Prophetic Extracts — Book II

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

a| These are the chapters contained in the second book of the Prophetic Extracts concerning the Christ. From the Psalms. 1. Of the first Psalm: on the blameless life of the Christ, and on his conduct at the summit of virtue. 2. On the passion of the Christ, and his heavenly kingdom, and the Father's promise to him concerning the nations. 3. On the passion of the Christ and his resurrection from the dead. 4. On the knowledge of God sown through him among all people. 5. On the death of the Christ and his resurrection from the dead, and how he is proclaimed lawgiver of the nations. 6. On the resurrection of the Christ and the salvation of human beings. 7. On the blameless life of the Christ. 8. On the descent of the Christ from heaven, and his being set over the nations and the people he had not known, and on the contradiction of the Jews. 9. On the preaching of the apostles to the whole inhabited world, and on the Christ as a bridegroom. 10. On the Christ as a king. 11. On the Christ, again, as a king. 12. On the events of the Christ's passion, and on his apostles, and on the turning of the nations to God, and on another generation and a people that is to come. 13. On his taking up into the heavens. 14. On the Christ and his resurrection. 15. On the Christ as the beloved, and on the crushing of the former people, and on Jerusalem. 16. On the resurrection of the Christ. 17. On the events of the Christ's passion. 18. That all things were made through the Word of God. 19. That in place of sacrifices and the figurative worship of old, the body of the Christ was offered for all. 20. On Judas the traitor and the resurrection of the Christ. 21. On the Christ as the beloved, and how the same one is proclaimed God, king and Christ. 22. On the taking up of the Christ and the calling of the nations. 23. On the calling of the nations, and on the Christ as a man. 24. On the calling of the nations, and the second coming of the Christ, and the refutation of those of the circumcision. 25. On Judas the traitor. 26. On the Christ as a king. 27. On the Christ as a man, and on Father and Son, and on two covenants. 28. On the resurrection of the Christ, and the gospel of the apostles, and on the nations. 29. On the events of the Christ's passion, and the casting off of the Jewish people. 30. On the passion and resurrection of the Christ, and on the generation that is to come. 31. On the Christ as a king, and on his kingdom from of old and without end, and the subjection of the nations. 32. On the Christ as a man and son of man. 33. On the appearing of the Christ. 34. On the eternal throne of the Christ, and how he will be of the seed of David; and on the persecutions of the church from time to time. 35. On the calling of the nations, and on the Christ. 36. On the sending of the Word from heaven, and the calling of the nations, and the desolation of the former people. 37. On the traitor, and the plot against the Christ. 38. On two lords, Father and Son, and on the Christ's existence in essence before the age, and his eternal high priesthood, and his passion. 39. On the Christ as a man. 40. On the Christ as a stone, and on the Hosanna. 41. On the kingdom of the Christ, and how it will spring from David. 42. On the passion and the resurrection. 43. On the descent of the Christ from heaven. 44. On the sending of the Word of God from heaven. 45. That all things were made through the Word of God.

0| BOOK 2. Having set out the testimonies about our Savior from the historical writings, we shall next add to them, in this second book of the Extracts, those we have culled from the books in verse, since these come before the remaining prophecies in time. And let us examine first those from the book of the Psalms.

