Prophetic Extracts — Book I

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

1| of word and of life, it went through the testimonies concerning our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and confirmed them by clear, trustworthy and true demonstrations and reasonings, using at the very end, and only briefly, testimonies from the divine scriptures believed among both the Jews and ourselves; for there was no sense in setting out abundant proofs drawn from those scriptures before people who still disbelieve the divine scriptures altogether. The present work, however, has been labored over for those who, on the strength of that demonstration, ought now to believe the holy scriptures as divine and inspired. It supplies what was lacking in those books, and contains a collection, all together, [….] of the prophecies concerning our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which it seemed good to gather into one from [….] of the Old Testament; [….]; and in places also, through hidden meanings, the things foretold about him [….] him and the dispensations concerning him. But not also [….] those which are shown to have reached their fulfillment. Such [….] beginning. and scattered not only in the prophecies [….] laid up in the histories; [….] gathered, will be useful to not a few [….]; for it is not easy, except by a [….] reading through of the scriptures, for all of them to come before those who wish to have them on their lips and carry them in memory. It should be understood that before the present undertaking we composed the Chronological Canons, setting beside them an epitome of every kind of history, Greek and barbarian, and through them we established the antiquity of Moses and of the prophets after him. Regarding the work now in hand, gathered as it is from scattered places, as following on from those, we have fittingly come to the present treatise after that one. One might gracefully compare it to the natural industry of the wise bee, to which the sacred word in Proverbs sends us when it says: "Or go to the bee, and see how hard she works, and how honorable is the work she carries on; kings and private persons use her labors for their health; she is desired by all and held in honor; though weak in strength, she was raised up because she honored wisdom." That worker is attested to have honored wisdom. She culls what is useful from the flourishing shoots and, out of the gathering and working of them all, offers her labors, wholesome, as the scripture says, to kings and private persons. In just the same way I think these Prophetic Extracts concerning Christ, a bouquet plucked from the rational meadows of God, will hold something of the same kind: in their bare words they preserve the well-molded craftsmanship of the wax, while the thoughts treasured up in it are stored away somewhere within, in secret, answering to the sweet and most wholesome product of that wise creature. For which of the faithful would not admit that the saving passages concerning the Word of God surpass, by an incomparable superiority, every pleasure and benefit that comes through bodies, since they are suited to the taking up of a right belief that is truly beneficial and wholesome? This belief must be cherished not only by those advanced in their state, who are called kings, but also by those below them who have only now first come to the divine word. For these, I think, the subject will be especially suitable, so that from it they may make sure of the certainty of the teachings in which they were instructed. For simple and unmixed faith holds a firmer conviction when someone has first laid in his reasoning the foundations that come through demonstration, for the acquiring of an exact grasp and knowledge of what has been believed [….] at any rate for the sake of [….], I say, of [….] necessary [….]. [….] it seemed right that there should be, after the [….] of each [….], by way of introduction, a brief [….] account, as concise as possible, set out concerning [….]: on the one hand, a refutation of those who boast that they believe the [….] scriptures as divine, yet do not accept [….] Jesus as being himself the one prophesied; [….] questions raised against them, I mean those of the circumcision, and those from the heresies [….], and refutations of whatever they might say when they try to explain the divine utterances in a rather mythical fashion. There will also be, in brief, a modest exposition of our own, at times containing a demonstration that the sacred predictions of God have been fulfilled in our Savior alone, at times indicating the opinion we hold concerning the passages to be set out. But since we are about to take these up, it is necessary to distinguish beforehand that in some places the sacred words teach that the Word of God pre-existed not only his becoming man but every created subsistence, God [….] calling him, after the Father, both Lord, as indeed the church's proclamation holds, in accord with the gospel testimony which says: "In the beginning the Word was; and the Word was in God's presence; and the Word was God; all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being"; and in another way they proclaim beforehand his two comings: the former, in which they prophesied expressly that he would have neither form nor beauty, and that he would be led like a sheep to slaughter, and said plainly that he would be condemned to death because of the lawless deeds of the former people, as the dispensations of his first coming in the times of Tiberius also demonstrate; and the second, no longer like the first, but more divine and far surpassing it in glory, to take place with an angelic bodyguard and the array from the heavens. With these the reader, if he is of good mind, must hold the apostolic proclamation as a rule and as a mark to aim at, preserving the perfect and unassailable doctrines of the truth, that is, those concerning the first and unbegotten nature of the God over the universe, and those concerning the pre-existence and ministry of the divine Word, which, as Word, he exercised in the creation of all created things.

2| [….] apart from the four letters among the Hebrews that cannot be pronounced, through whose combination the signified name, being unspeakable, though called, by a rather loose usage, "Lord," has never at any time been taken for an angelic power, as you will observe throughout the whole inspired scripture, wherever God or the Lord signified by the tetragrammaton is recorded as having given oracles to certain people: whether the things indicated are to be referred to the God of the universe, the unbegotten nature, or to his Word, whom, being second cause of the universe, the divine scripture is accustomed to address as both God and Lord according to what is signified by the unspeakable name among the Hebrews. And indeed, when the passage now before us says that "the Lord came down," and "the Lord said" what is recorded, one might reasonably inquire whether the thing signified refers to one of the angels or to the first cause. But it cannot refer to angels; first, because here too "Lord" is taken through the unpronounceable designation, and second, because it shows that the words were addressed to others subordinate to him. And again, to apply it to the Father, the God of the universe is a foreign thought; for it would not be fitting for him to say, "Come, let us go down and confuse their tongue," and "The Lord came down to see the city" could in no way suit being said of the supreme authority. It remains, then, to understand that the divine Word is also indicated by the passages set before us. He, having been entrusted by the Father with the providence and ordering of all things, never ceased, at one time by himself, at another through ministering angels, to serve the Father's will in whatever contributes to the benefit and salvation of the universe. But the matters of this passage belong to a mystical and ineffable contemplation, and it is not now the time to unfold them.

