Demonstratio Evangelica 2 part 2/4

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: In that day man shall trust in him who made him, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel; and they shall no longer trust in the altars, nor in the works of their hands, which their fingers made; and they shall not look upon the trees, nor upon their abominations, in that day. Your cities shall be forsaken, just as the Amorites and the Hivites forsook them before the children of Israel.

And they shall be desolate, because you have forsaken God your Savior, and have not remembered the Lord your God. Therefore you shall plant an unfaithful planting; and in the day that you plant, you shall go astray. 32. From the same [Isaiah]. A statement of the destruction of the Jewish cities and of the joy of the nations before God.

O Lord my God, I will glorify you, I will sing praises to your name, for you have done marvelous things, an ancient, true counsel. Be it so, O Lord, for you have made cities into a heap, fortified cities, so that their foundations fell. The city of the ungodly shall never be built again. Therefore the poor people shall bless you, and the cities of men who are wronged shall bless you. For you have become a helper to every lowly city, and a shelter to those who are discouraged for want.

And the Lord Sabaoth shall make for all the nations, upon this mountain: they shall drink gladness, they shall drink wine, they shall be anointed with myrrh on this mountain. Deliver all these things to the nations, for this counsel is for all the nations. Death, having grown strong, swallowed up; and again God has wiped away every tear from every face; the reproach of the people God has taken away from all the earth. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things. 33. From the same [Isaiah]. A promise of good things to the church gathered from the nations, formerly desolate; and the despair decreed against the Jewish nation, and a reproof of their sins, and the calling of all the nations.

Do not remember the former things, and do not consider the ancient things; for behold, I am doing new things, which shall now spring forth, and you shall know them; and I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the dry land; and the wild beasts of the field shall bless me, sirens and the daughters of sparrows; because I have given water in the wilderness to give drink to my chosen race, my people whom I acquired for myself, that they may declare my praises.

It was not now that I called you, Jacob, nor did I make you toil, Israel. You did not bring me the sheep of your whole burnt offering, nor did you glorify me with your sacrifices; you did not serve me with gifts, nor did I burden you with frankincense, nor did you procure incense for me with money, nor did I desire the fat of your sacrifices; but in your sins and in your iniquities I stood before you.

And in what follows he says: Turn to me, and you shall be saved, you who are from the ends of the earth. I am [God], and there is no other; by myself I swear, surely righteousness shall go forth from my mouth; my words shall not be turned back, that to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear by the true God, saying, Righteousness and glory shall come to him, and all who separate themselves from the Lord shall be ashamed. 34. From the same [Isaiah]. A statement of the coming of Christ to men, and a reproof of the Jewish nation, and a promise of good things to all the nations.

Thus says the Lord: What is this bill of divorce of your mother, with which I sent her away? Or to what creditor have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your sins, and for your transgressions I sent your mother away. For I came, and there was no man; I called, and there was none to obey; and so on.

To which he adds: You who walk in darkness, and have no light—trust in the name of the Lord, and lean upon your God. Behold, all you who kindle a fire and strengthen a flame: walk by the light of your fire, and by the flame which you have kindled. Because of me these things have come upon you; you shall lie down in sorrow. And so on.

To which he adds: Hear me, hear me, my people; and you kings, give ear to me; for a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment shall be for a light of the nations. My righteousness draws near quickly, and my salvation shall go forth as a light, and the nations shall hope in my arm. 35. From the same [Isaiah]. A reproof of the impieties of the Jewish nation, and of their falling away from piety, and a statement of the calling of all the nations.

