Book of the Promises and Predictions of God 2.35–3.5

Of the same, when he rescued him from the lions’ den, as Christ the Lord from the Jews. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Daniel. In the ninth, Darius the Mede succeeded to the kingdom; when he had set a hundred and twenty satraps over his kingdom, he appointed three over them. Daniel was one of the three, having favor in the king’s eyes. The envious seek counsel against God’s servant and persuade the king that for thirty days no petition should be asked of any god or man except the king alone, adding a penalty that whoever despised the king’s command should be sent into the den and given to the lions as food. Finding this decree published, the prophet prayed to his Lord three times a day with his usual prayer. They bring him, seized as stubborn, to the king; and when the king could not rescue him from the envious, he handed the prophet over to his God with this confession, that he alone could rescue him from the danger of death. And so it was done. Yet from this grief the king, going without supper and taking neither food nor sleep, himself went at dawn to see Daniel. Seeing him alive and unharmed, giving glory to the true God, he ordered him to be brought out of the den, and sent into the den those who had accused Daniel; and they were devoured at once before his eyes. In them too the prophecy was fulfilled which says: “Whoever digs a pit for his neighbor will fall into it; and whoever sets a snare for his neighbor will perish in it.” And our Lord Jesus himself, in whom all these figures arose, says through the prophet: “They dug a pit before my face, and fell into it.” And again: “The Lord sent his mercy and his truth, and delivered my soul from the midst of the lions’ whelps.” In the tenth, as the end of the seventy years of the desolation of Jerusalem drew near, which the Lord had foretold through the prophet Jeremiah, Daniel with all penance and fasting poured out prayer for himself and for the sins of his people, imploring the Lord’s mercy. As he prayed, the archangel Gabriel stood by him and revealed future mysteries to him: that seventy weeks were shortened upon his people and upon the holy city, that sins might be finished and offenses sealed, and that injustice might be ended and everlasting justice brought in; and that the visions of the prophets would be fulfilled, and the Holy of holies anointed, from the going out of the word for answering. “And Jerusalem will be built again, until Christ the leader, seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. And the street and walls will be built again in the straits of the times. And after sixty-two weeks the anointing will perish, and judgment will not be in it”; or, as the Hebrew translator has it: “Christ will be killed, and his people will not be his, who are to deny him. And a people with a leader who comes will destroy the city and the sanctuary, and its end will be devastation, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation. And one week will confirm the covenant with many, and in the middle of the week the victim and sacrifice will fail, and in the temple there will be the abomination of desolation, and the desolation will continue until the consummation and the end.” Daniel wrote down these things revealed to him to refute the error of the Jews. Those, then, who still await Christ to come will believe the Antichrist. For so the Lord Jesus rebukes them in the Gospel, saying: “I have come in my Father’s name, and you did not believe me; another will come in his own name, and him you will believe.” With great labor and talent Jerome, of blessed memory, by computing the years of the kings of Babylon, brought the seventy weeks down to the birth of our Christ the Lord, four hundred and ninety years, separating the seven weeks for the building of the temple, and sixty-two up to the birth, and up to the passion and the devastation done by Vespasian and his son Titus. The Jews, then, enemies of the Lord, deceiving themselves, while they strive to refer the many prophecies of Christ to the persons of their various kings, willing or unwilling bow their necks to this prophet Daniel, who not only wrote all the signs written above but also marked the very times of the Lord’s coming. All of these the whole world now recognizes as fulfilled more clearly than light. The glory of Christ the Lord, then, spread among the nations, and, as it is written, the whole earth worshiping him, the Jews still will not believe, while they see with us that everything foretold by the oracles of the prophets is fulfilled. In the eleventh, there were revealed to the same prophet, under the person of warring kings, the deeds of the Antichrist himself, and the straits of the last time, the resurrection too of the dead, how the impious and how the saints will rise. These were also shown to Isaiah and Ezekiel, in such a way that the authority of the Gospel confirms their words. In the twelfth, Daniel showed a most joyful spectacle, not only to the king but also to spiritual minds. For Bel, the idol which all the Babylonians worshiped together with the king, seemed to eat great royal provisions daily, which the priests with their families consumed, entering by a hidden door. Daniel, showing their fraud by subtle skill, ordered his men to sprinkle ashes on the floor of the temple. The doors sealed with the king’s ring, when they came on the next day, the imprinted footprints of men and women showed that the food had not been consumed by that idol. By the priests’ confession too that hidden door was betrayed, by which they entered and devoured everything. When the idol had been crushed by royal command, Daniel killed the dragon, which they also revered as divine, without sword or club, as he knew that what is corruptible can be destroyed, teaching and showing that the one and only true God must be worshiped, vain superstitions abandoned, by which the prophet saw not only the Babylonians but the whole world held captive under the power of demons. That it would be freed from their dominion by the grace of Christ the Lord he marked in his proclamation for the future time. But since, as someone says, “truth begets hatred” (whence our Paul too says, “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?”), as a reward for showing the true religion the Babylonians sent the prophet into the lions’ den to be devoured. Nor was divine power lacking, which provided its usual guard for him and brought him a meal through its companion while he was shut in. For the merit of his grace it changed the savage rushes of the lions into the gentleness of sheep. When Daniel was brought out and the king marveled that he was unharmed, his enemies were given to the lions as food to perish. These things were not done without the sign of his Lord, who prays for his own, saying: “Do not hand over to the beasts the soul that confesses you.” For that roaring lion, the devil, who goes about seeking whom to devour, consumes, with the power he has received, the enemies of our prophet Christ the Lord whom he finds.

