To these he adds, saying: 'All this because of the impiety of Jacob, and because of the sin of the house of Israel.' But it is also clear from what follows in the same prophet that the Lord did not make his descent from heaven only on account of the impieties of the Jewish nation, but also for the salvation and calling of all the nations. He goes on, accordingly, to add: 'And it shall be, in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and many peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go, and shall say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.'
Wherefore also, after these things, having proclaimed that the one who exists before the ages was to come forth from Bethlehem, he says that he will rule no longer over Israel alone, but altogether over all men, even to the ends of the earth. He says, accordingly: 'And he shall stand, and shall shepherd his flock in strength; the Lord, and they shall exist in the glory of the name of the Lord their God. For now he shall be magnified even to the ends of the earth, and this shall be peace.'
But for whom shall this peace be, other than the earth, in which the things of the Lord shall be magnified? And what outcome this attained after the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ is manifest to everyone.
For whereas before this there was much division of rule, and all the nations were under tyranny or under democratic government, so that men had no intercourse with one another — for instance, to speak of it, the Egyptians being ruled by their own native ruler, and the Arabians likewise, and the Idumaeans, the Phoenicians, the Syrians, and the other nations, with nation rising up against nation and city against city, and countless sieges and captivities being carried out in every place and country — when the Savior and Lord was present, together with his coming among men, and Augustus of the Romans first gained mastery over the nations, the greater part of this multiplicity of rule was dissolved, and peace took hold of the whole earth, in accordance with the prediction now before us, which explicitly says concerning the disciples of Christ: 'For now they shall be magnified even to the ends of the earth, and this shall be peace.'
With this agrees the oracle concerning Christ in the psalms, which says: 'In his days righteousness shall arise, and abundance of peace.' Wherefore it seems to me that he was named 'Prince of Peace' in the prophecy cited before this one. Observe, moreover, in what manner the prophet now before us, beginning, said that the Lord was to come forth from heaven, but that he would not shepherd men before the one foretold was born in Bethlehem.
And that these things were accomplished with reference to our Savior and Lord, the evangelist bore witness through the words of his which I have already set forth above. Now Christ has been said to be shown forth as shepherd and leader of Israel, in keeping with the customary usage of the sacred Scripture, which names 'true Israel,' according to its own meaning, every one who is discerning and who lives in a manner pleasing to God — just as, conversely, it calls those of the circumcision, whenever they sin, 'Canaanites' and 'seed of Canaan' and not of Judah, and 'rulers of Sodom' and 'people of Gomorrah,' naming them after manners resembling those peoples.
But otherwise, taken literally, the whole sojourn of our Savior took place among the Jewish nation, and he did indeed lead many of Israel — as many, that is, of those of the circumcision as came to know him and believed in him.
Now the foregoing prediction has received this fulfillment; but what follows must be read as beginning from another point, running thus: 'When the Assyrian comes upon your land, and when he sets foot in your country, then there shall be raised up against him seven shepherds and eight bitings of men' — and what follows these words, and of what sense they partake, it does not belong to the present occasion to explain.
One might say that, after the invasion of the Assyrians into Judaea, in which they captured the nation of the Jews, so many uprisings occurred against them as are signified by the seven shepherds and the eight bitings; those who have studied the history of the Assyrians can know these things, at the end of which the one prophesied from Bethlehem came to be — that is, after the seven shepherds, so to speak, and the eight bitings, which befell the Assyrians in the later times of their invasion into Judaea. These matters, requiring very extensive investigation, it is not now the occasion to pursue in detail. From Psalm 131
'Remember, O Lord, David, and all his gentleness; how he swore to the Lord, he vowed to the God of Jacob: I will not enter into the tent of my house, I will not go up upon the couch of my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes, nor slumber to my eyelids, nor rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. Behold, we heard of it at Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of the wood. Let us go into his dwelling places; let us worship at the place where his feet stood.'
Then he goes on to say: 'For the sake of David your servant, turn not away the face of your Anointed. The Lord swore truth to David, and will not go back on it: Of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne.'
And to these he adds, saying: 'There I will cause a horn to spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my Anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon him shall my sanctification flourish.'
