Demonstration of the Gospel — Book VII

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

praef.1| That God would come to men and live as a citizen with men on earth, and that his coming would carry these two greatest proofs — the calling of the nations throughout the inhabited world to take up the true knowledge of God, and the falling away and desolation of the Jewish nation because of its unbelief in him — we learned through the prophetic voices in the book before this one, and we examined at the same time what fulfillment the things foretold received. Next, then, and in due sequence, in this seventh book of the Demonstration of the Gospel we shall try to look into the manner in which, it says, he made his passage among men.

praef.2| Come, then, let us now consider what kind of manner was foretold for God's visit among men, where on earth it was proclaimed beforehand that he would be born, and from what race it was cried aloud that he would come forth. From Isaiah.

1.1| A prediction of the unbelief of the Jewish nation toward Christ, and a sign given to them by the Lord. The sign was a virgin bearing God; at his birth the utter overthrow of the Jewish nation was foretold, and that foreigners and enemies would hold their land, and that the land that had once been desert, receiving divine husbandry, would bear rich fruit,

1.2| the church from the nations being shown in this way. Just as the marvelous evangelist John, speaking of our Savior and Lord, the very Word of God, as God, with a grandeur of voice beyond the human, and making him the opening of his holy writing, sets out together with the theology his sojourn among men in the flesh, when he says, "In the beginning the Word was; and the Word was in God's presence; and the Word was God. In the beginning this one was in God's presence. Through him all things came to be," and then brings in, "And the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us":

1.3| in the same way the inspired prophet, when he is on the point of proclaiming God born of a virgin, first beholds the glorious vision of him as God, sketching the theology in these words: "I saw the Lord Sabaoth seated on a throne high and lifted up, and the house was filled with his glory, and Seraphim stood around him. Six wings to one, and six wings to one; and with two they covered the face, and with two they covered the feet, and with two they flew. And they cried out one to the other and said, Holy, holy Lord Sabaoth; the whole earth is filled with his glory."

1.4| And next he adds: "And I heard the Lord's voice saying, Whom shall I send, and who is to go to this people? And I said, Here I am; send me. And he said to me, Go, and say to this people, You will hear with your hearing and never understand, and you will look and look and never see. For the heart of this people has grown thick, and they have heard heavily with their ears, and they have closed their eyes, so that they may never see with their eyes, nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their heart and turn, and I heal them. And I said, How long, Lord? And he said, Until cities are made desolate for lack of inhabitants, and houses for lack of men."

1.5| What Lord may one rightly say the prophet saw, other than the one who, as we showed in the books before these, appeared to Abraham and the forefathers with him and conversed with them? For we have learned before that he is at once God and Lord, and indeed an angel and chief captain of the host of the Lord. So, since the present passage is about to foretell his passage among men, it first beholds his divine kingship, in speaking of which it declares that the prophet saw him seated on a throne high and lifted up.

1.6| And this would be that throne of his which is shown also in the Psalm about the Beloved, in the words "Your throne, O God, is unto the ages of the ages"; the throne on which God, the highest Creator of all things and his Father, bade him sit as his only-begotten and beloved, saying, "Sit on my right, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."

1.7| John the evangelist confirms this interpretation of ours of the passages. Having set down the words of Isaiah before us, in which it was said, "For the heart of this people has grown thick, and they have heard heavily with their ears, and they have closed their eyes," he adds, speaking of Christ, "Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory, and he bore witness about him."

1.8| Having seen, then, the setting of our Savior upon the paternal throne of divine glory and kingdom, and being inspired by the Holy Spirit, and about to outline next his passage among men and his birth from a virgin, the prophet bears witness beforehand to the knowledge and glorifying that is to spread over all the earth, bringing in the Seraphim circling him and saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Sabaoth; the whole earth is filled with his glory."

1.9| And who might the Seraphim attending the Christ of God be, if not perhaps choirs of angels and divine powers, or else of prophets and apostles? For "Seraphim" is interpreted "beginning of their mouth."

1.10| Such are the prophets and apostles, through whose mouths the beginning of the saving proclamation came about, and so they received this title, just as the powers of the Holy Spirit are named wings: they conceal the first and last things of the knowledge of the Word of God, as being unspeakable and incomprehensible in nature, but display the middle things of his dispensation, because these alone are knowable to human nature, the things beyond and after these being passed over in silence as unutterable.

1.11| Divine and heavenly powers might also be signified through the Seraphim, in that in another way "Seraphim" is interpreted "burnings." Hence it is said, "He who makes spirits of his angels, and of his ministers a flame of fire."

1.12| These cry out and call to one another, each according to his own power, setting forth the holiness of the one they proclaim as God, and proclaiming the most wonderful thing of all: that not only heaven and everything in heaven is full of his glorifying, but also the whole earth has shared in the same power, because of his foretold descent from heaven to men, which the text goes on to prophesy next, proclaiming the birth from a virgin and the glorifying of him that was spread over all the earth through it.

1.13| "Lord Sabaoth" is interpreted "Lord of the powers." He would be the chief captain of the host of the Lord, whom in Psalm 23 the divine powers again call Lord Sabaoth, foretelling his ascent from earth to heaven, for whom they say: "Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall enter. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of the powers, he is the King of glory." The Hebrew here again calls him Lord Sabaoth.

1.14| And because he is the King of glory, and through his visit the whole earth was to be filled with his glory, fittingly what was to be is said both in the prophet and in the Psalm: in the prophet by "all the earth is full of his glory," and in the Psalm by its opening, which says, "The earth is the Lord's and its fullness, the inhabited world and all who dwell in it."

1.15| When these things have been foretold, the prophet goes on next to testify that even if the whole earth will be full of his glory, the nation of the Jews will not receive him. He says accordingly: "And the Lord said" (that is, the Lord Sabaoth he had seen), "Whom shall I send? Who will go to this people? Then I said, Behold, I am here; send me. And he said, Go and tell this people, You will hear by hearing, and will not understand; and looking you will look, and will not perceive. For this people's heart has grown thick, and they have heard heavily with their ears, and they have shut their eyes, lest with their eyes they see, and with their ears hear, and in their heart understand, and turn, and I should heal them."

1.16| By these words he plainly foretells the Jewish people's opposition to him who was to come, and that they will see him but will not pay attention to who he is, and will hear him speaking and teaching among them but will not understand either who it is that talks with them or what lessons of the new teaching he will hand on to them.

1.17| The evangelist John bears witness to the fulfillment of these words, speaking about our Savior: "Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him, so that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this reason they could not believe, because Isaiah said again, He has made their eyes blind and their heart hard, lest they see with their eyes and perceive in their heart and turn, and I should heal them. Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory, and he testified about him."

1.18| Without dispute, then, the evangelist referred the divine manifestation in Isaiah to Christ, and referred to the people of the Jews as not having received the Lord whom the prophet had seen, in line with the prediction made about him. The oracle, at any rate, tells the prophet who had seen the Lord Sabaoth to say to the nation of the Jews that they too would one day see the same one, but would not understand who he was, and would hear him speaking among them and teaching, but would not comprehend, because their heart had been hardened.

1.19| Having foretold these things in the words we have set out, Isaiah, in a narrative of history, describes an attack of enemies against Ahaz, who at that time ruled the kingdom of the Jewish people, and signifies that the destruction of the perceptible enemies would come immediately and before long; but as for the intelligible and invisible enemies of which these were symbols, certain demons and unseen powers (about whom we have spoken at the opening of the whole work, how they cast down not only the nation of the Jews but the whole human race into every form of wickedness and into godless idolatry itself), he shows that their defeat will come in no other way than through the foretold visit among men of God the Word, who would take up a human tabernacle from a virgin untouched by marriage. What need there was for this might now be the moment to set out.

1.20| Since death entered the world through a man, says the apostle, it was surely necessary that victory over death be awarded through the same man, and that the body of death be shown to be a body of life, and that the reign of sin, which had formerly been at work in the mortal body, be destroyed, sin no longer ruling in it but righteousness.

1.21| And since the fall of all men had come about long before through the sins of the flesh, it was fitting that trophies over the enemies be raised again through one without sin and untouched by any wickedness.

1.22| Which enemies? Those that of old threw the human race by means of the pleasures of the flesh. And in another way, it was necessary that the Word of God, intending to converse with men, to hand on to fleshly ears the lessons of piety, and to set before human eyes wonders and marvels and the manifest power of God, do this in no other way than through the instrument familiar to us, since neither could human eyes see anything beyond bodies, nor hearing anything more than the sound brought forth by the tongue.

1.23| So that through the senses of bodies we might lay hold of the conception of intelligible and bodiless things, God the Word himself took up the word kindred and familiar to us, and set forth everything saving through him to those who themselves heard and themselves saw his divine words and deeds.

1.24| And he did these things without being bound at all by the necessities of the body as we are, nor undergoing, in his divinity, anything worse, or greater than himself, nor so shackled by the body as a human soul is, so as to be unable to work divine works, or to fail to be present everywhere, being the Word of God, filling all things and reaching through all things;

1.25| nor, from the flesh which he had taken up, did he bring on himself filth or corruption or defilement, since, being in nature bodiless and immaterial and without flesh, as the Word of God, he carried out the whole dispensation with divine power and with words unspeakable to us, imparting what was his own, but not drawing in return what was foreign,

1.26| so that there is no need to fear the embodied dispensation, since the undefiled was not defiled, nor was the unstained one stained by the flesh, nor did the impassible Word of God suffer corruption together with the body's own nature, any more than the sun's rays are affected when they touch dead bodies of every kind. Rather, the corruptible was changed by the divine Word, and made holy and immortal, as he wished; and indeed it served the divine counsels and acts of the Spirit. All this was brought about by God the most humane, the Word of God, for the healing and salvation of all men, in accord with the voices of the prophets who from of old, from ancient times, bore witness beforehand to his wonderful birth from a virgin. And very necessarily the prophet places first, before the birth of Christ from a virgin, the warning, crying out plainly to those who hear these things: "If you do not believe, neither will you understand."

1.27| To this he next adds what follows: "If you do not believe, neither will you understand. And the Lord continued to speak to Ahaz, saying, Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, whether into the depth or into the height. And Ahaz said, I shall not ask, nor shall I test the Lord. And he said, Listen now, house of David: is it too little for you to cause trouble for men? And how do you cause trouble to the Lord? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. See, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey he shall eat before he knows or chooses evil things; he shall choose the good. For before the child comes to know good or evil, he refuses evil, to choose the good. And the land which you fear shall be forsaken, from the face of the two kings."

1.28| Such, in outline, was the prophecy. But it is worth noting that the preface of the text testifies to its readers that "if they do not believe, neither will they understand." And it was necessary to point this out, showing that those who are to read need not only understanding but also faith, and not only faith but also understanding. Hence those of the circumcision who did not believe in the Christ of God, even now, hearing these things, have not understood to this day the one prophesied, so that the prediction has proved true first of all upon them.

