Against the Jews 14

Learn now the key to your error, from its very abundance. We say that two conditions of Christ were shown by the prophets, and as many comings of his foretold. One in humility, the first, of course, when he was to be led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer without voice, so he did not open his mouth, not even comely in appearance. “For we announced,” he says, “concerning him, like a little child, like a root in thirsty ground; and he had no form or glory. And we saw him, and he had no form or beauty, but his form was without honour, falling short of the sons of men; a man in affliction, and knowing how to bear weakness”; namely as one set by the Father as a stone of stumbling, and made by him a little lower than the angels, he declares himself a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and an outcast of the people. These marks of lowliness fit the first coming, as those of exaltation fit the second, when he will be no longer a stone of stumbling nor a rock of offence, but the highest cornerstone, taken up after being rejected and exalted to the consummation; and indeed that rock in Daniel cut from the mountain, which will shatter and crush the image of the kingdoms of the world. Of this second coming of his the same Daniel said: “And behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man came, coming up to the Ancient of Days, and he was present in his sight, and those who stood by brought him near, and royal power was given to him, and all the nations of the earth according to their race, and all glory, will serve him; and his power is eternal, which will not be taken away, and his kingdom one that will not be corrupted.” Then, of course, he is to have an honourable form and an unfailing beauty beyond the sons of men: “fair in beauty beyond the sons of men. Grace,” he says, “is poured out on your lips; therefore God has blessed you for ever. Gird your sword about your thigh, O most mighty, in your fairness and your beauty”; since the Father too afterwards, when he had made him a little lower than the angels, crowned him with glory and honour and put all things under his feet. “And then they will recognize him whom they pierced, and they will beat their breasts, tribe by tribe”: because formerly they did not recognize him when he was set in the lowliness of the human condition. “He is a man,” says Jeremiah, “and who will know him?” For, says Isaiah, “who will declare his generation?”

So too in Zechariah, in the person of Jesus himself, indeed in the very sacrament of the name, Christ, the most true priest of the Father, is sketched in a twofold condition for two comings. First he is clothed in filthy garments, that is, the unworthiness of flesh capable of suffering and mortal, when the devil too opposed him, the instigator, namely, of Judas the betrayer, who had also tempted him after his baptism. Then, stripped of his former filth, he is adorned with a long robe and a mitre and a clean turban, that is, of the second coming, since he is shown to have obtained glory and honour. Nor will you be able to say that this is the son of Josedech, who was never clothed in any filthy garment at all but was always adorned with priestly dress, and was never deprived of the priestly office. But this Jesus is the Christ, the high priest of God the Father, who at his first coming came in human form and capable of suffering, in humility even to his suffering, himself also made a victim in every way for all of us; who after his resurrection, clothed in the long robe, was named priest of God the Father for ever.

So too I shall give an interpretation of the two goats that were offered at the fast. Do not they too show both stages of the Christ who has already come? Equal indeed and alike, because of the same appearance of the Lord, since he will not come in another form, as one who is to be recognized by those by whom he was also wounded. But one of them, wrapped in scarlet, cursed and spat upon and torn and pierced, was cast out by the people outside the city to perdition, marked with the plain signs of Christ's suffering, who, wrapped in a scarlet robe and spat upon and afflicted with every insult, was crucified outside the city. The other, offered for offences and given as food to the priests of the temple alone, signified the marks of the second manifestation, in which, all offences having been expiated, the priests of the spiritual temple, that is, of the church, would enjoy a kind of feast of the Lord's grace, while the rest fast from salvation.

Since, then, the first coming was sung as both obscured by very many figures and cast down in every dishonour, but the second as both manifest and worthy of God, therefore, fixing their eyes only on the one they could easily understand and believe, that is, the second, which is in honour and glory, they were not undeservedly deceived about the more obscure one, and certainly the less worthy, that is, the first. And so to this day they deny that their Christ has come, because he did not come in exaltation, not knowing that he was to come first in humility.

Let it be enough for the present to have run through the course of Christ thus far, by which he is proved to be such as he was announced, so that from this agreement of the divine Scriptures we may now understand, and the things foretold as to come after Christ may be believed to have been accomplished by divine arrangement. For unless he had come after whom they were to be accomplished, the things foretold as to come at his coming would in no way have happened. If, then, you see all the nations emerging from that time on out of the depth of human error to God the Creator and to his Christ (which you do not dare to deny was prophesied, for even if you denied it, at once, as we have already said, the promise of the Father would meet you in the Psalms, saying: “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 not be able to claim this prophecy for Solomon the son of David rather than for Christ the Son of God, nor that the ends of the earth were promised to the son of David, who reigned within Judea alone, rather than to Christ the Son of God, who has already lit up the whole world with the rays of his gospel. Finally, a throne for ever, too, belongs to Christ the Son of God rather than to Solomon, a temporal king, of course, who reigned over Israel alone. For today the nations call upon Christ, who did not know him, and peoples today flee to Christ, of whom they were formerly ignorant. You cannot contend that something is future which you see happening. Either deny that these things were prophesied, when they are seen before your eyes, or that they have been fulfilled, when they are read; or, if you deny neither, they will have been fulfilled in him of whom they were prophesied.