Demonstration of the Gospel — Book VI

Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

praef.1| In the fifth book of the Demonstration of the Gospel the account of the Father and the Son was clearly defined. One God, the God over all, was confessed, and a second essence after him was shown, one that leads all begotten things, which the divine words proclaimed as Wisdom of God, the firstborn, the only-begotten Son, God from God, Angel of Great Counsel, commander of the armies of heaven, the Father's minister, yes, and Lord of all, the Word and Power of God. If, then, prophetic testimonies should now come to light that announce beforehand a God who is to come among men, it is plain to anyone to whom the reference of what they signify must be made, especially since it was shown in what went before that God the Word showed himself, in the form and shape of a man, to Abraham and the men beloved of God around him under the name of Lord and God, making his visions to men.

praef.2| Come, then, let us see how plainly the oracles of the Hebrews foretell that at one time the Lord, at another God, will come down to men and go up again, and give the causes of the descent as well. You will notice that some things are said in riddles and others more openly.

praef.3| Those given with concealment were, I think, delivered in veiled form for the sake of those of the circumcision, because of the grim things prophesied against them; for that reason they would probably even have done away with the Scripture had it openly signified their final rejection. Indeed, the record holds that in just this way they plotted against the prophets themselves, on account of the reproofs the prophets made against them.

praef.4| The clear prophecies, on the other hand, contain the calling of the nations quite plainly, announcing the promises of the good things of piety not to the nation of the Jews but to all men throughout the whole inhabited world. This being so, it is now time to listen to the divine oracles themselves.

1.1| From Psalm 17. A declaration of God's coming to men, and following on it the calling of the nations. "And he bowed the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was under his feet. And he mounted on cherubim and flew; he flew on the wings of winds. And he made darkness his hiding place; round about him was his tent."

1.2| I think these words present outright a descent of God from heaven; for after first uttering much theology he adds the words set out here. By saying that he bent the heavens and descended, he signifies the lowering of his divine glory, which the divine apostle set before us when he said: "Who, being in God's form, did not count being equal to God [….], but emptied himself, assuming the form of a servant." And "he mounted on cherubim and flew" seems to me to hint at his restoration to the glory of God, which he accomplished with angelic and divine powers escorting him as a bodyguard. This very thing seems to me to be shown also by "he flew on the wings of winds."

1.3| That darkness was made his hiding place, and that thick darkness is said to be under his feet, would point to the secret and ineffable dispensation by which all these things were accomplished by him. And "round about him his tent": what should we understand this to mean, if not his holy and catholic church, whether the one on earth or the one in heaven?

1.4| Next, as the same psalm draws to its close, the word foretells at once the dismissal of the former people and the calling of the nations, where it says: "Rescue me from the gainsayings of the people; you will set me at the head of nations. A people I did not know served me; they obeyed me as soon as their ear heard. Foreign sons lied to me; foreign sons grew old and went lame from their paths." What sense these words carry will be examined at the proper time. Psalm 46.

2.1| "Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with a voice of exultation. For the Lord is most high, fearsome, a great king over all the earth. He subjected peoples to us, and nations under our feet. He chose for us his own inheritance, the beauty of Jacob, which he loved. God went up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praise to our God, sing praise; sing praise to our king, sing praise. For God is king of all the earth; sing praise with understanding. God has become king over the nations; God sits on his holy throne. The rulers of peoples were gathered with the God of Abraham; for the mighty ones of the earth are God's; they were exalted exceedingly."

2.2| And what else does the ascent of the Lord God indicated by these words wish to signify, if not the descent that came before the ascent, upon which the calling of all the nations is again prophesied, and the signs of joy and gladness are announced for all the nations at the coming knowledge of God, when the Lord himself, the Most High, acknowledged as sole God and as King over the whole earth, is said to put peoples under us.

2.3| But who are the "us"? Evidently those who prophesy these things. And this can be seen plainly fulfilled, since all the nations that have believed in Christ have been made subject to the words of the prophets. These words could also be spoken in the person of our Savior's apostles, who might say, "He chose for us his inheritance."

2.4| And what must we understand his inheritance to be, if not the calling of all the nations, which the Christ of God himself, setting it forth, described: "The Lord told me, You are my Son; I have begotten you today. Ask me, and I will give you nations as your inheritance and, as your possession, the ends of the earth."

2.5| This inheritance, then, given to him by the Father, he subjected to his apostles and prophets, in that those who have believed in him have been made subject to their words, in accord with the oracles before us. And God the Word, having accomplished all this at his coming among men, he about whom we have set out very much, "went up with a shout."

2.6| Interpreting this, the apostle says: "What does 'he went up' mean, except that he also first went down into the lowest parts of the earth? He who went down is himself the one who went up above the heavens." He says that he went up with a shout because of the theology given him by the angels who escorted him as he ascended, who also said, "Lift up, O your rulers, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the King of glory will come in." And you would not be mistaken in calling the voice the gospel proclamation, which has sounded out over all the inhabited world.

2.7| For since the trumpet is louder in voice than any musical instrument, the example is fittingly taken to show that the teaching about Christ announced to all men is mightier and louder in voice than any since the beginning of time; through it, as through a trumpet, the Holy Spirit cries and shouts to be heard by all men the rest of the Psalm, in which it is said, "Sing praise to our God, sing praise; sing praise to our King, sing praise." Because God is king no longer of the nation of the Jews alone, but, it says, of all the earth: "sing praise with understanding."

2.8| For no longer, it says, do the demons of before reign, nor the earthbound and deceitful spirits; but God himself has become king over every nation, God who sits upon his holy throne. And we have already shown in the preceding treatise the throne of the Word of God, on which the Father commanded him to sit, saying, "Take your seat on my right until I set your enemies as a footstool beneath your feet."

2.9| And "the rulers of peoples assembled along with the God of Abraham" shows still more clearly that the rulers of Christ's church out of the nations have been transferred into the lot of the prophets of God, beloved of God of old; and being strengthened by the power of our Savior they have been greatly exalted, since no man has been able to cast them down and humble them, on account of the right hand of God, which lifts them up and empowers them. These things too will receive a full account at leisure. From Psalm 49.

3.1| "God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has summoned the earth, from the sun's rising to its setting. Out of Zion is the beauty of his splendor. God will come openly, our God, and will not keep silent." And after other things: "Hear, my people, and I will speak to you, Israel, and I will testify to you. I am God, your God. I will not reprove you for your sacrifices; your whole burnt offerings are before me continually.

3.2| I will not accept calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks, for all the wild beasts of the forest are mine, the cattle on the mountains and the oxen. I know all the birds of heaven, and the beauty of the field is with me. If I am hungry, I will not tell you; for the world is mine and its fullness. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of affliction."

3.3| Here too the divine prediction plainly prophesies that God will come openly, signifying none other than the Word of God. And it sets out most clearly the cause of his coming, again indicating the calling of the nations throughout the whole inhabited world: "He called the earth," it says, "from the rising of the sun to its setting." And quite consistently, after his appearing and after the calling of the nations, it teaches the setting aside of the more bodily worship under the law of Moses, which itself also came to an end after the Word of God appeared to all men.

3.4| For from that time and until now all the men of the whole inhabited world have been called, together with all the nations from the sun's rising to its setting. The Jewish religion has ceased and been abolished, since men are commanded to be pious according to the new covenant of the gospel proclamation, rather than according to the law of Moses. These words could also be referred to the second and glorious appearing of the Savior. From Psalm 83.

4.1| "The God of gods will be seen in Zion. O God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob. O God our defender, look upon the face of your Christ."

4.2| Having foretold that the God of gods will be seen, he prays that his appearing may come with speed, and teaches in what way he will be seen by the words "look upon the face of your Christ," as if he had said more plainly, "appear through the face of your Christ." For since he who has seen the Son has seen the Father who sent him, he rightly promises that the God of gods who dwells in the Christ will appear through the face of the Christ. From Psalm [….]

5.1| "Sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord and bless his name. Proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all the peoples, for the Lord is great and exceedingly to be praised; he is fearsome above all the [….]."

5.2| And again: "Bring to the Lord, you families of the nations." And once more: "Declare among the nations, The Lord has reigned."

5.3| And at the end of all he adds: "Then all the trees of the forest will rejoice before the face of the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and peoples in his truth."

5.4| Here again the Lord is prophesied as coming to men, and a new song is to be sung at his coming, evidently the new covenant, and not by the nation of the Jews but by all the earth; and good news is to be brought no longer to Israel but to all the nations, since he says that the Lord who comes will be their king.

5.5| And who would this be if not God the Word? He, who is about to judge the world in righteousness and humankind in truth, has deemed all the men of the world alike worthy of his calling and of the salvation with God that follows upon it. From Psalm [….]7.

6.1| "Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has worked wonders." And what follows: "The Lord has made known his salvation; before all the nations he has revealed his righteousness." And again: "Every end of the earth has seen the salvation of our God. Shout to the Lord, all the earth." And at the end of all: "The mountains will rejoice before the face of the Lord, for he comes, for he has come to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and peoples in uprightness."

6.2| Through these words too the coming of the Lord is prophesied as the cause of many good things for the nations, which are shown to have been brought to completion through the appearing of our Savior. For from that time, and not earlier, the new song belonging to the new covenant is sung to all men, and his wonders become known and widely heard by all through the writing of the gospels. Moreover, the salvation which came by his resurrection from the dead was revealed to all the nations, and the true righteousness, through which it was clearly demonstrated that God is God not of Jews alone, but of the nations too.

