Dispute between Simon the Jew and Theophilus the Christian

Evagrius to his lord and brother Valerius, greeting. I shall relate to you a most welcome debate that took place lately before our eyes, which you too, when you have learned it, will receive gladly. There was, then, a debate about the law between a certain Simon, a Jew, and Theophilus, a Christian.

The Jew, then, spoke thus: “Worshipper of the cross, standard-bearer, you profess yourself a teacher of the Christian law. You have me too as a patient hearer, provided that you prove the truth in answer to my questions not by the seductions of speech or by the arguments of words, but by the presence of the law. Either, if you refute me today, make me a Christian; or, when I have overcome you, I will make you a Jew of the Nazarene kind.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Let not the hunchback boast as if he were upright.”

Simon the Jew said: “Whom do you worship?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “God.”

Simon the Jew said: “I am contending with you about the crucified Christ, whom you call Lord.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Certainly we say it, and boldly we prove that he is Lord and God.”

Simon the Jew said: “The voice of the sacred and venerable book of Deuteronomy rings out, saying: See that I am, and there is no other god besides me. Isaiah says: I am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no god.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “It is the most sacred voice of Christ. If you wish to know it, you must first believe; then at last you will be able to understand. For Isaiah rebukes you, saying: Unless you believe, you will not understand. Without doubt, then, we know and are sure of and worship God almighty, invisible, immeasurable, incomprehensible; and next we confess Christ as God and Son of God. But when he says, I am the first and I am the last, it signifies the two comings of Christ.”

Simon the Jew said: “What of what he says: Besides me there is no god?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Christ, God, Son of God, said it of himself, because he foresaw that the Antichrist would come and call himself god. Of him the prophet Zechariah says: Behold, I am raising up a shepherd in the land, and what fails he will not mark, and what is scattered he will not seek, and what is crushed he will not save, and what is whole he will not bring to completion, and he will eat the flesh of the chosen and turn over their ankles; and their sword is upon his arm and upon his right eye. His arm will wither utterly, and his right eye will be utterly blinded. Therefore Christ says: I am the first and the last, and besides me there is no god.”

Simon the Jew said: “So you make two gods?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “God is one, from whom is Christ, and in whom is God; just as three appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, and running to meet them he greeted one, saying: Lord, if I have found favour before you, I will take water, and let your feet be washed, and refresh yourselves under the tree. That three were seen points to the foreknowledge of the Godhead; that the tree points to the tree of Christ’s cross, which would provide believers with the covering of refreshment. For likewise the prophet says in Psalm 81: God stood in the assembly of gods, and in the midst he judges gods. Surely he speaks of Christ, who taught in your synagogues and did great mighty works. Likewise in Psalm 44 he says: Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of equity is the sceptre of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. What God, or which God, did he name, Jew? Surely God the Father, of Christ his Son; for whom and of whom Jeremiah, the most accepted of the prophets, says: This is our God, and there is no other, nor will any be reckoned besides him, who found every way of prudence and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen on earth and lived among men. Again in Psalm 45 he says: Be still and see that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted on the earth. And in Psalm 67: Sing to the Lord, sing psalms to his name, make a way for him who ascends over the west; the Lord is his name. It would be long to go through more examples; by these few the truth is proved.”

Simon the Jew said: “Those who enjoy a united spirit may well pile up testimonies, agreeing with your work. But I want you to explain to me whether anywhere God by himself established Christ as God. Then at last I will consider believing Christ to be God and the Son of God.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Unbelieving Jew, are you now disputing even about the prophets? Yet take the answer to your question. God speaks to Moses, saying: Behold, I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet. See that this Moses was a type of Christ, the god of the unbelieving nations; how much more is Christ the God of believers! As Moses freed the people from Egypt, from the very harsh slavery of Pharaoh, so Christ also freed his people from slavery to idols and from the power of the devil.”

Simon the Jew said: “If, then, Christ is God and the Son of God, how is it written in Genesis: In the beginning God made heaven and earth? He could surely have said: In the beginning God the Father and God the Son made heaven and earth.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “You are wrong, Jew, and you will never find the truth unless you understand the origin of the truth. For if you are willing to believe, you will be able to find his beginning too, who is Christ, the Son of God. For so he says: In the beginning God made heaven and earth, that is, by Christ’s judgment and according to his will, and in whose image and likeness he deigned to make man. For he says: Let us make man (in our image and likeness)! And again further on he says: God made man in the image of God; male and female he made them.”

Simon the Jew said: “He could have said this to the angels.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “You are wrong, Jew. For to which of the angels did God say: You are my Son, today I have begotten you? And again in a psalm he says: I will make him prince, exalted above all the kings of the earth. But he commands the angels to worship Christ. And again in the song of Deuteronomy he says: Rejoice, nations, with him, and let all the angels of God worship him.”

