Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

NOTE 1. The Jews call that man, destined by so many divine promises, so desired in prayers, so celebrated in oracles of the Old Testament, the Messiah, that is, he who was to be sent by God for the salvation and redemption of men: while the Greeks and Latins name him Christ, that is, anointed, because he ought to be not only King and Priest, but also God-man, anointed with the oil of Divinity. Tertullian accurately delineated this notion in his book against the Jews, ch. 6. And indeed, he says, first it must be asked whether there is expected a lawgiver of a new Law, and heir of a new Testament, and a Priest of new sacrifices, and a Purifier of a new Circumcision, and an Observer of an eternal sabbath: who should restrain the old law, establish a new Testament, offer new sacrifices, suppress the ancient ceremonies, restrain the ancient circumcision together with its bare sabbath, and announce a new kingdom which shall not be corrupted. It is agreed that all these things were foretold of the Messiah through the Prophets, as will be manifest from what follows.

NOTANDUM 2. It is most constantly held among all who glory in the Christian name that the Messiah has truly come. For this truth is the head and foundation of the Christian Religion and faith, and it is established not only in all the Symbols and definitions of the faith, but also confirmed by the open oracles of the New Testament: for John 4, when the Samaritan woman said, I know that the Messias cometh, who is called Christ: Jesus said to her, I am he, who speak with thee. Wherefore that adorable Savior not undeservedly pronounces blessed Peter the Apostle, because with public testimony he confessed, Thou art Christ the Son of the living God: for, as John 17 says, This is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Therefore the present Question must be directed solely toward breaking the obstinacy of the Jews and illuminating their blindness, in which it must be demonstrated from the sacred letters and oracles of the Old Testament that the Messiah came long ago.

NOTANDUM 3. The promises by which the coming Messiah is announced in the Old Testament differ in two ways: for some are read as made simply without any designation of time, as when Moses said to the people in Deuteronomy 18, The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren. And God promised Abraham in Genesis 18, In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed. Of this kind also are all those prophecies which foreshadow the place and manner of the Messiah's birth, the doctrine of his converse, his virtue and power, the voluntary oblation of his dying and unconquered constancy, the majesty of his rising again and the triumph of his ascension into heaven, as is read both in the books of Moses and in the books of the Prophets; but especially in the Psalms, very many of which were written concerning Christ. But some promises were made with some certain designation of time, yet not so perspicuous as to remove every ground of doubt; nor yet so obscure and entangled as not to supply an efficacious argument for proving the advent of Christ. We shall employ and discuss both kinds of these twofold promises in the present Question, distinguishing them into three Conclusions.

First Conclusion. — THAT THE MESSIAH DIVINELY PROMISED HAS ALREADY COME IS GATHERED WITH SUFFICIENT CLARITY FROM THE PROPHECY OF THE DYING JACOB, Gen. 49.

Proof: For when that most holy Patriarch, being near death, was bestowing his paternal blessing upon his sons, and, inspired by the divine Spirit and with a mind foreseeing the future, was declaring what God would peculiarly bestow upon the posterity of each one; revealing how great the kindness and munificence of God was to be poured out upon the sons of Juda, among many things that he promises he says, The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda, and the leader from his thigh, until he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of nations: just as the Hebrew Edition has it (which I subjoin in the customary characters, for the reader's benefit) To iasour sebeth mi oula, ou mehokek mibben rayeliou ad ki iabo siloh relo ilchat iammim. That is, as Barradius and our Galatinus l. 1. c. 1. interpret it, The sceptre shall not depart from Juda, and the Scribe, or Lawgiver, from between his feet, until Siloh come (that is, peaceful, or the Messias), whose the nations shall serve. Or, as the Chaldaic paraphrase has it, There shall not be taken away he that exerciseth power from the house of Juda, and the Scribe from his sons' sons, unto eternity, until the Messias come, whose is the kingdom, and to whom the peoples shall be obedient. Or finally, as the Septuagint Interpreters have it, A prince shall not fail from Juda, until come those things that are laid up for him; that is, until arrive those supreme and excellent gifts and goods which through the Messias arising from the tribe of Juda are to be conferred upon humankind, as St. Augustine reads in lib. 12. Contra Faustum, cap. 42. Or, as other codices have it, until he come that is to come; that is, until he come to whom the kingdom of the whole world is laid up, as Origen explains in lib. 4. Periarchon, and St. Cyril Contra Iulianum, lib. 8. Not by force, he says, were the nations gathered, nor yet by Moses, or any other: but rather for Christ it was laid up, that he should rule not Judaea alone, but all nations, etc. All which readings conspire and tend to this one end: to signify that the authority of ruling and of bearing laws was not to be taken from the tribe of Juda before the promised Messias arrived. From which one may thus argue: the royal and legislative power ought not sooner to fail from the tribe of Juda (once it had flocked to it) than the foretold Messias had arrived: but now for 1675 years and more, both that power and authority have utterly failed; since long ago there exist no kings and no legislators, even of another Israelitic tribe, to rule over the Jews: nay, all of them without exception wander dispersed among foreign nations (Apologet. cap. 21.) straying, wandering, exiles from their heaven and their soil, without man, without God as king, to whom not even the right of strangers permits them to greet the land — at least with a footprint, their fatherland: therefore, that the truth of that prophecy may stand firm and most constant, it must be that the Messias has come. — It is confirmed by this example: If God, displaying a most brilliant torch from a tower, had said that it was not to be extinguished until the Messias should come; whoever saw it extinguished would he not straightway rightly conclude that the Messias had already come? But God exhibited to the eyes of the Jews the splendor of the Israelitic sceptre as it were a torch, foretelling that it was not to be extinguished until the Messias should come: since therefore that splendor of the Judaic sceptre was long ago extinguished, it is necessary that the Messias has come. To elude the force of this most efficacious reasoning, the Jews devise many evasions, which, for clarity and easier refutation, I reduce chiefly to three heads, and set forth under as many § together with all their windings to be impugned.

§ I. — The first evasion of the Jews is, that nothing whatsoever concerning the coming Messias is foretold in this profane prophecy, and that we twist all the parts and words of that oracle into a perverse sense.

For they reply 1. That the word Iasour signifies not recession but access; for Sur signifies to turn aside toward someone: hence Loth thus addresses the Angels: Suru na el beth gabdecem: that is, Turn aside, I beseech you, into the house of your servant. Hence Moses uses the word Iasour, when he says Exodus 3, I will go, and see this great vision: so that the sense of the aforesaid prophecy is that the sceptre shall not sooner accede to the tribe

of Juda than the Messias shall have come: which, they say, certainly happened; for that Messias so desired with prayers, who was to liberate the Israelitic people from the hard yoke of captivity, was Solomon, who on that account was called Siloh, that is, King of peace: indeed, at whose birth David obtained the whole Israelitic kingdom, and vanquished all the most intense enemies of the Jews: and while Solomon himself reigned, the Jews were endowed with the highest security and peace, as 3 Kings chap. 4 relates in these words, He had peace on every side round about: and Juda and Israel dwelt without any fear, every one under his vine, and under his fig-tree, from Dan to Bersabee, all the days of Solomon. — But that this exposition is altogether empty and coheres not at all with the aforesaid prophecy is evident on every side: First, the word Iasour does indeed sometimes signify to accede just as to recede: yet all Hebrews agree that that word denotes accession only when it has prefixed the preposition el corresponding to the preposition ad, which governs the accusative and indicates access; but when it is joined to the preposition mi or min, which is indicative or directive of the ablative case, and corresponds to de, ex, or e, then it signifies recession or elongation: just as among the Latins the verb declino governs the ablative with the preposition a and the accusative with ad: for we say declino a te, and declino ad te. Now the word Iasour has the preposition min prefixed in the aforesaid prophecy; and accordingly it signifies the recession of the Israelitic sceptre from the tribe of Juda. — Secondly, it is false that David obtained the Israelitic sceptre only upon the birth of Solomon: for, as is related lib. 2. Reg. chap. 5, in Hebron he reigned over Juda seven years and six months before he was saluted king over all Israel: similarly he reigned many years over all the Israelites and vanquished their various enemies before Solomon was born: and accordingly it is false that the sceptre acceded to the tribe of Juda only at that time when Solomon was born. — Add that the remaining particulars of the same prophecy in no wise befit Solomon, seeing that he was not the expectation of nations; since he bestowed upon them no good thing nor benefit; nor was his kingdom likewise endowed with perpetual tranquillity and felicity; for lib. 3. Reg. chap. 12 the Israelites complain before Roboam his son, Thy father imposed a most hard yoke upon us: do thou therefore now mitigate somewhat the hard empire of thy father, and the most heavy yoke which he imposed upon us, and we will serve thee: and in the same place it is related that when the Israelites did not obtain a favorable answer from Roboam, ten tribes withdrew from him and made Jeroboam their king; and so from that time the kingdom of the Israelites was divided; such that only two tribes, namely Juda and Beniamin, served Roboam and his posterity: while the other ten turned aside to Jeroboam and served his successors down to their extermination by the Assyrians.