3| CHAPTER 3. The first oracular utterance recorded to Abraham is when the Lord said to him: "Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house to the land that I shall show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed; and I will bless those who bless you," and what follows these words. The second, when the Lord appeared to him and said to him: "To your seed I will give this land." And the third, when the Lord said to Abraham, after Lot had separated from him, the things that are recorded. The fourth, in which it is said: "After these words the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision at night, saying, Fear not, Abram, I shield you"; and after other things: "I am the Lord who brought you out from the country of the Chaldeans." The fifth, when the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him: "I am your God; be well-pleasing before me," and the rest. The sixth, in which again the Lord appeared to him by the oak of Mamre as he sat at the door of his tent at midday; and lifting up his eyes he saw, and behold, three men stood above him; and seeing them he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and bowed to the ground and said: "Lord, if I have found favor before you, do not pass your servant by; let a little water be taken, and let them wash your feet." Then after some things it is added that they rose up from there and looked toward the face of Sodom; and Abraham went with them, sending them on their way. And the Lord said: "Shall I conceal from Abraham my servant what I am doing? Abraham will become a great and populous nation, and in him all the nations on earth will be blessed. For I knew that he will command his sons and his house with them, and they shall keep the ways of the Lord by doing righteousness and judgment, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him." And the Lord said: "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied." And after a few lines: "And the men turned from there and went to Sodom; but Abraham was standing before the Lord. And Abraham drew near and said, Do not destroy the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous will be as the wicked. If there are fifty righteous in the city, will you destroy them? Will you not spare the whole place for the sake of the fifty righteous, if they are in it? Far be it from you to do this thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous will be as the wicked; far be it. Shall the judge of all the earth not do justice?" And after other things the scripture says: "And the Lord went away when he had finished speaking to Abraham. And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening; and Lot was sitting by the gate of Sodom." It is worth considering whether the one who gave the oracular utterances to Abraham in these passages is signified as some ordinary angel, or the God of the universe himself, or a third beside these, the Word of God, whom, after the supreme Father and God of the universe, the sacred scripture is accustomed to call Lord and God; and further to ask who it was of the three men who appeared to Abraham to whom he himself said, "Lord, if I have found favor before you," and again, "Far be it; shall the judge of all the earth not do justice?" Of whom the divine scripture, in its narrative, says not only the first time but the second and the third, "And the Lord appeared to him," where the title "Lord" stands for the unpronounceable name set down in the Hebrew, a name never used of an angelic power. When, for instance, Lot is recorded as saying to the angels who had come to Sodom, "I beg you, lord, since your servant has found mercy before you," the word "lord" is indeed in the Hebrew, but not through the four letters used among the Hebrews for the unspeakable name of God, but written with other syllables, by which the one called "lord" among men, being a term of relation, such as "lord of a servant," is written among the Hebrews; but the name used through the four letters for God's own sovereignty, which has nothing in common with these, occurs in the recorded appearances of God to Abraham, and so plainly shows that it was neither an angel, nor some divine power only slightly above an angel, who spoke oracles to him, but God himself. The unspeakable pronouncing of this very name, found in the passages through the four letters, the high priest alone wore on his forehead, carrying on the golden plate what is called the impression of a seal, "holiness of the Lord." And that it is not a matter of indifference for the divine scripture to use such a title of angels is plain from the fact that it takes great care at times to record that God himself, or the Lord signified through the tetragrammaton, appeared and gave oracles to the righteous, and at times to record that angels were the ones seen. So it was clearly an angel who appeared to Hagar as she wandered; for it was fitting that for her, since she fell very far short of Abraham and could see nothing more than an angelic vision, the vision be proportioned through the presence of the angel, but for Abraham through the greater appearance of God himself. And the rest of the words of God to him would not fit if someone tried to refer them to angels, but would suit God alone to speak them, such as "and I will make you into a great nation and bless you," and similar things; and above all, "I am the Lord who brought you out from the country of the Chaldeans," and "I am God; be well-pleasing before me," and what follows; and no one could ever be so foolish as to suppose that an angel said these things. And when the three men stood by Abraham as he sat by the oak, Abraham goes up to them, but he says "Lord, if I have found favor before you" not to the three but to one alone. And none of the others is introduced as conversing with Abraham; for there was no reason for the servants to speak in the presence of the lord, but the Lord alone gives oracles, who also says, "Shall I hide from Abraham my servant," and the rest. Then the men with the Lord, clearly the angels, turned away and went down alone to Sodom, the Lord not accompanying them (for how could the kindly and gracious God take up residence among the impious?); but he, remaining in the company and converse of the God-beloved and righteous man, takes joy in his talk, and champions his most humane prayer, in which Abraham, by saying "Far be it, you who judge all the earth," shows most clearly that he knows well and exactly that he is conversing not with an angel, nor with a subordinate divine power, but with God himself. Then, distinguishing the matters accurately in what follows, the account plainly calls those who went up to Sodom angels, adding that "the two angels came to Sodom in the evening"; and in what comes after it records that neither the Lord nor God appeared to Lot, or spoke, but the angels. So it is wholly evident that it was the Lord and God, and not one of the angels, who is attested by the scripture to have appeared to Abraham. Now all those who wish to cut apart the harmony of the old covenant with the new, treating these passages as a windfall, think they plainly establish from them that the Father of Christ, whom the gospel voice also acknowledges to be invisible, is different from the God of Moses and the prophets, who appeared in various ways, now to Abraham, now to Isaac (to whom too, in giving oracles, he foretells things like those in Abraham's case), and likewise to Jacob, and perhaps also to Isaiah, who said, "I saw the Lord Sabaoth," and similarly to the other prophets. But we, since even in the ancient prophets of God there is a divine oracle brought forward which says in the person of God, "For I, the Lord your God, have not changed," and, "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord," and when giving oracles to Moses he says, "No man shall see my face and live"), will raise these difficulties against the aforesaid and at the same time against those of the circumcision, and further against those who do not accept that a second divinity, that of the Son, pre-exists after the unbegotten nature: how can the one who according to these prophecies is unchangeable and unalterable, who says that he alone as God fills heaven and earth, and who is plainly shown, even by the law itself, to be nearly invisible, in the words "No man shall see my face and live," how can he, changing again, and as though turning his own essence about, have become contained in some small parts of the earth, and been seen now by Abraham, now by the other prophets? For if these things were referred to the God of the universe, they would seem to disagree not only with the gospel voice but also with the prophetic voices, which declare him uncontainable, unchangeable and invisible to men; unless perhaps someone were to say that God himself was not seen at all in the recorded accounts, but that they merely imagined it, so that they seemed to see and hear, but did not truly behold anything of what appeared to be seen, nor in truth hear, but were deceived in these things too and supposed they heard; which is unfitting and foreign to the unfalsifying and unerring nature of the God of the universe; and it is also shown to be untenable from the fact that God himself is recorded as saying about Abraham, "For I knew that he will command his sons and his house after him, and they shall guard the ways of the Lord by doing righteousness and judgment, in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him." Beyond dispute, then, the Lord himself says these things as of another Lord. How then is it possible to suppose that the God of the universe said these things? For about what other lord besides himself can the words in the text be said? But it is clear from these considerations that what is indicated does not seem to suit the God of the universe either; and it has been shown that it does not suit the nature of angels. For the account knows, as I said, how to speak truly of the appearance of angels, plainly marking the visions that came through them. If, then, these things seem to fit neither the angelic nature nor the highest, unbegotten nature belonging to the God of the universe, only one solution of them would remain: that we keep the unchangeable, unalterable and invisible for the unbegotten essence, and take the recorded oracles, as from God, to refer to the Word of God, who, as we have believed, appeared in various ways even before becoming man, for the salvation of men, and carried out the dispensations set forth in the divine scriptures; and in his case alone, after the God of the universe, we find the four-letter title applied, since this divine conception too suits the only-begotten and heir of the Father. Abraham, then, knowing well, as one who was wise and was attested by God himself to be a prophet, that the Father has given all judgment to the Son, both worships him and says to him alone among the others, "Far be it; shall the judge of all the earth not do justice?" To suppose that this was said to an angel, below the divine Word, is unfitting and most implausible; but it would be most fitting for the divine Word alone, along with the other things, to say, "Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing?" and, "For I knew that he will command his sons and his house after him, and they shall guard the ways of the Lord by doing righteousness and judgment, in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he spoke to him." And it is fitting for him to say these things as one who teaches that everything done piously by men it is right to refer to the reverence due to God alone, the Father of the universe, from whom, while he is on earth, all good things are supplied to the pious for their benefit and salvation; and these things the divine Word says as speaking of another Lord, his own Father; for he also acknowledged him as his own Lord and God to his own disciples, saying, "I am going up to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." The law and all scripture is filled with this kind of character of the Lord, that is, of the divine Word, speaking as about another lord, clearly the Father. The matters of this passage require much and very deep contemplation; but these remarks are sufficient for the present subject.

4| CHAPTER 4. "And Hagar fled from her face"; clearly, from Sarah's; "and an angel of the Lord found her by the spring of water"; and in what follows a second time it is said, "The angel of the Lord said to her"; and a third time, "The angel of the Lord said to her, I will multiply your seed exceedingly, and it shall not be numbered for multitude"; and again, "The angel of the Lord said to her, Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your humiliation"; and after all these words it is said, "And she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You are God who looked upon me." If the scripture itself, in its own person, had not named as Lord the one who appeared to Hagar as she wandered, in the words "and she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her," one might have supposed that Hagar had mistaken the angel for God; but as it is, the scripture testifies that it was the Lord who gave the oracle through the aforementioned angel, through whom, being Lord and God, he fittingly said of himself, "I will multiply your seed exceedingly"; for it would suit God alone to say this, and no longer an angel; and Hagar, it is likely, noticing this very word and understanding that such a voice could belong to God alone, said, "You are God who looked upon me"; and a second time, when she runs away with her son, it is written, "The angel of God called Hagar out of heaven," and said to her the things recorded, among which is, "For I will make him into a nation"; clearly the child; which it would not be credible for the angel to say, for again the promise is God's. Of what Lord, then, did Hagar call the name, "You are the God who looked upon me," here too, where the scripture has for the Lord the four-letter name of the Hebrews? Or is it clear from what was set out before that it is the Word who was in the beginning in God's presence, who, being present and overseeing and ordering human affairs from the beginning, offered the visions by himself to the higher and perfect men, such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; whereas to those who fell short of their virtue, such as Lot, and Gideon and Manoah in Judges, and all who are brought forward as similar to these, he used the divine angels beneath him as ministers and servants, and in many parts and many ways offered the promises through them. So to Hagar too, since she was not yet capable of receiving the vision of the divine Word himself, he gives the recorded oracles through the angel; and if he also appears to Jacob through angels, but observe that this too he does at the beginning, when Jacob was still being introduced, giving oracles in this manner, but to him who had advanced and reached perfection he imparts his own converse bare and uncovered, no longer through angels and interpreters, but himself through himself: the Lord and God the Word, who holds second place in the Father's divinity, deeming him worthy of his own vision.

