The Harmony of the Gospels 1.45–2.5

What do they say of this God Sabaoth, which means God of powers or of armies, because the powers and armies of angels serve him? What do they say of this God of Israel, so called because he is the God of that people from which came the seed in which all nations would be blessed? Why do they who maintain that all gods should be worshiped not worship him alone? Why do they not believe him who has both exposed and overturned the other false gods? I heard one of them say that he had read in some philosopher or other that, from what the Jews did in their sacred rites, the philosopher had understood what God they worshiped: “the one,” he said, “who is set over those elements of which this visible and bodily world is built.” Yet the holy Scriptures of his prophets show plainly that the people of Israel were commanded to worship the God who made heaven and earth and from whom is all true wisdom. But what need is there to argue this at greater length, when it is enough for my purpose that they hold some opinion or other, with whatever presumption, about the God whom they cannot deny to be God? For if he is set over the elements of which this world consists, why is he not worshiped alone, rather than Neptune, who is set over the sea alone; rather than, finally, Silvanus, who is set over the fields and woods alone; rather than the Sun, who shines with power over the day alone, or also over all the heat of the sky; rather than the Moon, who shines with power over the night alone, or also over moisture; rather than Juno, who is said to hold the air alone? Certainly these rulers of parts, whoever they are, must be under him who holds rule over all the elements and this whole mass. But he forbids them all to be worshiped. Why, then, do these people, against the command of their superior, not only want to worship them, but for their sake refuse to worship him? They still find nothing firm and clear to declare about this God of Israel, nor will they ever find it until they find him to be the only true God, by whom all things were created.

So a certain Lucan, a great declaimer of theirs in verse, himself, I suppose, long seeking, whether by his own thoughts or from the books of his people, who the God of the Jews was, and, because he did not seek piously, not finding him, nevertheless preferred to call him an uncertain God, whom he did not find, rather than no God, of whom he perceived such great proofs. For he says, “and Judea, given over to the rites of an uncertain God.” And at that time this holy and true God of Israel had not yet done, through the name of Christ, such great things among all nations as have followed after Lucan's times up to the present day. But now who is so hard as not to be bent? Who so sluggish as not to catch fire, when what is written is fulfilled, “for there is none who can hide himself from his heat”? When the things foretold so long before in the same psalm from which I quoted that little verse are made manifest in the clearest light? For by the name of the heavens the apostles of Christ are signified, because God presided in them so that they might announce the gospel. Now, then, “the heavens have told the glory of God, and the firmament has announced the works of his hands. Day to day has poured forth the word, and night to night has announced knowledge.” Now “there are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard.” Now “their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” Now “in the sun,” that is, in open manifestation, “he has set his tabernacle,” which is his church; because, to do this, he himself, as follows there, “like a bridegroom came forth from his chamber,” that is, the Word, wedded to human flesh, came forth from the virgin's womb. Now “he has rejoiced like a giant to run his course”; now “his going forth is from the height of heaven, and his return to the height of heaven.” And therefore the verse I quoted a little before follows most fittingly: “And there is none who can hide himself from his heat.” And still these frail people, chattering their little contradictions, choose to be turned to ashes like stubble by this fire rather than to be purged of dross like gold, though the deceitful monuments of the false gods have now been frustrated and the truthful promises of that “uncertain God” have now become certain!

