and in you and in your seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed; and behold, I am with you, keeping you in every way wherever you go, and I will bring you back into this land, for I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken with you.' Behold the promise which you resist; behold how firm a testament you annul! The Lord says: 'I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken with you,' and you contradict Him, saying that we should rather believe you as to whatever crime you allege against the unknown and unknowing world, but should not believe God, who says: 'I will not forsake until I have done.' Read to us from the canonical Scriptures that those men delivered up the divine codices whom you accuse by name.
Read things as open as these which we have read to you from Genesis. We do not ask of you what that stone signifies which Jacob put under his head when he slept, what the ladder set firm upon the earth whose top reached to heaven, what the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. Let the more prudent and more learned inquire into these things and expound them among a peaceable people, where no wicked contradiction clamors against them, arming its own impudence out of the obscurity of the sacrament and the enigma of the reading. There are not lacking hearts of the faithful whom the Lord may call to mind from the Gospel, where He says, when He had seen an Israelite in whom there was no guile—for Jacob, who saw these ladders, was himself called Israel;
there are not lacking, therefore, those whom the Lord Himself may thence call to mind. For there He says: 'You shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man'—that is, upon the seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations are blessed. But these things I do not press upon those who refuse them. Behold what you should hear: 'Your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and it shall be multiplied toward the sea and toward the south and toward the north and toward the east; and in all the tribes of the earth and in your seed shall they be blessed.' Give me this Church, if it is among you. Show that you hold communion with all the nations which we already see blessed in this seed. Give it, or, laying aside your fury, receive it—not from me, but from Him Himself in whom all the nations are blessed.
Let it suffice to have recalled these things from the first book of the Law; more will become known to those who read without impious contention and with pious love. What of the Prophets? How many and how manifest are the testimonies of the Church spread through all nations over the whole world! Whence I shall recall a few, leaving more to the leisure of those who read with diligence and with the fear of God. Let us receive the divine responses through the mouth of holy Isaiah, and let us inquire of his lips as of the oracles of God. Let the spirited and pernicious contests of human quarrels be silent. Let us incline our ear to the word of God; let Isaiah tell where he foresaw the holy Church by God's revelation, that in the words of one telling of the future we may now see present things:
'The whole earth,' he says, 'has been filled, that they may know the Lord, as many waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be the root of Jesse, and He who shall rise to hold the rule over the nations; in Him shall the nations hope.' That the root of Jesse is Christ, born of the seed of David according to the flesh, no Christian in any way is ignorant; and if anyone is contentious, let him contend with the apostle, who uses this testimony in his writings. Likewise he says: 'Israel shall bud and blossom, and the world shall be filled with his fruit.' Israel, forsooth, was the son of Isaac, the grandson of Abraham, to whom it was promised that in his seed all the nations should be blessed, which seed the apostle interprets as Christ.
Now Christ came from the seed of Abraham through Isaac and through Israel and so on, just as the evangelist weaves together the generations pertaining to the birth of Christ. Whoever therefore wishes to dispute against this, let him contradict the Gospel, let him deny that Christ came from the seed of Israel, that he may be able to deny what Isaiah says: 'Israel shall bud and blossom, and the world shall be filled with his fruit.' Likewise he says: 'I am God, the first, and in the things that shall come I am. The nations have seen and the ends of the earth have feared.' This is what the Scripture says elsewhere: 'the first and the last,' so that it is Alpha and Omega, which are the letters in the sign of Christ known to all. For in place of what is there 'the last,' here is set: 'and in the things that shall come I am.'
To this manifestation, then, they speak in contradiction who refuse to believe — nay rather, who refuse now to see fulfilled that which follows: 'The nations saw and the ends of the earth were afraid.' Again, a little later: 'Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, my soul has received him. I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not cry out, nor cease, nor shall his voice be heard abroad. A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, but he shall bring forth judgment in truth. He shall shine and shall not be broken, until he set judgment in the earth, and in his name shall the nations hope.' This testimony is to be understood of Christ, and it is set down also in the Gospel.