They reply 2. That the word Scebeth, or Scereth, signifies not a sceptre but a rod, namely not of principality and dominion, but of sorrow and tribulation; so that the Prophet's meaning is: the rod of tribulation shall not recede from Juda, until the Messias come: but even now the Jews are pressed everywhere among the nations with hard servitude and groan under the rod of tribulation: therefore the Messias has not yet come. — Against this, first, all Hebrews who have published Dictionaries of their language confess that the word Scereth mostly signifies sceptre; for David uses it in Psalm 44 when he says, A sceptre of direction, the sceptre of thy kingdom, which certainly denotes nothing else than a sceptre. Second, the rod spoken of in this prophecy is relative to the Leader: for we have, the rod shall not be taken away, and the Leader: but the rod of a leader is the rod of principality and dominion: therefore our interpreter rightly said that by the rod the sceptre is signified. Third, the rod of tribulation expressed in that prophecy cannot be understood if all the other things uttered in that blessing foretell nothing ominous for Juda, but all things felicitous and fortunate for Juda and his posterity: but so it is; for in what precedes we read, Juda, thy brethren shall praise thee, thy hand upon the necks of thine enemies: the sons of thy father shall adore thee. And in what follows, Tying his foal to the vine, and, o my son, his ass to the vine-branch: he shall wash his robe in wine, and his mantle in the blood of the grape: fairer are his eyes than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. By which words not only the surpassing beauty of the Messias to come is designated, but the felicity and fruitfulness of the people subject to him is also foretold. Fourth, if the Messias was to come when the rod of tribulation failed from the Israelitic people, he must be said to have come long ago; for indeed for the longest time, especially from David down to Sedecias, namely nearly 500 years, the Jews were free from captivity and had shaken off the rod of tribulation; so far were they from being held captive by others that they rather held foreign and neighboring peoples subject to themselves and paying tribute, above all the Idumaeans. — Nor does it matter that at that very time they were harassed and burdened by many wars; for they were not on that account forced into captivity, nor groaning perpetually under the rod of tribulation, especially during the many years under the reign of Solomon, as long as namely that faithful worshipper of God endured; for in 3 Kings c. 5 he himself testifies, God hath given me rest round about, and there is no satan, nor evil occurrence. Finally it is not only foretold that the rod shall not be taken away, but also that the Legislator shall not be removed from the Israelitic people until the Messias come: but the Jews must confess that they long ago had no Legislator who might prescribe to them most holy laws and keep them in peace and sanctity of morals: therefore it is necessary that the Messias came long ago.

They reply 3. That the words Mehokek, that is Legislator, and Mibben rageliou, that is from between his feet, are wrongly taken by us, while in the Vulgate we read, nor the leader from his thigh. For R. Beecha says that by the aforesaid words is signified that the Legislator, or pacificator, was to be formed from menstrual blood of woman; for he wishes the word Siloh to be derived from that other whereby menstrual blood is signified in Hebrew. — But besides that all editions and readings without exception, Hebrew, Samaritan, Arabic, and the Septuagint Interpreters, and likewise the Chaldaic and Hierosolymitan paraphrases, render the aforesaid words in the same way as our Vulgate edition, namely that the leader or Legislator shall not fail from the thigh, or from between his feet; it is certain that the interpretation of that Rabbi does not militate against us; nay, it signifies that the Messias was to be formed only from the blood of woman, without any commerce with man: which certainly suits in wondrous measure the adorable Savior, who was formed from a Virgin, not indeed from menstrual blood (which all physicians affirm contributes in no wise to generation), but from her most pure blood.

They reply 4. And they make the greatest effort and labor to twist the meaning of the word Siloh; for, as our Galatinus relates l. 1. c. 1., some wish that by this name is signified the town of Silo, in which the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant were deposited, and therefore that place was held among the Israelites in such veneration and glory, flocking thither from everywhere for devotion. Hence they interpret the prophecy of Saul, whom they wish to have been inaugurated as King in the town of Silo, and to have transferred the sceptre from the tribe of Juda to the tribe of Beniamin, from which he was descended. — But this interpretation is easily overturned: first because the words of that prophecy directly oppose it; for Jacob did not say, the sceptre shall not be taken away, until anyone anointed at Silo come, but until Siloh himself come. Add that the preceding and following words sufficiently plainly demonstrate that this oracle must by no means be understood of a place or town. Second, Saul was not created King in Silo, but in Maspha and in Gialgala, and was anointed by Samuel with the vial of oil at Ramatha. Third, in the time of Saul the sceptre had not been taken away from Juda; indeed before his inauguration Samuel of the tribe of Ephraim presided over the Jews, and before him Heli the high priest ruled, whom very many Judges preceded, of whom only two were sprung from the tribe of Juda: since Josue, who first judged and ruled after Moses, was of the tribe of Ephraim; while Aod, the second Judge, was of the tribe of Beniamin. Debbora and Barac alike were of a foreign tribe, she of the tribe of Ephraim, he of the tribe of Nephtali, as appears Judges 4, vv. 3 and 6. Gedeon was of the tribe of Manasse, as appears Judg. 6, 15, after whom reigned his son Abimelech, at whose death arose Thola his uncle, who was of the tribe of Issachar, as appears Judg. 10, after whom ruled Jephte of the tribe of Manasse. After him judged Samson of the stock of Dan: whence it must be inferred that only two judges were of the tribe of Juda, namely Othoniel son of Caleb, and Abesam.

Others urge: By Siloh is meant that which lay fallen and fell, when the sceptre acceded to the tribe of Juda; for the word Sabo placed in the prophecy signifies to fall, or perish: but when David was elected King, and through him the royal dignity was carried to the tribe of Juda, then all the glory of the town of Silo fell and was extinguished, since David ordered the ark of the covenant to be carried thence into Sion his city: whence that Psalm verse, He rejected the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but he chose the tribe of Juda, mount Sion which he loved, and a little before he had said, He rejected the tabernacle of Silo. — But he must grope at noonday whoever devises this interpretation; for in 1 Paralip. chap. 13 we read, David went up, and all Israel, to the hill of Cariathiarim, which was in Juda, to bring thence the ark of the Lord God, etc.; therefore at that time that ark was not in Silo: nay, it had been carried thence more than 80 years before, as is related, 1 Reg. 4, namely when it was captured by the Philistines. Driven off from this evasion, they seek another in King Jeroboam, whom they say was crowned at Silo, and transferred the sceptre from the tribe of Juda to the tribe of Ephraim, from which he drew his lineage; for ten tribes defected from the kings of Juda to Jeroboam. — But this is the evasion of the groping blind, who do not see where they may flee. For Jeroboam was not created King in Silo, but in Sichem, as is gathered from 3 Reg. 12. Moreover Jeroboam did not take away the kingdom from the kings of Juda; for although ten tribes followed him, nevertheless the kings of the tribe of Juda held the helm even to the captivity of the Babylonian commonwealth. Furthermore, as we said above, it is not found in the prophecy, the sceptre shall not be taken away, until someone come at Silo, but: until Siloh come. — Some seek still another refuge, contending that by the name Siloh is signified Ahias the Shilonite, who in 3 Reg. chap. 11, meeting Jeroboam, rent his mantle into twelve parts, And he said to Jeroboam: Take to thyself ten pieces, for thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Behold I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and give thee ten tribes. Such that they contend the words of that prophecy mean that the Israelitic sceptre would remain in the tribe of Juda until that Prophet the Shilonite came. — But desiring to avoid Charybdis they fall upon Scylla: for the prophecy plainly signifies a man named expressly Siloh, and not one sprung from the town of Silo. Moreover, although through the prophecy of Ahias the empire was diminished and divided, namely the kingdom over which kings sprung from the tribe of Juda presided; nevertheless the sceptre was not wholly taken from it; nay it persevered therein very many years, nor did it cease to be until long after the Israelitic kingdom, which according to the prophecy of Ahias Jeroboam had inaugurated, was wholly extinct.