Let the bad praisers of Christ, who do not want to be Christians, stop saying, then, that Christ did not teach that their gods should be forsaken and their images broken. For the God of Israel, of whom it was foretold that he would be called the God of the whole earth, and who is now called the God of the whole earth, foretold through the prophets that this would happen, and fulfilled it through Christ at the fitting time. Certainly, if the God of Israel is now called the God of the whole earth, what he commanded must come about, now that he who commanded it has become known. And that he has become known through Christ and in Christ, so that his church would spread through the world and through it the God of Israel would be called the God of the whole earth, let those who wish read a little earlier in the same prophet; or rather, let me quote it, for it is not so long that it ought to be passed over. For many things are said about the presence, humility, and passion of Christ, and about his body, of which he is the head, that is, his church, when it is called barren, as one who did not bear. For for many years the church, which was to be in all nations in its children, that is, in its saints, did not appear, since Christ had not yet been announced through the evangelists to those to whom he had not been announced through the prophets. And it is said that the deserted woman would have more children than she who has a husband, where by the name of husband is signified the law or the king which the first people, Israel, received; for the nations had not received the law at the time when the prophet spoke, nor had the king of the Christians yet appeared, yet from those nations a far more fertile and numerous multitude of saints has come. So, then, Isaiah speaks, beginning from the humility of Christ and afterward turning to address the church, up to the verse we have quoted, where he says, “And he who delivered you, the God of Israel himself, shall be called God of the whole earth”: “Behold,” he says, “my servant shall understand, and shall be exalted and greatly glorified. As many shall be amazed at you, so shall your appearance be without honor among men, and your glory among men. So shall many nations marvel at him, and kings shall shut their mouths; for those to whom it was not announced concerning 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 honor. And we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty; but his face was despised, and his bearing disfigured beyond all men. A man under the stroke, and one who knows how to bear infirmities, because his face was turned away; he was wronged and not esteemed. He bears our infirmities and is in sorrows for us. And we considered him to be in sorrows, under the stroke and in punishment. But he was wounded for our sins and weakened for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his bruise we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord gave him up for our sins. And because he was ill treated, he did not open his mouth. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the one who shears it he was without voice; so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who will tell his generation? For his life shall be taken away from the earth. Because of the iniquities of my people he was led to death. I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death, because he did no iniquity nor was there deceit in his mouth. The Lord wills to cleanse him from the stroke. If you give your soul for your offenses, you shall see a seed of very long life. And the Lord wills to take away his soul from sorrows, to show him light and to form him with understanding, to justify the righteous 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 delivered to death and he was counted among the wicked; and he bore the sins of many and was delivered up for their iniquities. Rejoice, you barren one who do not bear; exult and cry out, you who are not in labor, for many are the children of the deserted woman, more than of her who has a husband. For the Lord has said: Enlarge the place of your tent and fix your courts; there is no reason to spare. Stretch out your cords farther and set strong stakes. Spread out again and again to the right and to the left. For your seed shall inherit the nations, and you shall inhabit the cities that were deserted. There is no reason to fear, for you shall prevail; nor be ashamed that you were detestable. For you shall forget your shame forever; you shall not remember the disgrace of your widowhood. For I am the Lord who makes you, the Lord is his name; and he who delivered you, the God of Israel himself, shall be called God of the whole earth.”

What can be said against this evidence and clear expression of things both foretold and fulfilled? If they think his disciples lied about the divinity of Christ, will they doubt the passion of Christ? They are not accustomed to believe that he rose again; but they gladly believe that he suffered all those human things at the hands of human beings, because they want him to be believed to be only a man. So he who was led like a sheep to the slaughter, he who was counted among the wicked, he who was wounded for our sins, by whose bruise we are healed, whose face was wronged and not esteemed, struck with palms and smeared with spittle, whose bearing on the cross was disfigured, he who was led to death by the iniquities of the people of Israel, he who had no form or beauty when he was struck with fists, when he was crowned with thorns, when he was mocked as he hung, he who, as a lamb before its shearer has no voice, so did not open his mouth when those insulting him said, “Prophesy to us, Christ”: surely he is now exalted, now he is greatly glorified. Surely now many nations marvel at him. Now kings have shut their mouths, with which they used to promulgate most savage laws against the Christians. Surely those to whom it was not announced concerning him now see, and those who have not heard now understand. For the nations, to whom the prophets did not announce it, themselves see better how true were the things announced through the prophets; and those who did not hear Isaiah himself speaking now understand in his writings him of whom he said these things. For in the Jewish nation itself, who believed the report of the prophets, or to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed (which is Christ himself, who was announced through them), when with their own hands they were committing against Christ those crimes which the prophets they had foretold would come? Surely he now possesses many as his inheritance and divides the spoils of the strong, when he distributes what the devil and the demons used to possess for the building of his churches and for whatever necessary uses, after driving them out and exposing them.

What, then, do the perverse praisers of Christ and detractors of Christians say to these things? Did Christ by magic arts bring it about that these things should be foretold by the prophets so long before, or did his disciples invent them? Did they invent that the church spread through the nations, once barren, should now rejoice in more children than that synagogue which had received the law or the king as a husband? That she should so enlarge the place of her tent, occupying all nations and languages, as to stretch out her cords farther than the jurisdiction of the Roman empire extends, as far as the Persians and Indians and other barbarian nations? That her name should be extended among so many peoples to the right through true Christians and to the left through false Christians? That her seed should inherit the nations? That she should now inhabit the cities that had been deserted by the true worship of God and the true religion? That she should not fear the threats and fury of human beings when she was clothed in the blood of the martyrs as in a purple robe of honor? That she should prevail over so many, so violent, and so powerful persecutors? That she should not blush at having been detestable, when it was a great crime to become or to be a Christian? That she should forget her shame forever, because where sin abounded, grace has abounded all the more? That she should not remember the disgrace of her widowhood, because, after being abandoned for a little while and exposed to reproaches, she flourishes again with such eminent glory? Finally, did the disciples of Christ invent that the Lord who made her and delivered her from the dominion of the devil and the demons, the God of Israel himself, should now be called the God of the whole earth, something the prophets, whose books are now held in the hands of the enemies of Christ, foretold so long before Christ became the Son of Man?