1.29| For though every day they hear the prophecies about Christ with their hearing, they do not hear with the ears of the mind. And the cause of their ignorance is nothing other than unbelief, as the prediction spoke truthfully about them and to them: "For if you do not believe," it says, "neither will you understand."

1.30| But if they say that the Scripture names not a virgin but a young woman (for so they say it reads among them), what sort of sign worthy of a promise of God would it be, we shall ask, if a young woman were going to conceive and bear in the usual way, as all women do, from intercourse with a man? And how would he who was born of her be God? God not merely, but "God with us"? For this is what the name Emmanuel means, which it says the child to be born must be called. "For behold," it says, "the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which, when translated, is God with us."

1.31| And what trouble would there be for God, or what toil and labor, in the case of a woman giving birth in the usual way? In our copies, translated by the seventy men, Hebrews by race from of old and approved for the accuracy of their ancestral learning, it reads somewhat thus: "Is it a trifling matter for you to cause trouble to men? And how do you cause trouble to the Lord? Therefore the Lord himself will give to you a sign.

1.32| Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, who shall be called God with us" (for this, as I said, is what the name Emmanuel means); but in the copies of the Jews themselves, which circulate with the version of Aquila (and Aquila was a proselyte, not a Jew by birth), even there it is said in this manner: "Hear now, O house of David: is it a small matter for you to wear out men, that you also wear out the Lord my God? Therefore he himself will give you a sign. Behold, the young woman conceives in the womb and bears a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel."

1.33| In Symmachus the passage reads as follows (Symmachus, it is said, was an Ebionite; this is a sect of certain Jews who are said to believe in Christ, and Symmachus came from among them, and in his version the passage reads thus): "Hear, O house of David: does it not suffice you to weary men, that you weary my God? For this reason the Lord himself will give to you a sign. Behold, the young woman conceives and gives birth to a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel."

1.34| For since the hardness of the Jewish nation's character, so slow to yield to piety, supplied the prophets, beloved of God in ancient times, with sweat and toil and no ordinary labor and struggle, for this reason he says: "Does it not suffice you to put the prophets of God to toil and to give men a struggle? Must you now also weary my God, and give a struggle even to my God?" For Theodotion, too, published it so.

1.35| The prophet, then, addressed the one who is wearied and strips for the contest as his own God in particular, and not also the God of those to whom the word is addressed; he would not have said "my God" of the God over all among the Jews, among whom reverence for God the Maker of the universe was preserved from their fathers.

1.36| And what could the struggle and labor or weariness of the God foretold be, if not his coming into the birth of men, born, according to us and the translation of the Seventy, of a virgin, but according to the version now circulating among the Jews, of a young woman? Yet you may find in Moses that a woman admitted to be a virgin is also called a young woman: the one who was betrothed to another, but was forced by someone else, he has called by this very term.

1.37| But also the Emmanuel who is to be born of the woman indicated carries a power greater than that of the common man, choosing the good before he knows evil, and refusing wickedness so as to choose the good; and this not at the age of a man, but at that of a child.

1.38| Therefore it is said: "Before the child comes to know good or evil, he refuses wickedness, so as to choose the good"; by these words the complete lack of any experience of evil in the one indicated is established. And moreover he who is God with us bears a title higher than man's.

1.39| For this reason the sign concerning him was said to contain a depth and at once a height: a depth on account of his descent to men, or his presence even unto death; a height on account of the divine restoration out of the depth, or on account of the theology of his divine preexistence.

1.40| And who could the God with us be, other than the God and Lord shown through the earlier passages, who was seen also by Abraham in nothing other than the form of a man? But if those of the circumcision were to refer these things to Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, asserting that he is the one signified in advance to his father, then neither was Hezekiah the God with us, nor was any sign befitting God accomplished in his case; nor was there any struggle or labor for God in connection with his birth; and besides all this, Hezekiah is shown to be excluded from the times of the prophecy.

1.41| For these things were being prophesied about the future while his father Ahaz was reigning; but Hezekiah is established as already born before Ahaz began to reign. And if the matter of the prediction before us cannot be applied to him, it is far less applicable to any other among the Jews born after the times of the prophecy, but only to the birth of the true Emmanuel, namely of him who became God with us, and only to the sojourn among men of our Savior, the Word of God.

1.42| For when the two kings had been brought down, the land of the Jews was left deserted, just as the oracle says it will be, when it says: "The land shall be forsaken because of the face of the two kings." This too, taken strictly and according to the wording, might be explained as follows. For in the days of King Ahaz and of Isaiah son of Amos and the times of the prophecy, the king of Syria who was in Damascus and the king of Israel who was in Samaria (not the one in Jerusalem, but the one over the multitude of the Jews who had fallen away from the divine law), having made agreements with each other, those who were ruled by the successors of David [….]

1.43| The prophecy, then, foretelling the overthrow of both of these, says that the Jews and foreigners of that time themselves, who had given each other pledges against the people of God, would very soon be dispersed and withdraw from the war; but that their kingdom and its succession would be wholly overthrown and extinguished at the birth of the God with us who was foretold.

1.44| Consider, then, when the kingdom of the people of Damascus, together with that of the Jews, was overthrown, and in what times the Jewish land was left without a king, and also the country of the Damascenes itself, once so powerful, which in ancient times ruled all Syria with a mighty hand.

1.45| For it was surely at the overthrow of these that Emmanuel was to be born and the one foretold to come. If, then, it were possible to see the kingdoms indicated still standing, there would be no need to inquire further, but only still now to hang our hopes on a future time; but if the overthrow of those mentioned is plain in fact, so that no king appears either in Damascus or in Judea in our own day, it is clear that the oracle has found its fulfillment, which said: "And the land shall be forsaken because of the face of the two kings, of whom you are afraid, because of their face," the kings being named in place of the kingdoms.

1.46| Symmachus, for one, says: "The land of which you are weary shall be forsaken, because of the face of its two kings." And Aquila: "The land which you loathe shall be forsaken, because of the face of its two kings."

1.47| And Theodotion has interpreted it in this way: "The land which you abhor shall be forsaken, because of the face of its two kings."

1.48| Do you see how he foretells that the land will be left without a king? And what land, if not that of the Damascenes and that of Israel? For the two kings in question belonged to these. Ahaz loathed or abhorred their land, wearying or growing sick of it. When, then, did this happen? For when these things have been brought to an end, it is altogether necessary that the part of the prophecy foretold earlier has also come to pass; and this was that the virgin would bear the God with us.

1.49| And indeed it is plain to those who examine the histories that until the times of the appearing of our Savior Jesus the Christ the kingdom by succession from ancestors still stood even at Damascus. The holy apostle, at any rate, mentions Aretas, the king of the Damascenes; and the kingship of the Jewish nation, though irregular and not according to the law, still survived at that time; for Herod and those after him, in the time of our Savior, did not derive the succession to rule from the family.

1.50| But after his appearing, and the gospel proclamation to all men of the child born of the virgin, the land was at once forsaken because of the face of the two kings. For from that time, when the monarchy of the Romans gained mastery over the nations, all rule by nation and by city in the various places was dissolved, and together with the rest the matters of the prophecy in hand also reached their end.

1.51| So much for the letter; but as to the sense, the word of the prophecy signifies the stability, calm and peace of every soul that has received the God who was born, Emmanuel himself. For when the one Christ and the word proclaimed by him reigns over the soul of men, the enemies that were there before have fled: two modes of impiety, the one that suggests to men idolatry and diversity of belief in manifold doctrines, and the other that works perversion in morals.

1.52| Of these, then, the corporeal kings mentioned of old bore the symbols: of whom the king of the Damascenes was an image of the error of the nations about idols, and the other, of those who fell away from Jerusalem, plainly of those who had fallen from the worship according to the law of God.

1.53| And that it is fitting to receive these things figuratively, according to the sense, one may learn also from what is said next, in which the word foretells that in the day of Emmanuel certain flies and bees will come upon the Jewish nation, some from Egypt and some from the Assyrians; that they will shave the head, the feet, and the beard; that a man will rear a heifer of oxen and two sheep; and certain other things, to take place at one and the same time, which are in no way to be understood according to the wording, but are to be considered according to the sense alone.

1.54| Such, then, are these matters; and how Scripture foretold the manner of our Savior Jesus Christ's birth will be attested by the evangelist, who writes somewhat as follows: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was thus. Mary his mother, having been betrothed to Joseph, was found, before they were united, to be with child of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and unwilling to make her a public example, planned to put her away secretly. But when he had considered these things, behold, in a dream an angel of the Lord appears to him and says: Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife; for that which is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

1.55| For he will save his people from their sins. Now all this happened that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, who says: Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall give him the name Emmanuel, which is translated, God with us."

1.56| So with us the divine foreknowledge is confirmed by the outcome of events, since otherwise the prophecy could not be shown to be true. Next, let us consider what things, and how many, are said to happen in that day, that is, evidently, at the time of the appearing of Emmanuel.

1.57| "The Lord, he says, will whistle for the flies, which hold sway over a part of Egypt's river, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they will come and rest in the ravines of the land, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in the caves, and in every crevice, and on every tree. In that day the Lord will shave with the great razor, hired from beyond the river, of the king of the Assyrians, the head and the hair of the feet, and he will take away the beard.

1.58| And it shall be in that day, a man shall rear a heifer of oxen and two sheep, and it shall be that from the abundance of milk he shall eat butter, for butter and honey shall everyone eat who is left upon the land.

1.59| And it shall be in that day, every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels shall become wasteland and thorns; with arrow and bow they shall enter there, for the whole land shall be wasteland and thorns, and every mountain that is tilled shall be tilled. Fear shall not come there; for from the wasteland and thorns it shall become pasture for sheep and a trampling place for oxen."

1.60| So many things the present prophecy contains as to happen in the day of Emmanuel; it is time to go through what kind of contemplation they hold, giving the sense in brief. "The Lord, he says, will whistle for the flies in that day, which hold sway over a part of Egypt's river, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria."

1.61| The former are the souls of idolatrous men, or also, as I think, unclean and loathsome powers named flies, and Egyptian flies, delighting in the sacrifices and blood of idols; the bee is a creature that attacks, knowing how to reign and be ruled and make war, and how to defend itself and wound those who stand against it.

1.62| These, then, coming together, some from the land of the idolaters and some from the land of those who set straight (for "those who set straight" is how the Assyrians are interpreted), by the command, and as it were the whistle, of the Lord and God of the universe, will take possession of the whole of Judea, he says, because of their unbelief in Christ, in Emmanuel's day; and by these things he signifies that foreign and soldierly nations will dwell in Jerusalem and the land of Judea.

