My brother is white and ruddy and pierced with a lance by the soldiers. What did the whiteness show but the faith of the people? But the ruddiness signifies the passion. For to this end He came in His first coming, that He might display all lowliness and disfigurement even unto the death of the cross. Hear, finally, in the twenty-first psalm: But I am a worm and no man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people. All who beheld me mocked me, they spoke with their lips and shook their head. Likewise there: My strength has dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue has cleaved to my jaws, and You have brought me down into the dust of death. Likewise in the sixty-eighth psalm: It shall please the Lord above a young bullock that puts forth horns and hoofs.
What do you say, Jew—was David horned? Come now, understand that cluster of grapes in the book of Numbers, which two men carried back from the land of promise upon a pole; this surely was a figure of Christ hanging upon the tree, coming from the land of promise—that is, from Mary, who was of an earthborn lineage. And those who carried the pole showed forth the figure of two peoples: the one earlier, namely yours, turning its back on Christ; the other later, looking upon the cluster of grapes—namely, our people is understood. Simon the Jew said: What will you say concerning the pomegranate, which was brought to Moses together with that same cluster? Theophilus the Christian said: Most rightly did the pomegranate follow the cluster.
namely, it was a figure of the Church, having within itself a people enrolled by the red blood of Christ. Simon the Jew said: What will you say about the fig trees? Or by what arguments in your treatises will you prove that the fig is not sin, since, when the first-formed Adam in his transgression covered his shameful parts with fig leaves, which were the itch and bitterness of sin? Theophilus the Christian said: You understand these things only at skin-level, O Jew. For the fig tree and the leaf-coverings are understood as a figure of the old man. For if you are willing to consider the spiritual man, that is, the inner man, you will find the fruit of the fig trees brought to Moses from the land of promise to be the spiritual life;
just as to Hezekiah king of Judea, after the increase of his life, a lump of figs as the chief medicine was applied for the health of his flesh. For it would have been enough for God to have said: I have added to you fifteen years to the time of your life. But he adds, saying: Take for yourself a lump of figs and pound it and apply it as a poultice, and you shall be healed—that is, that when the assault of lust is broken, you may recover health. Let us now return to the lowliness of the first coming of Christ, of which we were speaking. Hear the prophet Isaiah: O God, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We announced concerning him: like a little infant child, there is no comeliness in him nor honor. And we saw him, and he had no comeliness nor beauty: a man set in affliction and knowing how to bear infirmity.
because his face was turned away, he was despised and not esteemed. He bore our sins and is in sorrows for us. But he himself, because he was ill-treated, was led like a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before its shearer, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. But who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth; from the crimes of my people he was led to death. And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death, because he did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. But the Lord delivered him up for our sins, and he was reckoned among the wicked. Likewise there he testifies concerning the lowliness of his first coming, saying:
I gave my back to the scourges, my cheeks to the blows, and I did not turn my face from the foulness of spitting, and the Lord was my helper. And Jeremiah says: I was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and I did not know. Concerning this lamb, as an image of Christ, Moses in Egypt celebrated the Passover for the deliverance of the people. Nor could the people otherwise have been freed from the house of bondage and from the oppression of Pharaoh, unless the lamb were slain and the Passover celebrated and the doorposts of the house marked with its blood, so that, when that destroying angel came, those who were in the houses, at the sight of the sign of the blood, might be saved. This sacrament, foretold beforehand, was fulfilled in the coming of Christ.
For on this account Christ in his first coming was slain, that he might free us from the power of the devil and from the worship of idols. Now he was called a yearling, because, after he was baptized in the Jordan, he preached for a year and so suffered, and we are sealed on the forehead with his blood, so that in the second coming, when the devastation of this world shall come, we may be able to be saved. As author of this matter I will offer the prophet Ezekiel, who himself also signifies the two comings of Christ, saying: Pass through the midst of Jerusalem and you shall mark a sign on the foreheads of the men who grieve and groan over the iniquities which are done in the land. And again he signifies the second coming, the devastation of those not sealed, saying:
Go into the city and do not spare the old man nor the young man, and slay with the sword the women and the little ones, that they may be destroyed; but those on whom you find the sign, do not touch them, and begin from my holy ones. This sign also Rahab the harlot, who was a figure of the Church, suspended in her window—scarlet and a cord—so that, when Joshua came to make war upon Jericho, at the sight of Rahab's scarlet sign, she and those who were in her house might be saved. So also in the coming of Christ, when Christ the Son of God shall come to burn this world with fire, the Church and those who are found sealed in it on the forehead shall be saved;
just as Hosea, who was a type of Christ, is commanded to take a wife of fornication, that is, the Church, which Christ took out of the fornication of idols: thus said the Lord: Take to yourself a wife of fornication; that is, he took her out of the fornication of idols, since the beginning of the fornication of idols is servitude. Simon the Jew said: Then is the Church a harlot? Theophilus the Christian said: For what is a harlot understood to be except one subject to all who come? So too the Church denies to none who come to her the gain of faith. For when the synagogue was repudiated, Christ took the Church to himself. For hear Jeremiah saying: I have sent away your mother and given her a bill of divorce, which I gave to your mother because I have put her away.
