The church and Israel in the early church

The relation of the church to Israel: the old and new people, covenants, and promises. Part of Jews and Judaism.

Epistle of Barnabas 4.6Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Do not say that the covenant belongs to both Jews and Christians.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.7Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The covenant given to Moses was lost by Israel.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.8Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Israel's idolatry broke the covenant; Jesus's covenant is sealed in our hearts.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.14Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Israel was abandoned despite great signs: many are called, few chosen.
Epistle of Barnabas 13.1Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Who is the heir of the covenant: this people or the former?
Epistle of Barnabas 13.5Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Jacob's crossed hands blessed the younger son: a type of the new people.
Epistle of Barnabas 13.6Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · This people is first and heir of the covenant.
Epistle of Barnabas 14.1Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · God gave the covenant, but Israel was unworthy to receive it.
Epistle of Barnabas 16.1Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Israel wrongly put its hope in the temple building.
2 Clement 2.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The Gentile believers now outnumber those who seemed to have God.
5 Ezra 1.35Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century
5 Ezra 2.10Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century
First Apology 53Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Fulfilled prophecies, above all the conversion of the Gentiles, prove Christ's claims.
Dialogue with Trypho 11.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ is the final and eternal law and covenant, for all people, replacing the law given at Horeb.
Dialogue with Trypho 11.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold a new law and a new covenant.
Dialogue with Trypho 11.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians, brought to God through Christ, are the true spiritual Israel.
Dialogue with Trypho 12.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah foretells an everlasting covenant to which the nations will come.
Dialogue with Trypho 26.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin replies that only the unrepentant who persecute Christ are excluded; believing Gentiles will inherit with the patriarchs.
Dialogue with Trypho 67.9Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Scriptures foretold a new covenant; the old was given in fear.
Dialogue with Trypho 119.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians are the new holy people foretold by the prophets.
Dialogue with Trypho 119.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians are the nation promised to Abraham.
Dialogue with Trypho 120.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Some Jews are true children of Abraham in Christ; others are like barren sand.
Dialogue with Trypho 122.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · If the law could illuminate, no new covenant would be needed; Christ gives light to the nations.
Dialogue with Trypho 123.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Proselytes join Israel under the same law; Christians are the new people from the nations.
Dialogue with Trypho 123.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jer 31:27 and Isa 19:24–25: another Israel among the nations.
Dialogue with Trypho 123.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · God calls the new people Israel (Ezek 36:12).
Dialogue with Trypho 123.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho asks whether Christians are Israel.
Dialogue with Trypho 123.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:1–4 LXX calls Christ Jacob and Israel.
Dialogue with Trypho 123.9Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · As Israel was named from Jacob, Christians, begotten to God by Christ, are true children of God.
Dialogue with Trypho 130.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · From all races God chose Israel, and now those from all races who obey him through Christ are Jacob and Israel.
Dialogue with Trypho 130.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The nations share Israel's inheritance and name.
Dialogue with Trypho 135.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians, “hewn out” of Christ, are the true Israelite race.
Dialogue with Trypho 135.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The promised seed of Jacob must be another people.
Dialogue with Trypho 135.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · There are two houses of Jacob: one of flesh, one of faith and Spirit.
Against Heresies 4.4.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Jerusalem, like the stalk after harvest, was abandoned once its fruit, Christ and the apostles, had been gathered and sown throughout the world.
Against Heresies 4.8.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Marcion wrongly excludes Abraham from salvation; Christ himself places Abraham in the kingdom with his seed, the Church.
Against Heresies 4.21.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Jacob’s life prefigured Christ and the Church: the heel, the birthright, the blessing, the spotted sheep, the two wives, and Rachel, a figure of the Church.
Against Heresies 4.28.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The heretics’ objections to the God of the Old Testament would equally condemn Christ; as Israel was saved through Egypt’s blindness, so the Gentiles through the Jews’ unbelief.
Against Heresies 4.36.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The parable of the wicked tenants shows one householder, the Father, who sent first the prophets as servants and then his Son.
Against Heresies 4.36.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Irenaeus interprets the vineyard parable as the history of God’s dealings with Israel and its handing over to the Church spread through all nations.
Against Heresies 4.36.5Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The parable of the wedding feast shows one King and Father who invited Israel through the prophets and the nations through the apostles.
Against Heresies 4.36.8Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The parables of the publican, the two sons, and the barren fig tree, and the lament over Jerusalem, all point to one God who visited his people through the prophets and calls the nations.
Against Heresies 5.32.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · God promised the land to Abraham, who never possessed it; he and his seed, the Church of believers, will receive it at the resurrection of the just.
Against Heresies 5.34.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah foretell the resurrection of the just and the gathering of God’s people, the Church as Abraham’s seed, to dwell in their land.
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 21Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–200
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 90Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–200
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 95Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–200
Excerpts from Theodotus 56.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · When the psychic are grafted into the olive tree and the Gentiles come in, all Israel will be saved.
Miscellanies 6.5.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Preaching of Peter says that Greeks and Jews both worship God in an old way, while Christians, a third race, worship him in the new way of the new covenant.
Miscellanies 6.5.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The same God gave both covenants and gave philosophy to the Greeks; from both Greeks and Jews believers are gathered into one saved people, and God raised prophets for the Greeks too.
Against the Jews 1Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · After a public debate with a Jewish proselyte, Tertullian sets out in writing that the Gentiles are admitted to God's law, reading the oracle to Rebecca (“the greater will serve the lesser”) of Israel and the church.
Against the Jews 5Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · Cain's and Abel's offerings prefigure the earthly sacrifices of Israel and the spiritual sacrifices of the church; the prophets foretell that pure sacrifices of praise will be offered to God in every place.
Against the Jews 13Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · The author argues that the destruction of Jerusalem, the loss of anointing and temple, the prophecies of the cross (the tree, Isaac, Elisha's axe-head), the resurrection on the third day, and the dispersion of the Jews show that the Christ foretold has already come.
Didascalia 5.15–16Anonymous · first half of the third century
Didascalia 6.5Anonymous · first half of the third century
On Proverbs, fragment 24Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · On Prov 30:21–23: the earth's shaking is the change wrought by sin, seen at the flood, in Sodom and in Egypt; the maid who casts out her mistress is the Gentile church that replaced the synagogue.
Arabic commentary on the Apocalypse, fragment 1 (on Rev 7, 4—8)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200-235 · An Arabic commentator on Rev 7:4–8 reads the sealed of the twelve tribes as Jewish believers, the firstfruits, and says Hippolytus held the same view.
Against the Jews 1Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The preacher asks his hearers, as Christ's heirs, to understand by the Spirit the new testament by which the inheritance passes to the Gentiles.
Against the Jews 2Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The preacher traces God's covenants from Adam to Noah, Abraham, and Moses, and charges Israel with rejecting God and persecuting the prophets who foretold Christ.
Against the Jews 3Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Because Israel killed the Son, as the wicked tenants did in the parable, the Son wrote a new testament and disinherited them, as Isaiah foretold.
Against the Jews 5Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · God rejected the festivals in which Christ was killed, and the risen Christ opened his new testament and invited all nations and all kinds of people to the inheritance.
Against the Jews 6Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Sinners and the lowly are welcome, while those who rejected Christ for Caesar were handed over to conquest, as Isaiah foretold, and God's strength passed to the nations.
Against the Jews 7Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The kingdom has passed from Jerusalem to the Gentile church, which carries Christ's cross, while Israel has lost its temple treasures and land and wanders in exile.
Against the Jews 8Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · God still offers Israel forgiveness if it repents, and the Gentiles are to open Israel's own Scriptures to it.
Against the Jews 9Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Israel is invited to believe its own Scriptures, which foretell the law going out from Zion to the nations and God's reversal of the great and the humble.
Against the Jews 10Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The unlearned Gentile believers now teach the Scriptures to Israel's learned, who come to baptism and the Eucharist and take their place under a young minister.
On Mount Sinai and Mount Zion 3Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Sinai is earthly and stands for the carnal people who received the law on stone tablets, while Rebecca's twins prefigure the division between the believing Gentiles and the unbelieving Jews; biblical names foretell their bearers' destiny.
On Mount Sinai and Mount Zion 6Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Sinai means “eternal temptation and hatred” because the people tested by the law there failed and fell into God's hatred, as the story of Esau and Jacob prefigures.
On Mount Sinai and Mount Zion 11Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The two mountains stand for the two testaments and the two peoples: the earthly Jews who received the land, and the heavenly Christians who will receive the kingdom.
Fragment 22 on Genesis (Gen. 49, 11%)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · The two colts are the callings of Gentiles and Jews from one faith, the one bound to the Lord, the other to the old law.
Against Marcion 3.23Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The ruin of Judea, the scattering of the Jews, and the end of prophecy among them were foretold as punishment for rejecting the Creator's Christ, so he must be the one who came.
Against Marcion 4.31Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's command to invite the poor and his parable of the great dinner follow the Creator's long history of inviting Israel through the fathers and prophets and then calling the gentiles in their place.
Against Marcion 5.17Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Ephesians, which Marcion called Laodiceans, speaks of summing up all things in Christ, of the Spirit promised by Joel, of the nations brought near to Israel's God, and of Christ's real flesh and the prophets' foundation, all of which belong to the Creator.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 26Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Prophetic promises and threats addressed to “the earth” may be read of the flesh, taken from the earth; so figurative speech itself supports the resurrection of the body.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 31Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Israel doubted a bodily resurrection, not its political fortunes, and the prophets promise the rising of the dead to all nations, not to Israel alone.
On First Principles 4.3.6Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Scripture's chosen nation, Israel, Jacob and Judah, with Jerusalem as its mother-city, has a counterpart, for Paul speaks of an Israel according to the flesh and so implies an Israel according to the spirit.
On First Principles 4.3.8Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Israel is a race of souls “seeing God” and Jerusalem the heavenly city, so the prophecies about Judea and Jerusalem, and the cities promised in the parable, refer to the heavenly land.
Fragments on Luke, column 327Origen · ca. 220-254 · John's call to prepare the way levels the proud and fills the humble, and his answer to the crowds leads them from the law's shadow to love, its fulfilment.
Fragments on Luke, column 337Origen · ca. 220-254 · The swine and the anointing woman picture stages of the soul's healing, and Jairus's daughter and the bleeding woman stand for the synagogue and the church of the nations.
Fragments on Luke, column 339Origen · ca. 220-254 · The healing of the bleeding woman before Jairus's daughter foreshadows the nations believing before Israel, and those "standing" by Jesus are those who see the Word in his kingly glory.
PG 12:1107 (Ps 2 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · God’s wrath gives sinners time to repent; Christ receives the nations as heir “as a man,” by the economy of the incarnation; a further note on the inheritance as contemplation; the rod of iron is the sterner treatment that heals sinners.
PG 12:1495 (Ps 65 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Ps 65 LXX (66):4–9: the fearful works of God, the sea turned to dry land as a lasting figure of teaching, and Israel warned not to exalt itself over the nations (with Theodotion, Aquila and Symmachus).
PG 12:1511 (Ps 68 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Psalm 69:14–25 (LXX 68:15–26): the pit, the reproach of Christ, the gall and vinegar at the cross, and the table that became a snare.
PG 12:1629 (Ps 122–123 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Psalm 123 (LXX 122) and Psalm 124 (LXX 123): the despised seated in the Church, the true Israel, and the torrent of thoughts, with the story of Elijah at the torrent.
Fragment 90 on John 12:35Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 12:35: the light, like the mina and the kingdom, was among the Jews for a little while; because they did not walk in it, it was taken and given to the nation bearing its fruits, the light of the world.
Commentary on John 1.4Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen argues that the sealed of Revelation are believers in Christ, even if not physically descended from Israel.
Commentary on John 1.7Origen · ca. 230–248 · Since few Jews believe, the 144,000 virgins must be chiefly Gentile believers, the firstfruits of each tribe.
Commentary on John 1.259Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ is also called Judah, so that those who are Jews inwardly are named after him.
Commentary on John 1.260Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ is also Jacob and Israel, and believers take these names from him.
Commentary on John 28.93Origen · ca. 230–248 · Spiritually, the Gentiles, “Romans” among them, took Israel's place.
Commentary on John 28.94Origen · ca. 230–248 · Israel lost its status; Christ, stronger than their plot, prevailed.
Commentary on John 28.185Origen · ca. 230–248 · Perhaps the scattered children are the spiritual Israel, God's firstborn.
Commentary on John 28.211Origen · ca. 230–248 · Spiritually, the Word once spoke openly to the Jews through the prophets but has now gone to the “wilderness,” the Gentile church.
Commentary on John 28.214Origen · ca. 230–248 · After Israel was set aside, God made the Gentile wilderness fruitful, as Psalm 107 says.
Commentary on John 28.221Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ has gone from the Jews to the world, to the fruitful church.
