City of God 18.28–18.34

Chapter 28. What Hosea and Amos prophesied of things that pertain to the gospel of Christ.

The prophet Hosea, then, the more profoundly he speaks, the more laboriously is he penetrated. But something must be taken from him and set down here, according to our promise. “And it shall be,” he says, “in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they too shall be called sons of the living God.” This prophetic testimony even the apostles understood of the calling of the people of the nations, which formerly did not belong to God. And because the people of the nations too is spiritually among the sons of Abraham, and is therefore rightly called Israel, he therefore goes on and says: “And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be gathered together into one, and they shall appoint for themselves one headship, and they shall go up from the land.” If we should wish to explain this further, the savour of the prophetic speech would be dulled. Yet let that cornerstone be recalled, and the two walls, one from the Jews, the other from the nations; the one under the name of the sons of Judah, the other under the name of the sons of Israel, resting together on the same one headship of theirs and going up from the land, let them be recognized.

That those who are Israelites according to the flesh, who are now unwilling to believe in Christ, will believe afterwards, that is, their sons (for these certainly will pass away to their own place by dying), the same prophet testifies, saying: “For the sons of Israel shall sit many days without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without altar, without priesthood, without manifestations.” Who does not see that the Jews are now so? But let us hear what he adds. “And afterwards,” he says, “the sons of Israel shall return and shall seek the Lord their God and David their king, and shall be amazed at the Lord and at his good things in the last days.” Nothing is plainer than this prophecy, since by the name of King David Christ is understood to be signified, because he was made, as the apostle says, “of the seed of David according to the flesh.” This prophet foretold also the resurrection of Christ that was to come on the third day, as it had to be foretold with prophetic loftiness, where he says: “He will heal us after two days; on the third day we shall rise again.” For in accordance with this the apostle says to us: “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above.”

Amos also prophesies of such things thus: “Prepare yourself,” he says, “to call upon your God, Israel; for behold, I am he who makes firm the thunder and creates the wind, and announces to men his Christ.” And in another place: “On that day,” he says, “I will raise up the tabernacle of David that has fallen, and I will rebuild what has fallen of it, and I will raise up what was destroyed of it, and rebuild it as in the days of old; so that the rest of men may seek me, and all the nations on whom my name is called, says the Lord who does these things.”

Chapter 29. What was foretold by Isaiah about Christ and the church.

The prophet Isaiah is not in the book of the twelve prophets, who are called minor because their discourses are brief in comparison with those who are called major because they composed long volumes; among whom is this Isaiah, whom I add to the two above because of the same times of his prophecy. Isaiah, then, among the things in which he rebuked iniquity, commanded righteousness, and foretold evils to come for a sinful people, prophesied also about Christ and the church, that is, about the King and the city which he founded, much more than the others, so that some have called him an evangelist rather than a prophet. But for the sake of bringing the work to an end I shall set down here one passage out of many. Speaking in the person of God the Father, he says:

“Behold, my servant shall understand, and shall be exalted and glorified exceedingly. As many shall be astonished at you, so shall your appearance be deprived of glory among men, and your glory among men; so shall many nations marvel at him, and kings shall shut their mouths; for those to whom nothing was announced of him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand. Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We announced before him as a child, as a root in thirsty ground: he has no form nor glory. And we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty; but his appearance was without honour, failing beyond all men. A man set in affliction and knowing how to bear weakness; for his face was turned away; he was dishonoured and not highly esteemed. He bears our sins and suffers pain for us; and we thought him to be in pain and in affliction and in distress. But he was wounded for our iniquities and made weak for our sins. The chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his bruise we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; each man has strayed from his way; and the Lord handed him over for our sins; and he, because he was afflicted, did not open his mouth. As a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the one who shears it is without voice, so he did not open his mouth. In humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who shall declare his generation? For his life shall be taken from the earth. By the iniquities of my people he was led to death. And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death. For he did no iniquity nor was deceit in his mouth; and the Lord wills to cleanse him from affliction. If you give your soul for sin, you shall see a long-lived seed; and the Lord wills to take away his soul from pain, to show him light and to form understanding, to justify the just one who serves many well; and he himself shall bear their sins. Therefore he shall inherit many and shall divide the spoils of the strong, because his soul was handed over to death, and he was reckoned among the wicked, and he bore the sins of many, and for their sins he was handed over.”