And another prophet says: Plead with your mother, for I am not her husband. For this is Christ the righteous Son of God, concerning whom Solomon also prophesied in the person of the Jews, saying: Let us therefore beset the righteous one, for he is unprofitable to us and contrary to our works, and he reproaches us with sins against the law, he charges us with sins against our discipline, he professes to have the knowledge of God and names himself the Son of God. And he has become to us a reproof of our thoughts. For he is grievous even to behold, because his life is unlike that of others and his ways are changed.
We were counted by him as worthless, and he holds himself off from our ways as from filth, and he sets the latter end of the righteous above all, and he boasts that he has God as Father and names himself the Son of God. Let us therefore see whether his words are true, and let us test what things shall come to him. And let us know what his last things shall be. For if he is the true Son of God, he will take him up and free him from the hands of his adversaries. Let us question him with insult and torment, that we may know his reverence and prove his patience. Let us condemn him to a most shameful death; for there shall be a regard for him out of his own words. These things they thought, and they erred; for their own malice blinded them, and they knew not the mysteries of God.
And Moses in Deuteronomy says: You shall not slay the innocent and the righteous. The Scriptures testify that he rose from the dead. We find in Psalm 15: For you will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you give your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life, you will fill me with gladness with your countenance; likewise in Psalm 29: O Lord, you have brought up my soul from the lower regions; likewise in Psalm 3 it says: I slept and took my rest and rose up, because the Lord will sustain me. And the prophet Hosea testifies that he rose from the dead on the third day, saying: He will revive us after two days, on the third day. Likewise the Lord says to Moses in Exodus:
Go down and testify to the people and purify them today and tomorrow, that they may wash their garments and be ready on the third day. For on the third day the Lord appeared on Mount Sinai. And Jonah, when he was sent to preach to the Ninevites, demonstrated the type of Christ, that after three days he would come out of the belly of the whale, which was hell. And Isaiah says: Now I will rise up, says the Lord, now I will be glorified, now you shall see, now you shall be put to shame. The strength of your hope shall be vain, fire shall consume you. And in Psalm 77 it says: And the Lord rose up as one sleeping, and as a mighty man flushed with wine. By the wine which he mentioned, his passion is shown.
For in his passion, from the sixth hour to the ninth hour, darkness fell, night closed the day, as the prophet Amos says: The sun shall set at noon and the day of light shall be darkened, and I will turn your festal days into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. And Jeremiah says: She who bears is terrified, weariness has seized her soul; the sun has set while it is still day; she is confounded and accursed; the rest of them I will give to the sword in the sight of their enemies. But that after the resurrection he ascended into the heavens and sits at the right hand of the Father, all the Scriptures testify, saying in Psalm 67: Make a way for him who ascends above the sunset; the Lord is his name.
They shall be troubled at his face, the father of orphans and judge of widows; likewise in Psalm 46: God ascended with a shout and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet; likewise in Psalm 18: His going forth is from the height of heaven and his circuit even to the height of heaven, and there is none who can hide himself from his heat. The law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls; likewise in Psalm 17: He bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet, and he ascended upon the Cherubim and flew, he flew upon the wings of the winds and made darkness his hiding place; before the brightness in his sight the clouds passed, hail and coals of fire; and the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave his voice;
He sent from on high and took me and delivered me and rescued me from my most powerful enemies and from those who hated me. And Isaiah says: Who is this who comes from Edom, the Lord, with redness of garments from Bozrah, so glorious in his robe and mighty? And it is answered in the person of Christ: I dispute judgment and announce truth. Likewise in Psalm 23, when Christ ascended into the heavens, it was said to the angelic gatekeepers: Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O eternal gates, and the King of glory shall enter in. But those who knew that Christ had entered the Virgin by the Word, marveling that in such a manner and bearing the victorious trophy he was mounting heaven, ask, saying: Who is this King of glory?