This present prophecy, too, agrees with the one before it, signifying that the God who was proclaimed beforehand was to come forth from Bethlehem. This very thing, indeed, David, not knowing it beforehand, prays to learn from God; and having prayed, he is instructed.
For since he had obtained the oracle addressed to him in the psalm, which said, 'Of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne,' and again, 'There I will cause a horn to spring up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my Anointed,' he fittingly falls down before God, and having fallen prostrate upon the ground, he supplicates; and persevering yet further in prayer, he swears to God that he will not enter into the tent of his house, nor give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids, nor go up upon the couch of his bed, but will lie upon the ground worshiping and supplicating, until he finds a place for the Lord and a dwelling place for the God of Jacob — that is, until he learns, the Lord having made it manifest to him, the birth of the Christ.
And having prayed and desired to know such things, he beholds, not long after, by the divine Spirit, the things that were to be — God having promised to his own that he would hearken to them while they were still speaking.
Having been heard, he is indeed accounted worthy of an oracle proclaiming to him Bethlehem, as the place where the place of the Lord and the dwelling place of the God of Jacob was to be established. When, then, the divine Spirit had thus prophesied within him, he himself, having hearkened to himself, adds: 'Behold, we heard of it at Ephrathah.'
Now Ephrathah is the same as Bethlehem, as is clear from Genesis, where it is said concerning Rachel that they buried her 'in the race-course of Ephrathah, that is, Bethlehem.'
And the prophecy before this one also contained: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha." "Behold," it says, "we have heard it" -- clearly meaning the birth of Christ and the tabernacling of the God of Jacob. For what would the tabernacle of the God of Jacob be, but the body of Christ that was born in the place of Bethlehem, in which, as in a tabernacle, the deity of the Only-begotten tabernacled? And it is called the tabernacle not simply of God, but with the addition "of the God of Jacob," because the one who tabernacled in it was none other than the God who appeared to Jacob in human form and shape -- on whose account he was also deemed worthy of the surname "Israel," that is, "one who sees God" (for this is what the name means), being so addressed; and that the one who appeared to Jacob was none other than the God the Word, we established in the earlier parts of the present treatise.
Accordingly, to David, when he prayed and longed for the place and tabernacle of the Lord and God of Jacob, the place at Bethlehem was shown; wherefore, having said, "Behold, we heard of it at Ephratha," he adds, saying, "Let us worship at the place where his feet stood.
Clearly, then, in these words too it was prophesied that the Lord and God of Jacob himself would establish for himself a place and a tabernacle at Ephratha, which is Bethlehem -- in harmony with the prophecy of Micah, which says: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, out of you shall come forth for me a ruler, and his goings-out are from the beginning, from days of old" -- words which we lately examined and showed to apply to none other than our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God alone, who, in accordance with the predictions, was born in Bethlehem.
No one, then, could point to anyone else who came forth gloriously from this town after the time of the prophecy; for neither king nor prophet, nor any other of those beloved of God among the Hebrews, but only our Savior and Lord, the Christ of God, is shown to have been born both from the seed of David and in that very place.
It is time, then, to acknowledge that he is that very one, and none other, who is prophesied even in these words; and clearly, in what follows, the same psalm, naming him explicitly, calls him Christ and establishes this through the words: "For the sake of David your servant, turn not away the face of your Christ." And again there: "There I will make a horn to spring up for David, I have prepared a lamp for my Christ; his enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon him my holiness shall flourish.
Where does he say "there I will make a horn spring up for David," but at Bethlehem of Ephratha? From there, then, the horn of David -- Christ according to the flesh -- sprang up like some great light, and there the lamp of Christ was prepared beforehand by the God of all.
And his lamp would be, as of an intelligible light, the human tabernacle [of flesh], through which -- like an earthen vessel, as it were through a lamp -- he shone forth the rays of his own light upon all who were oppressed by ignorance of God and by deep darkness.
