Demonstratio Evangelica 8 part 4/5

Again, in other passages, he says this about them: ‘Herod, having become king, having magnificently constructed this citadel situated in a suitable place, calls it by the name Antonia, and takes possession of the high priestly robe, keeping it stored, believing that the people would attempt no innovation because of it. And Archelaus, the king who was set up after him, being his son, did the same thing; and after him the Romans, having taken over the rule, kept possession of the robe of the high priest, deposited in a house built of stone, under seal.’ (keep the closing quotation mark at the very end of the paragraph, not after 'because of it')

By these things, I consider that the fulfillment has become plain to everyone of the oracle which said, ‘And after the seven and sixty-two weeks an anointing shall be utterly destroyed, and there is no judgment in him.’

And you will see even more clearly how it is said, ‘there is no judgment in him,’ if you observe the arbitrariness of the appointment of the high priests who arose after Herod and in the times of our Savior.

For whereas the high priest, according to the divine law, was commanded to administer the ministry for the whole time of his life, with a legitimate son succeeding him, in the times now under examination, after the anointing had been utterly destroyed, in accordance with the prophecy, first Herod, and then also the Romans after him, arbitrarily and not according to the law, appointed as high priests whomever seemed good to them, bestowing the honor upon certain common and undistinguished men, selling and trafficking in the title, granting the office for a single year, now to one man, now to another.

For this reason it seems to me that the holy evangelist Luke, in describing the time of the preaching of our Savior, notes this very fact by what he says: ‘In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod, Philip, and Lysanias being tetrarchs, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.’

For how could these two have become high priests at the same time, unless the legislation concerning the high priests had been overturned? To this, indeed, Josephus also bears witness, writing as follows: ‘Valerius Gratus, the Roman procurator, having removed Ananus from the high priesthood, declares Ishmael son of Phabi high priest; and having not long after removed him too, he appoints Eleazar, the son of Ananus the high priest, as high priest. And when a year had passed, having removed this man also, he delivers the high priesthood to Simon son of Camithus. Nor did the honor last longer than a year for this man either, and Joseph, also called Caiaphas, succeeded him.’

I have set out these things of necessity, for the sake of the words ‘an anointing shall be utterly destroyed, and there is no judgment in him,’ which I consider to have an indisputable demonstration. Next after these words the prophecy says, ‘And he shall destroy the city and the holy place, together with the leader who is to come.’ Here again I suppose it is Herod himself, and those who ruled after him, of a foreign race, who are indicated.

For just as above it called the high priests ‘anointed leaders,’ saying, ‘until an anointed leader,’ in the same way, after them and their cessation, the ‘coming leader’ is none other than the aforementioned man of a foreign race, and all the rest who successively led the nation after them — with whom and by means of whom, as though using them as fellow-workers, the hater of good and destroyer of good things is said to destroy both the city and the holy place.

For indeed he truly corrupted the entire nation, at one time leading the order of the priesthood into lawlessness, at another perverting the whole people, and calling out the city — the citizens being thus named metaphorically — into impiety. And Aquila also agrees with our interpretation, having translated it in this manner: ‘And the people of the coming leader shall destroy the city and the holy place.’

For not only the coming leader — the one indicated according to what we have set forth — destroyed the city and the holy place, but his people also. And one might say, not without reason, that by the words before us both the Roman ruler and his people are also indicated, by which I think are signified the armies of the Roman commanders, who from that time held sway over the nation, and who destroyed the city of Jerusalem itself and the once-venerable and holy temple in it.

By these men, then, they were cut off as in a flood, and they came to utter desolations, even to the end of a war cut short, so that, in accordance with the prophecy, they now underwent complete desolation, after their plot against our Savior — after which they also underwent the final siege. You have these things, too, set out precisely in the histories written by Josephus himself.

Now these things having been prophesied concerning what befell the Jewish nation in the intervening time after the seven and sixty-two weeks, the disclosure of the new covenant proclaimed by our Savior is next set forth in due order.

After so many things have been said in between and in the midst, concerning the seven and sixty-two weeks, it is added: ‘And he shall strengthen a covenant with many: one week; and in the midst of the week the sacrifice and libation shall be taken away, and upon the temple there shall be the abomination of desolations, and even until the completion of the time a completion shall be given upon the desolation.’