1.63| This our Savior also foretold in plainer words, saying: "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the nations." This too was fulfilled, when not long after our Savior's words the Romans took the city and settled foreign men there and established them in the place.

1.64| And again the same Lord is said to shave, by means of the Assyrian king's razor, that is, with the punishing power of the ruler of this age, the head, the feet and the beard of none other than, once more, the Jewish nation, that is, to strip away their adornment and glory by the rule of those who hold sway over all.

1.65| He hints that these are the Romans. For by the name of the Assyrians I think the kingdom of the nations that is dominant at any given time is signified, because from the Hebrew tongue the Assyrians are interpreted as "those who set straight"; so that those who now set straight are the Romans,

1.66| since in truth by the razor of the Romans, that is, by their civil and military power, the God of the universe stripped away the whole glory of the Jewish nation, in which it once wore its hair long, and all their manliness, signified by the beard and the hair of the feet.

1.67| Never at any other time, at any rate, from the beginning of the age, but only after the birth of our Savior, Emmanuel himself, did God strip away all their adornment through the rule of the Romans. And in place of "the king of the Assyrians" Aquila has published "[….] Assyrians," and Theodotion "by the king of the Assyrians," and Symmachus likewise, making clear that the word does not threaten that the head of the king of the Assyrians is to be shaved, but that by his razor, and by the king of the Assyrians himself, the Jewish nation will be dealt with in the manner prophesied.

1.68| To these words the outcome also bears witness. At leisure one might also find, by observation, very many other things in the prophecies said as if directed to the person of the Assyrians, which can in no way be fitted to the Assyrians, but to the kingdom that holds sway generally over the nations in successive times.

1.69| Already, at any rate, we have found that the Persians too are called Assyrians among the Hebrews; and so now we have supposed that the word hints at the rule of the Romans. For after the coming of our Savior we see it setting straight and being set straight by God.

1.70| Let no one suppose that we say that everything said about the Assyrians in the divine Scriptures is to be referred to the Romans (for that would be foolish and shameless), but that there are certain prophetic utterances interwoven with the testimonies about Christ which we say hint at the Romans through the name of the Assyrians, since the interpretation of the name always marks out the kingdom that holds sway over the nations in each period, as we shall demonstrate at the proper time.

1.71| And I, for my part, examining by myself the reason for this way of speaking, think that the prophetic oracles did not mention the Romans by name for no other reason than that the teaching of our Savior Jesus Christ was going to shine out to all men under the Roman kingdom, and the prophetic Scriptures were going to be made public in the city of the Romans itself and among all the nations under the Romans.

1.72| So in order that no displeasure should arise among those holding the empire from a plain written record about them, the word concealed it in riddles, in many other places, and above all in the visions of Daniel, as indeed also in the prophecy in hand, in which it names them "those who set straight," calling them Assyrians.

1.73| By their razor, then, it foretells that the whole adornment of the Jewish nation will be wiped out after the birth of Emmanuel.

1.74| Further, in the day indicated, evidently that of Emmanuel, that is, of the appearing of Christ, "a man, he says, will rear a heifer of oxen and two sheep. And it shall be that from the abundance of milk everyone left upon the land shall eat butter and honey."

1.75| By these words one might say that famine is hinted at, and extreme poverty of the people of the circumcision, who are not well supplied with the food that naturally comes from grain, nor plow and sow and reap the land, nor own flocks of sheep or herds of oxen, but possess two sheep and one heifer and provide themselves with their milk; or, taking it otherwise by way of figure, one might say that the one left upon the land hints at the company of the apostles and evangelists from the circumcision who have believed in our Savior and Lord, each of whom has become "a remnant according to a choice of grace"; and for this reason the one called "the one left upon the land" is said to rear a heifer of oxen and two sheep. These are three orders in each church: one that of the leaders and two those of the subordinates, since the people of Christ's church is divided into two orders, that of the faithful and that of those not yet deemed worthy of the regeneration through the washing, to whom the divine apostle says: "I gave you milk to drink, not solid food." Those already established in a more perfect condition he reasonably calls a heifer of oxen, being offspring of more perfect oxen, such as the apostle himself was, who says of himself and of those laboring like him: "Is God concerned about oxen? Or does he say it altogether for our sake?

1.76| The whole order of those who preside over the church, entrusted with plowing and tilling the souls of men, might also be the heifer called "of oxen," being offspring of apostolic ways and lessons; and these are said to advance to such a degree of virtue that from their great fruitfulness they bring forth so much fertile and rational milk for introductory teachings that countless others are nourished from them.

1.77| Concerning these, who will be left upon the land, he proclaims beforehand that something further will happen in that day, evidently at the time of the coming of Emmanuel. And what is this? "Every place, he says, belonging to the people of the circumcision, in which there were a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels, shall become wasteland and thorns. For they shall enter there with arrow and bow (evidently the enemies), because the whole land shall be wasteland and thorns."

1.78| And behold how much the word foretells will happen to the Jewish nation in the day of Emmanuel (by which I mean the time of the rising of the rational light that shone out upon all men through our Savior): unclean and warlike powers that had long been working among the nations, both in Egypt and in Assyrian territory, when the Lord whistled and as it were roused and urged them on, he says, would come upon their country, because it had become worthy of such things.

1.79| And he says that the powers mentioned will rest in ravines and in the clefts of the rocks, in the caves and in every crevice of theirs: by the sense, in their souls and in the senses of the body, and in their reasonings and their broken-up thoughts; but by the plain wording, throughout their whole country. Who would not marvel at this, seeing with his own eyes their enemies occupying every place in Judea, and foreign idolatrous men resting in all their cities and lands? And not these things only, the word says, will he do to them, but he will shave their head with the razor of the Assyrian king, understood by us as above, and the hair of their feet and the beard, that is, all the adornment they long wore.

1.80| On this same day, and in that same period, he threatens that they will be brought down to extreme poverty of godly wealth, so that they are not well supplied with rational bread, nor with solid and spiritual food, but are content to be fed on the milk of childish, introductory teaching. Further, besides this, their vines will become wasteland.

1.81| For since, according to the same prophet, their farmer and master waited "for the vineyard to produce grapes, but it produced thorns," and not righteousness but a cry, therefore he solemnly declares that, removing its hedge and pulling down its wall, he will make the vineyard a wasteland and hand it over to enemies, whom he says will enter there with arrow and bow, those who had taken authority from God, who handed it over to them not without judgment but quite justly, because indeed the whole of their land had become wasteland and thorns.

1.82| For this reason, then, since they themselves made themselves into wasteland and thorns, those who have taken authority against them, he says, will enter there with arrow and bow. Do not wonder if these things also are given in a shadowed manner and by riddles.

1.83| The reason for such an arrangement of the word has already been stated earlier: it wished to conceal the final destruction of the Jewish nation, so that the Scripture might be preserved among them for the improvement and benefit of us of the nations.

1.84| For if the prophecies had openly proclaimed destruction for them and good things for the nations, none of the circumcision would have taken pains over them, but, as being opposed and hostile to themselves, they would have destroyed them, and it would no longer have been open to us of the nations to use the testimonies of the prophets about our Savior and about ourselves.

1.85| But though so many things were to happen to the Jewish nation in the day of Emmanuel, according to the other interpretation, a rare few are said to be left of them, about whom the apostle says: "A remnant has come to be according to an election by grace." He will rear a heifer of oxen and two sheep, and, since it yields the greatest quantity of milk, he will eat butter and honey. And such, according to the second rendering, the whole apostolic company of the disciples of our Savior Jesus Christ has been shown to us to be.

1.86| And just as this one who is left is prophesied to be such, so too, when the whole country of the nation of the Jews and their vineyard has been changed into wasteland and thorns, and for that reason handed over to enemies, on the other side, conversely, every mountain that is tilled is prophesied to be tilled. I think the church of our Savior Jesus Christ is hinted at in this way, of which he himself also says: "A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden." For the lofty, raised and high-soaring mountain of the church's commonwealth, I think, is proclaimed through these words.

1.87| This mountain, then, he says, is tilled and will be tilled, so that fear does not come there, but it is so greatly changed from its former desolation and wasteland and thorns that it becomes fit to be pasture for sheep and a trampling place for oxen.

1.88| And one may reckon how the church of Christ, which was once wasteland and thorns, advanced through his grace to such a change that grass and herbage suited to rational fruit-bearing sprang up to such a degree that the sheep-like and simpler can enjoy it, while those who have advanced to a more perfect state plow and till it, being called oxen, as we showed the divine apostle teaching in saying: "Is God concerned about oxen? Or does he say it altogether for your sake? For it was written for your sake, that the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing."

1.89| So the once empty wasteland has been changed after the coming of Christ, so that for the oxen thus understood it is suitable for fitting husbandry. Observe in what manner, under one and the same sense, the birth from a virgin is prophesied, and in the same passage the word says that the land once fruitful, which before was worth a thousand shekels, will become wasteland and thorns, and that all their land, because it became thorns and wasteland, will be handed over to those who will enter with arrow and bow; but that the contrary will befall every mountain: it will be changed from its former wasteland and thorns "into pasture and a trampling place for oxen," so that it is tilled and will be tilled, and fear will not come there.

1.90| By these things I think the birth of our Savior from a virgin is clearly signified, and what followed it, at one and the same time and together, for Jews and for the rest of the nations; the prophecy sets forth the change of each of the two orders into its opposite, that of the Jewish nation from better to worse, and that of the church from the nations from its former desolation to fruit-bearing according to God. These things, prophesied to be accomplished at one and the same time, the time of the appearing of Emmanuel, are shown, in accordance with the predictions, to have been brought to completion at no other time than after the coming of our Savior, both through the events plainly described concerning the Jews and through the church from the nations.

1.91| For if after the coming of our Savior, Jesus the Christ himself, the rule of the Damascenes and of the Jews had not ceased to be governed by kings, and if the land were not now seen by our own eyes to have been abandoned by them and held by foreign nations and idolaters; if the whole of what was once the most venerable beauty of their holy temple itself had not become wasteland and thorns; if idolatrous, unclean men, their enemies, had not come against them with arrow and bow, roused by the Lord himself, and come from foreign lands, and rested in their countries, making every place and all their cities their own; and conversely, if all the nations that have believed in him had not, changed from wasteland and thorns, from their former lack of cultivation, through the teaching of our Savior, received the pious and rational fruit-bearing according to God; and in addition to these, if, seeing Christ with their eyes, they had not failed to believe, and, hearing him teach, had not disobeyed, and if the rest of the prophecy were not shown most plainly to have reached its end from the times of Jesus our Savior, then he would not be the one prophesied.