Since, therefore, all these escapes have been closed off, in order to raise up the truth and the force of that oracle they have recourse to Nabuchodonosor, the bitterest enemy and assailer of the Jewish name, who was sent and destined by God to destroy the Jews. — But they are so blinded and so rebellious against the divine name that they do not notice that the sceptre of Juda was not taken away by Nabuchodonosor; since after the Babylonian captivity Princes of the tribe of Juda, such as Zorobabel and others, held the helm of the Israelite commonwealth. Moreover, it was not about an enemy, the destroyer of the Jews, Nabuchodonosor, but about the Messias that Jacob prophesied, as the Chaldean Paraphrast teaches: nor can Nabuchodonosor be called Siloh, that is, sent or to be sent, by antonomasia; for in this place the name sent, or to be sent, must be understood as assumed by way of excellence, because it is placed without any addition, as if Jacob were saying, the sceptre shall not be taken away, until he come who is to be sent by antonomasia; that longed-for one, that one desired with a long desire, that expectation of the nations. To these add what follows, which suits not Nabuchodonosor but Christ: He shall wash his robe in wine, and his mantle in the blood of the grape, etc. By which words the Passion of the Messias is darkly shadowed forth. Besides, says Barradius: what has the most holy Patriarch to do with the impious Nabuchodonosor, that in his last breath he should utter prophecies concerning him, and should call the destroyer of his people and of Juda, whom he was praising, one sent by God, and the expectation of the nations? The thoughts of the most holy Jacob were other, his sighs were other, concerning that Redeemer of the world, not the destroyer; concerning one sent by the Father to save the Jews, not one driven by proud lust of domination to slaughter them; concerning the Redeemer most ardently desired, not a formidable and accurséd oppressor; concerning the King of heaven, not the King of Babylon; he was thinking of the Messias, not of Nabuchodonosor. For the Messias he sighed, of the Messias he spoke, for the Messias he waited; whence that utterance from the depth of his breast, I will wait for thy salvation, O Lord: which words the

Chaldean Paraphrast thus excellently expounds:

I wait for thy salvation, O Lord, said our father Jacob; I await not the salvation of Gedeon the son of Joas, which is a temporal salvation: nor the salvation of Samson the son of Manue, which is a transitory salvation: but I wait for the redemption of the Messias the son of David, who is to come to gather to himself the children of Israel, whose redemption my soul desires.

These are his words, from which it is evident both that the desires of the holy Patriarch were fixed on the Messias, and that the salvation of the Messias was not to be temporary, won by war, but eternal, purchased by blood shed.

Nor are they wanting who have recourse to frivolous versions of the aforesaid oracle, by which they strive to corrupt its meaning. Some indeed wish it read there shall not depart, nor be removed, a tribe from Juda, and a leader from his thigh, until the Messias come. And it is so rendered for this reason, that the Hebrew word Sebeth, or Scereth, which we interpret rod or sceptre, signifies not only sceptre but also Tribe. — But that version confirms too that the Messias has come. For already the tribe is taken away from Juda, and the leader from his thigh, out of the land of promise: therefore the Messias has already come.

There are besides some who have thought the prophecy concerning the sceptre of tyrants is to be understood, so that the sense here is, The sceptre of tyrants shall not be taken away from Juda until the Messias come. But it is clearly a fabrication, both because for the space of many years after the death of Jacob the tribe of Juda held the principality, and was free from every princely rule of tyrants; and because Jacob does not speak of a tyrannical sceptre but of a Judaic one, as the words plainly show, The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda, and a leader from his thigh, etc.

Finally the Jews add, that the sceptre was not to be taken away from the tribe of Juda so as to be given to another Israelite tribe until the Messias should come. — But, says Barradius, who does not see that this answer wanders far from the prophecy? What? The sceptre shall be taken away so as to be given to strangers, it shall not be taken away so as to be given to another tribe. It would take a new Prophet to bring a new prophecy against the old one: but nothing is less like Prophets than the Jews. Therefore the true sense is the one we have already set forth, the empire and principality shall not be taken away from Juda until the Messias come. The Jews cannot deny that the principality has been taken away; therefore they must confess that the Messias has already come. To these add that the most learned among the Jews expound this oracle openly of the coming Messias, as appears most clearly from the Targum, that is, from the Chaldaic translation of Rabbi Onkelos, and also from Ionathan, the other author of the Chaldaic paraphrase: the Jerusalem Paraphrast likewise plainly signifies the same. So too in the Talmud, treatise on the Sanhedrin, chapter 9, where the name of the Messias is treated of, it is related that the disciples of Rabbi Schela teach that his name will be Siloh, as was said Gen. 49. Likewise in the Bereschith Rabba, that is, the ancient commentary upon Genesis, expounding these words until Siloh come, it says, This is the Messias, and to him shall the nations gather themselves, because he shall judge the whole world: and this is what was said Micheas 1., And he shall judge among the nations, and rebuke many peoples, etc. The same also most constantly teach R. Salomon Iarchi, and R. Kimki in the book Serassim, and many other celebrated Doctors of the Jews. From all which it is established that this prophecy of Jacob is to be understood of the true Messias: and therefore the aforesaid words of the oracle are wrongly twisted into another meaning by the more recent Jews.

Hence other Jews, more skilled, agreeing with us that those words are to be understood of the Messias, seek for themselves another escape, so as to prove that the aforesaid Messias designated there is not Jesus of Nazareth.

§ II. — The second escape of the Jews, who contend either that the Messias has not yet come, or that he was never to come at all, or that his coming long preceded the Nativity of Jesus of Nazareth.

They answer 1. That with Rabbi Moses the Egyptian, as cited by Burgensis, part 1 of the Scrutiny, dist. 3, the Israelitic sceptre has not yet been detected, nor has the royal dignity been taken away from the tribe of Juda, since the heads of the transmigration, who remained in Babylon, still rule with an authority quasi-regal over the Jews subject to them. Rabbi Beniamin adds in his itinerary that he traversed various parts of the world, and found in very many kingdoms inhabitants keeping the Jewish religion, and publicly rendering to God in all things the worship prescribed in the law; nay, that he passed through one most powerful kingdom, whose King, sprung from the stock of David, abounds in such riches, and in such authority and power, that he can gather three hundred thousand men to arms. — But who, though but little versed in the histories of the nations and in cosmography, does not see that these narratives are pure figments of the Jews and puerile fables, which anyone can dissolve without difficulty? As to the first point, it is plainly established that after Judaea and Jerusalem had been stormed by Vespasian and Titus, the Jews obtained neither in Babylon nor anywhere else on earth any supreme authority over their fellow-countrymen. I confess indeed that when, after the Jews had been conquered and utterly cast down, many of them had betaken themselves to the Babylonian city and province, they were permitted to choose and have one from among themselves who should be head and rector of the others, especially in matters pertaining to commerce and religion: but that rector was neither always sprung from the tribe of Juda, nor did he hold the sceptre, nor obtain royal authority; nay, with the rest he groaned under the dominion of the Babylonian Caliph: whence he was called not King but only Patriarch, with that name namely with which Princes of nations are honoured, 1 Paralip. 8, where concerning the sons of Benjamin it is said, These were Patriarchs, and Princes of nations, who had dwelt in Jerusalem. To these add that about the tenth century this dignity and authority, whatever it was, which the Jews enjoyed under the Babylonian dominion, was altogether extinguished, and the Schools and Academies of the Jews utterly overturned by the Persians laying waste the domination and empire of the Babylonian Caliphs. Therefore the Jews must confess that at least at that time the sceptre was altogether taken away from the tribe of Juda, and consequently that they wait in vain for the coming of the Messias. — As however to the narrative of Rabbi Beniamin, I say it is no less fabulous than the many other things which he collects and reports in his Itinerary. In truth if such kingdoms existed, in which the Jews alone bore rule, how is it that no Christian, Turk, or Persian ever discovered them, especially in this very age in which the remotest American nations, before unknown to men, and the islanders have been found out and discovered? How is it that Beniamin alone penetrated to these, and had no companion of his journey who could relate the same things with him? How is it that all the Jews who wander through Asia, Africa, Europe groaning beneath the hard yoke of captivity do not withdraw themselves into those most excellent kingdoms, where they would be granted perfect peace, liberty, and abundance of honours? How finally did it come about that no Jew ever came to us from those most flourishing kingdoms to reveal what is done in them? Perhaps because, as Beniamin relates, access to those kingdoms lies open only on the Sabbath day, two trees of immense size offering passage across the strait which lies between those kingdoms and the mainland of other lands by their mutual embrace, lest anyone should detect even a fire kindled in them from afar, nor make his way into those kingdoms. All which certainly are fictitious and fabulous. Most fittingly then does that saying of Aschines the Orator suit the Jews, Vain men, when they tell a lie, speak certain things quite indefinite and obscure, lest they can be refuted. To which agrees that Hebrew proverb, He who wishes to lie, let him remove his witnesses afar off.