6.3| "Since God is one," according to the holy apostle, "who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith." And that "he comes to judge the earth" could also be a sign of his second coming. From Psalm 106.

7.1| "Let them give thanks to the Lord for his [….] and for his wonders to the sons of men. For he shattered gates of bronze and broke bars of iron; he took hold of them out of the way of their lawlessness. For because of their lawlessness they were humbled; their soul abhorred all food, and they drew near to the gates of death, and they cried to the Lord when they were afflicted, and he saved them from their distresses. He sent out his word and cured them, and rescued them from their corruptions."

7.2| And after other things: "Let them praise him in the assembly of the people and in the seat of the elders. He turned rivers into a desert, and the outlets of the waters into thirst, and fruitful land into salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it. He turned the desert into pools of water and a waterless land into outlets of waters. And there he made the hungry dwell, and they established cities to live in."

7.3| These words also announce plainly, by name, the descent of the Word of God from heaven, and the successes of his coming. "He sent his word," it says, "and healed them." We say plainly that this is God's own Word, the Savior sent by the Father to all men, whom we have also been taught to confess as God through the sacred gospels.

7.4| It hints too at his descent as far as death, which came about for the sake of those who had reached it, and sets out the cause of his arrival, showing the redemption of those who were to be saved through him. For those who had reached the gates of death he alone saved; these he also rescued, healing them from their destructions; and he accomplished this in no other way than by shattering the so-called gates of bronze of death and breaking the bars of iron.

7.5| And next, in sequence, it prophesies the desolation of those who did not receive him when he came. "He turned," it says, "rivers into a desert and the outlets of the waters into thirst, and fruitful land into salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it." You will understand this if you go back to the Jerusalem of the Jewish nation, so celebrated of old, which is at present deprived of its glory and its fruitfulness in God, and of the holy men beloved of God who once lived as citizens in it.

7.6| For after the coming of Christ it truly became fruitless and waterless and altogether desolate, and, as the prophecy says, "a salt waste because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it." There follows in sequence a prophetic hint of the change to piety of the desert that was long dry and thirsty, that is, of every human soul or of the church from the nations, and of its fruitfulness in divine words.

7.7| These things he plainly hints at when he says, "He turned the desert into pools of water," and what follows; to understand them belongs only to the one who is wise with God, according to the conclusion at the close of the Psalm, where it says, "Who is wise, and will keep these things?" and what follows. From Psalm 116.

8.1| "Praise the Lord, all you nations; let all the peoples commend him, for his mercy has been strengthened toward us." And what follows: "O Lord, save, I pray; O Lord, prosper, I pray. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. God is the Lord, and he has appeared to us."

8.2| The holy writing of the gospel also recalls this, now that it has been fulfilled, when our Savior and Lord, Christ himself, entered Jerusalem, and a great crowd of men and children went before him with joy, crying out, "Hosanna to David's Son; blessed is he who comes in the Lord's name; hosanna in the highest." For in place of "O Lord, save, I pray," the words placed in the Psalm, they cried out "Hosanna," speaking in a more Hebrew manner; and this is interpreted "Save, I pray."

8.3| And "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" is made clear by the oracle that next says, "The Lord is God, and he has appeared to us." So it was one and the same, God and Lord, who appeared to us, evidently the Word of God, who for this very reason is blessed, because he made his coming among men in the Lord's name, the Father who sent him. Reproving, then, those of the circumcision who did not believe him, he said to them, "I have come in my Father's name, yet you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him." Reasonably, then, the Holy Spirit addresses the words at the start of the Psalm no longer to the people of the Jews but to all the nations. From Psalm 143.

9.1| "Lord, what is man, that you were made known to him, or the son of man, that you take account of him? Lord, bow the heavens and come down; touch the mountains and they will smoke." And a little further on he adds: "O God, I will sing you a new song." I think these words too belong to the subject before us. For marveling at the knowledge of the Word of God among men, he is struck with amazement at the love for humankind by which the Word came down from the Godhead, made himself small from his native greatness, and deemed the human race worthy of the knowledge of himself.

9.2| Here, then, he prays and says, "Lord, bow the heavens and come down." But in the seventeenth Psalm it is said: "And [….] the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was under his feet. And he mounted upon the cherubim and flew; he flew on the wings of the winds."

9.3| By these words he prophesies the ascent which he made from earth to the heavens. How the descent and ascent of the Word of God must be understood, since he does not move from place to place, but Scripture speaks figuratively of such dispensations of his in this way, we shall explain at our own leisure.

9.4| It was necessary also to mention in these words the new covenant, which the coming of Christ was to procure for men; and this is the new covenant, given after the old by Christ to all the nations. For this reason the oracle in our hands says, "O God, I will sing you a new song."

9.5| And "touch the mountains and they will smoke" hints at the burning and disappearance of all idolatry, which among the ancients was practiced especially on the mountains. So that the Jews themselves are reproved as well, since they worshiped idols on every high mountain, imitating the foreign nations. From Psalm 146.

10.1| "Praise the Lord, Jerusalem; praise your God, Zion." Then a little further on he says: "He who [….] his oracle to the earth; his word will run swiftly." It is plain that the one who sends is other than the one who is sent. You have here too, therefore, the sender, the God over all, and the one sent, the Word, who, being of many names, is proclaimed in the divine oracles now as Wisdom, now as Word, at another time as God, and again as Lord.

10.2| And if you consider in what way the word of his teaching filled the whole inhabited world in a very short time, I well know that you will marvel at the outcome of the prediction that says, "His word will run swiftly." From the Second Book of Kingdoms.

11.1| "And David spoke to the Lord the words of this song." Then in sequence he says: "And he bowed the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was beneath his feet. And he mounted upon the cherubim and flew; he flew on the wings of the winds, and he made darkness his hiding place."

11.2| And at the end of the same he says: "Deliver me from the contradictions of the people. You will set me as head of nations. A people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear it obeyed me. Foreign sons will be cast away."

11.3| The God who bowed down the heavens and came down, who mounted the man he had taken up, whom the passage here names cherubim, flew up with him, having made the ascent with the divine spirits who escorted him, who are themselves also styled "wings of winds". That this happened in darkness and in a hidden place, for certain ineffable and hidden reasons, he hints by saying, "And he made darkness his hiding place." And what follows signifies, in line with Christ's becoming man, the contradiction made against him by the people of the Jews and the obedience of the nations to Christ's teaching. In the very same words you would find similar things also in the seventeenth Psalm, to which what has been said above refers. From the Third Book of Kingdoms.

12.1| "And now, Lord God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you spoke to your servant David my father. For if God will truly dwell among men upon the earth, if heaven and the heaven of heaven will not be enough for you."

12.2| These words stand in the same wording also in Chronicles. To David, then, God promised that he would raise up from his own belly a king, of whom God himself says he will be Father, so that the one born from the seed of David would be named son of God, and would have an eternal throne of kingship.

12.3| These words were delivered to David in the Second Book of Kingdoms through Nathan the prophet in this manner: "And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who will come from your belly, and I will prepare his kingdom. He will build me a house for my name, and I will set his throne upright forever. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me."

12.4| The same things are said likewise in Chronicles. And in the eighty-eighth Psalm it is said: "He will call upon me, You are my father, my God, and the one who takes up my salvation. And I will make him firstborn, high above the earth's kings. I will keep my mercy for him forever, and my covenant is faithful to him; his seed I will make endure for ever and ever, and his throne like the days of heaven.

12.5| And again: "I swore to David my servant, I will prepare your seed for ever, and I will build up your throne from generation to generation."

12.6| And again: "Once I swore by my holiness, shall I lie to David? His seed will remain for ever, and his throne will be like the sun before me, and like the moon, established for ever."

12.7| The hundred and thirty-first Psalm also recalls these things and refers what they signify to the Christ. Hear this one too: "Remember, Lord, David and all his meekness: how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the God of Jacob." After other things it adds: "The Lord swore to David truth, and he will not annul it: From the fruit of your belly I will set one upon your throne."

12.8| And a little further down he names more plainly the one who is to arise from the fruit of David's belly, saying: "There I will make a horn spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my Christ; I will clothe his enemies with shame, but on him my holy thing will blossom."

12.9| Solomon, then, the wisest, pondering these oracles given to his father, saw that they were not small but greater than human nature, and fitted God rather than himself, though he was the son of David; and understanding who it was that God had named firstborn and who was plainly prophesied as Son of God, he rejoiced exceedingly at the promises, and joins in praying that what was foretold be confirmed and that the one prophesied come to dwell among men, proclaiming him firstborn and Son of God. For this reason he says: "And now, God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you spoke to your servant David my father. For if God will truly dwell among men on the earth—if heaven itself, and the heaven of heaven, will not suffice for you." From Micah.

13.1| "Hear, all you peoples, and let the earth give heed, and all who are in it. And the Lord our God will be for a witness, the Lord from his holy house. For behold, the Lord, the Lord, goes out from his place, and will come down upon the heights of the earth, and the mountains will be shaken beneath him, and the valleys will melt like wax before the face of fire, and like water poured down a slope. All this is for the impiety of Jacob, and for the sin of the house of Israel."

