Prophetic Extracts — Book III

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

a| These are the contents of the third volume of the Prophetic Extracts concerning the Christ. First chapter: from the Proverbs. On the Word of God as Wisdom subsisting in essence, created by God before the ages, being other than he, and caring for the universe together with him. On the Christ as a king's son, and on his apostles. On the Christ as a man, and on his ascent into the heavens, and on his conquest of the nations.

b| From Ecclesiastes. On the Christ as a poor wise man; and on the devil and the antichrist. On the Christ as a poor wise man; and on the devil, and on the church.

c| From the Song. On the Christ as a bridegroom, and on the church of the saints as a bride, and on the mysteries hidden in these passages.

d| From Job. On the Christ as having walked on the sea and mastered the great sea monster. On the descent of the Christ into Hades. On the devil's wrestling match with the Christ.

e| From Hosea. On the Christ as a panther. On the casting off of Israel, and the ending of their kingdom, and the Christ's being called back out of Egypt. How God the Word, though named God, confesses the Father as Lord.

f| From Amos. How God the Word, named Lord, teaches that the Father is other than himself. On the Christ's sojourn among human beings.

g| From Obadiah. How God the Word, named Lord and God, confesses that he has heard something from the Lord.

h| From Jonah. How the dispensation concerning Jonah signifies the passion of the Christ and his resurrection from the dead.

i| From Micah. On the second coming of the Christ, as of the Lord. On the desolation of the former people, and of Israel, and of Mount Zion; and on the manifestation of the Christ as a mountain, and on the bringing in of the nations, and on the new law of the new covenant. On Bethlehem and the Christ's birth there; and how the Christ existed before the ages.

j| From Zephaniah. On the resurrection of the Christ, and on the calling of the nations.

k| From Zechariah. How God the Word, named Lord Almighty, says that he has been sent by the Lord Almighty, the Father. How God the Word, named Lord, foretells that he will come to Jerusalem and that the nations will take refuge in him, sent as he is by the Lord Almighty. On the Christ as Jesus son of Josedek; and that he is the man whose name is Dawn; and on the building of the church. On the Christ as a king who will come on a beast of burden and a colt, and will destroy the cavalry and infantry of the Jews that once dwelt in Jerusalem; and on the peace of the nations. How God the Word, named Lord, makes mention of the Lord, the Father. On the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed the Christ to the rulers of the Jews, whom the text here calls Canaanites; and on their casting off. On the passion of the Christ, and the apostles' stumbling over him. On the second coming of the Christ.

l| From the Angel. On the casting off of the Jews and the abolition of their sacrifices, and on the churches of the Christ throughout the whole inhabited world. On the new covenant, and on the law of truth of the Christ as angel of the Lord Almighty. On the second coming of the Christ as angel of the covenant of God. On the Christ as sun of righteousness.

m| From Jeremiah. On the passion of the Christ, as of a lamb. On the passion of the Christ, and the destruction of the Jews, and on the desolation of Jerusalem. On the calling of the nations, and the impiety of the Jews, and, by name, on Judas the traitor. On the Christ as a king of the seed of David, and on the church's priestly service, established forever. On the new covenant, different from the old one given through Moses; and on the laws of the gospel.

n| From the Lamentations. On the passion of the Christ, and on the calling of the nations.

o| From Baruch. On the Christ as God coming down from heaven and living as a citizen among human beings.

p| From Ezekiel. On the Christ as the shepherd who will arise as David, and on the new covenant. On the Christ as the shepherd who will arise as David, and on the new covenant.

q| From Daniel. On the Christ as stone, and his eternal kingdom. On the Christ as son of God. On the coming of the Christ as son of man, and on his eternal kingdom. On the seventy weeks, and how they are completed at the times of the Christ, after which are prophesied the things concerning the utter destruction of the Jewish people.

0| PREFACE. After the extracts from the psalms, let us now gather in this third treatise of the Prophetic Extracts concerning the Christ, which is the eighth of the General Elementary Introduction, those from the remaining books in verse and from the prophecies that follow, having first noted that neither can the words of the prophets be verified unless faith in our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ is taken along with them, nor can our faith in the Christ be strengthened in a more rational way unless the proofs concerning him that are confirmed by the prophets from the beginning are used. Hence one might reasonably find fault with the Jews who do not accept the Christ, and with the heretics who reject the prophecies, for falling into incoherence. For the former, accepting the prophecies as God's, convict them as false and leave them unfulfilled, because they cannot accept the outcomes in which the prophecies were fulfilled in the Christ; while the latter, though confessing the Christ, hold a faith in him that is without foundation and without proof, since they do not make use of the wonderful prophets of God who bear witness beforehand to what concerns him. We, however, confirm the prophecies by the coming of the Christ and the coming by the prophecies, and so we present the clear and firm truth with proofs that cannot be refuted. So much by way of preface; let us go on to the matter before us.

1| From the Proverbs. 1. The whole book of Proverbs seems to be spoken in the person of Wisdom, who at one point lays down an ethical way of life, at another voices the words of other characters; at one time puts forward riddles, and at another teaches certain things about herself and instructs us about her own divine dignity. From these we shall gather the passages by which we learn that Wisdom is a divine living being, in every way virtuous in nature, the same as the second cause of the universe, next after the first God, the Word who was with God in the beginning, and the providence of God that directs and administers all things and reaches even to the affairs on earth, which was created before all essence and subsistence, being the beginning of the ways of the whole creation. The passages, as if from Wisdom herself, are spoken in this way: "I, Wisdom, made counsel and knowledge dwell, and I called upon understanding. The fear of the Lord hates evil, insolence and arrogance and the ways of wicked men; and I have hated the crooked ways of evil men. Counsel is mine, and security; I am understanding, and strength is mine. Through me kings reign, and the rulers write righteousness. Through me the great are magnified. I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find grace. Wealth and glory are mine, and the possession of many things, and righteousness. It is better to feed on me than on gold and much precious stone; and my fruits are better than choice silver." I walk in the ways of righteousness, and I move about in the midst of the paths of justice, that I may apportion substance to those who love me, and fill their treasuries with good things. If I report to you what happens day by day, I will remember to number the things from eternity. The Lord created me, the beginning of his ways, for the sake of his works; before the age he founded me; at the start, before he made the earth, and before he made the depths, before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were set firm, and before all of the hills he begets me. The Lord made regions and uninhabited lands, and the inhabited peaks of what is under heaven. When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him; when he set apart his own throne upon the winds; when he made the clouds above strong, and set the springs of what is under heaven as secure, when he set for the sea its limit, and the waters will not pass beyond his command; when he made the foundations of the earth strong, I was beside him, fitting things together. I was she in whom he delighted day by day, and I rejoiced in his presence at every time; when he rejoiced, having completed the inhabited world, and rejoiced among the sons of men. These things Wisdom teaches about herself; and who she is, the holy apostle instructs us, saying, "Christ, God’s power and God’s wisdom"; and again, "who became wisdom for us from God." So it is Christ who says the things spoken above; he is the Wisdom and the Word of God, through whom all things came to be; For "In the beginning the Word was; and the Word was in God's presence; and the Word was God. All things came to be through him"; and, "in him all things were created, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, whether visible or invisible," according to the apostle. And just as, by one conception, he is styled Word of God, and by another, Life, and again, Truth and the true Light, and all the other titles the divine Scriptures give him, in the same way he is also called Wisdom, being the servant of the Father for the providence and ordering of all things.

2| From Proverbs. 2. "In the light of the king's son there is life; and those who are acceptable to him are like a late cloud." And in whom else, the son of what other king, is there life in the light, if not in the Word of God, who is the son of God, the King of all? For he himself is the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world; and in that light there is life, according to the word of the gospel which says, "In him was life, and that life was the light of human beings." And those acceptable to him, whom we take to be his apostles and disciples, have become like a late cloud at the end of the days and at the consummation of the age, watering, with the very spiritual rain of godly teaching, the land that was once desert and waterless, that is, the church of the nations.

3| From Proverbs. 3. "The man says these things to those who believe in God, and I cease. For I am the most foolish of all men, and the understanding of men is not in me. But God taught me wisdom, and I have known the knowledge of holy things. Who has gone up into heaven and come down? Who has gathered the winds in his bosom? Who has wrapped up water in a garment? Who has held the ends of the earth? What is his name, or what is the name of his children?" And who could the other man be who says these things, if not our Lord who became man, either on account of our follies, which he took upon himself, or on account of the foolishness of the proclamation, which is wiser and stronger than the wisdom of men? Here he says, "For I am the most foolish of all men," and in the Psalm numbered 68, "You have known my folly." And he says too that "the understanding of men is not in me," as though boasting of it as a feat of manliness that he had none of the understanding of those who have been compared to the senseless beasts and made like them, or of those whose wisdom God made foolish, who think nothing beyond the things of the earth, such as are by nature proper to flesh and matter; whence indeed they are attested as being "wise in their generation," in that they seek and think only the things of earth, "from youth" turning to "evil things." In the man spoken of there was no human understanding at all, but, clearly, there was a divine, superhuman one; and therefore he adds, saying, "But God taught me wisdom, and I have known the knowledge of holy things." Then he says in the form of a question, "Who has gone up into heaven and come down?", as if rousing us to inquire after the one who teaches such great things about himself, of whom the following words, which call for a treatment of their own, are also spoken. Now the divine apostle, teaching us about him, says, "The one who descended into the lower parts of the earth is himself also the one who ascended above the heavens." He puts his having descended first, and then, bringing in his having ascended, he speaks, next, of his having descended; since after the resurrection from the dead he said to Mary, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father," and after this he appeared to the disciples over forty days, living with them. Clearly he had ascended to the Father, and again had come down for the sake of the dispensation which he was accomplishing. Therefore it is also said, "Ascending on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts among men." And what are these, if not the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which he brought down from heaven? Therefore here too, in Aquila, it is said, "Who has gone up into heaven and brought down?" And he himself has also held the ends of the earth, so that his word went out into all the earth, and his words to the ends of the inhabited world. And whoever has been given a word of knowledge will know how the rest of what is in this passage should be understood; and it urges us to inquire what his name is, and the name of his children. To this we shall answer, having received it from the fact of the matter, that his name is Jesus, which is interpreted "salvation of God"; his kin according to the flesh gave him this name according to the message of Gabriel, the angel having also supplied the reason for such a title: "for he will save," he says, "his people from their sins." And the name of his children, to whom he said, "Little children, I am with you yet a little while," and of those after them in all the churches, his sons and grandsons and descendants, what else could it be but the blessed name of Christian?