Let us consider, then, in what manner these things too were fulfilled. It is recorded that the whole time of the teaching and wonder-working of our Savior together came to three and a half years, which is half a week. Those who examine John the evangelist’s Gospel closely will find this precisely demonstrated by him. The whole time, then, of his living together with his apostles — both that before the Passion and that after his resurrection from the dead — would be one week of years.

For before the Passion, he is recorded to have offered himself to all — to disciples and to those who were not such — for three and a half years; during which time, through his teachings and wondrous healings, he made the powers of his Godhead available to all alike, both Greeks and Jews.

And after his resurrection from the dead he continued, as was fitting, for an equal span of years with his own disciples and apostles, appearing to them and eating with them for forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God, even as the Acts of the Apostles relate; so that this proves to be the week of years indicated by the prophecy, in which he confirmed the covenant for many -- plainly establishing firm the new covenant of the evangelical proclamation.

But for whom, the 'many', did he confirm this, other than plainly his own disciples and apostles and all those of the Hebrews who had believed in him? Yet in the half of this same one week, during which he confirmed the aforesaid covenant for the many, sacrifice and libation were taken away, and the abomination of desolation began.

For inasmuch as, in the middle of this week, after the three-and-a-half-year period of his teaching, at which time he suffered, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom; so that from that moment the libation and the sacrifice were, in effect, taken away from them, and the abomination of desolation came to stand upon the sanctuary, the power which from of old until that time had watched over and overseen the place having left them desolate.

It is fitting, then, to hold that up to the saving Passion there was some power of God watching over the temple and the Holy of Holies. For otherwise he himself would not have sat together with the multitude in the temple, celebrating the feasts according to the law, unless he knew that the place still stood and was worthy of God.

There were, then, in the temple, even down to that time, certain persons prophesying -- such as Anna the prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, and Symeon, who took him, while still an infant, into his arms -- who indeed prophesied the things that are recorded.

Nor indeed would our Lord himself have said to the leper, 'Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the sacrifice which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them,' unless he still held that the things prescribed by the law ought to be performed there, as in a holy place worthy of God; nor, again, would he, driving out those who bought and sold, have said, 'It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers,' and again, on another occasion, 'Do not make my Father's house a house of merchandise,' unless he clearly still deemed it right to reckon the place as honourable.

But when, after all these things, their final impiety was drawing near, he declared, saying, 'Behold, your house is left to you desolate' -- which was itself also fulfilled when, at his suffering, the veil of the temple was torn right through the middle, from top to bottom; and from that time, in effect, the sacrifice and libation acceptable to God according to the ordinance of the law were abolished, and when this was taken away, the abomination of desolation, according to the prophecy now in hand, followed upon the place.

But if the services performed in that place did seem to continue for some further time, yet these were no longer pleasing to God, being carried out in disorder and not according to the law.

For just as, long before, when the anointing had been utterly cut off, and the lawful high priests in succession had ceased from the death of Hyrcanus, those who thereafter came forward in disorder and unlawfully seemed indeed to be doing something, yet they did not act according to the fitting ordinances -- on account of which the prophecy also said, 'the anointing shall be utterly destroyed, and there is no judgment in it,' condemning their disorder and lawlessness -- so also, you may say, it came to pass with the sacrifice and the libation: rightly and according to the law it was performed before the Passion of the Saviour, on account of the power that still at that time watched over the holy places, but it was immediately removed after his perfect and God-befitting sacrifice, which he himself offered, himself, on behalf of our sins, being himself the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; and when this sacrifice had been handed down to all men according to the new mysteries of the new covenant, the things belonging to the old were taken away.

For together with the fulfilment of the oracle which says, 'And he shall confirm a covenant for many, one week,' the things belonging to the old covenant were taken away. And when were the things of the new covenant confirmed, if not when our Saviour and Lord, about to accomplish the great mystery of his passage unto death, on the night in which he was betrayed, delivered to his own disciples the symbols of the ineffable words concerning the new covenant? For at the very moment that these things were being accomplished, the old covenant according to Moses was also taken away -- which the veil of the temple, being torn at that very time, made plain.

Since, then, from that time the sacrifice and the libation were taken away, being abolished both in power and in reality, the sacrifices that were thought to be performed there afterwards were, without libation and unhallowed, offered in a profane place and by profane and unhallowed men.