1| Psalm 1. "Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilent men; but his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he will meditate day and night." And whom could anyone point to who had advanced to such extraordinary virtue as in no way to fall into any sin whatever? That, it seems to me, is what "has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly," and "has not stood in the way of sinners," and "has not sat in the seat of the pestilent" signify; through these I think it is made plain that the man called blessed never so much as tasted sin. For not only not to walk among such people, nor to make progress as though having walked, but not even to sit, nor indeed to set foot there at all at the start, nor to stand among them: how is this not something marvelous and rare? The praises of the man in view are presented to the mind rather as spoken of a continuous state: for it says he neither walked, nor stood, nor sat among such kinds of wickedness, which shows the blessed man's condition of virtue, always and throughout. One might see many who have succeeded through attention and discipline, but no one such as the psalm describes; and if someone considers how great a thing it is to flow well in everything and to prosper in the way of God, stumbling in nothing and never falling away from the mark of virtue, so that in this respect the Psalm says, "and everything he does will prosper"; and further, if he considers what it means to be so blended that one's own will agrees in opinion with the law of the Lord, and to meditate on it not only through the whole day but also through the night, looking into it with the wakeful eyes of the mind, and to be active according to it not only in the works and words of the day but also in the thoughts and imaginings of sleep, he will know the greatness of the man who has accomplished these things and is attested by the divine Spirit. And even if what is said, by general agreement, surpasses all human nature, it would fit one man only: him who came, according to the flesh, from the seed of David, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, of whom alone the divine Spirit in Isaiah testified that he committed no sin, and no guile was found in his mouth. That this interpretation is the accepted one is shown by the reading of the Hebrew, which carefully has it so: "Blessed is the man," with the addition of the article. And it was fitting that David, who was named the father, according to the flesh, of our Savior, having received a promise that the Christ would be born from his seed, should dedicate to him the first fruits of his prophecy. Whoever wishes to discern precisely how what is said in the psalm refers to the Savior will find out by reading those who have written commentaries on it.

2| Psalm 2. 2. "Why did nations rage, and peoples devise empty things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were assembled together against the Lord and against his anointed." In the Acts of the Apostles, those who heard Peter and John recount their marvels testified that this prophecy too had been fulfilled. For after giving thanks for the wonders they were hearing, they added to the passage just set out, saying: "For in truth there were gathered together in this city against your holy servant whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the nations and the peoples of Israel." Not only those who plotted against our Savior at that time gathered against him, but also the kings and rulers from then until now, and whole nations and peoples, by blaspheming him and plotting against his teaching. One must be convinced that not only the visible kings and rulers among human beings plotted against him, but far more the intelligible and invisible rulers of this age, who worked then, and still work now, upon the nations and upon the peoples of the circumcision, who meditated on the law of God emptily and in vain, and who took counsel not only against the Christ of God but through him against the Father who sent him; about all of whom the psalm adds: "He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them. Then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his wrath he will trouble them." After this the Christ himself, teaching us the dispensation concerning him that followed the passion, says: "But I was established king by him on Zion, his holy mountain, proclaiming the decree of the Lord." One must not, however, following the groveling notions of the Jews, suppose that the kingdom of the Christ is like those of human beings, to be established on a bodily Mount Zion. To the man who asked him whether he was a king, he answered, "My kingdom is not of this world"; hence too he promised the kingdom of the heavens to those who believed in him, and not only the apostle but very many other prophecies taught that Mount Zion is heavenly. Micah, then, having foretold that because of the impieties of the former people Zion will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will be like a fruit-watcher's hut, and the mountain of the house a wooded grove, goes on to speak likewise of another Zion and Jerusalem, saying: "And it shall be in the last days that the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, and peoples will come upon it, and many nations will go, for from Zion a law shall go out, and the Lord's word from Jerusalem." Of this mountain, then, the Christ speaks here too: "But I was established king by him on Zion, his holy mountain." By whom he was established is clear: by the Father, who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you," and "Ask of me, and the nations I will give you for your inheritance, and for your possession the ends of the earth." That the prophecy is true and the promise free of falsehood can be seen from those who in so short a time have come from every nation to the worship of God through our Savior. Or let those who shamelessly dare to look askance at the fact say to whom they could apply the prophecy, if they do not accept that it is so. For they could not show that King David, of whom some thought these things were said, suffered anything of the kind, with rulers and kings, nations and peoples plotting against him; nor when, or for what brave deeds, the Lord said to David, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you." And how could "Ask of me, and the nations I will give you for your inheritance, and for your possession the ends of the earth" be said of him, when his kingdom was clearly confined to Israel alone and the borders of Judea? Let them also answer why they do not accept the Christ who has come: is it because he suffered? Then they must expect another who will suffer nothing of the kind that this one suffered. And how would the prophecies be fulfilled, which foretell that the Christ of God will suffer very many things, in many other places and not least in the psalm at hand? And should one think that this man planted the teaching about the God of the universe throughout the inhabited world without risk? Is it even conceivable that a human impulse and the mere undertaking of a chance person could be so strong and powerful that, through his teaching alone, without divinity working with him, he disposed the souls of all kinds of hearers to pour out these libations to the God of the universe long ago, and to this day persuade them to abandon ancestral customs and a lawless, savage and licentious life, to attend to godliness alone, and to prize it above not only the substance they have but even above life itself, which is desired by all? But I do not think anyone who is willing to be even moderately fair-minded would fail to agree that such great things came about through our Savior with the co-operation of a divine power beyond human power. From these facts the divinity of the Lord who became man is demonstrated, and at the same time the proofs are plainly set before us that he received the nations from the Father as inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession, in accordance with the prophecy at hand. To go through the whole psalm is not suited to the present occasion, especially since it has already received a very full exposition.