4| From Ecclesiastes. 4. "A poor but wise child is better than an old and foolish king, who did not know how to take heed any longer. For he will come out of the house of prisoners to reign, for even in his kingdom he became poor. I saw all the living who walk under the sun with the second young man who will stand up in his place. There is no end to all the people, to all who were before them; and even those who come after will not rejoice in him; for this too is vanity and a striving of the spirit." Since Christ, being the wisdom of God, became poor for our sake, though he was rich, I think the words "a poor but wise child is better than an old and foolish king" are said of him; and the king I take to be the devil, grown old in days of evil, who is a king of those who are ruled by the sin that he works in them, and foolish indeed because he has been deprived of virtuous understanding that accords with God. But the aforesaid good and wise child, coming out of the house of prisoners, that is, the earthly place or the regions in Hades, by the resurrection from the dead, was established by the Father as king upon Zion, the heavenly mountain of God, and in his very kingdom became poor, not counting equality with God a thing to be seized, but humbling himself and descending from the highest glory on account of those who could not take in the wealth of his wisdom; and the second young man who is said to stand up in his place I take to be the antichrist, with whom, the text says, he saw all who live and walk under the sun; and who could these be, if not all who busy themselves with what is called, under the sun, "vanity of vanities"?

5| From Ecclesiastes. 5. "This too I saw, wisdom under the sun, and it is great to me. A small city, and few men in it, and a great king comes against it and surrounds it and builds great siege-works against it; and he finds in it a poor and wise man, and he will save the city by his wisdom, and no man remembered that poor man. And I said, Wisdom is better than might; yet the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard." Since here too the one who wages the war is said to be a king, and the one who saves the city besieged by him is a poor and wise man; and since in the preceding chapter also it is said, "A poor and wise man is better than an old and foolish king," we took the foolish king to be the devil, and the poor and wise man to be the Word of God, who emptied himself and became poor for us. For this reason we marked the passages before us, supposing that the warring king portrayed here is none other than the foolish king spoken of there; and likewise that the one here who saves the besieged city by his wisdom is the poor and wise man there, whom we said was Christ; who delivered the small city, that is, the earthly place, which is very small in comparison with the whole world, and those in it, who are few compared with the multitude of all rational beings (over all the nations, as a drop from a bucket), when they were besieged by the kingdom of the devil, who encircles the earthly region and those in it on every side and builds great siege-works against it: the principalities, the powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, together with the spiritual forces of wickedness. No other than the poor and wise man alone, our Savior and Lord, who emptied himself and for our sake became poor in the riches of his own mercy, overthrew him, and having overthrown him saved by his wisdom the small city, which in another interpretation is quite reasonably the church, and the few who are in it; since the way that leads to life is narrow and constricted, and few are those who go through it. And those who see so great a dispensation say, "Wisdom is better than might"; clearly the might of the enemies. But also, he says, "no man remembered that poor man": for it was God who remembered him through the prophets and proclaimed beforehand the things about his coming among men; but of those who were worked upon by the wisdom of the rulers of this age, not one ever remembered him, since they were not able to know the mystery hidden before the ages, of the dispensation of the Word of God in his becoming man. In addition to this it is said that "the poor man's wisdom is despised": for God was pleased, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe; and "his words," he says, "are not heard": for it is not for everyone to hear the words of the Savior, but only for those who have ears to hear; for the gospel of Christ is veiled, though not to his own disciples, for it is veiled to those who are perishing.

6| From the Song of Songs, 6. The whole book has as its subject a bride's love for the bridegroom, who confesses that she has been wounded by love for him, while he in turn confesses that she alone out of many is his perfect dove, beyond the so-called queens and concubines and maidens. Now those of the circumcision, who are persuaded that this writing too is one of the twenty-two divinely inspired Scriptures entrusted to them, I do not know whether they could point to anything said in it worthy of divine inspiration, imagining nothing more than the obvious sense of the passages. But the one who is able to remove the veil that lies over this Scripture also, and to turn to the Lord, who is the Spirit, and with unveiled face to behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord in these things too, will see in it the mysteries that concern the spiritual bride, that is, clearly, the church of Christ, and what is said about the perfect bridegroom of such a bride, and about the difference between his queens and concubines and maidens, and all the other more secret lessons hidden in the book, which have already received the fullest clarity in the works in which the most industrious interpreter of the divine Scriptures wrote his commentaries.

7| From Job, 7. It is Job who says of the Lord, among other things: "He who speaks to the sun and it does not rise, and seals up the stars; who alone stretched out the heaven, and walks on the sea as on firm ground"; and again, "who is to subdue the great sea monster." Since, then, it does not belong to a great conception of the God of the universe to suppose that he, who fills all things, walks on a sea able to hold his so great magnitude, it remains to understand these things of the Word; by whose power Jesus son of Nave, being his type, spoke to the sun and it stood still at Gabaon; and again, at the time of his passion, as though by some divine command, the sun was darkened over the whole earth. And he is the one who stretched out the heaven, who also walked on the sea as on firm ground when, having become man, he performed the wonders, as is recorded in the gospels. But if the passages in this place are referred altogether to the Word of God, it follows that we should take to be about him not only the words we have set out, but everything said by Job in this section; for he alone subdued the great sea monster, when he loosed the pangs of death and brought to nothing the truly great dragon, the devil, who had once been strong enough to swallow the souls of men, like the sea monster that swallowed Jonah, but was subdued afterward by the one who wrestled him down, and brought forth again those whom he had swallowed long ago, as the beast that gave Jonah back safe. Here the prophecy is fulfilled which says, "Death, having prevailed, swallowed," and again, "God has wiped away every tear from every face"; and we say this on account of our Savior and Lord, who subdued what is here called the great sea monster.

8| From Job, 8. The Lord, in his address to Job, going through the works of his providence and dispensation, says: "Taking earth, clay, did you form a living creature, and set a speaking one on the earth? Did you take away the light from the ungodly, and break the arms of the proud? Did you come to the source of the sea, and walk about in the tracks of the abyss? Are the gates of death opened to you in fear, and did the gatekeepers of Hades cower when they saw you?" The Lord says these things to Job about himself, as though no one else but he alone could accomplish such things. For who is he who took earth and formed a living creature, if not God, who took dust from the ground and formed man? At the same time we learn from this that the one who formed man is himself also the one who went down to the lower parts of the earth, and into what is called its heart, which I now suppose to be named "the source of the sea"; and also the one who walked in the tracks of the sea, to whom alone, in fear, the gates of death were opened, since he could not possibly be held by it, and whom the gatekeepers of Hades cowered at the sight of, seeing the victory and the sting and the pangs of death destroyed through him; and perhaps it was to these gatekeepers of the gates of death spoken of here that certain divine powers said, at the time of the passion and of the descent of our Savior into Hades, "Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you eternal gates, and the King of glory will come in." The gates are called eternal, as I suppose, because from eternity they had been opened to no one else but him alone, who rescued and gave life to those who long before had been swallowed by death; of whom it is said here, "The gates of death are opened to you in fear, and the gatekeepers of Hades cowered when they saw you," and in Psalm 106, "for he shattered gates of bronze," which are none other, as I think, than the gates of death, "and broke iron bars," clearly the bars of the gates just mentioned. We have therefore taken these things to refer to Christ, as fitting no one else; for it is he to whom the Father gave all judgment, so that he takes away the light from the ungodly and breaks the arms of the proud. But if anyone supposes that these things are said about the God of the universe, let him consider whether it is godly to say that this God who encompasses all things, who says, "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord," whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is the earth, walked in the tracks of the sea, or even to imagine it; and what is there marvelous, or worthy of the unbegotten nature, in saying, as though it were something great, that the gates of death were opened to him? Would it befit the God of the universe to recount about himself as something great and wonderful that the gatekeepers of the people cowered when they saw him? No, I think these things are not said of him; but they can be applied, piously and without strain, to the Word of God, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, who became man and endured death and rose from the dead with divine power and the authority given him by the Father.

9| Of Job, 9. Again the Lord, in his address to Job, speaking about the dragon, says, "Are you not afraid, because he has been made ready for me?" And the dragon is none other than the devil. See, then, whether it is fitting to suppose the God of the universe says this; it would suit rather our Lord and Savior, for whom alone has been prepared the devil, who was beaten by no one else and had prevailed over almost all, whom the Word of God, stronger than all, alone subdued, according to the words, "who is to subdue the great sea monster." And having subdued him, he exhorts his disciples to take courage, saying, "Take courage; I have conquered the world." These are the passages from the poetical books after the Psalms; what remains is to gather the passages from the prophetic Scriptures, and first those from the Twelve.