Is not the hand of the Lord strong to save, or has he made his ear heavy so as not to hear? But your sins make a separation between you and God, and because of your sins he has turned away his face from you, so as not to have mercy; for your hands are polluted with blood, and your fingers with sins,

And your lips have spoken lawlessness, and your tongue meditates injustice. No one speaks what is just, nor is there true judgment; they trust in vain things, and speak empty things, for they conceive trouble and bring forth lawlessness;

They have hatched eggs of asps, and weave a spider's web; and he who wishes to eat of their eggs, having crushed a wind-egg, finds in it also a basilisk; their web shall not become a garment, nor shall they cover themselves with their works; for their works are works of lawlessness, and their feet run to evil; they are swift to shed blood, and their thoughts are the thoughts of fools; ruin and misery are in their ways, their paths are crooked, which they travel, and they do not know peace.

Therefore judgment has departed from them, and righteousness shall not overtake them. When they waited for light, darkness came to them; when they waited for brightness, they walked in gloom. They shall grope like blind men along a wall, and shall grope as though they had no eyes; they shall fall at midday as at midnight; they shall groan as those who are dying; they shall go together like a bear and a dove. And so on.

To which he adds, saying, "And they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glorious name from the rising of the sun." But since there are very many prophecies concerning this same subject, we shall be content for now with the testimonies already cited, and shall in due course take them up again and set them out in full, considering that for the present, having employed abundant texts and the testimonies drawn from them, we have sufficiently demonstrated that the Jews have nothing more than the rest of the nations.

For whether they say that they alone are partakers of the blessing of the God-beloved Abraham because they trace their race from him — yet it has been promised that a share in the blessing would be given not only to nations equal to Abraham, but also to Isaac and Jacob, since it was foretold expressly that all the nations would be blessed likewise with them, and, summoning the rest of the nations too under one and the same gladness together with the blessed and God-beloved, according to, "Rejoice, O nations, with his people;"

"And the rulers of the peoples were gathered together with the God of Abraham" — whether it be with regard to the kingdom of God, as though they had become his portion, they boast; but God is also proclaimed to reign over all the rest of the nations, for it says, "Say among the nations, the Lord has reigned;"

And again, "God has reigned over all the nations"; whether they should say that they had been chosen to perform priestly service and to worship God, it must be shown that the Word has promised to impart this equally to the nations also, saying: "Bring to the Lord, O families of the nations, bring to the Lord glory and honor. Bring offerings, and enter into his courts."

To these you may also join the oracle in Isaiah which says, "There shall be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt ... and the Egyptians shall know the Lord. And they shall offer sacrifices, and shall vow vows to the Lord and perform them." There you may also observe that it is prophesied that an altar to the Lord will be set up outside Jerusalem, and that the Egyptians will sacrifice there, and will vow vows, and will pay them to the Lord.

It is not, then, only with regard to Egypt, but also with regard to the true Jerusalem — whichever this is here understood to be — that all the nations, and even the Egyptians, the most superstitious of all peoples, are summoned by the prophecy to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles as it is contemplated in the mind.

And if indeed of old, previously, the Lord's portion became his people Jacob, Israel the line of his inheritance, yet it has also been said that later on all the nations too would be given to the Lord as an inheritance, the Father having said to him, "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance." For it is also prophesied that he would have dominion not over Judea, but "from sea to sea, and from the ends of the inhabited world," and that "all the nations shall serve him, and all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in him."

The cause of this was that the God of all should make his salvation known before all the nations. And we have already noted before that the name Jesus, when translated from the Hebrew tongue, means "salvation," so that the salvation of God is nothing other than the appellation of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Simeon too bears witness to this in the Gospel, who, taking the child — that is, Jesus himself — in his arms, prayed: "Now you release your servant, Master, according to your word, in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light for revelation to the nations." This same salvation the psalmist also made clear, saying, "The Lord has made known his salvation; before the nations he has revealed his righteousness."

And according to Isaiah, all men, having seen this same salvation, are said to worship the God of all, who has bestowed his salvation graciously on all without grudging; and they will worship him not at the lower Jerusalem, the one in Palestine, but each from his own place, and all who are in the islands of the nations — when also that oracle will be fulfilled which says that all men will call upon, no longer their ancestral gods, nor idols and demons, but the name of the Lord, and will serve him under one yoke; and from the farthest bounds of the rivers of Ethiopia they will bring him the rational and bloodless sacrifices through the new covenant of Christ — not at the lower Jerusalem, nor at the altar there, but offered up at the aforementioned bounds of Ethiopia.