3| Psalm 3. 3. It is easy to take the third psalm too as about the Christ, in line with those before it, teaching about the plot against him in "Lord, why have those who afflict me multiplied?" and about his resurrection, which is made clear by "I fell asleep and slumbered; I rose up, for the Lord will take hold of me." Each verse of the Psalm would fit the Christ once it received a proper exposition. There is a reason too why it has been placed third, to prophesy the resurrection of the Lord in line with the prophecies before it: for the first, as we have shown, teaches his unblemished life and his conduct without sin; the second, the events of the passion; and so the third, following these, prophesies his resurrection.

4| Psalm 8. 4. The first words of the eighth psalm, from "O Lord our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth," seem to be prophesied about the calling from the nations; hence it is also inscribed "for the winepresses," the winepresses being understood as the churches throughout the inhabited world, in which the rational clusters of the true vine, Christ, and of his branches, so to speak, the holy apostles, are pressed and supply the intelligible wine from their lessons, which makes for all gladness. For otherwise it is impossible to apply what is said in the psalm to bodily winepresses; since, unlike elsewhere, where there is talk of a vine transplanted out of Egypt, or of the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth, or the like, the wording holds no such sense here. And the words from "What is man, that you remember him, or the son of man, that you visit him? You made him lower than the angels by a little, you crowned him with glory and honor," and so on, are applied to our Savior and Lord Jesus in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where after "you subjected all things under his feet" it adds: "But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." One might say that he was made a little lower than the angels not only because of the suffering of death but because of his very becoming man; for when he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, having taken the form of a slave, and he was lowered so far that in place of the glory in the form of God it was said of him: "We saw him, and he had neither form nor beauty, but his form was without honor and failing beyond the sons of men." In return for this the Father crowned him with glory and honor, having highly exalted him and given him the name above every name, "that every knee should bend at the name of Jesus, of beings in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." "And he set him over the works of his hands" also fits the person of our Savior, because of the Word of God in him, but no longer an ordinary person, if it is the habit of the sacred writings to number the heavens too among the works of God, as in "the heavens are the works of your hands." Besides these: "you subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and moreover the cattle of the field, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea"; by which the subjection under the yoke and servitude of the Word of the more irrational, and in manner like cattle, second-rank souls, or even of opposing powers, seems to be shown rather allegorically.

5| Psalm 9. Chapter 5. The inscription of the ninth psalm is this: "To the end, for the hidden things. A Psalm of David." In its place Symmachus has given: "A victory song about the death of the son. A song of David." And more probably the Hebrew reads as follows: lamanassē Almauth ben masmōra David. It would be well for the men of the circumcision who use it to be perplexed about what death, or the death of what son, the psalm was composed by David about; to us it appears clearly to be prophesied about the Savior's passion. The Seventy too, it seems, understood this and hinted at it rather darkly; Aquila, however, himself also showing that some great act of valor took place at the Savior's passion, gave: "To the victory-maker of the youthful vigor of the son. A melody of David." And anyone who observes all the words of the psalm would apply them to the Christ, who names himself poor and needy and prophesies about his resurrection from the dead in "Have mercy on me, Lord; see my humiliation from my enemies, you who raise me up from the gates of death, so that I may declare all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion"; of which Zion we showed a little earlier. Things are also prophesied in it about the nations that will be saved through him, as poor and needy, among them "Appoint, Lord, a lawgiver over them; let nations know that they are men." Here it is worth noticing that the nations are not subject to the law of Moses; and the passage should be brought against those of the circumcision who accuse those from the nations for not living by the law of Moses, and it should be shown that the prophetic word knows that there will be a lawgiver of the nations other than Moses, since it says in a prayer, "Appoint, Lord, a lawgiver over them," evidently over the nations. To this it adds, "let the nations know that they are men," as if it said, let the nations take up knowledge and understanding of their rational essence through the lawgiver who is to be appointed for them. This would be the Christ, who legislated for us the common covenant by saying, "It was said to the ancients such and such, but I say such and such"; and by a divine and ineffable power he has been able to make his laws strong not in one nation or two, nor in some part of the whole inhabited world, nor for some short time, but, as can be learned from the very working of it, continuously and among all nations. And if someone does not accept that this is so, let him show whom else he could name, other than our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, as a lawgiver appointed for the nations by the God of the universe in line with the prophecy at hand, one who became a teacher to all human beings of godliness toward the Maker of the universe.