But indeed, in these passages too I consider it clearly demonstrated that the God of Jacob, who exists from the beginning and from days of old, would sojourn among men, and would be born in no other place on earth than the region of Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, a place still pointed out even now -- where no one else, after the times of the prophets, illustrious and glorious to all mankind, is testified by all the local inhabitants to have arisen, in accordance with the words of the Gospel, except Jesus Christ alone.
Bethlehem is interpreted "house of bread," bearing a name fitting to our Savior who came forth from it, being the God the Word, the nourisher of rational souls -- which he himself also affirms, saying, "I am the bread that came down from heaven.
But since this was also David's native town, fittingly the one who according to the flesh became the son of David made his forth-coming from it also, in accordance with the prophetic predictions; so that the reason for which he registered Bethlehem as his native town is not without explanation.
But he is also said to have been brought up in Nazareth, and again that he should be called a Nazorean. One must know, then, that the name "nazirite" is also a Hebrew word, occurring in Leviticus with reference to the anointing of the one anointed [high priest] among them. This ruler bore a shadowy and typal Christ, in the image of the great and true high priest, the Christ of God.
In these words, then, it is said according to the Seventy concerning the high priest: "and he shall not profane the one consecrated to his God, because the holy oil, the christ [anointing] of his God, is upon him." The Hebrew contains "nazer oil"; but Aquila has "a setting-apart, the oil of the anointing of his God is upon him"; Symmachus has "the untouched oil of the unction of his God is upon him"; Theodotion has "nazer oil, the christ [anointing] from his God, is upon him.
So that "nazer" is, according to the Seventy, "holy"; according to Aquila, "a setting-apart"; according to Symmachus, "untouched" -- so that from this the name "nazirite" signifies either "the holy one," or "the one set apart," or "the untouched one." Now the priests of old, being anointed with the prepared oil which in Moses is called "nazer," were derivatively called "nazirites," from "nazer.
But our Savior and Lord, possessing by nature the holy, the untouched, and the set-apart, and not needing human anointing, nevertheless obtained among men the appellation of "Nazirite" -- not having become a Nazirite from the oil called "nazer," but being such by nature, and being called by men "Nazirite" from Nazareth, where he had his upbringing as a child among his parents according to the flesh.
Hence it is said in Matthew: "And being warned in a dream" -- clearly meaning Joseph -- "he withdrew into the parts of Galilee, and came and dwelt in a city called Nazara, that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled: He shall be called a Nazorean.
For it was necessary that he, being by nature and in truth altogether a Nazirite -- that is, holy, untouched, and set apart -- should be called by men with this appellation; but since he did not obtain this appellation from the "nazer" oil, not needing human anointing, he acquired it from the place Nazareth.
Now that these things have thus been demonstrated, it is time to examine also from what family, and from what tribe of the Hebrews, the Savior of our souls, the Christ of God, was proclaimed as being about to come forth. I shall first set out the words of the Gospel concerning this, and then, like fitting seals, I shall place upon them the prophetic testimonies. Matthew, then, traces the genealogy of Christ according to the flesh in this way: "The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah," and so on.
And the apostle agrees with him, saying that he was "set apart unto the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son, who came of the seed of David according to the flesh." These words would be in accord with the predictions that run as follows. From the Second Book of Chronicles.
The Lord, through Nathan the prophet, decrees these things to David in the Second Book of Chronicles: "And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who shall be from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me a house for my name, and I will set up his throne forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
And in the eighty-eighth Psalm, concerning the same one, as concerning David, these things are said: "He shall call upon me, You are my father, my God, and the helper of my salvation; and I will make him my firstborn, high above the kings of the earth; forever I will keep my mercy for him, and my covenant is faithful to him.
And again: "Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David; his seed shall remain forever, and his throne as the sun before me, and as the moon, established forever.
And again: "And I will establish his seed for ever and ever." Similar to these would be also the words in which it is said: "The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not set it aside: Of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne.
Solomon, being the son of David, has appeared confessedly to be the successor of the kingdom. He was also the first to build for God the temple in Jerusalem, and it is likely that those of the circumcision would suppose him to be the one prophesied of; it would be good to press them, whether they are able to refer to Solomon the oracle that says, "and I will set up his throne forever," and again, to have God swear with the solemnity of an oath by his holiness that the throne of the one prophesied would be like the sun, and like the days of heaven.
