Prophetic Extracts 1.15–2.1

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me; you shall listen to him in everything, according to all that you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘We will not again hear the voice of the Lord our God, and we will not see this great fire any more, lest we die.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken rightly in all they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you; and I will put my word in his mouth, and he shall speak to them as I command him. And whatever man does not listen to all that the prophet speaks in my name, I will take vengeance on him.’” And whom could anyone from Israel better point to as a prophet like Moses, that is, a lawgiver, shown forth to the human race, than our Saviour and Lord Jesus alone, who has appeared to all the nations as lawgiver of the new covenant, of the life according to the Gospel, according to the prophetic prayer in the psalm that says, “Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them; let the nations know that they are men”? He also redeemed from the spiritual Egypt, from its brickmaking and from the bitter slavery under the spiritual Pharaoh, those who through him have come to the God of the universe; and in short, everything that is related to have been done bodily by Moses, our Saviour and Lord accomplished according to the spiritual law. So he has come, the prophet who is still renowned even now among both Samaritans and Jews, whom Moses foretold, concerning whom God testified beforehand, saying, “And whatever man does not listen to all that the prophet speaks in my name, I will take vengeance on him.” Vengeance has indeed been taken for the blood of all, from Abel to Zechariah who was murdered between the temple and the altar, on the generation that rose up against the Saviour, and especially on those who dared to utter against him the cry, “Crucify, crucify him! Away with such a one from the earth! His blood be on us and on our children!” This happened at once, God, as he had foretold, avenging the blood of Christ both on those very people and on their children; and justice pursued them at the same time, so that from then until now the whole nation has not been able to raise its head at all, and another prophecy was fulfilled, that of Amos, which says, “The house of Israel has fallen; it will not again rise up.” The apostle, foreseeing this by the Spirit, cried out, saying, “Wrath has come upon them to the end.”

“Rejoice, heavens, together with him, and let all the angels of God worship him; rejoice, nations, with his people, and let all the sons of God be strong for him.” To whom else would the divine Spirit command his angels to bow down but to Christ, at whose coming the nations clearly rejoiced with his people, the chorus of the righteous patriarchs and prophets? Of these nations God speaks again in the same song, addressing himself as to another people: “They provoked me to jealousy with what is no god; they angered me with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with what is no nation; with a nation without understanding I will anger them.” And it is evident that after their casting off God chose the foolish things of the world to put to shame those who were wise among them; and he chose the weak things of the world, and the base, and the despised, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that formerly were among them. For since the times of Moses himself they had worshipped idols and angered God and provoked him to jealousy, and when his Christ came they did not receive him; but the nations, having come to know through him the Father and God of the universe, will rejoice, according to the prophecy in hand, with his people of the saints. And all the sons of God were strong for the Christ: both those who earlier prophesied the things about him, and all who after his coming received the Spirit of adoption and preached him to the whole inhabited world. So much from the Pentateuch; let us go on to the Scriptures that follow.

“And it came to pass, when Joshua was at Jericho, that he looked up and saw a man standing before him, with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went up and said, ‘Are you ours, or of our adversaries?’ And he said to him, ‘I am the chief captain of the host of the Lord; I have now come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the ground and said to him, ‘Master, what do you command your servant?’ And the chief captain of the Lord says to Joshua, ‘Loose the sandal from your feet; for the place where you stand is a holy place.’” And who else could the chief captain of the host of the Lord be than the Christ of God, the ruler of the whole holy and spiritual army of God? See whether he is not shown, by the words to Joshua, to be the same one who gave oracles to Moses on the mountain through the angel; for what is now said to Joshua was said likewise to Moses by the Lord through the angel when he was beginning his vision, according to “Loose the sandal from your feet,” and what follows. The Christ of God, who has many names, is now called chief captain of the host of the Lord; as in Isaiah he is called Angel of Great Counsel, in the passage “And they will wish that they had been burned with fire. For a child has been born to us, a son has also been given to us, whose rule is upon his shoulder, and his name is called Angel of Great Counsel.” You would also find him named in Malachi Angel of the covenant, where it is said, “And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, and the Angel of the covenant whom you desire.”