To whom the answer is given: The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Likewise in Psalm 109: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord shall send forth the rod of your power out of Sion, and rule in the midst of your enemies. With you is the dominion in the day of your power, in the splendor of the holy ones. From the womb before the morning star I begot you. The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, the Lord at your right hand. Hear now also the glory of the kingdom of his second coming in Daniel: I saw in the night in a vision, and behold, in the clouds of heaven one like a son of man coming, he came even to the Ancient of days, and there was given to him royal power;
all the kings of the earth by their kind and all glory shall serve him, and his faith is eternal, which shall not be moved, and his kingdom shall not be corrupted. Likewise in Psalm 92: The Lord has reigned, he is clothed with majesty, the Lord is clothed with strength and has girded himself with power. For he has established the world, which shall not be moved. Your throne is prepared, O God, from that age you are. And in Psalm 49: The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting; out of Sion is the form of his beauty. God shall come manifestly, our God, and shall not keep silence. Fire shall burn in his sight, and round about him a mighty tempest. He called the heaven above and the earth, to judge his people.
Gather to him his holy ones, those who order his covenant in sacrifices. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge. Likewise in Psalm 44 it says: Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most mighty, in your comeliness and your beauty; and bend your bow, prosper, advance and reign for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness. Likewise in Psalm 95 it says: Say among the nations: The Lord has reigned from the tree. Likewise in Isaiah: A child is born to us, whose government is set upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called the angel of great counsel.
And if you wish to know the fullness of the Gospels, you will find in our John that Christ, going to his passion, bore the cross upon his shoulders, concerning which Isaiah says: Whose government is set upon his shoulders. Likewise in Psalm 71: O God, give your judgment to the king and your righteousness to the king's son, to judge your people in righteousness and your poor in judgment. Let the mountains receive peace for your people and the hills righteousness. He shall judge the needy of the people and shall save the children of the poor and shall humble the slanderer, and he shall endure with the sun and before the moon throughout generations of generations. In his days righteousness shall arise and abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away.
And he shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and his enemies shall lick the earth and shall worship him always, all the day they shall bless him. And there shall be a support in the earth on the tops of the mountains, his fruit shall be exalted above Lebanon, and they shall flourish out of the city like the hay of the earth. Let his name be blessed throughout the ages of ages, before the sun his name endures and before the moon his throne, and in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, all nations shall magnify him. Simon the Jew said: Indeed you have shown me all things prefigured in Christ by manifest proof through my own Scriptures.
And I would indeed have wished to believe, were it not that the consideration of this psalm calls me back. For this psalm was spoken concerning Solomon; so much so that its very title refutes you, since it says: A Psalm concerning Solomon. Theophilus the Christian said: That envier, who deceived the first-formed man and has just now deceived your people, through whose envy death came into the world, this one indeed has also taken hold of the understanding of your heart, so that you, wandering, do not understand a matter that is manifest and set in the light. For Solomon reigned within the fixed bounds of Judea for forty years, from Dan to Beersheba, and afterward he sinned, as it says in the third book of Kingdoms:
And Solomon did evil and did not walk in the way of his father David, and he built an idol to Moab, Chemosh, and to Trivia, the abomination of the Sidonians; and the Lord stirred up Satan against Solomon himself, Hadad the Idumean. But the kingdom of Christ has been stretched out beyond unknown wildernesses. For of whom does God say through the prophet: And he shall endure with the sun and before the moon throughout generations of generations, and he shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth? Does he say this of Solomon, whose kingdom and years I have shown you above? But Christ reigns always and everywhere. Simon the Jew said: I see that the devil, the enemy of my fathers, who was blinding the eyes of my heart, withdraws from my mind.
For I have begun to wish to know the light of truth. Theophilus the Christian said: Believe then, that you may, being enlightened, come out of your bonds in every respect, just as Isaiah says concerning Christ: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me and sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal the contrite of heart, to lead out from chains those who are bound and those sitting in the prison house in darkness and the shadow of death, to give light to the blind. For what is understood by the prison house and men oppressed in chains, except the men of this world held by the blindness of ignorance and bound by the sins of the devil? As it says in Genesis: And there was darkness over the abyss, and God said: Let there be light!