5| CHAPTER 5. "The sun went out upon the earth, and Lot entered into Segor. And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven." I do not think that anyone who has once believed the holy scriptures to be sacred and divinely inspired would quibble over these passages, trying to speak against what has been handed down about the Word of God: that he pre-existed having his own subsistence, and that before becoming man he carried out dispensations toward men; for the scripture here plainly sets forth two lords, if indeed "the Lord rained from the Lord." The like is to be found in the holy apostle, who said, "May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus," and, "May he grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day." But in these passages one must articulate the accounts concerning Father and Son, assigning to the unbegotten Father of the universe the lordship and authority over all things and over the Son himself, and awarding to the Word the second place after the Father in rule and mastery over all that has come into being. Since the Lord is named twice here, in "the Lord rained from the Lord," and twice, in the Hebrew, the four-letter name is brought forward, it is most clearly acknowledged that this unspeakable sign is applied to two persons, clearly the God and Father of the universe and his Word; so that there is no longer any doubt that, wherever such a designation of God is found, it is taken not only for the unbegotten nature, but also for the Word who was in God's presence in the beginning.

6| CHAPTER 6. In the blessing to Jacob, Isaac says, after some things, these also: "And let nations serve you; and rulers shall worship you; and be lord of your brother, and the sons of your father shall worship you." The words addressed to Jacob do not seem at all able to be referred to him, nor yet to the people that came from him, the people of the circumcision; for what nations served him, and when? Or what rulers worshiped him? Or whom did they worship him as? And when did he become lord of his brother? Or who are the sons of his father who are said to worship him? And indeed Isaac is not found to have had anyone else besides Jacob except Esau alone; how then is it said in the plural, "the sons of your father shall worship you"? We have noted these things because in the prophecies Christ is often also called Jacob, as will be shown in their proper places, suspecting that perhaps these words too can fit the testimonies about him. Just as, then, the holy apostle has also transferred what concerns Isaac to Christ, saying, "To Abraham and to his seed the promises were given; it does not say 'and to the seeds,' as of many, but as of one, 'and to your seed,' who is Christ," see whether in the same way what is said here as concerning Jacob might not rather suit Christ; and whether this is so, the lover of learning will know by examining each word by the laws of allegory.

7| CHAPTER 7. "And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until morning." Then after a few words, when Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me," he says to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." And he said to him, "Your name shall be called Jacob no longer, but Israel shall be your name, since you have prevailed with God and are mighty with men." And again after a few lines: "And Jacob named that place Vision of God; for I saw God face to face, and my soul was saved." To which the scripture adds: "And the sun rose upon him as the form of God passed by." To Abraham the Lord gave oracles from the beginning while he was awake, and spoke with him many times, and it is recorded that he appeared to him three times, and not by night but at midday; the third time, at that very noon, he was his guest. But to Jacob he appears first at sundown, in the middle of the night, in sleep, as he was going down to Mesopotamia, when, seeing in the vision the ladder reaching to heaven and the angels going up and coming down on it, and the Lord standing firm upon it, he hears the Lord saying to him, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father," and the rest, which also from what follows are shown to have been said to him through an angel; and a second time in Mesopotamia, when the Lord, signified by the tetragrammaton, stood by him again and said to him, "Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you." These things he said to him in sleep and through an angel; as Jacob himself teaches, for together with the divine voice he called Leah and Rachel, and after other things he relates to them the oracle that came to him, saying, "And the angel of God spoke to me in sleep, Jacob," and what follows, in which he says, "I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God, where you anointed a pillar for me and vowed me a vow there; now therefore arise, and go out of this land, and depart to the land of your birth." After this, when he returned from Mesopotamia, first, already at dawn, the angels of God met him, of whom he also said, "This is God's camp"; and it is likely these were those whom he had earlier seen on the ladder; then the sun that had set earlier also rises upon him after the passage set out above, in which the one who said to him, "Your name shall be called Jacob no longer, but Israel shall be your name, since you have prevailed with God and are mighty with men," is seen wrestling with him in sleep. After the vision, then, the sun rose upon him; but when he had already advanced and been made perfect, no longer in sleep, nor by night, nor through an angel, nor yet in human form, but in the middle of the day and in light, God gives him oracles and says, "Arise, go up to the place Bethel, and dwell there"; and after all this, then for the first time the divine scripture testifies that God appeared to him in Luza, and blessed him, saying the recorded words. We shall inquire at leisure how, after this, when he was about to go down into Egypt, God again in a vision and by night said, "Do not be afraid to go down into Egypt." We have set these things alongside out of necessity; for they show that the divine scripture does not record lightly, or in the case of ordinary men, that God was seen. For it is observed that God is not recorded as seen by Adam, nor by Enoch who was translated, nor by Noah, nor even by Moses himself, although he is recorded as having spoken to them often; indeed the divine account introduces God as seen by no one else but only by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and in Abraham's case he was seen not at the first oracle given him, but at the second, and at the fifth and sixth; in Jacob's case after all the recorded events; for to Isaac the Lord gave oracles only twice, and it is recorded that he appeared to him twice, though the second time was at night. It is evident from what we said earlier about Abraham that the visions must not be referred to the first cause but to the divine Word, whom not even these blessed and divine men were yet able to contain; to these very men, at any rate, to whom he is said to have appeared, he was seen after very many preliminary exercises. Who else, then, could it be who in the passage before us wrestles with Jacob and contends with him and as it were fights beside him, but the sacred Word of God who spoke in many parts and many ways to the fathers, who alone after the Father is styled Lord and God, who also, blessing Jacob, named him Israel, adding, "because you have prevailed with God"? And the divine men saw the Word of God in the same way as those apostles of our Savior who said, "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and beheld, and what our hands have handled, concerning the word of life"; and Jacob, having beheld this Word and Life, adds, saying, "For I saw God face to face, and my soul was saved."