1.92| But if, as they say, even to a blind man the fulfillments of the words are clear, having been completed at no other time than from the times of his appearing, why should one henceforth be in doubt about his birth from a virgin, and not rather, by a reasonable judgment, accept the beginning of the matter as well from what is still seen even now? And what is still seen now, if not the unbelief of the Jews toward him, being plainly fulfilled according to the oracle which says: "You shall hear with hearing and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive;

1.93| for the heart of this people has grown fat"; and the siege of Jerusalem, and the complete desolation of their former sanctuary, and the settlement of foreign nations in their land, enslaving them with goads, that is, with harsh commands (for this is what the examples of the flies and the bees showed); and in addition to all this, the change of the nations from their former desolation to cultivation according to God?

1.94| These things, then, seen with the eyes, who would not be struck with wonder? And who would not confess the prediction to be truly divine, hearing that from of old, a full thousand years ago, these things lay stored in books and were studied, and yet were brought to their end at no other time than after the coming of our Savior? If, then, the prediction is marvelous, and the outcome of the prediction is still more marvelous and beyond all account, why should one disbelieve that the first appearing of the one prophesied also had a strange origin of birth beyond all human nature, when the plain sight of his remaining wonders, no less marvelous, compels one, from his birth onward, to accept the testimony of the other things done in his case as well? But next to these words, after "into pasture for sheep and a trampling place for oxen," there is joined a second prediction, akin to the one set before us, beginning from "And the Lord said to me, Take for yourself a scroll"; let us set it out and examine it too. From the same.

1.95| "And the Lord said to me, Take for yourself a great new scroll, and write on it with a man's pen, to make swift plunder of spoils; for it is at hand. And make faithful men my witnesses, Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Barachiah. And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb and bore a son. And the Lord said to me, Call his name: Speedily spoil, quickly plunder; for before the child knows how to say Father or Mother, he shall receive the might of Damascus, together with the spoils of Samaria, before the king of the Assyrians."

1.96| The present prophecy holds on to the one set before it; for the virgin there, who is said to bear the God with us, is named a prophetess in the present passage. And as it is asked how she will conceive, being without experience of marriage, the word now teaches this, saying: "And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb and bore a son."

1.97| This must be heard as spoken by the Holy Spirit, by whom the prophet, inspired by God, was prophesying. The Spirit itself, the Holy one, then, he says has gone to the prophetess; and this was plainly fulfilled at the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, when God sent the angel Gabriel to a Galilean city whose name was Nazareth, to a virgin who was betrothed to a man called Joseph, of the house and family of David. To her he said: "Rejoice, favored one, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women."

1.98| And again: "Do not be afraid; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus." And when Mary said: "How shall this be, since I do not know a man?" he answered: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God."

1.99| In the prophecy before this one, at the time of Emmanuel's birth, before the child could know good or evil, the land was said to be forsaken by the two kings besieging it, one of Samaria, the other of Damascus; and in the present one, before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the might of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria, places whose kings' overthrow it had also foretold earlier, at the birth of Emmanuel.

1.100| In perceptible terms, then, in the days of Ahaz king of Judah, and in the time of the prophet Isaiah, two kings by agreement besieged those ruled by the successors of David, as has already been shown: the one over Damascus, king of the idolatrous nations, and the other over the multitude of the Jews, in the city called Samaria of Palestine, which those of our day call Sebaste. Concerning them God said to Ahaz through the prophet: "Do not be afraid, and let not your soul be weak because of these two pieces of wood, these smoking firebrands."

1.101| And having said that the destruction of these men would come very soon and not after long, he prophesies next that at the birth of the God who will be with us the kingdom of both will be wholly extinguished and overthrown.

1.102| We show from history that until the times of the coming of our Savior Jesus the Christ the kingdom of the Jews and of the Damascenes remained, but that after his appearing to all men they ceased, according to the prediction, the monarchy of the Romans having gained the mastery together with the proclamation of our Savior.

1.103| And having prophesied these things according to the wording, the word passed on to the sense and the more spiritual, general interpretation in contemplations; it posited two bands of invisible enemies, evil demons warring in different ways against the whole race of all men, the one always and at all times working idolatry among men and false opinions in doctrines, and the other bringing about the corruption of souls in their conduct. And having shown that the ruler of Damascus bears the image of the idolatrous error, and that the ruler of Samaria is the type of those fallen from the temperate and sound life, he says that the land (so calling the men who dwell on the earth) will not be rid of these before Emmanuel, God, appears on earth; but that when he has shone forth and reigns over the soul of man, none of those who long held sway over it is left any longer.

1.104| So here too you will understand the words "he shall receive Damascus's power and the spoils of Samaria" as spoken about the same things, the power of our Savior Jesus Christ destroying at once all our invisible enemies, who in former times besieged all men with the godless and harmful operations spoken of above.

1.105| And according to the wording again you may see that along with the birth and appearing of our Savior the power of Damascus was destroyed and the spoils of Samaria carried off, that is, their kingdoms, which lasted up to the times indicated and from that time to this have ceased, according to the divine predictions.

1.106| Some also say, taking it in another sense, that the magi who had come from the east and worshiped Christ while he was a child are the power of Damascus; and one might say more generally that all who turned away from godless and polytheistic idolatry and were enslaved to the word of Christ, especially if some of them were powerful in the speech and wisdom of this age, are those named the power of Damascus.

1.107| In the same way you will understand the spoils of Samaria as the disciples and apostles of our Savior from the Jewish nation, whom, as spoils taken out of the enemies of the circumcision who had campaigned against him, he took under himself and armed against the king of the Assyrians, in this way again figuratively indicating the ruler of this age.

1.108| And since Aquila has more clearly rendered "before the king of the Assyrians" by saying "to the face of the Assyrian king," consider whether in these words too he may indicate the rule of the Romans, if indeed the Assyrians are interpreted as those who set straight or are set straight, according to what was said a little earlier. Since, then, the king of the Assyrians is now again interwoven with the prediction about our Savior, reasonably here too we have taken the rule of the Romans, because it is set straight by God toward the subjection of the nations.

1.109| It is foretold, therefore, that the child to be born will take Damascus's power and the spoils of Samaria, and hand them over to the Assyrians' face and before the eyes of those who are set straight by God, and that he will accomplish this at the very time of his birth, by an ineffable and divine power, administering so many things among men while his body was still that of an infant.

1.110| All this the prophet is commanded to commit to a man's writing in a new and great scroll, the new covenant being indicated in this manner. He takes along as witnesses of what is said a priest and a prophet, the word teaching that in the demonstrations concerning Christ it will be necessary to take the testimonies both from the priestly service under the law and from the prophets after it; and he wishes the witnesses to be faithful in other respects too, those who are to watch the birth of the child indicated, so as to be able to understand what is prophesied.

1.111| "For if you do not believe, neither will you understand," was said above; and the one has the light of God (for this is how Uriah is interpreted), and the other, being a son of blessing, bears the memory of God in himself (for this is what Zechariah son of Barachiah shows). These, then, are our comments on the passages.

1.112| But if any of the circumcision does not want these things to be so, it is time for us to call on him to show who among them ever was Emmanuel, and how the prophet approached the prophetess, and who she was, and in what way she at once conceived, and who the son born of the prophetess was, on whom the Lord himself laid the name "Speedily spoil, quickly plunder," and what is the cause of such a name for the one born.

1.113| Let them also show that before the child knew how to call father or mother he had taken the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians. For we, having taken these things both according to the wording and figuratively, show that they were fulfilled at the birth of our Savior, demonstrating that at one time we must apply ourselves to the prophecies plainly according to the obvious sense, and at another figuratively.

1.114| Immediately after the words quoted before, there is added again, in riddles: "And the Lord went on to speak to me again, because this people did not wish for the water of Siloam that flows quietly, but wished to have Rasin and the son of Remaliah; therefore, behold, the Lord brings up against you the water of the river, strong and abundant, the king of the Assyrians and his glory; and he will go up over every ravine of yours, and walk over every wall of yours, and will take away from Judea a man who shall be able to lift his head or has the power to accomplish anything; and his encampment shall be such as to fill the breadth of your land. God is with us. Know, nations, and be defeated; give ear to the end of the earth."

1.115| For plainly these words preserve their sense in no other way than with the contemplation of figurative interpretation alone. They show, at any rate, through the water of Siloam that flows quietly, the gospel teaching of the saving word; for Siloam is interpreted "sent."

1.116| This would be God the Word sent to us from the Father, of whom Moses likewise speaks: "A ruler shall not be lacking from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until there comes the one for whom it is laid up, and it is he who shall be the expectation of the nations." For in place of "for whom it is laid up" the Hebrew has Siloam, the word indicating there too the Siloam spoken of here, that is, the one sent.

1.117| Rasin was again a king of the idolatrous nations in Damascus, as the son of Remaliah was king of those in Samaria of the Jewish nation who had fallen away from the ancestral religion.

1.118| God therefore threatens those who have not received Siloam, that is, the sent Emmanuel, and the son born to the prophetess, and his drinkable and fruitful word, but who, though it flows gently and quietly, refuse it, and choose against themselves either the ruler of the idolatrous nations or the ruler of the apostasy of the people of God, that he will bring upon them the strong and abundant water of the river, which water the word of the prophecy itself interprets, saying that it is the king of the Assyrians; thus again signifying, by the sense, either the ruler of this age or the rule of the Romans now holding sway, to which those were handed over who refused the water of Siloam that flows quietly, and subjected themselves to doctrines opposed and hostile to the right word.

1.119| Immediately, then, and not long after, when they would not receive the gospel of our Savior but refused the drink of Siloam that flows quietly, the army of the Romans, directed by God, came and went up over every ravine of theirs, and walked over every wall of theirs, and took away from Judea a man who could lift his head or accomplish anything; and the encampment of the one indicated became so great as to fill the breadth of all Judea.

1.120| And this, according to the wording, was fulfilled upon them in just this way. For what reason, if you wish to learn, listen: because God Emmanuel, born of the virgin, was with us, but was not with them; for had they possessed him, they would not have suffered these things. Therefore the word next cries out to the nations about Emmanuel, saying: "God is with us: know, nations, and be defeated."

1.121| And this is explained to us in order to show that most of the prophecies must be taken at one time according to the wording, and at another time through riddles.

1.122| Starting from here, it is fitting to consider the rest of the prophecy in hand in the same way.

1.123| But if those of the circumcision still say now that these things will happen at some future time, expecting them to happen only plainly and according to the wording at the coming of the Christ they await, they must be asked how the one who is to come, as they hold, will take the power of Damascus along with the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians, when Samaria has already been destroyed at the present time and no longer exists, and when the so-called power of Damascus does not exist at all, nor the dominion of the Assyrians, which the Medes and Persians once overthrew and succeeded to; and since none of these exists at all at the present time, how is it possible to expect their overthrow at a future time? But neither can it be said that the things prophesied happened at any other time long ago.

