But the prophet of God, having changed the name given him at birth, calls the man Jesus according to the divine Spirit; signifying that he was to lead the whole people after his own death in no other way [...]—the legislation laid down through him being destined one day to be removed and to reach its end, and, in a manner, to come to a close together with Moses himself—than that none other than Jesus the Christ of God alone would be leader of another polity, better than the former.
Thus, then, Moses, the most wonderful of all the prophets, having discerned both titles of our Saviour Jesus Christ by the divine Spirit, honoured with these, as with royal diadems, the most select among all the rulers appointed by him—two rulers and leaders of the people, the high priest and his own successor—bestowing 'Christ' and 'Jesus' fittingly according to worth: assigning 'Christ' to Aaron, and, to Nauses, as the one who was to succeed him at his death, assigning the name 'Jesus.'
In this manner, then, the writing of Moses himself has been adorned with the titles of our Saviour Jesus Christ. From Exodus. How Jesus, the successor of Moses, called an angel, and about to lead the people, is said to carry the name of Christ who speaks the oracle. 'Behold, I send my angel before your face, that he may guard you in the way, so that he may bring you into the land which I have prepared for you. Give heed to yourself, and hearken to him, do not disobey him; for he will not draw back from you, for my name is upon him.'
'My name,' says the Lord himself, who declares these oracles to you, 'is inscribed upon him who is about to bring the people into the land of promise.' And since it was Jesus himself who was to do this, and no other, it is manifest that he means that his own name has been placed upon him.
It is not surprising, then, if he also calls him an angel, since even concerning John, who had become a man, it is said, 'Behold, I send my angel before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.' From Zechariah. How Jesus the son of Josedech, the high priest, bore the image and type of our Saviour, who turns back to God the captivity of human souls that had long prevailed.
'And the Lord showed me Jesus the high priest standing before the face of the angel of the Lord; and the devil was standing at his right hand, to oppose him. And the Lord said to the devil, "The Lord rebuke you, O devil; yea, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" And Jesus was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the face of the angel of the Lord; and he answered and spoke to those standing before him, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him." And he said, "Behold, I have taken away your iniquities; and clothe him with a long robe, and set a clean turban upon his head." And they clothed him with garments.'
And next he adds: 'Hear now, O Jesus the high priest, you and your neighbours who sit before you, for they are men who portend wonders; for behold, I bring forth my servant, the Dayspring.'
And a little after this he adds, saying: 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Take of them of the captivity, from her rulers, and from her worthy men, and from those who have acknowledged her, and you shall enter on that day into the house of Sophonias who has come from Babylon; and you shall take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Jesus the son of Josedech, the high priest. And you shall say to him, Thus says the Lord Almighty: Behold, a man—the Dayspring is his name; and from beneath him he shall spring up, and he shall build the house of the Lord; and he himself shall receive excellence, and shall sit and rule upon his throne. And the priest shall be at his right hand, and a peaceful counsel shall be between them both.'
And Jesus, proclaimed in the present prophecy as the great priest, seems to me to preserve the clearest image and a manifest symbol of our Saviour Jesus Christ, being honoured both with his title and by having led the people's return from the Babylonian captivity.
Since our Saviour Jesus Christ also is said, through Isaiah the prophet, to have been sent forth to preach release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to comfort all who mourn, and to give to those who mourn in Zion glory instead of ashes, the oil of gladness. You have, then, already two great high priests—the one in Moses, Christ; the other in the passage now before us, Jesus—who bear, through themselves, the symbols of the truth concerning our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.
But Aaron, the Christ in Moses, who delivered the people from their bondage among the Egyptians, and led them for freedom and for the service of God in their journey out of Egypt, would preserve the image of the true Lord, who redeemed all of us who are of the nations from Egyptian idolatry.
And Jesus in the prophet, the great priest, presided over the return from Babylon to Jerusalem, bearing himself also a token of Jesus our Saviour, whom we have as a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, through whom we too, redeemed as it were from the confusion and captivity of this present life as from Babylon, have been taught to hasten toward the heavenly city, the true Jerusalem.
Fittingly, then, Jesus, who bears through himself the image of the truth, was also clothed with filthy garments, and the devil is said to have stood at his right hand and to have opposed him; since our truly Saviour and Lord Jesus, having come down into our captivity, took up our sins, and wiped upon himself the filth of mankind, and endured, because of his love for us, the shameful things belonging to the passion.
Wherefore Isaiah says, 'This one bears our sins, and suffers pain for us; and we accounted him to be in trouble, and in affliction, and in ill-treatment. But he was wounded because of our sins, and has been made weak because of our transgressions.' But John the Baptist also, seeing the Lord, said, 'Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.'
And Paul, writing about him in a similar vein, says, 'He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.' And 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.' All these things, then, the prophecy declared beforehand through the words in which it says, 'And Jesus was clothed with filthy garments.'
Yet, having laid these things aside at his ascent into the heavens and his return, from the captivity that concerned us, to his own abode, he is crowned with the diadem of the paternal deity, and clothes himself with the most brilliant robe of the paternal light, and is adorned with a divine turban and the other high-priestly ornaments. Nor is it difficult to give an account also of what concerns the devil, who even now, still opposing the teaching of Christ and the church established by him throughout the whole world, has taken his stand against our Saviour himself, having earlier also marshalled himself in array against him, when he came to rescue us from captivity under him.
And having, in the face of all these things, put to rout the devil and all the invisible enemies and foes under him, he made us, who had been captives, into his own household, and out of ourselves, as it were out of living stones, established the house of God and the commonwealth of piety; so that the oracle fittingly applies to him which says, 'Behold, a man; the Dayspring is his name; and from beneath him he shall spring up, and he shall build the house of the Lord; and he himself shall receive excellence, and shall sit and rule upon his throne.'
Give careful attention, then, to the manner in which he, speaking now in a spiritual sense concerning the Jesus of old, who bore the image of the true one, says, 'Behold, a man; the Dayspring is his name.' But going on a little further, as though the Dayspring were another, it is said to that very Jesus who was then present, 'Hear now, O Jesus the high priest, you and your neighbours, for they are men who portend wonders; behold, I bring forth my servant, the Dayspring.' If, then, the word concerned one who was yet to come, that man was accordingly an image of the Dayspring who was yet to come, so that he was addressed, in the image, not only as Jesus but also as 'the Dayspring'—since it was said with reference to him as though he were present, 'Behold, a man; the Dayspring is his name.'
Fittingly, then, for the sake of this image, he too was deemed worthy of the title 'Saviour,' just as also of 'Dayspring,' since 'the salvation of God' is rendered, in the Greek tongue, as 'Jesus'—for among the Hebrews the name signifies 'salvation,' and the son of Naue is called among them Joshua; and Joshua means 'Yahu is salvation,' that is, 'the salvation of God.' Fittingly, therefore, wherever 'the salvation of God' is named in the Greek copies of Scripture, be assured that nothing else than 'Jesus,' according to the Hebrew tongue, is meant to be signified.
Now that these things have been said, to this extent, concerning the title of our Saviour, we shall take up the discourse again from another starting-point, and pass on to the more complete prophetic proofs concerning him.