For if one should examine the years of Solomon's reign, one will find them to be forty years, no more; and if one should also add up those of his successors, one would find that all of them together did not last as much as five hundred years in all.
But let it even be granted that the same [kingdom] be reckoned to have lasted until the last siege of the Jewish nation by the Romans; what, then, is this compared to the prophecy decreeing that his throne would remain forever, and like the sun, and like the days of heaven? And how could "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son" fit Solomon, when the history concerning him expressly teaches things foreign and estranged from being adopted as God's son?
Hear, then, what an accusation it recounts against him: "And Solomon was a lover of women, and he took many foreign wives, and Pharaoh's daughter, Moabite women, Ammonite women, and Idumean women, Syrian and Hittite women, and Amorite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord God forbade the sons of Israel, that they should not go in unto them.
And it adds to these: "And his heart was not with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father; and Solomon went after Astarte, the abomination of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the idol of the sons of Ammon. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord.
And again next it adds: "And the Lord raised up an adversary [satan] against Solomon, Hadad the Idumean." What reasoning, then, would allow one so charged with so many and such things to dare to claim God as father, and to proclaim the God over all as his own firstborn son? And how could these things be said now as concerning David himself, now as concerning his seed? But neither would they fit David, as will be plain to you if you attend to it.
One must therefore seek another, indicated in these words as about to arise from the seed of David. But no other such person has arisen from him, as is recorded in history, except that there is one -- our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ of God -- who alone of all who have ever reigned from the seed of David has been proclaimed throughout the whole world as Son of David, being acknowledged as such according to his enfleshed birth; and his kingdom alone remains and continues, extending unto boundless ages, though plotted against times without number, yet by a power divine and above man showing forth, in accordance with the prophecy concerning him, its inspired and unconquerable character.
But if you hear that God swears by his holy one, hear it as of a father swearing by God the Word, who pre-existed before all ages, his holy and only-begotten own child, whom the previously cited utterances have variously spoken of in divine terms -- by whom God his Father swears, as by his beloved one, that he will glorify unto boundless ages the one from the seed of David: which indeed came to pass when the Word, having become flesh, took up the one from the seed of David and deified him. Wherefore he also proclaims him son, saying, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
And again: "And I will make him my firstborn." Clearly, then, from these words it has been declared that the Son of God, the Firstborn, was to come from the seed of David, so that the Son of David and the Son of God are one and the same -- the Son of David being also the Son of God, and the Son of God being also David's. By these words it was clearly prophesied that the Firstborn was to be born of man.
And this saying too the Scripture of the Gospel confirms, through the words in which it says that Gabriel, standing before the holy Virgin, spoke concerning our Savior: "He shall be great, and shall be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
And a little further on, in the same Gospel, Zachariah the father of John pronounces these things concerning Christ: "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and wrought redemption for his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.
But that it is our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, and no other man, who has received the eternal throne promised to David, the testimonies previously cited are sufficient to confirm -- that of Gabriel and that of Zachariah -- through which it is also established that he came of the seed of David according to the flesh.
As to the reasoning by which the sacred Evangelists trace the genealogy of Joseph, even though our Savior was not from him but from the Holy Spirit and the holy Virgin, and as to how this mother of the Lord also is shown to be of the family and seed of David -- since I have already treated this in the first book of the Questions and Solutions concerning the genealogy of our Savior, I refer those fond of learning to that work, the present occasion pressing us on to another subject. From Psalm 71: "O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king's son.
And next it adds: "And he shall continue with the sun, and before the moon, unto generations of generations; he shall come down like rain upon a fleece, and as drops falling upon the earth. In his days shall righteousness spring up, and abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away; and he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the world.
And a little further it says: "His fruit shall be lifted up above Lebanon; his name shall be blessed forever; his name shall continue before the sun; and in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed; all the nations shall call him blessed.
Since the Psalm is written "for Solomon," the first verse of the Psalm might be referred to him, but everything that follows to the son of Solomon -- not Rehoboam, who reigned over Israel after him, but the one who according to the flesh came of his seed, the Christ of God.