1.124| For no one among the Hebrews is recorded ever to have been born of a prophetess mother and the prophet Isaiah, and, campaigning against the king of the Assyrians, to have seized the spoils of Samaria together with the power of Damascus in the plain sense;

1.125| so that one must by every means confess that these things were fulfilled only in the sense given, evidently at no other time than at the coming of Jesus our Savior, at which we have shown that the things foretold reached their end.

1.126| The new scroll too was written in accordance with the prophecy at his coming, the word of the new covenant, which contains the birth of the prophetess's son; who, according to the wording, put into the hands of the Roman kingdom, by an ineffable and divine power, the royal power of Damascus and of all Syria and the spoils of Samaria as we have interpreted them; and not only so, but according to the sense, having won his disciples from among the Jews as a kind of spoil, he fenced them about with intelligible and rational arms and set them before the countenance of the king of the Assyrians indicated, and equipped them as his own soldiers under arms,

1.127| while those who refused the water of his teaching, fruitful and life-giving, that flows quietly, and chose what is warlike and hostile to God, he gave up to the king of the Assyrians, to whom they remain enslaved even now.

1.128| This king, then, went up over every ravine of theirs and over every wall of theirs, and took away from Judea every ruler and king, called the head, and everyone able to accomplish anything; so that from that time until now they have possessed neither a head nor anyone powerful in divine matters, such as the one who once shone among them, whether a prophet or some other righteous and God-beloved man.

1.129| It is plain how their whole land is still now subject to their enemies and foes, and how all these things were accomplished at the coming of Emmanuel. So, then, the Hebrew Scripture holds, all but openly signifying Emmanuel, who was disbelieved by the Jews and became the cause to them of so many calamities, but who, believed by us of the nations, was shown to have brought us salvation and the knowledge of God.

1.130| Hence it adds next: "God is with us: know, nations, and be defeated." We, in truth, we of the nations who have believed in him, have been defeated, conquered by the truth and by the power of the God who became with us, and being defeated we all together obeyed him, even those who dwell at the earth’s farthest bounds, as the prophecy says: "Give ear to the end of the earth."

1.131| But we have both been defeated and have obeyed when he called; to those of the nations who still disobey the following words are directed: "You who are strong, be defeated. For if you grow strong again, you will be defeated again. And whatever counsel you take shall not abide with you, for God is with us. Thus says the Lord to those who disobey with a strong hand."

1.132| By these words the word plainly prophesies to those who rebel and set themselves against the teaching of Christ and who disobey his mighty hand, that they will not be strong enough even when they try to make war on the God with us, and that whatever they plan against us will not stand firm for them, because Emmanuel is with us. It is easy to confirm this conclusion by observing the threats against us and the risings of rulers in successive times, and how the end of their threats is always made fruitless by the God with us. From the same.

1.133| "Drink this first; act quickly, country of Zabulon and land of Nephthalim, together with the rest who dwell by the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who sit in darkness, see a great light, and upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death a light has risen," and what follows;

1.134| to which he adds: "For they shall pay back every garment gathered by deceit, and a cloak with exchange, and they will wish to have been burned with fire, because a child was born to us, and a son was given to us, whose rule is upon his shoulder. And his name is called Messenger of great counsel, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Ruler, Prince of peace, Father of the age to come. For I will bring peace upon the rulers, and health to him. Great is his rule, and of his peace there is no boundary, upon the throne of David and his kingdom, to set it right and to uphold it with judgment and righteousness, from now and forever. The zeal of the Lord Sabaoth will do these things."

1.135| This is now the third time that the child is prophesied, the same one being signified in various ways. Since, then, it is our task now to show the manner of God's coming among men, observe through how many passages and in what way he is set forth. First it was shown that the God called Emmanuel is born of a virgin; second, that the child of the prophetess, conceived of the Holy Spirit, is no other than the one foretold; third, the one in hand, being one and the same as the former, is likewise said to have a name, according to the Seventy, "Messenger of great counsel," and some of the copies have "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Ruler, Prince of peace, Father of the age to come";

1.136| but according to the Hebrew, as Aquila says: "For a child was born to us, a son was given to us, and a measure came to be upon his shoulder, and his name was called Wonderful Counselor, Strong, Mighty, Father, and also Ruler of peace, and there is no limit to his peace";

1.137| and as Symmachus has it: "For a youth was given to us, a son was given to us. And his instruction shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Marvel, Counselor, Strong, Mighty, Father of the age, Ruler of peace, and to his peace there is no limit."

1.138| Not simply a messenger, therefore, according to the Seventy, but "Messenger of the great counsel, and Wonderful Counselor, and Mighty God, and Wielder of authority and Prince of peace, and the Father of the age to come," was prophesied through these words to be born and to be a child. And you have in the earlier passages the Word of God variously proclaimed as God and Lord, and at the same time the same one named the Father's messenger and commander-in-chief of the Lord's power.

1.139| Who then could he be? According to Aquila and the testimonies still circulating among the Hebrews: "born among men, and becoming a child, Wonderful Counselor and Strong, Mighty, and Father, and also Prince of peace, of which peace, he says, there will never be an end"; according to Symmachus: "Marvel, Counselor, Strong, Mighty, Father of the age, Prince of peace, and of this peace unbounded and unending [….]"; and according to Theodotion: "Wonderfully counseling, Strong, Ruler, Father, Prince of peace, by multiplying instruction, of whose peace there is no limit";

1.140| and I leave the rest for you to consider yourself, remarking only so much: that this very one, who is called Father of the age and Prince of unbounded peace and Messenger of great counsel, is prophesied to be born and to be a child, and that at his birth among men those who begrudge the salvation of the nations that came through him, whether evil demons or impious men, will wish to have been burned with fire, of whom it says: "They shall pay back every garment gathered by deceit, and a cloak with exchange."

1.141| And who were these, if not those of whom it is said elsewhere in the person of our Savior himself: "They divided my garments among themselves, and cast lots for my clothing"? And those who share their impiety, who will also wish, when they later see their own judgment, that they had been burned with fire before their impiety, before the Messenger of the great counsel was treated impiously by them.

1.142| Consider also for yourself whether it does not surpass the whole nature of men that his peace is said to have no end, and that he is named Father of the age; and the very fact that he is called not simply a messenger but Messenger of the great counsel and Mighty God, and all the titles gathered with these. Further, it says that through him the kingdom of David will be set right, which you will understand also in this way.

1.143| Very many are the promises made to David, among which it is said: "And I will place his hand upon the sea and his right hand upon the rivers. He will call to me: You are my Father, my God and the supporter of my salvation; and I will appoint him firstborn, exalted beside the kings of the earth. To the age I will preserve my mercy for him, and my covenant will be trustworthy to him, and I will set his seed forever and ever, and his throne like the days of heaven."

1.144| And again: "Once I have sworn by my holiness—surely I will not deceive David—his seed shall abide forever, and his throne shall be like the sun in my sight, and like the moon, established forever." Although so many things were promised to David by God in the Psalms, the opposite came upon the promises because of the impieties of his successors.

1.145| The kingdom from the seed of David, at any rate, which lasted until Jechoniah and the siege of the temple by the Babylonians, was dissolved, so that from that time neither the throne of David nor any from his seed any longer reigned over the Jewish nation.

1.146| And this lapse in the promise to David which occurred, in connection with the psalm quoted above, the divine Spirit foretells somewhat as follows: "But you have rejected and set at nothing, you have put off your Christ; you have overturned the covenant of your servant, you have profaned his sanctuary to the ground, you have pulled down all his hedges."

1.147| And a little later: "You have cast his throne to the ground, you have shortened the days of his time, you have poured shame upon him." These things, which plainly began to be accomplished from the people's captivity in Babylon, were extended down to the kingdom of the Romans and Tiberius. In the time between, no one of David's succession is seen to have sat on the royal throne of the Hebrew nation until the coming of Christ.

1.148| But when our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, born of the seed of David, was proclaimed king over the whole inhabited world, that very throne of David, as if renewed from the ground and from its fall, was set upright through the divine kingdom of our Savior, and will remain forever, and even now like the sun before God illuminates the whole world with the rays of the light of his teaching, in accordance both with the testimony from the psalm and with that of the prophet in hand, who says of the child to be born: "Upon the throne of David," evidently the eternal and enduring one, which was indeed promised to David, "he shall sit upon his kingdom, to set it right and to uphold it with judgment and righteousness, from now and forever."

1.149| Of how these things were fulfilled the angel Gabriel would be a trustworthy teacher, saying in his message to the virgin: "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God; and behold, you will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

1.150| The prophet in the psalm quoted earlier, awaiting this birth of Christ, and perceiving its postponement and delay to be, as it were, the reason for the downfall of David's throne, complains, saying: "But you have rejected and set at nothing, you have put off your Christ."

1.151| And he prays, as though entreating the divine to fulfill the promise with speed, saying: "Where are your ancient mercies, Lord, which you swore to David in your truth?" And these very things the prophet foretells most plainly are to be fulfilled when the Messenger of great counsel is born. "Over which," he says, "those described above will wish to have been burned with fire, because a child was born to us, and a son was given to us, the Messenger of great counsel."

1.152| And to whom, if not to us who have believed in him, those in the Galilee of the nations, for whom he became the cause of light and gladness, and of the new and fresh drink, the mystery of the new covenant? This is in line with the prophecy that says: "Drink this first; act quickly. Country of Zabulon and land of Nephthalim, and you others who dwell by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the nations: you people sitting in darkness, see a great light; for those sitting in darkness and in death's shadow, a light has dawned." In these words could be indicated both those of the nations who have put their faith in the Christ of God, and our Savior's disciples and apostles, whom he summoned out of the territory of Zabulon and Nephthalim and chose as heralds of the gospel.

1.153| To these, then, the Messenger of great counsel was given as a son, the cause of salvation; but to those who disbelieved in him, the cause of fire and burning. And he says that the cause of this whole dispensation was the zeal of the Lord, saying: "The zeal of the Lord Sabaoth will do these things." What zeal? That which Moses mentions, saying: "They made me jealous with what is no god, they provoked me to anger with their idols; and I will make them jealous with what is no nation; with a nation without understanding I will provoke them to anger."

1.154| But since, with God's help, the matters of the coming of the one prophesied among men, and the manner of his appearing as well, have been demonstrated through the prophetic testimonies, it would be time to see where on earth he was to be born, from what family he was to come, and from which tribe of the Hebrews he was proclaimed to come forth; let us search out these things too. From Micah.