8| CHAPTER 8. "Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hands shall be on the back of your enemies; the sons of your father shall worship you. A lion's whelp is Judah; from a shoot, my son, you have gone 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 the things laid up for him arrive; and he himself is the expectation of the nations," and what follows. The word of Jacob must be heard as that of the Holy Spirit, foretelling what concerns Christ and speaking aloud in his person the words beginning "Judah, your brothers shall praise you"; for that the patriarch was not directing his words to one of his sons is clear to those who attend to the scripture, which says in narrative, "And Jacob called his sons and said, Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last of the days." He therefore announces that he will prophesy to them about things to come. It is also clear in another way that the words of the prophecy do not suit the patriarch Judah; for when did his brothers worship him, or why, or for what achievement or when did they praise him? And how could anyone fit the rest of the prophecy to him and expound it? But neither could anyone reasonably refer them to the tribe, because not only from the tribe of Judah were rulers of the people appointed; For the judges after Moses, coming from various tribes, continued to rule for nearly five hundred years; after them Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, reigned first of all; and after these those of the tribe of Judah reigned, for not even five hundred whole years; then after the captivity to Babylon those of the tribe of Levi presided over affairs for more than five hundred years, until the coming of Christ. Why, then, does the prophecy say the aforesaid things about the tribe of Judah rather than about the rest? So the words would not suit the tribe either; but the true Judah who appeared at the last of the days we know to be our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, who, as the treasury of the many titles by which he is conceived, has also been called Judah, just as in another respect Israel, and in another Jacob, and David, and at other times otherwise; and him the holy apostles and all who were deemed worthy of the Spirit of adoption praised and worshiped; and his hands, which we take to be his deeds symbolically, were on the back of his enemies, that is, of the intelligible foes fleeing from him. He is also called a lion's whelp, whether because of his birth according to the flesh from the royal tribe and from the root of David, and in the likeness of sinful flesh; or because of the divinity, of which he emptied himself when he became man, on account of which "from a shoot, my son, you have gone up" is also fittingly cried out by Jacob. When, then, he was indicating the Savior's birth from the shoot and from his root, he named him a lion's whelp, saying, "A lion's whelp is Judah; from a shoot, my son, you have gone up"; but when he prophesies his lying down and the sleep of his passion, he calls him both as a lion and as a whelp, in "lying down he slept like a lion and like a whelp"; for then he was exalted not only as one of royal stock, but as himself a king, the nations confessing him, even if those of the circumcision were unwilling, to be the king of Israel. It might also be said otherwise: since he was setting out to war against opposing powers, and was about to destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, it was necessary that the divinity of the Word be present in the one born according to the flesh from the shoot of Jacob; the divinity is reasonably compared to a lion because it has subdued and conquered all wild and untamable powers, and the little body that he had taken up, being of the royal tribe of Judah, to a lion's whelp. But also, if our adversary the devil is like a roaring lion, see whether every sinner might not be called his whelp, since everyone who commits sin has been begotten of the devil. Since, then, the Savior also came in the likeness of sinful flesh, and became a curse for us, and "him who knew no sin he made sin for us," see whether on account of these things, by some deeper account, the prophecy declares that at the time of the passion he became neither lion nor whelp, but as a lion and a whelp; since he himself compares his passion to the serpent's, saying, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up." In addition to these, he hints in silence at the mystery of his resurrection with "who will rouse him?" And it has become clear to us from the conclusion who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead; for clearly his God and Father. What follows is said from "A ruler shall not be lacking from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs"; if we read these words as from a separate beginning, they would be said as about all those of the stock of the Jews who led the people, and according to that very sense the meaning of the words before us would be something like this: the rulers and leaders from the Jews appointed over the Jewish people will not cease before the one who is the cause of the expectation of the nations comes, that is, Christ, at whose arrival the aforesaid must necessarily fail. This being so, let us examine our own times, to see whether kings and leaders can be found now. But it is evident to all that, along with the rest, the Jewish nation too is subject to the Roman governors of the provinces, and that not one of its own has been entrusted with the authority to rule. And this began from the time of our Savior's birth; until King Herod, at least, we find in the histories that Hebrews from among the Hebrews ruled their whole nation: from Moses himself in succession first those called judges, then the kings in order until the captivity to Babylon, after which the high priests took over the rule and continued to the reign of Augustus; in his time, when Herod, the first of foreign stock, was entrusted by the Romans with the kingship over them, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ was born. From that time, then, to the present time, a ruler and leader has clearly failed among the Jews; it is evident that our prophesied Savior has come, from whose times not only have the rulers of the Jews failed, but also the whole worship performed by them at Jerusalem according to the law of Moses. And clearly too the expectation of the nations that have fled through him to the God of the universe began to be fulfilled in fact from the times of his coming, according to the prophecy of Jacob. And these things hold if we read the words from "A ruler shall not fail from Judah" as from a beginning of their own; but if we join the present passage as following on the sense before it, then, with Judah understood as Christ according to what was shown earlier, it would be consequent to take "A ruler shall not fail from Judah" of the rulers and leaders of the church after Christ, who, the prophecy says, will not fail "until the things stored up for him come"; as if it had said more plainly, until, when the consummation has come, he receives the things stored up for him, the kingdom over all. That the divine Spirit also calls the disciples of Christ leaders is clear from what is said about Judah: "But you, man of equal soul, my leader and my familiar." And those who have believed the sacred words as divine and true, giving heed to these things, should in no way be troubled, nor should their faith be shaken by the persecutions of the times, and above all by the present one, which has blown against us more violently than any ever, and has displayed against the churches and the whole people such things as no one has recalled either from scripture or from the tradition of the ancients. We say this because it might seem that in the present persecution the opposite of what was said has directly befallen, since no gathering seems to stand now, nor the order of the rulers of the church. Since the divinely inspired scripture is without falsehood, however, one must be persuaded that the aforesaid have not wholly failed, even if to some they seem to have failed; for God, who said to the prophet, who supposed that he alone was left of the rest who had been destroyed, "I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bent the knee to Baal," the same now also watches over those worthy of his providence, preserving for us too a remnant according to a gracious election, those guarded by him and seen by him alone; of whom we too might say, "Unless the Lord Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have become as Sodom and been made like Gomorrah." For to suppose that those presiding over the word, whom the prophecy names rulers and leaders, have failed altogether is one of the impossible things, because a limit has also been set to their not failing, "until the things stored up for him come"; that is, the things promised by the Father to Christ, when he said to him, "Sit on my right hand until I set your enemies as the footstool of your feet"; when also every knee of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; for then the expectation of the nations that believe in him at the present time will be able to receive the promises expected, in the expected kingdom of the heavens. And so much for these matters; the rest, from "binding his foal to the vine," which depends on the allegorical sense, we shall leave for lovers of learning to investigate, having already gone on at length in what has been said, not according to the purpose set before us, yet out of necessity for a clear account of the passage.

9| From Exodus.—9. "And Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law." And after a few lines: "And they came to the mountain of God, Horeb; and an angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire." And after other things: "And when the Lord saw that he was coming to look, he called to him out of the middle of the bush, saying." And again: "And the Lord said to him, I am he who is." And after very many things: "And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, and my name Lord I did not make known to them; and I established my covenant with them," and what follows. With great care, in these passages, it is recorded that not the Lord but the angel appeared to Moses, through whom the Lord, as through an interpreter, gives oracles and teaches that the one giving oracles is not some subordinate power, but he who is himself. More clearly it shows who "he who is" is in saying, "I am the Lord; and I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God; and my name Lord I did not make known to them." This seems to me to hold the following sense: to you, for the time being, I say only this much in making my name known, "I am the Lord"; but to your fathers I did not make my name known, for they were worthy of a greater knowledge than this; rather I appeared to them, and through myself I established my covenant with them. It is evident from what was shown earlier who it was who appeared to the fathers; for the account, examined in this way, was demonstrating him to be the God Word who was with God in the beginning. The same one, then, appears now too, but not in the same way as to the forefathers; to them, as greater and more perfect, he himself appeared, and through himself established his covenant with them; but in Moses' case it was not the Lord who appeared but the angel, and it was no longer the angel who called him but the Lord; for the Lord was the one giving orders, and the angel the one ministering the divine words. Hence among other things the holy apostle's wonderful phrase: "ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator," and, "For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast." So an angel is plainly introduced, and the Lord giving oracles through him; and you would not find even once, through the whole lawgiving, the scripture marking that God or the Lord appeared to Moses, which is shown to be said of the three patriarchs alone; so that it is clear from this that the whole lawgiving, given to the people of that time as to those who were infants in their souls and still being introduced, was handed down as though through tutors and stewards, and that the divine things were hinted to them typically and figuratively through symbols, because they could not receive the more mystical and spiritual teaching, being children brought up in Egyptian ways and still needing much correction; so that God is fire, according to "our God is a consuming fire," which was never said of the patriarchs. And when he commands them to purify themselves so that they might see the glory of the Lord, it is not said simply, as in the case of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that God appeared to them, but these very things are recorded with great awe and appearance: "And it came about on the third day, at dawn, there were voices and lightnings and a dark cloud on the mountain, and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, and all the people in the camp were terrified; and Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was altogether smoking because God had come down upon it in fire; and its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace; and all the people were greatly amazed. And the sounds of the trumpet grew louder and louder." "Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice; and the Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the Lord called Moses," and what follows. That the Lord came down is attested through these words; but that he also appeared is no longer said, which is observed only for the patriarchs. So there was a presence of the Lord, but the appearance was not his own but clearly that of the angels who form his bodyguard, through whom he usefully made the appearance fearful and awe-inspiring to the people, taking care to strengthen in them reverence, fear and faith in himself, for the guarding and keeping of the laws that were about to be given them. And that the angels who served the Lord at the lawgiving were several, Moses himself shows in the blessings, saying, "The Lord has come from Sinai, and appeared to us from Seir, and hastened from Mount Paran with the myriads of Kadesh; at his right hand were angels with him," and what follows; for which reason Stephen too in the Acts, as he addresses the people, says, "You who received the law as ordained by angels, and did not keep it."

10| From Exodus.—10. "And the angel of God who went before the sons of Israel removed and went from behind them; and the pillar of cloud also moved away from before their face, and went and stood behind them, and came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of the sons of Israel." Then in what follows the divine scripture teaches what the cloud was, saying: "And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I come to you in a pillar of the cloud, that the people may hear me speaking to you, and may believe you"; and again, "And God led them by day in a pillar of cloud, to show them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light"; and again, "And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud." So by these passages the angel who went before the sons of Israel was clearly other than the cloud, and the cloud was something else beside the angel, being as it were a bodily instrument of the Lord himself, through which, being himself bodiless by nature and beyond all sensible and material essence, he deigned to converse with his servant by a sensible voice; and the Lord himself, giving the reason for such a dispensation to Moses, says, "that the people may hear me speaking to you, and may believe you"; but with the people, as being more bodily, he conversed by a sensible voice, whereas with the patriarchs, who needed neither cloud nor pillar of fire, the manner of the vision and of the converse with them was different. And that it was not some angelic power giving oracles through the cloud, but God himself, is shown, besides what was proved earlier, also by the scripture that runs thus: "And the Lord said to Moses, Go and lead the people to the place I told you of; behold, my angel shall go before your face." And again: "And the Lord said to Moses, Go, go up from here, you and the people," and what follows, "and I will send my angel with you before your face." For to say these things does not suit an angel at all, but God alone, and the Lord signified throughout the whole history by the tetragrammaton. Did the Maker of the universe, then, and God of all things, stoop so far as to be carried upon a bodily mountain, and walk along with men like a tutor, he who fills heaven and earth? Or is it neither possible nor holy to conceive this, and more reverent, and at the same time possible, to take it of the divine Word, who is the servant of the Father's will, since "Jacob became the portion of the Lord himself, and Israel the measured line of his inheritance," so that he cared for a portion and inheritance, emptying himself and lessening his native greatness, going about with men for their salvation even before his becoming man? If, then, we pay attention with good judgment, we shall find him at one time referring the exhortations to his own person, as when he says, "You shall not appear before me empty"; and, "You shall make an altar of earth for me; and I will come to you and bless you"; and at another time speaking as of another Lord, clearly God and his Father, as in the decalogue when he says, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain"; and, "On the seventh day are sabbaths to the Lord your God; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth; and the Lord blessed the seventh day"; and again, "Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the land which the Lord your God gives you." How would it not be plain that the Lord himself, through himself and not through an angel, is believed to have said these things in the decalogue, teaching the people about reverence for his supreme Father and the God of the universe?