10| From Hosea, 10. "For I am like a leopard to Ephraim, and like a lion to the house of Judah." Since in another place also in the same prophet the Lord says of himself, "and I will be like a leopard," it is necessary to look at what is recorded about the animal; and indeed what follows should be set beside it from the first book of Didymus' Natural Things: "The leopard is an animal not only beautiful in body, starry-spotted as it were, but since it is by nature sweet-breathed, it surpasses even the spices of the Indians in fragrance. Until it is hungry it stays in its den, wishing to be a kind of house-keeper; but when it desires to partake of food, it goes out and walks alone; and the other beasts, captured by the fragrance about its body, follow, charmed; and it, looking sideways with its eyes, picks out the suitable beast to be taken, and leaps on it and holds it." Such are the facts about the nature of the animal; how these might be transferred to the power of the divine Word, and the fragrance breathing from it, would be a long thing to tell now. The passage should be set beside this for those of the circumcision who, in some slander and abuse, say that our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ was born of a leopard; and perhaps, having received this by some tradition that signified something more mystical, they fail to grasp its meaning, because they do not dwell on the prophetic text before us, in which the Lord himself names himself a leopard.

11| From the same prophet, 11. "And destruction will rise up among your people, and all the walled places of your temple will be gone; as the ruler Salamon from the house of Jeroboam, in the days of war, dashed a mother to the ground with her children, so the house of Israel will do to you because of your wickedness. For Israel was an infant, and I loved him, and I called his children back from Egypt. As I called them back, so they went away from my face." Instead of "and I called his children back from Egypt," Aquila, following the Hebrew, gave: "Out of Egypt I called back my son." We marked the passage out of necessity, since Matthew sets out the prophecy word for word, saying that it was fulfilled with great exactness in our Savior: "Having been warned, Joseph took Mary and her son; and he returned out of Egypt to the land of Israel." See, then, whether in Aquila too, who says, "At dawn the king of Israel was silenced, for Israel was a boy and I loved him; and from Egypt I called my son," the casting off of the kingdom of Israel is clearly shown, which, standing until the appearing of our Savior, was cast off from that point on and silenced; so that for this reason it was said, "At dawn the king of Israel was silenced." The prophecy names "dawn" the appearing and the first rising of the divine Word then upon all men; it is possible also that "the king of Israel was silenced" is foretold about Herod; in that he was deceived by the magi at the birth of our Savior, which happened because of the Father's love for his own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is here also called Israel, as in other prophecies. At the proper time it was arranged that he go off to Egypt with Joseph and his mother, when need called for the king who plotted against him, clearly Herod, to be silenced; and again, when this man had died, he is called back, in keeping with the prophecy in hand. But if someone refers these things to the Jewish people, saying that they were spoken of the people of Israel of the circumcision, let him attend to the sequence of the text. For it says these things after having said earlier, as if to Jerusalem herself, "and destruction will rise up among your people, and all your walled places will be gone"; and what, it says, such a ruler suffered in the war that came upon him, in which they dashed a mother to the ground with her children, the like I will do to you yourselves because of your wickedness, house of Israel, who were also cast away together with their king, and suffered all this; "because Israel was a boy, and I loved him, and I called my son from Egypt." Let him who wishes show what sequence the passage has on that reading. But just as in countless other prophecies Christ is called Jacob and Israel, so he is now: since, it says, this one became obedient to me, assumed the form of a servant, and became a child beloved by me, having carried out my whole counsel, for this reason I called him back from the intelligible Egypt, into which he went down as man, as a true and beloved son; but you, to whom the word is addressed, together with your kingdom, I will deliver to ruin and destruction. So says the prophecy; and it is plain how, from the times of our Savior, when Jerusalem was besieged, the kingdom of the Jews, which had stood until then, was pulled down and thrown away altogether, so that this prophecy too, among the others, has been fulfilled.

12| From the same Hosea, 12. "I will not abandon Ephraim to be wiped out; for I am God, and not man, the Holy One in you, and I will not enter into a city. I will go after the Lord." The same one who said, "for I am God," adds, "I will go after the Lord." And who else could be God going after the Lord, if not the Word of God, following the will of the Father? He teaches us also that he should not be thought, because of his becoming man, to have become a mere man like one of the righteous and holy ones of old. And he says that he will not "enter into a city," showing that he did not live a common, human way of life, which he trains his disciples also to do, saying, "Do not go off on the way of the nations, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans."

13| Of Joel, nothing clear. From Amos, 13. "I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you became like a brand plucked out of the fire, and not even so did you turn back to me, says the Lord." Here too the Lord himself says, as though of another, "as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah"; and in Genesis also the divine Scripture preserves the two persons, saying, "And the Lord rained down upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord"; from which the right belief of the church concerning the Father and the Son is made evident.

14| From the same, 14. "Prepare to call upon your God, Israel. For behold, he who makes the thunder firm, and creates the spirit, and declares to men his Christ, who makes dawn and mist, and treads on the high places of the earth: the Lord God Almighty is his name." Through these words too the coming of Christ among men is clearly prophesied; and each phrase, at leisure, would receive a more exact explanation.

15| Of Obadiah, 15. "Vision of Obadiah: Thus says the Lord God to Idumea: I have heard a report from the Lord, and he has sent out an encircling force to the nations." Since here too the Lord God heard a report from the Lord, we reasonably marked the passage.

16| From Jonah, 16. We found no prophecy about Christ in particular in the book before us; but since, to the generation asking the Savior for a sign, he said that no other sign would be given it than the sign of Jonah the prophet, adding, "For just as Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights," for this reason we have necessarily marked this Scripture too among the testimonies about Christ.

17| From Micah, 17. "For see, the Lord, the Lord, is going out from his place, and will come down, and will tread on the heights of the earth, and the mountains will be shaken beneath him, and the valleys will melt like wax before the fire." We have supposed these things to be said about the second coming of Christ.

18| From the same, 18. "Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob, and you remnant of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all that is straight, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with injustice; her leaders judged for gifts, and her priests answered for pay, and her prophets divined for silver, and leaned upon the Lord, saying, Is the Lord not among us? No evil will come upon us. Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will be like a hut in an orchard, and the mountain of the house like a wooded grove. And in the last of the days the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, ready on the tops of the mountains, and it will be lifted up above the hills; and peoples will come to it, and many nations will travel to it and say, Come, let us ascend to the Lord's mountain, to the house of Jacob's God; and they will point out his way to us, and we shall proceed along his paths; for from Zion a law will issue, and the Lord's word from Jerusalem; and he will judge between many peoples, and will reprove a mighty people even far away; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles; and nation will no longer lift up sword against nation, and they will no longer learn to make war." Having said that, because of the impieties of the Jewish people, Mount Zion will be plowed like a field, and the city formerly held to be holy, Jerusalem, will be like a hut in an orchard, the text next prophesies about another mountain of the Lord, which existed already at the time of the prophecy, though it was not manifest to ordinary people, since it was to appear in the last of the days and be lifted up above the hills and the mountains. To this new mountain, the text foretells, there will come, no longer that Israel, but many peoples and nations, saying, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord"; and not only to the mountain of the Lord, but also "into the house of Jacob's God," which is clearly different from the one in Jerusalem; for it had said a little before that this one would be laid waste and be like a hut in an orchard. And in keeping with the laying waste of Mount Zion and Jerusalem, and the appearing of other things in their place, it is said that another law, different from the one given by Moses from Mount Horeb, will go forth from the new mountain, which is itself called Zion by the same name as the former; and further, the word of the Lord with the new law is said to proceed from the new Jerusalem, which it called above the house of the God of Jacob; the Word, going forth to all the nations, is foretold as judging between many peoples and rebuking a mighty people, and as benefiting so greatly, by his own judgment and rebuke, those who are rebuked, that they change from their former holy and warlike condition to the quiet and peaceful [….]. This is the prophecy; and one may consider whether [….] the coming of our Savior, on account of those who built [….] with the blood of the prophets and of Christ himself and of [….] his; whom the [….] of the Jews killed in Jerusalem itself [….]; on account of those who [….] the rest, as many as [….] in the prophecy, [….] Mount Zion, as never at any other time [….] Jerusalem has been besieged; after the desolation of which the [….] and the heavenly Mount Zion of God, of which [….] were shadow and types and patterns, have been made manifest to all who have come [….] to God through Christ.

19| From the same, 19. "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, are too small to be counted among the thousands of Judah; from you shall proceed for me one who will lead, to be a ruler over Israel; and his goings out come from the beginning, from the days of the ages." [….] Through these words proofs concerning Christ are set before us: one bearing on the error of Marcion and the other heretics [….]; the other on that of Artemon and the Samosatene [….] and of as many of the Ebionites as have supposed that he did not exist before the incarnation [….]. For those who do not confess him [….] God the prophetic word clearly refutes, [….] that "his goings out are from the beginning, even from the days of [….]"; and against those who have gone astray after Marcion and the other [….] and do not confess him [….] birth, nor that he was known by those of the Maker [….], one must set beside it the prophesied [….] of his birth [….], clearly [….] down to this day even by the natives themselves [….], as from a tradition of the place in Bethlehem where [….] was born, and [….] attested by the holy evangelists themselves; and the passage must also be brought against the Jews [….] to show whoever he may be [….] the one prophesied, as unfulfilled [….] according to them; and clearly the divine [….] prediction is shown to be false; but the saving and evangelical word of Christ was established as ruler of the intelligible Israel, properly of the Jew in secret and of every virtuous and discerning soul, Israel [….] being understood.

20| Of Nahum, nothing clear. And of Habakkuk. From Zephaniah, 20. "Therefore wait for me, says the Lord, until the day of my rising up for a witness; for my judgment is for gatherings of nations, to receive kings." Through these words too, I think, the resurrection of Christ from the dead is made known; and when it has happened, it is prophesied that the gatherings of the church of the nations will be established everywhere; and perhaps also [….] of his second coming, and of the universal [….] of all, the passages in this place might be taken.