But if it is indeed something great to be, and to be called, the people of God, and if this is one of the greatest of the divine promises — that it should be said by him concerning those worthy of him, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people" — Israel was formerly, and reasonably, proud of being the sole people of God; but this good thing too, upon his coming, the Lord promises to grant graciously to the nations, saying, "Behold, I come and will dwell in your midst, and many nations shall flee for refuge to the Lord, and they shall become a people to him."

Concerning them it will also be fitting to say, "And I will say to those who are not my people, You are my people; and he shall say, You are the Lord my God." But if he is one and the same, and no other, the Christ prophesied to spring forth from the root of Jesse — and this too has been acknowledged even by the Hebrews themselves, so that no one at all disputes it — observe how it is also proclaimed that he would arise to rule not over Israel, but over the nations, and that the nations would hope in him, but this is not said of Israel, since he himself was "the expectation of the nations."

Therefore he is also said to bring forth judgment to the nations, and to become a light of the nations; and again, "in his name the nations shall hope," and that he would be given for salvation not only to the Jews, but also to all men, even to the ends of the earth.

Therefore it was also said to him by the Father who sent him down, "I have given you for a covenant of a race, for a light of the nations, to establish the land, and to inherit desolate inheritances." He calls it a testimony to the nations, so that all the nations who had never learned anything about Christ, upon coming to know the dispensation concerning him and what power was in him, might call upon him, and the peoples who had not known him before might take refuge in him.

And why need I prolong the discourse, when it is possible, from the prophetic words themselves — both those I have already cited and those I shall mention at leisure as they occur in the divine Scriptures — for whoever wishes to gather together the prophetic voices, at once to silence those from the circumcision who claim that the promises of God have been granted to them alone, and that we who are from the nations are superfluous and strangers to the divine promises? For it has been shown, on the contrary, that it had been decreed that all the nations would enjoy the coming of Christ, but that the multitudes of the Jews would fall away from the promise made to their own forefathers, on account of their unbelief in Christ, only a few of them having believed in our Savior and Lord, and it is on account of this that they obtain through him the promised spiritual redemption.

Concerning these the wondrous apostle also teaches somewhere, saying: "But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved; for he is completing and cutting short his word in righteousness, because the Lord will make a word cut short upon the earth. And just as Isaiah said before, Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah."

To these he adds after other matters, saying: "Has God rejected his people? By no means! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew."

"Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life, to take it? But what does the divine answer say to him? I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bent the knee to Baal. So then, in the present time also a remnant has come to be according to the election of grace."

For through these words the apostle clearly makes plain that, at the falling away of the whole Jewish nation, he himself and those like him — the apostles and evangelists of our Savior, and all those even now from among the Jews who have believed in Christ — are the seed named by the prophet according to the saying, "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left a seed." And this is also what is indicated in the rest of the prophecies as the remnant of the whole, which he says has been preserved according to the election of grace.

Concerning this remnant, come, let us again set forth further passages from the prophets, so that it may be established at greater length that God did not promise that the coming of Christ would be salvation for the whole Jewish nation indiscriminately, but for the few, and altogether rare, who have believed in our Savior and Lord — just as indeed the event followed in accordance with the predictions. [Chapter] 36. From Isaiah. That the things of the divine promises extend not to the whole Jewish nation, but to a few of them.

"Your land is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your country in your presence, and it has been laid waste, overthrown by foreign peoples. The daughter of Zion shall be left like a booth in a vineyard, and like a hut for keeping cucumbers, like a city besieged. And unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah."

At the beginning of his own book the great and wondrous prophet teaches that the whole subject-matter of his prophecy contains a vision and contemplation against Judea and against Jerusalem; then he convicts the whole Jewish nation, saying first, "The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's manger; but Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood me."