From this, then, let them understand (for it is left neither obscure nor doubtful even to the slowest and dullest), from this, I say, let the perverse praisers of Christ and haters of the Christian religion understand that Christ's disciples too learned and taught against their gods what the teaching of Christ contains. For the God of Israel, who is found in the books of the prophets to have commanded that all these things which these men want to worship are to be abhorred and overturned, is now, as he promised so long before, called the God of the whole earth through Christ and the church of Christ. For if with amazing madness they suspect that Christ worshiped their gods and was able to do such great things through them, did the God of Israel also worship their gods, he who through Christ fulfilled what he promised, both that he would be worshiped throughout all nations and that they would be abhorred and overturned? Where are their gods? Where are the prophecies of the frenzied and the divinations of the pythons? Where are the auguries, auspices, soothsayings, or oracles of demons? Why is nothing brought forward from ancient books of this kind as a warning and prediction against the Christian faith and against the truth of our prophets, now so clearly expressed among all nations? “We have offended our gods,” they say, “and they have deserted us; that is why the Christians have prevailed against us and the happiness of human affairs, worn out and diminished, is slipping away.” Let them read in the books of their seers that this would certainly happen to them through the Christians; but let them read passages where, if not Christ (since they want him to have been a worshiper of their gods), at least the God of Israel, who is clearly the overturner of these gods, was disapproved and detested. But they will never bring this forward, unless perhaps something they have just now invented together. And when they bring it forward, it will certainly be evident by the very fact that so great a thing is brought forward so unknown, though it ought surely to have been recited in the temples of the gods of all nations before what was foretold had happened, so that those who now refuse to be Christians might have been forearmed and forewarned.

Next, as to their complaint of the decline of the happiness of human affairs in Christian times: if they read the books of their own philosophers, who condemned the very things that are now being taken from them in spite of their refusals and murmurs, they will then find great praise of Christian times. For what is lessened of their happiness, except what they were abusing most wickedly and luxuriously, to the great injury of the Creator? Unless perhaps the times are bad because in almost all cities the theaters are falling, those dens of indecency and public professions of disgraceful acts, and the forums and walls too are falling in which demons were worshiped. For why do they fall, except from lack of the resources by whose lewd and sacrilegious use they were built? Did not their Cicero, when he praised a certain actor, Roscius, call him so skilled that he alone was worthy to go on the stage, and so good a man that he alone was worthy not to go near it? What else is he showing most plainly than that the stage is so shameful that a man ought to be there the less, the better a man he is? And yet their gods were appeased by the very disgrace which he judged should be kept away from good men. There is also an open confession of the same Cicero on this point, where he says that he had to appease Flora the mother by the celebration of games. In these games such indecency is customarily displayed that in comparison with them the others are decent, though good men are forbidden to take part even in these. What is this Flora the mother, what kind of goddess is she, whom indecency, more celebrated and let loose with freer reins, wins over and propitiates? How much more decently did Roscius go on the stage than Cicero worshiped such a goddess! If the gods of the nations are offended by the lessening of the resources poured out to celebrate these things, it is clear what sort of beings delight in such things. But if they themselves in anger lessen these things, they are more useful when angry than when appeased. Therefore let them either convict their philosophers, who condemned such things in luxurious men, or break their gods, who demanded such things of their worshipers, if indeed they still find any to break or to hide. But let them stop blasphemously charging to Christian times the loss of prosperity with which they were flowing away into shameful and harmful things, lest they rather remind us of things for which the power of Christ is praised all the more.