21| Of Haggai, nothing clear. From Zechariah, 21. "[….] Almighty: After glory he has sent me to the [….] that [….] you"; then after a few words he adds, saying, "You will come to recognize that the Lord Almighty has sent me." The one who says "[….] me" is the Lord Almighty; and likewise the one [….], being [….] of the one sent, is named Lord Almighty [….]. Reasonably, then, [….] among the passages on the Father and the Son the text, that the [….] of God is also Lord Almighty, just as he was also styled God through the prophets.

22| From the same, 22. "[….] and rejoice, daughter of Zion, for behold, I am coming, and [….] I will take up my dwelling in the midst of you, says the Lord. And [….] many will flee for refuge to the Lord in that day, and they will be [….] people, and will encamp in the midst of you, and [….] you will know [….] Almighty has sent me to you." And who [….] he who says these things and confesses that he has been sent by the Almighty, if not the Word of God, sent by the Father for the salvation of the human race? who [….] the things set before us [….] heavenly Zion, of which the mountain on earth was [….] a pattern; and he addresses himself also to the church of the nations, [….] to her the calling of those who will be saved through him [….] who will be reigned over by him in her.

23| From the same, 23. "And [….] Jesus the great priest, standing before the [….] of the Lord, and the devil stood at his right hand, to oppose [….] him." And after a few words: "And he said to those standing before the [….] of him, saying, Take the filthy garments off him; and he said, Behold, I have taken away your iniquities, and clothe [….] robe, and put a clean turban on his head." And again, after a few words, it is said to him: "Hear now, [….] great priest, you and your neighbors who sit before you; for they are men who watch for portents, for behold, I am bringing my servant Dawn." And again after other words: "And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Take from the captivity from the rulers." And after a few words: "And you shall take silver and make crowns, and put them on the head of Jesus son of Josedek the great priest, and you shall say to him, Thus says the Lord Almighty: Behold, a man, Dawn is his name, and from beneath him he will rise, and he shall build the Lord's house, and receive virtue, and will sit and rule on his throne, and the priest will be at his right hand, and there will be a peaceful counsel between the two. And the crown will be for those who endure." Since the marvelous apostle named our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, there might reasonably be referred to him [….] also the one in the prophecy honored with the same title and the same dignity, and [….] styled in this way; this man, then, the Lord showed to the prophet [….] clothed in filthy [….], hinting at the descent of our Savior to our captivity, in which [….] to proclaim release to captives, since, having taken our sins upon himself, he wore the filthy garments he had from us; and the Father commands him to put these off and take up the divine garments of the Godhead, worthy of the high priesthood in heaven. And since these things, according to the history too, happened typically, as is likely, in the case of [….] the Jesus of that time, the text, from another beginning, addressing both the man Jesus himself and those with him [….] watchers of portents (by this name, I think, are called those deemed worthy of the spiritual [….]), says, "Behold, I am bringing the [….] Dawn." And a little further down, after placing the crowns on the head of Jesus himself, it adds, saying: "Thus says the Lord Almighty: Behold, a man, Dawn is his name; and from beneath [….] he will rise and will build the house of the Lord and the [….]" and the things concerning Christ might be referred to him, once they have [….] received the fitting exposition; yet to those of the circumcision also [….] [….] to set beside it. For they could not show at all that a prophet had arisen from the [….] Persian kingdom and the times of the prophecy [….], still less John and our Lord Jesus Christ. Who, then, is the one prophesied, it is time to say [….]. But if they say that these things refer to Jesus the son of Josedek, it must be shown them that what is said does not fit him at all; for when was his name called Dawn? And why is he deemed worthy of this title? And how will it fit him, "and he will sit and rule on his throne"? And most of all, "and the priest will be at his right hand"? For if he himself was the great priest, who could the one at his right hand be, being another priest besides him? And it clearly teaches that the one called Dawn is other than that man; for the text says to the same Lord and those [….] about him: "Hear now, Jesus the great priest, you and your neighbors; behold, I am bringing my servant Dawn." If, then, these things are said to him, how could there still be room to think that "Behold, a man, Dawn [….] to him" is said about him? Clearly, then, two persons are set forth through these words: one to whom the divine speaks, and another about whom it prophesies; and this one might, beyond dispute, be referred to Christ, the true son of [….] is interpreted "Iao righteousness"; and this would be the Father, [….] placing the crowns of victory on Christ [….] calls, on account of his [….] teaching that has dawned upon men; and the first and great high [….] his firstborn Word, being God and Lord of [….], and priest of the first and unbegotten Godhead; and it says that he is [….] of the man whom he took up, [….] being styled great priest on account of the union with the only-begotten of God. Though the passages in this place need much explanation, even this is enough for the present subject.

24| From the same, 24. "Rejoice [….] daughter of Zion, proclaim, daughter of Jerusalem; behold, the [….] comes to you, righteous and saving; he is gentle and [….] a beast of burden and a young colt. And he will destroy chariots from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and the bow of war will be destroyed, and a multitude and peace from the nations; and he will rule from the sea, and from rivers through the outlets of the earth." The daughter of Zion, whom the text commands to rejoice, is every soul that belongs to the intelligible and heavenly Zion; or else the church of the nations established on earth through Christ; and likewise again the daughter of Jerusalem is the one that bears kinship with the heavenly Jerusalem, such as was the one Paul speaks of: "the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother." To such souls, then, the text proclaims beforehand that Christ of God will come, seated on a beast of burden and a young colt; the human nature, which he took up when he came, being understood in this way; with which he destroyed every warlike power from every soul of the church that is able to bear holy fruits, Ephraim being taken to mean fruit-bearing, and Jerusalem, in the Greek tongue, a vision of peace. And having destroyed the evil demons who formerly held sway over mankind, he brought countless people from all the nations formerly subject to them under the godly yoke of his teaching. This is according to the sense; and literally also Christ, having become man and fulfilling in the body the prophecies about him, set an end to this as well, when, according to the evangelist, he told his disciples: "Go into the village opposite, and you will find a donkey and a colt tied; untie it and bring it; and if anyone says anything to you, say, The Lord has need of them"; and they went off and did just as he had commanded them. This being so, the passages must be set beside those who imagine that what is set before us will happen only bodily and in a Jewish way at the coming of Christ; and it must be shown how, at the coming of our Savior, also in the body [….] with the others the prophecy that says, "and he will destroy chariots from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem." The divine and heavenly power of Christ, by an unspeakable working, after the [….] plot against him, destroyed Jerusalem itself together with the [….], with the warlike power that was in them; then [….] the people in it, often called Ephraim, [….] commandment, multiplying horses in Jerusalem and chariots [….], on account of the battle lines in the wars [….] [….] having become horses, [….] like the senseless beasts, all of whom the coming of our Savior plainly destroyed [….] at any rate the saving coming, when those had been destroyed, [….] perhaps a multitude from all the nations received the [….] in their souls; God having begun to rule, and of the mastery [….] of the angelic word over the whole inhabited world, according to the [….] prophecy of the divine Word.

25| From the same Zechariah, 25. "And I will make them strong in the Lord their God, and in the name [….] they will boast, says the Lord." Again the Lord, the Word of God, promises to strengthen those who are worthy, in the Lord their God, meaning God and his own Father. Therefore let this passage also be marked among those on the Father and the Son.

26| From the same, 26. "And the Canaanites will know the sheep that are kept for me, that it is a word of the Lord. And I will say to them, If it is good in your sight, give my wages, or refuse; and they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver; and they threw them into the Lord's house, into the furnace. And I threw away the second staff [….] [….] to scatter the covenant between Judah and between Israel." And what, of the things [….] in the case of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, was not foreknown and foretold by the holy prophets of God? [….] for his birth from a virgin, and the [….] of his birth [….], and the root from which he was born according to the flesh; and the [….] wonders at his coming were deemed worthy of the writing of the divine Spirit through the prophets from of old [….]; and above all they declared beforehand his death and its manner, not leaving out [….] even the scourgings he endured, the spittings, the blows and the insults; but they also disclosed the one of his disciples who betrayed him to those who plotted against him; By name, at any rate, the divine Spirit branded him through Jeremiah, saying: "The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, with a point of diamond." You would find these words in the Hebrew itself and in the other translators, differing from the Seventy; and in various Psalms you could learn what is made clear about him; and now no less, through the text before us, the divine Scripture foretells clearly even the number of the silver which Judas took when he betrayed the teacher to those who plotted against him. The passage before us might be spoken in the person of Christ; and those who plotted against him, whom elsewhere the word of prophecy calls rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, it here names Canaanites because of their likeness to the Canaanites. Having said, then, "and the Canaanites will know," the prophecy adds, teaching us whom it means to indicate, and says: "the sheep that are kept for me." And what were these sheep, formerly kept for the Lord, if not the people of the circumcision? These the text now names Canaanites, and as if in the person of Christ it adds, "And I will say to them" the words that are written, which he might say to those who plotted against him, as asking from them, on account of the benefits he had conferred on them, wages, that is, faith in him and a life in keeping with it; for so I understand "give my wages"; but they, according to what he said of them elsewhere ("In return for my loving, they slandered me, but I prayed; and they set evils against me in return for good, and hatred in return for my love"), weighed out thirty pieces of silver and gave them to the betrayer, as though valuing him at that much in their most impious judgment. But since fire will test what sort of work each one's is, for this reason the Lord commands them to be cast into the furnace, that is, into the fire of judgment and punishment; and who are "them" but those who plotted against him? "And see," he says, "if it is approved," clearly meaning what was done against him by them; and he says that they will be tested in the fire, in the way the Lord himself was tested for their sake through his coming in the flesh and his passion; for in truth he became man first of all, and suffered for the salvation of the sheep of the house of Israel that were lost. Next after these things, the text, signifying their casting-off after the passion of our Savior, says, "And I threw away the second staff." And to teach what this is, it adds the measuring-line, of which it is said, "the measuring-line of his inheritance, Israel." It makes this plainer by adding "to scatter the former covenant of God, between Judah and between Israel"; and it is clearly shown that from the times of our Savior the whole worship according to the law was taken away, and from then until now has been brought down.