6| Psalm 11. 6. Since in the eleventh Psalm the Lord says, "Because of the misery of the poor and the groaning of the needy, now I will arise, says the Lord; I will set him in salvation, I will speak boldly in him," we examine whether this too might fit the person of the Christ who teaches about his resurrection from the dead, with a sense like this: on account of the nations that have fallen into the misery of wickedness, called poor in a reproachful sense because they are deprived of wealth according to God, I who emptied myself and took up the contest on their behalf even to death, now will arise; and having received from the Father authority over all, I will set all who believe in me in salvation, and I will speak boldly in him, that is, in the Father, or in the achievement of so many brave deeds performed by me for their salvation. Such might be the sense of the passage. The first words of the Psalm, "Save me, O God, for the holy man has failed," and so on, make clear what the time was like at which he suffered: for the holy man had then failed, and the truths were diminished among the sons of men; everyone spoke vain things to his neighbor; and all that follows these was fulfilled in that time.

7| Psalm 15. 7. "I saw the Lord before me always, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced, and moreover my flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor give your holy one to see corruption. You made known to me the ways of life; you will fill me with gladness with your face." That these words too refer to the person of the Christ, Peter bears witness in the Acts of the Apostles, where he says: "Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with powers and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this man, given up by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you took and, nailing him up by the hand of lawless men, killed; whom God raised up, loosing the pangs of death, inasmuch as it was impossible for him to be held by it. For David says, 'I saw the Lord before me always.'" Then, after saying some things in between, he adds these words verbatim: "Men, brothers, one may say to you with boldness about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day; being a prophet, then, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one from the fruit of his loins on his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption." Since Peter has thus given the interpretation of the prophecy as referring to the Savior, anyone who does not treat the investigation of these things as a side matter can either apply the whole wording of the Psalm to him in line with what Peter has taken, or read what others have written as commentaries on the Psalm; for our purpose does not allow us to say anything more on these passages than has been said.

8| Psalm 16. Chapter 8. The words said in the sixteenth Psalm, "You have tested my heart, you have visited it by night, you have refined me by fire, and no injustice was found in me," we have marked as from the voice of Christ, since it does not suit human nature otherwise to say this; and all the words in the psalm can be referred to the Savior by one who looks at them closely.

9| Psalm 17. 9. Since the men of the circumcision will think the seventeenth Psalm too is spoken by no one other than David, because its inscription seems to indicate this, we shall press them, as they cannot preserve for him the words "You will deliver me from the contradiction of the people, you will set me as head of nations; a people whom I did not know served me; by the hearing of the ear they heeded me; strange sons lied to me, strange sons grew old." For over what nations could they show David set as head? Or what is this people, which he had not known before, yet which served him, obeying him at the hearing of the ear? And who are the strange sons who lied to him, who grew old and went lame from their paths? But to us, who take this prophecy in the person of the Christ, who was set as head of the church from the nations, and who see it plainly fulfilled, nothing at all in what is said in the psalm will give offense. For we were, we truly were, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, and for that reason unworthy of the knowledge of the Word of God. But now that we have come to know God, or rather have been known by him, we who were once far off have become near, and we served the one who of old had not known us, and at the hearing of the ear we obeyed him, receiving the word of his new covenant, which he made with us. Wonderfully, after "A people whom I did not know served me," which sets out the calling of us, the psalm sets out what concerns the former synagogue through "strange sons lied to me," which is equivalent to "I begot sons and exalted them, but they rejected me." These also grew old, going lame from their paths, and did not receive the Christ of God; and he, rejected by them, was set by the Father as head of the nations that served him and obeyed him at the hearing of the ear, according to the prophecy elsewhere that says: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the head of the corner." I think that the things about his divinity and his descent to human beings are also made known in the first part of the Psalm; these, being said rather mysteriously, would need an explanation that is more than casual and passing, such as those from "And he bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet; and he mounted upon the cherubim and flew, he flew on the wings of the winds," and whatever else similar to these refers to the Word of God.