I would say much on this point if the needs of the work I have undertaken did not now compel me to close this book and return to its proposed aim. For when I set about solving the gospel questions where to some the four evangelists seem not to agree with one another, after setting out as well as I could the aims of each, the first thing that occurred to me to discuss was the question some people often ask: why we bring forward no writings of Christ himself. For they want it to be believed that he wrote something else, which they love, and that he held nothing against their gods, but rather worshiped them with magic rites; and that his disciples not only lied about him in calling him God, through whom all things were made, when he was nothing but a man, although of most excellent wisdom, but also did not teach about their gods what they had learned from him. Hence it came about that we pressed them rather about the God of Israel, who is worshiped by all nations through the church of the Christians and has now everywhere overturned their sacrilegious vanities, as he foretold through his prophets so long before, and through the name of Christ, in whom he had promised that all nations would be blessed, has fulfilled what he foretold. From this they ought to understand both that Christ could not know or teach anything else about their gods than what the God of Israel commanded and foretold through the prophets, through whom he promised Christ himself and whom he sent, in whose name, according to the promise he made to the fathers, when all nations were being blessed, it came about that the God of Israel himself was called the God of the whole earth; and that his disciples did not stray from their master's teaching when they forbade the worship of the gods of the nations, so that we should neither pray to senseless images, nor have fellowship with demons, nor serve the creature rather than the Creator with religious homage.

Therefore, since Christ himself is the wisdom of God, through whom all things were created, and since no rational minds, whether of angels or of human beings, become wise except by participation in that wisdom, to which we cleave through the Holy Spirit, through whom love is poured out in our hearts (and this Trinity is one God), divine providence took counsel for mortals, whose temporal life was held occupied in things that arise and pass away: that this same wisdom of God, having taken up a man into the unity of his person, in whom he would be born, live, die, and rise in time, saying and doing, suffering and enduring what befitted our salvation, should become below an example of return for human beings, he who above is an example of remaining for the angels. For unless something also arose in time in the nature of the rational soul, that is, began to be what it was not, it would never come from a most wicked and foolish life to a wise and most excellent one. And so, since the truth of those who contemplate enjoys eternal things, while the faith of believers is owed to things that have arisen, a human being is cleansed through faith in temporal things in order to grasp the truth of eternal ones. For even one of their most celebrated philosophers, Plato, says in the book they call the Timaeus: “As eternity is to what has arisen, so truth is to faith.” Those two are above, eternity and truth; these two below, what has arisen and faith. So that we may be called back from the lowest to the highest, and what has arisen may receive eternity, we must come through faith to truth. And because all things that go to opposite extremes are brought back through some middle term, and temporal iniquity was estranging us from eternal justice, there was need of a middle, temporal justice, which as temporal would be of the lowest and as just would be of the highest, and so, neither breaking itself off from the highest nor failing to temper itself to the lowest, would restore the lowest to the highest. Therefore Christ is called the mediator between God and human beings, God and man between the immortal God and mortal man, reconciling man to God, remaining what he was, made what he was not. He who is truth in eternal things is himself our faith in things that have arisen.

This great and inexpressible mystery, this kingdom and priesthood, was revealed to the ancients through prophecy and is preached to their descendants through the gospel. For it was fitting that what had long been promised through one nation should at some time be rendered in all nations. Accordingly, he who sent the prophets ahead before his descent also sent the apostles after his ascension. And through the man whom he took up he is the head of all his disciples, as of the members of his body. So when they wrote what he showed and said, it must by no means be said that he did not write it himself, since his members did what they knew at the dictation of the head. For whatever he wanted us to read of his deeds and sayings he commanded them to write as if they were his own hands. Whoever has understood this fellowship of unity and this service of members agreeing in different offices under one head will receive what he reads in the gospel from the narration of Christ's disciples no otherwise than if he saw the very hand of the Lord, which he bore in his own body, writing it. Therefore let us now rather see what kind of things they are that they think the evangelists wrote in contradiction to one another (which can seem so to those who understand too little), so that when these questions are resolved it may appear from this too that the members of that head, not only by thinking the same thing but also by writing things that agree, have kept a true harmony in the unity of that body.

In a discussion neither short nor unnecessary, which we have contained in one book, we have refuted the vanity of those who think the disciples of Christ who wrote the gospel are to be despised because we bring forward no writings of Christ himself, whom they do not doubt is to be honored, if not as God, yet as a man far surpassing others in wisdom; and who want it to seem that he wrote such things as the perverse love, not such as could correct them from their perversity if read and believed. Now, then, let us see how the things the four evangelists wrote about Christ agree with themselves and with one another, so that those who are more curious than capable may not suffer any stumbling block in the Christian faith on this account. For, having read the gospel books not carelessly but, as they suppose, examining them rather carefully, they think they have detected certain inconsistencies and contradictions, and judge that these should be raised contentiously as objections rather than considered prudently.