Let him who dares speak in contradiction; but let him who dares not hope in him together with the nations, and not withdraw from the unity of the nations that hope in him — or if he has withdrawn, let him return, lest he perish. Isaiah likewise says: 'And now thus says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, that I should gather Jacob and Israel unto him. I will draw near to him and be glorified before the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said to me: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, that you should establish the tribes of Jacob and turn again the offspring of Israel. And I have set you for a covenant of the race, for a light of the nations, that you may be salvation unto the ends of the earth.' And a little later: 'Thus says,' he says, 'the Lord of Israel: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.'
Certainly, when the apostle Paul had cited these words, he showed them to be fulfilled in none but Christians. For he joined them with the words: 'Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.' Let us hear, then, what Isaiah adds: 'I have given you,' he says, 'for a covenant of the nations, that you may inhabit the earth and possess the heritage of the desert.' And then, after some things interposed, he joins on and says: 'Behold, these shall come from afar, and these from the north and the sea, and others from the land of the Persians. Rejoice, O heaven, and be glad, O earth. Let the mountains send forth gladness, for God has had mercy on his people, and has consoled the humble of his people. But Zion said: The Lord has forsaken me, and God has forgotten me.'
'Can forgetfulness overtake a woman regarding the child of her womb, or can it come to pass that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb? Now behold, even though she should forget, yet by no means shall forgetfulness overtake you of yourself, says the Lord. Behold, upon my hands I have inscribed your walls; you are also in my sight forever, and in a short time you shall be built up by those by whom you were overthrown.' Since, therefore, we are not permitted by the apostolic voice to understand this of the people of the Jews, but of Christians, what are we to understand in that which Isaiah says in this place: 'And in a short time you shall be built up by those by whom you were overthrown,' except the kings of the earth, who at first persecuted the Church, but afterward were foretold, so long before, to become her helpers?
But because many of them were to die in their iniquities, he adds and says: 'And those who made you desolate shall depart from you.' Then, because all the nations were to be joined to the Church, there follows and he says: 'Look about you on every side with your eyes and behold them all. As I live, says the Lord, with all these you shall clothe yourself, and shall array them as the ornament of a new bride, since the places in you that were deserted and corrupted and ruined shall now be in greatest straitness because of those who dwell there; far off shall those be driven who devoured you. For your children whom you had lost shall say in your ears: This place is too narrow for us; make us therefore even now a place in which we may dwell. But you shall say in your heart:'
'Who has begotten me these, since I know myself to be without children and a widow? Who, then, has reared these for me? For I was left alone, forsaken; but these — where were they?' Thus says the Lord: 'Behold, I will lift up my hands to the nations, and to the islands my sign, and I will bring your sons in my bosom; your daughters also they shall carry upon their shoulders, and kings shall be your foster-fathers, and their princesses your nurses; bowing their faces down to the ground they shall entreat you, and shall lick the dust of your feet, and you shall know that I am the Lord, and you shall not be put to shame.' And a little later he adds and says: 'Hear me, hear, O my people, and you kings give heed to me, for a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment for a light to the nations.'
'My righteousness draws near speedily, and my salvation shall go forth, and in my arm shall the nations be saved.' Concerning this arm let us consult the apostolic Scriptures. For when the apostle Paul had cited the testimony of this same prophet concerning the unbelief of the Jews, that Christ had not been revealed to them, he set down this: 'Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' Then in what follows Isaiah adds and says: 'Let the desert places of Jerusalem break forth together with joy, for he has had mercy upon her and has delivered Jerusalem; and the Lord shall lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the nations shall see, even to the ends of the earth, the salvation which is from God.'
Who is so deaf, who so mad, who so blind in mind as to speak against testimonies so evident, unless it be one who knows not what he says? But let us come to still plainer things. Certainly we know in the Scriptures that most sacred marriage: the Bridegroom is Christ, and the Bride the Church. Isaiah writes of both, lest perchance we err in either of them — an error which, whoever falls into it, loses both, since concerning this wedlock it is said in a mystery, as the apostle testifies: 'They shall be two in one flesh.' Thus, then, is the Bridegroom himself first described. After the many things that Isaiah so says of him that even the Jews themselves are struck dumb — lest it be tedious to rehearse them all — mark this little: 'Their sins,' he says, 'he shall bear;'
'therefore he shall possess many by inheritance and shall divide the spoils of the strong. For this cause his soul was delivered up to death, and he was reckoned among the wicked, and he himself bore the sins of many, and for our iniquities he was delivered up.' You confess that these things were foretold and prophesied so long beforehand concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. This Bridegroom, then — for what purpose was he delivered up to death, for what purpose was he reckoned among the wicked? With such humility of his loftiness, what did he accomplish, what did he acquire? Who is so deaf as not to hear these things, who so dull as not to understand, who so blind as not to see? 'Therefore,' he says, 'he shall possess many by inheritance and shall divide the spoils of the strong.'