Simon the Jew said: “Prove to me that Christ is prince.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “I have already said it. Now take another proof, if even so you can believe. For when Joshua the son of Nun stood across the Jordan, he saw a man standing, and a sword sharp on both sides in his hand. Joshua says to him: Are you ours or our enemies’? And he answered: I am the prince of the host of the majesty of the Lord.”

Simon the Jew said: “I also want you to explain to me in this way how Christ is the Son of God. For all the saints too have been called sons of God. So, just as you have proved to me that he is prince, prove to me now that he is the Son of God born of God. For the Godhead is far removed from human intercourse and is not mingled in embrace.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “You speak like a Jew. For Christ, God, the Son of God, is the firstborn, brought forth by the word, uttered by the mouth, sent forth from an undefiled womb. For as God in the beginning, when he made man from the clay of the earth, breathed his breath into him, and man became a living soul, so too he begot his Word, that is, Christ, from the womb of his heart; as he says in the second book of Kingdoms: And the word of the Lord came to Nathan the prophet, saying: Go and say to my servant David: You shall not build me a house to dwell in; but when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you. He will build a house for my name, and I will set up his throne for ever; and I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me, and his house will obtain faithfulness. Again in Psalm 2 he says: Why have the nations raged, and the peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the peoples gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ: Let us break their bonds and cast their yoke from us. He who dwells in heaven will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them. Then he will speak to them in his anger and trouble them in his fury. But I have been established king by him over Zion his holy mountain, proclaiming the decree of the Lord. The Lord said to me: You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession. You will rule them with a rod of iron and break them like a potter’s vessel. Again in Psalm 44: My heart has uttered a good word; I speak my works to the king. And Isaiah says: I have heard of things completed and cut short, for God will make a word cut short in all the earth. This is the Word that healed our wounds, of which he says in Psalm 106: He sent his word and healed them. Again in another psalm God bears witness through the prophet that the heaven of which we spoke above he made from Christ and in Christ, who is the Word of God: By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the breath of his mouth all their power. This is the Word that ran swiftly through the world and turned the souls of the wandering to the Lord through the new law, of which he says in Psalm 147: He who sends forth his word to the earth; his word runs swiftly. And Isaiah says: Behold, the word of the Lord has become a curse to them, and they did not want it. For if you are willing to hear our John crying out with prophetic mouth: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. And again, the Son in like manner bears witness to the Father and testifies to the beginnings of his birth, saying in Solomon: I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, firstborn before every creature. I made an unfailing light to rise in the heavens. I dwelt in the heights, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud. You see, then, Simon, that when your fathers came out of Egypt, it was Christ who went before them in the pillar of cloud. Again there, in the Proverbs of the same author: The Lord created me at the beginning of his ways, in the beginning, for his works; before he made the earth and before he established the deeps, and before all the hills he begot me. When he was preparing the heavens, I was present with him; and when he set apart his seat, when he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was with him arranging. I was the one in whom he rejoiced; and daily I was glad before his face, when he rejoiced in the completed world.”

Simon the Jew said: “He could have said this of wisdom.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “You are wrong, Jew, and your understanding is covered with the veil of ignorance. Not without reason did the most holy Moses veil his face with the covering of a veil, a veil that has covered your hearts. Come, then, to the Lord and believe Christ to be God and the Son of God, and the covering of ignorance will be taken from your understanding. You think it was said of wisdom; you do not know that Christ himself is the power of God and the wisdom of God. So true is this that your kings, who reigned by succession, could not receive wisdom and power unless they were called by the name of Christ, the anointed. I will give you Daniel as authority for this, who says: Vision and prophet will be sealed, everlasting righteousness will arise, and the holy of holies will be anointed. And you will know and understand, from the going out of the word for answering and building Jerusalem, until Christ the ruler. From the time that Christ came from God, the Christ of Christs and Lord of lords and King of your kings, the anointing of Samaria ceased, and that horn with which your kings were anointed, and all the prophets fell silent, because he of whom they spoke had come; as Isaiah says: I am he who was speaking, and I have come to proclaim good news. Therefore, as we have said, he himself is the Christ of Christs and Lord of lords. I will give you Isaiah as authority, who says: The Lord says to my Christ the Lord, whose right hand I have held, that the nations may hear him: I will break the strength of kings, I will open before him the bronze gates, and the cities will not be shut; and I will open the bronze gates and break the iron bars and give you hidden treasures. Whose right hand, then, did the Father hold but that of Christ his Son, whom all the nations have heard, as he says in the psalm: You are always with me; you have held my right hand? Or what city has been shut to him? And to whom do all the bronze gates lie open, that is, the hearts of each one unlocked by faith in Christ, who by his teaching unlocked the hearts and inmost parts of each? Or will you dare to dispute even about his birth, when the same prophet says: The word of the Lord came to Ahaz, saying: Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height. And Ahaz says: I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord. And he said: Hear now, house of David: is it a small contest for you with men, and therefore will you offer a contest with God? For the Lord will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us.”