Of the resurrection made manifest through Christ the Lord, in Ezekiel. A promise made and figured. Believed and seen in Ezekiel. The prophet Ezekiel too, among the other hidden things he wrote, made known in this way the resurrection of the dead shown to him, which is to come: that he was led into a certain plain that was full of the bones of the dead. There he saw, by the power of the word of God, each bone joined to its parts, flesh, sinews, and skin come up on them, and the breath of life poured into them, by that Spirit by which we hope for and believe the resurrection to come. Telling also many things of the Antichrist under the figure of the king of Tyre, he describes too the city gathered from the nations out of living stones, the heavenly Jerusalem, whose eastern gate he shows always shut, saying: “This gate shall be shut; the prince of priests alone shall pass through it, and it shall be shut to the prince”: signifying Mary’s virginal womb, who, ever virgin, brought forth the Savior intact. For Christ the Lord alone, as Augustine the bishop of blessed memory says, brought out the limbs of an infant through the inviolate virginal womb of his mother, and after the resurrection brought in the limbs of a young man through closed doors; alone without sin at the beginning of infancy, he had no sin in the progress of a greater age, he himself saying: “Behold, the prince of this world comes, and he will find nothing in me.” In this captivity of Babylon there was also Ezra, priest and prophet, who, while he was favored in the king’s sight, and the king, seeing him weeping, asked why he was sad, declared that the solemnities of the religion of his people were usually held at that time, from which he showed he was excluded. The king gives him leave to go and orders the temple of God to be restored. Ezra, coming to Jerusalem, burning with zeal for the law, decided first that the people must be purged of vices. For “a wise king,” as the prophet says, “is the stability of the people.” Finding the book of Moses, he showed among other things that the wrath of God had been kindled for this reason too, that against God’s command the people had taken wives from foreigners; and by such censure as he could, he persuaded each to send away his wife with her children. Held back by no fleshly sweetness, since they wished God to be favorable to them, they did without hesitation what had been ordered, so as to show the figure of the Christian people, whom the prince of all priests too admonishes, saying: “Whoever leaves house, or field, or wife, or children for my name’s sake, will receive manifold here and will obtain eternal life.”

Of the house of God, that is, its restoration through Christ the Lord, in Ezra. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Ezra. While Ezra was restoring the temple of God, through the envy of certain wicked men who wanted to be partners in the building but not partners in religion, since Ezra would not receive them uncircumcised, they maliciously informed the king, and the work on the temple was stopped until the reign of Cyrus. He, moved by divine command, when the seventy years were completed which Jeremiah had foretold from the mouth of the Lord, let all the people go from the Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem, together with the vessels of the house of God, the king adding gifts, from which he commanded that the building of the temple should rise. From its beginning under Darius to its completion, which Cyrus both ordered and helped to be done, forty-six years passed. Of these the Jews spoke, when the Lord promised the restoration of his body and said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”; not understanding the sacrament of that saying, they said: “It was built in forty-six years, and how does this man say, In three days I will raise it?” For it was built by Solomon with the speed with which he had found everything prepared by his father David. So the Jews did not speak of the time taken by Solomon’s building, but of Ezra’s, who had been forbidden to finish it. When the temple and the wall of Jerusalem had been repaired, according to the times set by Daniel (at whose entreaty, together with Zechariah, the people stayed in Jerusalem), the times of the seventy weeks ran on until the birth of Christ the Lord, as we said above. By his pardon even now souls are freed from the captivity of the world, with compunction of heart, the measure being filled, by grace and mercy. For they rejoice for the days in which they were humbled, for the years in which they saw evils, until he looks upon his servants and upon his works. Let us serve the Lord, then, in fear, and rejoice in him with trembling, until we are brought back to the city which our King and Priest restores, the heavenly Jerusalem, so that in the temple of his body, which he raised in three days, we may continually offer him the sacrifice of praise.

