimed, saying: "They will call peoples to the mountain, and there they will offer sacrifices of righteousness." And in the song of witness he says to the people: "I will provoke you with a people that is no people, and with a foolish nation I will anger you." Jacob our father also bore witness about the nations when he blessed Judah and said to him: "The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until he comes to whom the kingdom belongs; and in him the nations will hope." Isaiah too says: "The mountain of the house of the Lord will be established on the top of the mountains, higher than the hills, and all the nations will look to it; and many peoples will come from far off and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and he will judge between the nations and rebuke all distant peoples; and as soon as he has judged and rebuked them, then they will accept correction, be at rest, and humble themselves from their stubbornness; and they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war any more." For before, those nations that did not know God fought with swords, spears, and lances against plunderers and oppressors. But when Christ the Savior came, he broke the bow of war and spoke peace to the nations; he beat their swords into ploughshares for them, and they turned their spears into pruning hooks, to eat from the labour of their hands and no longer [live] by robbery. It is also written: "I will give the peoples a chosen lip, so that all may call on the name of the Lord." For formerly the peoples did not have chosen lips, nor did they call on the name of the Lord; for with their lips they praised idols they had made with their own hands, and called on the names of their gods, not on the name of the Lord. Again Zechariah the prophet says: "Many and strong nations will join themselves to the Lord." Finally Jeremiah the prophet speaks openly and clearly about the nations when he says: "The nations will forsake their carved images and will cry out and shout and say: The lying idols that our fathers handed down to us as an inheritance are nothing."

Translated by Claude from Jean Parisot's Latin translation (1894) of the Syriac; neither is shown

Jeremiah, addressing his people, said to them: "Stand on the roads and ask about the everlasting paths, and see which is the good way, and walk in it." But they in their stubbornness answered him, saying: "We will not walk." Again he said to them: "I set watchmen over you, that you might hear the sound of the trumpet." And again they said to him: "We will not hear." And they did this plainly and openly in the days of Jeremiah, to whom, as he preached the word of the Lord to them, they answered: "The word you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord we will not hear from you; but we will do our own will and every word that has gone out of our mouth, to offer incense to foreign gods." So, seeing that they did not obey, he turned to the nations and said to them: "Hear, O nations, and know, O congregation that is among them; let the earth hear with its fullness"; and when he saw them rise up stubbornly against him and answer the word insolently, then he forsook them, as he prophesied, saying: "I have left my house, I have abandoned my inheritance; I have given the beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies, and in her place a painted bird has become my inheritance." And this is the church of the nations, gathered from all tongues.

Translated by Claude from Jean Parisot's Latin translation (1894) of the Syriac; neither is shown