11| 11. "Behold, I send my angel before your face, to guard you on the way, so that he may bring you into the land that I have prepared for you. Give heed to him and listen to him; do not disobey him, for he will not withhold anything from you; for my name is upon him." These things, with the other ordinances, the Lord lays down to the people. If, then, after the death of Moses the same Lord who gave oracles in the wilderness had not been with the people, but one of the angels had led them, there would have been nothing to inquire into in these passages; but since it appears from the history that after Moses' death the same Lord gave oracles to Jesus, and said plainly in his oracles to him, "As I was with Moses, so I shall be with you, and I will not forsake you nor despise you. Be strong and take courage; for you shall divide to this people the land which I swore to their fathers to give them"; and through the whole scripture no angel is ever seen to be present with Jesus or to give him oracles, but the Lord himself, who is signified in Moses' books also by the tetragrammaton, and who appears to me to be the same as the one who appeared to Jesus once only in the form of a man, just as he is recorded to have appeared to Abraham and Jacob, so now too, in order to teach the servant not to consider him the first and unbegotten God, he declares himself commander-in-chief of that God's power. If, then, through the whole scripture of Jesus no angel is named as being present at all, but the Lord himself who is signified through the whole lawgiving of Moses, and the scripture plainly attests, "And the Lord was with Jesus," of whom could it be said, "Behold, I send my angel before your face, to lead you into the land that I have made ready for you"? It seems, then, that through these words it indicates no other than Jesus himself; for he himself brought the people into the land of promise, as the words of God to him also show, when he says, "Be strong and take courage; for you shall divide to this people the land which I swore to their fathers" concerning him. So he gives instructions to the people beforehand, saying, "Give heed to him, and listen to him; do not disobey him." And one should not be surprised if he called him an angel, since the prophecy also calls John by this title, saying, "Behold, I send my angel before your face, who shall prepare my way before you." And if the passage set out above is wholly referred to Jesus the son of Nave, see how the Lord says of him, "For my name is called upon him." And what name is it, if not the very name Jesus? For the name Jesus did not belong to the man who appeared then; he was formerly called Ause, and Moses, inspired by God, was the first to proclaim him Jesus, moved clearly by a more divine spirit, so that the oracle that said, "for my name is upon him," might be fulfilled: for the name of the Lord who gave the oracles, whom we have often demonstrated to be the pre-existing Word of God, was Jesus, the very name that Moses put upon Ause, as the divine scripture attests, observing with great exactness that it was not at any other time than when he sent him out as an angel, in accordance with the oracle, to spy out the land of promise before the people, that it called him by this name. Through these things, then, Moses appears plainly to have known the name too of our Savior Jesus; and just as the name Jesus is found first with him, in the passages we are examining, so he also appears himself to be the first to proclaim "Christ," since from eternity before his times no one among any people had ever yet been called either Jesus or Christ. And he appears to have honored the names in question by a divinely inspired reckoning: to the two men most outstanding among all the people and distinguished before God, who had their own other names, he attaches these two titles, to his own brother Aaron, and to the son of Nave, formerly called Ause, choosing them by God's nod as rulers of the whole nation, over all the people, and glorifying them with the titles of our Savior Jesus Christ; Christ, because Aaron bore the image of the true high priest of all, the God Word himself, who in the beginning was in God's presence; and he proclaimed his own successor Jesus, because he too preserved the type of our Savior Jesus, who, when the worship handed down symbolically through Moses had ceased, and after Moses had died, succeeded in this way to the reverence for the divine, conquered and subdued by the war of his word all the invisible powers that opposed him, and, making his own possession of all the earth that was tyrannized over by these powers among all the nations, distributed it as an inheritance to his own people through the churches throughout the whole inhabited world.