'For this cause his soul was delivered up to death, and he was reckoned among the wicked.' What is this, you heretics, that you glory in your fewness, if for this cause our Lord Jesus Christ was delivered up to death — that he might possess many by inheritance? And who are these many, or how widely do they occupy the earth? Let us hear what follows. The Bridegroom having been proclaimed and set forth, let the Bride also come forward in the words of Isaiah. Let us read her in the truth of the holy pages, and recognize her in the whole world. This testimony concerning the holy Church the apostle Paul also set down, so that there is nowhere for the contentious evasion of heretics to flee:
'Rejoice, O barren one,' he says, 'who did not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who did not travail, for many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband.' Where is that, I ask, in which you glory concerning fewness? Are not these the many, of whom it was said a little before: 'Therefore he shall possess many by inheritance'? For what is his inheritance if not his Church? 'Many,' he says, 'are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband' — meaning by 'her who has a husband' the synagogue of the Jews, since she had received the Law. From this now can be judged what we say. Let them set forth their multitude —
their multitude established in the Africans, or in Africa, alongside the multitude of the Jews scattered throughout all lands wherever they are dispersed, and let them see how very few they are in comparison with those. How, then, will they assign to themselves what was said: 'Many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband'? Again, let them set the multitude of Christians throughout all the nations with whom they hold no communion against the Jews, and let them see how few all the Jews are in comparison, and let them at last some day understand that in the Catholic Church, spread throughout the whole world, this prophecy has been fulfilled: 'Many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband.' But who this deserted one is who has been preferred over her who has a husband in multitude of children — let it be obscure, let it be in a riddle;
nevertheless, that this is the Church of Christ, concerning which it was said, 'Many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband' — whoever speaks against it speaks not against me, but against the apostle. But from where she was to have so many children, he consequently adds and says: 'For the Lord said: Enlarge the place of your tent and of your courts, fix the stakes — do not spare — lengthen your cords and make firm your pegs. Stretch out still to the right and to the left. And your seed shall possess the nations, and you shall inhabit the desolate cities. Fear not, for you shall prevail, neither be afraid because you were held in contempt. You shall forget the everlasting confusion, you shall not remember the disgrace of your widowhood.'
'For I am the Lord who made you — the Lord is his name — and he who delivered you, the God of Israel, shall be called the God of the whole earth.' Behold how far she was bidden to stretch her cords: until her God, the God of Israel, be called the God of the whole earth. For concerning her, and to her, it is said in another place through the same prophet: 'For Zion's sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until my righteousness go forth as light. And my salvation shall burn as a torch, and all the nations shall see your righteousness and kings your honor. And he shall call you by your new name, which the Lord shall name, and you shall be a crown of beauty in the sight of the Lord and a diadem of kingship in the hand of your God, and no longer shall you be called forsaken, and your land shall not be called desolate.'
'For you shall be called My Delight, and your land the whole round world.' What plainer utterance can yet be demanded? Behold, out of one prophet, how many and how clear are the sayings! And yet resistance and contradiction are offered — not to any man, but to the Spirit of God and to the most evident truth; and yet by those who wish to glory in the Christian name, the glory of Christ himself is begrudged, lest these things, which were foretold of him so long beforehand, be believed to be fulfilled, when now they are no longer foretold, but are shown, are seen, are held.
But now, if I should wish to gather into this one letter the testimonies from all the prophets concerning the Church foreshown — which, as we read, so we behold — I fear I might myself seem to judge those things few which are so many that, if I wished to collect them all out of this one Isaiah, I should exceed the measure of a fitting discourse. Now let us hear a few things from the Psalms, sung so long before, and now let us see them fulfilled with great joy. And first that very passage which Petilianus set down in his letter — with what countenance I know not — let them hear and declare: 'The Lord said to me: You are my Son, this day have I begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.'