10| Psalm 18. 10. "There are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard. Into all the earth their sound has gone out, and to the ends of the inhabited world their words." We ask whose sound has gone out into all the earth, and whose words to the ends of the inhabited world, so that there are no words left with anyone, and no speeches among whom their voices have not been heard. But one could not show others than the holy apostles, in whom the prophecy was fulfilled, when their teaching about the Christ became famed throughout all that is under heaven, when, sojourning in this life with the divine power working with them, they proclaimed throughout the whole inhabited world faith in the Christ of God. After this foretelling of the proclamation of his apostles, the text next teaches about him that "in the sun he has set his tabernacle"; the sun being understood as the divinity, in which he set his own abode and, so to speak, his dwelling; or else the body that he took from the virgin, which was as it were the tabernacle of the divine power remaining in him. And he, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, "rejoiced like a giant to run his course"; for as a bridegroom for the sake of his bride the church, having risen from the Father's bosom, and as a brave and strong giant, having fought through the contest set before him and conquered and overcome his adversaries, he rejoiced, receiving back his partner and bride. "His going out was from the end of heaven," and again, "his arrival at its end"; since "no one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man"; and again, "the one who came down is himself also the one who went up above all the heavens," according to the sacred apostle. "And there is none who will be hidden from his heat," of which he himself also said, "I came to throw fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" Anyone could readily work out the rest of the passage for himself in proportion to these.

11| Psalm 19. 11. The words said in the nineteenth psalm, "I know now that the Lord has saved his christ," reveal the salvation from death of our Savior Jesus Christ; for to him is said also, "Let us rejoice in your salvation." And the whole passage would fit him, if it received a proper exposition.

12| Psalm 20. 12. The words "Lord, in your power the king will rejoice," and what follows, one might say can be referred to David; but "He asked life of you, and you gave him length of days forever and ever" no longer fits David, since his death and the time of his life are also made known, and the span of his years was not long. It would be the Christ, then, the king, established by the Father to reign on the heavenly Mount Zion, who also asked life of the Father, not for himself, for he himself was the life, but for all who would believe in him; and he gave it to him, so that all who have believed in him can pass from death to eternal life and to length of days with God, which are forever and ever. And the rest of what is said in the psalm as about the glory of the king, no small matters, would fit the Christ rather than David once it received due clarification.