13.2| And here too the Lord God is proclaimed in the words before us as coming down openly from heaven, and going out from his place. This would be the Word of God, who alone, as we showed in the earlier parts, is a begotten God and Lord after the one who is highest and over all. And you would not be wrong in saying that his place is the kingdom in the heavens, and the throne of his divinity, glorious as it is, of which the prophet sang, declaring him God: "Your throne, O God, is unto the age of the age"; on it the Father commanded him, as only-begotten Son, to sit, saying, "Sit at my right hand."

13.3| For we showed plainly earlier that these words are referred to our Savior alone, God the Word. This very one, then, the present oracle prophesies, goes out from his place and will come down upon the high places of the earth.

13.4| And what could these be, if not, literally, the mountains of Israel and its hills, about which countless prophecies speak, and Jerusalem itself, and Mount Zion, where our Savior and Lord spent most of his time? He prophesies that there will be ruin and destruction of these at the descent of Christ. And it is plain that after the coming of our Savior and the outrages dared against him, all the places named were besieged and came to utter desolation.

13.5| Moreover, the rulers of the nation of the Jews, and the kingdom that formerly stood among them, and the priesthood and the presidency of the teachers, now figuratively called mountains, are said to be shaken at the coming of the Lord from heaven. And how this too came to its end, who would not acknowledge, after the times of our Savior Jesus Christ, seeing all those things not only shaken but removed out of the way? And the valleys that are still melting now would be their synagogues, established in every city in place of Jerusalem and Mount Zion, lamenting and weeping and melting like wax before the face of fire, through the excess of grief and mourning, on account of the desolation of their own and of their long servitude of many years.

13.6| And in another sense, as regards the mind, the treading of the divine Word took place not upon chasms and hollows, nor upon lowly minds that creep along the ground, but upon minds lifted high in their thinking. In this way, then, it was said, more figuratively, that the Lord himself will come down upon the high places of the earth.

13.7| And the mountains shaken beneath him were those very ones where he was led up by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil, "when the devil takes him up to an exceedingly high mountain, and he was among the wild beasts."

13.8| The mountains could also be, again more figuratively, the idolatry formerly practiced on the mountains, and the invisible, ruling powers that worked in them, which the teaching of our Savior shook and stirred up in no small way. For his God-filled word and his wonder-working, marvel-making strength secretly brought down their long and ancient dominion over men.

13.9| In the same way the valleys melting like wax before the face of fire would be the demons of the earth and the ground, against whom he let loose the fire that burns away their wickedness, saying, "I came to throw fire onto the earth, and what do I wish, if it is already kindled?" Burned by that fire and unable to bear the torments from the invisible flame, they withdrew from human bodies, and confessed what held and drove them, crying out: "Ah, what have we to do with you, Son of God? Have you come before the time to torment us? We know who you are, the Holy One of God."

13.10| [….] he tormented most of all, and he brought down the rulers set over them, because, not satisfied with the corruption of the other nations, by which they had cast all into the error of many gods, they had also plotted against the former people of God, the circumcised themselves, and having made them fall away from God, they had pierced this people too through and through with every kind of impiety. For this reason above all the Lord made his descent from heaven.

13.11| Hence he says next: "All this is for the impiety of Jacob, and for the sin of the house of Israel." And besides this he makes clear next the cause of the Word's descent from heaven, recounting the impieties of the circumcised people and the destruction that overtook them for these, and proclaiming beforehand the calling of the nations throughout the whole inhabited world. It was for these reasons that the Word of God came from heaven to the earth.

13.12| And hear the words: "All this is on account of the impiety of Jacob's house, and on account of the sin of Israel's house. What is the impiety of Jacob's house? Is it not Samaria? And of the house of Judah, what is the sin? Is it not Jerusalem? And I will turn Samaria into a hut for a fruit watcher in a field and a [….] of a vineyard, and I will drag her stones down into a chasm, and I will uncover her foundations."

13.13| And he adds: "There came down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem a noise of chariots and horsemen."

13.14| And again: "The glory of the daughter of Jerusalem: shave yourself and cut your hair for your delicate children. Make your widowhood broad like an eagle, for they have been taken captive from you." [….] "Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will be like a fruit watcher's hut, and the mountain of the house will be a wooded grove."

13.15| Zion and Jerusalem and what is called the mountain of the house were those places signified earlier by the words "And the mountains will be shaken beneath him, and the valleys will melt like wax before the face of fire, for the impiety of Jacob." For because of the impieties committed against him, immediately and not long after, both the mountains and those who lived in them were besieged, and Mount Zion endured burning and utter desolation, and the mountain of the house of God became a wooded grove.

13.16| The present prophecy indicates that these things would happen to them at the Lord's descent from heaven, and they have received their plain fulfillment after the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.

13.17| If our own history is of any force, we have seen with our own eyes, in our own time, the Zion once so loudly proclaimed being plowed by teams of oxen under Roman men, and Jerusalem, as the oracle itself says, like the hut of a fruit watcher that has been left behind, reduced to complete desolation. These things befell them for no other reason than their impieties, on account of which the heavenly Word came forth from his own place.

13.18| And for another reason too the Word of God was said earlier to have come down from heaven and to have stepped upon the high places of the earth: that the mountains which of old were lifted up and exalted against the knowledge of God might be made to tremble beneath him, namely the opposing powers which, before his coming, had enslaved, together with the rest of men, the Hebrew nation too to the practices of impiety and idolatry; and that the evil demons, called valleys because they dwell in dark chasms and in the hollows of bodies, melting like wax before the face of fire, might by the power of the divine Word flee from men. And there would be yet another cause, no ordinary one, beyond these, for the Lord's descent from heaven, which the oracle marks: that all the nations on earth, the demons driven away and the ruling spirits shaken, breathing again after their former harsh and unmoved tyranny, might take up the knowledge of the God over all.

13.19| And these very things the voices of the same prophecy proclaim in sequence and in the same way, in one connected thought: "And it shall be in the [….] days that the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, prepared on the tops of the mountains, and it will be lifted up above the hills, and peoples will hasten to it, and many nations will go and will say, Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob's God, and they will show us his way, and we shall walk in his paths. For from Zion a law will go forth, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, and he will judge between the nations.

13.20| Such things are said also concerning the calling of the nations. What thought they hold, and how these too reached fulfillment after the coming of our Savior, one may learn at leisure. Following on these, however, the word of the prophecy begins, as though the descent of the Lord to men were to happen for the salvation not only of the nation of the Jews but of all the nations, by addressing the peoples and all who are on the earth, saying: "Hear, all you peoples, and let the earth give heed, and all who are in it."

13.21| And he hinted at the testimony of the Lord's passion when he added, "And the Lord your God will be for a witness." Then next the same prophet, going on, as though he had already taught beforehand about the existence of the Word of God and his descent from heaven, and having foretold the causes of his coming among men, goes on to teach, in a way like this, about his coming to be among men and the very place where he was to be born, saying: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, are the least to be counted among the thousands of Judah; from you shall come forth for me a ruler, to be a prince in Israel, and his goings forth have been from the beginning, from days of eternity."

13.22| Pay careful attention to the way he says that the goings forth of the one who is to appear at Bethlehem (a place in Judea) have been established from above and from eternity, making clear the divine pre-existence and substantial being of the ruler who is to come forth out of Bethlehem. If, then, anyone can refer the oracle to someone else, let him show who this is; but if no other can be found than our Savior Jesus Christ, who alone since the prophecy is proclaimed as having set out from that place, what remains to prevent us from agreeing that the prophecy is true, since the prediction rests on him alone? For he alone, of all who have ever become famous, came forth from the aforesaid place Bethlehem after the times of the prophecy, taking on human form, and with his presence the things foretold were fulfilled.

13.23| Immediately, indeed, and before long, each of the gloomy things prophesied befell the nation of the Jews, while the nations, in turn, met with what accorded with the oracles; and this Savior and Lord of ours, having set out from Bethlehem, was revealed as leader of the Israel in the spiritual sense, as the whole discerning and God-fearing people is so called. And see how his goings forth are said to have their divine pre-existence from the beginning, even from the days of eternity, something that would not suit the nature of a man.

13.24| After this, the prophetic word, going on a little further, again hints at the circumscription and abolition of the old legal religion, speaking in the person of the people: "With what shall I come upon the Lord, shall I take hold of God my Most High? Shall I come upon him with whole burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Shall I give the firstborn of my womb for the sin of my soul?"

13.25| And in the person of God, making this answer to them: "Has it been told you, O man, what is good? And what is it that the Lord seeks from you, other than to do justice, to love mercy, and to be prepared to walk behind the Lord your God?"

13.26| Here too, then, you have, in the prophesied descent of the Lord from heaven to men, very many things signified together and at once: the rejection of the Jews, the exposure of their impieties, the demolition of their royal metropolis, and the refusal of the worship formerly performed among them according to Moses; and on the other hand good promises concerning the nations, recognition of God, a new manner of piety, a new law and a word that will come forth from the land of the Jews and be spread to all the nations. What end and what outcome these things have received after the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ I leave to you to consider. From Habakkuk.

14.1| "And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision plainly on a tablet, so that the one who reads it may run, for the vision is yet for an appointed time, and it will rise at the end, and not in vain. If he delays, wait for him, for he who is coming will come and will not tarry. If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him, but the righteous shall live by my faith."

14.2| Here too he plainly foretells that the one prophesied will come. And who was this but the one indicated above in the words "Blessed is he who comes in the Lord's name; the Lord is God and has shone upon us"? He says that this one, being as it were light, will rise at the end, that is, at the consummation of the ages. With this Zechariah agrees, saying: "Behold, a man whose name is Rising, and from beneath him he shall rise."