Receive also the testimonies of Josephus concerning these things: 'On the day of Pentecost, the priests, entering the temple by night, as was their custom, for the services, said that they first perceived a movement and a noise, and after this a sudden voice saying, "Let us remove hence."' And he records that this occurred after the Passion of our Saviour.

And again the same author says that Pilate the governor -- that very man who held office at the time of our Saviour -- brought the images of Caesar by night into the temple, which was not lawful, and cast the Jews into the greatest disturbance of tumult and sedition.

Philo too bears witness to these very same events, saying that Pilate set up the royal standards by night in the temple, and that from that time a beginning of successive seditions and calamities befell the Jews one upon another.

From that time, then, uprisings of every kind of evil never ceased to assail the whole nation and their mother-city, until the last war against them and the final siege, in which, all manner of destructions -- famine, pestilence, the sword, and drowning -- having converged like a flood as their ruin, all those who had conspired against our Saviour were cut off root and branch; at which time also the abomination of desolation stood upon the sanctuary -- a thing which continues to this day, driving on, as is fitting, day by day, to ever worse desolation.

It is fitting also that it should intensify right up to the consummation of the age, according to the limit marked out by the prophecy, which said, 'and even to the consummation of the time, a full end shall be given upon the desolation.'

This utterance he confirmed by saying, 'But when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, then know that her desolation has drawn near.'

But if those of the circumcision remain incredulous in the face of these things, they must be convicted, not only as shamelessly opposing what is true and manifest, but also -- so far as lies in them -- as slandering the predictions themselves as false: since, on the one hand, these predictions confine the whole time to seventy weeks of years, foretelling what would come to pass within that span; and on the other, though now nearly a thousand years is passing from the time of the prophecy down to us, they can point to nothing that has failed to be fulfilled of what was written -- their anointing indeed having been utterly cut off, according to the divine prediction, and their sanctuary likewise; and their former inhabitants having been destroyed and cut off amid a deluge of destructions brought on by a war swiftly concluded; and, most astonishing of all, that which is even now still to be seen there -- I mean the abomination of desolation -- standing to this very day in what was formerly the holy place, concerning which our Saviour and Lord also uttered the sayings set forth above.

Since these things are still now plainly seen before our very eyes, one may well marvel that those of the circumcision do not so much dare to look these evident facts in the face, as that they are blind and darkened in their understanding, so as not to see the fulfilments of the divine Scriptures, so plain and evident as they are.

This too they have suffered in accordance with the utterance of Isaiah fulfilled in them in this very respect, through which he prophesied to them, saying, 'You shall hear by hearing, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall in no wise perceive. For the heart of this people has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and I should heal them.'

But since concerning the nations who have believed in the Christ of God it was also said long before, 'To whom it was not told concerning him, they shall see; and they who have not heard shall understand' -- by his grace and that of the Father who sent him -- we, then, according to our ability, have set forth what appeared [fitting] concerning these passages, and we have also set alongside them what seemed, with good judgment, right to Africanus before us, as being likewise close to accuracy; wherefore these too are to be used, since they are well stated. From Micah.

'Hear, all you peoples, and let the earth attend, and all who are in it, and let the Lord be among you for a witness, the Lord from his holy house. For behold, the Lord, the Lord, goes forth out of his place, and shall come down, and shall tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be shaken beneath him, and the valleys shall melt like wax before the fire, and like water pouring down a slope. All this is for the ungodliness of Jacob, and for the sin of the house of Israel.'

Then, after very many other things intervening, he joins on, saying: 'Hear now this, you leaders of the house of Jacob and you remnant of the house of Israel, who abhor judgment and pervert all that is right, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquities.'

'Her leaders judged for gifts, and her priests answered for hire, and her prophets divined for silver, and yet they leaned upon the Lord, saying, "Is not the Lord among us? No evils shall come upon us." Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become a watchman's hut in an orchard, and the mountain of the house shall become a wooded thicket.'

'And it shall be in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, prepared upon the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and they will show us the way, and we will walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem; and he shall judge among many nations, and shall reprove strong nations, even unto a land far off.'

'And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and nation shall no longer take up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more; and each man shall rest under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord Almighty has spoken these things.'