The evangelist Matthew begins thus: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” By this opening he shows clearly enough that he has undertaken to narrate the generation of Christ according to the flesh. For according to this Christ is the Son of Man, as he himself also very often calls himself, commending to us what he mercifully deigned to be for us. For that supernal and eternal generation, according to which he is the only-begotten Son of God before every creature, because all things were made through him, is so ineffable that the prophet's words are understood to refer to it: “Who will tell his generation?” Matthew, then, follows out the human generation of Christ, recording his ancestors from Abraham and bringing them down to Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. For it was not right that he should think Joseph was to be separated from his marriage with Mary on the ground that she bore Christ not from intercourse with him but as a virgin. For by this example it is splendidly conveyed to married believers that, even when continence is kept by mutual consent, the marriage can remain and be called a marriage, not by the bodily union of the sexes but by the preserved affection of the mind; especially since a son could be born even to them without any carnal embrace, which is to be used only for the begetting of children. Nor was Joseph for that reason not to be called the father of Christ, because he had not begotten him by intercourse, since he would rightly be the father even of one whom he had adopted from elsewhere, not begotten of his own wife.

Christ was indeed also thought to be the son of Joseph in another way, as though begotten entirely from his flesh; but this was thought by those from whom Mary's virginity was hidden. For Luke says, “And Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph.” Yet this same Luke did not in the least hesitate to call not Mary alone but both of them his parents, where he says, “And the child grew and became strong, full of wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. And his parents went every year to Jerusalem on the solemn day of the Passover.” But lest anyone think that here we should understand by “parents” Mary's blood relatives together with his mother herself, what will he answer to what the same Luke said earlier: “And his father and mother were marveling at the things that were said about him”? Since, then, he himself relates that Christ was born not from intercourse with Joseph but from the Virgin Mary, why does he call Joseph his father, unless because we rightly understand him to be Mary's husband, without the mingling of flesh, by the very bond of marriage, and for that reason also Christ's father, far more closely joined to him, since he was born of his wife, than if he had been adopted from elsewhere? Hence it is clear that when he says, “as was supposed, the son of Joseph,” he said it on account of those who thought he was born of Joseph as other human beings are born.

And so, even if someone could show that Mary drew no origin of blood from David, it would be enough to take Christ as the son of David on the same principle by which Joseph too was rightly called his father; how much more, then, since the apostle Paul plainly says that Christ was of the seed of David according to the flesh, ought we certainly not to doubt that Mary herself also drew some blood relationship from the stock of David! And since the priestly descent of this woman is not passed over either, as Luke indicates when he says that Elizabeth, whom he says was of the daughters of Aaron, was her relative, we must hold most firmly that the flesh of Christ was propagated from both lines, namely of kings and of priests, in whose persons among that Hebrew people the mystical anointing, that is, the chrism, was also figured, from which the name of Christ shines forth, foretold so long before by this most evident sign as well.

As for those who are troubled that Matthew lists one set of ancestors, descending from David to Joseph, and Luke another, ascending from Joseph to David, they can easily notice that Joseph could have had two fathers, one by whom he was begotten and another by whom he was adopted. For the custom of adopting, so as to make sons of those whom they had not begotten themselves, is ancient even among that people of God. For apart from the fact that Pharaoh's daughter had adopted Moses (she, indeed, was a foreigner), Jacob himself adopted his grandsons born of Joseph in the plainest words, saying, “Now therefore your two sons, who were born to you before I came to you, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as Reuben and Simeon. But the children you beget after them shall be yours.” Hence it also came about that there were twelve tribes of Israel apart from the tribe of Levi, which served the temple; for with it there were thirteen, though there had been twelve sons of Jacob. Hence it is understood that Luke took up in his Gospel the father of Joseph, not by whom he had been begotten but by whom he had been adopted, whose ancestors he would record going upward until he reached David. For since, with both evangelists telling the truth, namely Matthew and Luke, it must be that one of them kept to the descent of the father who begot Joseph and the other to that of the father who adopted him, whom do we more probably understand to have kept to the descent of the adopter than the one who would not say that Joseph was begotten by him whose son he related him to be? For it was more fitting to call him the son of the one who had adopted him than to say he was begotten by one from whose flesh he was not born. But Matthew, saying, “Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob,” and persisting in this word “begot” until he said at the last, “And Jacob begot Joseph,” showed clearly enough that he had brought the line of begetters down to that father by whom Joseph had been not adopted but begotten.