12| 12. "Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of the cloud came down and stood at the doors of the tent; and the people stood and worshiped, each one at his tent. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as if one were to speak to his friend; and he would return to the camp; but his servant Jesus the son of Nave did not depart from the tent. And Moses said to the Lord, Behold, you tell me, Bring this people up, but you have not shown me whom you will send with me; yet you said to me, I know you above all, and you have favor with me. If then I have found favor before you, show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly, so that I may find favor before you, and that I may know that this nation is your people. And he says, I myself will go before you and give you rest. And he says to him, If you yourself do not go with us, do not bring me up from here. And how shall it be known that I have found favor with you, I and your people, except by your going with us? And we shall be glorified, I and your people, above all the nations that are on the earth. And the Lord said to Moses, This word also that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor before me, and I know you above all, and you have favor with me. And he said, Show me your glory. And he said, I will pass before you first with my glory, and I will call by the name of the Lord before you; and I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. And he said, You will not be able to see my face; for no man shall see my face and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock; and I will cover you with my hand until I pass by. And I will take away my hand, and then you shall see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen by you," and what follows, to which he adds: "And the Lord came down in a cloud, and stood by him there; and he called by the name of the Lord; and the Lord passed before his face, and called, The Lord, the Lord, God, compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and abundant in mercy and true, and keeping righteousness, doing mercy to thousands, taking away lawlessness and injustice and sins, and he will not clear the guilty, bringing the lawlessness of fathers upon children, and upon children's children, to the third and to the fourth generation. And Moses hastened, bowed to the ground and worshiped, and said, If I have found favor before you, Lord, go with us face to face." Moses is recorded as speaking to God with such boldness and freedom of speech as even a man conversing with his friend would show. These things show no ordinary progress of the prophet; but since the Lord spoke to him face to face, and yet had not yet been seen by him as by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for this reason he asks, saying, "If I have found favor before you, show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly." By this he shows that God did not make his appearances to him in the same way as his speaking to him. For if, as one might suppose, God's speaking to him face to face is the same as being seen by him, face to face as one might say, what room would still be left for his request that says, "If I have found favor before you, show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly"? And how, if he had earlier been seen by him face to face, as one might think, would the Lord go on to say to him, "You will not be able to see my face; for no man shall see my face and live"? And let anyone who wishes explain why the account never once testifies that the Lord was seen by him, as it is observed to say in the case of the patriarchs; but it is evident from these passages that even if the Lord spoke to him face to face, nevertheless he spoke to him through the cloud; for the scripture has set this forth beforehand, saying, "The pillar of the cloud came down and stood at the doors of the tent, and spoke to Moses." So he spoke through the cloud, and was not seen by him in the same way as by Abraham, Isaac or Jacob; for to those he is recorded to have been seen bare and plainly without any form, whereas to this man through the form so named and the cloud, which the account also calls the glory of the Lord, saying: "And when Moses spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, they turned toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud, and the Lord spoke to Moses." And again: "Moses went up into the mountain; and the cloud covered the mountain. And the glory of the Lord came down upon the mountain and the cloud covered it for six days; and the Lord spoke to Moses on the seventh day out of the midst of the cloud. And the form of the glory of the Lord was like a burning fire on the top of the mountain." Plainly, then, through these passages what Moses beheld is said to be not the Lord himself but a form of the Lord; and a cloud and fire, which the account also calls the glory of the Lord. So he saw the form of the Lord and his glory, but by no means the Lord himself, that is, the Word of the Lord himself of whom the text speaks; yet he heard him speaking through the cloud, which is why it is said, "And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face." It is not recorded that he was seen by him face to face; for this he asks for as something not yet done, saying, "Show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly"; and in another place the account teaches that God spoke to him mouth to mouth, though he was not correspondingly seen, but in a form and through his glory set out earlier; it says thus: "And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the tent of testimony; and Aaron and Miriam were called, and both came out. And he said to them, Hear now my words: if there be a prophet of yours to the Lord, I shall be made known to him in a vision, and I will speak to him in a dream. Not so my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. Mouth to mouth I will speak to him, in a form and not through riddles, and he saw the glory of the Lord; and why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" So he saw the glory of the Lord, and heard him giving oracles in a form and speaking mouth to mouth, but he had not yet seen the Lord himself as the fathers had. And it is not surprising if God is recorded as speaking to Moses mouth to mouth, when Moses teaches in Deuteronomy that he spoke face to face to the whole people too, saying: "It was not with your fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with you; you yourselves, all of you who are here today alive. The Lord spoke to you face to face on the mountain out of the midst of the fire." Yet if he gave oracles to Moses and to the whole people in this manner, observe that it is said he spoke to them mouth to mouth and face to face, but not that without the fire or the cloud he was seen by them as by the fathers; for to those the Lord is recorded to have been seen bare and without the covering of cloud or fire. Our Savior and Lord also teaches that seeing God belongs to the perfect and those whose mind has been purified to the highest degree, saying, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"; and therefore the Lord proclaims himself God as of such men, saying to Moses: "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, has sent me to you; this is my name for ever, and a memorial to generations of generations." Moses, then, zealous for the greater gifts and longing for the same progress as those men, asks the Lord, saying, "Show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly"; for he pictured, as God the Word gave him oracles, the greatness and height and the unspeakable and unattainable excess, but he saw that it was through ministering angels that his contemplations of him were made; so he entreats him to show himself more clearly and more purely to him, no longer by coverings nor by other servants, but bare and like those around Abraham, without the form of fire and cloud. This, it seems to me, the phrase means: "Show yourself to me, that I may see you plainly"; in this way, having also heard beforehand the Lord saying to him, "Behold, my angel shall go before your face," he half-declines it, longing for the greater, and says, "If you yourself do not go with us, do not bring me up from here." When the Lord assented to the request and said, "This word also that you have spoken I will do," he, seeing the readiness of the divine munificence, a benefaction that anticipates those who long for great things, then lowered himself, and, reckoning himself not yet worthy of the greater things, puts forward another request, lacking in comparison with the former, saying, "Show me your glory"; and the Lord fulfills his word: "I will pass before you first with my glory, and I will call by the name of the Lord before you," and what follows; teaching that the knowledge of the Father and God of the universe is greater than any vision he had beheld before, a knowledge that he promises to hand over to him, speaking of himself in "I will pass before you first with my glory," and of the initiation into the Father's mysteries in "and I will call by the name of the Lord"; for of what lord, being himself the Lord signified by the tetragrammaton, does he promise to call, if not the Father's? And truly, unless the Word of God first passed before a person, and unless he himself called upon the Father, it is not possible otherwise to take up the knowledge of the Father of the universe; since "no one knew the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son reveals him." He himself is the door and the way, through whom alone it is possible to see the cause beyond and above all things, the Father himself; for even if the divine Word, above all, as a sort of forerunner of him, sojourns beforehand in the souls of the blessed, imparting to them his own glory, yet he does not remain to the end claiming the sovereign authority for himself, but, having prepared and made ready the dwelling, he withdraws and hands the kingdom over to God and the Father. And he himself acknowledges this, saying, "I will pass before you first with my glory, and I will call by the name of the Lord." Now he promises in word to do this; and next he adds the deed where it is said: "And the Lord came down in a cloud, and stood by him there; and he called by the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before his face and called, The Lord, the Lord, God, compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and abundant in mercy and true, and keeping righteousness, doing mercy to thousands, taking away lawlessness and injustice and sins, and he will not clear the guilty, bringing the lawlessness of fathers upon children, and upon children's children, to the third and fourth generation." These things the Lord signified by the tetragrammaton says, having come down in a cloud and stood by Moses; who, according to the promise he had made, passing before his face, calls upon his own Lord and Father, the one who truly is Lord Lord, brought forward twice through the tetragrammaton, saying, "The Lord, the Lord, God, compassionate and merciful," and what follows. And if someone, forcing the sense, were to say that it was not the Lord but Moses who said these things, let him take firm assurance from the words of Moses himself, who acknowledges the words set out above to be the Lord's, when in another place, praying, he says: "And now let your hand be exalted, Lord, as you spoke, saying, The Lord is long-suffering and abundant in mercy and true, taking away lawlessness and injustice and sins; and he will by no means clear the guilty, repaying the sins of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation." Most evidently and most clearly, then, through these words the Lord himself, who spoke the words set out above, shows that he is calling upon a greater lord, the truly Lord, clearly his own Father; or if he is unpersuaded by these, let him say whether he is able to bring any other account to bear on the passages, while keeping it that the one giving oracles was not an angel but the Lord himself, signified by the tetragrammaton, who is recorded to have spoken to Moses face to face, and whom Moses entreats, declining the guidance of angels, saying, "If you yourself do not go with us, do not bring me up from here." But it is not possible to refer these things to anyone other than the God Word alone, who was in the beginning with God; who, to Moses as he reached for great things, shows the knowledge of the greater, teaching him to know the only true God, and the God Word whom he sent, who is himself also second after the Father, both Lord and God; and he affords him first and most necessarily this benefit, that he should never take the thoughts about the God of the universe to be about the Word who was giving him oracles, because of the surpassing greatness of the glory of what was beheld; and he teaches him to consider first and only true God the one whom he himself was calling upon, saying, "The Lord, the Lord, God, compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and abundant in mercy and true." Notice carefully the word "true," which is said in a similar way in "that they may know you, the only true God," said by the Savior himself in the gospels; but the whole people could not have received these things, to whom, as to those being introduced, it was said by the one giving oracles, "I am, and there is no one else besides me"; for they needed an elementary introduction to the monarchy of God, being in some way unable to articulate the doctrines about Father and Son, since they had only just withdrawn from the polytheistic error of the Egyptians. And "I am, and there is no one else besides me" could be said in the person of God the Word in the same way as "I and the Father are one; and I am in the Father, and in me is the Father." Just as, then, the one who has seen him has seen the Father, according to "He who has seen me has seen the Father who sent me," in the same way the one who heard him heard the Father in him saying, "I am, and there is no one else besides me." We have said this much, as far as one can on matters so great, because we wish to show that, beyond dispute, neither the God of the universe nor any angelic power was the one who gave oracles to Moses, but the divine Word himself, whom we have exactly believed to be, after the Father and Lord of the universe, second of all, both God and Lord; as the evangelist John too teaches us more clearly, saying, "In the beginning the Word was; and the Word was in God's presence; and the Word was God." It would take much leisure, and not the leisure we have now, to make clear what the place and the rock are of which the Lord said, "Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock"; but the apostle has made the rock plain by saying, "and the rock was Christ." And I suppose that the place, being no other than the rock, is the same as the one Jacob met, where it is written: "And Jacob went out from the Well of the Oath, and went to Haran. And he came upon a place," where, having seen in a vision the ladder and the Lord established upon it, he said on waking, "The Lord is in this place"; and again he said, "How fearful is this place; this is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." But also, what is the face of God the Word, which Moses, the law, being human and rather bodily, cannot behold; and what are his back parts, which the typical law, symbolic of intelligible things, was alone able to contain; and how is it said, "I will cover you with my hand," a covering and shelter being laid upon the law, so that because of this covering it could see the things behind but no longer the things that lead and excel: one who cares to investigate these matters will know, by paying attention, in private and at the proper time.