“The Lord went up into the heavens and thundered; he will judge the ends of the earth, and give strength to our kings, and exalt the horn of his anointed.” The Lord, the Word of God, who came down from the heavens, himself went up again into the heavens; and having gone up he thundered forth by his own divine power the preaching of the Gospel, so that it came to be heard in the whole world. He will judge the ends of the earth and those who live as far as them, since he has received all judgment from the Father. He also gave strength to his own disciples, apostles and prophets, who are our kings, and exalted the horn of his anointed, that is, either of the people, who is so named by sharing in the Christ, or of the human nature he took up, whose horn was the divinity, exalted, according to the holy apostle. In the eighty-eighth psalm, too, God says clearly something like what is said here about the Christ: “And in my name his horn shall be exalted.”

“And a man of God came to Eli and said, ‘Thus says the Lord, the Lord’”; and in what follows: “‘And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do all that is in my heart and in my soul; and I will build him a faithful house, and he shall walk before my anointed all the days. And everyone who is left in your house shall come to bow down to him for an obol of silver and for one loaf, saying, “Put me into one of your priestly offices, that I may eat bread.”’” This is no other than the priest of God Most High after the order of Melchizedek, Jesus Christ our Saviour, whom, according to the apostle, we have as a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. He did all that was in the Father's heart, becoming obedient to him even to death; for which reason the Father raised him up and built him a faithful house, the church, made of rational, living, and faithful stones, truly so. Those who have believed in him come to bow down to him, and he does not turn away the obol of silver: neither, in the bodily sense, the widow who contributes her quadrans for the help of those in need, nor, in the spiritual sense, the soul that rests on faith (alone), or that contributes, according to the measure of its spiritual possessions, what serves for the building up and benefit of the rest. For he chose the foolish things of the world, and the weak and poor, and the despised, and the things that are not, not looking down on them, nor on such souls; but as the Word of God, the lover of humankind, he welcomes these too for their eagerness, and by divine judgment, according to their worth, he places them in the various dwellings of his priestly offices, deeming them worthy of the bread of eternal life that comes from him. The words “And he shall walk before my anointed all the days” are said about the saints in the church, who are themselves also called anointed ones, according to “Do not touch my anointed ones”; for to these the Saviour said in the Gospel, “Behold, I am with you all the days, until the consummation of the age.” Since these passages need more clarification, we shall be content with these remarks, made as briefly as possible.