Simon the Jew said: “I believe the prophets, and besides I accept Isaiah as the most accepted. But I think he spoke of another virgin. For when Shalmaneser king of the Assyrians had sent his general to Jerusalem to reproach the living God, then Isaiah prophesied against King Shalmaneser, saying: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and mocked you; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head against you. When the angel struck a hundred and eighty thousand in the camp of the Assyrians, then there was God with us.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “You are wrong, Jew, and you do not yet put away unbelief. If, then, you call the daughter of Zion a virgin, what son did she bear? Or who ate butter and honey? Or who was the infant who, before he knew father or mother, took away the spoils of Samaria? Or what son of the seed of David did she have? For Isaiah says: Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and his name will be called Emmanuel. He will eat butter and honey; and before the child knows how to call father or mother, he will receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians.”

Simon the Jew said: “Explain to me, then, how these things stand, so that I can believe: what is meant by honey or butter, or what spoils of Samaria Christ received.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “If you put away unbelief, you will hear the truth; lest perhaps that be fulfilled in you which is written in the psalm: Like a deaf asp that stops its ears, which will not hear the voices of the charmers. Isaiah too cries out boldly against your unbelief, saying: The words of this book will be to you like the words of a sealed book, which, if you give it to a man who knows letters to read, he says: I cannot read, for it is sealed. Or if this book is given to a man who does not know letters, and you say, Read, he says: I have not learned. First, then, Christ, according to the birth of all infants, ate butter and honey; this we believe and so we keep our faith, and that he was circumcised on the eighth day. But butter is understood as the anointing of the Spirit; and honey is the sweetness of his teaching, which we attain and so obtain faith. And he took away the spoils of Samaria in this way: when he was an infant he received gifts from the Magi, gold, frankincense and myrrh; and afterwards, when as a grown man he taught and showed all the truth of God, Samaria and Damascus, leaving their idols, believed well, leaving the Assyrian, that is, the devil.”

Simon the Jew said: “In all things you are indeed opening the mysteries well in answer to my questions. But since you have proved that Christ is God, the Son of God, uttered by the mouth of God, begotten by the Word, and born of a virgin, how then do you assert that he was born of the seed of David in the city of Bethlehem?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “I will give you Isaiah as authority, who says: A rod will come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise up from his root, and the Spirit of God will rest upon him. For the rod was the virgin Mary, who came from the seed of David, from whom Christ, the flower of the patriarchs, is born according to the flesh. For God, who in Numbers made a sign so that an ass should speak, willed to make a much greater sign, that Christ should be born of a virgin. Or what contest would there be between me and you, unless a virgin gave birth?”

Simon the Jew said: “I believe that a virgin, as you say, conceives by the Spirit. The question is whether a virgin could give birth.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Unbeliever, God could split a rock and bring out water to satisfaction; how much more could God command that a virgin bring forth offspring! And I bring you still another testimony, if only you believe: Baruch the son of Neriah, who prophesied in Babylon.”

Simon the Jew said: “Do you think me so faithless that I do not accept Baruch, the disciple of Jeremiah, who, sent so often by Jeremiah, addressed the people, and whom Jeremiah ordered to write down his prophecy? And because Jeremiah knew that he would prophesy, he led the people after Jeremiah in the captivity and prophesied; but he made no mention of Christ.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “How then did he prophesy near the end of his book about his birth and the fashion of his garment and his passion and his resurrection, saying: This is my anointed, my chosen, sent forth from an undefiled womb; he is said to be born and to suffer? For his tunic woven from the top, and all these things, Simon, if you believe so, you will recognize as fulfilled when you come to the fullness of our Gospels. And that he was born in Bethlehem, hear the prophet of God Micah, saying: And you, Bethlehem of Judah, house of Ephrathah, you will not be small, so as to be set among the thousands of Judah. For from you will come forth for me one who is to be prince in Israel, and his possession is from the beginning and from the days of the age.”

Simon the Jew said: “We read many things, but we do not understand them so. So I want to learn, point by point, the proven testimonies of truth on what I ask you. Moreover, since God commanded circumcision to be observed, which he first handed down to the patriarch Abraham, and which you professed above that Christ had, how then do you persuade me to believe, when you forbid circumcision?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “We forbid circumcising the flesh, but we gladly have the circumcised believe. For Abraham, we believe, before he was circumcised, became the friend of God through faith and obtained righteousness through faith, not through circumcision. For so he says: Because I have made you father of many nations before the Lord, in whom you believed. Therefore he says: Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. This he heard before he was circumcised, and afterwards he received circumcision, showing that two peoples would come to the faith of Christ, one from the circumcision and one from the uncircumcision. For if Christ had not been circumcised, how would you today believe me, or the prophets, that he would come from the seed of David? For circumcision is a sign of race, not of salvation.”