Others answer that the promises of the Messias to come are only conditional. Whence they reason thus: the fulfilment of a promise made under a condition to be posited cannot be inferred when that condition was not in fact posited: but the advent of Christ was promised under a condition to be posited, which was not posited: therefore that promise made concerning the Christ to come does not infer that he has come. The major is evident. The minor is proved: the promised Messias was not only to draw his origin from the tribe of Juda, but also from the seed of David, and to prolong his empire unto eternity, as David himself testifies Psalm 131., The Lord hath sworn to David in truth, and he will not make it void, etc. To which accords that of Luke 1., where concerning the same Messias it is said, He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give unto him the seat of David his father: but the origin of the Messias from the seed of David, and the prolongation of the Davidic empire down to the nativity of that Messias, depended upon some condition which was not posited, namely it was made on the hypothesis that the posterity of David would be keepers of the divine law, as David himself indicates in the same Psalm, God speaking, If thy children keep my covenant, and these my testimonies which I shall teach them, their children also shall sit upon thy seat for ever. It is evident also from the prayer of Solomon, whereby 3 Kings c. 8 he entreats God thus, Now therefore, O Lord God of Israel, preserve to thy servant David my father that which thou hast spoken to him. 3 Kings 8, speaking through Nathan, There shall not fail thee a man before me, sitting upon the throne of Israel; yet so, that if thy children keep my way, walking before me as thou hast walked in my sight, etc. But so far are the children of David from having kept the divine law exactly unto eternity, that Solomon himself scarcely remained faithful for thirty years: for, utterly forgetful of his former observance towards God, he declined into idolatry, whom thereafter all his posterity imitated, Holy Scripture saying Ecclus. 48., Besides David, Ezechias, and Josias, all committed sin, for they forsook the law of the Most High, the kings of Juda, and despised the fear of God: for they gave their kingdom to others, and their glory to a strange nation: therefore they not only sinned, but also fell from the kingdom in punishment of their crimes. — But from these only this much may be inferred, that the Judaic sceptre ought to fall away from the family of David on account of sins, but not that it failed altogether from the tribe of Juda: for the authority of ruling, under these conditions, had indeed been promised to the family of David, but not to the tribe of Juda, as is clear from the words of the prophecy.

Others answer that two Christs, or Messiases, were promised: one upon whom converge whatever abject and humble things are foretold of Christ in the sacred Books: the other upon whom they confer whatever splendid and magnificent things are announced concerning the same. The former they call the Messias son of Joseph: the latter the Messias son of David. Of both R. Selomoh makes mention in his Commentary upon Isaiah chapter 21 and 28: Whoever shall have escaped the sword of the Messias son of Joseph, shall fall into the sword of the Messias son of David. They say moreover that the Messias son of Joseph is to be slain in the war of Gog and Magog, but to be raised again through the power of the other Messias son of David, who shall redeem Israel and restore his kingdom: they grant indeed that the first has already come: but they expect that the second is still to come. — But this capital escape of the more recent Jews is easily forestalled; for Scripture nowhere mentions two Messiases, but the twofold advent of the same one, the first indeed in humility as Redeemer: the second truly in majesty as Judge. Which Isaias above all admirably foretells in chapters 35 and 62, where he predicts the contempt of the Messias, his slaughter, resurrection, and the conversion of all peoples to him. Likewise Zacharias chapter 9, where he says:

Exult greatly, O daughter of Sion, proclaim it aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold thy King will come to thee, the Just One and Saviour: he is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will destroy the chariot out of Ephraim, and the horse out of Jerusalem, and the bow of war shall be broken: and he shall speak peace to the Gentiles, and his power shall be from sea even to sea, and from the rivers even to the ends of the earth, etc.

In which words the Prophet plainly signifies that this same Messiah, who is preached as poor, abject, and humble, was to be the Redeemer, Saviour, King, and Ruler of the whole world. — Whence it is that the Talmudists acknowledged a twofold advent of this same Messiah: for as Galatinus relates, book 1. chapter in Hidras Coheleth, that is, in the exposition of Ecclesiasticus, upon that text, there is nothing new under the sun, R. Barachias is said to have declared: The last Redeemer has been revealed, and he who was hidden shall return again. The same is found also in the book Tamhuma, where the twofold advent of the Messiah is gathered from Psalm 126, especially from these words according to the Hebrew edition: When the Lord brought back the captivity of Sion, we became like men comforted. Then was our mouth filled with joy, and our tongue with gladness: which words are expounded thus in the same place:

When the Messiah withdraws himself, so as not to be for the help of the children of Israel, we shall all be as dreamers, neither sleeping nor waking. But when he returns and shows himself to them, then shall their mouth be filled with laughter, and they shall rejoice, and shall verify the first advent by reason of this second manifestation: and they shall say: God hath magnified himself in doing for us.

Vain therefore, and altogether fictitious, is the assertion of the modern Jews concerning a twofold Messiah.

Some will object. The sceptre was entirely taken away from the tribe of Juda at the time of the Babylonian captivity: therefore either the Messiah must be thought to have come long since, or from the foregoing reasoning his advent cannot be certainly concluded. The antecedent is proved from the last chapter of Paralipomenon and the last of Kings, where it is related how Nabuchodonosor, having laid waste Juda and burned Jerusalem together with the temple with fire, led all the Jews away captive into Babylon together with their King. Then from the prophecy of Jeremias, chapter 22, where he foretold to King Jechonias that, after the devastation of the Jews by Nabuchodonosor, there would be no man who should sit upon the throne of David and have power any longer in Juda. Then finally from Daniel 3. v. 38. In this time there is no Prince, and Leader, and Prophet, neither holocaust, nor sacrifice, nor oblation, nor incense, etc. — But truly I answer first, that at the time of the captivity the royal power and authority of the Jews was not entirely extinguished, although for a while it lay suppressed and oppressed: for we read in the last chapter of Kings

That Evilmerodach, king of Babylon, in the year in which he had begun to reign, lifted up the head of Joachim king of Juda out of prison: and spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon. And he changed his garments, which he had in prison, and he ate bread always in his sight all the days of his life. His allowance was given him daily by the king, every day a portion.

Likewise in that captivity judicial and legislative authority had not been extinguished among the Jews, nor entirely taken from them, the removal of which was nevertheless one of the certain signs of the advent of the Messias designated in the prophecy of Jacob: for at that time authority still flourished among the Judges and Legislators of the Jews to condemn the accused to death, as is evident from the History of Susanna, Daniel chapter 13; and consequently the Messias ought not then to have come, whose advent only was to be after both authorities had been removed, namely the royal and the legislative. — Whence it is that not long after the death of King Joachim, Zorobabel, sprung from the tribe of Juda and of royal blood, obtained the prefecture of the Jewish people, and was delegated by Cyrus, Emperor of the Persians, after Babylon had been taken, that he might restore the Temple of Jerusalem entire, as is read in 1. Esdras chapter 2. Therefore the sceptre was not entirely taken away from Juda, nor a leader from his thigh in the Babylonian captivity.

They urge. From the loosing of the Babylonian captivity to the Nativity of Jesus of Nazareth there intervened about 500 years: but in that intermediate time no one of the tribe of Juda presided over or governed the Jews; for shortly after Zorobabel, Esdras, who was a Priest and of the tribe of Levi, obtained supreme rule over the Jews, when they had been dismissed from captivity to their own homes, as we read in 1. Esdras chapter 7. But from him down to the Machabees indeed no prefects of the Jews are recorded in Scripture: yet it is likely that at that time the High Priests ruled down to the Hasmonaeans, or Machabees, who were of priestly order and Levitical stock: therefore then the sceptre was entirely taken away from the tribe of Juda: and thereupon it was necessary that the Messias should have come shortly after the loosing of the captivity, and that that promised Messias was either Esdras himself, or Nehemias, who, as is read in 2. Esdras, having obtained royal letters from Artaxerxes, restored the city of Jerusalem and its walls. — To this objection, which is the capital one of the modern Jews, Catholic Doctors answer variously: for some reply, with St. Cyril book 18. against Julian, that there always existed some of the tribe of Juda who exercised authority over the Jews, even in the time of the Machabees, although on account of the Persians they did not use the Royal Diadem, because at that time the greater authority resided in the Pontiffs: How, he says, is the kingdom of David said to have ceased in Sedecias, since Zorobabel after the time of the captivity sat upon the throne of the kingdom, and was of the tribe of Juda and of David, and the sceptre was transmitted through his posterity even to the kingdom of Herod, who was by his Father of another- stock? — Others answer with Genebrard book 2. Chronology, that the Machabees were descended from the tribe of Juda according to the paternal line. Whence in chapter 5. of the book of Machabees it is said of the Machabees: And the men of Juda were exceedingly magnified. But since the Machabees were Priests, it is certain that they could not trace their origin from the tribe of Juda: inasmuch as St. Paul to the Hebrews 7. denies that the Priesthood can pertain to those who were of the tribe of Juda, which must be understood simply and absolutely, that is, according to paternal origin, wherefore this answer seems less sufficient.