14.3| And hinting at the time, the same prophet adds: "Toward evening there will be light. If he is late, wait for him." In place of this Aquila has made it: "But if he is slow, expect him, for he will surely come and will not be late." The Epistle to the Hebrews also mentions this, in the words: "Do not, then, throw away your boldness, which has a great recompense. For you have need of endurance, so that having done the will of God you may obtain the promise. For yet a little while, a very little, and he who is coming will come and will not tarry. But the righteous one will live out of my faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him."

14.4| And observe how, through these words, the Epistle has set out more clearly the prophetic text, which lies obscure because it was spoken with inverted word order.

14.5| For the wording of the prophecy says, "He who is coming will come and will not tarry," and then adds, "If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." Taken together, this might seem to refer to the one who comes and does not tarry, which would be absurd. For in what way could it suit him that God is said to take no pleasure in him? But the placing of the punctuation, by exchanging the order of the words, has preserved the sense.

14.6| For after "For yet a little while, a very little, and he who is coming will come and will not tarry," it joined directly "But the righteous shall live by faith." Then it set second what stood first in the prophecy, in "And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." For once the word had foretold through the prophecy that the light that was promised to all the nations through the coming of Christ would rise late, in the evening, and will not prove false,

14.7| (for so Aquila rendered, in place of "and not in vain"), then, because the coming of the one prophesied was to be late, in the evening, it exhorts to endurance with the words "If he delays, wait for him," or "if he is slow, expect him, for he who is coming will come and will not tarry," and rouses the hearer to faith in the prediction, saying that whoever believes this, shown righteous by that very faith, will live the life according to God, just as, on the contrary, the one who disbelieves, in whatever he shrinks back, not taking courage nor putting his trust in what has been said, "my soul has no pleasure in him."

14.8| Following these, then, we too, exchanging the first for the second and moving the second to the first place, shall preserve the sense of the wording by joining, with inverted order, after "for he who is coming will come and will not tarry," the words "But my righteous one shall live by faith,"

14.9| and adding to this, "If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." Aquila agrees with this when he says, "If he is slow, expect him, for he who is coming will come and will not be late. Behold, of one who is sluggish, my soul is not upright in him, and a righteous man shall live by his faith." From the same.

15.1| "O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and I was afraid. O Lord, I considered your works, and was astounded. In the midst of two lives you will be known; when the years draw near you will be recognized; when the time is present you will be revealed; when my soul is troubled in wrath you will remember mercy. God will come from Teman, and the Holy One from a shady, wooded mountain. His excellence covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. And his brightness will be like light; horns are in his hands, and he set a strong love of his might. Before his face a word will go forth, and it will come out into the plains."

15.2| The holy prophet, having listened to himself, or rather to the divine Spirit who inspires and prophesies within him, when it said of the one foretold that "he who is coming will come and will not delay, and the righteous shall live by my faith," and having believed the oracle as a righteous man, says in the words that follow, "O Lord, I have heard the report of you and I was afraid," and the rest, in which he plainly announces the coming of God to men. And who might this be, who was known of old, but later, when the years draw near, will be recognized and, at the prophesied time, revealed, if not that same one declared before to be second Lord of all, who, in accordance with the prediction, at the consummation of the ages was proclaimed to be heard by all men? Having foreseen with the eyes of the soul the deeds of this one recorded in the holy Gospels, namely the birth from a virgin of the bodily tabernacle he took up, and how "existing in the form of God he did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, having taken the form of a servant," and the marvels performed by him among men and the outrages ventured against him by the nation of the Jews, and having learned from the divine Spirit that taught him, with a purified mind, what was going to happen, the prophet confesses that he was astounded at what he heard and was afraid, saying, "O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and I was afraid; O Lord, I considered your works, and was astounded."

15.3| Our Savior and Lord, this very Word of God, "was made known in the midst of two lives"; here "of lives" (zōōn) is plural and takes the circumflex, being understood from the singular noun "life" (zōē).

15.4| For it is not "zṓōn" accented on the next-to-last syllable, from the neuter [….] "animal" (zōon), but "zōôn" with a circumflex, from the plural nominative "zōai" (lives). "In the midst of two lives," he says, "you will be made known." For since there is one life according to God and another according to man, the one mortal and the other everlasting, the Lord, having passed through both, is naturally said to be made known in the midst of two lives, according to the translation of the Seventy; for according to Aquila it is not so, but "when the years draw near, bring it to life," is what is said.

15.5| And what does he say it is, if not "your work"? Theodotion also says, "In the midst of the years bring him to life," and Symmachus has given "within the years bring him back to life." All of them, then, in saying "bring to life," made clear that the discourse does not concern some irrational or rational animals.

15.6| Therefore, in the case of the Seventy, where it is said "In the midst of two lives you will be made known," we have not understood it as those before us did, but we have said that two lives of the one prophesied are indicated, one the divine and the other the human.

15.7| The prophet adds to this, "When my soul is troubled in wrath you will remember mercy," teaching that he had been thrown into turmoil when he saw in the Spirit the time of the passion of the one prophesied. Yet in this very time, he says, in which my soul was troubled, when wrath hung over men as at no other time because of the impieties ventured against the Lord, the most humane Lord himself remembered mercy instead of wrath, as the Son of a good Father.

15.8| His passion, at any rate, became for the whole world a cause of salvation according to God and of mercy. After this it is added, "God will come from Teman." Now "Teman" is rendered into the Greek tongue as "consummation," so that it would be no different if it had been said plainly, "God will come at the consummation." Indeed, at the age's consummation, in these last days, the beneficence of the God of the universe has appeared to us through our Savior.

15.9| But perhaps in these words he also foretells his second and glorious arrival, so that what begins with "God will come from Teman" is to be read from another starting point, as meaning that he will come at the consummation of the age from the southern parts of heaven; for "Teman" is rendered "south."

15.10| This is why Theodotion renders it in this way: "God will come from the south." As for the next phrase, "and the Holy One from a shady, wooded mountain," you will understand it if you set beside it the words in Zechariah: "I saw in the night, and behold, a man mounted on a red horse, and he stood in the middle of the shady mountains."

15.11| This man mounted on a red horse and standing among the shady mountains I take to be the very one shown in the prophecy now before us, where it says that the Holy One shall come from a shady, wooded mountain. In both places, at any rate, shady mountains are spoken of, and I take them to belong to the paradise of God that he planted in Eden toward the east, or else to the heavenly Jerusalem: "for mountains are round about her, and the Lord is round about his people."

15.12| These are called shady, as being closely grown and thick, since they are filled with divine powers and holy spirits. But in Zechariah a man is plainly seen riding a red horse, the incarnation of our Savior and the flesh on which he rode being thus indicated; here, however, he is named God and Holy One.

15.13| For as one who has made his arrival from God to men, and has come down from the more divine regions, it is said, "God will come from Teman, and the Holy One from a shady, wooded mountain." Then he adds next, "His excellence covered the heavens, and the earth is filled with his praise, and his brightness will be like light."

15.14| By these words are set forth together his glorious kingdom in the heavens and the praise of the teaching about him, which has come about since and will come about still more over all the earth. The phrase "horns are in his hands" shows the symbols of his kingdom, with which horns he thrusts and gores and drives away the invisible and opposing powers. Following on this he adds, "and he set a strong love of his might."

15.15| And the greatest proof of his strong disposition and love toward men was that "a word went before his face," namely the saving word of the gospel, and that having gone out it ran through the plains, so that in a short time it filled the whole inhabited world with the salvation he procured for all men, in accord with the prophecy that says, "Before his face a word will go forth, and it will come out into the plains." And at his second coming his word will bring to fulfillment, still more fully and properly, both what has been said and what follows, which it is not now the time to examine. From Zechariah.

16.1| "Thus says the Lord Almighty: After glory he has sent me to the nations that plundered you; for he who touches you is as one who touches the apple of his eye. For behold, I bring my hand upon them, and they shall be plunder for those who served them, and you shall recognize that it is the Lord Almighty who has sent me forth."

16.2| The Lord, the Almighty himself, says in these words that he has been sent, and makes known who it is that sent him, saying, "and you shall recognize that it is the Lord Almighty who has sent me forth." So here too you plainly have two who use a single title: the Lord Almighty who sent, and the one sent, who bears the same name as the one who sent him.

16.3| Whom else could you say the one sent to be but God the Word, whom we have had foretold in many passages, who confesses that he was sent by the Father and has plainly said, "After glory he has sent me"? He shows that, having pre-existed in glory with the Father, he was afterwards sent to the nations that plundered you. For the Word of God, sent to the nations that had formerly been enemies and hostile to the people of God, brought them under himself, plundering them by means of his disciples, who were part of the people of the circumcision, whom the nations had long ago enslaved, having plundered it by their own idolatry.

16.4| These things, then, he says the nations will suffer which they themselves have inflicted. For as they removed the people of God from their ancestral piety and made them plunder for their own demons, so one day they themselves will be plundered of their ancestral idolatry by those who formerly served them, and will be transferred under the yoke of the piety of the Hebrews. The Lord says that this will come about through himself, who is to be sent by the Father for such an achievement.

16.5| Someone might also say that the "nations" are here the intelligible and invisible powers that have plundered and taken captive the souls of men, for whom the humane Word of God says he cares as one cares for the apple of his own eye. And a proof of this care of his for the human race is that, being the Word of God and being in glory with the Father, he did not shrink from undertaking a visit and a dispensation among men. From the same.