Then, lamenting the whole nation, he adds, "Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, an evil seed, lawless sons."

Having employed these charges against them at the beginning of the book, and having taught beforehand the causes of the prediction that was about to be brought upon them, he then begins by saying, "Your land is desolate" — though it was not desolate at the times when he was prophesying; "your cities are burned with fire" — this too not yet having happened; nor indeed were strangers at that time devouring their country; and yet he says, "Strangers devour your country in your presence," and so on.

If, then, you should pass on to the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ and to the times from that point to the present, you would find all that was said fulfilled. For the daughter of Zion — this being the worship performed on the mountain called Zion — has, from the coming of Jesus our Savior, been left like a booth in a vineyard and like a hut for keeping cucumbers, and something even more desolate than these; and strangers devour their country in their presence, at one time exacting from them tribute and taxes, at another time making their own possession the land that once belonged to the Jews; moreover, the fair temple of their metropolis has been ruined, overthrown by foreign peoples, their cities have become burned with fire, and Jerusalem has truly become a city besieged.

But since, when these things had befallen them, the chorus of the apostles and those from the Hebrews who had believed in Christ were preserved from among those very people after the manner of fruitful seed, and, having gone through the whole inhabited world and into every race of men, filled every city and place and country with the offspring of their own Israelite sowing, so that from them there sprang up ears of grain — the churches established in the name of our Savior — the divine prophet fittingly adds, to the threats already pronounced against them, "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah."

This the sacred apostle, gathering it together, interprets clearly in the Epistle to the Romans: "But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved. For he is completing and cutting short a word; the Lord will make a cut-short word upon the earth. And just as Isaiah had said before, Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah."

To these he further adds, saying, "Has God rejected his people? By no means! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel: Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life, to take it? But what does the divine answer say to him? I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bent the knee to Baal. So then, in the present time also a remnant has come to be according to the election of grace."

That the prophecy tends not to some other time, but to the time of the manifestation of our Savior Jesus Christ, the sequel of the discourse shows; for after saying, "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah," having named the whole people of the Jews the people of Gomorrah, and their rulers the rulers of Sodom, he goes on to introduce the rejection of the worship according to Moses and the manner of the covenant proclaimed through our Savior to all men — I mean the covenant through the bath of regeneration — and he plainly brings in a wholly new word and law in this prediction concerning such matters.

He says, then, "Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom; give heed to the law of God, people of Gomorrah. What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?" and so on, which, having done away with what belonged to the legislation of Moses, he introduces instead another manner of the remission of sins — that through the saving bath and the manner of life proclaimed together with it — saying, "Wash yourselves, become clean, remove your wickedness from your souls," and so on.

As for the reason why he called them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, the same prophet makes it plain immediately, saying, "For your hands are full of blood."

And again, going on a little further, he says, "They have declared and made manifest their lawlessness as that of Sodom. Woe to their soul, for they have devised an evil plan against themselves, saying, Let us bind the righteous man, for he is troublesome to us."

Most clearly he speaks of a certain blood, and of a plot against a certain one righteous man — and who indeed but our Savior Jesus Christ, on whose account, and after whom, all the things foretold came upon them? [Chapter] 37. Of the same Isaiah.

"And on that day God shall shine forth in counsel with glory upon the earth, to exalt and to glorify the remnant of Israel; and the remnant of Israel that is left in Zion shall be, and that which is left in Jerusalem; all who are written for life shall be called holy in Jerusalem."

And what indeed the remnant of Israel would be, the prophet himself made plain, saying, "all who are written [for life] in Jerusalem and those called holy." What, then, is this day on which it is said that God will glorify and exalt the remnant of Israel and those who shall be called holy and written for life? This will be clear to you if you go back over the whole narrative of the passage.