These things have already been considered by us earlier in these discussions. It has been shown how, at no other time whatsoever except from the days of the manifestation of our Saviour Jesus Christ to mankind, have the ancient venerable places of the Jews -- the mountains called Zion and Jerusalem, and the buildings upon them, namely the temple and the Holy of Holies and the altar and everything else that had been dedicated there to the honour of God -- been shaken, having been taken away from the midst, in accordance with the word that said, 'Behold, the Lord, the Lord goes forth out of his place, and shall come down upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains shall be shaken beneath him.'

And when these have been shaken, the souls of those of the circumcision -- called 'valleys' on account of their lowliness by comparison with the ancient heights -- lamenting the destruction of the aforesaid things, shall melt away like wax before the face of the fire, and like water pouring down a slope, on account of the multitude within them who day by day fall from a better to a worse condition.

And he says that all these things will come to pass because of the ungodliness of the house of Jacob and because of the sin of the house of Israel. But what was this ungodliness and sin? Proceeding further, he adds: 'those who abhor judgment and pervert all that is right, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquities' -- among which bloods there was also that particular one which became for them the cause of their final calamities, in respect of which they drew upon themselves the impious cry, saying, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children.'

'Therefore,' he says, 'because of these very things Zion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become a watchman's hut in an orchard' -- sayings which have obtained a true fulfilment at no other time whatsoever except after the deeds dared against our Saviour.

For from that time and even to this day, an utter desolation having overtaken the places, their once so celebrated Mount Zion -- instead of the ancient study and diligent practice there of the prophetic and divine oracles, which the children of the Hebrews of old, the God-beloved prophets and priests and teachers of the whole nation, used to pursue there with such zeal -- is now, by the hands of Roman men, cultivated as farmland in no way different from the rest of the countryside, so that we ourselves have seen with our own eyes the place being ploughed by oxen and sown with seed; and Jerusalem itself has become, like a watchman's hut, after the destruction of its ancient fruitfulness -- or rather, according to the Hebrew reading, a place for gathering stones.

Aquila, then, renders it, 'Therefore, on your account, the land of Zion shall be ploughed, and Jerusalem shall be stripped of stones' -- for, being inhabited by men of another race, it is even to this day being stripped of its stones, since, in our own time, all who dwell in the city gather up the stones from its ruins for their own private, as well as their communal and public, buildings.

And it is possible to behold with one's eyes a grievous sight -- the very stones from the temple itself and from what were once its innermost and holy shrines, taken away for the precincts of idols and for the constructions of public spectacle-buildings. Since these things are thus manifestly seen by all, the new law and the word of the new covenant of our Saviour Jesus Christ, having proceeded forth from that very place, would surely be plain.

In consequence of which countless multitudes of peoples, and nations of every kind, having departed from their ancestral gods and their ancient superstitious error, call upon the God who is over all.

Wherefore it has also been counted worthy of the deepest peace, so that there is no longer a plurality of rulers, nor kingdoms parcelled out by regions, nor does nation raise the sword against nation, nor, as formerly, do they occupy themselves with wars against one another; but each of the farmers rests under his vine and under his fig tree, with none making them afraid, in accordance with the prophecy.

Since these things have thus never before, from all ages past, come to fulfilment at any other time except under the dominion of the Romans, from the days of the manifestation of our Saviour and even to this day, I hold that the time of the prophesied advent of the Lord to mankind has received undeniable proof. From Zechariah.

'Rejoice greatly and be glad, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come, and I will dwell in your midst, says the Lord; and many nations shall flee for refuge unto the Lord in that day, and they shall become a people unto him... and you shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent me unto you.'

And after very many other things intervening, he adds: 'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; proclaim it, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, your king comes to you, righteous and saving, himself meek and mounted upon a beast of burden and a young colt; and he shall utterly destroy chariots out of Ephraim, and horses out of Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be utterly destroyed, and there shall be an abundance of peace from the nations. And he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth.'