Of the same, when he sets out a parable in the figure of the Church. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Ezra. When Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, wished to exercise his captives, he chose three wise Jews, whose sayings Ezra the priest wrote down. One preferred wine to everything; another the king; the third, Zerubbabel, women, and above all, truth. When they had given their opinions, Zerubbabel was judged wiser than all, who had maintained that women, and above all truth, were strongest. And truly, what is stronger than woman, who so enticed the first man, Adam, that he despised the commands! What is stronger than woman, whose beauty raises itself above every desire? What is stronger than woman, who softens both royal strength and a man? What, too, is stronger in good than woman, who believed that she would bear Christ, the whole truth? What is stronger than woman, who, while the disciples fled, looked upon the mysteries of the cross itself undaunted and full of confidence? What is stronger than woman, who, running ahead of all the men, was found worthy first to see the Lord risen? Since Ezra wrote these things as a type of the Church, a figured action followed too. For Esther, who had been brought up as a daughter by Mordecai, while Mordecai looked after the royal court, was brought to royal dignity by God, who exalts the humble. When she understood that her people, through the doing of Haman, the king’s friend, on account of Mordecai, had been handed over to death, and the sword hung over their necks, Esther, laying down her life for her people and calling on divine help, entered the king’s inner chamber, where a woman not summoned was not allowed to approach. When the king looked at her angrily, and she too was faint with shame, God, as it is said, turned his heart to gentleness; and the king, promising her many good things, while he sought to restore her well-being, did not refuse to come to the banquet with Haman, as the queen had asked. There, as she told what had been done to her and her people, the king decreed that Haman be hanged on the very wood on which Haman had resolved to hang the innocent Mordecai; so that, as the prophet says, the most wicked schemes might roll back upon the schemer himself. So the holy Church slays her enemies with the wood of the cross. So she sets herself against the dangers of this world for her own. So, when they are given over to death, she ministers by her labors, conferring life; as a queen who is admonished by her King, bridegroom, and Lord, and is told: “Rescue those who are being led to death, and redeem those who are being killed.” Even her enemies seek the refuge of her benefits. In no unequal place too holy Judith is set, following in order, who herself also takes on the figure and person of the holy Church. For when Holofernes, general of the army of the king of Babylon, had surrounded Bethulia with a siege, and, the water cut off, was afflicting the whole city with thirst, its leaders decided to surrender it to Holofernes. Judith opposed those who planned this, asking for a respite of a few days. In these, with fasts and prayers, she entreated as a suppliant the King of kings and Lord of lords. Putting off her widow’s garment, she made herself ready in every respect, in mind, body, and manners, and showed herself admirable to all, using that counsel by which, God guarding her, she believed that the enemy, captured by her beauty, could be killed, her chastity being kept by him who is the giver and guardian of chastity. When she brought back unharmed the enemy’s head, the woman restored to her country the freedom which men had not been able to. If you recognize in her, as we said, our Church, whose figure she bore, you see how, after her husband, Christ the Lord, suffered, rose, and ascended into heaven, she put off all sadness like a widow’s garment and was clothed with beauty by him of whom she says in the prophet Isaiah: “He has clothed me with the garment of salvation and surrounded me with the robe of joy, like a bride adorned with her jewels.” For she too was sent to wound the head of the enemies, since she is the body of him who crushed the head of the great dragon. She too, like Judith, did not spare her life, since it is she who says through the apostle John: “As Christ laid down his life for us, so we too ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” That she has done this in the holy martyrs is certain, she who is blessed before almighty God.