For what is the abyss understood to be except the hearts of men blinded by the darkness of ignorance? But when Christ, who is the light, comes, the darkness of ignorance withdraws. Simon the Jew said: Indeed you have made plain to me many hidden and unheard-of things. But still there remains in my soul a scruple of distrust, in that you observe all things religiously, yet you neglect the Sabbath, which God commanded to be kept and preserved, and moreover you take food and wine after the manner of the Gentiles, when God specifically prescribed which of the animals and fish ought to be eaten and which to be abhorred, and that their carcasses should not be touched. Unless this too be proved to me by the Scriptures, I am in danger as to believing. Theophilus the Christian said:
I have already said to you above that the devil envies you, namely because you are a son of your fathers, who, supported by so many benefits and freed from Egypt—the sea stood around as walls in place of waters—and prepared with lavish banquets in the desert and filled with the heavenly food of manna, fell into forgetfulness, transgressed, and dared to demand profane gods to worship. Rightly does God through Jeremiah rebuke and chide your race, saying: If the Ethiopian will change his color and the leopard his spots, so also you change from evil teaching. The Sabbath, namely the imaginary rest of the seventh day, was given as a figure: first, because Joshua the son of Nun, in order to make war upon Jericho, circled the walls in turns for seven days;
handling weapons of war and carrying the ark of the covenant, and on the seventh day they circled it seven times. It is manifest truth that either they began on a Sabbath or on a Sabbath, with the walls of Jericho falling, they conquered. There is added also this, that in the Maccabees they gained their greatest victory over their enemies on a Sabbath and avenged the destruction of their adversaries with their swords on a Sabbath. There is added also this, which rejects the human Sabbath: God, through Isaiah saying: My soul hates your fasting and your festal days and your Sabbaths. You have become to me an abundance; I will no longer forgive your sins.
But that Sabbath which God desires is that you ought to rest from evil works, so that in the seventh thousandth year, which is understood as the Sabbath of Sabbaths, you may be found free from evil works by the world. This shall be the tender Sabbath holy to God, in which God delights. But as to the foods which you doubt you ought to eat—it is not swine's flesh but swinish deeds that you are forbidden to admit. Likewise, wallowing in water mixed with mud, you join your sister to yourself in marriage, you join blood with blood, you ransack the earth with robberies, you make your festivals public, you pray in the streets. Behold how you sin! And you do not understand that it is written of you in Psalm 16:
They are filled with swine's flesh and have left their leavings to their little ones—that is, you propagate your sin to your posterity. But of fish you eat those with scaly skin; yet the rest, which you pretend to avoid, drawn out with nets and mingled in the multitude of fish, thoroughly drained out through fish-sauce you sweetly eat. But show me by the Scriptures where you have received that the wine of Christians is forbidden, and you will rightly be able to overcome me. But I will show you where the Jewish wine is forbidden and where we are forbidden to eat your foods. Hear the prophet Isaiah saying: Your hands are full of blood; wash yourselves, be clean! Likewise in Psalm 13 it says: Their feet are swift to shed blood.
Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. Behold what kind of feet! And with what kind of hands do you make wine and unleavened bread! And in Deuteronomy it says: For their wine is from the vine of Sodom, and their stock from Gomorrah. Their grape is a grape of gall, a cluster of bitterness within them. The wine of dragons is their wine and the incurable wrath of asps. Are not these things gathered with me and sealed in my treasuries? Refuted by so many and so great testimonies, Simon, even if you cannot believe, you contradict your own salvation. Read therefore Daniel, and you will find Nebuchadnezzar saying: Did we not cast three men into the furnace? Behold, I see four men, and the appearance of the fourth is like the Son of God. What do you say, O Jew?
Nebuchadnezzar the barbarian recognized the Son of God, whom you are slow to find. And see that the rebuke of the prophet Habakkuk be not fulfilled in you, saying: See, you despisers, and look and marvel, for I work a work in your days which you do not believe, even if someone should tell it to you. Simon the Jew said: O bringer of salvation, Theophilus, good physician of the sick, I can say no more. Bid me be catechized and be consecrated by the sign of the faith of Jesus Christ. For I believe that through the laying on of hands I shall receive the washing away of my offenses. Theophilus the Christian said: Rather, a blessing! Thus Isaac blessed Jacob, and through the laying on of hands he received a blessing, so that the greater came out of the lesser.
So also Ephraim and Manasseh were enlarged through the laying on of hands. Then Theophilus anointed Simon the Jew. And Simon, having obtained faith, began to give thanks, saying: I give you thanks, Jesus, whom I have never seen face to face, but now I believe in you. Thanks to you, Jesus, whom I have never heard, but now I hear. I call upon you, Jesus, whose understanding I did not have before, but now I desire my understanding to be in you, through whom it has known Theophilus your disciple. Lord Jesus, if I am worthy of faith, confirm me also unto your knowledge. For you show the way to those who wander and call back the lost and raise the dead and confirm the unbelieving by your faith and enlighten the eyes of the heart for the blind.
You are yourself the holy tabernacle, who were with our fathers in the wilderness; you are the candlestick of light, you the altar and the bread of the presence, you the altar of sacrifice, you the willing victim; you are, O Lord, life and pearl, crystal, yoke, plow. I pray, Lord, remember not my ignorance and unbelief. For you are one who bestows hidden benefits, who have deigned to grant me all things. To you be honor, power, praise, glory here and throughout all the immortal ages of ages. Amen.