Against the Jews

Direct your understanding and intelligence in the Holy Spirit, so that you may not only hear with your ears but also see with your eyes the divine mystery of Christ. And you see it through your faith: for hearing is a matter of necessity, believing a matter of diligence. The office of the ears is to take in empty and useful things alike, without distinction; the office of faith is to believe only what it has approved. Nor does it profit anyone to listen gladly unless belief confirms what is heard. The eyes of faith are the spirit, through which spiritual things are seen. If, then, you are spiritual, understand heavenly things. For like recognizes like: even dumb animals understand one another by the sound of the voice, lions by roaring, bulls by bellowing, and the soldier the blast of the trumpet. How much more truly, then, do the spiritual understand spiritual things, and the heavenly, the heirs of their Father, understand his precepts and what has been secured in their Father's testament? You, then, since you are Christ's heirs, understand his testament. And if anyone is less teachable because of his age, he has the Holy Spirit as interpreter: let him follow him; with him as guide and teacher he will very easily be able to learn the rights and the force of the new testament: that the inheritance has been bestowed on the Gentiles.

In this way the Lord and Father in the beginning made man with his own hand and placed him in paradise, giving a fixed condition of precepts, of life, of law, and of testament. But he despised the Father's precepts and was driven out of paradise into his earthborn state, in which he also died. But the Lord raised up a just race from the seed of Adam, and he preserved that seed for a people above the flood, and its heirs. From that race he found a just man, whom he commanded to build a structure like a machine, of fixed capacity, with joints of set measurements, so that when it was built Noah with his kin might be preserved, and through them the race; for God had decreed that because of the injustice of men the world should perish under flooding waters. Afterward, then, Noah was saved with his family. And God established with him a testimony of his precept, saying: “Everything shall be food for you, like the green plants, except flesh with the blood of life”; and he set the sign of this testimony in the bow. After this the Lord God again bore testimony to Abraham in Isaac, saying thus: “To you I will give this land, and to your seed, and I will make you the father of many nations.” And from then on the seed grew into a multitude of people and was divided into twelve patriarchs. To them too the Lord gave a testimony on Mount Horeb through Moses; and from that place, having driven out the nations, he established the people there, and it received and possessed the inheritance promised to it. God also showed them many signs and miracles, as to a most dear son. But this same people, after receiving so many and such great benefits, opposed the Father and forsook the living God. For Israel forsook the Lord, turning its back to him and not its face: it turned its face to idols. And by killing the prophets sent to it, who preached Christ, Israel grew used from then on to persecuting Christ, not only when he came in the body but also when he was announced by the prophets. For they persecuted all the prophets …; some of them they pursued with stones, others they killed with shameful tortures, not so much them as, through them, the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the proof of this? That they welcomed the deceitful, the treacherous, the lying, and the opponents of Christ, but attacked the true and those full of faith. They cursed Moses, because he preached Christ; they loved Dathan, because he did not preach Christ. They rejected Aaron, because he bore the likeness of Christ; they set up Abiram, because he contradicted Christ. They hated David, because he sang of Christ; they exalted Saul, because he did not speak of Christ. They spurned Samuel, because he spoke of Christ; they kept Ham, for he said nothing of Christ. They stoned Jeremiah, who prophesied Christ; they loved Hananiah, who opposed Christ. They sawed Isaiah in two, who proclaimed Christ; they magnified Manasseh, who persecuted Christ. They killed John, who pointed out Christ; they slaughtered Zechariah, who loved Christ; they loved Judas, who betrayed Christ.

You see how, among an unworthy people, those who love Christ are hated, and those who hate him are loved ardently. O stubbornness of persecution, unworthy, going as far as the destruction of death! For the faithless tenants attacked not only the Lord's witnesses but the Lord himself; they insulted the Father in the Son. What, then, did they deserve to suffer for this deed? To be driven from the kingdom and disinherited. And so it was done, and so it turned out: the deserving got their deserts. For the Father suffered insults in the Son, and the Son endured them in the prophets; at the time when he was dying, in his own time, he was compelled by indignation to write a new testament, calling as witnesses heaven and earth and the angel from the temple, with Moses and Elijah standing by. These were the witnesses he called when he suffered in Israel. That these things would happen so, he foretold through the prophets in these words: “Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have rejected me.”