Homily on Luke 5Origen · ca. 233–250 · Zechariah’s silence prefigures the silence of prophecy in Israel, whose observances without the Word are like his mute nods, a warning to Gentile believers not to prove unworthy of their adoption.
Homily on Luke 13Origen · ca. 233–250 · The angels’ hymn shows that the guardian angels, unable to heal humanity themselves, rejoice at the coming of the true Physician; each church has a visible and an invisible bishop; the ass at the manger stands for the Gentiles who know the Lord.
Homily on Luke 33Origen · ca. 233–250 · Nazareth, which rejected Jesus, stands for the Jews and Capernaum for the Gentiles; the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian prefigure the Gentile church and its cleansing in baptism.
Homily on 1 Samuel 1.17Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The weak Gentile people, once strangers to God’s covenant, are girded with strength, which is Christ the Lord.
Homilies on Exodus 2.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses, hidden by his Levite parents and rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, figures the law received by the Church of the Gentiles, which understands it spiritually while the Synagogue keeps only the letter.
Homilies on Exodus 7.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The murmuring on the fifteenth day of the second month, the date of the second Passover, points to the Gentiles' Passover, to which the true bread from heaven came; murmuring against God is pardoned in beginners but punished in those who persist.
Homilies on Exodus 8.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen counts “no other gods” and “no idol” as two commandments; “you shall have no other gods” does not deny that beings called gods exist (the angels set over the nations) but forbids them to God's people, who are Israel in spirit.
Homilies on Exodus 11.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses on the hilltop with raised hands figures the law understood on high and prayer lifted to God, by which the people from the Gentiles conquers, while the people that keeps Moses' hands on the earth is defeated.
Homilies on Exodus 11.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses' acceptance of Jethro's advice to appoint leaders teaches church leaders humility and foreshadows the Gentiles bringing the spiritual sense to the law, which by its letter brings nothing to perfection.
Homilies on Ezekiel 12.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · The cedar shoot planted on the high mountain is the apostles planted in Christ, growing into the Church; the high and green tree brought low is the Jewish people, the dry tree made green the Gentiles.
Homilies on Joshua 2.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The desert and the Antilebanon given to Joshua signify the church gathered from the Gentiles in place of Israel according to the flesh.
Homilies on Joshua 3.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The two and a half tribes settled by Moses, all first-born, figure the people of the law, whose righteous men, the prophets, still come to fight beside Christians, while the women and infants who stay behind figure those who leave no teaching.
Homilies on Joshua 7.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Rahab’s being added to Israel “until this day” signifies the Gentiles grafted into the faith of the patriarchs, now made the head while those who rejected Christ became the tail.
Homilies on Joshua 8.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The taking of Ai, “chaos,” the dwelling of the devil, figures the victory of the two peoples, Jewish believers who “flee” the burdens of the law with Jesus and the Gentiles who come unexpectedly from behind.
Homilies on Joshua 11.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Christ lengthens the day of salvation, delaying the end until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in and all Israel is saved; when love grows cold, the days will be shortened.
Homilies on Joshua 17.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The division of the land was a shadow of the heavenly inheritance; when the truth came in Christ, Jerusalem, the temple, and the earthly inheritance were taken away so that the Jews might seek the heavenly Jerusalem and its high priest.
Homilies on Joshua 20.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Othniel, “answer of God,” who takes the City of Letters and marries Caleb’s daughter, is the Gentile church, which destroys the killing letter, receives from the law the knowledge of God, and gains blessings for this life and the next.
Homilies on Joshua 26.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The altar built beyond the Jordan as a copy of the true one shows that the righteous before Christ knew their altar was only a figure and are brothers of Christians; Aaron standing between the dead and the living figures Christ, whom part of the Jewish people received and part rejected.
Homilies on Judges 5.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Barak ("lightning") figures the former people, whose brief light did not last; the victory over Sisera goes to Jael, a foreign woman.
Homilies on Judges 5.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Jael ("ascent") is the Gentile church, which kills the vices with the wood of the cross and then shares the victory with Israel, who will be saved at the end.
Homilies on Judges 8.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The fleece first wet, then dry, figures Israel once alone receiving God's word and now dry, while the nations receive the dew of Christ; Gideon also models testing a vision.
Homilies on Leviticus 3.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Every victim bears the image of Christ: the fat is his soul between divinity and flesh, the sevenfold sprinkling the Spirit, the four horns the Gospels, and the blood at the base the final salvation of Israel.
Homilies on Leviticus 5.11Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The ban on eating fat signifies not causing believers, the church of Christ's friends, to stumble; the ban on eating blood signifies not insulting Israel, Abraham's descendants by blood, whose fall should be met with fear, not boasting.
Homilies on Leviticus 12.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Christ's bride is the church, a virgin in the simplicity of faith; the 'widow' is the soul that leaves the law without taking up the Gospel, and 'of his own race' marks the church, not Israel, as Christ's kin.
Homilies on Numbers 6.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen reads Moses' Ethiopian wife as the church of the Gentiles and Miriam's leprosy as the present state of the synagogue, which will be healed when all Israel is saved.
Homilies on Numbers 7.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Miriam made like an abortion signifies the synagogue that never came to full birth, while Ecclesiastes shows that one who dies to the world, or is “untimely born” like Paul, can be better than those who live in vanity.
Homilies on Numbers 7.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses' prayer for Miriam figures his intercession for Israel, whose present repudiation, like Miriam's seven days outside the camp, lasts until the end of the world's week.
Homilies on Numbers 13.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Balaam's ass, which saw the angel he could not see, is read as humanity once ridden by demons and now, as the church, carrying Christ into the heavenly Jerusalem.
Homilies on Numbers 15.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · God's curses are just sentences, unlike human cursing, which Paul forbids; God does not curse the true Israel, who live on the heights, dwell apart from the nations, and are known and numbered by God alone.
Homilies on Numbers 15.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Balaam's wish to die among the righteous will be fulfilled in the Jewish people when they come to faith in Christ at the end of the age, and his “seed” may be the magi; neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts, but faith working through love.
Homilies on Numbers 16.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The spiritual Israel will receive the glories forfeited by fallen powers, and its glory will be like that of the unicorn, a figure of Christ whose one horn is his single kingdom over all.
Homilies on Numbers 17.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Balaam’s seeing that it was good to bless Israel foreshadows Israel’s future recognition of the spiritual Israel when the veil is removed and it no longer seeks auspices from animals.
Homilies on Numbers 21.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The second census, made for the generation that would inherit, signifies the Gentile people who receive the inheritance from Jesus, not Moses; the Levites, whose inheritance is the Lord, signify those devoted wholly to God’s wisdom, while others receive the higher “land of the living.”
Homilies on Numbers 26.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The exodus figures both conversion leading to baptism and the soul’s passage after death; the firstborn tribes who settled east of the Jordan because of their cattle signify the former people, which received its inheritance through Moses and not, through Jesus, in the land of promise of faith in Christ.
Homilies on Numbers 26.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses lets the eastern tribes settle on condition that they fight alongside their brothers; Origen distinguishes the “dry ground” of fruitless souls from the “land” of the fruitful, promised to the meek, and teaches that those under the law receive their inheritance only by fighting together with Jesus’ people.
Homilies on Jeremiah 3.2Origen · ca. 240 · God is never a wilderness to anyone in his universal gifts, but in particular favor he turned from Israel to the nations, to whom Christ is now fruitful.
Homilies on Jeremiah 4.2Origen · ca. 240 · Israel's rejection, like a wife given a bill of divorce, opened salvation to the nations; now the church, the new Judah, is in danger of sinning like Israel or worse.
Homilies on Jeremiah 4.5Origen · ca. 240 · Judah, and the church after her, should learn from Israel's rejection; like a newly bought slave who asks which servants were honored and which punished, we should read Scripture and imitate the righteous.
Homilies on Jeremiah 5.1Origen · ca. 240 · As the apostles turned from the synagogue to the nations, so the prophet, after rebuking Israel, calls the Gentiles to return and be healed, though Paul confesses that Israel too was once foolish and disobedient.
Homilies on Jeremiah 5.2Origen · ca. 240 · The call “Return, you returning sons” is addressed to the Gentiles, who answer at once “We will be yours”; having said this, they must belong to God alone and to no passion or false god.
Homilies on Jeremiah 5.4Origen · ca. 240 · The Gentiles confess the falsehood of idols, and of Israel they say that its salvation will come through God after the fullness of the nations has come in; Origen hints at a still later salvation of all.
Homilies on Jeremiah 9.1Origen · ca. 240 · The Word who came to Jeremiah is the same Christ who was incarnate, so the God of the law and the gospel is one; the “men of Judah” addressed are Christians, since Christ is the true Judah of Jacob's blessing.
Homilies on Jeremiah 9.2Origen · ca. 240 · Jerusalem is the church; Christians, who believe Moses because they believe Christ, hear the covenant and have come out of the spiritual Egypt, while the people once called God's people were told “not my people.”
Homilies on Jeremiah 10.4Origen · ca. 240 · The men of Anathoth (“Hearkening”) who sought Jeremiah's life stand for those who rejected Christ; their punishment is a famine of God's word, as prophecy and true teaching passed from them to the church.
Homilies on Jeremiah 10.8Origen · ca. 240 · Christ's earthly inheritance turned against him like a lion and was handed to the “beasts,” the hostile powers; if we too neglect God's law we face the same, but repentance brings us under the care of holy angels.
Homilies on Jeremiah 11.5Origen · ca. 240 · The linen loincloth that clung to the prophet is God's people, which rots when cast away for sin; the church from the nations is God's new loincloth, and like linen must be washed and whitened to cling to God.
Homilies on Jeremiah 13.1Origen · ca. 240 · As no one dares pity someone condemned by the emperor, so the angels do not intercede for Jerusalem, condemned by God for killing Christ.
Homilies on Jeremiah 14.12Origen · ca. 240 · The “treasures” taken from Israel as plunder are the prophets and the true meaning of Scripture, now given to the church; by rejecting Christ, who is righteousness, wisdom, and truth, they lost them all.
Homilies on Jeremiah 14.15Origen · ca. 240 · The prophet's joy in God's word lies in the future, after suffering; like him, Christ refused to sit in the “council of players” and left it to form the church from the nations.
Homilies on Jeremiah 18.5Origen · ca. 240 · The potter's word about two nations refers to Israel, threatened and punished for rejecting Christ, and to the church of the nations, planted on Christ, which will likewise be cut off if it bears no fruit.
Homilies on Jeremiah 18.8Origen · ca. 240 · Christians who return to their old sins after conversion say in deed what Judah said in word, “we will go after our turnings away”; the “horrible things” done by Israel are the killing of Christ, to whom the nations turned.
Lines 237–260Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · The Jews, failing to recognize Christ, lost their land as Isaiah and Daniel foretold, while a people that was no people received glory, as Jacob took Esau's birthright.
Lines 525–548Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · Christ's crucifixion was necessary for the fall of Adam, and he made a new people of the Gentiles, as Isaiah and Moses foretold, though the Jews claim the law for themselves alone.
Lines 717–740Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · As a father disinherits a murderous son, God has given the inheritance to obedient children, not to the Jews who rejected him.
Instructions 1.39Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · Leah and Rachel, Rebekah's twins, Tamar's twins, and Cain and Abel show that the younger people, the church, is preferred.
Instructions 2.1Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · At the end Christ will bring back the hidden people of the lost tribes, who will overthrow the Antichrist and free Jerusalem before the judgment by fire.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 2.113Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The bride, black but beautiful, answers the daughters of Jerusalem; spiritually she is the church of the gentiles, despised for her birth by those of the earthly Jerusalem.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 2.114Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The church of the gentiles, black for her birth but beautiful through repentance and faith, is the Ethiopian wife of Moses whom Miriam disparaged.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 2.117Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · After the Ethiopian Abdimelech's reward, Origen argues that Miriam and Aaron's complaint makes sense only mystically: Moses, the spiritual law, passes to the gentile church, while Miriam stands for the abandoned synagogue.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 2.122Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The queen's gifts are the church's consecrated understanding, prayers and works; Ethiopia stretching out her hand first means the gentiles coming before Israel, who will be saved after the fullness of the gentiles.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 2.126Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The gentiles were once passed over by the Sun of righteousness while Israel was looked upon; now the order is reversed, yet Israel too will obtain mercy, as Paul teaches in Romans 11.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.226Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Applied to Christ and the Church: winter is the age of plagues, wars and Israel's unbelief; spring is the Gentile Church, the pruning of sins in baptism, and the spiritual sense springing from the law.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.233Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The outer wall is the stronger defence of hope in the age to come; for the Church, Christ's call is the gospel of resurrection, and she 'sleeps among the lots' between Israel's first and final calling.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.234Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Israel's final calling will be by faith, not law; the Church walks veiled under Christ's shadow until the age to come, and her voice of true faith is sweet, unlike the heretics'.