For what Christian has ever doubted that this was foretold concerning Christ, or has understood this inheritance to be anything other than the Church? And because she was to have both good and evil within the same nets of the sacraments, 'You shall rule them,' he says, 'with a rod of iron; like a potter's vessel you shall shatter them.' For by the same firm and inflexible justice the good are ruled and the evil are shattered. Who is so devious and so at odds with the divine oracles as not to recognize the Gospel itself, when that psalm is sung wherein it is written: 'They have pierced my hands and feet, they have numbered all my bones.'
'But they themselves looked and gazed upon me, they divided my garments among them and cast lots upon my clothing.' When even the evangelist narrated that this deed was done, was he not mindful of this testimony? But what has been purchased at the price of this cross, what by such humility of such loftiness, what by that most innocent and divine blood, except what is said there in the following words: 'All the ends of the earth shall be remembered and shall turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship in his sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he himself shall have dominion over the nations'? Did not the apostle expound as spoken concerning the preachers of the New Testament that which is written:
'Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world'? Of whom else than of Christ is it understood: 'The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has called the earth from the rising of the sun even to its setting. Out of Zion is the form of his beauty'? Whose voice is it but Christ's: 'I slept troubled'? And whence troubled? It follows and he says: 'The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.' Whose but theirs who cried out: 'Crucify, crucify'? To what end is all this? For whose good, for whose gain? Hear what follows: 'Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and above all the earth your glory.' Behold, you have Christ having slept in his Passion and having ascended above the heavens in his Resurrection.
And whence is his glory above all the earth, except because his Church is throughout all the earth? In these two most brief sentences, O heretics, I question you as to the whole matter that is in dispute between us. 'Be exalted,' he says, 'above the heavens, O God, and above all the earth your glory.' Why do you preach the Lord Christ exalted above the heavens, yet not hold communion in his glory that is above all the earth? The seventy-first psalm is entitled 'For Solomon.' But because such things are said in it as cannot fit that temporal king who afterward sinned grievously, they are most invincibly defended as foretold, even against the Jews themselves, concerning Christ. No Christian, however, denies this;
for such things are said as cannot be doubted to pertain to Christ. There too these things are said, wherein is recognized the Church spread throughout the whole world, with all kings likewise subjected to Christ: 'And he shall have dominion,' he says, 'from sea to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the round world' — from the river, indeed, where the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove and a voice from heaven made him manifest. Then it follows: 'Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and his enemies shall lick the earth. The kings of Tarshish and the islands shall offer gifts, the kings of the Arabians and of Sheba shall bring presents. And all the kings of the earth shall worship him, all nations shall serve him.' And a little later: 'And in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, all nations shall magnify him.'
'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who alone does wonders, and blessed be the name of his glory forever and unto the age of ages, and the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. Amen, amen.' Go now, Donatists, and cry out: 'Let it not be, let it not be.' The word of God has conquered you, saying: 'Amen, amen.' Behold, in the Psalms is made manifest the Church spread throughout the whole world, upon which rests the glory of her King. Hence she herself is queen, his bride, of whom it is said to him in the forty-fourth psalm: 'The queen stood at your right hand in gilded raiment, clothed about with variety'; and to exhort this very one the divine discourse is straightway directed:
'Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house, for the king has greatly desired your beauty, for he himself is your God.' Attend to the point from which the divine prophecy has begun to address the Bride of Christ: 'Hear,' he says, 'O daughter, and see.' But you neither will to hear these things foretold nor to see them fulfilled — and yet you both hear and see them against your will. Hear, then, what is said to her a little later; hear this from the divine page, how it is foretold, and see in all the earth how it is fulfilled: 'In place of your fathers,' he says, 'sons are born to you: you shall establish them as princes over all the earth.' How many testimonies of the Scriptures on this matter I pass over, those who read know, and I too know;
but I do not wish to burden with them the letter to which I demand a reply. What will they say to these things which we have recalled from the Law and the prophets and the Psalms concerning the Church of Christ, which is diffused throughout the whole world — to which the perverse choose to be hostile rather than, being corrected, to hold communion? What, I say, will they say? Whether that these things are false, or that they are obscure? But they dare not say that they are false; for they are pressed by the mass of so great an authority. Since, then, they confess these things to be true, they contend that they cannot be fulfilled — as though it were something else to accuse a prophecy of the crime of falsehood than to say that what it foretold cannot be fulfilled; for this is to say that it is no prophecy, but rather a false prophecy. And when you ask them why these things cannot be fulfilled, they answer: 'Because men are unwilling.'