These words the Lord poured out against Israel, crying aloud and saying: “You were unwilling; others will receive me who have not yet even heard mention of me. You despised my wedding; others will go who were not invited. You refused to cultivate my field and vineyard, from which the fruits of righteousness come; others will cultivate it and gather fruit in God.” What is this so dreadful mind, this accursed thought? Could you then kill the King and Bridegroom? For this reason heaven and earth are witnesses, and the elements in them; and the whole creation besides is a witness to the death of Christ. O new cruelty! All creation was shaken at the Lord's passion; the people stayed unmoved, without trembling. The angel fled in grief, tearing the veil; the people remained without fear, their garments untorn. The elements were overturned and confounded; Israel held firm, unconcerned. O new hardness, O singular audacity, O bloody treachery! Pilate, a judge of a foreign nation, a secular authority of temporal power, purified his hands and washed off the crime forced on him, saying: “I am free and innocent of this man's blood.” But the people did not imitate the stranger and foreigner; on the contrary they shouted: “Take him away, fix him to the cross! His blood be on us and on our children!” Violent cruelty, insatiable, inhuman; dull hearts and closed eyes! They killed their benefactor and shed no tears. The apostles mourned, and the people boasted; the earth trembled, and the people rejoiced; the Lord was being judged, and Israel exulted.

Tell me and speak, impious Israel: did you offer the Father such a victim, by sacrificing his Son? Did you pour out such libations to God, in the blood of his most beloved pledge? You led dances, Jerusalem, while Christ was being killed; you sang with festive voices while you said: “Fix him, hang him up!” For this reason, people of Israel, in famine and sickness, the Lord complains of you: “Your new moons,” he says, “and the sabbath and the great day I do not endure; my soul detests your holidays and your fasting.” Not without cause did the Lord hate your ceremonies, in which you killed his only and firstborn Son. O hard day, tearful hour, mournful festival, ill-omened land, profane city, people bloody with the Lord's murder: for they killed the Lord and released a robber! For this cause, then, the Lord was compelled to make a new testament, sealed by the seven spirits, with Moses and Elijah as witnesses on the mountain, where he commanded that the mystery of the writing should not be disclosed until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. But soon the Lord rose on the third day, opened the new testament, the testament of life, and spoke thus: “Come, foreign nations, my heirs, for Israel has not obeyed. Therefore go, disciples, to the farthest part of the earth, and preach throughout the world in these words: Come from everywhere, homelands of the nations, enter into the eternal inheritance, for Israel refused. Do not hesitate: there is no exception here for free birth or rank or condition or position or appearance or age. Though you be great in dignity, though noble, though old, though young, poor, rich, good and bad, masters and slaves, enter into the inheritance without distinction and equally. Even if one is lame in his feet, deformed in body, even if disfigured with spots and bald of head, even if bereft of his eyes, all are freely permitted to recline at the banquet and to feast at the Bridegroom's wedding.”

Let no one be ashamed of his age, or lowliness, or health, or condition: for the Lord is accustomed to bear with such people. He restored eyes to the blind, made the lame walk, gave back speech to the mute, cleansed the lepers, and raised the dead. Do not be afraid, you who have sinned: come first to life. Let not the one who has committed murder fear because he did it, nor the one who has stolen others' goods despair because he robbed, nor the tax collector fear because he extorted. For forgiveness of sins has been appointed for all, and the Lord longs for people like these: those cast down in lowliness, unsightly in appearance, broken in health, pressed down in slavery. For the happy and glorious, the great and powerful, the rich and strong refused to yield to the Lord and to enter the Bridegroom's wedding; worse, they most shamefully killed the Bridegroom. For this reason the highest of them was made lowest, the strongest weak, the prudent foolish, the noble …, the rich poorest, the heir disinherited: since they themselves disowned the most modest and kindly king, saying: “We do not know who this is, for he is not our king; we have another king, Caesar.” Let them have, then, the one they chose. Then the word of prophecy was fulfilled which foretold to them: “You did not want the water of Siloam that flows in silence, but rather wanted the water of Raassom. Therefore I am bringing upon you the king of the Assyrians, who will level your mountains and enter your lands.” And so it came about: Christ, rejected by the people, sent them the tyrant they wanted, who destroyed their cities, condemned their people to captivity, took spoils, and reduced their homeland to the desolation of Sodom. For the Lord in his indignation took away from Jerusalem the strength of bread and water, the strong man, the giant, the warrior, the judge, the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the praiseworthy counselor, the skilled architect, and the prudent helper. All these helps, fortifications, and bulwarks he transferred to the nations, together with his whole kingdom, planting his sign there: he dwelt among them, pitched his camp at their threshold, set up there an army of power, and reigned there.