— Some answer, however, with SS. Epiphanius against heresies, heresy 22, Augustine lib. 13. De Civit. Dei, c. 15, and also with Josephus book 13. of the Jewish Antiquities from chapter 15., that it is a tradition of the Hebrews that the Machabees were sprung from the tribe of Juda according to the maternal line. Which opinion indeed Baronius follows and proves at the beginning of the first volume of his Annals, by a fourfold argument: First indeed, because, as Josephus and Philo relate, the tribes of Juda and Levi could contract marriages with one another, as also Exodus chapter 6. concerning Aaron, who had for his wife the daughter of Aminadab, named Elizabeth. Likewise Joiada the Supreme Pontiff, as we read in 2. Paralipomenon chapter 22, married the daughter of Joram king of Juda, named Josabeth. Some also add the marriage of Elizabeth and Zachary, the mother of John the Baptist. But this is said Luke 1. of the daughters of Aaron, and therefore of the tribe of Levi. Therefore, although the Machabees according to their paternal stock were sprung from the priestly and Levitical tribe, and that from the turn of Joiarib, as Josephus testifies book 12. of the Antiquities, chapter 8, nevertheless according to their maternal stock they were of the tribe of Juda. Secondly, because those who were of the tribe of Juda often used names proper to the Levitical tribe, and conversely those sprung from the Levitical tribe were sometimes called by some name proper to the tribe of Juda, as is seen in the Genealogy of Christ; for some of his progenitors are called Levi, Mathathias, etc., while it is equally established that one of the Hasmonaeans was called Juda. Thirdly, because of the Machabees it is said book 1. chapter 1.: The men of Juda were exceedingly magnified in the sight of Israel. Where they are significantly called men of Juda, not Jews, whereby it is signified that they are so named not from Juda their leader but from the tribe of Juda. Fourthly finally, because if the Machabees had not been of the tribe of Juda through the maternal line, they could not without the mark of tyranny and usurpation claim for themselves supreme authority over the Jews: therefore it must be granted that they were sprung from the tribe of Juda on the side of the women.

— But how slight these arguments are, and how little efficacious, is easily demonstrated. The first indeed, because Priests and Levites were permitted not only to take wives from the tribe of Juda, but also from any other tribe whatsoever, as is clear from chapter 41. of Ezechiel v. 22, where it is prescribed concerning the Levites and Priests: They shall not take a widow, or one put away, for wives, but virgins of the seed of the house of Israel: but they shall take a widow who has been the widow of a Priest. Moreover it is gratuitously asserted that someone among the progenitors of the Machabees married a woman of royal blood, for no authority and no testimony persuades this. Besides, the maternal stock counts for nothing among the Hebrews, nor is anyone's genealogy read as woven through women: therefore although the Machabees were of the tribe of Juda according to the maternal line, this would not suffice for the right of the kingdom properly to belong to them: nor consequently for the Judaic sceptre to be propagated through them. Finally for this reason God ordained in book of Numbers 36. that Israelite women may marry whom they will, provided it be men of their own tribe, lest the possession of the children of Israel be mingled from tribe to tribe; for all the men shall take wives of their own tribe and kindred, and all the women shall take husbands of the same tribe; that the inheritance may remain in the families, and that the tribes be not mingled with one another, but so remain as they have been separated by the Lord: but if by reason of the maternal line, and from the marriage contracted with wives of the tribe of Juda, the Machabees had acquired supreme power over the Jews, the greatest inheritance of all would have passed with the wives, namely the supreme power of ruling and commanding: therefore by this argument the Machabees cannot be reckoned as of the tribe of Juda, nor can they have propagated the Judaic sceptre in that tribe.

— But it is objected that Christ belonged to the tribe of Juda by the maternal line alone. For this was peculiar to him, because he was formed from the Virgin alone without any work of man. Whence it was necessary that he belong to the tribe of Juda by reason of his mother, or else he could not be said to have been propagated from that tribe.

— The second argument also is less efficacious, for it does not appear that each tribe possessed certain names peculiar and proper to itself. Add that one of the Hasmonaeans is called Jonathan, by which name the firstborn son of Saul was called, who nevertheless was of the tribe of Benjamin.

— The third argument is refuted with equal ease: for it can be that these words, viri Iuda, signify some warriors sprung from the tribe of Juda, who were fighting vigorously and successfully under the Hasmonaean leaders; or, what is truer, they signify military men over whom this Judas himself and his brothers commanded. For there the Machabees are celebrated, and their soldiers above certain Priests and Levites, rivals of the glory and victories of the Machabees, who had rashly and without counsel entered into battle with foreigners and had fallen: for of them it is said: There was not any of their seed by whom salvation was wrought in Israel. Whereupon immediately concerning the Machabees it is added: The men of Juda were magnified exceedingly in the sight of Israel. Add that the Greek edition, which is the primary and original one of the books of the Machabees, expressly has: The men of Juda, and his brethren.

— To the fourth argument I say that the Hasmonaeans did not claim for themselves supreme authority over the Jews by reason of succession and hereditary right, but only by right of war, by title of victory, and likewise by zeal for defending religion. For since they had first resisted Antiochus Epiphanes and fought against him, and had slain those who, holding the Israelites under a secretly imposed yoke of captivity, were even driving them to idolatry; thence it came about that all the Israelites to whom liberty and religion were dear, stirred up by their example, rushed to arms against the enemies of their religion and their fatherland, and acknowledged the Machabees, whom they had had as promoters of the sacred war, also as Leaders of the army, and moreover as Protectors and Governors of their republic.

But that they did not arrogate to themselves this right of reigning, nor esteem it owed to them by any right of succession, is evident from this: that upon the death of Judas, Jonathan his brother did not assume the princedom before it had been conveyed to him by election of the Jewish people, who said to Jonathan, lib. 1. Machab. cap. 1: Since thy brother Judas is dead, there is not a man like him to go out against our enemies Bacchides, and those who are enemies of our nation. Now therefore we have chosen thee this day to be for us in his place Prince and Leader to wage our warSubditur: And Jonathan took upon himself the princedom at that time, and rose up in the place of Judas his brother. But it is especially to be noted that that election and promotion was made only long after the death of Judas, as may be gathered from the preceding events: for upon the death of Judas, and before Jonathan was confirmed in his place, very many deeds are related, both by certain notable men among the Jews, and by Bacchides, the most intense enemy of the Jews, the surviving Machabees keeping silent and not offering themselves, which is a sign that they did not esteem the Israelitic princedom owed to them by any right: for since there was in them the highest love of defending their fatherland and religion, undoubtedly as soon as Judas died Jonathan with armed soldiers subject to himself would have attacked Bacchides and overcome him, just as we read further on in the same place that he did as soon as he was elected and designated Prince. Therefore another reason must be sought and assigned, whereby it may be demonstrated that although after the Babylonian captivity however many temporal Princes arose in Judaea they were of the tribe of Levi, nevertheless in truth the sceptre of Juda was propagated in the sense in which Jacob had foretold it, up to the very Nativity of Christ our Lord. Wherefore

Other more modern theologians respond that by the word Juda is understood not only the tribe of Juda, but the whole people of the Hebrews, and all the progeny of Jacob: so that royal and legislative power would not have to be taken away from the sons of Jacob, or from all the tribes of the Israelites entirely, before the Messias had come.

— But this opinion (although it appears more probable) nevertheless does not seem to cohere with the genuine sense of the prophecy. First, for there Jacob pronounces to each of his sons those things which were to come specifically and peculiarly to their posterity: therefore while he announces to Juda that the sceptre is not before then to be taken from him, and the duke from his loins, or Lawgiver from between his feet, until the Messias come, he directs those words not to his whole progeny, but only to the posterity of Juda; otherwise he would have designated nothing peculiar to Juda. Second, a little before the aforesaid words of the prophecy, Jacob addressing Juda says: Juda, thee shall thy brethren praise: thy hand is on the necks of thine enemies: the sons of thy father shall adore thee; which words certainly cannot be directed to all the Israelites; otherwise the sense would be that the Israelites were going to praise and adore one another mutually and reciprocally, which certainly would be altogether ridiculous and absurd: and presently these words are judged directed to Juda alone and his kin: therefore those things which follow are to be understood of the posterity of Juda alone. Add that Jacob would not rather have said that the sceptre was not to be taken from Juda than from the Israelites, since he could equally well have pronounced the name Israelite as of Juda, unless he had judged that the sense and truth of this oracle pertained to Juda alone and his kin. Third, nowhere in Scripture will you find the whole progeny of Jacob designated by the name of Juda: indeed they are sometimes called Israelites, because all draw their origin from Jacob, who was called Israel: but no other tribe claims its name and appellation for itself; but each one of the Israelites attributes to himself the name of that Patriarch from whom he was descended. Hence one is called a son of Ruben, another a son of Levi, etc., as may be seen 1. Paral. where the genealogy of the Israelites is related, especially of those who were eldest, and heads of families, up to the Patriarchs from whom they were begotten.