And so that you may know that he truly forsook them, Isaiah again says of them: "You have rejected your people, the house of Jacob"; and he called their name Sodomites and the people of Gomorrah, and made the nations enter in their place, and called them the house of Jacob. For Isaiah, calling the peoples by the name of the house of Jacob and addressing them, says: "House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord; for the people of the house of Jacob has been cast off," and they have become "rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah." "Their father was an Amorite and their mother a Hittite." They were changed and became a foreign vine; "their grapes are sour grapes, and their clusters bitterness"; rebellious sons; rejected silver; the vine of Sodom and the stock of Gomorrah; a vineyard that made wild grapes instead of grapes; a vine whose branches the fire has eaten, which is of no use, profits nothing, and is not needed for any work. For he called two by the name Jacob: one that walks in the light of the Lord; the other that is cast off; and these are no longer called Jacob, but rulers of Sodom; but the name Jacob has been given to the people of the nations. The prophet also foretold of the nations that they would bring offerings in place of the People; for he said: "My name is great among the nations, and in every place pure offerings will be offered in my name." But of Israel the prophet said: "I have taken no pleasure in your offerings." And again: "Your sacrifices have not pleased me." Hosea too said of Israel: "They seek the Lord in falsehood." And Isaiah says that its heart is far from God; for he says: "This people honours me with its lips, but its heart is far from me." Hosea again says: "Ephraim has surrounded me with falsehood, and the house of Israel and Judah with deceit, until the people of God came down." And who is that people, if not the righteous and faithful people? For if he had said of Israel, "He surrounded me with falsehood and deceit," and of Ephraim, "See, a wicked kingdom from Ephraim has stood in Israel," and if the name of Judah had not been mentioned in this sentence, they would answer that Judah is that holy and faithful one who came down and clung to the Lord. But the prophet proclaimed clearly and expressly: "Ephraim and Israel have surrounded me with falsehood"; because Jeroboam the son of Nebat [led] them openly …, and [Judah] worshipped idols deceitfully and secretly, when he revealed their idolatry to Ezekiel. Hosea cried out against them again, calling them a fornicating and adulterous woman. For of the synagogue of the house of Israel he says: "Let her put away her fornication from her face"; and of the synagogue of the house of Judah he said: "Let her put away her adultery from between her breasts." And know that the prophet spoke of both congregations, calling them the fornicating and the adulterous woman. For after these words he says: "Unless she puts away her fornication from her face and her adultery from between her breasts, I will strip her naked and leave her as on the day of her birth, and as on the day of her coming up from the land of Egypt." So there are two churches, one of Israel, the other of Judah; Israel's is the fornicating, Judah's the adulterous; and the people of the nations is the holy and faithful people that came down and clung to the Lord. And why is it said to have come down? Only because they came down from their pride. Ezekiel again called them Oholah and Oholibah, and called the two congregations two branches of the vine that the fire consumed. David again speaks of the nations and says: "The Lord will count the peoples in the book"; but of the children of Israel he prophesied, saying: "Let them be blotted out of your book of life, and not be written with the righteous."

Translated by Claude from Jean Parisot's Latin translation (1894) of the Syriac; neither is shown

Know, my beloved, that the children of Israel were once written in the book of the Most Holy, as Moses said before his God: "Either forgive this people this offence, or blot me out of your book that you have written." And [the Lord] said: "Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book." So when they had sinned, David said against them: "Let them be blotted out of your book of life, and not be written with the righteous." But of the nations he said, "The Lord will count the peoples in the book," because they had not yet been entered in the book or in Scripture. See, my beloved, that the calling of the nations was signified before the calling of the people. For they sinned again and again in the wilderness. For [God] said to Moses: "Let me alone; I will destroy this people and make you into a great nation, more famous than this." But since the time of the nations had not yet come, and their Savior was to be another, Moses did not wish to become savior and teacher of the people of the nations, greater and more excellent than the people of Israel. For it befitted the Son of God to make illustrious by his name this greatest and most excellent praise, as Isaiah said: "It is too small a thing that you should be my servant, to bring back the shoot of Jacob and raise up the rod of Israel; but I have given you as a light to the nations, to make known my salvation to the ends of the earth." Again Isaiah proclaims about the nations: "Hear me, nations, and listen to me, peoples; for the law will go out from before me, and my judgment is for the nations." David also says: "At the hearing of the ear the sons of strangers will obey me"; and these sons of strangers were cut off and limped from their paths. For the nations obeyed, and limped away from the paths of the worship of images and idols.

Translated by Claude from Jean Parisot's Latin translation (1894) of the Syriac; neither is shown