Simon the Jew said: “Then how was it that, when Moses’ son was uncircumcised, the angel was choking him, until Zipporah his mother, taking a pebble, circumcised the boy, and, when the blood was flowing, prayed, saying: Let the blood of the boy’s circumcision stop?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “You speak against yourself, Jew. For I showed you above too how Moses was a type of Christ, and everything he did ran ahead as an image of Christ. For the woman Zipporah, who circumcised the boy, is understood as the synagogue. And when she says, Let the blood of the boy’s circumcision stop, this means that at Christ’s coming the circumcision of boys stopped. So too God said to Moses: Build me an altar of uncut stones, and you shall not put iron on them; that is, Christ at his coming would build the church out of an uncircumcised people.”

Simon the Jew said: “Prove to me that Christ circumcised no one.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Believe, and you will prove it to yourself, when you begin to unroll the fullness of the Gospels. There you will find Matthew the apostle of the tax collectors, and Zacchaeus the chief of the tax collectors, and you will find many uncircumcised who believed together with the Jews. For just as sacrifices and victims of bulls and goats and rams and lambs were offered when commanded, and when forbidden were taken away; and the younger people, that is, ours, was preferred to the elder people, and the new testament set above the old; so also God commanded circumcision to be kept now not of the flesh but of the heart. For God says to Rebecca in Genesis: Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be divided from your belly; and people will overcome people, and the elder will serve the younger. And in Deuteronomy he says: You, nations, will be the head, but the unbelieving people the tail. And Jacob, blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, crossing his hands and laying the right on the younger, showed the change of creation. And of the new testament Isaiah says thus: Behold, I make new things, which now spring up, and I will put rivers in the desert; that is, the Gospels in the church. And Jeremiah says: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will complete for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new testament, not such a testament as I made with your fathers on the day when I led them out of the land of Egypt. Hear now about circumcision! The lawgiver Moses says: In the last days God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, to love the Lord your God. And Jeremiah says: Men of Judah and you who dwell in Jerusalem, renew newness among you and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to your God and circumcise the foreskin of your heart, lest my anger go forth and burn, and there be none to quench it. God said to Joshua the son of Nun: Make yourself knives of stone, very sharp, and sit down a second time and circumcise the sons of Israel. Was there no iron then? But God was speaking to our Jesus Christ, that through his apostle he would circumcise hearts spiritually. So too our apostle was called Simon, and afterwards received the name Peter.”

Simon the Jew said: “You have shown me a clear proof from the Scriptures. But what can circumcision of the heart be? Or what foreskin must be circumcised from the heart?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Every craving of lust is conceived from the heart. So the circumcision of the new testament is of this kind, which God Christ, the Son of God, has shown: that we circumcise from ourselves lust, avarice, malice, greed, thefts, frauds, sexual immorality, and that whatever you do not wish to be done to you, you do not do to another. This is the circumcision of Christians, which the first of the saints also had, namely Enoch, Noah, Job, Melchizedek, who had not circumcision of the flesh but of the heart. God could, if he had wished, have formed Adam circumcised.”