So much about Christ. Now let us hear what follows about the church. “Rejoice,” he says, “barren one, who do not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labour; for more are the children of the desolate than of her who has a husband. Enlarge the place of your tent and of your curtains; fix them, do not spare, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes; stretch out still to the right and to the left. And your seed shall inherit the nations, and you shall inhabit the desolate cities. Do not fear because you have been put to shame, nor be afraid because you have been reproached; for you shall forget your everlasting shame, and you shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood. For the Lord is your maker, the Lord of hosts is his name; and he who delivered you, the God of Israel himself, shall be called the God of the whole earth,” and so on. But let this be enough; and in these there are some things that need explanation; but I think those things suffice which are so plain that even enemies are compelled against their will to understand them.

Chapter 30. What Micah, Jonah, and Joel prophesied in agreement with the New Testament.

The prophet Micah, representing Christ under the figure of a great mountain, speaks thus: “In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, established on the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills. And peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go 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 show us his way, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many peoples, and rebuke strong nations far away.” This prophet foretells also the place where Christ was born: “And you,” he says, “Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are the least to be among the thousands of Judah; out of you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel; and his going forth is from the beginning and from the days of eternity. Therefore he will give them up until the time when she who is in labour gives birth, and the remnant of his brothers 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 they shall be in the honour of the name of the Lord their God; for now he shall be magnified to the ends of the earth.”

The prophet Jonah prophesied Christ not so much by speech as by a certain suffering of his own, certainly more plainly than if he had proclaimed his death and resurrection aloud. For why was he received into the belly of the monster and given back on the third day, except to signify that Christ would return on the third day from the depth of the underworld?

Joel compels a great many words to explain all that he prophesies, so that what pertains to Christ and the church may become clear. Yet one passage I shall not pass over, which the apostles too recalled when the Holy Spirit, as Christ had promised, came from above upon the believers gathered together: “And it shall be,” he says, “after these things, that I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions; and indeed on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out of my Spirit.”

Chapter 31. What is found foretold in Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk about the salvation of the world in Christ.

Three of the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk, neither state their times themselves, nor is it found in the chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome when they prophesied. For Obadiah is indeed placed by them with Micah, but not in the place where the times are noted when Micah, as is clear from his writings, prophesied; which I think happened through the mistake of those who carelessly copy the labours of others; while the other two we could not find mentioned in the copies of the chronicles that we had. Yet because they are contained in the canon, we ought not to pass over them either.

Obadiah, as far as his writing goes the shortest of all the prophets, speaks against Idumea, that is, the nation of Esau, the elder, the rejected one, of the twin sons of Isaac, grandsons of Abraham. Now if we take Idumea as put for the nations, by the figure of speech in which the whole is understood from a part, we can recognize as referring to Christ what he says among other things: “But on Mount Zion there shall be salvation, and there shall be holiness”; and a little after, at the end of the same prophecy: “And those who are saved again,” he says, “shall go up from Mount Zion to defend Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.” It is plain that this was fulfilled when those saved again from Mount Zion, that is, those from Judea who believed in Christ, who are recognized chiefly as the apostles, went up to defend Mount Esau. How would they defend it except by saving, through the preaching of the gospel, those who believed, so that they might be rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God? This he expressed accordingly by adding: “And the kingdom shall be the Lord's.” For Mount Zion signifies Judea, where salvation and holiness were foretold to come, which is Christ Jesus. But Mount Esau is Idumea, by which is signified the church of the nations, which those saved again from Mount Zion defended, as I have explained, so that the kingdom might be the Lord's. This was obscure before it happened; but now that it has happened, what believer does not recognize it?