27| Of the same Zechariah. 27. "Sword, awake against my shepherd, and against the man who is his fellow citizen, says the Lord Almighty; strike the shepherd, and let the sheep be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the shepherds." Since the evangelist, taking from here "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered," taught that it came to completion at the time of the saving passion, when the disciples left him and were scattered, for this reason we too have marked the passage, which, needing much examination, we shall put off to a suitable time.

28| Of the same. 28. "And the Lord will go forth, and will array himself against those nations, as on a day of battle; and the Lord my God will be present, and all the holy ones with him." We marked these words also, supposing them to be said about the second coming of Christ.

29| Of the Angel. 29. "My will is not in you, says the Lord Almighty, and from your hands I will not receive a sacrifice. Because from the risings of the sun even to its settings my name has been glorified among the nations, and incense is brought in every place to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord Almighty; but you profane it." Just as the Word of the God of the universe is named in the divine Scriptures his hand and right hand and arm and power, so the same is also styled the name of God. That this divine name has been glorified among the nations from the rising of the sun to its setting is plain to everyone from those everywhere who are called by the title of Christ; who also in every place offer to God spiritual incense and, through prayers, the pure, bloodless, rational sacrifice, through the true high priest. And since these serve in this manner, God says he will turn away from the bodily sacrifices of the former people; and so, plainly, after the coming of Christ the prophecy has reached its end in both respects: in the casting off of the former people, with sacrifice and libation taken away from them according to Daniel, and in the turning of the nations to the God of the universe.

30| Of the same. 30. "The covenant with him was of life and peace, and I gave him fear, to fear me, and to shrink before my name. A law of truth was in his mouth, and injustice was not found on his lips; in peace he walked straight with me, and he turned many back from injustice. For the lips of a priest will guard knowledge, and they will seek the law from his mouth, for he is a messenger of the Lord Almighty." We have set these out as supposing that they fit the testimonies about Christ. For the covenant of life and peace was with him; and the spirit of fear, with the rest, rested on him, according to the words said in Isaiah, "and the spirit of the fear of God will fill him"; and the law of truth, not the typical law, was in his mouth, and "injustice was not found on his lips": for according to Isaiah, "he did no sin, nor was deceit found on his lips"; and being with the Father's power, "in peace he walked straight with him," leading many who formerly did not know God to conversion; and from him, as being high priest and guarding the knowledge about all things, they have sought and will seek the divine law, those who care for the knowledge that is his; for he himself is the messenger of the great counsel, serving and announcing to every created being the will of the Father.

31| Of the same. 31. "Behold, I send out my messenger, and he will look out a way before my face, and suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his own temple, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire; behold, he is coming, says the Lord Almighty. And who will endure the day of his entrance? Or who will stand at his appearing? For he goes in like the fire of a furnace, and like the lye of fullers; and he will sit refining and purifying like silver and gold." The matters of the second coming of Christ are prophesied also through these words, when, [….] sent out by the God and Father of the universe, the Christ of God himself, now called the messenger of the covenant, will look out a way before the face of the Father, that is, will prepare beforehand and make ready the souls of men for the Father's kingdom; when, having built up from rational and living stones the spiritual temple, that is, the church, the Lord and God the Word himself will come, together with the messenger of the covenant himself, into the temple that has been indicated. Then, as announcing his second coming, the Word says, as to sinners, "Behold, the Lord Almighty is coming; and who will endure the day of his entrance? Or who will stand at his appearing?" and what follows; to which one must give careful attention, as being said by the Lord Almighty himself about another; and those of the circumcision must be made to stop, if they have anyone to name as the lord indicated here, and the messenger of the covenant with him, of whom the Lord Almighty says, "Behold, he is coming," and the rest; through which, in our view, the second coming of Christ is announced; who, being the Word of God, will come and enter into each soul, judging each one concerning what he has done in his life, washing out and, like gold, smelting by fire, and purifying the ruling faculties of all. For the Father has given all judgment to the Son, according to the word that says also in the Psalms, "O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king's son; to judge your people in righteousness, and your poor in judgment"; where the Godhead, God the Word himself, is proclaimed king, and the man he took up is the king's son.

32| Of the same Angel. 32. "And for those who fear my name the sun of righteousness will rise, and healing in its wings." The sun of righteousness is the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world; who is said to rise only for those who fear the name of his Father; for to those who are not such he threatens to set, according to the words said in one of the prophets, "and the sun will set upon the prophets who lead my people astray." These are the passages from the Twelve Prophets; but since we propose to include those from Isaiah, because of their number, in a treatise of their own, come, let us pass on and examine those from the other great prophets.

33| From Jeremiah. 33. "Lord, make it known to me, and I shall know; then I saw their practices. But I, like a harmless lamb led to be sacrificed, did not know; they plotted against me, saying, Come, let us put wood into his bread, and wipe him out from the land of the living, and his name will no longer be remembered." Our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, according to the prophecy in Isaiah, "was led like a sheep to slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent"; and according to the one in hand, "like a harmless lamb led to be sacrificed, I did not know"; and his passion on the cross can be indicated through "Come, let us put wood into his bread, and wipe him out from the land of the living; and his name will no longer be remembered," words spoken in the person of those who plotted against him. For if his body was bread, as he himself teaches his disciples when he says, "Take, eat; this is my body," and this was the very body that was displayed on the wood at the cross, then it might reasonably be said about him, "Come, let us put wood into his bread." But if the passage in this place admits of a deeper contemplation, what has been said does no harm to that either.

34| Of the same. 34. "I have forsaken my house, I have let go my inheritance, my beloved soul I have delivered into the hands of her enemies. My inheritance has become to me like a lion in a thicket; she has given forth her voice against me; therefore I hated her. Is my inheritance to me a hyena's den, or is there a den all around her? Go, gather all the wild beasts of the field, and let them come to devour her. Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have defiled my portion, they have made my desirable portion into an impassable wilderness; it has become an utter desolation; because of me the whole land was made desolate with desolation, for there is no man who lays it to heart." This seems to be the voice of our Lord and Savior, which says of the temple in Jerusalem, "I have forsaken my house," and of the former synagogue, which once became his portion and the measuring-line of his inheritance, "I have left my inheritance," as in: "How often I wished to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Behold, your house is left to you desolate." And the very one who said, "No one takes my soul from me; I have authority to lay it down," says also, "My beloved soul I have delivered into the hands of her enemies." And for him the former inheritance became like a lion in a thicket; and it gave forth its voice against him, when, having handed him over to Pilate, they stood accusing him and all but crying out, "Take him away, take him away, crucify him"; and therefore, he says, "I hated her," because of her works worthy of hatred, and because she showed nothing worthy of love toward him. What follows, and especially "because of me the whole land was made desolate with desolation," seems to signify the complete capture and captivity of the former people that came about, on account of the Savior, after his passion, and the final laying waste of Jerusalem.

35| Of the same. 35. "Lord, my strength, and my help, and my refuge in the day of evils, to you nations will come from the end of the earth, and will say, Falsely did our fathers acquire idols, and there is no profit in them. Will a man make gods for himself? And they are not gods. Therefore, behold, I will show them at this time my hand, and I will make known to them my power, and they will know that I am the Lord. ※ The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, with a point of diamond, engraved on the breast of their heart." Having prophesied about those who through Christ have come to know the God of the universe, the text next adds about the sin of the Jewish people against the Savior, signifying that it will be indelible, according to the words set beside it with asterisks; which one might also apply to the traitor Judas, as being foreknown by name and foretold by the divine Spirit.

36| Of the same. 36. "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will raise up for David a righteous Dawn, and a king will reign and will understand, and will execute judgment and righteousness on the earth. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell in confidence, and this is the name that the Lord will call them by: Josedek among the prophets. In that day, said the Lord, I shall shatter the yoke from their neck, and burst their bonds, and they will no longer work for strangers, but they will work for the Lord their God, and I will raise up David their king for them." Similar to this, in another place of the same prophet, it is said as follows: "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will raise up for you my good word, which I spoke concerning the house of Jerusalem and concerning the house of Judah; in those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Dawn to rise for David." To which he adds next: "For thus says the Lord: A man shall not be cut off from David sitting on the throne of the house of Israel; and for the priests, the Levites: a man shall not be cut off from before me offering whole burnt offerings and sacrificing a sacrifice and making an offering all the days." And again: "Thus says the Lord: If you break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, so that day and night should not come in their season, then my covenant with David my servant will also be broken, so that he should not have a son reigning on his throne, and with the Levites, the priests who minister to me; as the host of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so I will multiply the seed of David my servant and the Levites who minister to me." And again after a few words it is said: "Thus says the Lord: If I did not appoint my covenant of day and night, the ordinances of heaven and earth, then I would also reject the seed of Jacob and of David my servant, so as not to take a ruler from his seed." And who could the Dawn raised up for David by the Lord be? The divine Word, of whom it is said in other places, "Behold, a man, Dawn is his name"; who is prophesied also to reign and to understand and to execute judgment and righteousness on the earth. And this one will also cause light to rise upon the souls sitting in darkness, according to his heavenly kingdom; and when, according to the apostle, the fullness of the nations comes in, all the true Israel will be saved with the spiritual Judah, whom the Lord will call by name, and whom he will judge worthy in Josedek, which is interpreted "the righteous ones of God." And in that day, after God has set free those just mentioned from the captivity under the devil, so that they serve no longer him but only the Lord their God, God promises to raise up for them David as king; he is none other than our Savior, who came from the seed of David, whom the Scriptures have in various places addressed also by this name. The David in the prophecy, then, understood of our Savior, is said to be the man; and the righteous Dawn, the Godhead working in him, is in other places called the sun of righteousness; since also the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world is nothing other than he. To God, therefore, he says, a man who leads and presides over his church, which is the spiritual house of Israel, will not be cut off; and the text prophesies that the priests of God in the spiritual sense will not fail either, offering spiritual incense, and the sweet-smelling, bloodless and pure sacrifice made of good works and words. For if we did not take these things so, it would be time to convict the prophecies of falsehood, since neither the throne of David in bodily form nor the typical priestly ministry still stands even now: the kings from the seed of David having ceased from the very times of Jeremiah, and the Levitical and priestly ministry not long after the coming of our Savior; from which time until now they are not even permitted to set foot in Jerusalem. And if those of the circumcision say that the seed of David has not ceased because of the one they call patriarch, they must be refuted, since they cannot show him sitting on the throne of David, and reigning on his throne, and ruling Israel; for the prophecy says these things will never cease, yet it is plainly shown that they have ceased since the times of the captivity, from which time not one king of Israel from the seed of David is shown to have reigned. And what could they say also about the priesthood, evidently abolished in the present time, which the prophecy foretells will never be cut off?