13| Psalm 21. 13. It is plainly agreed among all who have believed soundly in Christ that the opening of the psalm at hand, which runs thus, "My God, my God, attend to me; why have you forsaken me?" was said by him at the time of the passion; for this is what the cry on the cross meant, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani." But before we begin to take over the prophecy in the psalm as referring to him, we shall ask those who boast of circumcision who it is that says what is in the psalm; for it is clearly no chance person who says, among the rest, "You are the one who drew me out of the womb; my hope was from the breasts of my mother; upon you I was cast from the womb; from my mother's belly you are my God"; and who adds, "I will declare your name to my brothers, in the church's midst I will sing hymns to you"; and again, "He did not turn his face from me, and when I cried to him he heard me; from you is my praise; in the great church I will confess you; I will pay my vows before those who fear him." Besides these, let them say, if they can apply them to any of the holy men, the other things in the Psalm: who ever became such as the text described beforehand, "All who saw me mocked me; they spoke with their lips, they shook the head, saying, 'He hoped in the Lord; let him rescue him, let him save him, since he delights in him'"? Whom did "many calves" surround, and of what a nature, "dogs and fat bulls"; "they opened their mouth against him, like a lion tearing and roaring"? And in addition, about whom did "the assembly of the wicked" close in, and close in so that they "dug his hands and feet," and counted all his bones, and divided his garments among themselves, casting lots for his clothing? For the person in the psalm says things like these, and after suffering so much adds, "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the church I shall sing hymns to you." Let them also, at the same time, explain the rest of the psalm, especially from "All the ends of the earth will remember and be turned to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before him," to "A generation to come will be proclaimed to the Lord, and they will proclaim his righteousness to a people that will be born, whom the Lord made." Let them point out the generation which did not yet exist then but is prophesied to come at a future time, and the people not yet in being, foreseen as to be born in later times; and let them say what they would say about the church formed through Jesus Christ our Savior out of all the nations. For with such multitudes having come to know the God of the universe through the Christ, would they not agree that "All the ends of the earth will remember and be turned to the Lord" and "All the families of the nations will worship before him" have been fulfilled? It is time, then, for those who are willing to be fair-minded to agree that the prophecy was fulfilled in no one other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ alone, at whose coming the turning of the nations also began, the prophesied generation having arrived, and the people to be born, which is made clear beforehand not only here but also in the hundred and first psalm, by "Let this be written for another generation; and a people being created will praise the Lord." This is the people of whom it was said also in the seventeenth, "A people whom I did not know served me; on the ear's hearing they obeyed me." Him, then, our Savior and Lord, who took flesh and because of it was called a worm, who became "the form of men and the contempt of the people," "all who saw me mocked," above all at the time of the passion, when, the things in the prophecy reaching their end, the passers-by blasphemed him and mocked him, saying, "Others he saved; let him save himself"; and at that time too "they spoke with their lips and moved their heads" against him, saying in these very words, "He hoped in the Lord; let him rescue him, let him save him, since he delights in him." For these very things are recorded in the gospels as said to him at the passion. To him, then, and to him alone, it is fitting to say to the Father: "You are the one who drew me out of the womb; my hope was from the breasts of my mother; upon you I was cast from the womb; from my mother's belly you are my God." Furthermore, the text teaches us in these words that certain evil and beastlike powers also worked the plot against him, on account of which he said: "Many calves have surrounded me; fat bulls have closed in on me"; and of the assembly of the circumcision that rose up against him he says: "Many dogs have surrounded me; an assembly of the wicked has closed in on me." These also "dug" not only his hands but also his feet; or, according to Aquila, who said "they disgraced," "they disgraced my hands and my feet." This was truly accomplished when, having hung him on the gibbet, they pierced his hands and feet with nails. It is well, if anyone demands proof from scripture that the Christ was foretold to endure the cross, to adduce, along with other texts that show this, the words "they dug," and still more "they disgraced my hands and my feet." Next there follows: "They divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast a lot." Aquila gave this as: "They will divide my garment among themselves, and for my clothing they will cast a lot"; and Symmachus: "They distributed my garments among themselves, and for my robe they cast lots." This too was fulfilled together with the passion, when those who crucified him took his garments and made four parts, a part for each soldier, and the tunic—it was seamless, woven from the top throughout—therefore they said to one another: "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to see whose it will be"; and the evangelist adds to this: "that the scripture might be fulfilled: 'They divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast a lot.'" And this is the prophecy. On this the Hebrew reads hōsei ennā; following which there is added in the psalm, as in the gospels too, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"; which seems to me to signify something like this: "Save, I pray; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," the Father and God of the universe.

14| Psalm 131. 14. "The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not annul it: 'From the fruit of your belly I will set one upon your throne.'" And again: "There I will make a horn spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. I will clothe your enemies with shame, but on him my holiness will blossom." Here too a promise about the Christ is plainly given to David by God with an oath, that he would be born of his seed and would hold his throne. The passages would need a lengthy examination, since the Christ does not seem to have sat bodily on the throne of David and in his kingdom; we shall put this aside, because it is not the business of the present work to spend our leisure on an exposition of the psalm beyond the purpose set before us. But a fair-minded person should not, from one passage, if it cannot be applied to the Christ in the bodily sense, be led astray from the many things clearly said about him in many places. Rather, following the true account and standing beside the divine scripture itself, one should observe how it prophesies at one time that he will come as a poor, mean and dishonored man, having neither form nor beauty, and at another calls him an honored king; of which some can be fulfilled even bodily, others only in the spiritual sense of scripture, and some, one must expect, will be fulfilled at his second coming. Besides, our Lord was named King of the Jews at his first coming, and not by chance, since Pilate ordered to be inscribed on his cross, in Greek, Roman and Hebrew letters, "This is the King of the Jews."