Having thus prophesied these things concerning the advent of our Saviour, the word [of Scripture] now, after other matters, proclaims things concerning the final desolation of Jerusalem -- at one time concealed and by way of riddles, at another time openly. By riddles, in the passage where it says, 'Open your gates, O Lebanon, and let fire devour your cedars. Let the pine tree wail, for the cedar has fallen, because the great ones have been grievously afflicted. Wail, O oaks of Bashan, for the thick-grown forest has been torn down. A voice of shepherds wailing, for their greatness has been afflicted; a voice of roaring lions, for the pride of the Jordan has been afflicted.'

These things are spoken by riddles. But the interpretation of them the same prophet supplies openly, saying: 'Behold, I make Jerusalem like a swaying threshold to all the peoples round about, and in Judaea also there shall be a siege upon Jerusalem; and it shall come to pass in that day, I will make Jerusalem a stone trodden underfoot by all the nations; everyone who tramples upon it shall utterly mock it, and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it.'

And after a little he adds: 'And they shall look upon me, him whom they pierced, because of what they insolently did to him, and they shall mourn for him with a mourning as for a beloved son, and with grief as for a firstborn. In that day the mourning in Jerusalem shall be great, like the mourning for a pomegranate-grove cut down in the plain; and the land shall mourn, tribe by tribe: the tribe of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the tribe of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the tribe of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the tribe of Symeon by itself, and their wives by themselves; all the remaining tribes, tribe by tribe, and their wives by themselves.'

And again, after other matters, he proclaims still more clearly the final siege of Jerusalem, saying: 'Behold, days of the Lord come, and your spoils shall be divided within you; and I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to war, and the city shall be captured, and the houses shall be plundered, and the women shall be defiled, and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, but the rest of my people shall not be cut off from the city. And the Lord shall go forth, and shall array himself for battle among those nations, as in the day of his battle-array, in the day of war; and his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem.'

Then, after other intervening matters, he says: 'and it shall be that the Lord is one, and his name one, encompassing all the earth, both the inhabited world and the wilderness.'

And again, after other matters, bringing the book of prophecy to its close, he foretells the calling of the nations through these words: 'And it shall come to pass that as many as are left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up year by year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall come to pass that whoever of all the tribes of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, even these shall be added to those [under judgment]. But if the tribe of Egypt does not go up, nor come there, then upon them too shall come the plague which the Lord shall strike upon all the nations of the earth, as many as do not go up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the sin of Egypt, and the sin of all the nations, as many as do not go up to keep the feast of tabernacles.'

These things Zechariah also prophesied after the return from Babylon, in the reign of Darius king of the Persians, at the time when Jerusalem had only just then been raised up out of its former desolation, which it had suffered at the hands of the Babylonians. Now the whole span of time from the reign of Darius the Persian, in which Zechariah prophesies, up to Augustus the Roman emperor, amounts to sixty-nine weeks of years -- the weeks recorded in Daniel -- which come to four hundred and eighty-three years, as we have demonstrated in the discussions worked out a little earlier.

Nor yet, throughout the period of the Macedonians extending from Alexander down to Augustus, can anything be found fulfilled of what is contained in the words of the prophet.

For at what point during those times did the Lord, spoken of theologically by the prophets, having come to men, find many nations who came to know him and, confessing him alone as God, fled for refuge to him and became a people to him? Or at what point in the times of the Persians or the Macedonians did the prophesied king come, mounted upon a beast of burden and a young colt? Or did he, coming to the Jewish nation of Ephraim and to Jerusalem itself, utterly destroy the royal array called 'chariots and horse,' and abolish the armed forces of the Jewish nation? For this is what the oracle made plain when it said, 'Behold, your king comes to you, righteous and saving, himself meek and mounted upon a beast of burden and a young colt, and the battle bow shall be utterly destroyed.'

For these things were prophesied concerning the abolition of the royal dignity of the Jewish nation; upon which, again, in harmony with what was set forth before, is added the matter of the peace of the nations, through the words, 'and an abundance of peace from the nations.'

In place of which Aquila and the other translators have rendered, 'and he shall speak peace to the nations' -- which finds its fulfilment, especially and to the very letter, from the reign of Augustus onward, when every plurality of rulers was abolished from that time, and peace embraced most of the nations of the inhabited world.

But before the Roman era, under the Persians or the Macedonians, what king of the Jews ever arose such that he ruled from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the inhabited world? This, at any rate, the other translators made plain. Aquila, then, says, 'and he shall speak peace to the nations, and his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the inhabited world.'