Simon the Jew said: “I burn vehemently in thought whether Christ could have endured so accursed and shameful a passion, if indeed what you say is true, that he was fixed to the gibbet of the cross by our fathers. We know for certain that Haman, accursed, was crucified by our fathers for his deserts, because he had sought the destruction of our race; at whose death, when the year comes round, we rejoice and celebrate solemnities of vows, as we received it handed down from our fathers. And we read that Absalom, who was a parricide toward his father for murder, hung on a tree. But if Christ endured the gibbet of this death and hung on a cross, why did we not receive this very thing from our fathers … nor do we find him suffering in our Scriptures, so that, if he was an enemy of our nation, we might rejoice? You will be able to blush, Theophilus, if you do not prove this saying. For it is written in Deuteronomy: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “First take the reason for this saying; recall the earlier reading of Deuteronomy. Of whom was it said? For Moses says thus: If anyone sins in a judgment of death, he will be punished, and you will hang him on a tree, and everyone who hangs on a tree will be cursed. But he said this of a sinner who has committed a mortal sin. But Christ had no sin, as all the prophets testify; yet he had to suffer, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. For Isaiah says: Because he did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth; but the Lord handed him over for our sins. For we have shown that the prophet said elsewhere too: Behold, the word of the Lord has become a curse to them, and they did not want it. And again he says: He was reckoned among the accursed. Hear Jeremiah too in the Lamentation of Jerusalem, saying: Christ the Lord was taken for their destruction, under whose shadow we live among the nations. We know that the most holy David rested in peace full of years and endured no passion of death or of cross. Hear, then, Christ speaking in Psalm 21: They dug my hands and my feet; they numbered all my bones. They themselves considered and looked at me; they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, Lord, do not put your help far off; look to my defence; deliver my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog; save me from the mouth of the lion, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns. I will tell your name to my brothers; in the midst of the church I will praise you. Again in Isaiah: I have stretched out my hands to a people not believing but even contradicting me, who walked in ways not good but after their sins. Again in Jeremiah: Come, let us put wood into his bread and root out his life from the earth. Again in Deuteronomy: And your life will be hanging before your eyes, and you will fear day and night, and you will not believe in your life. Again in Psalm 118: Pierce my flesh with nails from fear of you. Again in Psalm 140: Let my prayer be directed like incense in your sight, and the lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice. Again in Zechariah: And they will look on me, whom they have pierced. Again in Psalm 87: And I cried to you, Lord; all day I stretched out my hands to you. Again in Numbers: Now God is hanged like a man, and like a son of man he suffers threats. And in the Song of Songs he says in the person of the church: My brother is white and ruddy, and pierced with a lance by the soldiers. What did the whiteness show but the faith of the people? The ruddiness signifies the passion. For he came in his first coming for this, to display all humility and disfigurement, even to the death of the cross. Hear, then, in Psalm 21: But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and the outcast of the people; all who saw me mocked me, they spoke with their lips and shook the head. Again there: My strength has dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue has stuck to my jaws, and you have brought me down into the dust of death. Again in Psalm 68: It will please the Lord more than a young calf putting forth horns and hoofs. What do you say, Jew? Was David horned? Come now, understand that cluster in Numbers, which two men carried back on a pole from the land of promise: it was surely a figure of Christ hanging on the tree, coming from the land of promise, that is, from Mary, who was of earthly race. And those carrying the pole showed a figure of the two peoples: one in front, namely yours, turning its back to Christ; the other behind, looking at the cluster; namely our people is meant.”

Simon the Jew said: “What will you say about the pomegranates, which were brought to Moses with the same cluster? …”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Most rightly the pomegranate followed the cluster. It was a figure of the church, having within it a people enrolled by the red of Christ’s blood.”

Simon the Jew said: “What will you say about the fig trees, or by what arguments will you prove in your treatises that the fig is not sin, when the first-formed Adam, in his transgression, sewed fig leaves to cover his shame, which was the itch and bitterness of sin?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “You understand these things on the surface of the skin, Jew. For the fig tree and the covering of leaves are understood as a figure of the old man. But if you are willing to consider the spiritual, that is, the inner man, you will find that the fruit of the fig trees brought to Moses from the land of promise is the spiritual life; as King Hezekiah of Judah, after the increase of his life, received a lump of figs as the most powerful medicine for the health of his flesh. For it would have been enough for God to say: I have added fifteen years to the time of your life. He adds, saying: Take a lump of figs, and crush it, and make a poultice, and you will be healed; namely, so that, the onset of lust broken, you may recover health.

“Let us return now to the humility of Christ’s first coming, of which we were speaking. Hear the prophet Isaiah: Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We have announced concerning him: like a little child; there is no form in him nor honour. And we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty: a man set in affliction and knowing how to bear infirmity. Because his face was turned away, he was despised and not reckoned. He bore our sins and is in sorrows for us. And he, because he was ill-treated, was led like a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth. In humility his judgment was taken away. But who will tell his generation? For his life is taken from the earth; by the crimes of my people he was led to death. And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death, because he did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. But the Lord handed him over for our sins, and he was reckoned among the wicked. Again there he testifies of the humility of his first coming, saying: I gave my back to the scourges and my cheeks to blows, and I did not turn my face from the filth of spitting; and the Lord was my helper. And Jeremiah says: I was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and I did not know it.

“Of this lamb, in the image of Christ, Moses celebrated the Passover in Egypt at the deliverance of the people. Nor could the people otherwise have been freed from the house of slavery or from the oppression of Pharaoh, unless a lamb were killed and the Passover celebrated and the doorposts of the house marked with its blood, so that, when that destroying angel came, those in the houses, seeing the sign of blood, might be saved. That sacrament, foretold beforehand, was fulfilled at Christ’s coming. For this Christ was killed at his first coming, to free us from the power of the devil and from the worship of idols. And he is called a yearling, because after he was dipped in the Jordan he preached for a year and so suffered; and we are enrolled on the forehead with his blood, so that at the second coming, when the devastation of this world comes, we may be safe. I will give you as authority for this the prophet Ezekiel, who himself signifies the two comings of Christ, saying: Pass through the midst of Jerusalem and mark a sign on the foreheads of the men who grieve and groan over the iniquities that are done in the land. And again he signifies the second coming, the devastation of those not sealed, saying: Go into the city and do not spare old man or young man, and kill women and little ones with the sword, that they may be destroyed; but those on whom you find the sign, do not touch, and begin from my holy ones. This sign Rahab the harlot too, who was a figure of the church, hung in the window, scarlet and cord, so that when Joshua came to overthrow Jericho, at the sight of the scarlet sign Rahab and those in her house might be saved. So too at the coming of Christ, when Christ the Son of God comes to burn this world with fire, the church and those found sealed on the forehead in it will be saved. So Hosea, who was a type of Christ, is commanded to take a wife of fornication, that is, the church, which Christ took from the fornication of idols: The Lord said this: Take to yourself a wife of fornication; that is, he took her from the fornication of idols, since the beginning of fornication is the service of idols.”