13| From Numbers, of the third prophecy of Balaam. 13. "A man shall go forth out of his seed, and shall have lordship over many nations; and the kingdom of Gog shall be exalted, and his kingdom shall be increased. God led him out of Egypt, as the glory of a unicorn is to him; he shall eat the nations of his enemies, and shall drain their marrow, and shall shoot the enemy through with his arrows. Lying down, he rested like a lion and like a whelp; who will raise him up? Those who bless you are blessed, and those who curse you are cursed." It is Christ who, according to the flesh, was born of the seed of Israel and ruled over many nations; for what nation was there that did not know subjection to him, when the voice of his disciples went forth into every land, and their sayings to the farthest bounds of the inhabited world? Among very many even of the barbarians themselves one may see many who through faith in him have arrived at knowing the one God, and have endured, for reverence toward him, punishments of every kind, even to death. This prophecy too, then, is plainly shown to have its end in our Savior; or let someone else come forward and show to whom these things could be referred. With us it is evident that the spiritual kingdom and lordship of our Savior grows day by day in the souls that have received his word; At his coming the kingdom of Gog was also exalted. Some have taken this to be the Roman empire; others have understood it figuratively as the heavenly commonwealth of the gospel and the contemplation of intelligible doctrines, which, they say, is the reason Gog is meant, the name being interpreted "houses." And God led him out of Egypt: expressly, when Joseph, having received a divine warning, took Mary with the child Jesus out of Egypt and returned to the land of Israel, fulfilling the present prophecy and also the one in Hosea, which according to the Hebrew and the translation of Aquila says, "Out of Egypt I called my son." But he led him also in a spiritual sense, when the Father, taking him up from the intelligible Egypt and from the places here below to the heavens, led him there. The so-called "glory of the unicorns" hints, in the Savior, at the divinity in him, which belongs to the Father's sole rule. After this it says, "He shall eat the nations of his enemies." For all the nations that came under his teaching, having formerly been part of his enemies, he prepared after their faith in him to be fit, as it were, for eating for himself: he thins out and tracks down their coarseness, that is, everything material and earthly that has grown into them, and by his own husbandry he produces in them nourishing fruits. He accomplished these things with intelligible and rational arrows, having shot down the one who of old ruled the nations and was his own enemy, that is, the devil. The words from "he lay down, he rested like a lion" were said almost word for word by Jacob also in his prophecies about Judah. We have already set out, as it occurred to us, what sense they carry, and we shall not repeat it. But it is clear how we who bless the Christ of God have been blessed. For even if the Egyptians abhor us, as they did God's people of old, the saying is still fulfilled in us: "In proportion as they humbled them, so much the more they multiplied, and they grew exceedingly strong." And it is plain in what way those who from the beginning cursed him received the curse, through crying "Crucify, crucify him"; for the cross belonged to a curse, as in "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." But the one who endured their curse has been exalted by the Father, while those who were cursed by God himself have received lasting destruction forever. If anyone examines this closely, he will behold the greatness of God's power, which even now pursues those who were once cursed by him. So much for the words, "Those who bless you are blessed, and those who curse you are cursed."

14| From the fourth prophecy of Balaam. 14. "A star shall rise from Jacob, and a man shall arise out of Israel, and shall crush the rulers of Moab and plunder all the sons of Seth." The Word of God, who emptied himself, taking a slave's form, and was found in appearance as a man, rose as no small star, not for Jacob, but out of Jacob. For beginning from the bodily people of the circumcision, he shone upon all the nations; and when he moved on from them, he waged no small wars, cleansing away the opposing powers and the spiritual forces of wickedness. Having defeated them, he made plunder of them for his own inheritance, taking back all the nations that had earlier been under them. Of these the Father promised him, saying, "Ask me, and I will give to you the nations as your inheritance and as your possession the ends of the earth."

15| From Deuteronomy. It is Moses who speaks. 15. "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me; to him you shall listen in everything, according to all that you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, 'We will not go on to hear the voice of the Lord our God, and we will not see this great fire any more, lest we sin.' And the Lord said to me, 'They have spoken well in all that they said. I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you; and my word I will put in his mouth, and he will speak to them as I command him. And whoever does not listen to all that the prophet speaks in my name, from him I will exact vengeance.'" What more could anyone from Israel point to, as a prophet like Moses, that is, a lawgiver, appointed for the human race, than Jesus alone, our Savior and Lord, who has been revealed to all the nations as the lawgiver of the new covenant and of the life according to the gospel, in line with the prophetic prayer spoken in a psalm: "Appoint a lawgiver over them, Lord; let the nations know that they are men"? He it was also who delivered from the intelligible Egypt, from its brickmaking and from the bitter slavery under the intelligible Pharaoh, those who through him approached the God of the universe. And, simply put, everything that is recorded as having been done in bodily fashion by Moses, our Savior and Lord accomplished according to the spiritual law. So the prophet has come, the one still famed among Samaritans and Jews even now, whom Moses foretold, and about whom God testified in advance, saying, "And as for the man who does not listen to all that the prophet speaks in my name, from him I will exact vengeance." Vengeance, then, has been taken for the blood of all from Abel to Zechariah, who was murdered between the temple and the altar, on the generation that rose up against the Savior, and above all on those who dared to utter against him the cry "Crucify, crucify him," and "Take such a man away from the earth," and "His blood be upon us and upon our children." This happened immediately, God taking vengeance, as he had foretold, for the blood of Christ on those very people and on their children, while justice pursued them, so that from that time until now the whole nation has not been able to lift up its head at all. Another prophecy was fulfilled too, that of Amos, which says, "The house of Israel has fallen; it will no more rise again." The apostle also foresaw these things in the Spirit and cried out, "But wrath has come upon them to the end."

16| From the Ode. 16. "Rejoice, you heavens, together with him, and let all the angels of God worship him; rejoice, you nations, with his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen him." To whom else would the divine Spirit command the angels to bow down but to Christ? At his coming the nations plainly rejoiced with his people, the chorus of the righteous patriarchs and prophets. About these nations God speaks again in the same ode, as if addressing another people: "They made me jealous with what is no god; they provoked me with their idols; and I will make them jealous with what is no nation; with a senseless nation I will provoke them." And it is quite clear that after their rejection God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise among them, and he chose the weak things of the world, and the low-born, and the despised, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that formerly were among them. For from the very times of Moses they had served idols, provoking God and making him jealous, and when his Christ came they did not receive him; but the nations, having come to know through him the Father and God of the universe, shall rejoice, according to the prophecy at hand, with the people of his saints. All the sons of God also strengthened the Christ: both those who earlier prophesied about him, and all who after his coming received the Spirit of adoption and proclaimed him throughout the whole inhabited world. So much, then, from the Pentateuch; let us pass on to the scriptures that follow.

17| From the book of Joshua. 17. "And it happened, when Joshua was in Jericho, that he looked up and saw a man standing opposite him, with his sword drawn and held in his hand. And Joshua went up to him and said, 'Are you on our side, or on that of our adversaries?' And he replied, 'I have now come as commander-in-chief of the host of the Lord.' And Joshua fell to the ground upon his face and said to him, 'Master, what is your command for your servant?' And the commander-in-chief of the Lord says to Joshua, 'Loose the sandal from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy.'" And who else could the commander-in-chief of the host of the Lord be, but the Christ of God, who rules the whole holy and spiritual army of God? Observe, too, whether the same one who gave an oracle to Moses on the mountain through the angel is not hinted at in the words addressed to Joshua. For what is now said to this man was said likewise to Moses, as he began his contemplation, by the Lord through the angel: "Loose the sandal from your feet," and so on. The Christ of God, who has many names, is now called commander-in-chief of the host of the Lord; as also in Isaiah he is "Angel of great counsel," in the passage, "and they will wish that they had been burned with fire. For a child was born to us, a son was also given to us, whose rule is upon his shoulder, and his name is called Angel of great counsel." You would also find him named "angel of the covenant" in Malachi, where it is said, "And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire."

18| From the First Book of Kingdoms. From the prayer of Hannah. 18. "The Lord went up into the heavens and thundered; he will judge the ends of the earth, and will give power to our kings, and will lift high the horn of his anointed." The Lord, the Word of God, who came down from the heavens, has himself gone up again into the heavens; and having gone up, he thundered with his own divine power the proclamation of the gospel, so that it was heard throughout the whole world. He will himself judge the ends of the earth and those who dwell as far as them, since he has received all judgment from the Father. But he also gave strength to his own disciples, the apostles and prophets, who are our kings, and he exalted the horn of his anointed, that is, of the people, who are so named by sharing in the Christ, or else of the humanity he assumed, whose horn was the divinity exalted, as the sacred apostle says. And in the eighty-eighth Psalm God says something plainly similar to this about the Christ: "And in my name his horn shall be exalted."

19| 19. "And a man of God came to Eli and said, 'Thus says the Lord, the Lord,'" and in what follows: "And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will carry out everything that is in my heart, and everything in my soul; and I shall build for him a faithful house, and he will walk before my anointed all the days. And everyone who is left in the house shall come to bow down to him for a piece of silver and for one loaf, saying, 'Admit me to one of your priestly offices, to eat bread.'" This is none other than the priest of God Most High after the order of Melchizedek, Jesus Christ our Savior, whom we have, in the apostle's words, as a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. He did everything that was in the Father's heart, becoming obedient to him even to death; and therefore the Father, having raised him up, built him a faithful house, the church made up of rational, living and faithful stones in truth. To him those who have believed in him come to bow down, and the piece of silver is not turned away: neither, in bodily terms, the widow who contributed her quadrans for the relief of the needy, nor, in thought, the soul that rests on faith alone, or that, according to its power, contributes its intelligible possessions, bringing what helps toward the building up and benefit of the rest. So he chose the foolish things of the world, and the weak and poor, and the despised, and the things that are not, not looking down on them, nor on such souls as these; but, as the humane Word of God, he welcomes these too for their eagerness, and by divine judgment assigns them, each according to merit, to various places among his priestly offices, deeming them worthy of the bread of eternal life from himself. The words "and he will walk before my anointed all the days" are said of the saints in the church, who are themselves also called christs, as in "Do not touch my christs"; to these the Savior said in the gospel, "Behold, I am with you all the days, up to the end of the age." Though these passages need fuller explanation, we shall be content with what has been said, as briefly as was possible.