To Vigilius, on Jewish Unbelief 7Anonymous · 3rd century (disputed) · Abraham's faith is the pattern for believers, his true sons; Israel lost that name by unbelief, yet Christ turned some of them to the truth.
Against Celsus 2.5Origen · ca. 248 · The Jew says the resurrection and judgment are nothing new, but Jesus taught that the kingdom would pass to the nations, and Christians read the prophets as pointing to a heavenly citizenship.
Against Celsus 2.8Origen · ca. 248 · No one like Jesus has appeared; the Jews' rejection of him was foretold by Isaiah, and Origen sees their loss of Jerusalem as a consequence.
Against Celsus 2.78Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Jesus did not come to cause the Jews' unbelief but foresaw it, and that God's providence used it to call the Gentiles, as the prophets and Paul foretold.
Against Celsus 4.3Origen · ca. 248 · Christ came to call back the lost sheep of Israel and give the kingdom to others; God does not correct people by force, since virtue must be freely chosen, and he always corrects the willing through his Word.
Against Celsus 4.22Origen · ca. 248 · Origen sees the destruction of Jerusalem about forty years after the crucifixion, and the Jews' long exile from their temple worship, as evidence of Jesus' divine significance and of God's call passing to the Christians.
Against Celsus 4.32Origen · ca. 248 · Providence transferred the dignity of Israel's law to believers from all nations through Jesus, whose word prevailed despite demon-inspired persecution by rulers and peoples; Israel was protected while faithful and forsaken after killing Jesus.
Against Celsus 5.10Origen · ca. 248 · God allotted the heavenly bodies to the nations but chose Israel for himself; his people, promised to shine like stars in the resurrection and possessing the true light of Christ, have no reason to worship sun, moon, or stars.
Against Celsus 5.29Origen · ca. 248 · The allotting of lands to gods, half-remembered in Greek and Egyptian lore, is taught truly by Moses: God divided the nations among his angels at Babel but kept Israel as his own portion; the deeper meaning is a mystery not to be exposed.
Against Celsus 5.31Origen · ca. 248 · Continuing the allegory, Israel is the people that stayed in the 'east' under the Lord's own care; their growing sins led to exile among other nations, after which their Lord in turn drew people from the nations to himself.
Against Celsus 5.33Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus asks where Christians come from and who founded their laws; Origen answers with Isaiah's prophecy of the nations streaming to the Lord's mountain: Christians are a people of peace founded by Jesus, who came from the Jews.
Against Celsus 5.50Origen · ca. 248 · The Jews were once favored and protected by God, as Alexander's homage to the high priest shows; that favor has now passed to Christians, whom Rome cannot destroy because God defends them.
Against Celsus 5.59Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus notes that the 'great church' shares the Jews' God and Genesis; Origen agrees, corrects Celsus's reading of God's 'rest' on the seventh day, and notes his silence about the plagues of Egypt.
Against Celsus 6.29Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus accuses Christians of both honouring and cursing the Creator; Origen answers that Christians always worship the one God of the Jews, and that the resurrection body is not the same flesh and blood that was sown.
Against Celsus 6.80Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus praises Chaldeans, Magi, Egyptians, Persians, and Indians as inspired nations while predicting the Jews' ruin, not seeing God's plan by which Israel's stumbling brought salvation to the Gentiles until all Israel is saved.
Against Celsus 7.26Origen · ca. 248 · The law of Moses suited a nation with its own state and wars, while the Gospel suits people from all nations under Roman rule; providence ended the temple worship and has made Christianity grow despite persecution.
Against Celsus 7.29Origen · ca. 248 · The good land promised by Moses is not earthly Judaea, which shares in the curse on the earth, but the heavenly Jerusalem that the Psalms promise to the meek and righteous.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 29Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · When Christ left the temple, the kingdom passed from the Jews to the Gentiles; each believer is a temple that Christ will leave desolate if he sins.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 53Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The fig tree that buds in spring figures the soul and the world in which Christ's hidden life comes forth, the Church as its tender branch, and the barren people of the circumcision; the coming of Christ is near to those who bear fruit.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 54Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · “This generation” is not only Christ's contemporaries but the generation of the Church, which will not pass until all is fulfilled in each believer; Christ's words never pass because they are always being fulfilled.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 101Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Peter, not yet grasping the gospel's patience, struck with the sword; the cutting off of the servant's right ear figures the loss of the Jewish people's right hearing of the law, which they now hear only in its shadow, as Isaiah foretold.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 133Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Both robbers first reviled Jesus, but one was converted, a figure of those who believe after many sins; the darkness at the crucifixion was not a solar eclipse, impossible at the Passover full moon, but a local darkness over Judea, probably from clouds, figuring the darkness that came upon the Jewish nation until all Israel is saved.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 135Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Christ's loud cry, “Why have you forsaken me?”, was not a lie nor a merely human complaint: he was forsaken in taking the form of a servant and enduring the cross, and his cry, uttered when darkness fell on Judea, expresses the forsaking of Israel for the salvation of the Gentiles and his grief at the sins of those for whom he suffered.
Commentary on Matthew 10.6Origen · ca. 246–248 · The finder hides the treasure because the secret meanings of Scripture are not to be disclosed to all, and buys the field by giving up all his former wickedness.
Commentary on Matthew 10.16Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen asks how the similitudes can be called parables, and reads Jesus' “own country,” where he was dishonoured, as all Judea in contrast to the Gentiles who honour him.
Commentary on Matthew 10.23Origen · ca. 246–248 · Jesus’ withdrawal after John’s death teaches flight from avoidable persecution, and spiritually signifies the Word’s departure from the Jews to the Gentiles, whom he pities and heals.
Commentary on Matthew 12.20Origen · ca. 246–248 · Jesus had to suffer in the earthly Jerusalem so as to make the firstfruits of the resurrection in the heavenly one, ending the earthly worship; his rising on the third day frees believers from a triad of evil powers, so that they may be baptized into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the three eternal days.
Commentary on Matthew 14.19Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen reads Deuteronomy's law of divorce allegorically of the synagogue, divorced by Christ for unfaithfulness, with the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the temple worship as the bill of divorce.
Commentary on Matthew 15.26Origen · ca. 246–248 · “The first will be last” warns those proud of long Christian ancestry or clerical forebears, and applies to unbelieving Israel and to the believing nations, though not every Israelite is last nor every Gentile believer first.
Commentary on Matthew 16.3Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen links the Passion to the fall of Jerusalem and the end of its priesthood and temple, reads the earthly temple as a shadow replaced by the heavenly, and applies the Passion figuratively to the Jews of his own day, while the nations see Christ the great light.
Commentary on Matthew 16.10Origen · ca. 246–248 · The two blind men by the road are Israel and Judah before Christ’s coming, sitting by the law and the prophets without seeing their meaning, and knowing Jesus only as son of David according to the flesh.
Commentary on Matthew 16.15Origen · ca. 246–248 · Zion and Jerusalem, bidden to rejoice, are the heavenly city; the tied ass and colt are the synagogue and the Gentile people, loosed from sin through the apostles’ teaching so that Christ may ride on them and give them rest.
Commentary on Matthew 16.26Origen · ca. 246–248 · Leaving Jerusalem for Bethany, the church, Christ curses the fruitless fig tree, which Origen reads as the synagogue; the mountain cast into the sea is Satan, removed from believers by the faith and teaching of Christ’s disciples.
Commentary on Matthew 17.4Origen · ca. 246–248 · The parable of the two sons concerns disobedient Israel and the believing Gentiles, and also those who promise little but do much, or promise much but do nothing.
Commentary on Matthew 17.5Origen · ca. 246–248 · The tax collectors and prostitutes go ahead of Israel into the kingdom, which implies that Israel too will enter when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Commentary on Matthew 17.6Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen gives the simple reading of the parable of the tenants (Israel as the vineyard, the prophets as servants, Christ as the son) and then asks why God is called a man, a householder, or a king in the parables.
Commentary on Matthew 17.12Origen · ca. 246–248 · Christ, the stone rejected by the builders, became the head of the corner uniting the two Testaments; the kingdom was only “let out” to Israel but is “given” to the nation that bears its fruit.
Commentary on Matthew 17.15Origen · ca. 246–248 · In the general reading of the wedding feast, the king is God, the marriage is the church’s restoration to Christ, the servants are the prophets, and the burning of the city is the fall of Jerusalem.
Commentary on Romans 4.2Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Abraham was justified while uncircumcised, so he is the father of believing Gentiles, while circumcision was given afterward as a 'sign' pointing to spiritual circumcision and a 'seal' to be opened when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and all Israel is saved; true sonship of Abraham is by faith and works, not descent.
Commentary on Romans 7.13Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains Paul’s wish to be anathema for Israel as Christlike self-offering that was heard (all Israel will be saved), lists Israel’s privileges, and argues from Rom 9:5 that Christ is God over all and that the Trinity is one in nature and substance.
Commentary on Romans 7.14Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains that God’s word to Israel has not failed, because the true Israel, named from “seeing God,” are the children of the promise of faith, as Isaac alone was Abraham’s heir.
Commentary on Romans 7.18Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains why God makes his wrath known but hides his kindness, that vessels of mercy are those who purge themselves, that Israel lost the grace it did not keep and the Gentiles must fear the same, and that God says “not my people” and “sons of the living God” in the conscience.
Commentary on Romans 7.19Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains Isaiah’s “remnant” (stars of heaven, not sand of the sea), the “shortened word” as the double love commandment or the creed, and the “seed” left to Israel as Christ, sown in death to bear the Church as fruit.
Commentary on Romans 8.6Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Not all believe the gospel; Origen distinguishes the simple 'sound' of preaching that reaches all from the 'words' of wisdom that reach the learned, explains 'no-nation' as the honor of a people drawn from all nations, and reads Isaiah's boldness as his willingness to die for the truth, while the Jews still seek Christ and do not find him.
Commentary on Romans 8.9Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Israel has stumbled but not fallen beyond recovery, as the devil has; its trespass enriches the world and the Gentiles, God turning even sins to others' profit, and Israel's coming to faith at the end will complete the fullness of the Lord's portion.
Commentary on Romans 8.12Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Israel's partial blindness, brought on by the jealous angels of the nations and permitted by God, made room for the Gentiles; when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, Israel will seek Christ and be saved, while those not purified by the gospel face the purifying fire of Gehenna, a mystery not to be spread among the imperfect.
Commentary on Romans 8.13Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Israel, an enemy as regards the gospel but beloved for the fathers, will obtain mercy after the fullness of the Gentiles; God permits evil, even from its origin, so that others may profit from it, and Paul's cry 'O the depth' and 'from him, through him, in him' points to the Trinity, whose counsels no creature can search.
To Quirinus 0Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Cyprian sends Quirinus two books of Scripture passages arranged under headings: one on the Jews and the church, the other on Christ.
To Quirinus 1.11Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Jeremiah foretold a new covenant, unlike the one made at the exodus.
To Quirinus 1.20Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The barren women of Scripture who bore late, Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah, prefigure the church, which bears more children from the nations than the synagogue, symbolized by the number seven.
To Quirinus 1.21Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · From the blessings of Abraham, Jacob, Ephraim, and Judah through the prophets to Paul, Scripture foretells that the nations would believe in Christ.
Fragment Z II (on Rom 11:26)Dionysius of Alexandria · ca. 248–265 · On Rom 11:26: Dionysius took ‘all Israel’ to mean the greater part of Israel.
On the Lord's Prayer 10Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Our Father' is the prayer of believers made God's children, which Cyprian contrasts with those Jews who rejected Christ.
On the Lord's Prayer 13Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Your kingdom come' asks for the heavenly kingdom promised to believers; Christ himself can be understood as that kingdom.
Recognitions 1.50Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter argues that prophecy is confirmed because the Gentiles, not the Jews who expected him, received Christ, the 'expectation of the nations'.
Recognitions 4.5Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter teaches that God gives the Hebrews to believe Moses and the nations to love Jesus, but each must by his own will also accept the other and do God's will.
Prophetic Extracts 2.9Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius argues that the seventeenth psalm's “head of nations” and “a people whom I did not know” cannot fit David and are fulfilled in Christ, head of the Gentile church.
Prophetic Extracts 3.18Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius contrasts Micah's ploughed Zion with the new mountain of the Lord to which the nations come, the church, whose new law brings peace; the end of the section is damaged.
Prophetic Extracts 3.26Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies Zechariah's thirty pieces of silver to Judas's betrayal and reads the broken staff as the end of the old covenant and its worship.
Prophetic Extracts 3.34Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius reads Jeremiah's “I have forsaken my house… I have given my beloved soul into the hands of her enemies” as Christ speaking of the temple, his passion, and the later desolation of Jerusalem.