Simon the Jew said: “So the church is a harlot?”

Theophilus the Christian said: “For what does ‘harlot’ mean but one subject to all who come? So too the church denies to none who come to her the gain of faith. For, the synagogue having been divorced, Christ took to himself the church. For hear Jeremiah saying: I have sent away your mother and given her a bill of divorce, that I gave to your mother, that I sent her away. And another prophet says: Plead with your mother, for I am not her husband. For this is Christ the righteous Son of God, of whom Solomon too prophesied in the person of the Jews, saying: Let us lie in wait for the righteous one, because he is useless to us and opposed to our works, and reproaches us with sins against the law, and spreads abroad against us the sins of our discipline. He professes to have the knowledge of God and names himself Son of God. He has become for us a reproof of our thoughts. He is grievous to us even to behold, for his life is unlike others’, and his ways are changed. We are esteemed by him as triflers, and he keeps himself from our ways as from uncleanness, and he extols the latter end of the righteous and boasts that he has God for his father and names himself Son of God. Let us see, then, whether his words are true, and let us test what will happen to him, and let us know what his end will be. For if he is truly the Son of God, he will take him up and deliver him from the hands of his adversaries. Let us examine him with insult and torment, that we may know his reverence and prove his patience. Let us condemn him to a most shameful death; for there will be regard for him from his words. These things they thought, and they erred; for their malice blinded them, and they did not know the mysteries of God. And Moses says in Deuteronomy: You shall not kill the innocent and righteous.

“That he rose from the dead the Scriptures testify. We find in Psalm 15: For you will not abandon my soul to hell, nor will you let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will fill me with gladness with your countenance. Again in Psalm 29: Lord, you have brought my soul up from hell. Again in Psalm 3 he says: I lay down and slept and rose up, for the Lord will sustain me. And the prophet Hosea testifies that he rose from the dead on the third day, saying: He will revive us after two days, on the third day. Again the Lord in Exodus, saying to Moses: Go down and charge the people and purify them today and tomorrow, that they may wash their garments and be ready on the third day. For on the third day the Lord appeared on Mount Sinai. And Jonah, when he was sent to preach to the Ninevites, showed a type of Christ, who after three days was to come out of the belly of the sea monster, which was hell. And Isaiah says: Now I will arise, says the Lord, now I will be glorified, now you will see, now you will be ashamed; vain will be the strength of your hope; fire will consume you. And in Psalm 77 he says: And the Lord awoke as one asleep, and like a mighty man drunk with wine. By the wine he speaks of, his passion is shown. For in his passion there was darkness from the sixth hour to the ninth; night shut in the day, as the prophet Amos says: The sun will set at noon, and the day of light will be darkened, and I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. And Jeremiah says: She who bears is terrified; weariness has seized her soul; her sun has set while it is still day; she is confounded and cursed; the rest of them I will give to the sword in the sight of their enemies.

“And that after the resurrection he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, all the Scriptures testify, saying in Psalm 67: Make a way for him who ascends over the west; the Lord is his name. They will be troubled at his face, the father of orphans and judge of widows. Again in Psalm 46: God has gone up with shouting, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. Again in Psalm 18: His going out is from the highest heaven, and his meeting even to the height of heaven, and there is none who can hide from his heat. The law of the Lord is spotless, converting souls. Again in Psalm 17: He bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet; and he ascended upon the Cherubim and flew, he flew upon the wings of the winds, and made darkness his hiding place; at the brightness before him the clouds passed, hail and coals of fire; and the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave his voice; he sent from on high and took me and delivered me and rescued me from my most powerful enemies and from those who hated me. And Isaiah says: Who is this who comes from Edom, the Lord, with the redness of his garments from Bozrah, so glorious in his robe and mighty? And in the person of Christ it is answered: I dispute judgment and announce the truth. Again in Psalm 23, as Christ ascends into heaven, it was said to the angels who keep the gates: Lift up your gates, princes, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the King of glory will come in. But they, who knew that Christ had been inserted by the word into a virgin, wondering that he ascended to heaven in such a guise and bringing back a victorious trophy, ask, saying: Who is this King of glory? To whom the answer is given: The Lord of powers, he is the King of glory. Again in Psalm 109: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. The Lord sends forth the rod of your power from Zion, and rule in the midst of your enemies. With you is the beginning in the day of your power, in the splendour of the saints. From the womb before the morning star I begot you. The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek; the Lord is at your right hand.