17.1| "Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion, for behold, I am coming, and I will dwell in your midst, says the Lord, and many nations shall flee for refuge to the Lord on that day, and they shall be a people for him, and I will dwell in your midst, and you shall recognize that it is the Lord Almighty who has sent me to you."

17.2| Since the task now before us is to show from the prophets that the Second Cause was to live as a fellow citizen with men on earth, I think the present prophecy also demonstrates this, so clearly that it needs no further elaboration. You will notice that it also sets out again the reason for his arrival in the words "and many nations shall flee for refuge to the Lord on that day, and they shall be a people for him."

17.3| The Word announces this good news to the daughter of Zion, so naming the church of God because she is held to be a daughter of the heavenly Jerusalem, that city belonging to the saints, according to the holy apostle.

17.4| Or in another way the church of Christ may be called a daughter of Zion, as having come into being from the earlier assembly of the circumcision through apostles and evangelists, who were themselves offspring of the mother that was cast off because of her own impieties and had become a widow because she drove away her husband, who through the prophets reproached her and said, "Did you not call me husband, and father and leader of your virginity?" He also, denouncing the mother's conduct to those born of her, says, "What is this bill of divorce of your mother, with which I sent her away?" and again, "Plead with your mother, plead, for she is no wife of mine, and I am no husband of hers."

17.5| Fittingly, then, since the Lord had disowned the mother, the present prophecy announces to the daughter the coming of the Lord himself. This would be the church from the nations, reckoned, through the apostles of our Savior, in the place of a daughter of the earlier one. From the same.

18.1| "Behold, days of the Lord are coming, and your spoils shall be divided in your midst, and I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for war, and the city shall be seized, and the houses plundered, and the women defiled; and half the city shall depart into captivity, but the rest of my people shall not be wholly destroyed. And the Lord shall go out and fight against those nations, as in the day of his fighting, in the day of battle.

18.2| On that day his feet will take their stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies opposite Jerusalem to the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split, half of it toward the east and half toward the sea, forming a very great chasm; and half of the mountain shall lean to the north and half of it to the south. The valley of my mountains shall be stopped up, and the ravine of the mountains shall be joined as far as Asael, and it shall be stopped up just as it was stopped up by the earthquake, in the time of Uzziah, king of Judah. And the Lord my God shall be present, and all the holy ones with him. And on that day there will be no light, but cold and frost shall last for a single day.

18.3| And that day shall be known to the Lord, and it shall not be day, and not night, and toward evening there shall be light. And on that day living water shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of it to the first sea and half of it to the last sea. In summer and in spring it shall be so. Over all the earth the Lord shall be king; on that day the Lord shall be one and his name one, encircling the whole earth and the desert."

18.4| After the first siege of Jerusalem, when the Babylonians demolished and desolated it completely, and after the return from the enemy's land to their own, which took place under Cyrus king of the Persians, when Jerusalem had just been raised up again and the sanctuary and the altar by it had been renewed under Darius the Persian, the present prophet delivers his oracle, signifying the second siege of Jerusalem that came afterwards, which it suffered at the hands of the Romans, at no other time than after the outrages ventured against our Savior Jesus Christ by its inhabitants.

18.5| Most plainly, then, here too the coming of our Savior, God the Word, is made known, and what happened as a result of it. Taken together, these were the events around the time of his passion: the siege that immediately came upon the nation of the Hebrews, and the capture of Jerusalem, and, besides these, the calling of the nations and the knowledge of the one and only God among every race of men.

18.6| The Spirit-bearing prophet, lamenting with deeper feeling, as over his own kin of the circumcision, makes the beginning of his prophecy from the proclamation against them. By "days of the Lord," then, as he does elsewhere, so here too, he signifies the time of Christ's coming among men, making clear that the Lord himself, being the true light, will one day be the creator of his own days and shine upon all men on earth, when all the nations have received him and the rays of his light; and when all the nations are being enlightened, in accord with "I have set you as a light of nations, as a covenant of a race," the nation of the Jews, because of its unbelief in him, will fall into the last extremities of misery.

18.7| For this is the sense of "Behold, days of the Lord are coming, and your spoils shall be divided in your midst, and I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to war, and the city will be captured, and the houses plundered, and the women will be defiled, and half the city will go out into captivity."

18.8| Once Jerusalem had been besieged and the nation of the Jews carried off captive, he next adds, foretelling good things for everyone, "And the Lord will become king over the whole earth." And again, "The Lord will be one, and his name one, encircling the entire earth and the desert."

18.9| But since the prediction declared that the nation of the Jews would suffer such things in the days of the Lord, who would not marvel at the fulfillment of the prediction? For as soon as Jesus our Savior and Lord was present, those of the circumcision were impious toward him, and all that had been foretold came upon them together, after the five hundredth year from the prediction, and from Pilate himself until the siege under Nero and Titus and Vespasian, calamities of every kind, one upon another, did not leave them, as one may read in the history written by Flavius Josephus.

18.10| At that time, then, it is likely that half the city was lost in the siege, as the prophecy puts it; and not long afterwards, under the emperor Hadrian, when a Jewish uprising occurred again, the remaining half of the city, besieged in its turn, was driven out, so that from then until now the place has been wholly inaccessible to them.

18.11| But if someone claims these things were fulfilled in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, let him consider whether he can also assign the rest of the prophecy to the times of Antiochus: for example, that the people suffered captivity, that the feet of the Lord stood on the Mount of Olives, that the Lord became king over all the earth on that day, and that the name of the Lord encircled all the earth and the desert when Antiochus ruled Syria. And as for the rest of the prediction, how will anyone show what fulfillment it received while Antiochus was king?

18.12| In our case, however, these things are applied both literally and in a different sense. For after the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ their city, this very Jerusalem, and the whole system and constitution of the religion according to the law of Moses was demolished; and at once they suffered the captivity of the mind in addition to that of the body, since they did not accept the Savior and Redeemer of human souls, who came to proclaim release to those held captive by wicked demons and recovery of sight to those blind in mind.

18.13| While those suffered these things because of their unbelief, those who recognized their own Redeemer, and became his own disciples and apostles and evangelists, and very many others of the circumcision who believed in him, of whom the apostle says, "So too at the present time a remnant has come into being through an election of grace,"

18.14| and "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah," these were kept unharmed not only from the siege understood by us in the spiritual sense but also from the one assigned according to the letter. The apostles, at any rate, and disciples of our Savior, and all who had believed in him from among the Jews, having gone far from the land of Judea and been scattered among the other nations, were then able to escape the destruction that fell upon those who lived in the city.

18.15| And the prophecy foretold this in advance in the words "but those left over from my people shall by no means be wholly destroyed." After these it adds, "And the Lord shall go out and fight against those nations, as in the day of his fighting, in the day of battle."

18.16| Among what nations will the Lord fight, if not among those who will besiege Jerusalem? The text shows that the Lord himself fights alongside the besiegers, in their midst and arrayed together with them, as a general and champion of theirs campaigning against Jerusalem.

18.17| For the text does not say that it is against the nations that the Lord will fight. Against whom, then, and for whom? Against Jerusalem and its inhabitants, about whom the discourse was. And "his feet shall take their stand on that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem on the east": what else does this show than the standing and establishing of the Lord God, the very Word of God, upon his church, which the text here names, by way of allegory, the Mount of Olives?

18.18| For as the house of Israel became allegorically a vineyard for the Beloved, and was "the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth," and "the vine of Judah a newly planted beloved plant," so, by the same way of seeing, you could say that his church from the nations has become an olive grove for the Master; he planted it, though it was once a wild olive, grafting it onto the apostolic roots of the cultivated olive after the cutting out of the former branches, just as the apostle instructs. Indeed the Lord planted her for himself, saying, as it were, through the prophecy, "A fair olive tree, shady, the Lord called your name."

18.19| For since the first vineyard, when it ought to have produced a grape, produced thorns, and not righteousness but an outcry, God fittingly, as the vineyard was fruitless, took down its hedge and its wall and handed it over to its enemies for plunder and trampling, according to the prophecy of Isaiah; and he established for himself another field, the one here called an olive grove, as having obtained mercy from God and been planted by Christ with evergreen plants, that is, with holy souls that nourish light, such as can say, "But I am as a fruitful olive tree in God's house."

18.20| This Mount of Olives is said to lie opposite Jerusalem since, in place of the old earthly Jerusalem and its religion, it was established for God after the demolition of Jerusalem. The text, having said above of Jerusalem that "the city shall be taken, and the hostile and warlike nations shall be gathered against it, and its spoils shall be divided," fittingly does not say that the Lord's feet will stand on Jerusalem.

18.21| For how could they, once it had been demolished? But it teaches that, when they have moved from it to the mountain directly facing Jerusalem, called the Mount of Olives, there he will stand. The prophet Ezekiel too foresees this by the divine Spirit.

18.22| He says, then: "And the Cherubim raised their wings, and the wheels next to them, and upon them, above, was the glory of the God of Israel. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood upon the mountain that was opposite the city."