Prophetic Extracts 3.36Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius reads Jeremiah's righteous Dayspring for David, and the promises of an unfailing Davidic king and priesthood, as fulfilled spiritually in Christ and the church's leaders and priests, since the literal throne and priesthood have ceased.
Prophetic Extracts 3.37Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies Jeremiah's new covenant written on hearts to the Gospel, which makes the old covenant obsolete and forms a virtuous life even in the unlettered.
Prophetic Extracts 3.41Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies Ezekiel's promise of one shepherd, “David my servant,” ruling for ever over a reunited people to Christ and the spiritual Israel, not to a restored earthly kingdom.
Prophetic Extracts 4.1Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies Isaiah's mountain of the Lord and the law going forth from Zion to Christ, the new covenant, and the church of the nations, contrasting it with the rejection of Jerusalem in Isaiah 1.
Prophetic Extracts 4.2Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies Isaiah's “let us bind the righteous one,” paralleled in Wisdom 2:12, to the plot against Christ and sees its punishment in the loss of prophets and rulers among the Jews.
Prophetic Extracts 4.8Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius reads Isaiah's shoot from the root of Jesse, and the peace among wild beasts, as Christ and the taming of human natures in the churches, with Lebanon's fall as Jerusalem's.
Prophetic Extracts 4.16Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius reads Isaiah's blossoming wilderness and the healings at God's coming as Christ's miracles and the living water of his words given to the church of the nations.
Prophetic Extracts 4.20Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius argues, from Matthew and the Hebrew text, that Isaiah's servant who brings justice to the nations is Christ, not the Jewish people or the patriarch Jacob.
Prophetic Extracts 4.24Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies the second Servant Song, “You are my servant, Israel… a light of nations,” to Christ, who sees God (Israel) and overcame the powers (Jacob), freeing the bound and becoming the light of the Gentiles.
Prophetic Extracts 4.25Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies the third Servant Song (Isa 50) to the Word, divine before the incarnation, who as man gave his back to scourges and his face to spitting, and reads the opening “bill of divorce” as God's rejection of the synagogue.
Prophetic Extracts 4.28Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius reads Isaiah's everlasting covenant of “the sure holy things of David” as the Gospel given through Christ to the nations who did not know him.
Divine Institutes 4.11.2Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Otherwise God would give his inheritance to the gentiles.
Divine Institutes 4.20.7Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Jeremiah: God forsook his inheritance.
Divine Institutes 4.20.8Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · God hates not the inheritance but the ungrateful heirs.
Divine Institutes 4.20.11Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The 'house of Judah' now means the gentile church, adopted in the Jews' place.
Apology for Origen 5.1Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · Origen's argument from fulfilled prophecy (the end of Judah's rulers, the calling of the Gentiles, the spread of the gospel) closes Pamphilus's proof of his faith in the Trinity; Pamphilus then begins to list the charges against him.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.2.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Jewish objection: the prophecies of the Christ and other promises were given to the Jews, not to the nations.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.2.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Jewish objection continues: Christians take the rebukes for Israel but claim its promises for themselves.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 38.5Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · God sent prophets warning of a new lawgiver and a new people from the nations.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 38.7Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · The Son came first to Israel, so that they might keep their inheritance if they obeyed.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 43.3Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Scripture shows the nations adopted in Israel's place.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 43.4Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Jeremiah: God has forsaken his inheritance.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.4.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Jeremiah calls the new song a new covenant, unlike the covenant of Sinai.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.6.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Moses’ wording implies that the fathers had a different and better covenant.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.6.58Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The “old covenant” means the Mosaic covenant, not the patriarchs’ piety.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.6.59Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Jeremiah specifies that the old covenant is the one made at the exodus.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.6.60Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The prophecy distinguishes the new covenant from the Sinai covenant, not from Abraham’s piety.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.7.23Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christ wrote the laws of the new covenant not on stone but in his disciples’ souls, fulfilling Jeremiah.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Amos foretells Israel sifted among the nations and David’s fallen tent raised up.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.29Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Isaiah foretells that east and west will fear God’s name; Eusebius concludes that the Jews have no advantage over the nations.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.30Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · If the Jews claim Abraham’s blessing by descent, the nations have been promised an equal blessing.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.35Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Once Israel was the Lord’s portion; now the nations are given to Christ as his inheritance.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.39Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Being God’s people, once Israel’s privilege, is promised to the nations at the Lord’s coming.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.43Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The prophecies silence the claim that the promises are for Israel alone; only a remnant of Israel believed.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.44Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Paul, citing Isaiah, teaches that only a remnant of Israel will be saved.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.45Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Paul insists God has not rejected his people.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.47Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The apostles and Jewish believers are the remnant and seed foretold by Isaiah.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.78Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The remnant are the apostles and Jewish believers.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.96Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Only a remnant of Israel’s multitude will be saved.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.121Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Spiritual character marks the true Israel; wickedness makes the fleshly Israel “Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.139Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · God chose the remnant and the nations to provoke the unbelieving to jealousy.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.159Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The meek remnant are Jewish believers in Christ; next heading: Zechariah.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.164Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The ark will be forgotten because a new covenant replaces Mosaic worship; next heading: Jeremiah 5.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.175Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius concludes that the promises belong to a remnant, not to all Jews, and no more to them than to believing Gentiles.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.7.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · “Jacob” means the one still struggling for virtue and “Israel” the one who has won; the names refer to the godly of old, not to the Jewish people as a whole.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.7.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The fruitful land turned to desert is Jerusalem after it rejected Christ.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.17.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The church may be called Zion’s daughter because it was born from Israel through the apostles, while the mother was put away, as the prophets said.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.18.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · A remnant of Jews believed in Christ, as Paul says.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.18.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · As Israel was God’s vineyard, the Gentile church is his olive grove, grafted onto the apostolic root.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.18.19Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · God abandoned the fruitless vineyard of Israel and planted a new olive grove, the church, whose members are like fruitful olive trees.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.2.24Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · “Israel” in Scripture means all who live pleasing to God, as sinful Israelites are called Canaanites or Sodomites.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.3.45Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Judah and Israel saved are the Jewish believers and all who are Jews inwardly.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.3.46Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Inward Jews, called through Christ, will receive a new name.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.3.47Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius suggests the name Iosedekeim, “the righteous of God,” is formed from Jesus' name and designates Christians.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.3.48Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The new people are named Iosedekeim before God and his prophets.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.4.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The second rod, the Portion, is the whole Jewish nation, cast away from God’s oversight.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.8.111Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The new people and coming generation are the church of the nations, as Isaiah marvelled at a nation born in a day.
On the Incarnation 40.4Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · With no king, prophet, or temple left, and the nations turning to Israel's God through Christ, denial of his coming is perverse.
On the Incarnation 40.7Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · With Israel's institutions gone and the earth filled with the knowledge of God, Christ has plainly come.
Theophany 4.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.24Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Demonstration 1.11Aphrahat · 337-345
Demonstration 5.21Aphrahat · 337-345
Demonstration 5.22Aphrahat · 337-345
Demonstration 5.23Aphrahat · 337-345
Demonstration 11.1Aphrahat · 337-345 · Abraham was made father of many nations; the prophets called unfaithful Israel Sodom and Gomorrah, so physical descent and circumcision do not make one Abraham's heir.
Demonstration 12.4Aphrahat · 337-345 · Jeremiah's 'painted bird' is the church gathered from many nations; the prophets show God turning to the nations when Israel would not listen.
Demonstration 16.2Aphrahat · 337-345 · When Israel refused Jeremiah's call, God turned to the nations; the 'painted bird' of Jer 12:9 is the church gathered from all tongues.
Demonstration 16.3Aphrahat · 337-345 · The prophets called unfaithful Israel and Judah Sodom, the fornicating and adulterous wife, and a burned vine, while the name Jacob and pure offerings pass to the faithful people of the nations.
Demonstration 16.4Aphrahat · 337-345 · Israel was once written in God's book but was blotted out for its sins, while the nations are now counted; Moses declined to found a new nation because that glory belonged to the Son of God.
Demonstration 16.5Aphrahat · 337-345 · Though Israel was called God's son, the prophets foretold the calling of the nations and a famine of the word for Israel.
Demonstration 16.6Aphrahat · 337-345 · Gentiles such as Jethro, the Gibeonites, Rahab, Obed-edom, Ebed-melech, Ruth, and Uriah were accepted even under the old covenant; Christ is a covenant to Israel and a light to the nations, whose turning from idols provokes Israel.
Demonstration 16.8Aphrahat · 337-345 · Aphrahat answers Jewish claims to be Abraham's children with John the Baptist, Christ, and Paul's olive tree, warning Gentile believers too against boasting.
Demonstration 19.2Aphrahat · 337-345 · Against the hope that Israel will be gathered again, Aphrahat argues that God's promises are conditional on obedience, as Jeremiah shows.
Demonstration 19.3Aphrahat · 337-345 · Moses and the prophets, especially Hosea, Jeremiah, and Micah, repeatedly condemned Israel and announced its rejection.
Demonstration 19.5Aphrahat · 337-345 · The prophets show that Israel never accepted correction and was rejected, likened to the Ethiopians and Philistines and to a ruined vine, while the law went out from Zion to the nations.
Demonstration 20.7Aphrahat · 337-345 · In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man is Israel, enriched by God's gifts, and the dogs who lick Lazarus's sores are the nations who receive Christ's Body.
Demonstration 20.10Aphrahat · 337-345 · The death of the rich man is Israel's end and the giving of a new name, Christians; the poor man borne by angels is Christ, whom angels served from his birth to his resurrection.
Demonstration 20.14Aphrahat · 337-345 · Isaiah's promise of water and trees for the thirsty poor is read of the nations receiving the Scriptures, with priests and the covenant as the evergreen trees.
Demonstration 21.3Aphrahat · 337-345
On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.20.89Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Israel was taught one God; the Father of the only Son was revealed to the church of the nations.
Oration IV Against the Arians 34Athanasius of Alexandria · 4th century (disputed) · The author teaches that Christ is the divine Word united with the humanity formed in Mary, the true temple of which Solomon's was an image, and calls Paul of Samosata a disciple of those who objected that Jesus made himself God.
Catechetical Lecture 18.25Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The first assembly, in Judea, was cast off, and Christ built a second, worldwide Church from the Gentiles, as the Psalms and Malachi foretold.
Commentary on Matthew 7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · The leper, the tribune’s servant, Peter’s mother-in-law, the evening healings, the scribe, and the disciple who would bury his father are read as figures of the believing crowd, the nations, unbelief healed, and the church as Christ’s ship.
Commentary on Matthew 15Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · After rebuking the Pharisees’ traditions, Jesus heals the Canaanite woman’s daughter, a figure of the proselytes and the nations; the feeding of the four thousand with seven loaves signifies the nations nourished by the sevenfold Spirit.
Commentary on Matthew 21Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · Hilary expounds the triumphal entry (the donkey and colt as Samaritans and nations), the cleansing of the temple (sellers of doves as those who sell the Spirit’s gift), the children’s praise, the cursed fig tree as the synagogue, the question about John’s baptism, and the two sons.
Commentary on Matthew 29Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · The woman anointing Jesus at Bethany prefigures the nations glorifying God in Christ’s passion and buried with him in baptism, while Israel, in Judas, is roused to hatred.
On the Trinity 5.28Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Isaiah foretells that the name Israel will pass to God's chosen ones; Paul calls those who walk by Christ's rule the Israel of God.
On the Trinity 11.34Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · The enemies to be subjected include Israel, now hardened but beloved, who will be delivered (Rom 11:25–28).
Homilies on the Psalms 32.7Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · On Ps 33:11–12 Basil contrasts the scattered philosophies of the nations with the abiding counsel of God, reads the two “generations” as the two covenants, and calls blessed the chosen people gathered from the nations, before the remnant of Israel.
Homilies on the Psalms 59.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil, weak from long illness, likens his sermon to a mother's dry breast given to a crying child. He finds the history behind the title of Ps 60 in 2 Samuel 8 and 10, and asks why David laments after his greatest victories: the title points to the end, to “those who will be changed,” the Gentiles who turn from idols to the Gospel; he then reads the verses as God's rejection of sin, his pity in sending his Son, the sign of Christ's blood, and the sharing of Israel's covenant with all nations.
On the Holy Spirit 48Didymus the Blind · Greek ca. 360-390; Latin 387-391 · Applied to the Jews who crucified Christ, God's fighting against them is their defeat and exile under Rome, yet God leaves them a place for repentance until all Israel is saved.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.17.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · A fragment: Sarah signifies the church, Hagar the synagogue.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.20.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Esau's contempt for his birthright prefigures the first people losing the hope of resurrection through carnal desire.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.29.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The synagogue nursed Christ according to the flesh, while the Gentile church adopted him.