“Hear now also the glory of the kingdom of his second coming in Daniel: I saw in a vision at night, and behold, in the clouds of heaven one like a son of man coming, and he came to the Ancient of Days, and royal power was given him; all the kings of the earth by their race and all glory will serve him; and his faith is eternal, which is not moved, and his kingdom will not be corrupted. Again in Psalm 92: The Lord has reigned, he has put on beauty; the Lord has put on strength and girded himself with power. For he has established the world, which will not be moved. Your throne is prepared, O God; from that age you are. And in Psalm 49: The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting; from Zion is the beauty of his comeliness. God will come openly, our God, and will not keep silence. Fire will burn before him, and round about him a mighty tempest. He called the heaven above and the earth, to judge his people. Gather to him his holy ones, those who set his covenant in sacrifices. And the heavens will declare his righteousness, for God is judge. Again in Psalm 44 he says: Gird your sword upon your thigh, most mighty one, in your comeliness and your beauty; and set forth, proceed prosperously and reign, because of truth and gentleness and righteousness. Again in Psalm 95 he says: Say among the nations: The Lord has reigned from the tree. Again in Isaiah: A child is born to us, whose government is upon his shoulders, and his name will be called Angel of great counsel. And if you wish to know the fullness of the Gospels, you will find in our John that Christ, going to his passion, carried the cross on his shoulders; of which Isaiah says: whose government is upon his shoulders. Again in Psalm 71: O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king’s son, to judge your people in righteousness and your poor in judgment. Let the mountains receive peace for your people, and the hills righteousness. He will judge the needy of the people and save the children of the poor and humble the slanderer; and he will endure with the sun and before the moon, for generations of generations. In his days righteousness will arise and abundance of peace, until the moon is lifted up. And he will rule from sea to sea and from the rivers to the ends of the world. Before him the Ethiopians will fall down, and his enemies will lick the earth; and they will worship him always; all day they will bless him. And there will be a support on the earth on the tops of the mountains; his fruit will be exalted above Lebanon, and they will flourish from the city like the grass of the earth. Let his name be blessed for ever and ever; his name endures before the sun, and his throne before the moon; and all the tribes of the earth will be blessed in him; all nations will magnify him.”

Simon the Jew said: “You have shown me from my Scriptures, with clear proof, that all things were prefigured in Christ. And I would have wished to believe, if the consideration of this psalm did not call me back. For this psalm was spoken of Solomon; so its title refutes you, since it says: A psalm for Solomon.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “That envious one who deceived the first-formed man and has now deceived your people, through whose envy death came into the world, he it is who has taken hold of the understanding of your heart too, so that, poor wanderer, you do not understand a thing plain and set in the light. For Solomon reigned within fixed bounds of Judea for forty years, from Dan to Beersheba, and afterwards he sinned, as it says in the third book of Kingdoms: And Solomon did evil and did not walk in the way of his father David, and built an idol of Moab, Chemosh, and of Trivia, the abomination of the Sidonians; and the Lord raised up an adversary to Solomon himself, Hadad the Edomite. But the kingdom of Christ has been extended beyond unknown wildernesses. Of whom, then, does God say through the prophet: And he will endure with the sun and before the moon, for generations of generations, and will rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the world? Does he say this of Solomon, whose kingdom and years I have shown you above? But Christ reigns always and everywhere.”

Simon the Jew said: “The enemy of my fathers, the devil, who blinded the eyes of my heart, is withdrawing from my mind, as I see. For I have begun to wish to recognize the light of truth.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Believe, then, so that, enlightened on each point, you may go out from your bonds; as Isaiah says of Christ: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me and sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal the broken in heart, to lead out of chains those who are bound, and from the prison house those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to give light to the blind. For what is meant by the prison house and men oppressed in chains but the people of this world held by the blindness of ignorance and chained by the sins of the devil? As he says in Genesis: And darkness was upon the deep, and God said: Let there be light! For what is meant by the deep but the hearts of men blinded by the darkness of ignorance? But when Christ comes, who is the light, the darkness of ignorance withdraws.”