20| Second Book of Kingdoms. After much else the Lord says this also to David through Nathan. 20. "And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come from your belly, and I will make ready his kingdom. He will build a house for me 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. And if his iniquity comes, I will reprove him with a rod of men and with the strokes of the sons of men; but my mercy I will not take away from them, as I took it away from those whom I removed from before my face. And his house shall be made sure, and his kingdom forever before me; and his throne shall be set up forever." Similar things are said in the eighty-eighth psalm. The Jews, though, would do well to be perplexed at these passages: for what reason will they say that God speaks of David, or of Solomon who reigned after him, about whom they will presumably suppose the prophecy to speak when it promises to make him a firstborn son? In the psalm he says, "He will call upon me, 'You are my Father, my God, and the upholder of my salvation.' And I shall appoint him firstborn, exalted among the kings of the earth"; and in the passage at hand, "I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me." Moreover, one might say that David differed in no way from the other prophets, he who needed to make confession over the matter of Uriah, saying, "Against you alone I have sinned, and I have done what is evil before you"; or Solomon, whom the bare narrative of scripture teaches to have turned away from God and moved toward idols through desire for women. How then did the kingdom of David or Solomon stand forever before God, and the throne set up forever, according to the prophecy that speaks here, and according to the one contained in the Psalm, which says something like this: "I swore to David my servant: Forever I will prepare your seed, and I will build up your throne for generation and generation"; and after other things it says, "Once I swore by my holiness: I shall surely not lie to David. His seed will endure forever, and his throne will be like the sun before me." And again: "And I will set his seed forevermore, and his throne like the days of heaven." You would find similar things also in Jeremiah, where it is said that "Thus says the Lord: A man shall not be destroyed from David sitting on the throne of the house of Israel; and for the priests and the Levites a man shall not be destroyed from my presence, offering whole burnt offerings, and sacrificing a sacrifice, and making incense all the days." If anyone compares these words with the present condition of the Jews and with their own histories from the reigns of Hezekiah and Jeconiah, under whom the kingdom of the Jews descending from David was brought to an end, at the time of the captivity to Babylon, after which they were never ruled or governed by those descended from David down to the present, it becomes plain that what was said does not fit David or Solomon at all; otherwise, of necessity, God's declaration made with oaths would be found false, which is unlawful to say. But if we refer the so-called seed of David to the Christ who came from him according to the flesh, it is clear how this seed, that is, the Christ, will remain forever, and how his throne and spiritual kingdom exist forever before the Father, being set up and built up by him from generation to generation in the souls of those who believe in him. The throne of this seed of David, as we have interpreted it, will remain like the sun of righteousness before the Father, and like the days of heaven. Therefore it is said to him by the Holy Spirit in another Psalm: "Your throne, O God, stands forever and ever; the rod of uprightness is the rod of your kingdom. You loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; for this reason God, your God, anointed you with the oil of exultation, beyond your companions." The Christ also built the church as a house for the Father, out of living and intelligent stones, holy and virtuous souls, raising a temple far better than and superior to the temporary building of Solomon, which no longer exists. The apostle too bears witness that the saying "I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me" belongs to him, having taken it from here in his composition to the Hebrews, where he says: "For to which of the angels did he ever say, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you'? And again, 'I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.'" The words from "and if his iniquity comes, I will reprove him with a rod of men" are said about the people who have believed in Christ, since his church is also called the body of Christ, according to the apostle. And that the words about visitation are said about those who have believed in him, notice carefully the plural in "but my mercy I will not take away from them." Similar things to those here are plainly said in the psalm about the sons of the one prophesied: "And if his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they profane my statutes and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod and their injustices with scourges; but my mercy I will not scatter from them." Observe how the text called the persecutions that come from time to time "rods of men" and "strokes of the sons of men." Yet God's comforts are many, and the consolations through the scriptures, which allow us not to lose heart at the persecutions carried out against us from time to time. For just as he foretold that he would visit the sinning people of Christ with a rod, so he also promised beforehand that he would not remove his mercy from it, saying, "But my mercy I will not take away from them, as I took it away from those from whom I took it away." One will ask on whom God's mercy rested before the people from the nations, the mercy which you removed from them altogether; the like of this he promises to do in the case of the people of Christ.

21| 21. "And David spoke to the Lord the words of this ode." Then in what follows: "And he bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet." And again after this: "Deliver me from the contradictions of the people; you will set me as head of nations; a people whom I did not know served me; on hearing with the ear they obeyed me; strange sons lied to me; strange sons will be cast away, and will stumble from their enclosures." These things are said almost in the same words in the seventeenth Psalm too, and they would be examined more fittingly when we gather the extracts from the Psalms. For now, however, we only mark that "And he bowed the heavens and came down" may be understood of the descent of Christ from heaven; and "Deliver me from the contradiction of the people" is said in his person about those of the circumcision who did not believe in him, of whom he says in Isaiah, "All day long I spread out my hands to a disobedient and contradicting people." And that "You will set me as head of nations," and "A people whom I did not know served me; on hearing with the ear they obeyed me" are prophesied of the church from the nations; and "Strange sons lied to me" about the godless heresies that have fabricated falsehoods about the Savior himself and the God of the universe, whom the text says will be cast away, having stumbled from their enclosures, that is, having fallen from their festering and hidden false doctrines.

22| From the Third Book of Kingdoms. 22. "And now, Lord God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you spoke to your servant David my father. For if God will truly dwell with men on the earth, even the heaven of heaven will not suffice you." Similar things are said by Solomon in his prayer to God in the Second Book of Paralipomena. So here too it is plainly prophesied that God will dwell with men on the earth; and this itself reached its end in our time at the coming of Christ, in which God the Word became man and lived among the human race.

23| From the First Book of Paralipomena. The Lord says these things also to David through Nathan, after others. 23. "And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come from your belly; and I will prepare your kingdom. He shall build me a house; and I will set up his throne. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me; and I will not take my mercy from him, as I took it from those before you; and I will make him sure in my house and in his kingdom forever, and his throne shall be set up forever." Having noted that these things are like those from the Second Book of Kingdoms set out above, we shall, because the difference between them and those is not great, be content with what was said on those.

24| From the Second Book of Paralipomena. 24. "And now, Lord God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you spoke to your servant David, that God will truly dwell with men on the earth, if the heaven of heaven will not suffice you." Having already spoken on this once, when we set out the passages from the Third Book of Kingdoms, we shall not repeat it now.

25| From Ezra. Zerubbabel says this in his public speech. 25. "Men, are not women strong? The earth is great and the heaven is high, and the sun is swift in its course, for it wheels round in the circle of the heaven and runs back again to its own place in a single day. Is not he great who does these things? And truth is great, and stronger than all things. The whole earth calls upon truth, and the heaven blesses it; all his works shake and tremble, and with him there is nothing unjust. Wine is unjust, the king is unjust, women are unjust, the sons of men are unjust, and unjust are all their works, all things of this kind; there is no truth in them, and in their injustice they will perish. But truth endures forever and is strong forever; it lives and prevails forever and ever. With it there is no respect of persons and no partiality; it does what is just, apart from all that is unjust and wicked. It keeps itself apart, even toward those who take pleasure in its works, and in its judgment there is nothing unjust. To it belong the strength and the kingship and the authority and the majesty of all the ages. Blessed be the God of truth." Since our Savior and Lord, who is the Word of God, is recorded as having said, "I am the truth," we have fittingly set out the passage before us, since it shows that truth has a subsistence of its own, distinct from the Father. "Truth," it says, "endures and is strong forever, and lives and prevails; and with it there is no respect of persons," and so on; and to these words it adds, concerning the Father, who is God also of God the Word himself and of the truth, "Blessed be the God of truth"; to which we too shall add the Amen. So much, then, from the book of Ezra. From Esther, however, we found nothing at all on our subject. After the extracts from the historical writings, then, let us pass on to the books in verse, since these come before the remaining prophecies in time; and of these let us look first at the passages from the Psalms.

Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/eusebius/100-prophetic-extracts-book-i#p1), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.

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