37| Of the same. 37. "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will conclude with the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant; not like the covenant that I concluded for their fathers in the day when I laid hold of their hand, to bring them forth from the land of Egypt; because they did not remain in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord; for this is the covenant that I shall conclude with the house of Israel: after those days, says the Lord, giving my laws into their mind, I will write them also on their hearts, and I will be a God to them, and they shall be a people to me; and they shall not teach each one his neighbor, and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all will know me, from their small to their great, says the Lord; for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more." Clearly the Lord foretells that in the days to come he will make a new covenant; new in that it has nothing like the old, which we have already learned was given through Moses in the wilderness. What could those of the circumcision say to this, who, attempting to look squarely at the prophecies, prefer to show them incomplete rather than to obey the truth by accepting the new covenant of the gospels of our Savior, at whose coming the first was made old, beginning to come to an end from the time when Christ came and fulfilled the law and the prophecies about him? The Lord says, then, that days will come in which he will make the new covenant, that is, the one written within the gospel books. Next the same Lord adds that after those days he will write his own laws in the very minds of those who accept the new covenant, so that they will be a people for God and he a God for them, not coming to know the Lord at all through human teaching, but as it were self-taught, or rather taught by God; and this too one may see being fulfilled in the present time. And one may see how the new covenant and the laws of the Lord have been written on the minds and hearts of those who have believed in God through Christ, if one observes among us a multitude of altogether unlettered men displaying such a virtuous and truly philosophical way of life as is not easily found among those who have practiced learning and think highly of themselves for their study of the writings.

38| From the Lamentations. 38. "The breath of our countenance, Christ the Lord, was taken captive in their corruptions; of him we said: We shall be alive among the nations, beneath his shadow." Here too the divine Spirit, naming Christ outright, foretold the plot of the Jews by the words "was taken captive in their corruptions"; and the prophets foresaw in the Spirit that they themselves would live under his shelter and shadow, and would live among the nations who were to believe in Christ and through him accept the writings of the prophets.

39| From Baruch. 39. "Who has gone up into heaven, and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds? Who has crossed over the sea, and found her, and will bring her for choice gold? There is no one who knows her way, nor anyone who considers her path. But the One who knows all things knows her; he found her by his understanding; he who established the earth for everlasting time, filled it with four-footed beasts; who sends out the light, and it goes; he called it, and it obeyed him with trembling. And the stars shone in their watches, and were glad; he called them, and they said, Here we are; they shone with gladness for the one who made them. This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him. He found every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel, loved by him; after this he appeared on the earth, and lived among men." "Who has gone up into heaven," it says, "and taken her, and brought her down," and what follows; and we are taught by the holy apostle that Jesus Christ who came down is himself also the one who went up above all the heavens; who, having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, brought it down and poured it out on the souls of those who received it; whence it is said also in the Psalms, "Going up on high you led captivity captive, you received gifts among men." Next, in the Scripture before us, the text says, "This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him." And who is this, if not the one who went up into heaven and came down? For to the question "Who has gone up into heaven?" the answer is given, "This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him"; and the words that follow make this clearer: "after this he appeared on the earth, and lived among men." Clearly, then, beside this Word of God no other will be reckoned among those who have the name of God as an acquired one; and "after this," it says, "he appeared on the earth": clearly after he had given, through the law and the prophets, the whole way of the promise; for "he found," it says, "every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel, loved by him"; then after this he appeared on the earth and lived among men.

40| From Ezekiel. 40. "Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I judge between the strong sheep and the weak sheep. You pushed with your sides and shoulders, and butted with your horns; you crushed everything that was failing. And I will save my sheep, and they will no longer be for plunder, and I will judge between ram and ram. And I will raise up for them another shepherd, and he will shepherd them, my servant David, and he will be their shepherd, and I will be their God, and David a ruler in the midst of them; I the Lord have spoken. And I will make with David a new covenant, a covenant of peace." Since in other places also we assign the prophesied David to none other than our Savior, who came from the seed of David, for this reason we have marked the passage here as well. For who else could be the one who is to shepherd the Lord's sheep after they have been judged by him, if not the only good shepherd, who did not overlook the rational sheep of his own flock being pushed and destroyed by the opposing powers, but laid down his own soul for their salvation; whose ruler God and his Father promises to appoint him after the time of judgment, making with him a covenant of peace, when, with the enemies subjected to him, the last of all, even death, which is now opposed to the Word and the wisdom and the life, will be abolished?

41| Of the same. 41. "Thus says the Lord: Behold, I take the whole house of Israel from among the nations where they went, and I will gather them into the land of Israel, and I will give them to be nations in my land, and on the mountains of Israel; and one ruler will be over them, and they will no longer be two nations, nor will they at all be divided into two kingdoms, so that they may no longer be defiled with their idols; and I will deliver them from all their lawless deeds in which they sinned, and I will cleanse them from all their sins in which they sinned, and I will cleanse them, and they will be my people, and I the Lord will be their God. And my servant David will be ruler in their midst, one shepherd of them all, for they will walk in my ordinances, and keep my judgments and do them, and they will dwell on the land which I gave to my servant Jacob, where their fathers dwelt, and they will dwell on it themselves; and David my servant will be their ruler forever. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and there will be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will set my holy things in their midst forever, and my dwelling will be among them, and they will be my people, and I will be their God. And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them, when my holy things are in their midst forever." After the gathering of the dispersion of the spiritual and true Israel, and after the finding of the sheep of the house of Israel that were lost, the fullness of the nations having entered in beforehand, then the Lord promises that he himself will be God to his people that is to be, and that he will set his servant David as ruler in the midst of them, to shepherd them and to rule over them, not for a little while and a brief time, but forever. Let those of the circumcision, then, suppose that the text promises them that man, the son of Jesse, imagining again a bodily kingdom of his, and waiting for the promises of God in perishable, earthly things unworthy of a divine promise. But let us, persuaded that what is said as about David fits neither the divine promises nor David himself, take what is said as about him to refer to the one from his seed, who came according to the flesh, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, supposing that the prophecies fit him rather than that David, as well as what is brought forward in the sacred Scriptures as if in the person of David; such as: "The Lord spoke to me: You are my Son; I have begotten you today"; and, "You will set me as head of nations," said in Psalm 17; where again it is said as in his person, "a people whom I did not know served me"; at the hearing of an ear it obeyed me." And of whom else is it fitting to suppose that God says, "He will call upon me, You are my Father," and, "I too will make him firstborn," if not of our Savior, his only-begotten Son? For what excellence beyond the other prophets and righteous men had David attained, that these things should be said of him alone, and that he should be prophesied to rise again as king and shepherd of the sheep of God? Taking all this together, and attending to the prophecy of Isaiah, which after the death of David proclaims among other things about Christ, "A rod shall go forth out of the root of Jesse, and a blossom shall rise from the root, and upon him the Spirit of God shall rest," and the words that follow, we are reasonably persuaded that these passages too, though prophesied as about David, are said about the same. For Christ of God alone, being styled David also by a transfer of the name, has been shown to be the good shepherd, having become leader and savior of the flock and church of God; who is prophesied to be established by the Father as king over all the intelligible Israel after the Lord turns back the captivity of his people.

42| From Daniel. 42. It is Daniel who says: "And in the times of those kings the God of heaven will raise up another kingdom, which shall be forever and shall not be destroyed, and this kingdom will leave no other nation, but will strike and wipe out the kingdoms, and itself will stand forever, just as you saw a stone cut out of a mountain without hands, and it crushed the potsherd, the iron, and the bronze, and the silver, and the gold." This is also made clear about the kingdom of Christ that will come at the consummation of the ages; for the stone cut out of the mountain without hands would be a symbol of the Word of God, who in other prophecies is also called a stone, as in "Behold, I lay in Zion a chosen, precious cornerstone," and, "the stone which the builders rejected, this became the head of the corner." The present passage says that this stone, having brought down and crushed the kingdoms of the world and the principalities and the powers and the world-rulers, will hold the kingdom of the holy ones forever.

43| Of the same. 43. King Nebuchadnezzar, having thrown Ananias and his companions into the furnace of fire, and having learned that they had been harmed in no way by the fire, being an eyewitness of the marvel, is recorded to have said to his friends: "Did we not throw three men into the midst of the fire?" And when they agreed, "Behold," he says, "I see four men, loosed, walking about in the fire, and there is no harm in them, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of God." In the same way the Hebrew also has "like a son of God," and the other translators likewise have given it so. For this reason, then, we marked the passage, since from here too the title of the Son of God is signified.