18.23| This can also be seen fulfilled according to the letter even today, with all who have believed in Christ running together from every part of the earth, not, as of old, for the splendor of Jerusalem, nor to worship in the sanctuary that once stood in Jerusalem, but to stay there for the sake of learning, together, the history of the capture and desolation of Jerusalem in accord with the prophecy, and to worship on the Mount of Olives opposite Jerusalem, where the glory of the Lord moved when it left the former city. And the feet of our Lord and Savior, the very Word of God, the feet of the human tabernacle he had taken up, did truly stand, even according to the plain and explicit account, on the Mount of Olives by the cave shown there, when he prayed and handed to his own disciples at the top of the Mount of Olives the mysteries concerning the consummation, and from there made his ascent to the heavens, as Luke teaches in his Acts of the Apostles, saying that on the Mount of Olives, with the apostles present with him, "as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him up from their eyes,"

18.24| "and as they were gazing into heaven while he went, behold, two men in white clothing stood by them, who also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven."

18.25| To this he adds, "Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain called Olivet, which is opposite Jerusalem."

18.26| So the mountain in question is, in the letter, opposite Jerusalem, lying eastward of it. But in the sense, the holy church of Christ, and the mountain on which it is founded, about which the Savior teaches, saying, "A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden," raised up in place of the Jerusalem that fell and was not raised again, and judged worthy of the Lord's feet, is not only opposite Jerusalem but also to the east of it, having received the rays of the light of godliness, standing far ahead of Jerusalem, and having drawn near to the very Sun of righteousness, of whom it is said, "But for you who fear me the sun of righteousness shall rise."

18.27| If the text goes on to say, "the Mount of Olives shall be split, half of it toward the east and the sea, into a very great chasm, and one half of it shall lean toward the north and the other half toward the south," it can signify the spreading of the church over the whole inhabited world of men, since it has filled both the sunrise lands, the eastern nations themselves, and extends also to the western sea and the islands in it; and indeed it has reached to the south and the noonday, and to the north and the Bear.

18.28| For everywhere and in every place the olive grove of the Lord, which is figuratively signified, his church, has been planted. It can also, in the sense, hint obscurely at the schisms and the heresies, the moral ones too, in conduct, that have arisen and are still arising in the church of Christ, split into [….]; for it says that the mountain "will be divided, half of it toward the east and half of it toward the sea, into a very great chasm, and half of the mountain will lean toward the north and half of it toward the south," so that it is divided into four parts, two the more venerable and better, and two the opposite.

18.29| And see whether, by these words, the part toward the east and the south may signify two orders of those who have taken hold of progress according to God: one of those being perfected in knowledge and speech and the other gifts of the divine Spirit, the other of those who succeed through their way of life, yet spend their time among the chosen.

18.30| The remaining two parts, separated from the former, would be the one toward the sea and the one toward the north, both signified as belonging with wickedness. "For from the face of the north," it says, "evils shall be kindled upon all who dwell on the earth"; and the dragon is said to make his haunts in the sea.

18.31| So that here too, fittingly, two ways are again indicated of those who fall away from the church: the one who sins in character and the one who slips from sound and orthodox knowledge; and these are the divisions of the Mount of Olives in question that the prophecy hints at.

18.32| After these words is added next: "And the valley of my mountains will be blocked, and the ravine of the mountains shall be joined as far as Asael. And it shall be blocked in the way that it was blocked from the face of the earthquake in the days of Uzziah the king of Judah." And who could the valley of God's mountains in these words be, if not the bodily and Jewish religion, which was formerly performed in Jerusalem according to the law of Moses, which the present text foretells will be shut off, as though stopped up, in saying, "And the valley of my mountains will be blocked, and the ravine of the mountains shall be joined as far as Asael, and it shall be blocked"?

18.33| In place of this Symmachus has made it: "And the ravine of my mountains shall be blocked, and the ravine of the mountains shall draw still nearer to what lies beside it, and it shall be blocked"; by this he sets out the cause of the blocked ravine. And what was this, if not its drawing near and approaching what lay beside it? And this was the mountain of the Lord, the Mount of Olives named before, which is named Asael by the Seventy.

18.34| In the Hebrew tongue this signifies "making of God." Thus, he says, the old ravine, drawing near to the mountain and to the church of Christ and to the "making of God," will be blocked and shut off, in the way that it was blocked from the face of the earthquake in the days of Uzziah the king of Judah.

18.35| Searching for this by myself and going through the divine writings, to see whether ever in the days of Uzziah the ravine meant here was blocked from the face of an earthquake, I found nothing in the histories of the Kingdoms; for in them neither is a physical earthquake recorded as having taken place in his time, nor is anything of this kind said about a ravine.

18.36| It is recorded, however, that Uzziah was righteous at the beginning, and then was censured as being lifted up in mind and daring to sacrifice to God by himself, so that leprosy broke out upon his face. This the book of Kingdoms sets forth; but Josephus, who accurately studied the Jewish traditions outside the Scriptures also, being a Hebrew of the Hebrews, shows what happened in his times; listen to him: "When the priests urged Uzziah to leave the temple and not to transgress against God, he grew angry and threatened them with death if they would not keep quiet.

18.37| But in the meantime an earthquake shook the ground, and as the temple split open a bright gleam shone out and fell upon the face of the king, so that leprosy immediately ran over him; and in front of the city, at the place called Eroge, half of the mountain on the western side was torn away and, rolling four stadia, came to a stop at the eastern mountain, so that the roads were blocked, and the royal gardens as well."

18.38| Let this suffice from the work of Josephus, the Jewish Antiquities. And in the prophet Amos I found, at the beginning of his prophecy, that he began prophesying in the time of Uzziah, king of Judah, two years prior to the earthquake. But of what earthquake he does not say plainly.

18.39| I think the same prophet, as he proceeds, describes the earthquake in the words "I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said, Smite the altar, and the porches shall be shaken, and cut them off at the heads of them all, and the rest of them I will kill with the sword."

18.40| By these words I think is foretold the earthquake, and the demolition of the formerly venerable things of the nation of the Jews and of the religion performed by them in Jerusalem, and the destruction that overtook them after the coming of our Savior, when, after they refused the Christ of God, who is the true high priest, leprosy broke out upon their souls, just as it did on Uzziah; when also the Lord himself, standing by their altar with an invisible power, gave authority to the one who strikes, saying, "Strike the altar."

18.41| In effect he made this clear when he said, "Your house is left to you desolate." Immediately, in fact, at the moment of his passion "the curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom," just as Josephus records happened in the times of Uzziah; then the porches were first shaken, when the earth was shaken in the hour of his passion; and not long afterward they also endured their final fall, and the one who strikes, having received the authority, cut them off at the heads of them all.

18.42| At that time, then, the valley of God's mountains was blocked, just as happened under Uzziah: in the plain letter, in the Roman siege, in which I think some such things occurred; but in the sense, when the bodily and lowlier worship of the law of Moses was shut off so as to be no longer practiced, because of the earthquake that came upon the nation of the Jews prophetically from that time, and because of the other things recorded. After this the text, returning to the coming of the Lord, proclaims it more plainly, saying, "And the Lord my God shall be present, and all the holy ones with him,"

18.43| whether by his holy ones he means his apostles and disciples, or certain invisible powers and ministering spirits, concerning whom it is said, "Angels approached and ministered to him." Then, at the Lord's coming, "there shall be a day," it says, "and there shall be no light, and cold and frost shall be for one day."

18.44| In place of this Symmachus has rendered: "And on that day light shall not exist, but cold and frost shall last a single day, a day known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but toward evening there shall be light." And see whether in these words he does not show most clearly the day of our Savior's passion, on which day the words "there shall be no light" were being fulfilled, when, from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon the entire earth until the ninth, and "but cold and frost" when, according to Luke, "they took Jesus and led him to the house of the high priest. And Peter followed at a distance."

18.45| When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard, according to Mark he sat with the rest, warming himself. And John expressly mentioned the cold as well, saying, "The servants and the attendants stood there, having made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were warming themselves."

18.46| "And this day," it says, "was known to the Lord, and it was not day, and it was not night": not day, because it was said earlier, "there shall be no light," a saying fulfilled when darkness covered the entire earth from the sixth hour until the ninth; nor night, because it is added, "toward evening there shall be light," which was itself fulfilled when after the ninth hour the day received back its customary light.

18.47| These things were fulfilled in the sense as well, generally upon the nation of the Jews: after their daring against Christ there came darkness and frost and cold, their mind being darkened so as not to see the illumination of the gospel in their hearts, and the love toward God being chilled; whereas, on the contrary, toward the evening the light of the knowledge of Christ has risen, so that those who of old sat in darkness and in the shadow of death beheld a great light, as Isaiah’s words have it.

18.48| On this very day of the Lord, then, "living water," he says, "shall go out from Jerusalem." This was the rational, drinkable, life-giving and saving draught of the teaching of Christ, about which he himself, in the Gospel according to John, instructing the Samaritan woman, said: "If you knew who it is that says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." This very saving drink, then, came forth from Jerusalem itself.

18.49| From there, at any rate, his gospel set out, and its heralds filled the whole inhabited world; which is also made clear by saying that the living water would go out "to the first sea and to the last sea," by which the limits of the whole earth are shown: those toward the eastern ocean, named the first sea, and those toward the setting sun, signified by the last sea, which the living water of the saving teaching of the gospel has filled. About this he instructed again, saying, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst for ever." And again, "Rivers," he says, "of living water will flow from his belly, springing up to eternal life."

18.50| And again, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." After the saving and rational stream had poured forth from Jerusalem upon every race of men (which is shown more plainly in another place by "For out of Zion shall go forth a law, and from Jerusalem the word of the Lord, and he shall judge among the nations"), "the Lord," it says, "shall be king."