Therefore another sense of the aforesaid oracle must be investigated, and another explanation of it must be set forth, whereby it may appear that truly the sceptre was not taken from Juda until Jesus Christ our Lord, the true Messias, was born: although the royal and ducal dignity flew almost through 500 years from the posterity of Juda to the posterity of Levi. Which we strive to accomplish according to our measure in the following §.

§ III. — By what reasoning it is established that the sceptre was not taken from Juda until Christ was born.

That the aforesaid prophecy uttered by Jacob may appear more clearly and distinctly, according to what seems to us its genuine interpretation: here at the outset it must be noted that Jacob foretold not one sign only, but two distinct and most famous indications of the coming Messias. First, that the sceptre was not to be taken from Juda: Second, that the duke, or Lawgiver was not to be removed before the Messias had come: therefore that the truth of that prophecy might appear, both of these authorities, namely royal and legislative, ought first to be taken from Juda before the Messias arrived: so that at the time of his advent no one of the Jews ruled, nor exercised any supreme judicial and legislative authority.

It must be observed secondly that judicial and legislative authority was most famous among the Jews, and chiefly lodged in their Senate, which they called the Sanhedrin, the institution of which Senate is read to have been made by divine authority, Numbers cap. 12, where it is related that when Moses, at the command of the Lord, had chosen Seventy Elders to be ministers to him in governing the Israelitic people, and had ordered them to stand about the tabernacle: The Lord descended in a cloud, and spoke to Moses, taking away of the spirit that was in Moses, and giving to the seventy men: and when the Spirit had rested in them, they prophesied, nor did they cease afterwards. Now these Seventy Elders, discharging the office of Judges and Lawgivers, were called the Sanhedrin, whom we, saith Galatinus, lib. 1. cap. 5, can call ordinary Judges: they were also called Mehokeliim, that is Scribes, or Bearers of laws, because whatever they handed down and wrote was held as law by others.

But of what sort those promoted to that dignity ought to be, is taught in the book Sanhedrin in the chapter Dine mamonoth, that is, judgments of riches, where it is thus read; Rabbi Johanam said, they were not to be constituted in the Sanhedrin unless masters of wisdom, stature, and appearance, and of old age, and masters of incantations, and likewise knowing 70 languages, lest it should be needful for them to hear interpreters. Where the gloss of R. Salomon says thus: stature and appearance were required in them, that they might be held in honor and veneration. But that they should be masters of incantations was required for this reason, that they might convince enchanters and sorcerers confident in their sorceries and incantations, and condemn them to death. Moreover it was permitted to them to condemn to four kinds of death, namely to stoning, burning, slaying, and strangling, as is had in the Babylonian book Sanhedrin. R. Akiba adds that on the day on which they condemned anyone to death they tasted nothing at all: but nowhere did they condemn anyone to death unless twenty-three were present, whose assembly is called Sanhedrioth. But while lesser matters were being judged, three of them sufficed for that. But matters of greater moment, as when it was to be decided whether war was licit, general laws were to be enacted, some

Pseudoprophet, or the high Priest was to be judged, etc., it was necessary that the business be transacted by the great Council of Sanhedrin of 71 Judges. I say 71, for although by Moses only 70 were elected and designated, nevertheless since Moses presided over them, it follows that the Council of Sanhedrin consisted of 71 Judges. It belonged to them also to institute ordinary and delegated Judges for each tribe and city, as R. Ismael says: but R. Iuda relates that for that institution and delegation, which was done by imposition of hands, five Judges of those 71 sufficed.

It must be observed thirdly that although Sacred Scripture does not relate from which tribes those 70 Elders were assumed who would constitute the Senate of the Jews, whether namely some from each tribe, or whether indiscriminately those were chosen who were celebrated among the Israelites for greater wisdom, gravity, and probity of morals, which appears probable from these words cap. 11. Numerorum, wherewith God addresses Moses thus: Gather unto me seventy men of the ancients of Israel, whom thou knowest to be ancients of the people, and Masters: and bring them to the door of the tabernacle of the covenant, and causing them to stand there with thee, that I may descend, and speak to thee, and take away of thy spirit, and give it to them, that they may bear with thee the burden of the people, and thou mayest not be burthened alone: nevertheless it is likely that very many of those were chosen especially from the tribe of Juda; the indication of which is, that Moses always held the tribe of Juda in greater estimation than the others, and preferred it to the rest: for that tribe marched first of all, and fixed its station to the east of the Ark of the covenant, and its Prince offered gifts first of all before the Lord, both in his own name and in the name of the tribe of Juda. Whence it becomes probable that from that tribe especially (in which Moses knew divinely that royal authority was to be lodged) he assumed men who would exercise judicial and legislative authority over the other Jews.

Whatever the case may be, at least after the division of the Israelitic kingdom from the kingdom of Judah, and especially after the Babylonian captivity, it appears certain that very many from the tribe of Judah were assumed to that dignity: since this tribe was far more numerous than the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, which together with it constituted the single kingdom of Judah. And accordingly it was more fitting that it itself should obtain more Senators from among its own.

It is to be observed, fourthly, that this Senate, the Sanhedrin, always stood among the Jews, even in the time of the Babylonian captivity, as the Jews themselves confess in the Chaldaic Paraphrase of the Song of Songs, where mention is made of that Sanhedrin which was in Babylon; nor certainly are those who are called in Daniel cap. 13. v. 5. the Elder Judges, who seemed to govern the people, to be thought other than those Senators from the Council of the Sanhedrin, in whose hands alone was deposited the authority of condemning to death. This Senate, moreover, persevered down to Herod the Ascalonite, who, as Josephus relates, received from the Romans the kingdom of the Jews, that he might press tributes upon them and obey the Roman Empire; and he took as wife the granddaughter of Hyrcanus the High Priest and Prince of the Jews, who was the son of Alexandra, Queen of the Jews, and traced his origin from the Machabees. And circumcising himself, out of love of the kingdom and of her, he became a proselyte, and at length treacherously killed the same Hyrcanus, because he said the Kingdom was owed to himself. For when, with Hyrcanus himself the Pontiff taken captive by the Parthians, he had received from Augustus and the Senate a Judaea that had nothing to do with him, afterwards, upon the return of the same Hyrcanus from Parthian captivity, together with Antigonus his son, who had succeeded his father in the Pontificate and Kingdom, he put them to death. All likewise who had gone forth from the royal stock he slew equally, on account of that written word of Deuteronomy 17., From the midst of thy brethren thou shalt set a king over thee: and he caused all the books inscribed concerning the Genealogy of the Kings to be burned, lest he himself, or his sons, be judged aliens from the kingdom. And among other things which he did cruelly, he killed also the husband of his sister Salome. And when he had given her in marriage to another man, he killed this one also as well. The Scribes too, and Doctors of the divine law, he put to death with similar wickedness, that he might take away from the Jews every means and hope of recovering the kingdom. So Josephus. Wherefore then properly and truly did the sceptre begin to be taken away from the tribe of Judah, when no one of the Royal race was believed to remain. Then also the judicial power was removed from them, when Herod himself ordered all the Sanhedrin to be slain. All which things the Talmudists relate. For that Herod himself destroyed the heads of the captivities of Babylonia, and the Sanhedrin themselves, is held in Barabuthra, in the chapter Hassutaphin, that is, Associates in negotiation; where thus it is said word for word: Herod arose, and slew all the Rabbanan, that is, the Masters, reserving to himself Baba the son of Bota alone, that he might consult him. And on a certain day he ordered him summoned to himself, and dug out an eye of his. And shortly after: This man extinguished the light of the world, that is, the Rabbanim, as it is written, Proverbs 6. c. Because the commandment is a lamp, and the law a light. All this is tradition. From these things, says Galatinus cap. 6., it clearly enough appears, that in the time of this Herod, who slew both the heads of Babylon, that is, the Machabees, and the ordinary judges, the sceptre began to be taken away from Judah: For although afterwards other Senators and Scribes were substituted into their lot and place, yet they were endowed with no judicial authority: whence when Pilate, upon their demanding the death of Christ the Lord, had said, Take him you, and judge him according to your law: they answered: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death, because plainly that supreme power of judging had been taken away from them. But that also the Royal authority had been detected as lost, they equally confess themselves, saying to Pilate: We have no king but Caesar. Therefore both these authorities began to be taken away from the Jews about the nativity of Christ, which befell two years before the death of Herod the Ascalonite.