For that it is not possible to refer what is in the Psalm either to Solomon or to his successor, on account of what has been shown about him, everyone not unacquainted with the divine Scriptures will admit. But indeed, how could one possibly take what runs through the whole Psalm as referring to Solomon or to his son Rehoboam? For instance, "he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the world," and "he shall continue with [the sun] and before the moon, unto generations of generations," and all the other similar things that are added.
Wherefore, without needless difficulty, the opening statement, "O God, give your judgment to the king," could be assigned to Solomon himself; but the following clause, "and your righteousness to the king's son," could be assigned to Solomon's son -- not that firstborn one who became his successor in the kingdom (for he, presiding over only the Jewish nation, not even for seventeen full years, exercised his rule most wickedly), nor to any other of those who succeeded Rehoboam on the throne of Solomon's kingdom, but only to the one from the seed of David who was thus styled both son of Solomon and son of David.
This was our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. For his alone, and no other's, of all who ever lived, is the throne of the divinely-inspired kingdom that continues with the sun. And he alone, and no other man, existed before the moon and before the constitution of the world, inasmuch as he is the Word of God, and pre-existed; and he alone rained down from heaven like dew upon all the earth; and it has been said that he has risen upon all mankind, according to what was granted to us a little before, with righteousness remaining until the completion of life, which has been called the "taking away" of the moon.
And manifestly the power of our Savior holds sway and has dominion over those from the eastern sea unto the setting sun, having begun to be at work from the river -- either that of the mystery of the washing [baptism], or from the point where, appearing first at the Jordan, he began his benefaction toward mankind.
Extended, then, from that time, his kingdom among men passed through the whole world. And since Jerusalem is understood as "Lebanon," as is shown from very many prophecies, on account of the sanctuary and the altar that were of old in it, and the things offered upon it in honor, like frankincense, to God, the fruit of Christ -- the church from the nations -- is decreed to be lifted up above Lebanon.
At leisure, then, the studious reader, examining the Psalm for himself word by word, would confess that what is in it belongs to our Lord alone, and not to the old Solomon, nor to any other of the kings after him who ruled over the one nation of the Jews, and that for no more than a very few years, and over no other land than Judea alone. From Isaiah.
And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up from the root, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and godliness; the spirit of the fear of God shall fill him. He shall not judge according to glory, nor reprove according to speech; but he shall judge with judgment for the lowly, and reprove the lowly of the earth.
And he shall be girded about the loins with righteousness, and wrapped about the ribs with truth; and the wolf shall feed together with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down together with the kid, and the calf and the lion shall be fed together; and there shall be the root of Jesse, even he who rises up to rule the nations -- in him shall the nations hope, and his rest shall be honor.
The Jesse referred to here was the father of David. Just as, then, in the prophecies before this one, he was said to be about to come forth from the fruit and seed of David, and again from the seed of Solomon, in the same manner here too, very many years after the death not only of David but also of Solomon, someone is decreed to be about to come forth from the root of Jesse -- clearly meaning also from David's line.
The present passage will resolve the ambiguity previously supposed by the Jews concerning Solomon. For very many years after the death of Solomon, Isaiah prophesies these things concerning someone else, who was to appear from the root of Jesse and from the seed of David.
That what is here signified applies to none other than our Savior, the Christ of God, having come from the root of both David and Jesse, I do not think anyone would doubt, if he attends to the promise of the prediction which says, "And there shall be the root of Jesse, even he who rises up to rule the nations -- in him shall the nations hope," and to the outcomes evidently displayed in our Savior.
He alone, then, after the resurrection from the dead -- on account of which I also think he has been called "the one who rises up" -- ruled not over the Jewish people but over all the nations, so that the oracle stands in no need of interpretation, it being clearly self-evident how in him, together with the other things, this too has found its fulfillment: "in him shall the nations hope.
And the things said concerning animals and wild beasts being tamed, and laying aside their wild and untamed disposition at the coming of the one prophesied, would be allegorized as referring to harsh and savage ways and beast-like characters of men, which through the teaching of Christ would be transformed away from their irrationality and beastliness.