“And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall be from your belly, and I will prepare his kingdom. He shall build me a house for my name, and I will set up his throne for ever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And if his iniquity comes, I will rebuke him with the rod of men and with the strokes of the sons of men; but my mercy I will not remove from them, as I removed it from those whom I removed from my presence. And his house shall be made sure, and his kingdom for ever before me; and his throne shall be set up for ever.” Things like these are said also in the eighty-eighth psalm. It would be worth the Jews' while to be perplexed over these passages, as to the reason why they will say that God promises to make a firstborn son, whether David or Solomon who reigned after him (of whom, presumably, they will take the prophecy to speak); for in the psalm he says, “He shall call upon me, ‘You are my Father, my God and the helper of my salvation.’ And I will make him firstborn, high among the kings of the earth”; and in the chapter in hand, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.” Yet one would say that David differed in no way from the other prophets, he who needed to make confession because of Uriah's wife, saying, “Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil before you”; or Solomon, whom the bare history of Scripture teaches turned away from God and was moved toward idols through desire for women. And how did the kingdom of David or of Solomon stand for ever before God, and his throne set up for ever, according to the prophecy here, and according to the one in the psalm, which runs somewhat like this: “I swore to David my servant: I will prepare your offspring for ever, and build your throne to generation and generation”; and which says after other things, “Once I swore by my holiness, that I will not lie to David. His offspring shall remain for ever, and his throne as the sun before me”; and again, “And I will establish his offspring for ever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven”? You would find the like in Jeremiah too, where it is said, “For thus says the Lord: There shall not be cut off from David a man sitting on the throne of the house of Israel; and for the priests and the Levites there shall not be cut off a man from before me, offering whole burnt offerings and sacrificing sacrifice and making incense all the days.” If one examines these things together with the present condition of the Jews and with their histories since the reign of Hezekiah and Jeconiah, under whom the Jews' kingdom descended from David was brought to an end at the time of the captivity to Babylon, after which they were never again ruled or reigned over by those who traced their descent from David, one will find that the words in no way fit either David or Solomon; so that it would necessarily follow (which is not lawful) that God's prediction, made with oaths, is proved false. But if we refer the so-called offspring of David to the Christ who was born from him according to the flesh, it is clear how this offspring, that is, the Christ, will remain for ever, and how his throne and spiritual kingdom are before the Father for ever, set up by him and built up, generation after generation, in the souls of those who believe in him. The throne of this offspring of David, given to us, will remain like the sun of righteousness before the Father and like the days of heaven; which is why it is said to him by the Holy Spirit in another psalm: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a rod of uprightness is the rod of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” Christ also built for the Father a house, the church, of living and spiritual stones, holy and virtuous souls, raising a temple far better and more excellent than the temporary building of Solomon, which no longer exists. The apostle too testifies that the saying “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son” belongs to him, taking it from here in his writing to the Hebrews, where he says, “For to which of the angels did he ever say, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’; and again, ‘I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son’?” The words beginning “And if his iniquity comes, I will rebuke him with the rod of men” are said about the people who believed in Christ, since his church is called the body of Christ, according to the apostle. That the words about visitation are said about those who have believed in him, observe carefully from the plural in “but my mercy I will not remove from them.” Clearly in the psalm too things like these are said about the sons of the one prophesied, in “If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they profane my ordinances and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their lawlessness with a rod and their injustices with scourges; but my mercy I will not scatter from them.” See how the word has named the persecutions that come from time to time “rods of men” and “strokes of the sons of men.” Yet many are the encouragements of God and the consolations in the Scriptures that do not let us lose heart at the persecutions carried out against us from time to time. For just as he foretold that he would visit Christ's people with the rod when they sinned, so he promised beforehand that he would not remove his mercy from them, saying, “But my mercy I will not remove from them, as I removed it from those whom I removed.” One will ask to whom, before the people from the nations, God's mercy belonged, which he removed from them entirely; he promises not to do the like to the people of Christ.

“And David spoke to the Lord the words of this song.” Then, in what follows: “And he bowed the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was under his feet.” And again after this: “Deliver me from the contradictions of the people; you will make me head of nations; a people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me; foreign sons lied to me; foreign sons shall be cast away, and shall stumble out of their enclosures.” These things are said in almost the same words in the seventeenth psalm too, and would be examined more fittingly when we gather the extracts from the Psalms. For now we note only this: “And he bowed the heavens and came down” might be understood of Christ's coming down from the heavens; “You will deliver me from the contradiction of the people” is said in his person about those of the circumcision who did not believe in him, of whom he also says in Isaiah, “All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contradicting people.” And “You will make me head of nations,” and “A people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me,” are prophesied about the church from the nations; while “Foreign sons lied to me” is about the godless heresies that have fabricated falsehoods about the Saviour himself and the God of the universe, who, the word says, will be cast away, stumbling out of their enclosures, that is, falling away from their insidious and hidden false opinions.

“And now, Lord God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you spoke to your servant David my father; that God will truly dwell with humans on the earth, if the heaven of heaven will not suffice for you.” Words like these are also said by Solomon in his prayer to God in the second book of Chronicles. Here too, then, it is clearly prophesied that God will dwell with humans on the earth; and this too has reached its fulfilment in our time at the coming of Christ, in which God the Word became man and lived with the human race.

“And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall be from your belly; and I will prepare your kingdom. He shall build me a house, and I will set up his throne. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son; and my mercy I will not remove from him, as I removed it from those who were before you; and I will make him sure in my house and in his kingdom for ever, and his throne shall be set up for ever.” Having noted these words, which are like those set out earlier from the second book of Kingdoms, we shall be content with what was said on those, since these differ little from them.