It is to be observed, lastly, that in the schism, or partition and division of the Royal authority and dignity, which formerly existed among the Israelites — while ten tribes, detesting the most bitter yoke of King Roboam, chose for themselves Ieroboam as King, who instituted a new kingdom of Israel — there persevered under the empire and kingdom of Roboam, together with the whole tribe of Judah, also the entire tribes of Benjamin and Levi, as appears from 3 Kings 12. and 2 Paralipomenon 11.¹ where we read that Roboam, hearing that ten tribes had revolted from him, gathered together all the house of Juda, and Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen men and warriors, to fight against Israel, and bring back his kingdom to himself. And below v. 11. and 18. And he reigned over Juda, and Benjamin. But the Priests and Levites who were in all Israel came to him (Roboam) from all their abodes, leaving their suburbs and possessions, and passing over to Juda and Jerusalem. From which things it is established that King Roboam and his posterity had three tribes subject to them, namely Juda, Benjamin, and

Levi. — Herein, further, it is especially to be observed, that from the time of that schism the three just now mentioned tribes, even as they constituted the single kingdom of Judah, so also seemed to have coalesced into the one tribe of Judah: which indeed is evident quite openly from 3 Kings cap. 12. where it is said: And no man followed the house of David but the tribe of Juda only; which things certainly could not cohere otherwise with those we reported just now from 2 Paralipomenon² than by our granting that the tribe of Benjamin and Levi had been so joined and federated to the tribe of Judah, that thereafter they were called and reckoned by no name other than Jews. Now this observation of ours can be confirmed from this, that although the successor Kings of Roboam ruled not only over the tribe of Judah, but also over Benjamin and Levi, nevertheless in all places of Scripture, whenever mention is made of them, they are called simply Kings of Judah, that it may be signified that those three tribes were designated by the sole name of Judah. Whence when Scripture speaks of the ten tribes deported far beyond the borders of Judaea by Salmanassar King of the Assyrians, it expressed the matter thus: And the Lord was exceeding angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight, and there remained only the tribe of Juda: whereas in that tribe and kingdom of Ezechias the Priests and Levites had remained: and likewise the Benjamites, and then many others besides, adhered to the same: therefore all the tribes had so coalesced in Judah, that they must be judged to have constituted a single tribe called by the name of Judah. The reason of this appellation indeed was to be sought, as I judge, not only from the dignity, amplitude, and pre-eminence of the tribe of Judah above the tribe of Levi and Benjamin, but also from the fact that those three tribes dwelt promiscuously.

As regards the tribe of Levi, no one will call that into doubt: for these had no peculiar portion and lot of land assigned them, in which they might dwell apart from the others, according to that word of Numbers 18. In their land you shall possess nothing, neither shall you have a part among them. But since their ministry and service was to minister in the tabernacle of the Lord, which was deposited in the temple of Solomon; thence it came about that, as we related above from 2 Paralipomenon cap. 11, all the Priests and Levites, abandoning the possessions they held throughout each of the tribes of Israel, passed over to Judah and Jerusalem, and dwelt together with the posterity of Judah. — The same is established also of the sons of Benjamin, who were not only neighbours of the tribe of Judah, but even inhabited the same cities, above all Jerusalem, seeing that in Judges 1. v. 21. we read: But the Jebusite, the inhabitant of Jerusalem, the sons of Benjamin did not destroy, and the Jebusite dwelt with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this present day. The same moreover is related of the sons of Judah, Josue 15. v. 63. where we read: But the Jebusite, the inhabitant of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not destroy: and the Jebusite dwelt with the sons of Judah in Jerusalem unto this present day: and presently the Judaeans and Benjamin were reckoned to dwell promiscuously, even before the division of the kingdom: which befell much more easily after that partition of the kingdom; and especially after the Babylonian captivity had been ended; for Josephus relates lib. 1. that after the ending of that captivity all the Israelites, as many as returned from Babylon into Palaestina with Zorobabel and Nehemias, were indiscriminately called Jews. The whole people, he says, obtained the name of Jews from that day on which they first set out from Babylon, from the Tribe of Judah: which, since it had come first into those places, both it itself and the whole Region passed over to that appellation. So also even now they are called, by those nations among whom they dwell, no longer any account being taken of those tribes whence they had been propagated. From all which it is established that all the Israelites, as many as survived after the ending of the captivity and inhabited Palaestina, were called and esteemed Jews, and were regarded as the one selfsame tribe of Judah. — Therefore from these things it may easily be gathered that the Royal authority was not taken away from Judah until the Messias should come. For although the Machabees held supreme authority for more than 100 years over the surviving Israelites, down to Herod the Ascalonite; nevertheless, since these latter were accounted by the common name Jews, and their tribes had as it were coalesced into the tribe of Judah, and were regarded as the one selfsame tribe, hence it is that, while they ruled, the sceptre is not judged to have been taken away from Judah, seeing that it remained with those who gloried in the name, dignity, and lot of the Jews.

You will perhaps reply: James therefore announced nothing peculiar to the posterity of Judah in his prophecy, if the tribe of Levi was to be illustriated with the same honour and title of dignity as the tribe of Judah. — But truly I answer, that this does not follow: since, as was said just now, the Machabees had attained this dignity and authority only because their lot and dwelling was the same as that of the Jews: and consequently the same duty of defending and governing their Republic. To these things add that James signally did not say: the sceptre shall not be taken away from the posterity of Judah, whereby he would signify that the sceptre was not to be taken away from the posterity of Judah before the Messias should come: but he said only: The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah, which indeed may be interpreted concerning the land, or the people of Judah, so that the sense is, that the sceptre would abide with those who inhabited the land designated to the tribe of Judah, and, as it were one people with one kingdom, constituted a single kingdom with the posterity of Judah, until the Messias should come. Nor does it matter what he subjoins, nor a Leader from his thigh: for as we admonished above, the word Mehokek signifies not only a Leader, as the common Edition has it, but chiefly a Legislator, as the other Editions bear: by which name of legislator, as we said, is signified the Senate of the Sanhedrin, in whose hands was the supreme authority of enacting laws. But the words Mibben rageliou signify not from his thigh, but from between his feet: which words indeed the Vulgate translator deemed to signify the same thing as from his thigh, on account of the position of the parts serving propagation and generation; which certainly fits the Hebrew diction quite openly. Although I should deem it also probable that the Patriarch Jacob, by those words, from between his feet, or as the other Editions bear, from between his thighs, alluded to the judicial custom by which the Scribe is accustomed to sit at the feet of the Judge and President, and to receive the sentence: which exposition also is handed down in the book Bereschith Rabba, sect. 98.

You will say perhaps that this opinion of ours is contrary to the common sense of the Holy Fathers and Theologians, who judge that the Machabees originated from the tribe of Judah according to the maternal line, and for this reason and on that account held the sceptre of the Jews. — But truly I answer that by the authority of the Holy Fathers no one is so bound in matters which pertain to History and to the minute and slight kinds of things, that he dare not bring forth his own judgment, provided something else shine forth. That indeed is a second kind, and to be received with veneration, the concordant sentiment of the Holy Fathers, in those things which pertain to the rule of faith or probity of morals: yet from it it is sometimes licit to depart, especially in those things which pertain to History: for, as Torniellus observes ad annum 4018. § 9., examples are innumerable in which Theologians and sacred Annalists are accustomed to depart from the common authority of the Fathers. Indeed, to bring forward one example from those examples, how many of the Ancients assert that Zachary, the father of John the Baptist, was High Pontiff of the Jews! Which however if anyone in our time asserted, he would be received by the learned with a whistle and laughter. It must be said therefore with Vincent of Lerins cap. 39. that the ancient consent of the Holy Fathers is not to be sought out and followed by us with great diligence in all little questions of law to be directed: but only in the certain rule of faith especially. — Yet I would not wish to prefer this opinion of ours to the sentiments of the Holy Fathers and erudite Theologians: nor even did I propose it with that mind or intention; but only that I might open to others those things which seem to me more probable; insofar as they also may be spurred on to investigate and set forth (if God grant) a more evident untying and explication of that difficulty. If you know anything better than these things, candid friend, impart it; if not, use these of ours.

The Jews finally object: Although these things were so, yet thence it is not licit to infer that Jesus the Nazarene is the Messias designated by that prophecy of Jacob: since at least twenty-eight years before his nativity the sceptre had been taken away from all the Israelites by Herod the Ascalonite son of Antipater, who transferred its preservation to his posterity, called by the same name of Herod, for several years. For it is to be observed that there were three Herods, of whom the first was that Ascalonite, who slew Hyrcanus together with his son Antigonus, who had succeeded his father in the Pontificate and kingdom: he it is also who cruelly ordered the infants of Bethlehem to be massacred upon the birth of Christ: the second Herod however was surnamed Antipater, son of the former Herod, who, Caesar adjudging it, succeeded his father in Galilee: but Archelaus his brother in Judaea: the third Herod was called Agrippa, son of this Herod, and grandson of the first: therefore etc.