The prophet Nahum, or rather God through him, says: “I will destroy the carved and the molten images; I will make your burial; for behold, swift upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news and announces peace. Celebrate, Judah, your festivals, pay your vows; for they shall no more add to pass into oldness. It is finished, it is consumed, it is taken away. He has gone up who breathes into your face, rescuing you from tribulation.” Who went up from the underworld and breathed the Holy Spirit into the face of Judah, that is, of the Jewish disciples, let him recall who remembers the gospel. For they belong to the New Testament whose festivals are so spiritually renewed that they cannot pass into oldness. Moreover, we now see the carved and molten images, that is, the idols of false gods, destroyed through the gospel and given over to oblivion as to a grave, and we recognize that in this matter too this prophecy has been fulfilled.

Of what else than of the coming of Christ, which was to be, is Habakkuk understood to speak when he says: “And the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision plainly on a box-wood tablet, so that he who reads it may follow it; for the vision is still for a time, and it shall rise at the end and not in vain; if it delays, wait for him, for he will surely come and will not tarry”?

Chapter 32. On the prophecy contained in the prayer and song of Habakkuk.

In his prayer with a song, to whom but the Lord Christ does he say: “Lord, I have heard your report, and was afraid; Lord, I have considered your works, and was terrified”? For what is this but the inexpressible wonder at the new and sudden salvation of men, foreknown? “In the midst of two living creatures you shall be known”: what is this but either in the midst of the two testaments, or in the midst of the two thieves, or in the midst of Moses and Elijah talking with him on the mountain? “When the years draw near you shall be known; at the coming of the time you shall be shown”: this needs no explanation. “When my soul has been troubled in him, in wrath you will remember mercy”: what is this but that he transfigured into himself the Jews, of whose nation he was, who, when they were troubled with great wrath and crucified Christ, he, remembering mercy, said: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”? “God shall come from Teman, and the Holy One from the shady and thick mountain.” What is said here, “he shall come from Teman,” others have translated “from the south” or “from the south-west”; by which is signified midday, that is, the fervour of love and the splendour of truth. The shady and thick mountain, though it could be understood in many ways, I would more gladly take as the depth of the divine Scriptures, by which Christ was prophesied. For there are many shady and thick things there, which exercise the mind of the seeker. And he comes from there when he who understands finds him there. “His power covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise”: what is this but what is also said in the psalm: “Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth”? “His splendour shall be as light”: what is this but that his fame shall enlighten those who believe? “Horns are in his hands”: what is this but the trophy of the cross? “And he set firm the love of his strength”: this needs no explanation. “Before his face shall go the Word, and it shall go forth into the plain after his feet”: what is this but that he was both foretold before he came here and proclaimed after he returned from here? “He stood, and the earth was moved”: what is this but that he stood to help, and the earth was moved to believe? “He looked, and the nations melted,” that is, he had mercy and made the peoples repent. “The mountains were crushed by violence,” that is, by miracles that did violence the pride of the lofty was crushed. “The everlasting hills flowed down,” that is, they were humbled for a time to be raised up for ever. “I saw his eternal goings in return for labours,” that is, I beheld that the labour of love is not without the reward of eternity. “The tents of the Ethiopians shall be terrified, and the tents of the land of Midian,” that is, the nations suddenly terrified by the news of your wonders, even those that are not under Roman rule, shall be in the Christian people. “Were you angry at the rivers, Lord, or was your fury against the rivers, or your onset against the sea?” This is said because he did not come now to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. “For you shall mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation,” that is, your evangelists, who are guided by you, shall carry you, and your gospel shall be salvation to those who believe in you. “Bending, you shall bend your bow against sceptres, says the Lord,” that is, you shall threaten your judgment even to the kings of the earth. “The earth shall