The kingdom is no longer in Jerusalem, but among us: here is the camp, here the army, here the leader, here the power, here the Bridegroom, here the wedding, here the King, here Christ, here life, here resurrection, here eternity. This is he who was prefigured from the beginning, honored by the prophets, embodied in the womb, dipped in the Jordan, despised by the people, hung on the tree, and buried in the earth. This is he who tore up his old testament and wrote a new one, by which he called the nations to the possession of his goods. And so we nations carry on our shoulders the cross of our Lord, the cross that the Lord of Israel acknowledged, who spoke to them gently in these words: “Come to me, all you who labor under burdens, and I will refresh you: for my yoke is gentle and my burden very light.” And they answered: “We have not heard.” But the nations heard and believed the saving word, by which their ears were opened, the eyes of the blind enlightened, and the tongues of the tongue-tied loosed; the lame leapt like a frisking deer. And Christ set up his throne with his kingdom among them; but the people was left naked, deserted, bereft of the heavenly and the earthly kingdom alike. For they were cast out of the heavenly one; and all the instruments and the things they possessed, the lampstand of seven lights, the ark of the covenant, the sacred vessels and the trumpets, the homeland from heaven and the holy land flowing with milk and honey: of this inheritance Israel has been deprived. And now you are abandoned in all your land, without food, without the help of light. For you killed your help and defense, persecuted the light, drove away your protector, nailed him when he was hung up, and hung up your king. Therefore you are an exile from your homeland; you wander about the rivers of the nations, saying with suppliant voice and tearful prayer: “Wretched me, I have been driven from my own dwelling; I have become a guest and a stranger in another's possession, without house, without roof. Have mercy on one deserted and impious and shamefully defeated.”

This is the punishment in Israel and the condition in Jerusalem; and unless they turn their minds and say, “The Lord lives for ever,” they will not be able to enter into the Lord's life. For he lives, his inheritances live, and he whom you killed lives, impious Jerusalem. And yet the Lord has not denied you hope altogether: he has granted the pardon of repentance, if in some way you can repent. Who is so good, so kind, so merciful? “Receive salvation,” he says, “though you have killed me; be an heir with the virgin, though you do not deserve it. I forgive, if you repent.” Therefore, if it is right, take up a good mind; late though it be, and slowly, understand the new testament. Come, you nations, open to them their own Scriptures, and say: “Worship the Lord according to his merits. Though you stretch out your hands to him, though you pile up your prayer, he does not hear, for your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, be clean, and come, let us reason together, says the Lord God. He will wash the blood from you and cleanse your hearts whiter than snow and your souls whiter than milk.”

Come here, believe the Scriptures: here is salvation. “From Zion shall the law of God go forth, and the word from Jerusalem; and he shall judge in the midst of the nations and rebuke many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and turn their spears into sickles; nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall cease to make war. And you, house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. For he has let his people go; your region is filled with foreign omens, and the children have become strangers.” For the land is itself yours, and outsiders have become the Lord's race. Come then, enter, and be as one nation. Have mercy on those who wander. It is right to honor God's sentence: how the great have been laid low and the humble raised up, the strong weakened and the weak strengthened, the rich reduced to poverty and the poor [made heirs] of the inheritance, the rulers made servants and the servants reigning, the subjects called to the kingdom, the seeing blinded and the blind enlightened, the wise turned to folly and the foolish to wisdom.

For those who were once senseless and untaught in spirit now teach the Scriptures, and know and understand them; but those who were learned and skilled from the beginning and knew the discipline of the law do not know how to read and do not understand spiritual things. And whoever of those wise men comes wishing to see, understands, and asks a little child, or an old woman, or a widow, or a peasant, saying: “I want to live; be my guide, man in Zion; explain the new testament to me, reconcile me to the Lord. See, I give myself to you as a disciple: interpret for me the law that was given at Horeb, expound the precepts given in Zion and in the law.” Without letters the child expounds the Scriptures to them: the boy teaches the old man, and the old woman persuades the eloquent. So Israel, corrected, follows, led by the hand, to the washing, and there testifies that he has believed; and having received the seal, purified through the Spirit, he asks to receive life through the food of grace, the bread that comes from the blessing. And a wonderful sight takes place: those who were Levites offering, priests sacrificing, and high priests pouring libations now stand beside a boy who offers; those who once taught learn, those who commanded are commanded, those who baptized are dipped, and those who circumcised are circumcised. So the Lord willed the nations to flourish. You see how Christ has loved you.