Of demons put to flight and the blind given light by the fish, Christ, in Tobit. A prediction made and figured. Tobit too was a captive in Nineveh, endowed with such patience in his religion because he knew that the Lord’s anger must be borne with an even mind. Satisfying God with worthy works and confessions, he brought up his son too in holy ways. He instructed him not to fear the want of poverty nor the labors of long exile, provided that, persevering in the Lord’s commands, he departed from all iniquity and did good. And while he, blind in body, was showing his son right paths by the shining justice of the inner light, Raphael the archangel, sent by God, ministered not only comfort to the captives but also heavenly benefits to those who prayed: guiding the son to recover the money, he gave him Raguel’s daughter as wife, from whom he drove out the most wicked demon Asmodeus, who had already killed her seven husbands. When the son returned rich with his wife, he took away the spots from Tobit’s own eyes with the liver of the fish with which he had also put the demon to flight, and restored his former sight. And he warned them always to glorify God and persevere in good works. Here Tobit prophesied Christ the Lord among the other proclamations of his praise, saying: “Many nations will come from afar, inhabitants from the furthest parts of the earth, to the name of the Lord God, and having their gifts in their hands, they will offer them with joy to the King of heaven”: which we now see fulfilled. The mystery of this action is that from the inward parts of the fish both the demon was put to flight and Tobit was given light. This the great fish, Christ, did from his passion, cleansing Mary, from whom he cast out seven demons, taking away despair from a soul so captured; for even a soul which the seven more wicked spirits have tormented must be cleansed and healed by the liver of our fish, if, turning back repentant, she understands that the evil spirits are put to flight from her, and guards against them as enemies. For the spirit of Baal is the spirit of pride; more wicked than it is the pretense of humility. An evil spirit is the spirit of envy; more wicked than it is the pretense of love. An evil spirit is the spirit of lying; more wicked than it is the pretense of truth. An evil spirit is the spirit of luxury; more wicked than it is the pretense of chastity. An evil spirit is the spirit of avarice; more wicked than it is the pretense of mercy. An evil spirit is the spirit of intemperance; more wicked than it is the pretense of frugality. An evil spirit is the spirit of error; more wicked than it is the pretense of religion. Possessed by these, since her last state is worse than the first, she is freed by the medicine of our fish, because where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. He paid the tribute for himself and for Peter, and gave back light to blinded Paul, satisfying the disciples on the shore from himself, and offering himself to the whole world as ichthys. In Latin the word means “fish”; our elders interpreted this in the sacred letters, gathering from the Sibylline verses that it is: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior; the fish cooked in his passion, by whose inward remedies we are daily given light and fed.

Of the Maccabees, who both accepted martyrdom and received Christ himself born as king. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in the Maccabees. After freedom had been restored from the Babylonian captivity, the Maccabees provided leadership for the Hebrew people. Their valor so shone out that not only the Macedonians and Ptolemy king of Egypt, but even the Romans themselves invited them into treaties of friendship. There, among the Jews, in a certain part which the Romans had already taken, under the reign of Antiochus, that illustrious woman, the mother of the Maccabees, for the hope of eternal life and her own laws, so that her sons would not touch forbidden pork, brought forth seven martyrs to God in one day, whom, despising the earth, she bore not to this world but to heaven itself: admonishing us by her example to despise perishing things, to seek the everlasting, to finish more quickly what must be finished, so that, contending and conquering, they might take hold of that which has no end. So she herself, soon to follow, sent her sons ahead to life, which, knowing it to be true and free of all fear, she gained for herself and her sons by faithful witness. For its sake Judas Maccabeus also sent twelve thousand talents to Jerusalem for others who died in battle, to offer sacrifice for the dead, thinking well and rightly of the resurrection. With this prayer holy Church urges her sons, impressing on them contempt of death, and compels them to pass to Christ, the true life, so that she herself may be perfected in the kingdom of God with her sons, who say to her: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or distress? Or persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or the sword?” The last leader and high priest among the Maccabees was Hyrcanus. For Pompey, magistrate of the Roman people, when he took Jerusalem, sent his brother Aristobulus bound with his children to Rome, as the History of Josephus relates. Yet the prophecy of the patriarch Jacob was fulfilled, saying: “A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom all things are laid up, and he will be the expectation of the nations.” We see that the order of the kings of Judah and Israel, or the Levitical priesthood, came to rest when Herod, a foreign king, ruled the Hebrew people; the anointing also ceasing, which the prophet Daniel had foretold would cease, so that that people should not follow anointed kings or priests, since the eternal King and Priest, Christ, who is the expectation of the nations, was now present. Herod, then (whose father, Josephus says, was of the Idumeans and his mother of Arabia), took the rule of that nation, assigned to him by Caesar Augustus, at the time when Caesar ordered a census of the whole pacified world to be made by edict. So in the year of that enrollment, which was made when Quirinius was governor of Syria, Christ the Lord was born; in that census Paul too came. For so must we understand what he said to the tribune Lysias: “But I was born a Roman.” For all bought the dignity of this name for a price; but this man, a Jew, when he said he was born a Roman, showed more clearly that he came in that census, John the forerunner and herald of the true King and Judge being already born, from whom the time of grace took its beginning. Thus far, with the Lord’s help, I have been able to gather, as it was given, the promises and predictions figured under the Law. Here too the second time, like a second day rising from the four parts of the world, of the prophet fathers, the eastern region migrating, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel placed in three parts; here too with the twelve of the minor prophets, as with the number of hours, closing the second day as toward evening; so that the third time, of grace made manifest, together with the eternal day itself, with chapters appended, the third part of the book may begin. Amen.

