Demonstratio Evangelica 8 part 5/5

With this agrees also what is said somewhat to this effect in the seventy-first Psalm concerning the Christ who was to come of the seed of Solomon: 'Righteousness shall arise in his days, and an abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away; and he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the inhabited world.' For these things were spoken concerning the Son of Solomon, falling short in nothing of what was said in the prophet.

When, then, and how, or in what times these things came to pass, let whoever wishes explain; or when else, after the siege under the Babylonians, did Jerusalem undergo a second burning, and the temple in it get thrown down?

This too, in itself, contains a great marvel, just as the prophet hinted when he said, 'Open your doors, O Lebanon, and let fire devour your cedars.' For by 'Lebanon' in these passages he customarily names the temple itself, since it has also been demonstrated through other prophecies that the temple itself is called 'Lebanon.'

This too the children of the Jews themselves still confess even now, since Isaiah also, prophesying in terms akin to the prophet now in hand, said: 'Behold, the Lord Sabaoth confounds the glorious with might, and the lofty ones shall be broken by their pride; and Lebanon shall fall together with the lofty ones, and a rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall spring up from the root, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him.' To which he adds: 'And there shall be the root of Jesse, even him that rises up to rule the nations; on him shall the nations hope.'

For here too, together with the birth of the Christ from the seed of Jesse and David, the destruction of Lebanon and the calling of the nations are joined together. And Ezekiel expressly signifies Jerusalem as 'Lebanon,' saying: 'The great eagle, great of wing, who has the leading part, entered into Lebanon, and plucked off the tender shoots of the cedar.'

The same author, at any rate, explaining these things further on, adds: 'when Nebuchadnezzar comes against Jerusalem, and takes her rulers,' and so on. But these things Ezekiel made plain concerning the first siege, after which Zechariah prophesies concerning the second. When, then, after the times of Zechariah, under the kingdom of the Macedonians, did the temple undergo burning? But it is not possible to say.

For after the burning by the Babylonians, it was at no other time that it underwent a second destruction by fire, except under Titus and Vespasian, the Roman emperors -- in connection with which, again by way of riddle, the passage calls back the former rulers of the nation to lamentation and wailing, saying: 'Let the pine 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.'

Then, indeed, Jerusalem became as a swaying threshold to all the peoples round about, and in Judaea there came to be a siege; and the place they had counted holy and sacred is, even to this day, a stone trodden underfoot by all the nations, and everyone who tramples upon it shall utterly be mocked, in accordance with the prophecy.

But also, because of the insolence they wrought against the Lord who prophesied these things, wailing and lamentation and mourning have not ceased from them. Never, indeed, at any other time except after the coming of our Saviour and down to our own time, have all the tribes of the Jewish nation suffered things worthy of mourning and lamentation, on account of the plague from God that overtook them, by which their mother-city was also handed over to foreign nations, and the temple razed to the ground, and they themselves driven out from their own land, serving their enemies in a hostile country; on account of which their whole house and every soul of them is, even to this day, subjected to lamentation.

Wherefore the prophecy says, 'And the land shall mourn, tribe by tribe: the tribe of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves,' and what follows upon this. But what days occurred, after the times of Zechariah, in which the spoils of Jerusalem were divided, and all the nations were gathered together against it for war, and the city was captured and the houses plundered, and the women defiled and led away into captivity, and at the very same time the Lord, fighting alongside the very nations that were making war on Jerusalem, arrayed himself for battle among them? Or when did his feet stand upon the Mount of Olives? Or when did the Lord become king over all the earth, himself one Lord over all men, and his name one, encompassing all the earth and the desert? For these things no one could point to as having been brought to fulfilment at any earlier time whatsoever, except in the times of the Romans, in which the temple underwent a second burning after that inflicted by the Babylonians, and the city, from that time even to this day, is shown to be inhabited by foreign nations.

It was then also that our Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, made his own dwelling upon the Mount of Olives, opposite Jerusalem -- the word being fulfilled that says, 'and his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem' -- this, that is, once the God-fearing commonwealth had been built up anew throughout the whole inhabited world of mankind; all the nations, in accordance with the prophecy, keep festival everywhere with the feast of tabernacles to the God of the prophets, and the Egyptians, having from that time come to know the God of all things, have pitched their own tents in every city and region -- and these would be the local churches of Christ.