2.1| "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are small among the thousands of Judah; out of you a leader shall go forth for me, to become a ruler in Israel, and his comings forth are from the start, from days of eternity. Therefore he will give them up until the time of her who is in labor; she will bear, and the rest of their brothers shall return to the sons of Israel. And he shall stand, and see, and shepherd his flock in strength; the Lord, and they shall exist in the splendor of the name of the Lord their God. For now they shall be magnified as far as the ends of the earth, and this will be peace."

2.2| It was clearly shown through the passages set out earlier that Emmanuel, interpreted "God with us," is born of the virgin, and, becoming a child, is the Messenger of great counsel. But it was necessary also that the place of his birth be indicated. And indeed it is prophesied that out of Bethlehem a ruler in Israel will come forth, having his goings forth from of old, from the days of eternity. This could not fit the nature of a man, except only Emmanuel and the Messenger of great counsel.

2.3| For to whom could existing from eternity apply, if not to God alone? Out of Bethlehem, then (it is a village of Judea, lying not far from Jerusalem), someone existing from eternity is said to come forth. We have found no one else from here who became illustrious except David alone, and after him our Savior Jesus the Christ of God; and besides these, no other.

2.4| But David, having come before the times of the prophecy, had died very many years before the prediction; nor did his goings forth date from the days of eternity. It remains, then, that what is written was fulfilled in the one who afterward was born in Bethlehem, the true Emmanuel, the God the Word who existed before all creation and is called God with us, since his birth in Bethlehem also plainly showed the presence of God by the marvels that attended it.

2.5| Luke, at any rate, writes, recounting it in this manner: "And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the inhabited world should be registered. This registration first took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. And it came to pass, while they were there, that the days were completed for her to give birth. And she bore her firstborn son,

2.6| and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the lodging. And there were shepherds in the same country living in the fields and keeping watch by night over their flock; and an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of God shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.

2.7| And the angel said to them: Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people, that today there has been born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this is the sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.

2.8| And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying: Glory in the highest to God, and peace on earth, good will among men. And it came to pass, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another: Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

2.9| And they came in haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. And when they saw it, they made known the word that had been spoken to them about this child. And all who heard marveled at what was told them by the shepherds."

2.10| So Luke. And Matthew, too, recounting the matters of the birth of our Savior, writes in this manner: "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, magi arrived from the east at Jerusalem, saying: Where is the one born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

2.11| And gathering all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they said to him: In Bethlehem of Judea. For so it is written through the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod secretly called the magi and ascertained from them the time of the appearing star.

2.12| And sending them to Bethlehem he said: Go and search carefully for the child; and when you have found him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship him. And they, having heard the king, went. And behold, the star which they had seen in the east went in front of them, until it came and halted over the place where the child was. And seeing the star they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.

2.13| And coming to the house, they saw the child together with Mary his mother, and falling down they worshiped him. And opening their treasures they offered him gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way."

2.14| All this I have set out to show what was done at the birth of our Savior in Bethlehem, which furnishes clear proofs that he is the one indicated by the prophecy.

2.15| And down to this day those who live in the place, since a tradition has come down to them from their fathers, bear witness to those who come to Bethlehem to learn about the places, confirming the truth of the account by showing the cave in which the virgin gave birth and laid the baby, concerning which the prophecy says: "[….] them until the time of her who is in labor; she will bear, and the rest of their brothers shall return."

2.16| Accordingly, here too it indicates as the one in labor the one called a virgin in the earlier prophecies, and the prophetess who was to bear Emmanuel and the Messenger of great counsel. For until her times and the birth of the one born of her, the affairs of the former people stood, a term having been given them "until the time of her who is in labor," that is, until the marvelous birth of the one born of the virgin, after which their kingdom was taken away, while "the rest of their brothers" would be the apostles, disciples and evangelists of our Savior who believed in the Christ of God, who, having returned, are said to be shepherded by the Lord himself, not as before through angels or through human servants, but by himself, so that for this reason they are magnified to the farthest parts of the earth. For they were magnified when "their sound went forth into all the earth, and their sayings to the limits of the world."

2.17| It is plain, too, what a great flock of rational, human sheep was gathered for the Lord over the whole earth through his apostles; and the Lord himself, in his own person, being at once shepherd and master of the flock, is said to oversee and shepherd them in strength, so that the sheep, kept by the master and shepherd in a mighty hand and a high arm, suffer nothing terrible from the wild and cruel beasts lying in wait for them.

2.18| And such is the account of Bethlehem and of the advance from it of the God proclaimed beforehand. His coming from heaven to men, the Lord and shepherd, I have already set out earlier from the same prophet now in hand, in the passage where he said: "Listen, all peoples; let the earth pay attention, and everyone in it; and the Lord shall be for a testimony to you, the Lord out of his holy house. For behold, the Lord, the Lord, goes forth from his place, and will come down," and what follows;

2.19| after which he said: "All these things are for the impiety of Jacob and for the sin of the house of Israel." And it is clear also from what follows in the same prophet that the Lord made his descent from heaven not only because of the impieties of the Jewish nation but for the salvation and calling of all the nations as well. He adds next: "And it shall be in the last days that the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, and many peoples will hasten to it, and many nations will proceed, and they will say: Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord."

2.20| Hence, after this, having proclaimed that the one who is before the ages will go out from Bethlehem, he declares that he will rule no longer Israel alone but all men together, even to the ends of the earth. He says, then: "And he shall stand, and shepherd his flock in strength, the Lord, and in the glory belonging to the name of the Lord their God they shall exist; for now they shall be magnified to the earth's farthest parts, and this shall be peace."

2.21| And to what shall this be peace, if not to the earth, in which the things of the Lord shall be magnified? And what end this met after the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ is plain to everyone.

2.22| For before this there was a great multiplicity of rulers, and all the nations were governed by tyrants or democracies, so that men had no intercourse with one another; in particular, to take an example, the Egyptians were ruled by their own ruler, and likewise the Arabs, and the Idumeans, Phoenicians, Syrians and the other nations, with nation rising against nation and city against city, and countless sieges and captivities being carried out in every place and country. But when the Savior and Lord was present, together with his coming among men, and when Augustus, first of the Romans, gained mastery over the nations, most of the multiplicity of rulers was dissolved, and peace spread over the whole earth, in accordance with the prediction in hand, which says expressly of the disciples of Christ: "For now they shall be magnified to the earth's farthest bounds, and this will be peace."

2.23| With this agrees the oracle in the Psalms which says of Christ: "In his days righteousness shall rise, and abundance of peace." For this reason, it seems to me, he was named Prince of peace in the prophecy set out before this one. Observe, however, how the prophet in hand said at the start that the Lord would come forth from heaven, yet would not shepherd men before the one prophesied was born in Bethlehem.

2.24| That these things were accomplished in our Savior and Lord the evangelist bore witness in the words I set out earlier. Christ is said to be revealed as shepherd and leader of Israel, since the holy Scripture customarily names "Israel," by the sense, the true Israel, everyone who sees clearly and lives in a way pleasing to God, just as conversely it calls those of the circumcision, whenever they sin, Canaanites and seed of Canaan and not of Judah, but rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, as resembling them in their ways.

2.25| Otherwise, according to the wording, the whole sojourn of our Savior was among the Jewish nation, and he led many of Israel, as many of the circumcision as knew him and believed in him.

2.26| And the prediction set out has had this outcome; what follows must be read from another beginning, and runs thus: "When the Assyrian comes upon your land, and when he steps upon your country, seven shepherds will be raised against him, and eight bites of men," and what follows these, and what sense they hold, it is not the present occasion to relate.

2.27| One might say that after the Assyrians' sojourn in Judea, in which they took the Jewish nation, there were as many risings against them as are indicated through the seven shepherds and the eight bites; that those who have recorded the history of the Assyrians can know these things; and that at the end of these the one prophesied from Bethlehem came, that is, after the seven shepherds and eight bites that befell the Assyrians in later times of their invasion of Judea. These matters need very great inquiry, and it is not now the time to busy ourselves with them. From Psalm 131.

2.28| "Remember, Lord, David and all his meekness; how he swore to the Lord, vowed to the God of Jacob: I will not enter into the tent of my house, I will not go up onto the bed of my couch, I will give no sleep to my eyes and no slumber to my eyelids, nor repose to my temples, until I have found a place for the Lord, a tent for the God of Jacob. Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah, in the fields of the forest we found it. We shall enter into his tents, we will worship at the spot where his feet stood."

2.29| Then next he adds: "For the sake of David your servant, do not turn away the face of your Christ. The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not annul it: From the fruit of your belly I will set one upon your throne."

2.30| And he adds to these, 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 upon him my sanctification shall bloom."

2.31| The present prophecy agrees with the one before it, indicating that the God proclaimed beforehand will come forth from Bethlehem. This very thing David first, not knowing, prays to learn from God, and then, having prayed, is taught.

2.32| For since he had obtained an oracle spoken to him in the psalm, which said: "From the fruit of your belly I will set one upon your throne," and again: "There I will make a horn spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my Christ," reasonably he falls before God, and having fallen on the ground he entreats; and persevering still more in prayer, he swears to God that he will not enter into the tent of his house, nor give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids, nor go up onto the bed of his couch, but lie on the ground worshiping and entreating, until he discovers a place for the Lord, and for the God of Jacob a tent, that is, until he learns, the Lord revealing it to him, the birth of Christ.

2.33| Having prayed, and having desired to know such things, he soon sees by the divine Spirit what is to be, God having promised to hear his own while they are still speaking.

2.34| Having been heard, he is thought worthy of an oracle declaring Bethlehem to him, as the place where the place of the Lord and the tent of the God of Jacob would be established. Since, then, the divine Spirit prophesied these things in him, he, having heard himself, adds: "Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah."

2.35| Ephrathah is the same place as Bethlehem, as one may see from Genesis, where this is said of Rachel "they buried her in the hippodrome of Ephrathah; this is Bethlehem."

2.36| The prophecy before this one also contained: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah." "Behold," he says, "we heard of it," evidently the birth of Christ and the encamping of the God of Jacob. And what could the tent of the God of Jacob be, if not the body of Christ born in the place of Bethlehem, in which, as in a tent, the only-begotten's divinity dwelt? And it is not said simply to be the tent of God, but with the addition "of the God of Jacob," because the one who tented in it is no other than the God who appeared to Jacob in the form and shape of a man, through whom he was thought worthy of the name Israel, seeing God (for this is how the name is interpreted), when he was so addressed; and that the one who appeared to Jacob is no other than God the Word we established in the first parts of the matter in hand.

2.37| It was shown, then, to David, who prayed and longed for the place and tent of the Lord and God of Jacob, that the place was in Bethlehem; therefore, having said "Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah," he adds, saying: "Let us worship in the place where his feet stood."