Of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ. A promise believed and seen. The prophet Isaiah says: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low. And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” John the evangelist confirms this, saying: “This is the testimony of John concerning Christ, when the chief priests sent to ask him whether he was the Christ. And he confessed, and did not deny, saying: I am not. They said to him: Are you Elijah? And he said: No. Who then are you? they said: tell us, that we may give an answer to those who sent us; what do you say of yourself? He said: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah says.” Peter too testifies in the Acts of the Apostles, saying: “When John was finishing his course, he said: I am not the one you suppose me to be; but behold, one comes after me, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” The Erythraean Sibyl too acknowledges it, saying: “Sign of judgment: the earth will be drenched with sweat. Now the mountains are made level with the plains, and the blue of the sea.” And explaining herself she added: “There will be nothing lofty or high in human affairs.” This we ourselves know and see fulfilled through Christ the Lord.

Of Christ, King and Judge, to come from heaven. A promise believed and seen. The prophet David says: “His going forth is from the highest heaven.” And again: “Your kingdom is the kingdom of all ages.” Again he says: “The Lord has reigned over all the nations.” And Isaiah: “You will see the King with glory.” Again: “Behold, your King,” he says, “comes sitting on a light cloud,” namely flesh that has no weight of sin. The Gospel of Matthew confirms this, saying: “Magi came from the East, saying: Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?” And Paul testifies: “To the King of the ages,” he says. And again: “The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, will show.” And the Sibyl acknowledges: “From heaven will come the King who will reign through the ages.”

Of the Word, God and man. A promise believed and seen. The prophet David says: “He sent his Word and healed them.” And Jeremiah: “This is our God, and there is no other besides him, who found every way of prudence and gave it to Jacob his chosen one; after this he was seen on earth and lived among men.” And the prophet Habakkuk: “The Word walked,” he says, “and went out into the fields.” John the evangelist confirms this, saying: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And Paul testifies: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man.” And the Sibyl acknowledges: “present, that is, in the flesh, to judge the world.”

Of Christ born of the Virgin. A promise believed and seen. The prophet Isaiah says: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel,” which is interpreted, “God with us.” Luke the evangelist confirms this, saying: “The angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin betrothed, whose name was Mary; and coming in he greeted her thus: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” And a little later: “The Holy Spirit,” he says, “will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one to be born of you will be called Son of God.” Paul too testifies, saying: “But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman,” following the Hebrew idiom, which calls all females “women.” The Sibyl too acknowledges: “unbeliever and believer will see God,” she says. Maro says: “Now a new offspring is sent down from high heaven; now the Virgin too returns.” He said “returns” because, as the virgin Eve brought death into the world, the virgin Mary, returning, brought forth the Savior.

Of Christ laid in the manger. A promise believed and seen. The prophet Isaiah says: “The ox knew its owner, and the ass its master’s crib.” And Habakkuk: “In the midst of two living creatures,” he says, “you will be known.” Luke the evangelist confirms this, saying: “When the days of Mary were fulfilled, she bore a son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the inn.” And the angel to the shepherds: “To you is born,” he says, “Christ the Lord in the city of David; and this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” Paul too testifies, saying: “He became poor, though he was rich, so that by his poverty we might be made rich.” And the Sibyl acknowledges: “when the world lies untilled in thick thorn-brakes.”