At the beginning, then, of the whole book, the prophet, having seen the vision against Judea and against Jerusalem, and having enumerated at great length the impieties of the whole Jewish nation, and having uttered threats and spoken concerning their overthrow and the utter desolation of Jerusalem, brings the end of his vision concerning them, saying: "For they shall be like a terebinth that has cast its leaves, and like a garden that has no water; and their strength shall be like a wisp of tow, and their works like sparks of fire, and the lawless and the sinners shall be burned together, and there shall be none to quench them."

Having here brought to a close his prediction concerning them, he pauses; then, from another beginning, he takes up a second subject, and the discourse employs as its preface something of this sort: "The word that came to Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem" — or, as Symmachus translated it, "on behalf of Judea and on behalf of Jerusalem." Perhaps someone will suppose that, having previously spoken gloomy things about them, he now changes his tone and speaks more favorable things concerning these same people.

But the sequence of what follows would not allow one to say this, since it contains nothing whatsoever favorable on behalf of the Jewish nation or on behalf of the so-called Israel, nor indeed on behalf of Judea or on behalf of Jerusalem; on the contrary, it contains countless reproaches and accusations against Israel, and gloomy threats against Jerusalem, while it decrees a calling and knowledge of the God over all as salvation for all, and, besides these things, sets forth the manifestation of new boundaries and of another house of God apart from the one manifest in Jerusalem.

He says, then, after speaking concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem: "It shall be, in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God upon the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall come to it, and many nations shall go and shall say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob."

And such things he decrees concerning all the nations; but concerning the Jews, hear what he goes on to say next: "For he has let go his people, the house of God of Jacob, because their land was filled, as from the beginning, with divinations, as that of the foreigners, and many foreign children were born to them."

"For their land was filled with silver and gold, and there was no number of their treasures," and so on — of which there is even more — to which he adds, "and they worshiped what their own fingers had made, and man bowed down, and was humbled, and I will not forgive them. And now enter into the rocks, and hide in the ground, from before the fear of the Lord and from before the glory of his might, when he arises to shatter the earth."

By these words he clearly teaches that there will be a certain resurrection of the Lord, in which the whole land of the Jewish nation will be shattered.

For the whole discourse concerned them, as also what follows, in which he says: "For the day of the Lord of Sabaoth shall be upon every insolent and haughty one, and upon every high and lofty thing," and what follows accordingly. On this day, then, of the resurrection of the Lord, having foretold beforehand, in this very passage, the things against those who exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, he says: "on that very day," he says, "the Lord alone shall be exalted, and they shall hide away all things made with hands, carrying them into the caves;"

Almost plainly showing the turning-away from idols, which both the Jews themselves and all the rest of mankind turned away from after the manifestation of our Savior, spitting upon all superstition. "On that day," he says, "a man shall cast away his abominations of gold, and those of silver which they made, to worship vain things."

Proclaiming these things, as is fitting, generally also concerning every man, on account of the calling of the nations that was to be.

But specifically again, concerning the Jewish nation, under a single meaning, he goes on to say: "Behold now, the Sovereign Lord of Sabaoth shall take away from Judea and from Jerusalem both the strong man and the strong woman, the strength of bread and the strength of water; the giant and the mighty man, and the man of war, and the judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the elder, and the captain of fifty, and the admirable counselor, and the wise architect, and the intelligent listener;" and so on in sequence.

Here, pausing, set beside this the introductory words of the prophecy, in which it is said, "The word that came from the Lord to Isaiah, son of Amoz, concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem" — since what follows turns out to be more against them than on their behalf, unless indeed there is some hidden sense contained in these words.

For how, when he is about to take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the strong man and the strong woman, the strength of bread and the strength of water, and all that formerly distinguished them, could the things decreed be said to be on behalf of Judea and on behalf of Jerusalem? And how, again, are the words that follow also spoken on their behalf? — "Jerusalem is ruined, and Judea has fallen, and their tongues speak with lawlessness," disobeying the things toward the Lord.