2.38| Plainly, then, in these words too it was prophesied that in Ephrathah, which is Bethlehem, the Lord himself and God of Jacob would establish for himself a place and a tent, in agreement with the prophecy of Micah, which says: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, from you shall come forth for me a leader, and his goings out are from the beginning, from days of eternity." These words, as we have just examined them, we showed to be referred to no other than only our Savior and Lord Jesus the Christ of God, born in Bethlehem in accordance with the predictions.

2.39| No one could show any other who came forth gloriously from this place after the times of the prophecy; for neither king nor prophet nor any other among the Hebrews beloved of God, but only our Savior and Lord, the Christ of God, is shown to have been at once of the seed of David and born there.

2.40| It is time, then, to confess that he, and no other, is the one prophesied in these words too; and that the same psalm, in what follows, plainly establishes this by calling Christ by name, in the words: "For the sake of David your servant, do not turn away the face of your Christ." And again: "There I will make a horn spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my Christ; I will clothe his enemies in shame, but on him my sanctification shall blossom."

2.41| And where does he say "there I will make a horn spring up for David," if not in Bethlehem Ephrathah? From there, then, Christ, the horn of David according to the flesh, rose like some great light, and there the lamp of Christ had been prepared beforehand by the God of the universe.

2.42| His lamp, as of a spiritual light, would be the human tabernacle, through which, as through a vessel of clay, as through a lamp, he shone rays of his own light upon all who were pressed down in ignorance of God and deep darkness.

2.43| But in these words too, I think, it has been plainly demonstrated that the God of Jacob, who exists from the start and from days everlasting, would come among men, and would be born in no other place on earth than in the place at Bethlehem, a village near Jerusalem still shown even now, where no other after the times of the prophets, illustrious and famous to all men, but only Jesus the Christ, is testified by all the natives, in accordance with the words of the gospels, to have been born.

2.44| Bethlehem is interpreted "house of bread," a name fitting for our Savior who came forth from it, being God the Word, the nourisher of rational souls. This he himself shows, saying: "I am the bread that has come down out of heaven."

2.45| But since it was also the homeland of David, reasonably the one who became son of David according to the flesh made his advance from it, in accordance with the prophetic predictions, so that the reason for which he took Bethlehem as his homeland is not unclear.

2.46| But he is also said to have been brought up in Nazara, and again that he would be called a Nazoraean. It must be known, then, that the name Nazirite is Hebrew, in Leviticus, in connection with the anointing of the one who is their anointed one. This ruler was, in the image of the great and true high priest, the Christ of God, bearing a certain shadowy and typical christ.

2.47| In the passage, at any rate, where it is said according to the Seventy of the high priest: "And he shall not profane the one sanctified by his God, for the holy oil is the anointed of his God," the Hebrew has "for nazer oil"; and Aquila: "for a separation, the oil of the anointing of his God is upon him"; and Symmachus: "for the untouched oil of the anointing of his God is upon him"; Theodotion: "for nazer oil, the anointed from his God, is upon him."

2.48| So that nazer is, in the Seventy, holy; in Aquila, separation; in Symmachus, untouched; so that from this the name Nazirite signifies either the holy, or the separated, or the untouched. The priests of old, anointed with the prepared oil called nazer in Moses, were by derivation from nazer called Nazirites.

2.49| But our Savior and Lord, having by nature the holy and the untouched and the separated, and having no need of human anointing, nevertheless obtained among men the appellation of Nazirite, not having become a Nazirite from the oil called nazer; being such by nature, he was called a Nazirite among men also from Nazareth, where he had his upbringing as a child with his parents according to the flesh.

2.50| Hence it is said in Matthew: "And being warned in a dream (evidently Joseph), he withdrew into the parts of Galilee, and came and dwelt in a city called Nazara, that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, that he shall be called a Nazoraean."

2.51| For it was altogether necessary that he, being by nature and in truth a Nazirite, that is, holy and untouched and separated, should be called by men with this appellation; but since he did not receive this appellation from the nazer oil, having no need of a human anointing, he acquired it from the place Nazareth.

2.52| These things being so demonstrated, it is time to examine also from what family and from what tribe of the Hebrews the Savior of our souls, the Christ of God, was proclaimed to come forth. First I shall set out the gospel words on this too, and then, like fitting seals, I shall set the prophetic testimonies upon them. Matthew, then, traces Christ's genealogy according to the flesh thus: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, David's son, Abraham's son. Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah," and what follows.

2.53| The apostle agrees with him, saying that he was "set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in holy Scriptures about his Son, who came of David's seed according to the flesh." These things would agree with the predictions that run thus. From the Second Book of Chronicles.

3.1| The Lord, through Nathan the prophet, prophesies these things to David in the Second Book of Chronicles: "And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, who shall be from your belly, and I will make ready his kingdom. He shall build me a house for my name, and I will set up his throne forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me."

3.2| And in the eighty-eighth Psalm, about the same, as about David, this is said: "He will call upon me: You are my Father, my God, and the supporter of my salvation; and I will appoint him my firstborn, most exalted among the kings of the earth. Forever I will keep for him my mercy, and my covenant will be faithful to him."

3.3| And again: "I swore to David my servant: Forever I will prepare your seed, and I will build up your throne to generation and generation."

3.4| And again: "Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not prove false to David: his seed shall abide forever, and his throne shall be like the sun before me, and like the moon established forever."

3.5| And again: "And I will establish his seed forever and ever." Similar to these are the words in which it is said: "The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not annul it: From the fruit of your belly I will set one upon your throne."

3.6| Solomon, being a son of David, is admittedly shown to be the successor to his kingdom. He was also the first to build the temple at Jerusalem for God, and it is likely that those of the circumcision suppose him to be the one prophesied. It is well to ask them whether they can refer to Solomon the oracle which says: "And his throne I will set up forever," and again that God swore with the force of an oath by his holiness "that the throne of the one prophesied shall be as the sun, and as the days of heaven."

3.7| For if anyone were to examine the times of the reign of Solomon, he will find forty years, no more; and if he were to add together those of his successors as well, he would not find all of them to have lasted even a full five hundred years.

3.8| But let it be supposed that the same ones lasted down to the final siege of the Jewish nation by the Romans; what then has this to do with the prophecy which foretells that "his throne will remain forever, and as the sun, and as the days of heaven"? And as for the words "I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me": how could they fit Solomon, when the history about him expressly teaches things alien and remote from adoption by God?

3.9| Hear what accusation it recounts against him: "And Solomon was a lover of women, and took many foreign wives, and the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite women, Ammonite women, and Idumeans, Syrians and Hittites, and Amorites, from the nations of which the Lord God had forbidden the sons of Israel to go in to them."

3.10| And it adds to these: "And his heart was not with the Lord his God, as David his father's heart had been; and Solomon walked after Astarte, the abomination of the Sidonians; he followed their king as well, the idol of Ammon's sons. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord."

3.11| And again next it adds: "And the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon, Ader the Idumean." What reason would take it that a man slandered for so many such things should dare to claim God as father, and that the God over all should proclaim him his firstborn son? And how are these things said now as about David himself, and now as about his seed? But neither would they fit David, as will be clear to you when you consider it.

3.12| Therefore the one from the seed of David who is to arise, indicated in these words, must be sought as another. But no other such has come from him, as history records, except the one, our Savior and Lord Jesus the Christ of God, who, alone among all who ever reigned from the seed of David has been proclaimed through the whole inhabited world as son of David, acknowledged in his birth in the flesh, and whose kingdom remains and will remain, extending into the endless age, though countless plots have been laid against it, showing the divine and invincible character of the prophecy about him by a divine power beyond man's, in accordance with it.

3.13| And if you hear God swearing by his holiness, hear it as the Father swearing by God the Word, who exists before the ages, his own holy and only-begotten Son, whom the passages set before us earlier have in various ways called God, by whom his God and Father swears, just as one swears by the beloved, that he will glorify the one from the seed of David for the endless age; and this took place when the Word, becoming flesh, took up the one from the seed of David and made him divine. Hence he proclaims him a son, saying: "I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me."

3.14| And again: "And I will make him my firstborn." Plainly, then, from these words the firstborn Son of God is declared to be from the seed of David, with the result that the son of David and the Son of God are one and the same, and the Son of God is the son of David. By these words it was clearly prophesied that the first-[….] would be born of man.

3.15| And the writing of the gospel seals this oracle too, in the passage where it says that Gabriel, standing by the holy virgin, said of our Savior: "He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

3.16| And a little later in the same gospel Zechariah, the father of John, prophesies these things about Christ: "Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel, because he visited and effected redemption for his people, and raised up for us a horn of salvation in the house of David his servant, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old."

3.17| That our Savior and Lord Jesus the Christ of God, and no other of men, has received the eternal throne promised to David, the testimonies set before are sufficient to establish, that of Gabriel and that of Zechariah, by which it is also established that he sprang from David's seed according to the flesh.

3.18| For what reason the holy evangelists trace the genealogy of Joseph, even though our Savior is not from him but from the Holy Spirit and the holy virgin, and how she, the mother of the Lord, is shown to be of the family and seed of David, has been dealt with in the first of the books on the questions and solutions concerning the genealogy of our Savior; to those I refer the lovers of learning, since the present occasion presses us to another subject. From Psalm 71: "O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king's son."

3.19| And next he adds: "And he will remain with the sun, and before the moon, generations of generations; he will come down like rain upon a fleece, and like drops falling upon the earth. In his days righteousness shall rise, and abundance of peace, until the moon is taken away; and he shall hold lordship from sea as far as sea, and from the river to the limits of the inhabited earth."

3.20| And a little later he says: "His fruit shall be lifted up above Lebanon. His name shall be blessed forever; before the sun his name shall endure, and all the tribes of the earth will be blessed in him; all nations shall call him happy."

3.21| Since the Psalm is inscribed for Solomon, its first verse might be referred to him, but all that follows to Solomon's son, not Rehoboam, who reigned over Israel after him, but the one who came from his seed according to the flesh, God's Christ.

3.22| For that the things in the Psalm cannot be referred to Solomon, nor to his successor, because of what has been shown about him, everyone not ignorant of the divine Scriptures will agree. And how indeed is it possible to take as said of Solomon or of his son Rehoboam what is contained throughout the whole Psalm? Such as: "He shall dominate from one sea to another, and from the river as far as the ends of the world"; and "he will remain with the sun, and before the moon, generations of generations"; and all else of this kind that is added.

3.23| Therefore it may readily be explained that the one who says at the beginning of the discourse "O God, give your judgment to the king" refers to Solomon himself, and the one who adds "and your righteousness to the king's son" to Solomon's son, not the firstborn who became his successor in the kingdom (for he, standing at the head of the Jewish nation alone, and not even for seventeen full years, used his rule very badly), nor any other of those who succeeded Rehoboam on the throne of Solomon's kingdom, but only to the one from the seed of David, who is called son of Solomon as well as of David.