But perhaps they will say that he called us sons of strangers, while they were called not sons of strangers but sons and heirs, according to the word of Isaiah: "I nourished and exalted sons, but they dealt faithlessly with me." And the prophet said: "Out of Egypt I called him my son." The Most Holy also said to Moses: "Say to Pharaoh: Let my son go, that he may sacrifice to me." And again he said: "Israel is my firstborn son." Yet it is the nations who have heard God, and have limped and been held back from the paths of their sins. And moreover Isaiah said: "You will call nations that do not know you; and peoples that do not know you will come to you and be converted." Again Isaiah says: "Hear, peoples, what I have done, and know my might, you who are far off." And of the church and congregation of the nations David said: "Remember your church, which you acquired from the beginning." David says again: "Praise the Lord, all nations, and let the peoples praise his name." And again: "The kingdom is the Lord's, and he rules over the nations." The prophet also said: "In the last days I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and they will prophesy; and no longer will a man teach his countryman or his brother, saying, Know our Lord; for all will know me, from the least of them to the eldest." But of the children of Israel he said: "I will send a famine on the land, not a hunger for bread nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the Lord. And they will come from the west to the east, from the south to the north, to seek the word of the Lord; but they will not find it, because he has torn it from them." Moses had written against them beforehand: "When many evils come upon you at the end of days, you will say: Because God is not in me, these evils have found me"; and in this way in the days of Ezekiel they said: "The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord no longer sees us." Isaiah too says of them: "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have withheld good things from you." And again he said: "You will cry in my ears with a loud voice, and I will not hear you." But of the people of the nations David said: "All nations, clap your hands; glorify God with the voice of praise." And again: "Hear this, all nations; give ear, all who dwell in the world."

Translated by Claude from Jean Parisot's Latin translation (1894) of the Syriac; neither is shown

But already before, whoever of the nations pleased God were more justified than Israel. Jethro, a Gentile priest, was blessed, he and his seed; his dwelling was strengthened, and he set his nest in the rock. Joshua also gave his right hand to the Gibeonites, of the defiled nations, and they came in and took refuge in the inheritance of the Lord and became hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and the altar of the Lord. And because Saul wished to kill them, the heavens were held back from rain until the sons of Saul were killed. And then the Lord looked on the land and blessed his inheritance. Rahab the harlot, who received the spies, she and her father's house had an inheritance in Israel. Obed-edom of Gath of the Philistines, when the ark of the Lord entered his house and was honoured with him, was blessed, he and his house. … of his persecution, and his name and offspring were glorified. Likewise Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, brought out [Jeremiah, whom] his countrymen had seized. … "The stranger in your midst will become higher; but you [will become] lower." … [they] seized the prophet and let him down into the lower pit; Ebed-melech drew him out of the pit. Likewise Ruth the Moabite, from … ruled the empire of the kings, from whom the Savior of the nations was born. Uriah the Hittite too, of a defiled people, was great among David's mighty men; and because [David killed] him [by the sword] of the sons of Ammon, and coveted and seized his wife, he incurred this sentence: that the sword would not depart from his house for ever. … [The prophet] says: "I have given you as a covenant to the people and a light to the nations." How then did he become a covenant to the people? In no other way than that Israel was restrained from the worship of idols, and he became a firm covenant for them. Therefore Moses said: "I will provoke you with a people that is no people, and with a foolish nation I will anger you." They are provoked by us, and because of us they do not worship idols, lest they be mocked by us, who have cast off idols and call a lie what our fathers left us. They are angry, and their heart is broken, that we have come in and become heirs in their place. Their covenant indeed was this, that they should not worship foreign gods, though they did not accept it. He provoked them through us; but for us he has become light and life, as he himself proclaimed and said in teaching: "I am the light of the world." And again: "Believe while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you." And further: "Walk in the light, that you may be called children of light." [Scripture] also says of him: "The light shone in the darkness." See the covenant that was made with the people, and the light that has shone on all the nations, and has stopped and closed them off from crooked paths, as it is written: "At his coming the ridges will become a plain, and the rough places level; and the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see the life of God."

Translated by Claude from Jean Parisot's Latin translation (1894) of the Syriac; neither is shown

I have written you this short reflection on the nations because the Jews boast and say: "We are the people of God and the children of Abraham." But let us hear John speaking to them, when they proudly declared that they were children of Abraham; for then John said to them: "Do not boast, saying: We have Abraham as our father; for God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham." And the Savior said to them: "You are children of Cain, not children of Abraham." And the Apostle says: "The branches that sinned were broken off; and we were grafted in their place and became sharers in the richness of the olive." So let us not boast nor sin, lest we too be broken off, who have now been grafted into the olive. This is the answer against the Jews who boast, saying: "We are children of Abraham, and we are the people of God."

Here ends the Demonstration on the People and the [Nations].