44| Of the same. 44. In the visions Daniel says: "I was watching in a vision of the night, and behold, on the clouds of heaven one like a son of man coming, and he reached the Ancient of Days and was presented to him, and there was given to him the authority and the honor and the kingdom; all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him; his authority is an everlasting authority, which will not pass away, and his kingdom shall never be destroyed." This agrees with the prophecy of the same Daniel foretelling the kingdom of Christ by the stone cut from the mountain without hands. For who else could be the one coming as a son of man on the clouds and reaching as far as the Ancient of Days, if not our Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sake took a servant's form and became a son of man, and who said, "I came out from the Father, and I go to God"? In the presence of his disciples, while they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him up; and when they were gazing into heaven, behold, two men appeared in bright clothing and taught them about his second coming, telling them beforehand that he would come again in a cloud. To Christ alone, then, were given by the Father both the authority and the honor and the kingdom, so that all the nations serve him, and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

45| Of the same. 45. When Daniel had prayed concerning the captivity of the whole people in Babylon and the desolation of Jerusalem, the archangel Gabriel appeared and at the same time indicated to him the conclusion of the seventy-year captivity, and the renewal of Jerusalem, and the time from the renewal to the coming of Christ, and the second capture of the city which would happen after this, and, above all, the enslavement of the whole nation which was accomplished after the coming of Christ. The words of it run in this manner: "Daniel, I have now come out to instruct you in understanding. At the beginning of your supplication a word went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are a man of desires; so consider the word, and understand the vision. Seventy weeks have been cut short upon your people and upon the holy city, to bring sin to completion, and to seal up sins, and to leave off lawless deeds, and to atone for injustices, and to bring in eternal righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint a holy of holies. And you will know and comprehend: from the issuing of the word to answer and to rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed leader there are seven weeks, as well as sixty-two weeks; and it will return, and a street will be built, and a wall, and the times will be emptied out. And when the sixty-two weeks have passed, an anointing will be utterly destroyed, and there is no judgment in it; and he will ruin the city and the holy place, together with the leader who is coming, and they will be cut down in a flood, and until the end of a war cut short by desolations. And one week will strengthen a covenant for many; and in the half of the week sacrifice and libation will be taken away, and upon the temple the abomination of desolations, and until the consummation of the time a consummation will be given upon the desolation." Of those who have applied themselves to the weeks before us, we know only Africanus who has studied them most exactly, and with more success than the rest; and it seems to me necessary first to bring his account of the passages into the middle, and then in this way to consider whether we ourselves can contribute anything to the discussion. He writes, then, in the fifth book of the Chronographies, word for word, as follows:

46| Of Africanus. 46. The passage, then, as it stands, signifies many astonishing things; but now we shall make our discourse about what is needed concerning the times and what bears upon them. That these things are said of the coming of Christ, who was to appear after 70 weeks, is plain; for at the Savior, or from him onward, transgressions grow old, and sins are brought to completion through forgiveness, and lawless deeds are wiped away with injustices by propitiation, and an everlasting righteousness is proclaimed (in place of) the one that comes from the law; visions and prophecies continue until John; the Holy of Holies is anointed; for before the coming of the Savior these things were not present but only awaited. Now the angel lays it down that the counting of the numbers, that is, of the 70 weeks, which are 406 years, begins from the going out of the word to answer and to build Jerusalem; and this happened in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, the Persian king. For Nehemiah, his cupbearer, made a request and obtained an answer that Jerusalem be built, and a word went out commanding this; for until that time the city had lain desolate. For when Cyrus, after the seventy years of the captivity, had sent down each of those who wished to go of their own free will, those who came down with Jesus the great priest and Zerubbabel, and those after them together with Ezra, were at first hindered from building the temple and from putting a wall around the city, on the ground that this had not been commanded. So it remained until Nehemiah and the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes, which was the 115th year of Persian rule, and 185 years from the capture of Jerusalem; and then King Artaxerxes commanded that the city be built, and Nehemiah, sent down, took charge of the work, and the building took in the street and the wall around it, as had been prophesied; and from that point, as we count, the 70 weeks are completed unto Christ. For if we should begin to count from somewhere else and not from here, neither will the time run together, and very many absurdities will meet us; for if we make the beginning of the counting of the 70 weeks from Cyrus and the first sending down, there are 100 years and more besides left over, and the time is longer still if we count from the day on which the angel prophesied to Daniel, and much longer if from the captivity's beginning; for we find that the kingdom of the Persians is bounded by 230 years, and that of the Macedonians extended to 300 years, and from there to Tiberius Caesar's sixteenth year 60 years; but from Artaxerxes the 70 weeks are completed unto the time of Christ according to the Jewish reckonings. For counting from Nehemiah, who had been sent by Artaxerxes to resettle Jerusalem, in the 115th year of the Persian kingdom, and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes' own reign, and in the eighty-third Olympiad, in its fourth year, down to this time, which was the second year of the 202nd Olympiad and the sixteenth year of the rule of Tiberius Caesar, the years add up to 475, which make 490 Hebrew years when their years are counted out by the lunar month, which is, to speak roughly, 29 and a half days; for since the cycle is 365 and a quarter days, the twelve-month period by the moon falls short by eleven and a quarter days. For this reason both Greeks and Jews insert three intercalary months in eight years; for eight times eleven and a quarter makes three months. Thus the 475 years become 59 eight-year periods and 3 months, and with a three-month intercalation for the eight-year period, they become fifteen years lacking a few days; and when this is added to the (4)75 years, the 70 weeks are completed. These things the man mentioned above has applied to the passages; come, let us also, after the interpretation given, see whether it is possible to apply them to the passages in another way, so that we may not seem, by stealing away the times from Cyrus to Artaxerxes, to make our rendering rather forced, and, besides, may not seem to leave out the reason for the division of the seven weeks and the 62, which the divine Word has surely made with some reasonable thought and very deep understanding, saying: "And you shall know, and you shall grasp: from the going out of the word, to give answer and to build Jerusalem until an anointed leader, 7 weeks, and 62 weeks; and it shall return, and the broad street and the wall shall be built." See whether our narrative may not prove free of constraint if we count the times from Cyrus himself, in whose time Daniel prophesies. For this man was the first to issue the answer about raising up Jerusalem, according to the writing in Ezra, which runs in this manner: "And in the first year of Cyrus, king of the Persians, that the word of the Lord from the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of the Persians, and he sent out a proclamation in all his kingdom, and indeed in writing, saying: Thus said Cyrus, king of the Persians: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he himself has visited me to build him a house in Jerusalem in Judea. Who is there among you of all his people? And his God will be with him, and he shall go up to Jerusalem," and so on; to which is added: "And King Cyrus brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and put in the house of his god. And Cyrus, king of the Persians, brought them out by the hand of Mithridates, and counted them out to Shamanassar, the ruler of Judah." After these things the Scripture relates how the first who went up lay the foundations of the temple, and how in the interval they were hindered in their zeal, until the seventh week of years; for 46 years from Cyrus are set down to the sixth year of Darius, in which the building of the temple came to its end; wherefore with good reason the word set apart the first 7 weeks from the rest, wishing to show the time between the first laying of the foundations of the temple and its completion to the top. For Cyrus, after reigning thirty-one years, handed the rule to his son Cambyses; when nine years had passed in his time, Darius took the kingship, and again after Cyrus ordered by decree that Jerusalem be built. And in his sixth year of rule, which was the forty-sixth from Cyrus, the work of building was completed; starting from which they said to our Savior, "This temple was built in 46 years, and will you raise it in three days?" But according to Josephus, 70 (9) and 40 years exactly are counted from Cyrus to the ninth year of Darius, in which, he says in the eleventh book of the Antiquities, an end was put to the building of the temple, stating word for word that the temple would be built in the seventh month of the ninth year of the reign of Darius; to which he adds, saying: "They settled in Jerusalem, using an aristocratic constitution with oligarchy; for the priests were at the head of affairs, until it happened that the descendants of Asamonaeus came to reign." These, then, are the 7 weeks carried in the prophecy, bounded by the year of Darius mentioned, and it is plain for what reason they received their separation from the rest. Let us see also to what times the remaining 62 are bounded. The ninth year of Darius is established, according to the history of the chronographers among the Greeks, as falling in the sixty-seventh Olympiad; from this, then, to the 116th Olympiad, in which Seleucus, after the death of Alexander, gained control of all Syria and Babylonia, there are 200 years; and from there to the death of Simon, high priest of the Jews, the Syrian rule lasted 7 and 70 and 100 years, as the first writing of the so-called Maccabean books indicates, bounding its history up to this point; and again from there Josephus, marking most exactly the successions of the priests, says that after Simon, mentioned above, John, also called Hyrcanus, led the people for 9 and 20 years; that Aristobulus succeeded him, who also reigned a year; after him Alexander for 27 years, and after him his wife Alexandra, up to whom from the ninth year of Darius there are counted in all 434 years, as many as the 62 weeks would make, in which anointed leaders (and these would be the high priests), beginning from Cyrus, presided over the affairs of the nation; for it is plain both from the sacred Scripture and also from the words of Josephus set out, that after the return from Babylon, from Jesus the great priest himself, they used leaders and rulers in succession, until the sons of Asamonaeus whom Josephus names, whom the Scripture called Maccabees, of whom the first to serve as high priest was Judas, called the Maccabee, who also led the people after routing the generals of Antiochus; after him his brother Jonathan took both the high priesthood and the leadership of the people together; and again his brother Simon, high priest, whom Hyrcanus followed, and after him Judas, who was also Aristobulus, succeeds; and he was the first to put a diadem around himself, upon the high priesthood and kingship. After him Alexander took the high priesthood together with the kingship, and died with his wife as successor; at which point, the weeks in Daniel having been completed, the rulers from the priests who were called anointed ones come to an end, so that the oracle that says "until an anointed leader" shows that there will be so many weeks; as if it had said more plainly that 9 and 60 weeks of years will pass, that is, a span of 3 and 80 and 400 years, during which some anointed one and high priest, leading in succession, will preside over the affairs of the people. And it is clear to anyone from what we have set out before that so great a number of years is shown to run from Cyrus to the death of Alexander, the last of them to lead as high priest; after whom, alone of all women ever up to that time, a woman took the kingship of the nation, from which point both the leadership of the Jews and the high priesthood, which had until then gone on steadily by descent from the ancestors, were thrown into confusion. For when the woman mentioned took the rule, she gave the high priesthood to her son Hyrcanus, and she herself held the kingship for 9 years and died; after her Aristobulus, the other son, who had stirred up great faction against his brother, took the high priesthood from him, but he himself, in addition to this, lost the kingship too after the third year; for Pompey, a general of the Romans, at once came upon them, besieged Jerusalem by force, defiled the holy places by advancing as far as the innermost sanctuaries of the temple, and sent Aristobulus up to Rome in bonds together with his children; and after him, when Hyrcanus too was led off captive by the Parthians, Herod was the first from the nations to be entrusted by the senate of the Romans with the kingship over the Jews; as Josephus transmits, being by his father an Idumaean in race and by his mother an Arab; but as Africanus, whom we mentioned a little earlier, says, those who are exact about his affairs say that Antipater, (who was his father,) was born of a certain Herod of Ascalon, who was one of the temple slaves attached to the shrine of Apollo. When the rule of the Jews had passed into the hands of such a man, then in him, along with the other prophets, the prediction of Jacob that is carried in Moses is fulfilled, which says: "A ruler shall not be lacking from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is reserved; and he is the nations' expectation." And it is plain both from the histories and from what we have set beside them that up to Herod, in whose time Christ was born, the rule of the Hebrews themselves, leading the whole nation by succession, did not fail; but when the first ruler of foreign race, Herod, became king over them, at once the coming of Christ is fulfilled, and the expectation of the nations that had been foretold began to be accomplished in fact through the teaching of our Savior, which ran through every nation; then also the prediction in Daniel after the weeks we have discussed was sealed, which says: "And after the 62 weeks the anointing shall be destroyed, with no judgment in it; the city and the holy place he shall destroy together with the leader who is coming; and in a flood they shall be cut off, and until the end of a war that has been cut short, by desolations." In what manner, then, the prophecy of the weeks spoken of, both the earlier 57 and the 62 that follow them, in which it is fitting to take up the succession of the line, and the history down to the times of Herod showing that through the whole span some anointed one and high priest led the people in succession, so that for this reason the oracle said "until an anointed leader," reached its end in the times of Herod, has been set out, as far as we are able; and how, after these things, once the time of the weeks mentioned was completed, the anointing was destroyed, because there was no judgment in it (as indeed the oracle indicates, signifying that the anointing for the high priesthood will be completed at the time indicated with reasonable judgment), would become plain to those who attend both to the ordinance of the law (in which it is commanded that the high priesthood be held for life, until death itself, by those to whom it belongs by succession of the line) and to the history down to the times of Herod, which shows that the high priests in succession were thought worthy of the honor throughout their whole lives in accordance with the legislation concerning them; and how, under Herod himself, not only was the arrangement of this kind concerning the high priests thrown into confusion and corrupted, but also, as for the holy robe, which only the high priest was allowed to have, and in which no one other than he alone might serve, Herod took the authority over it away from them and made it subject to himself, and that though he was a foreigner. And if proofs of these things must also be set beside them, receive the words of the witness, which Josephus, a Hebrew of their own, himself honored with the dignity of the priests and of the most distinguished family among them, laid down in the twentieth book of his Antiquities. Concerning the turning aside of the high priests he writes in this manner, word for word: When Herod had been entrusted with the kingdom by the Romans, he no longer appointed high priests from the family of Asamonaeus, but gave the honor to certain obscure men, who were not even from the priests, except for one, Aristobulus; and having made Aristobulus high priest, who was the son of the Hyrcanus who was taken captive by the Parthians, he married his sister Mariamme, hunting for the goodwill of the multitude toward himself through the memory of Hyrcanus; then, fearing that all would incline toward Aristobulus, he killed him at Jericho, contriving that he be drowned while swimming, as we have already made clear. After him he no longer gave the high priesthood to the descendants of Asamonaeus' sons; and Archelaus his son did the same as Herod concerning the appointment of the high priests, and after him the Romans, taking over the rule of the Jews. This is what Josephus says about these things; and about the high priestly robe he relates the following in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities: Herod, when he became king, built this fortress, which lay in a suitable place, at great expense, and called it by the name Antonia, and he kept the high priestly robe, as he had received it, stored there, believing that the people would attempt no revolution against him because of it. And Archelaus, who was appointed king after him, being his son, did the same things as Herod; and from him the Romans, succeeding to the rule, kept possession of the high priest's robe, which was stored under seal in a house built of stone. From these things there could be an indisputable proof that the prophecy found its fulfillment in the times indicated; but if those of the circumcision do not agree with these things, they must be asked for another account of the Scripture besides ours, and must show that, according to them, the predictions of so great a Gabriel are necessarily proved false, if nothing of what was proclaimed beforehand has happened from that time to this, when a thousand years are now drawing near; but to us the word is clearly shown to be true according to the accounts set beside it without constraint, in line with which it is easy to explain also in what manner the last one week, brought on after all the rest, "strengthened a covenant with many": the new covenant of the saving proclamation, which has been spread over the whole inhabited world, and has been preached no longer to the Jewish nation alone but now to many, so that for this reason it was said, "One week shall strengthen a covenant with many." It is reasonable to observe, however, that the last one week, which the word says will strengthen a covenant with the many, is not attached directly after the remaining weeks; for it has not done with the one week as it did with the 7 and 62 weeks. For in their case, dividing the number of the whole time into the 7 and then the 62 weeks, it made the division joined together, attaching the 62 to the 7 and leaving no time or action between, since there is no interval of time introduced that divides and separates the connected history of those weeks; but in the case of the one week that follows, there is a long and distinct interval set apart. For after the 62 weeks, it says first: "the anointing shall be destroyed, with no judgment in it," which plainly has reached its end in the times of Herod; then it says: "The city, and the sanctuary, he shall destroy together with the leader who is coming." Who is it that destroys, if not the destroyer of souls, the devil? And who is the coming leader, if not Herod, the first of the nations to rule over them, and those after him who down to the present have taken over the leadership over the Jews? Just as the prophecy called their high priests of old, who led them, by a riddle an "anointed leader," in the same way it called those who ruled them from the nations after those had ceased a "coming leader," saying, "the city, and the sanctuary, he shall destroy together with the leader who is coming." Aquila has rendered this more clearly, making it: "and the city and the holy place the people of a coming leader shall destroy." And it is plain how the people and the army of those leaders from the nations who succeeded to rule over the Jews after the anointed leaders, using the laws of the nations, destroyed both the city and the holy place; and the one who leads in the thought of souls, the corrupter, together with the leader who had come according to the prophecy, worked every kind of destruction, first upon the people themselves and the citizens who dwelt in the city, and then also upon the temple and the worship once carried out in it. And a divine oracle, signifying in advance somewhere this cause of the coming of Christ that took place immediately after, says: "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there is anyone who understands or seeks after God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is no one who does kindness, there is not even one." Then, as though those already mentioned had been corrupted, the word teaches in advance what will overtake them and says, "and they shall be cut off in the flood," and they shall be cut off to such a degree "until the end of a war that has been cut short, by desolations"; and while these things are still being completed and worked out, "one week shall strengthen a covenant with many." This would be the week of the saving proclamation, through which our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ strengthened the delivery of the new covenant among the many who were made his disciples: at one time before the passion, being with them and living among them, and at another also after the ascension, appearing to them through 40 days and eating with them and speaking about the kingdom of God; wherefore he also charged them not to depart from Jerusalem. In the middle of this week, the plot against him by the Jews on account of which he suffered, and what follows of the divine prediction, were fulfilled, since he preached for about three and a half years, which is also established from the writing of the gospels; therefore it is said, "and in the middle of the week sacrifice and libation shall be taken away"; and it is clear how, together with the passion, sacrifice and libation were in effect taken away from them; when, according to the writing of the gospels, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom; and according to the history of Josephus: "At the very Pentecost, at night, the priests, having entered the temple for the services, as was their custom, said that they first perceived a movement and a noise, and after this a united voice: Let us depart from here." Josephus, who transmits these things word for word in his histories, and other things like them, would contribute to us toward the proof that, after the saving passion, the bodily worship of the people was in effect dissolved and abolished. I know also another interpretation that has been given for the week that strengthened a covenant with many: the word, taking this as a week reckoned in tens, showed that the entire time of the apostles extends to seventy years, in which the proclamation of the new covenant, preached no longer to one but to many nations, was strengthened over the whole inhabited world; and indeed it is shown from the histories that John, the disciple of the Lord, lived on after the Lord's ascension for 70 years, for the account holds that he remained until the reign of Trajan; and according to this narrative it is plain how, in the middle of this week reckoned in tens, sacrifice and libation were removed, and the so-called abomination of desolation stood in a holy place. At any rate, the time from the resurrection of our Savior to the final siege under Vespasian extends to thirty-five years; which would be half of the week assigned. At that time, when the temple, once sacred and holy, had suffered utter destruction by fire and been razed to the ground, the words "sacrifice and libation shall be taken away, and upon the temple an abomination of desolations" also received their seal. That this abomination of desolation will remain until life reaches its consummation the oracle shows when it says, "and until the consummation of the time a consummation shall be given upon the desolation." But we have set these things down in a shortened account; it is now time to move on to Isaiah, who alone of the whole old Scripture remains for us.

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