Treatise on the Mysteries 2.1.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Paul applies Hosea's prophecy to the church of Jews and Gentiles.
Treatise on the Mysteries 2.4.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Israel loses its election; the harlot's later children, the Gentiles, are called sons of God.
Tractates on the Psalms 2.19Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Isaiah 1 is an example of God speaking in anger, with severe threats against Israel.
Tractates on the Psalms 2.31Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The inheritance Christ asked for is all the nations, no longer under angelic rulers as in the Song of Moses but made one people of God.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.19Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The righteous, seeing the fall of a people once so blessed, both fear the example and rejoice in their own righteousness, joy and fear tempering each other.
Tractates on the Psalms 52.19Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Salvation is given not to Israel according to the flesh but to the children of promise and faith, as John, Christ, Daniel, and Ezekiel show.
Tractates on the Psalms 52.21Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Jacob, the supplanter, signifies the Gentile believer who takes the place of the elder people; Israel, "one who sees God," the baptized believer who sees God by faith.
Tractates on the Psalms 58.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God does not destroy Israel but scatters it, keeping a remnant for mercy; when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, Israel will be saved and know the God of Jacob as Lord of the earth.
Tractates on the Psalms 59.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · "Those who will be changed" are converts from the synagogue and the nations to the church; the "valley of salt" signifies believers, the salt of the earth; the psalm was written when Nathan foretold the eternal king.
Tractates on the Psalms 59.13Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The prophet longs for the heavenly Jerusalem but knows that first Edom, the failing elder people, must be reached; God, who abandoned Israel's armies, will at the last save its remnant.
Tractates on the Psalms 65.15Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Those who deny God’s mercy to the nations, boasting of descent from Abraham, provoke him to anger.
Tractates on the Psalms 67.28Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Benjamin is Paul, and the princes of Zebulun and Naphtali are the apostles called in Galilee; the church draws its teaching from the fountains of Israel.
Tractates on the Psalms 67.36Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God’s glory rests on the spiritual Israel caught up in the clouds; all will rise, but some to life and some to judgment.
Tractates on the Psalms 68.33Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The inheritance in Zion belongs not to descent by flesh but to those who love the Lord’s name.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.18.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The verse also fits the younger people, the Gentile church, chosen in place of the elder people as Jacob received Esau's birthright.
Tractates on the Psalms 120.10Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The keeper of Israel never sleeps; Israel means "one who sees God" and now includes the church, so all who confess God as their help are kept.
Tractates on the Psalms 121.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The tribes who go up are the nations who received the word from Zion, a testimony against Israel according to the flesh, which crucified the Lord.
Tractates on the Psalms 121.8Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The nations confess Christ as God, a testimony against Israel, which received every gift yet rejected the law, the prophets, and Christ himself.
Tractates on the Psalms 123.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary begins Psalm 123 [124]: having obtained mercy, Israel, the one who sees God, is taught to say that without the Lord his enemies would have swallowed him alive.
Tractates on the Psalms 124.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalm cannot refer to earthly Jerusalem, which killed the prophets and the Lord and was destroyed and left desolate; its meaning must be sought elsewhere.
Tractates on the Psalms 124.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Israel, the faithful, will receive peace, which is Christ, who made both peoples one.
Tractates on the Psalms 126.16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Lord's inheritance is not carnal Israel but the sons of God; Christ, the virgin's fruit of the womb, receives the believing nations as his reward.
Tractates on the Psalms 131.18Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's oath to David of an everlasting throne in Zion cannot refer to the earthly city, long destroyed, nor to David's scattered descendants.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary asks why the psalm names Jacob rather than Abraham, and why it distinguishes Jacob chosen from Israel possessed.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Jacob, who supplanted his brother, gained the birthright and blessing, and became Israel after wrestling with God, figures the church, which takes the inheritance of the people of the law.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.21Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The promised land, since lost by Israel, signifies our bodies, freed from vices and glorified, the inheritance of the true Israel who bear the heavenly image.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.23Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's memorial, the law, passed from the first generation, the Jews, to the second, the Christians, once the measure of impiety was filled.
Tractates on the Psalms 138.40Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's two promises to Abraham, sand and stars, correspond to Paul's two covenants; believers in Christ, 'above the sand', outnumber the people of the law.
Tractates on the Psalms 143.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · 'My people' is the whole church; even the Gentiles, 'unknown' while Israel was God's chosen portion, are his because he made them.
Tractates on the Psalms 144.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The two generations that praise God's works are the people of the law, from Abraham, and the people renewed in Christ.
Tractates on the Psalms 147.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's word is declared to the true Jacob and Israel, those who by faith received Christ and are built on the rock, not to those who claim only descent.
Tractates on the Psalms 149.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The new song belongs to the saints, the spiritual Israel and children of the heavenly Zion, rejoicing in Christ their king, as in the music at the prodigal son's return.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.13Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian argues that the parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son, though first spoken to tax collectors and sinners, apply to the whole church as their figure.
Commentary on Ephesians 2.12Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · As Gentiles without Christ, the Ephesians were outside the true Israel, which lives according to the spirit, and strangers to the promises of the covenants given through the prophets.
Commentary on Ephesians 3.6Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · The revealed mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of one body, and sharers of the promise in Christ together with Israel.
Commentary on Galatians 4.22Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Abraham’s two sons, by Hagar the slave and Sarah the free woman, signify two peoples, the Jews under the law and the church, with Isaac a figure of Christ.
Commentary on Galatians 4.27Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Isaiah’s barren woman who rejoices over many children is Sarah, who bore Isaac by God’s promise rather than by the flesh, and so a type of the church, which bears many spiritual children with joy, unlike the law and the synagogue.
Commentary on Galatians 6.16Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Peace rests on all who follow the rule of hope in Christ alone and on the true Israel of the Lord; Paul, bearing Christ’s marks of suffering, asks to be troubled no more and blesses them with Christ’s grace.
Oration 6.17Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Israel prospered while united and fell through faction; Gregory distinguishes good from bad peace, urges reconciliation with the father, and ends with a confession of the Trinity.
Tractates 2.14.4Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno allegorises the story of Tamar: Shelah is the Gentile people, Tamar the church, and Judah's pledges the law, the cross and the seal of faith, by which the church is justified.
Tractates 2.22.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno begins a sermon on Isaiah 1:2, interpreting the call to heaven and earth as the turning of God's word from the Jews to others.
Tractates 2.22.2Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno interprets 'heaven' in Isaiah 1:2 as the apostles and 'earth' as the Gentiles, who would hear Christ when the Jews did not.
Tractates 2.22.3Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno expounds 'I have begotten and exalted sons' of God's favours to Israel in the exodus, and 'they despised me' of the crucifixion.
Tractates 2.27.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno begins a sermon on the vine of Psalm 80, which passed from Israel, which bore wild grapes, to the church.
Tractates 2.28.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · In a short Easter address Zeno warns Christians by Israel's example and rejoices over the newly baptized, new vines of the church.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:21Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Isaiah's 'other tongues' refers to the new covenant's teaching, or to Christ's parables, which unbelieving Jews still refused.
Commentary on Colossians 1:27–28Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The revealed mystery is that gentiles share in Christ, the hope of glory, without circumcision.
Commentary on Galatians 3:7Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · All believers, Jew or gentile, are Abraham's sons.
Commentary on Galatians 3:14Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · With Christ rejected by the Jews, Abraham's blessing passed to the gentiles through faith.
Commentary on Galatians 3:20Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Christ is the arbiter who made peace between Jews and gentiles by removing what divided them; as God he is one with the Father; the law, unable to give life, shut all under sin so that faith might receive the promise.
Commentary on Galatians 4:23–24Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ishmael, born naturally, stands for the Jews and slaves of sin; Isaac, born by promise and a type of Christ, for Christians freed by forgiveness; Hagar is the covenant of Sinai.
Commentary on Galatians 4:25Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Hagar represents the earthly Jerusalem, the synagogue, whose children are under sin.
Commentary on Galatians 4:30Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Sarah's demand to cast out Hagar's son signifies the rejection of unbelieving Israel and the inheritance of the new people.
Commentary on Galatians 6:15–16Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · What counts is the new creation of regeneration; God's peace rests on the Israel of God, believing Jews and gentiles alike.
Commentary on Romans 9:7Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Abraham’s true sons, Jew or gentile, are those who share his faith in the promise fulfilled in Christ, of whom Isaac was a type.
Commentary on Romans 11:11Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster distinguishes Jews blinded for ever because they rejected known truth from malice, and those blinded only for a time through zeal for ancestral tradition, who will return; Israel’s fall has enriched the gentiles, and their fullness will enrich the world more.
Commentary on Romans 11:13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul honours his ministry to the gentiles by hoping to win his fellow Jews, whose return would be life from the dead; the holy root and firstfruits show they can still believe, while gentiles are grafted, against nature, into the good olive.
Commentary on Romans 11:25–36Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Israel’s partial blindness, caused by zeal for the law, lasts until the fullness of the gentiles has come in; then, their unbelief being from error, not malice, they will be restored to free choice and saved.
Commentary on Romans 11:28Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Israel’s unbelief opened the way for the gentiles, but the Jews remain beloved for the fathers’ sake, and if they believe, baptism will forgive them freely without the penance required for grave sins.
Commentary on Romans 15:9Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The gentiles, saved by mercy alone, praise God, as the psalms and Deuteronomy foretold, joining Israel in one people, as the Jerusalem church accepted in the case of Cornelius.
Question 3, section 4Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The line from Seth to Abraham, David, and Christ shows that all who believed in the one God were Christians from the beginning; Christ’s coming revealed the persons within the one God and completed the law.
Question 8, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The veil is removed when one turns to the Lord; the broken tablets signify the rejected Jewish people and the renewed law another people.
Question 44, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · If Isaiah’s “house of prayer for all nations” meant only proselytes joining the synagogue, it would say nothing new, since proselytes were always admitted.
Question 44, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Isaiah spoke of something new: God would open his house to the nations in place of the unrepentant Jews, who would lose the promised grace.
Question 44, section 3Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The promise is the new covenant of forgiveness foretold by Isaiah and Jeremiah, needed because Israel broke the first covenant with the golden calf.
Question 44, section 10Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Circumcision, though older than Moses, belonged to its time; the new covenant has its own sign and name, so that believers are called Christians after Christ as Hebrews were named after Abraham.
Letter 21.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets the father as God and the two sons as the two peoples called by God.
Letter 21.28Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome turns to the elder son, whom some take as the saints and others as the Jews, and links him with those who refuse the invitation to the feast.
Letter 21.30Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome applies the elder son's question to Israel's incomprehension at the calling of the Gentiles.
Letter 21.35Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome voices Israel's complaint that no redeemer died for it, answers that Christ the Lamb has been offered to it too, and warns of the Antichrist.
Letter 36.16Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome quotes Hippolytus's allegory of Isaac's blessing, in which Jacob represents Christ and the church and Esau the former people.
Letter 36.17Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome adds that the blessing offered first to Israel passed to the Gentiles, but that all Israel will yet be saved.
Letter 65.18Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome discusses the Hebrew sor ('Tyre' or 'strongest') and interprets the rich who entreat the daughter as Israelites coming to faith in the church of the Gentiles.
Letter 65.21Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets 'instead of your fathers, sons' as the church's teachers replacing the pagan past, or the apostles succeeding the patriarchs.
Letter 74.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the literal sense of Solomon's judgement between two harlots and introduces the reading of the two women as synagogue and church.
Letter 74.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reads the story of the two mothers as the church and the synagogue, the dead child standing for the law's observance and the living child for the church's converts.
Letter 74.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome continues the allegory: Solomon as Christ tests the two women with the sword, and the true mother, the church, will not see her child divided between law and grace.
Letter 78.43Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reviews the events at the last station, the plains of Moab, from Balaam to Moses' death, and closes by linking the crossing of the Jordan under Joshua ('Jesus') with the Christian's entrance into the promised land.
Letter 119.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome translates Origen, who reads 'we who are alive' of those who have put their flesh to death, or of the believing remnant of Israel.
Letter 120.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the signs at Christ's death (the torn veil, earthquake, split rocks, opened tombs) literally and spiritually, and says Jerusalem lost the name of holy city after its destruction.
Letter 121.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome compares Matthew's citation of Isa 42:1-4 with the Septuagint and the Hebrew, and interprets the bruised reed as Israel and the smoking flax as the Gentiles.
Letter 121.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains Paul's wish to be accursed for Israel as the self-giving love of a shepherd like Moses, willing to perish in the flesh so that others may be saved.
Letter 129.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome denies disparaging Judaea or history and argues that the promises of land were types fulfilled in the church of the nations.
Letter 129.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recounts Israel's past captivities and deliverances and attributes the present long ruin of Jerusalem to the rejection of Christ, until all Israel is saved.