“And now, Lord God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you spoke to your servant David, that God will truly dwell with humans on the earth, if the heaven of heaven will not suffice for you.” Having spoken on these words once, when we set out the passage from the third book of Kingdoms, we shall not repeat it now.

“Men, are not women strong? Great is the earth, and high is the heaven, and swift in its course is the sun, for it turns in the circle of the heaven and runs back again to its own place in one day. Is not he great who does these things? And truth is great and stronger than all things. All the earth calls upon truth, and the heaven blesses it, and all works shake and tremble, and with it there is nothing unrighteous. Wine is unrighteous, the king is unrighteous, women are unrighteous, the sons of men are unrighteous, and all their works are unrighteous, all such things; and there is no truth in them, and in their unrighteousness they will perish. But truth endures and is strong for ever, and lives and prevails for ever and ever. With it there is no respect of persons nor partiality, but it does what is righteous, refraining from all that is unrighteous and wicked; and all are well pleased with its works. And in its judgment there is nothing unrighteous; and to it belong the strength and the kingship and the authority and the majesty of all the ages. Blessed be the God of truth!” Since our Saviour and Lord, being the Word of God, is reported to have said, “I am the truth,” we have fittingly set out the passage before us, which shows truth as having a subsistence of its own, distinct from the Father. For it says, “Truth endures and is strong for ever, and lives and prevails; and with it there is no respect of persons,” and what follows; to which it adds, concerning the Father, who is the God both of the Word of God himself and of the truth, “Blessed be the God of truth!”, to which we too shall add the Amen. These, then, are from the Scripture of Ezra. From Esther we have found nothing on the subject in hand. After the extracts from the historical Scriptures, let us go on to the books written in verse, since these precede the rest of the prophecies in time; and of these let us look first at those from the Psalms.

Having set out the testimonies about our Saviour from the historical Scriptures, we shall next add to them, in this second section of the Extracts, those gathered from the books written in verse, since these precede the rest of the prophecies in time. And let us examine first those from the book of Psalms.

“Blessed is the man who did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the pestilent; but his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he will meditate day and night.” And whom could anyone show to have attained so (extraordinary) a virtue as in no way to fall into any sin whatever? This is what seems to me to be signified by “did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly,” and “did not stand in the way of sinners,” and “did not sit in the seat of the pestilent”; by these, I think, is shown that the one pronounced blessed had no taste of sin at all. For not only not to walk in such things, nor, as it were, to make progress by walking in them, but not even to sit, nor indeed to set foot in them at all at the start, nor to stand in them: how is this not something wonderful and rare? The praises of the man indicated come home to the mind still more because they are spoken in the continuous tense: he did not walk, it says, nor stand, nor sit, in such forms of vice; and through these the constant and unbroken virtuous condition of the one pronounced blessed is shown. One might see many who have achieved right conduct through attention and discipline, yet none such as the psalm describes. If one considers how great a thing it is to prosper in everything and to be led well according to God, stumbling in nothing and never falling from the goal of virtue, so that in this sense the psalm can say, “And all that he does shall prosper”; and further, if one considers what it is to have one's own will blended and in agreement with the law of the Lord, and to meditate on it not only all day but also through the night, looking into it with the waking eyes of the understanding, and acting according to it not only in the deeds and words of the day but also in the thoughts and imaginings of sleep, one will know the greatness of having achieved these things, as attested by the divine Spirit. But even though what is said admittedly surpasses all human nature, it would fit one man only, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, born of the offspring of David according to the flesh, to whom alone the divine Spirit in Isaiah has borne witness that “he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.” The reading according to the Hebrew confirms that this interpretation is correct, being carefully worded thus: “Blessed is the man,” with the addition of the article. And it was fitting that David, who was called the Saviour's father according to the flesh and had received the promise that Christ would be born of his offspring, should dedicate the first-fruits of his own prophecy to him. Whoever wishes to discern exactly how what is said in the psalm refers to the Saviour will learn by reading those who have written commentaries on it.