'For man,' they say, 'was created with free will, and if he wishes he believes in Christ, if he does not wish he does not believe; if he wishes he perseveres in what he believes, if he does not wish he does not persevere. And therefore, when the Church had begun to grow throughout the round world, men were unwilling to persevere, and the Christian religion failed out of all the nations, except the party of Donatus.' As though, forsooth, the Spirit of God did not know the future wills of men — who would say such a most insane thing? Why, then, did he not rather foretell this, which he knew would come to pass concerning the wills of men? For in this way, in which these people suppose these things to have been foretold, whoever wishes can be a prophet, so that, when the things he foretold have not been fulfilled, he may answer: 'Men were unwilling;'
'for by free will they are Christians.' In this way someone could prophesy that Christ would suffer not on the cross but would die by the sword, so that, when it was done otherwise, he might answer: 'What have I done? Men, being set in free will, were unwilling to do to him what I had foretold, and did this which they themselves willed.' Now to whom does it not occur how many things could be prophesied, or even can be, in this way by any men whatever? For who would doubt that Judas, if he had not wished, would certainly not have betrayed Christ, and that Peter, if he had not wished, would not have denied the Lord thrice? But for this reason there was a sure prediction concerning these men, because God foresees even future wills.
Nevertheless, although these things are plain even to slow hearts, let us hear also from here the voice of the Word himself, uttered by the mouth of his own flesh. Certainly, when after the resurrection he offered himself to be handled and touched by the hands of the doubting disciples, and when he had taken and eaten before them what they had offered him, he said to them: 'These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.' But of whom are those things written, which we too have recalled from the Law and the prophets and the Psalms, if not of him, as I have shown one by one? When, therefore, he himself, who is the Truth, says:
'all things must be fulfilled,' how do these people deny it, except because they are enemies of the truth? But if they say that these things are still obscure, let us hear from here also the Head himself, the most truthful demonstrator of his own Body. For when he had said, 'that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me,' as though we might ask whether in that which he said, 'concerning me,' the Church was there to be understood, on account of that which is written, 'They shall be two in one flesh' — so that we might hold sure divine oracles not only concerning the Head, but also concerning the Body — the evangelist follows and says: 'Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and he said to them: For thus it is written
'and so it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day.' Here the Head himself is shown, who also offered himself to be handled by the hands of the disciples. See how he adds concerning the Body, which is the Church, so that he permits us to err neither in the Bridegroom nor in the Bride: 'And that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached,' he says, 'in his name throughout all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' What is more truthful than this utterance, what more divine, what more manifest? It shames me to commend her with my own words, and are the heretics not ashamed to assail her with theirs?
Let them say that those testimonies which I have set down from the Law and the prophets and the Psalms are obscure and spoken figuratively, and can also be understood otherwise — although even in them I have labored, as far as I could, so that they may not dare to say even this — but behold, let them say: Was this too spoken obscurely, or shadowed under the veil of a riddle, which Christ himself said: 'For thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise the third day, and that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem'? If 'I slept troubled' is obscure, is 'that Christ must suffer' obscure? If 'Be exalted above the heavens, O God' is obscure, is 'and rise the third day' obscure?
Likewise, if 'above all the earth your glory' is obscure, is 'and that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name throughout all the nations' obscure? If 'The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has called the earth from the rising of the sun even to its setting' is obscure, is 'that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name throughout all the nations' obscure? For thus the earth was called from the rising of the sun even to its setting, just as he himself says: 'I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' If 'Out of Zion is the form of his beauty' is obscure, is 'beginning at Jerusalem' obscure? For that same Zion is Jerusalem. But what is that to me?