Ancoratus 65.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Christ made Jews and Gentiles one and calls all to himself.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 8.7.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius holds that the Jews were cast out and can be saved only through the gospel.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 55.4.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Melchizedek’s order shows the priesthood transferred from Israel to the church.
On Cain and Abel 2.7Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · First fruits are holy by devotion, not by time; so Israel and the Levites, though not firstborn by birth, are called firstborn because they are holy and devoted to God.
Apostolic Constitutions 5.15.1Anonymous · ca. 380 · The Gentile believers, once no people, are now God's holy nation.
Apostolic Constitutions 5.15.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · The gate of life is opened to the Gentiles, as Isaiah foretold.
Apostolic Constitutions 5.15.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · God's complaint against unbelieving Israel is quoted.
Apostolic Constitutions 5.16.5Anonymous · ca. 380 · Knowledge was taken from Israel and the kingdom given to the believing Gentiles.
Apostolic Constitutions 5.16.8Anonymous · ca. 380 · The kingdom taken from unbelieving Israel is given to the Gentiles, who must bear its fruits.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.5.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · God has rejected the synagogue as he foretold through the prophets.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.5.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · God took his Spirit from Israel and filled and exalted his church.
On Noah 26Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · The gentiles, once ignoble and lame, received grace through faith and baptism, while the Jewish people lost what it had; the apostle, unlike Plato, revealed the mystery.
On Tobit 64Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Gentile believers now lend the interpretation of Scripture back to Israel, as the parable of the pounds teaches.
On Tobit 66Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The Gentile church received the word refused by the synagogue, fulfilling Deuteronomy’s curse and blessing.
Book of Heresies 107.13Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Christ and Paul foretell Israel's salvation.
Book of Heresies 148.9Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Abraham's tithe to Melchizedek prefigures the Jews' subjection to the church.
Book of Heresies 151.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The stone knives are gentiles who teach the Jews.
Book of Heresies 151.3Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Jews taught by former gentiles may be saved if they believe.
Book of Heresies 151.5Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The gentiles will believe first, then Israel.
Book of Heresies 156.10Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Christ joined the teaching of the law and the patriarchs and united Jews and gentiles.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 69Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · Paul sets Abraham's faith before the Jews; believers, justified by faith, are the Israel of God.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 70Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · The Gentiles must not boast over Israel's fall; God wills all to be saved and reconciled the world in Christ.
On the Complaints of Job and David 3.12Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · Astrologers who blame the stars set their mouths against heaven; yet God reserves for Israel a return through the fullness of the church.
Second Apology of David 37Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · Allegorically, the prophet is the Holy Spirit and the adulteress the synagogue; Christ was born of that family but, spotless, from a virgin.
Second Apology of David 38Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · The child who died stands for the synagogue, Solomon (“wise and peaceful”) for the Christian people who reach the kingdom.
Second Apology of David 45Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · The church’s nakedness is openness of heart, unlike the veiled synagogue; turning to the Lord removes the veil.
Second Apology of David 49Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · Uriah (“my light”) is the law, Christ’s light; it was diminished not by Christ but by enemies, until the fullness of the Gentiles and Israel’s salvation.
Second Apology of David 53Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · Those who killed Uriah were themselves slain, a figure that the killers of Christ did not escape; the first, weak offspring stands for the Jews, the later fruit for Christians.
Second Apology of David 60Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · David’s verdict on the rich man is the Jewish people’s self-condemnation, while the fourfold restoration is the Christian people’s greater good in the resurrection.
Altercatio, chapter 2, speech 38Evagrius of Gaul · ca. 400 · Theophilus argues that Christ calls the uncircumcised, that the younger people supersedes the elder, and that the prophets foretold a new covenant and circumcision of the heart.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 2.9Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Esau's robe given to Jacob signifies the Old Testament given to the Christian people, who are justified by faith rather than works.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 2.10Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Esau's late arrival shows the kingdom destined for the church; Jacob's 'guile' was the blameless seizing of the kingdom by the eager.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 2.12Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Every passion enslaves; only the prudent are free, and the wise rule as lenders of wisdom, which Ambrose applies to Jews and gentiles.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 2.13Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Isaac's words to Esau point to two peoples, of the letter and of grace, and to the remnant to be saved when the people of the letter accepts the spiritual meaning.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 2.31Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Jacob's limp is read as a sign that one of the peoples descended from him would be numb toward faith.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.9.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The synagogue too says “I am dark and beautiful,” consoled that Christ and the apostles came from her.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.9.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The synagogue is dark because the sun of righteousness has left her, but hopes he will look on her again.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.9.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The sun that now shines on the Gentiles can forgive and enlighten the synagogue too.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.9.4Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ will be reconciled to the synagogue when she repents and opens her windows to his light.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.10.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The synagogue, made keeper of the vineyard, did not keep her own, which bore thorns.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.10.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The apostles and prophets opposed the synagogue, which lost Christ, unlike the bride who held him fast.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.11.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The synagogue asks where Christ feeds because she lost the one she once loved.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.11.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The synagogue asks Christ, who has gone to the Gentiles, where he dwells at midday, that is, in the church.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.11.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The synagogue rejected the cross, so Christ is midday only for those who received him as Savior.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.12.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The synagogue, once first and rich, now must seek Christ as a stranger and proselyte.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.15.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The synagogue will be saved when she joins the church scattered among the nations.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.20.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The younger man can also be the Gentile people, who kept God’s words when Israel did not.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.24.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · No one is snatched from God’s hand; Jerusalem was cast off, yet God shut all in unbelief to have mercy on all.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.19.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Truth was first in Israel, which had God’s oracles, and is now in the church.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.19.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Truth passed from the later Jews, who rejected Christ, to the church; heretics do not hold it.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.19.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The two generations of the verse are the people of the law and the Christian people of grace.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.24.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Or “Arise, north wind” calls the sleeping nations to wake; Jews first, then gentiles, are invited to the church.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.25.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ came first to earthly Jerusalem, which refused him.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.10.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The gentile church understands above the Jewish scribes, who claim to teach.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.15.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Jacob’s taking of Esau’s garments figures the gentiles receiving the robe of the law and prophets.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.15.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The gentile people receives the blessing; the elder brother finds nothing left.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.10.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The scattering of the Jews serves the salvation of a remnant and warns others against unbelief.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.10.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Jerusalem, mocked for rejecting her Redeemer, may yet be called a crown of glory if she believes.
Exposition of Psalm 118 17.2.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Lamentations’ phe verse: Zion, who refused Christ’s outstretched hands, finds no comforter.
Exposition of Psalm 118 18.37.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The true law is written on hearts; it grows old in the Jews and is renewed in the church.
Exposition of Psalm 118 19.24.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Leah figures the synagogue, which yielded its fruits to the church; yet a remnant was saved.
Exposition of Psalm 118 20.6.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The twins in Rebecca’s womb signify the elder Jewish people and the younger Christian people.
Exposition of Psalm 118 21.12.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ took the kingdom and its gifts from the Jews and gave them to the church.
Letter 75.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome insists that the Jewish ceremonies are deadly to all Christians, Jewish or Gentile, citing the Gospels, Jeremiah, Paul, and Ezekiel.
Letter 102.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reads Jonah under the gourd as carnal Israel, the gourd as the Old Testament promises, and the worm that withered it as Christ.
Letter 121.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus asks how the Jews can be both enemies for the Gentiles' sake and beloved for the sake of the fathers, as Romans 11:28 says.
Letter 140.47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · 'All the seed of Jacob' includes all who believe in Christ, the children of promise prefigured by Isaac, not Ishmael.
Letter 140.49Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Why does the psalm, after 'praise him', say 'let all the seed of Israel fear him', when love casts out fear? Paul too prescribes fear to the Gentiles grafted onto the olive tree.
Letter 140.50Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Christ's words about the centurion foretold the grafting of humble Gentiles and the breaking off of those who, seeking their own righteousness, refused the grace of the promise and go into the outer darkness.
Letter 149.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reports the Greek readings of Psalm 17:14 ('destroying' or 'from a few') and interprets 'from a few' as the separation of unbelieving Israel from the believing remnant, the Church.
Letter 149.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · On Romans 11:25–27 Augustine takes the 'all Israel' that will be saved as the elect from Jews and Gentiles, the true Israel of God.
Letter 196.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · A Christian may be called a Jew or Israelite only spiritually, as Paul's 'Jew inwardly' in Rom 2 shows, but should not use the name in ordinary speech.
Letter 196.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Christians are Jews spiritually as they are Abraham's offspring by faith, as Paul argues in Romans 4 and Galatians 3.
Letter 196.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jews who do not believe in Christ are not Abraham's sons in Paul's sense, while believing Gentiles are spiritual Jews and Israelites grafted into the olive tree.
Letter 196.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · In Paul's allegory of Sarah and Hagar, Christians belong spiritually to Sarah and the free Jerusalem, while carnal Israel belongs to Hagar.
Letter 196.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Spiritually, Christians belong to Sarah and Jacob-Israel, while unbelieving Jews belong to Hagar and Esau, so that 'the elder will serve the younger'.
Letter 196.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paul's own usage, distinguishing Jews, Greeks and the Church and calling himself an Israelite by descent, shows that 'Jew' and 'Israel' properly name physical descendants.
Homilies on Matthew 3.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The birth of Perez and Zerah (Gen 38:27–30) is a riddle: Zerah's withdrawn hand figures the church's way of life, shown in Abraham's time, withdrawn under the law, and then revealed whole; the law is the 'fence'.
Homilies on Matthew 7.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Micah's prophecy fits Christ, not Zerubbabel; early testimonies speak of his benefits, later ones of his divinity; Herod's secret inquiry was folly; the star appeared long before the birth and hid so that the magi would ask the Jews.
Homilies on Matthew 9.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Earthly homeland and noble descent count for nothing, as Scripture shows (the patriarchs seeking a better country; Samuel's and Moses' sons; Esau; Israel); only virtue matters; wealth, which bars the way to heaven, should be despised, as the rich man's poverty in Hades shows.
Homilies on Matthew 26.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The centurion grasped that Christ commands death and life as a master commands soldiers; his faith becomes a prophecy of the Gentiles entering the kingdom while the sons of the kingdom are cast out.
Homilies on Matthew 52.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · After freeing the disciples from the food laws Christ goes toward Gentile territory, where the Canaanite woman, from a nation once cast out, comes out of her borders and pleads for her daughter, and he at first does not answer her.
Homilies on Matthew 67.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ meets the question about his authority with the question about John’s baptism, and by the parable of the two sons makes the Jewish leaders condemn themselves; Chrysostom then tells of a famous actress of his own day who became a model of repentance and asceticism.
Homilies on Matthew 68.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · In the parable of the wicked tenants Chrysostom sees God’s long care for Israel, their killing of the prophets and of the Son, the unity of the God of both Testaments, and the coming call of the Gentiles; “perhaps they will respect my son” shows what they ought to have done, not ignorance in God.
Homilies on Matthew 68.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom harmonizes Matthew and Luke on who pronounced the verdict, explains the rejected stone as Christ rejected by Israel’s teachers, the two destructions of falling on it and being crushed, and the leaders’ blindness from love of power and glory.
Homilies on Matthew 69.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom compares the parable of the marriage feast with that of the tenants: it shows God inviting the Jews even after the Son’s death, their excuses and murders, the destruction of Jerusalem under Vespasian and Titus, and the call of the Gentiles, the Jews having been addressed first.
Hexameron (Exameron) 4.22Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Allegorically, the synagogue saw Christ in the short winter days of shadow, while the church, and the Gentiles, see him at noon with full light.
On Joseph 74Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Pharaoh's joy and gifts at Joseph's reunion figure the church's joy and help when Jews are brought to Christ.
On Joseph 82Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · God's call to Jacob to go down to Egypt figures the invitation to the Jewish people to join the church gathered from all nations.
On Joseph 83Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · God's promise that Joseph would close Jacob's eyes signifies mystically that Christ will open the eyes of the Jewish people.
On Joseph 84Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The seventy-five who went to Egypt and Judah sent ahead figure the Jewish people's future confession and salvation in the last times, when Christ will heal its blindness.
On the Blessings of the Patriarchs 3Ambrose · ca. 387-392 · Jacob crossed his hands to bless the younger Ephraim above Manasseh, signifying the preference of the younger people.
On the Blessings of the Patriarchs 4Ambrose · ca. 387-392 · Manasseh ('forgetfulness') and Ephraim ('fruitfulness') signify the forgetful older people and the fruitful younger people.
On the Blessings of the Patriarchs 21Ambrose · ca. 387-392 · The scepter remained in Judah until Christ came; after Herod the succession failed, and the inheritance passed to Christ, who gathers the church of the nations.