3.24| And this was our Savior and Lord Jesus the Christ. For of him alone, and of no other who ever lived, will the throne of the divine kingdom remain with the sun. And he, and no other of men, existed before the moon and before the constitution of the world, as Word of God, and he alone dropped from heaven like dew upon all the earth; and it is said that he has risen for all men, according to what was set out for us a little before, and righteousness remaining until the end of life, which is called the taking away of the moon.

3.25| And the power of our Savior plainly prevails and rules over those from the eastern sea and as far as the setting sun: it began to be at work from a river, that is, from the mystery of the bath, or else from the moment when, appearing first at the Jordan, he began his benefaction toward human beings.

3.26| From that point, then, his kingdom among human beings was extended and passed through the whole inhabited world. And since Jerusalem is understood as Lebanon, as is shown from very many prophecies, because of the sanctuary and the altar that were once in it, and the things offered there in honor of God in the manner of incense, the fruit of Christ, the church from the nations, is foretold to be lifted up above Lebanon.

3.27| At leisure, a lover of learning who tests the Psalm for himself word by word would agree that what is said in it fits our Lord alone, and neither the ancient Solomon nor any other of the kings after him, who ruled over a single nation, the Jews, and not for more than a few years, and over no land other than Judea alone. From Isaiah.

3.28| "And a rod will go forth out of the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise from the root, and the Spirit of God will rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and piety; a spirit of the fear of God will fill him. He will not judge according to reputation, nor reprove according to talk, but he will render judgment for the humble, and will reprove the humble of the earth.

3.29| And he will be girded about his loins with righteousness, and bound about his sides with truth; and the wolf will graze together with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down together with the kid, and the calf and the lion will feed together; and there will be the root of Jesse, even he who rises up to rule nations; in him nations will hope, and his rest will be honor."

3.30| The Jesse who is meant here was the father of David. So just as in the prophecies before this one it was said that he would come forth from the fruit and seed of David, and again from the seed of Solomon, so likewise here, many years after the death not only of David but also of Solomon, someone is foretold to come forth out of the root of Jesse, and clearly from that of David as well.

3.31| The present passage will also resolve the doubt about Solomon that was held among the Jews in what went before. For it was a very long time after the death of Solomon that Isaiah prophesied these things about someone else, who was to appear from the root of Jesse and from the seed of David.

3.32| That what is declared refers to no one else than our Savior, the Christ of God, who was born from the root of David and Jesse, I do not think anyone can doubt who attends to the promise of the prediction, which says "and there will be the root of Jesse, even he who rises up to rule nations; in him nations will hope," and to the accomplishments shown in our Savior.

3.33| He alone, at any rate, after the resurrection from the dead (on account of which, I think, he was called the one who rises up), ruled not the people of the Jews but all the nations, so that the oracle needs no interpretation, since it is plainly evident how, along with the others, the words "in him nations will hope" have reached their fulfillment in him.

3.34| As for the things said about animals and wild beasts being tamed and putting off their savage and untamable character at the coming of the one prophesied, these may be taken allegorically of harsh and savage ways and the beastlike characters of men, which are to be changed by the teaching of Christ out of irrationality and beastliness.

3.35| And they would be allegorized plainly in this way if one were also to interpret figuratively the root of Jesse indicated through the prophecy, and the rod, and the flower, and how one might conceive of him as girded about his sides with righteousness and bound about his loins with truth.

3.36| For just as it is not possible to interpret these things otherwise than by an allegorical rendering alone, so it follows that the statements about the animals named in the various places must also be taken in this way. From Jeremiah.

3.37| "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will raise up for David a righteous Dawn, and a king will reign, and will understand, and will execute judgment and righteousness on the earth. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell confident, and this is the name with which the Lord will call him, Iosedekeim among the prophets. In that day, said the Lord, I will shatter the yoke from their neck, and burst their bonds, and they will no longer labor for other gods, but will labor for the Lord their God, and I will raise up David their king for them."

3.38| A very long time after the death of David, and of Solomon as well, Jeremiah prophesies these things about the king who was to be raised up from the seed of David. First he calls him Dawn, and not simply Dawn but a righteous Dawn, as one to be established from the sun of righteousness. We have discussed him in the demonstrations concerning the second cause, in which we showed that the pre-existent Word of God, who bears countless titles, is also named sun of righteousness, citing the prophecy that says "but for those who fear me the sun of righteousness will rise."

3.39| So, just as he is called the sun of righteousness, so here the passage prophesies that a righteous Dawn will be raised up for David. It declares this same king to be one who understands, and who executes judgment and righteousness on the earth. Then it calls him by the very same name as the David who had died long before.

3.40| For observe carefully the earlier phrase "and I will raise up for David a righteous Dawn," and the one added at the close, "and I will raise up David his king for him." For whom is "for him" if not for David? For it was on his account that he said he would raise up the righteous Dawn.

3.41| Zechariah too, prophesying about the same person, likewise calls him Dawn, saying: "Behold, a man, Dawn is his name, and from beneath him righteousness will dawn." And again: "I will call my servant Dawn." But no one after the times of Jeremiah, nor even after those of Zechariah, arose among those of the circumcision of such a kind as to be called a righteous Dawn, and a king who understands and executes judgment and righteousness on the earth.

3.42| But if someone should say that Jesus the son of Josedek is meant by these words, it must be said that the argument does not hold for him. For he was neither of the race of David, nor did he reign as a king.

3.43| And how can the words "and I will raise up David his king for him" fit that man, since he was of the tribe of Levi, of the high-priestly order, and of a family other than David's, and is nowhere recorded to have been a king? So if no one else of this kind is found, it is time to acknowledge that the one prophesied through these words too is our Savior and Lord alone, who is also proclaimed elsewhere as the light of the world and a light of the nations.

3.44| He himself, then, would be the one prophesied here as well, and the prediction stands without falsehood. For he alone, from the seed of David, bore the same name as his forefather in meaning, since it is interpreted "mighty with the hand," and by his teaching proclaimed judgment and righteousness to all on the earth; and he alone of all who ever lived did not reign over a part of the inhabited world but over the whole earth, and he alone caused righteousness to rise, in accord with what is said of him in a Psalm: "In his days righteousness will rise, and an abundance of peace."

3.45| And the Judah who is to be saved, and the Israel, in his days, are all those of the circumcised people who have come to the worship of God through him: his apostles and disciples and evangelists, or also all who preserve the hidden Jew and the true Israel, the one who sees God in the mind.

3.46| For "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly," says the apostle, "nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but the Jew is the one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God." These, then, who bear through the calling of Christ the hidden Jew and the true Israel, he says will be called by another name, not that of Jew, nor that of Israel, but something strange beyond these.

3.47| For this, he says, is the name by which the Lord will call them, Iosedekeim, which is interpreted "the righteous of God." And I wonder whether the name Iosedekeim, by which Jesus' disciples are called before God, may not have been formed from Josue. Among human beings they are addressed in more Greek fashion from the surname of Christ, but in the Hebrew tongue, and among the prophets themselves, from Jesus, as those saved through him, Iosedekeim.

3.48| Hence it was said, "and this is the name that the Lord will call them by, Iosedekeim among the prophets." The people to come through the one prophesied, he says, who are Judah and Israel in mind, will be named from Josue, Iosedekeim, and by this address, he says, they will be called not among human beings but by God himself, and among his prophets.

3.49| For attend carefully to the passage, which says "and this is the name that the Lord will call them by, Iosedekeim among the prophets." And the name is rendered, as I said, into the Greek tongue as "the righteous of God."

3.50| And when these are thus saved, God promises to break the old and heavy yoke of the bitter demons and to burst the bonds of impieties by which they were formerly held, so that they no longer serve foreign gods, but bear fruit for him alone in a way that pleases him.

3.51| Set beside these the oracle in the second psalm, which speaks of Christ's coming and the calling of the nations: "Let us burst their bonds, and cast their yoke from us." Akin to this, I consider, is the passage before us, which says: "In that day the Lord said: I will break the yoke from their neck, and burst their bonds, and they will no longer labor for foreign gods, but will labor for the Lord their God."

3.52| But that the Christ of God would be born from the fruit of the womb of David and from the seed of Solomon and from the root of Jesse has been foretold, and so it has come about, and that the divine words call him David among countless other titles: these things are sufficient to establish what has been said. And that he is said to come forth from the tribe of Judah would not even be a question, since David himself belonged to no other tribe than the one named. As further proof of this we may have the oracle in Moses, which runs as follows. From Genesis.

3.53| "Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hands are on the back of your enemies; the sons of your father shall bow down to you. A lion's whelp is Judah; from the shoot, my son, you went up; you went up, lying down you slept like a lion and like a whelp. Who will rouse him? A ruler shall not be lacking from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is reserved; and he himself shall be the expectation of the nations."

3.54| There being twelve tribes among the Hebrews, of which the whole nation was composed, Judah became the forefather and chief of one of them, and to him the lines before us were spoken in prophecy, signifying that the Christ would come forth from him. If, then, you gather together and set beside the present passage the prophecies set out earlier, you would find the same person likewise proclaimed by some common sign.

3.55| For one said, of the one who would arise from the root of Jesse, "and there will be one who rises up to rule nations; in him nations will hope"; another, concerning Solomon's son, "he will hold sway from one sea to another, and from the river as far as the ends of the inhabited world, and in him all the nations will be blessed"; and the present one likewise says, "until he comes for whom it is reserved, and the nations will look to him in expectation."

3.56| If, then, the predictions about the nations agree, and those before these were shown to look to our Savior, nothing would prevent the present one from looking to the same person, since they are acknowledged to prophesy in harmony with one another. This is especially so because, up to the times of our Savior's appearing, the rulers and leaders of the nation of the Jews continued by succession from their ancestors, but at his coming they ceased, and at the same time the expectation of the nations brought the prediction of Jacob to its end.

3.57| So here too the one indicated is the Christ, and no other, as coming forth from the tribe of Judah; and when he was shown to have been born from David and Solomon and from the root of Jesse, he was demonstrated to be of the same tribe.

3.58| For David was the child of Jesse, and Solomon the child of David, and both belonged to the tribe of Judah. From that tribe, then, our Savior and Lord would come, just as the wonderful evangelist Matthew traces his descent, saying: "A book of the origin of Jesus Christ, David's son and Abraham's son. Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah," and what follows. But since these matters too have now received their proper demonstration, it is time to look also at the times in which the things foretold were fulfilled.

Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/eusebius/096-demonstration-of-the-gospel-book-vii#p1), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.

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