For these tents, far better than those under Moses, the power of our Saviour Jesus Christ has caused to be pitched together throughout the whole inhabited world of mankind, so that the entire race of men and all the nations might keep the feast of tabernacles to the God who is over all.

Since, then, we see with our own eyes that these things, foretold long ago concerning the nations, have received their fulfilment in our own time -- the mourning and lamentation proclaimed beforehand for the tribes of the Jewish nation, and likewise the burning of the temple and their final desolation, these too being observed, even to this day, in accordance with the predictions -- what else remains, upon all this, but to confess that the prophesied king, the Christ of God, has come, seeing that a manifest fulfilment has been demonstrated for each of the signs spoken of concerning his advent? From Isaiah.

'Behold, the Lord sits upon a light cloud, and he shall come into Egypt; and the things made with hands in Egypt shall be shaken before his face, and their heart shall faint within them. And the Egyptians shall be roused up against the Egyptians, and a man shall fight against his brother, and a man against his neighbour; city shall be roused up against city, and law against law, and the spirit of the Egyptians shall be troubled within them, and I will scatter their counsel; and they shall inquire of their gods, and of their images, and of the ventriloquists, and of those that speak out of the ground.'

And next, after very many things spoken by way of riddles, it goes on to say: 'In that day there shall be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt, and a pillar at its border to the Lord; and it shall be for a sign forever to the Lord in the land of Egypt, because they shall cry unto the Lord on account of those who afflict them, and the Lord shall send them a man who shall save them; judging, he shall save them; and the Lord shall be known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord as God in that day, and they shall offer sacrifices, and shall vow vows unto the Lord, and shall perform them.'

And these things we have already, in part, set forth beforehand. If, then, the Egyptians are not seen in our own day to have abandoned their ancestral gods and to call upon the God of the prophets; if an altar has not been raised throughout the whole of Egypt, in every place, city, and region, to the God theologically confessed by the Hebrews alone; if the things made by hand in Egypt have not been shaken, the demonic power connected with them having failed, and the ancient superstition having been lifted from the soul of the Egyptians; and further, in addition to these, if civil war has not arisen within each city and within each household among the Egyptians, some having received the Lord and the reverence of the God of the prophets and turned away from the polytheistic error of old, while others make war on those who have received the Lord, still clinging to their ancestral evils; if it is not the case that, even to this day, those who attempt to inquire of their own gods and images and those who speak out of the ground and the ventriloquists find their recourse to these things fruitless and ineffective, because the demons are no longer able to operate as they formerly did; if all these things are not shown to have come, in actual fact, to their fulfilment -- then let it not be supposed by me that the prophetic oracle has been fulfilled, nor that the prophesied Lord has come to sojourn among the life of men.

But if the inhabitants of Egypt are still to this day observed, by facts themselves far more evident than mere words, some of them having come to know the God of the prophets and having, on his account, abandoned their ancestral gods, while others are set in factious opposition to them; and some still now calling upon their own gods and images and those who speak out of the ground, though these are able to accomplish nothing, while others have established an altar to the Lord of the prophets in every church throughout the whole land of Egypt; and in their afflictions and the persecutions raised against them, no longer calling, like their fathers, upon beasts and creeping things of the earth as gods, nor upon wild animals and irrational creatures, but calling upon the God who is over all, and having grasped him alone, and the fear of him, in their minds, and praying prayers to him, no longer to the demons, and rendering the vows befitting God -- how does it not follow that one must confess that the very things which preceded their fulfilment have already come to pass in actual fact? Now this presence of the Lord in Egypt was not to be one without a body, but 'upon a light cloud,' or rather, 'upon a light thickness' -- for so the Hebrew text has it -- hinting at his coming in the flesh.

This same one, then, the passage, proceeding further, calls 'a man, a saviour,' saying, 'and the Lord shall send them a man, who shall save them.' Here again, moreover, the Hebrew text reads, 'and the Lord shall send them a saviour, who shall save them.' Since these things afford so evident a proof, I hold that the times too have become clear, in which the things concerning the advent of the Lord to mankind were prophesied.

So much, then, in brief compass, has been gathered together concerning the times of the manifestation of the Lord to mankind; but one who searches out with leisure the rest of the Scriptures also might find still more. We, however, being content with what has been said, will now pass on already to the remaining prophecies. Wherefore we shall gather together, following upon this, from the divine predictions, [an account of] the things that were dispensed among men in accordance with him.