On the Blessings of the Patriarchs 56Ambrose · ca. 387-392 · Ephraim's ten thousands signify the church from Jews and gentiles; the horns signify the strength of Christ and of the saints in the spiritual warfare.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 35.20.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The torrent ceased for the synagogue to flow abundantly for the church.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.6.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The synagogue provoked God to jealousy like an unfaithful wife.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.6.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Israel worshipped the calf; God answered by provoking them with a non-nation.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.6.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · God chose the church from the Gentiles to provoke Israel to jealousy.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.6.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Israel is stirred to jealousy only by the church's claim to its Scriptures.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 37.10.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Rachel's refusal of comfort may refer to the Jews; the church rejoices in the Gentiles.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 37.41.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The Jews' light is veiled; Christians see God's glory unveiled.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.25.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Paul, citing Isaiah, shows that God has not cast off his people, for a remnant is saved by grace.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.25.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · God kept a remnant of seven thousand in Elijah’s time; much less had he cast off the people in David’s time.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.51.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ’s mission first to Israel shows his fatherly will not to reject them; when they rejected him, he turned to the gentiles.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.54.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The psalm refers to the believing nations, to whom Israel’s fall brought salvation and examples.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.56.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Israel’s history is a parable and figure for the believing nations, which the Jews did not understand.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.57.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The unbelieving people, born according to the flesh, reads Scripture by the letter; the believing people is born through promise.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.62.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ is the head of the peoples; the synagogue is joined, as to a husband, to the bodily law.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.63.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · When the spiritual understanding of the law died, the synagogue was joined to the bodily rite, an adultery against chastity.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.65.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · By rejecting wisdom, the Jews caused the gospel to go out to the peoples, so that the Lord reigns among the nations.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.68.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ saved a remnant of Israel by grace and redeemed the gentiles; their calling brought salvation to the Jews too.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 47.6.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The remnant of the Jews, in Peter, Paul, John and James, became the firm foundations and lofty summits of the church.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 48.11.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The heel that surrounded Christ is the synagogue; the church is the beauty of his face.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 61.29.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ calls all the people, gentiles and Israel together, to hope in God, for all Israel will be saved.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 61.29.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · In God’s deep wisdom Israel’s fall profited the gentiles, and the gentiles’ faith frees Israel.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 1.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · Augustine compares the six days of creation with six ages of world history, from Adam to Noah, Abraham, David, the exile, Christ, and the present age, each with its morning and evening, to be followed by the seventh day of rest without evening.
On True Religion 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine applies the old and new man to the whole human race, divided into the impious and the people of God, whose history in the Old Testament prefigures the New, until the resurrection and judgment.
Sermon 4.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Isaac's old age and dim eyes signify the Old Testament not understood; Rebecca is the Church, which includes all the saints before Christ, such as Abraham and the prophets.
Sermon 4.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Esau sold his birthright for lentils, the food of Egypt and a figure of idolatry; the Israelites who made the calf lost their primacy, and carnal Christians still belong to Esau.
Sermon 4.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Rebecca, the Church, counsels Jacob to obtain the blessing meant for Esau: the blessing promised in Old Testament figures to the Jews comes spiritually to Christians.
Sermon 4.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · There is one blessing because the two peoples are one Church; Christ, rejected by many Jews, chose those who desired the spiritual city.
Sermon 4.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The two kids, like the two folds, walls, blind men and boats, signify the Jewish and Gentile peoples joined in one Church by Christ the cornerstone.
Sermon 4.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The kids are sinners whom Christ calls so that they do not remain sinners; killed and eaten, they pass into the one body of the Church.
Sermon 5.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Esau signifies the Jewish people and Jacob the Christian people, who received the primacy; yet Esau's blessing shows that those he prefigures are free to be changed and joined to their brother.
Sermon 5.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · "The elder shall serve the younger" was fulfilled not in Esau and Jacob but in the Jews, who keep the Scriptures for Christians; yet any Jew who believes throws off the yoke and becomes a brother.
Sermon 10.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The two harlots are the Synagogue and the Church: the Synagogue killed Christ, and Judaizers tried to substitute the dead rite of circumcision for the Gentile Church's living faith, until Paul woke her up.
Sermon 45.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Daniel’s stone cut from a mountain without hands, which grew into a mountain filling the earth, is Christ, born of the Jews and of a virgin, and the Church spread through the world.
Sermon 51.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Jechoniah’s exile prefigures Christ, rejected by his own people, whose Gospel passed to the Gentiles through Jewish apostles; as Jeremiah told the exiles to pray for Babylon, the Church prayed for kings, who became Christian.
Sermon 51.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Jechoniah, at the turning point of the exile, is like a cornerstone where two walls meet, and so is counted twice, prefiguring Christ the cornerstone between Jews and Gentiles.
Sermon 62.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s prophecy that many will come from east and west while the sons of the kingdom are cast out is now fulfilled, as the nations are called to the heavenly banquet.
Sermon 77.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Canaanite woman teaches humility; Christ was sent in bodily presence to Israel, a people winnowed, not condemned, from whom came the apostles.
Sermon 77.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Jairus’s daughter figures the Jews and the woman with the flow of blood the Gentile Church, healed by touching the fringe, which is Paul.
Sermon 77.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Canaanite woman accepted being called a dog and was praised for great faith; humility grafts the Gentiles into the olive tree, while pride broke off the natural branches.
Sermon 77.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Gentiles are grafted in by humility and the unbelieving cut off by pride; we must learn and keep humility.
Sermon 87.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The parable of the wicked tenants shows God planting his vineyard in Israel and sending the prophets and finally his Son.
Sermon 88.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The two blind men signify the Jewish and the Gentile peoples, whom Christ, the cornerstone, joins into one.
Sermon 89.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The withered fig tree with leaves but no fruit figures the unbelieving part of Israel, while many Jews believed; whoever lacks charity has leaves without fruit.
Sermon 112.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In the parable of the great supper, the invited are Israel, called through the prophets, who read the prophets but killed Christ and so unknowingly prepared the supper, the eucharist, for the Gentiles, who were brought and compelled.
Sermon 121.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Some of Christ’s own did receive him; the stones that cry out when the children are silent are the Gentiles, formerly worshippers of stones, from whom God has raised up children of Abraham, as the newly baptized show.
Sermon 122.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Jacob’s wrestling with the angel, who willingly let himself be overcome and then blessed him, figures Christ; Jacob, blessed and lamed, stands for the Jewish people, blessed in those who believed and lame in those who did not.
Sermon 122.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Abraham kept only his new name, since its meaning was fulfilled in this age, but Jacob kept both names: the Christian people is Jacob, the supplanter, in this age, and Israel, seeing God, in hope; the Jews’ blindness, which led to Christ’s saving death, profited the Gentiles.
Sermon 122.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · At the end all Israel, the children of the present Jews, will believe, and both peoples, made one, will see God face to face as Israel; Nathanael, the true Israelite, was promised the fulfillment of Jacob’s dream in Christ.
Sermon 136.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “Those who see” are those who claimed to see by the Law and so crucified its author; blindness came on Israel in part so that the Gentiles might come in, and the crucified Light enlightened the blind world.
Sermon 137.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “They sit on Moses’ seat” refers also to bad pastors in the Church, which is one Church from two peoples, Jews and Gentiles, figured by the two walls, two boats, Leah and Rachel, and the two blind men.
Sermon 138.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ commends one shepherd because all good shepherds are his members, and he must gather his other sheep from the Gentiles into one flock; the bride of the Song, the Church, loves him, beautiful though he seemed without beauty to the blind who crucified him.
Sermon 200.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ the cornerstone joined unlearned shepherds and ungodly Magi; believers must cling to him in unity and seek to win back the heretics.
Sermon 201.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The star was a tongue of heaven that confounded astrology and led the Magi to worship the king of the Jews as king of the ages.
Sermon 201.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Magi from the East and Pilate from the West, both Gentiles, acknowledged Christ as king of the Jews, foreshadowing the Gentiles grafted into the olive of Israel.
Sermon 202.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Epiphany commemorates the Magi's worship of Christ as firstfruits of the Gentiles, joined with the Jewish shepherds in the one cornerstone.
Sermon 204.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ is the cornerstone joining the two hostile walls of Jews and Gentiles; the ox and the donkey at the manger and the shepherds and Magi stand for the two peoples.
Sermon 204.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The wall from Israel joined to Christ is not the unbelieving majority but the apostles, Stephen, the first thousands of believers, and the churches of Judea: Jacob both lame and blessed.
Sermon 218.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The title “King of the Jews” in three languages shows that Christ reigns over all nations while remaining king of the Jews, from whom the word went forth.
Sermon 218.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Pilate's refusal to change the title shows that the Gentiles, grafted into Israel's olive, believe in Christ as King of the Jews, who remains Israel's king.
Sermon 248.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In the first catch the boats, Jews and Gentiles joined in Christ the cornerstone, were weighed down and the nets torn, as bad Christians now burden the Church and cause schisms.
Sermon 248.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The second catch, on the right side, figures the Church after the resurrection, the good alone in a fixed number; the 153 fish stand for countless saints, as the Apocalypse shows.
Sermon 252.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The two boats are the Jewish and Gentile peoples joined in Christ the cornerstone; Jewish believers who demanded circumcision of Gentiles weighed the ship down by stirring up dissension.
Sermon 258.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “The day which the Lord has made” is Christ, the rejected cornerstone joining Jewish and Gentile believers, together with his body the Church.
Sermon 315.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Jewish people will be delivered through Christ in the end, but not those who blaspheme him now, just as the Gentiles are now being saved while their idol-worshiping ancestors perished.
On Christian Doctrine 3.34Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Tyconius's fourth rule, on species and genus: Scripture passes from a part to the whole, as Ezekiel's prophecy to Israel passes to the spiritual Israel of all nations, the Church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 9.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers with Paul’s olive tree: the Gentiles are grafted into the holy root of Israel, in which Christ was always preached, and the Manichaeans remain in the wild olive of paganism.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues from Rom 9:1–5 and 3:1–2 that the covenants, law, and oracles entrusted to Israel are praised by Paul and bear witness to Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine points to the promise that all nations would be blessed in Abraham’s seed, which Paul applies to Christ and which is now visibly fulfilled.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine sees the blessing of Shem and Japheth fulfilled in the church of the nations dwelling in Israel’s heritage, and places Jews and heretics, including the Manichaeans, with Ham as unwilling servants of the church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.86Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine interprets Tamar's disguise and pledges as the church of the Gentiles, made fruitful through repentance and confession, sealed by calling, justification, and glorification.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.89Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine shows from Hosea's own prophecy and from Paul and Peter that Hosea's marriage to a harlot signified God's calling of the Gentiles, “not my people,” to be his people.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that Christians avoid food sacrificed to idols so as not to share with demons, and that the apostolic ban on blood was a temporary measure uniting Jews and gentiles which the Church no longer keeps.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · The narration continues with the two cities of the wicked and the saints, the flood as a figure of the Church saved by the cross, the rise of idolatry, the call of Abraham, and Israel, whose saints already belonged to Christ's body.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The God of Israel, though refused by the Romans, is now worshiped everywhere and has through Christ turned the Roman empire to overthrow its idols.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The pagans cannot deny the God of Israel, whose promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that all nations would be blessed in their seed is now being fulfilled in Christ.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.41Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The God of Israel, who forbade idols through Moses and promised blessing to all nations in Abraham's seed, has overthrown idolatry through Christ.
The Harmony of the Gospels 3.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Mark's 'Abba, Father' signifies the church from Jews and Gentiles, the others' 'Father' its unity; Christ's sorrow shows martyrs they need not despair.
Commentary on Daniel 9, scholion 36Polychronius of Apamea · ca. 400-430 · The cutting off of the 'anointing' means the end of the Jewish priesthood and order, long after Christ, because of their sin.
Commentary on Daniel 9, scholion 40Polychronius of Apamea · ca. 400-430 · The half-week is Christ's ministry, in which he confirmed the new covenant by his death and resurrection.
Commentary on Daniel 12, scholion 19Polychronius of Apamea · ca. 400-430 · The lawless of Dan 12:10 are those who brought about Christ's death; the rejection of the Jews and calling of the Gentiles are veiled.
Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 19Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 404 · The cross is a stumbling block to Jews, folly to Gentiles, and the power of God to believers, as the prophets foretold the faith passing to the Gentiles.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 4.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ is Daniel's stone cut without hands, against which the Jews stumbled while it was small; those who deny the Church spread through the world stumble against the mountain it has become.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The sixth jar is the age of John the Baptist, who warned the Jews not to boast of Abraham, since God could raise children to Abraham from 'stones', the Gentiles, who become his children by imitating his faith.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 15.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · “Salvation is from the Jews” refers not to the reprobate but to the faithful of Israel, the wall joined with the Gentiles in Christ the cornerstone.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 16.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Samaritans believed Christ's word without signs while the Galileans, even after miracles, believed little; so the Jews, Christ's own people, rejected him, while the Gentiles believe the Gospel without seeing signs.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 16.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ praised the humble Gentile centurion's faith above Israel's, showing that the proud branches would be broken off and the wild olive grafted onto the root of the patriarchs.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 16.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The centurion's story shows the Gentiles grafted in to recline with the patriarchs in the kingdom, while the natural branches are cut off.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 30.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We too are warned not to judge by persons; the Jews sought earthly promises of the Old Testament, while we, made new, hope for an eternal homeland.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 31.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The woman with the flow of blood figured the Gentile Church, which touched Christ without seeing him; the cross, between the two robbers, foreshadowed his judgment.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 42.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Gentile Christians, not descended from Abraham, have become his sons by imitating his faith; God raised them from the stones of idolatry, as John the Baptist warned.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 47.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ speaks in those he sends, so the Gentiles hear his own voice; from Jews and Gentiles he makes one fold, as the cornerstone joins two walls.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 51.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The colt fulfils Zechariah's prophecy to the daughter of Zion, the believing remnant; the colt signifies the Gentiles and the she-ass the believers from Israel.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 93.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Expulsion from the synagogues showed that those who rejected Christ put out those who would not leave him; had they received Christ, synagogue and church would have been one.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 93.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Those who killed the apostles thought they served God by protecting the temple; Israel's blindness was partial, and many Jews believed.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 117.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Pilate refuses to change the title, and Augustine explains that Christ is king of the true Jews, the children of the promise, Gentiles included.
Commentary on Isaiah 54:1-3Jerome · ca. 408-410 · Jerome interprets Isa 54:1–3 of the church of the Gentiles, the barren woman who outnumbers the Synagogue, the wife who received a bill of divorce, and rejects a millenarian reading.
On the Spirit and the Letter 33Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine introduces Jeremiah's prophecy of the new covenant, the only Old Testament passage that names it.
On the Spirit and the Letter 35Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The new covenant is new because the Spirit writes the same law on the heart, as Jeremiah foretold and Paul echoed in 2 Cor 3.
On the Spirit and the Letter 40Augustine of Hippo · 412 · “All” who will know God are the spiritual Israel, the children of the promise, predestined, called, justified, and glorified by grace, not by works.
City of God 16.16Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · God's promise to Abraham (Gen 12:1–3) has two parts: the land for his carnal seed, and the blessing of all nations through his spiritual seed.
City of God 16.31Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Isaac, named 'laughter' from his parents' joyful laughter, was born; Hagar's expulsion signifies the two covenants.
City of God 16.35Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The oracle about Rebecca's twins, 'the elder shall serve the younger', shows grace choosing without merit and is fulfilled in Jews and Christians.
City of God 16.39Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Jacob's wrestling with the angel figures Christ's passion; blessed and lame, he represents Israel's believers and unbelievers.
City of God 16.42Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Jacob's crossing of his hands to bless Ephraim above Manasseh figures the younger Christian people preferred to the elder Jewish people.
City of God 17.5Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The prophecy to Eli (1 Sam 2:27–36) foretold the end of Aaron's priesthood and the faithful priest Christ, whose Christian sacrifice of bread the remnant of Israel would share.
City of God 17.7Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Samuel's saying that the kingdom was torn from Israel and Israel divided in two prefigures the permanent division between Israel that clings to Christ and Israel that rejects him.
City of God 18.28Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine reads Hosea's prophecies of the calling of the nations, the later conversion of Israel, and the third-day resurrection, and Amos's prophecies, as foretelling Christ and the church.
City of God 18.45Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine traces the afflictions of the Jews from the rebuilding of the temple to Herod, arguing that the greater glory promised by Haggai belongs to the church, and that Jacob's prophecy was fulfilled when a foreign king ruled at Christ's birth.
City of God 18.47Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine allows that people outside Israel, like Job, belonged to the heavenly city through faith in the one Mediator, but holds that prophecies preserved by the Jews are the strongest evidence for Christ.
City of God 20.29Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Elijah, who is still living, will come before the judgment and, by expounding the law spiritually, will bring the Jews to believe in Christ.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.15Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Israel is God's first-fruits; those who devour it, even as instruments of God's judgment, will be punished.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.58Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The promise of a remnant brought to Zion, with new shepherds and no more need of the ark, is fulfilled in Christ's coming and the apostles, or at the end in Israel's salvation.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.59Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Jerusalem as the Lord's throne is the church gathering all nations; the reunion of Judah and Israel is fulfilled when Jews of all the tribes believe the gospel.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.61Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God's promise to make Israel his sons and give them a glorious inheritance is fulfilled in Christ, who gives believers from all nations power to become God's children.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.66Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Confessing sin is part of salvation; Israel's full return means believing in the Christ it rejected.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.21Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The ancient paths of the prophets lead to Christ the way; when Israel refused to hear the apostles, the gospel was turned to the nations.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.99Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God's covenant rests on obedience, not race or circumcision; Christ makes servants friends and sons; the promised land flowing with milk and honey figures the church, and the prophet assents with “Amen”.
Commentary on Jeremiah 3.8Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Israel, once beautiful as a peacock, or unclean as a hyena's den in the Septuagint, is handed over to the beasts, the nations.
Commentary on Jeremiah 3.30Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God seems like a passing traveller or a sleeper to those he forsakes; Christian interpreters read it of Christ passing from Israel to the nations.
Commentary on Jeremiah 3.64Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The promised return from the north, partly fulfilled after the exile, is fulfilled more fully in Christ and in Israel's final salvation, and in the church's deliverance from the persecutions.
Commentary on Jeremiah 4.6Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Judah's land becomes a desolation, fulfilled most fully after Christ when Jews are barred from Jerusalem; God shows them his back until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in and all Israel is saved (Jer 18:16–17).
Commentary on Jeremiah 4.42Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Coniah is a discarded vessel and is not a type of Christ; the prophecy that none of his seed will sit on David's throne applies to his own days, since Christ came from his line; the bad shepherds give way to the apostles, and Christ is the righteous Branch, 'the Lord our righteousness' (Jer 22:28–23:6).
Commentary on Jeremiah 4.46Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The new exodus, missing from the Septuagint, is Christ's gathering of God's people from the whole world, to be completed when all Israel is saved (Jer 23:7–8).
Commentary on Jeremiah 5.2Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Book 5 opens with the two baskets of figs: Jerome rejects allegories that oppose the law to the gospel and reads them historically of Jeconiah's exiles (good) and Zedekiah's party (bad), with a secondary application to believers and unbelievers at Christ's coming; then the oracle of Jehoiakim's fourth year begins (Jer 24:1–25:1).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.1Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Jerome opens Book 6: the promises of restoration, which Jews and judaizing Christians expect at the end of the world, are fulfilled spiritually in Christ and the church, the true seed of Abraham.
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.2Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Jeremiah is told to write down the promise of restoring Israel and Judah, to be fulfilled not soon but after a long time, as in Ezekiel's prophecy of the two rods and the one shepherd David (Jer 30:1–3).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.6Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God promises to save Jacob and Israel while chastising them, which shows that no one is sinless in this life, against the Pelagians; Jerusalem's incurable wound comes from God the physician, who will heal her, rebuild the city and temple, and raise a prince from among them, fulfilled in Christ and the church (Jer 30:10–22).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.10Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God's storm of wrath will rest on the wicked until his purpose is complete in Jerusalem's destruction, and then believers will understand that the Jews' rejection became the occasion of salvation for the Gentiles (Jer 30:23–24).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.11Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God will be God to all the families of Israel, meaning the saved remnant and the spiritual Israel that sees God (Jer 31:1).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.12Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The survivors of the sword found grace in the wilderness: Jerome explains the Septuagint's misreading 'warm' (hen read as hem) and applies both readings to Jews saved in the church and to the apostles (Jer 31:2).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.13Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God's everlasting love will rebuild virgin Israel, fulfilled in the church, not in a golden earthly Jerusalem; the apostles are the watchmen calling all to go up to Zion; only the remnant of Israel is saved (Jer 31:3–7).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.15Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The remnant gathered from the north at Passover is the church born from Christ's passion, including the spiritually blind and lame; they return weeping and rejoicing on the straight way of faith, and Ephraim, who took Manasseh's birthright under Jacob's crossed hands, figures the Gentile church (Jer 31:8–9).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.25Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God will rebuild and replant Israel and Judah, fulfilled in part at Christ's first coming and fully at his second, not in a millennial kingdom; each will die for his own sin. The new covenant written on the heart, quoted in Hebrews, was fulfilled in the gospel, offered first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles (Jer 31:27–34).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.27Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Israel's seed will last as long as the fixed order of nature; since the heavens will pass away, Jerome argues against a perpetual ethnic Israel and finds the lasting Israel in the believing remnant (Jer 31:35–36).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.28Jerome · ca. 414-419 · As the heavens cannot be measured, God will never cast off all Israel's seed; the Septuagint inverts the sense; Jerome grants that not all Israel is rejected, only the unbelieving (Jer 31:37).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.50Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The promises of return, one heart, an everlasting covenant, and God's fear placed in the heart were not fulfilled after the exile, since Israel was conquered again and again, but in Christ and the believing remnant; the buying of fields figures the church's spiritual possessions (Jer 32:37–44).
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine answers the charge that he denies the Holy Spirit's work in the Old Testament, arguing that the Old Testament saints were heirs of the New Covenant.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine argues that the covenant with Abraham, which the later law could not annul, is the New Covenant hidden in prophecy.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine holds that all the righteous before Christ, from Noah through John the Baptist, were children of the promise and belong to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine distinguishes the common sense of 'Old Testament' (the Hebrew Scriptures) from Paul's sense (the covenant of slavery), and concludes that the ancient righteous belong to the New Covenant.
On the Predestination of the Saints 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · The predestined are called with a special calling that produces faith; Rom 11 shows the Jews' enmity serving the gospel by God's ordering, while the elect remnant is beloved, and the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
Instructions 1.40Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · The gates of Zion preferred to the tents of Jacob: the church preferred to the synagogue.
On the Gift of Perseverance 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Predestination is sometimes called foreknowledge, as in Rom 11:2, where “his people whom he foreknew” is the remnant chosen by grace; to predestine is to foreknow what God himself will do.
Objection and reply 9Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · Christ died for the whole world in that he took the nature of all, yet his death profits only those reborn and joined to him in baptism, the children of the promise from Jews and Gentiles.
Part 1, chapter 18Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · God’s oath to make Abraham’s seed numberless as the stars is fulfilled not in Israel’s census but in the nations who believe in Christ, while unbelieving Israel turned to idols.
Part 1, chapter 20Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Rebecca’s twins prefigure two peoples: Jacob, the gentle younger, is the Christian people, who receives the birthright that Esau, the Jewish people, sold for the red pottage of Christ’s passion.
Part 1, chapter 21Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Jacob’s winning of Isaac’s blessing in Esau’s clothing figures Christ in the likeness of sinful flesh and the Christian people who receive the blessing and the pure sacrifice in place of the Jews.
Part 1, chapter 24Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Jacob’s lameness after wrestling the angel signifies the Jewish people who limp from the straight way of Christ, while the Christian people, “seeing God,” takes hold of him.
Part 1, chapter 34Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Moses the peacemaker rejected by his people, his flight, his foreign bride, his call at the burning bush, and his mission with Aaron figure Christ rejected by the Jews, his Church from the nations, and Paul his chosen spokesman.
Part 2, chapter 9Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Moses’ meekness, Miriam’s leprosy, the spies’ cluster of grapes, and the people’s fear and punishment in the desert figure Christ, the Church from the nations, the cross, apostasy after baptism, and the Jews’ loss of the inheritance to the Holy Innocents.
Part 2, chapter 18Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Gideon’s overthrow of Baal, the sign of the fleece first wet then dry, and his three hundred who lapped like dogs and broke their jars figure the passage of grace from the Synagogue to the Church and the victory of the martyrs, the Lord’s humble soldiers.
Part 2, chapter 22Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Samson the Nazirite, his foreign bride, the lion with honey in its mouth, his riddle, the foxes with torches, and the burning of his faithless wife figure Christ, the Church from the nations, the Law given to the Gentiles, and the heretics and their end.
Part 2, chapter 24Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Ruth the Moabite, refused by the nearer kinsman and married by Boaz, figures the Church of the nations rejected by Israel; (chapter 24) Samuel, leader, priest, and prophet, figures Christ, while Eli’s sinful sons, the captured ark, and the demand for a king warn sinful priests and rulers.
Part 2, chapter 27Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Abishag, who warmed David in chastity, figures souls aflame with grace; Solomon’s wisdom, judgment between the two mothers, temple, and the visit of the queen of the South figure Christ the peaceable king, the Catholic mother against the heretics, the Church as temple, and the Church of the nations; his fall is a warning.