be split by rivers,” that is, by the flowing words of those who preach you the hearts of men shall be opened to confess, to whom it was said: “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” What is: “The peoples shall see you and grieve,” except that by mourning they may be blessed? What is: “Scattering the waters in your going,” unless that by walking in those who proclaim you everywhere you scatter the streams of teaching this way and that? What is: “The abyss gave forth its voice,” unless that the depth of the human heart expressed what seemed good to it? “The height of its imagination” is, as it were, an explanation of the preceding verse; for the height is the abyss. But when he says “of its imagination,” “gave forth its voice” is to be understood; that is, as we have said, it expressed what seemed good to it. For imagination is a vision, which it did not keep back, did not cover, but poured forth in confession. “The sun was raised, and the moon stood in her order,” that is, Christ ascended into heaven, and the church was set in order under her King. “Your darts shall go into the light,” that is, your words shall be sent not into secret but into the open. “Into the brightness of the flashing of your arms”: “your darts shall go” is to be understood. For he had said to his own: “What I tell you in darkness, speak in the light.” “In threatening you shall diminish the earth,” that is, by threatening you shall humble men. “And in fury you shall cast down the nations,” because by punishing you shall dash down those who exalt themselves. “You went forth for the salvation of your people, to save your anointed ones; you sent death on the heads of the wicked”: none of this needs explanation. “You raised up bonds even to the neck”: here too the good bonds of wisdom can be understood, so that the feet may be put into her fetters and the neck into her collar. “You cut off in astonishment of mind”: we understand “the bonds”; for he raised up the good bonds and cut off the evil ones, of which it is said to him: “You have broken my bonds”; and this “in astonishment of mind,” that is, wonderfully. “The heads of the mighty shall be moved at it,” that is, at that wonder. “They shall open their mouths like a poor man eating in secret.” For certain powerful men of the Jews used to come to the Lord, marvelling at his deeds and words, and, hungry, they ate the bread of teaching in secret for fear of the Jews, as the gospel has revealed them. “And you sent your horses into the sea, troubling many waters,” which are nothing other than many peoples; for some would not be converted in fear and others pursue in fury, unless all were troubled. “I watched, and my belly was terrified at the voice of the prayer of my lips; and trembling entered into my bones, and my condition was troubled beneath me.” He attended to the things he was saying and was terrified by his own prayer, which he was pouring forth prophetically and in which he discerned things to come; for when many peoples were troubled he saw the tribulations threatening the church; and at once he recognized himself as a member of it and said: “I will rest in the day of tribulation,” as belonging to those who are “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.” “That I may go up,” he says, “to the people of my pilgrimage,” departing, of course, from the wicked people of his fleshly kindred, who are not pilgrims in this land and do not seek the heavenly homeland. “For the fig tree,” he says, “shall not bear fruit, and there shall be no produce in the vines; the work of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no food. The sheep have failed from food, and there are no oxen left in the stalls.” He saw that that nation which was to kill Christ would lose the abundance of spiritual riches, which in the prophetic manner he represented by earthly fruitfulness. And because that nation suffered such wrath of God for this reason, that, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, it wished to establish its own, he goes on at once: “But I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in God my Saviour. The Lord God is my strength; he has set my feet for completion; he will set me upon the heights, that I may conquer in his song,” namely in that song of which something similar is said in the psalm: “He set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps, and put a new song in my mouth, a hymn to our God.” He, then, conquers in the song of the Lord who takes pleasure in the Lord's praise, not his own, so that “he who glories may glory in the Lord.” But some manuscripts seem to me to have it better, “I will rejoice in God my Jesus,” than those which, wishing to put it in Latin, did not set down the very name which it is more loving and sweeter for us to name.

Chapter 33. What Jeremiah and Zephaniah foretold by the prophetic spirit about Christ and the calling of the nations.