Simon the Jew said: “You have revealed to me many hidden and unheard-of things. But there is still in my soul a scruple of distrust, because you observe all things devoutly, yet neglect the Sabbath, which God commanded to be kept and observed; and besides you take food and wine in the manner of the Gentiles, although God specifically commanded which of the animals and fish should be eaten and which abhorred, and that their carcasses should not be touched. Unless this too is proved to me from the Scriptures, I am in danger in believing.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “I told you above too that the devil envies you, because you are a son of your fathers, who, supported by so many benefits and freed from Egypt (the sea stood round its waves in place of walls), provided with lavish feasts in the desert and filled with the heavenly food of manna, in forgetfulness dared to demand profane gods to worship. Rightly God rebukes and reproaches your race through Jeremiah, saying: If the Ethiopian changes his colour and the leopard his spots, so may you too be changed from evil teaching.

“The Sabbath, namely the figurative rest of the seventh day, was handed down, first, because Joshua the son of Nun, to overthrow Jericho, went round its walls in turn for seven days, carrying weapons of war and bearing the ark of the covenant; and on the seventh day they went round seven times. It is plain truth that either they began on a Sabbath, or they overthrew Jericho on a Sabbath when the walls fell. Add this too: that in the Maccabees they won the greatest victory over their enemies on a Sabbath and took vengeance on their adversaries with their swords on a Sabbath. Add this too, that God rejects the human Sabbath, Isaiah saying: Your fasting and your feast days and your Sabbaths my soul hates. You have become a surfeit to me; I will no longer forgive your sins. But God desires that Sabbath: that you must rest from evil works, so that in the seven-thousandth year, which is understood as the Sabbath of Sabbaths, you may be found clean of evil works. This will be the tender Sabbath, holy to God, in which God delights.

“As for the foods which you doubt you ought to eat: you are forbidden to admit not pork, but swinish deeds. Likewise, wallowing in water mixed with mud, you join your sister to yourself in marriage, you join blood with blood, you search the earth with plunder, you make your feasts public, you pray in the streets. See how you sin! And you do not understand that it is written of you in Psalm 16: They were filled with pork, and left the remains to their little ones; that is, you propagate your sin to your posterity. Of fish you eat those with scaly skin; but the others, which you pretend to avoid, drawn out with nets and mixed in the multitude of fish, wholly drained through fish sauce, you eat with relish. As for the wine of the Christians, show me from Scripture where you received that it is forbidden, and you will be able rightly to defeat me. But I will show you where Jewish wine is forbidden and we are forbidden to eat your foods. Hear the prophet Isaiah saying: Your hands are full of blood; wash yourselves, be clean! Again in Psalm 13 he says: Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. See what feet! And with what hands you make wine and unleavened bread! And in Deuteronomy he says: For their wine is of the vine of Sodom, and their shoot of Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, a cluster of bitterness is in them; their wine is the fury of dragons and the incurable fury of asps. Are not these things gathered with me and sealed in my treasuries?

“Refuted by so many and such great testimonies, Simon, even if you cannot believe, you speak against your own salvation. Read Daniel, namely, and you will find Nebuchadnezzar saying: Did we not cast three men into the furnace? Behold, I see four men, and the face of the fourth is the likeness of the Son of God. What do you say, Jew? Nebuchadnezzar, a barbarian, recognized the Son of God, whom you are slow to find. And see that the reproach of the prophet Habakkuk is not fulfilled in you, who says: Look, you despisers, and see and wonder, for I am working a work in your days which you do not believe, if anyone tells it to you.”

Simon the Jew said: “Bearer of salvation, Theophilus, good physician of the sick, I can say no more. Have me catechized and consecrated with the sign of faith in Jesus Christ. For I think that through the laying on of hands I shall receive the washing away of my sins.”

Theophilus the Christian said: “Rather, a blessing! So Isaac blessed Jacob, and he received the blessing through the laying on of a hand, so that the elder came to be from the younger. So too Ephraim and Manasseh were enlarged through the laying on of hands.” Then Theophilus anointed Simon the Jew. And Simon, having obtained faith, began to give thanks, saying: “I thank you, Jesus, whom I have never seen face to face, but now I believe in you. I thank you, Jesus, whom I have never heard, but now I hear. I call on you, Jesus, of whom I had no sense before, but now I desire that my sense be in you, through whom I have come to know Theophilus your disciple. Lord Jesus, if I am worthy of faith, strengthen me also to the knowledge of you. For you show the way to those who wander, and call back the lost, and raise the dead, and strengthen the unbelieving with your faith, and enlighten the eyes of the heart for the blind. You are yourself the holy tabernacle, who were with our fathers in the desert; you are the lampstand of light, you the altar and the bread of the presence, you the altar of sacrifice, you the willing victim; you, Lord, are life and the pearl, the crystal, the yoke, the plough. I pray, Lord, do not remember my ignorance and unbelief. For you are the giver of hidden benefits, who have deigned to give me all things. To you be honour, power, praise, glory, here and for all the immortal ages of ages. Amen.”