18.51| But he shall not be in Jerusalem, nor over the nation of the Jews, but "over the whole earth on that day. And the Lord shall be one, and his name one, circling the whole earth." These words too agree with those set beside them from the Psalms, in which it was said, "God has reigned over the nations," and once more, "Say among the nations, The Lord has reigned." All these things together are prophesied to happen in the days of the Lord.

18.52| At the beginning of the whole prophecy, then, "Behold," it says, "days of the Lord are coming, and these things shall be." What are these but the siege of Jerusalem and the Lord's removal to the Mount of Olives, in the words "the Lord shall be present"; and what befell around the day of his suffering, and the living water that flowed over the whole inhabited world, and, in addition to all these, the kingdom of the Lord, ruler of all the nations, and "his name one, filling all the earth"? What fulfillment these things received we have gone through in summary.

18.53| It is also clear how from the title of Christ of God the name of Christians has filled the whole inhabited world, which this same text sets out: "and his name one, circling the whole earth and the desert." And at your leisure you will be able to examine each phrase and see its meaning at greater length. From Baruch.

19.1| "Who has gone up into heaven and taken her" (he means wisdom) "and brought her down from the clouds? Who has crossed over the sea and found her, and will bring her in exchange for choice gold? There is no one who knows her way, nor one who ponders her path, but he who knows all things knows her; he found her out by his understanding. He who prepared the earth for all time filled it with four-footed beasts. He who sends out the light, and it goes; he called it, and it obeyed him with trembling; and the stars shone in their watches and were glad; he called them, and they said, Here we are;

19.2| they shone with gladness for the one who made them. This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside him. He found out every way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel whom he loved. After this he appeared on the earth and lived among men." There is nothing to add to these divine words, which plainly bear out the proposition before us. From Isaiah.

20.1| "The vision of Egypt. Behold, the Lord sits on a light cloud, and he will come to Egypt, and the handmade things of Egypt will be shaken from his face, and their heart will be defeated within them, and Egyptians will be stirred up against Egyptians, and a man will fight his brother, and a man his neighbor, city against city and law against law. And the spirit of the Egyptians will be troubled within them, and I will disperse their counsel, and they will consult their gods and their images, and those who speak from the earth, and the ventriloquists. And I will hand Egypt over into the hands of men, harsh lords, and harsh kings will rule over them"; and what follows.

20.2| Here too the present prophecy signifies that the one who is second to the God and Lord of the universe, the very Word of God, will come to Egypt, and will come not unseen, nor invisibly, nor without some bodily covering, but riding on a light cloud, or rather on a light thickness; for so, they say, the Hebrew has it.

20.3| Let the children of the Hebrews say, then, when after the times of Isaiah the Lord visited the Egyptians, and what Lord; for God over all is one. And how is he said to ride on a light thickness and to step locally on some part of the earth?

20.4| Let them also explain what the "light thickness" can possibly be, and why the Lord is not said to visit Egypt without it.

20.5| And when is it recorded that what is said in the prophecy was fulfilled: I mean that the handmade idols of Egypt were shaken, and that Egyptians fought Egyptians because of the Lord's coming among men; and that their gods, that is, the demons, who of old could do much, were no longer strong, nor answered those who consulted them, for fear of the Lord; and to what harsh lords, and what kings, Egypt was handed over after the foretold coming of the Lord, and why, when the Lord was present, they are handed over to harsh rulers? And let anyone who wishes explain the rest in the same way.

20.6| We, for our part, say that these things come about in no other way than through the appearing among men of our Savior Jesus Christ alone. For he, being the Word of God and the power of God, visited the land of the Egyptians both in the sense and in the letter, and through a light cloud fulfilled what had been foretold. By "light cloud" he allegorically names his sojourn in the body which he took from a virgin and from the Holy Spirit, just as the Hebrew Scripture and Aquila hinted more plainly in saying, "Behold, the Lord steps on a light thickness, and comes to Egypt," calling the body from the Holy Spirit a "light thickness."

20.7| This part of the prophecy, then, was fulfilled according to the letter when an angel of the Lord, appearing to Joseph in a dream, said to him, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and be there until I tell you."

20.8| Then the Lord himself, God the Word, was present in the age of the child, in his flesh formed from the holy virgin, which was thick because of the resistance of bodily matter, yet light again because it was superior to ours, and called a light cloud because it was formed not from pleasurable corruption but from the Holy Spirit; and so he visits the land of the Egyptians.

20.9| The reason for his sojourn there is this. Since it is recorded that the error of idolatry began first in that land, and they were thought to be the most given to superstition of all men and enemies and foes of the people of God, standing as far as possible from the prophets, the power of God fittingly came upon them first.

20.10| For this reason the word of his gospel teaching prevailed among the Egyptians more than among all other men. Hence the present prophecy foretells that the Lord himself will visit them, but not that the Egyptians will go to the Jews' country, nor to Jerusalem to worship him, nor there, according to what was commanded by Moses, become proselytes to the Jews, nor offer sacrifices at the altar at Jerusalem; none of these things, it says, will happen, but the Lord himself will visit the Egyptians, and deem the men worthy of his presence, and become the cause of great goods to them.

20.11| His visit, then, will bring about these things, which indeed are established as fulfilled in actual events after the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ; and let us see what they are. The wicked and wretched demons who formerly inhabited Egypt, lurking for a long age in the wooden images and enslaving the souls of the Egyptians with every deception of superstition, perceiving that a strange and divine power was visiting them, were immediately thrown into commotion, suffering tossing and shaking within themselves, and their heart and their power of thought were defeated within them, giving way and overcome by the power that drove them invisibly and burned them like fire by an unspeakable word.

20.12| But at that time the demons suffered these things invisibly, at the visit of our Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh to Egypt. When afterwards the gospel about him was openly proclaimed to the Egyptians, as to the other nations, and his invisible power, present with his apostles, worked unseen together with them, cooperating and announcing through them his pious teaching, urging them to worship the one and only true God, and removing from the demons those who had long been led astray,

20.13| then at last strife and civil war arose among the Egyptians, as among the other nations, some withdrawing from the error of many gods and running to the word of Christ, others on the opposite side fighting them and being driven to frenzy by their own demons, so that even brothers were divided from one another and the dearest went at each other with swords for the sake of the teaching of Christ. The oracle says, "And Egyptians will be stirred up against Egyptians, and a man will fight his brother, and a man his neighbor."

20.14| Our Savior himself confirms the prophetic prediction, saying in the Gospels: "Brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise up against parents and put them to death."

20.15| And again: "Do not think that I came to give peace on the earth; I tell you, no, but division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three set against two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

20.16| How do these words differ from the prophetic voice which, on the Lord's coming to Egypt, says that Egyptians will be stirred up against Egyptians, and a man will fight his brother? The law of Christ's new covenant was raised up against the law of polytheistic superstition, at the time when the law of the idolatrous nations waged war on the teaching of Christ, while the city and polity of the church in Christ rose up against the constitutions of the unbelieving nations.

20.17| This is why it is said, "city against city and law against law." One can see in addition that all the idolatrous Egyptians, as well as the spirit of idolatry that works in them, are even now thrown into confusion, forming many plans against the teaching of Christ in order to quench it and wipe it from among men, but scattered by God, who said in the prophecy: "And the Egyptians' spirit will be troubled within them, and their counsel I will scatter."

20.18| Though they inquire and consult about us countless times, in oracles and divinations, their gods and the demons lurking in their images, and the ventriloquists who were once able to do much among them, they gain nothing more from them.

20.19| So the text says, "And they will consult their gods and their images and the ventriloquists." But they will obtain no help at all, it says, those who flee for refuge to those whom they wrongly think to be their gods, and God then most of all hands them over to harsh lords and kings, when, obeying their demons and driven by them, they stir up persecutions against the church of God.

20.20| Here you will give me your attention to how, until our Savior Jesus Christ appeared, all Egypt had kings of its own, apart and by itself, and the Egyptians lived in self-rule and freedom, and their dynasty had been famed for a long and great age; but from the time that the first Augustus of the Romans, in whose reign our Lord was born, subdued Egypt and Cleopatra, last of the Ptolemies, was captured, they came under Roman authority and under their laws and orders, deprived of their former self-rule and freedom; so that in this too the prophetic oracle proved true, speaking of the procurators and governors sent out to the districts and the other rulers in turn: "And I will hand Egypt over into the hands of men, harsh lords," and of those who direct the government as a whole, what follows.

20.21| In place of this Aquila says, "and a strengthened king will rule among them," and Symmachus, "and a strong king will rule over them." So I think the Roman empire is what is so called, by which, as by a bit and a bond, not the Egyptians alone, the most superstitious of all men, but all other men too are held fast, unable to dare to speak ill of the church of our Savior.

20.22| After this, what follows in the prophecy is rather obscure, in riddles requiring a longer and deeper interpretation by figurative reading, which at leisure, at the fitting time, will receive its fitting exposition when, with God's help, we give our account of the promises. From the same.

21.1| "Be glad, parched desert; let the desert leap for joy and bloom like a lily, and the desert places of the Jordan will bloom and exult. And the glory of Lebanon was given to it and the honor of Carmel, and my people will behold the glory of the Lord, and the height of God. Be strong, slackened hands and weakened knees; take comfort, you who are faint of mind; be strong, do not fear. Behold, our God dispenses judgment and will repay; he himself will come and save us. At that time the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the deaf will hear with their ears. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the stammerers will be clear, when water burst forth in the desert and a ravine in thirsty land; and the waterless land will become marshes, and a spring of water will be in the ground."