The prophet Jeremiah is one of the major prophets, like Isaiah, not of the minor, like the others from whose writings I have already set down some things. He prophesied when Josiah was reigning in Jerusalem and Ancus Marcius among the Romans, when the captivity of the Jews was already drawing near. And he extended his prophecy to the fifth month of the captivity, as we find in his writings. Zephaniah, one of the minor prophets, is joined with him. For he too says that he prophesied in the days of Josiah, but does not say until when. Jeremiah, then, prophesied not only in the times of Ancus Marcius but also in those of Tarquinius Priscus, whom the Romans had as their fifth king. For he had already begun to reign when that captivity took place.

Jeremiah, then, prophesying of Christ, says: “The breath of our mouth, Christ the Lord, was taken in our sins,” thus briefly showing both that Christ is our Lord and that he suffered for us. Again in another place he says: “This is my God, and no other shall be reckoned beside him; who found out every way of understanding and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved; after this he was seen on earth and lived among men.” Some attribute this testimony not to Jeremiah but to his scribe, who was called Baruch; but it is more commonly held to be Jeremiah's. Again the same prophet says of him: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and shall be wise and shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell confidently; and this is the name that they shall call him: the Lord our righteous one.” Of the calling of the nations too, which was to come and which we now see fulfilled, he spoke thus: “O Lord my God and my refuge in the day of evils, to you the nations shall come from the end of the earth and shall say: Truly our fathers worshipped lying images, and there is no profit in them.” And because the Jews, by whom he must also be killed, were not to recognize him, the same prophet indicates it thus: “The heart is heavy through all things, and he is a man, and who recognizes him?” His too is that passage which I set down in the seventeenth book about the new testament, whose mediator is Christ. For Jeremiah himself says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will accomplish upon the house of Jacob a new testament,” and the rest that is read there.

Of the prophet Zephaniah, who prophesied together with Jeremiah, I shall meanwhile set down these things foretold of Christ: “Wait for me, says the Lord, in the day of my resurrection in the future; for my judgment is to gather the nations and assemble the kingdoms.” And again: “The Lord,” he says, “shall be terrible against them, and he shall destroy all the gods of the earth, and each man shall worship him from his own place, all the islands of the nations.” And a little after: “Then,” he says, “I will turn to the peoples a tongue and its generations, so that all may call on the name of the Lord and serve him under one yoke; from the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia they shall bring me sacrifices. In that day you shall be put to shame for all your devices which you have wickedly practised against me; for then I will take away from you the perversities of your wrongdoing; and you shall no longer be exalted upon my holy mountain; and I will leave in you a meek and humble people; and those who are left of Israel shall fear the name of the Lord.” These are the remnant of which it is prophesied elsewhere, as the apostle also recalls: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.” For this remnant of that nation believed in Christ.

Chapter 34. On the prophecy of Daniel and Ezekiel, which agrees concerning Christ and the church.

In the Babylonian captivity itself Daniel and Ezekiel prophesied first, that is, two others of the major prophets. Of these, Daniel even defined by a number of years the time when Christ would come and suffer; which it would be long to show by calculation, and it has been done by others before us. But of his power and the church he spoke thus: “I saw,” he says, “in the vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming; and he came to the Ancient of Days and was brought before him; and to him was given dominion and honour and a kingdom, and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him. His power is an everlasting power, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.” Ezekiel too, in the prophetic manner signifying Christ by David, because he took flesh from the seed of David (and because of this form of a servant, in which he was made man, the same Son of God is also called the servant of God), thus foretells him in prophecy, speaking in the person of God the Father: “And I will raise up,” he says, “over my flock one shepherd to feed them, 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 prince in their midst; I the Lord have spoken.” And in another place: “And one king,” he says, “shall rule over all; and they shall no longer be two nations, nor be divided any more into two kingdoms; nor shall they be defiled any more with their idols and abominations and all their iniquities. And I will save them out of all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and I 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 of them all.”