13x| Psalm 141. 13. And what is said here, "The righteous will wait for me until you repay me," seems to be said in the person of the Savior. For whom else will the righteous wait until God repays him, but this one? As it is said somewhere of the righteous of old, that they were attested but did not receive the promises, God having foreseen something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. That the passage looks to him is clear from the fact that the events of his passion are foretold in the psalm in line with the other prophecies. For it is written: "I will pour out my supplication before him; before him I will declare my affliction. When my spirit failed within me, you knew my paths; in this way in which I walked they hid a snare for me"; and again: "Deliver me from those who pursue me, for they are stronger than I." After these he prays also about his resurrection from the dead, saying: "Bring my soul out of prison, to confess your name"; to which he adds, "The righteous will wait for me until you repay me." All those righteous ones, then, waited for the Christ until the Father repaid him, in return for his having emptied himself, becoming obedient to him even to death. And what would he repay him but the nations as inheritance, and the ends of the earth as his possession, that when the fullness of the nations has come in, then all Israel too may be saved; and the whole psalm would fit the Christ, containing as it does the events of his becoming man, in which he was plotted against.

14x| Psalm 143. 14. In the psalm at hand it is said, "Lord, bow the heavens and come down," while in the seventeenth, "And he bowed the heavens and came down." We marked the passage there, and here as well, doing the same, we took these things to be said about the Word of God. For having bowed the heavens by emptying himself of the heavenly glory in the form of God, he came down to the lower parts of the earth, because of the dispensation he took up for the salvation of human beings. Hence, before the passage set out, the text says in wonder: "Lord, what is man, that you were made known to him, or the son of man, that you take account of him?" For to this end the Word of God bowed the so-called heavens and came down, so that, becoming man, he might be known to the human race, which had earlier not known him; and he did not despise him, counting as nothing the one who had become the son of man, that is, every rational soul made in the image of God. And the rest of the psalm too you might understand if you take it spiritually.

15| Psalm 147. 15. It seemed right to note also the words, "He who sends his saying to the earth: his word will run swiftly," since here too the scripture teaches that the Word of God is a subsistent reality, other than the Father who sends him. Observe too how there follows next, "his word will run swiftly." This too can be seen fulfilled after the coming of Christ, since his teaching ran its course in so very short a time and in not many years prevailed over all the earth, as far as the ends of the inhabited world.

16| Psalm 148. 16. The words said here, "Let them praise the Lord's name, for he spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created," we have gathered among the testimonies about God the Word, who in the beginning was with God, having learned that the Word of God is also called his name, by one of the designations among the conceptions applied to him. Thus, after first saying "Praise the Lord," this and that, the Spirit goes on to urge that, after the Father, his name be praised, adding that "he spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created." The one who orders and commands, then, would be the God and Father of the universe; the one who serves would be the Word of God, ministering to the Father's will in the making of the things that have come to be. It should be noted that in the thirty-second psalm too the words "he spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created" occur word for word; but there they are said of the earth and those who inhabit the world, while here they are said of what is in the heavens and of the angels and powers spoken of as in the highest, and also of the sun and moon and stars and all that are listed with them. In these words the divine scripture teaches us that through the Word, as the sacred apostle says, "all things were created, both those in the heavens and those on the earth, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and in him; and without him not one thing came to be." So much, then, from the Psalms. And since this book has now reached a moderate and sufficient length, we shall make from a fresh beginning the extracts from the remaining books in verse and, after them, those from the prophets.

Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/eusebius/101-prophetic-extracts-book-ii#p0), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.

← All of Eusebius of Caesarea: The Works of Eusebius of Caesarea