21.2| Here too the arrival of God is plainly foretold as saving and the cause of many good things: healing for the deaf and sight for the blind, and besides, cure for the lame and for those whose tongue is tied, is prophesied, which came to pass in no other way than through the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, through whom the blind had their eyes opened and the deaf recovered their hearing.

21.3| Need I say how many, through his disciples also, the paralyzed and deaf and lame, received healings according to nature, and countless others worn down by various diseases and infirmities were deemed worthy of cure and salvation from him, in accord with the divinely inspired prediction of the prophecy and with the wholly truthful testimony of the holy Gospels?

21.4| By "desert" in these words the text hints at the church from the nations, which, being once desolate of God, is given the good news by the passage in hand; and among other things the text says that the glory of Lebanon will be given to the desert.

21.5| It is customary to call Jerusalem Lebanon allegorically, as we shall show in due time from proofs drawn from divine Scripture. At the coming of God among men, then, the prediction before us teaches that the glory of Lebanon will be given to the desert indicated, I mean the church from the nations. In place of "and the honor of Carmel," Aquila says, "the splendor of Carmel and of Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord,"

21.6| and Symmachus, "the beauty of Carmel and of the plain; they will see the glory of the Lord"; Theodotion, for his part, "the comeliness," he says, "of Carmel and of Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord." By these words I think the prophecy hints that not Jerusalem, nor Judea, but the land of the nations will be deemed worthy of the divine knowledge. Carmel, at any rate, and the place called Sharon were places of foreign nations.

21.7| So much for the letter. In the sense too, even today those who were formerly maimed in their souls, so as to worship wood and stones and the rest of lifeless matter, and earthbound demons and wicked spirits in place of the God of the universe, and those deafened in the ears of the mind, and limping and slack all their life, are even now delivered, through the teaching of our Savior Jesus Christ, from all of these and from their other passions and sicknesses, counted worthy of a healing and a benefit far better than the bodily kind, and showing plainly the divine, superhuman power of God's Word in his coming among men. From the same.

22.1| "Hear me, Jacob and Israel, whom I call: I am the first, and I am for ever, and my hand founded the earth, my right hand set firm the heaven." And he continues, "And now the Lord, the Lord, has sent me out, and his Spirit." Here too you have the Lord who is sent and the Lord who sends, namely the Father and God of the universe, who is customarily named "Lord" twice. From the same.

23.1| "Thus says the Lord: What is this bill of divorce of your mother, with which I sent her away? Or to which creditor have I sold you? Behold, for your sins you were sold, and for your lawless deeds I sent your mother away; for I came, and no man was present; I called, and no one was there to answer. Is my hand not strong enough to rescue? Or do I lack the strength to deliver?"

23.2| Then, going further in the same prophecy, he says: "But I do not disobey, nor do I speak against. I gave my back to lashes and my cheeks to blows, while I did not turn away my face from the shame of spitting."

23.3| The Lord himself in these words, plainly confessing his coming among men, convicts the people of the Jews that they will neither receive him when he comes nor obey him when he calls. And, as though defending himself, he teaches that this was the cause of their rejection: "Since I came," he says, "and there was no man among you, and I called and there was no one to answer, therefore," he says, "you were sold for your sins, since you yourselves of your own accord fell away from my calling, and I did not give you a bill of divorce."

23.4| It is plain that these words are addressed to the people of the circumcision, and at the same time he shows what was ventured against him at the passion, saying, "I gave my back to lashes and my cheeks to blows," and what follows. This too will receive its fitting interpretation at leisure. From the same.

24.1| "Thus says the Lord: On your account my name is blasphemed among the nations. Therefore my people shall know on that day that I am the one who speaks; I am present like the hour on the mountains, like the feet of one bringing good news of peace, like one bringing good news of good things, for I will make your salvation heard, saying, Zion, your God shall reign. The voice of those who watch over you was lifted up, and with the voice they will rejoice together, for eye to eye they shall see, when the Lord has mercy on Zion. Let the desolate places of Jerusalem break forth together into joy, for the Lord has had mercy on her and has delivered Jerusalem, and he will uncover his holy arm before all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation that is from our God."

24.2| Joined to this, in one and the same sequence, is the prophecy about the passion of Christ, which I shall set out at leisure. The one and the same Lord who said to the people of the Jews in the passage before this, "You were sold because of your sins, and for your lawless deeds I put away your mother; for I came, and no man was there; I called, and there was none to answer," says in the passage in hand to the same people, "On your account my name is blasphemed among the nations."

24.3| Then, as having another people besides them, he adds the words, "Therefore my people will know my name," and thereby teaches that it is no other but the very Lord who spoke in the prophets who will one day visit the life of men, saying, "I am he who speaks; I am present." As for "like the hour on the mountains, like the feet of one bringing good news of peace, like one bringing good news of good things, I will make your salvation heard, saying, Zion, your God shall reign," the other translators have given it more plainly.

24.4| Aquila says, "How lovely upon the mountains are the feet of one bringing good news, making peace heard, bringing good news of good, making salvation heard, saying to Zion, Your God has reigned!" And Symmachus says, "How comely upon the mountains are the feet of one bringing good news, making peace heard, bringing good news of good things, making salvation heard, saying to Zion, Your God has reigned!" And in place of "The voice of those who watch over you was lifted up, and with the voice they will rejoice together, for eye to eye they shall see," Symmachus rendered it thus: "The voice of your watchmen lifted up a voice; together they will praise, for they will see with their own eyes."

24.5| The "watchmen" in these words might be the holy apostles of our Savior, who, having seen with their own eyes the one prophesied, lifted up their voice, proclaiming through all the inhabited world. And that Zion and Jerusalem which receive the good news in these passages are heavenly the apostle knows, in the words "But the Jerusalem above is free, she who is our mother,"

24.6| and "You have come to Mount Zion and to the living God's city, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal assembly." The church established through Christ in every place on earth might also be called Zion, and the whole God-fearing polity Jerusalem, which, though it formerly existed among the Jews alone in ancient times, was turned into desolation because of their impieties, and then again obtained renewal for the better through the appearing of our Savior.

24.7| This is why the [….] says, "Let the desolate places of Jerusalem break forth together into joy, for the Lord has had mercy on her and has delivered Jerusalem." You would not go wrong in calling the soul of every holy and God-loving person Zion (for it is interpreted "watchtower"), insofar as it is lifted above life, having its citizenship in heaven and watching the things above the world; and in calling it Jerusalem insofar as it stands in steadiness and calm of the passions; for the name, when translated, means "vision of peace."

24.8| In keeping with this, the calling of the nations to the worship of God is most plainly shown in "And the Lord God will uncover his holy arm before all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation that is from our God." And understand that the arm of God is none other than the Word, the Wisdom, and the Lord himself, who is God's Christ.

24.9| This, in any case, is easy to show from many places. In Exodus, too, you have Israel rescued by the arm of God from slavery under the Egyptians. The present prophecy signifies that this same arm of God, which appeared as the savior of the people of old, will be revealed to all the nations, as something hidden until then. And the salvation which it says all the ends of the earth will see, and which it indicated above when it said, "for I will make your salvation heard": know that in the Hebrew tongue it is called by the name of Jesus. From the same.

25.1| "Behold, the Lord will come like fire, and his chariots like a whirlwind." And next: "The Lord said: And I — their works and their reasoning — I am coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they shall come, and my glory they shall see. I will leave a sign upon them, and I will send out from among them those who are saved to the nations, to Tarshish and Put and Lud and Meshech and Tubal, and to Greece, and to the islands far away, who have not heard my name nor seen my glory, and they shall proclaim my works among the nations."

25.2| Here too the coming of the Lord among men is shown outright. And since it has been said that he will come like fire, our Savior fittingly says, "I came to throw fire onto the earth, and what do I wish, if it is already kindled?" As his chariots you might name the holy angels who escort him as his guard and the holy angels who serve him, of whom we read, "And angels approached and served him"; and also his holy apostles and disciples, mounted on whom, with a divine and invisible power, the Word of God ran through the whole inhabited world.

25.3| In another way, according to the letter, it might be said that fire and chariots are announced together with his coming because of the siege that overtook Jerusalem after our Savior's arrival. Not long after it the temple itself was set on fire and endured the final desolation, and the city was surrounded by chariots and armies of war; and after these things, what had been foretold about all the nations was also fulfilled, in agreement with the prophecy.

25.4| Who would not marvel to hear the Lord say through the prophet, "I am coming to gather all the nations and the tongues," when he sees, over the whole earth of men, through the coming and the calling of our Savior Jesus Christ, the assemblies of the nations being gathered together in the name of Christ, and the tongues of all the nations calling on the one God and Lord in every human dialect? And on top of all this, who, seeing all who have believed in Christ using the saving sign as a seal, would not with good reason be struck with amazement on hearing that the Lord said long ago, "They shall come, and shall see my glory; and I will leave a sign upon them"?

25.5| In part, then, from this point already, at the first appearing of our Savior among men, we see with our own eyes the outcomes of the divine oracles; but they would be brought to completion also at his second and glorious coming, when all the nations will see his glory, and him coming from heaven with power and great glory. To that time the rest of what is shown in the prediction might also be referred, as we shall establish when we come to that subject in its proper place. Now that we have gathered this much for the present on the coming of God among men that was foretold, the next task would be to add what manner of first passage into human life was proclaimed beforehand for him.

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