I answer first, that the events of prophecies are not circumscribed by some single particle of time, but are unfolded gradually and fulfilled; thus the prophecy of Jacob concerning the taking away of the sceptre was fulfilled step by step, so that just as a man near to death, so long as he breathes and struggles with death, is said to be dying: so that taking away of the sceptre, and extinction of the royal and judicial power of Judah, was completed gradually: and begun somewhat before the rising of Christ, and thereafter falling into worse estate, at length had its completion in the overthrow of the temple and of the city under the Emperor Vespasian.

I answer second, that there seems to me probable the opinion of those who contend that Herod was a Jew not only by region, but by origin: first because, as Josephus writes lib. 18. cap. 17., long ago, before the kingdom begun by Herod, the Idumaeans had professed the rite and religion of the Jews, and had been made Jews: namely when, conquered by Hyrcanus, they were circumcised and imbued with the laws of Moses. Hence Strabo makes Idumaea a part of Judaea, and calls Herod an Idumaean, an indigenous or vernacular Jew: and Ammonius writes that the Idumaeans were called Jews; likewise Josephus lib. 11. cap. 11. has that Antipater, when Julius Caesar was in peril in Aegypt, appeased a tumult arisen among the Jews residing in Aegypt and those who had come to Caesar's aid from Judaea: because, Josephus says, he was of the same Race as they. Finally Nicolas of Damascus, an author of the greatest weight, a contemporary of Herod, who published not only the life of Caesar Augustus but also a universal history in 70 books, as Voletarenus reports from Suidas, expressly affirms that Herod was a Jew.

Second: reason itself also persuades this same thing. For if he had been an Idumaean, and alien from the stock of the Jews, since he was distinguished for audacity and ferocity, having without doubt attained the Judaic kingdom, he would have tried to transfer the Jews to the rites of the Idumaeans, and to repay the Jews; for, as we said just now, John Hyrcanus, in the fifth year of his Pontificate and prefecture, when he had subdued the Idumaeans by force of arms, compelled them to embrace the Judaic religion: for if Costabarus, one of the primates of the Idumaeans, made son-in-law of Herod, judged it unworthy that the Idumaeans serve the Jews, whose religion, Hyrcanus compelling, they had embraced, and on that account, as Josephus relates lib. 1. cap. 11., would resume even their former religion: what would not Herod the King have done, to whose nod the Jews obeyed, and the Romans fawned at his pleasure, especially since he could have persuaded himself that this would not be displeasing to the Romans, from whom he had received the kingdom, as aliens from the Judaic rite?

Third, that same thing is indicated by his most fervent zeal for the Judaic religion, as it is gathered both from the saying of Caesar, which Macrobius relates in the second book of the Saturnalia chapter four: for when he had heard that the son of Herod had been slain by command of the father, he is said to have said: it is better to be Herod's pig than his son; clearly intimating that Herod was such a zealous observer of the Mosaic law that he would not permit animals of that kind prohibited by the law to be slain: then from the fact that, when he captured Jerusalem by aid of the Romans, he strove with all his forces to bar the Gentiles, that is, the soldiers of the Romans, from the entrance of the inner temple, more bitterly, says Josephus, in the fourteenth book of the Antiquities, in the last chapter, and in the first book Of the Jewish War, chapter thirteen, than if he had been conquered, judging that then victory belonged to him, if anything of those things which it was not lawful to see seemed to be seen through his fault in the sight of the profane multitude. — Then from the fact that, when solicited by Caius Caesar, that he might ask for some favour doubtless to be obtained, despising all his own advantages, he asked only that the statue which Caius Caesar had ordered to be placed in the temple of Jerusalem be removed by him, as Josephus relates in book one. Then finally from the fact that, no one persuading or commanding, but moved by his own motion, he wished to build the temple of Jerusalem much more august than before, as the aforesaid Josephus relates. — Fourth, if Herod, who afterwards reigned over all Israel for so many years, had been an Idumaean, and of the posterity of Esau, there would follow the happening of the opposite of that which the Lord had foretold to Rebecca, carrying Jacob and Esau in her womb: Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided out of thy womb, and people shall overcome people, and the elder shall serve the younger. Genesis cap. 25. Nor does it matter what is subjoined in cap. 27. where Isaac had said to Jacob: Be lord of thy brethren, let thy mother's sons bow down before thee: and Esau had said: Thou shalt serve thy brother, he subjoins straightway: And the time will come when thou shalt shake off, and loose his yoke from thy neck: for it is one thing to shake off from oneself a yoke, as the Idumaeans did, in the times of Joram King of Judah, when, revolting from him, they constituted for themselves a proper King, as is read in the fourth book of Kings, chapter eight: another thing, that the Idumaeans or some one of them should be about to dominate the Israelites; for that would altogether be adverse to the aforementioned predictions. — Fifth, the Herodians, of whom Matthew cap. 22. affirms them asserting that Herod was the Messias, it is beyond doubt that they equally publicly confessed him to be a Jew by origin. Christ, whose Son is he? They say to him: David's. Sixth, Hyrcanus the High Pontiff would not have given his daughter Mariamne to him in marriage against the prescription of the law prohibiting marriages to be contracted with strangers, Deuteronomy chapter seventeen, and Exodus 34. etc.

You will say, this opinion is opposed by nearly all the holy Fathers; for all the holy Fathers, Interpreters, or Doctors unanimously testify that Herod was an Idumaean or an Ascalonite.

I answer, as above according to the rule of Vincent of Lerins in his book against heresies c. 39, where he says concerning the consensus of the Fathers to be followed: Yet that ancient consensus of the holy Fathers is not to be sought out and followed with great diligence in all the little questions of divine law, but only in certain principal rules of faith. But who does not see that this question about the race of Herod does not pertain to matters of faith?

I answer secondly, that none of the holy Fathers undertook to discuss this difficulty deliberately, since they were intent upon weightier studies: but certain of them said in passing that Herod was an Idumaean and an alien by race; which, strictly speaking and by way of excluding Jewish stock, I do not think should be understood; but only in that sense in which Barnabas is said in the fourth chapter of Acts to be a Cyprian by race, not because he was not himself a Jew; but because his forebears, or certainly he himself, had dwelt in Cyprus. By like reasoning Paul is called a Tarsian, Acts ten, and in chapter twenty-two calls himself a Roman; not because he was sprung from that Province and lineage; seeing that in writing to the Romans eleven and to the Philippians three he professes himself an Israelite, and of the tribe of Benjamin: whence it becomes manifest that race is not always taken for the very origin of generation, but sometimes also for the place of birth, or upbringing, or long dwelling. Nor does it matter that Josephus names Herod an Ascalonite and an Idumaean by race, and therefore accuses the Damascene of falsehood and flattery, because he said, as it were flattering Herod, that he was a Jew. Rather must it be judged that the opposite account was committed to writing by Josephus the Jew and Priest in favor of the Jews, and especially of the Priests, whom Herod on account of his extreme cruelty and pride held in derision, and above all the Priests from whom he had not only removed the kingdom, but had also, after the death of Hyrcanus the younger, given the high priesthood to a certain Ananelus a Priest summoned from Babylonia, born of those Jews formerly carried beyond the Euphrates, lest so great a dignity should come to any of illustrious men who could withstand him. Now Herod is called an Idumaean either because his father Antipater, and some of his forebears

had dwelt in Idumaea, and as Josephus himself relates, Antipas the grandfather of Herod had formerly been appointed by Alexander King of the Jews, and afterwards by his wife Alexandra, who succeeded him in the kingdom, Commander of the Idumaeans: by which reason his parents may be called Idumaeans, and he himself an Ascalonite, because he was brought up in Ascalon, or perhaps even born there: for of Antipater Josephus writes in book fourteen of the Antiquities chapter two, that he cultivated the friendships of the Arabs, and the Gazites, and the Ascalonites: wherefore it could easily have come about that the parents of Herod, tarrying in Ascalon under some pressing occasion, begat him there. Nor ought he on that account to be said to be alien in origin from the Jews, for we read that many were called in Acts chapter two Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Cretans, and Arabs, yet that they were men by nation and origin Jews is indicated in the same place in these words: Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, religious men out of every nation under heaven. — I am not unaware that Tornielli's reasons can satisfy these sufficiently; and that Salianus has partly answered them at the year of the world 1017, page 381, saying to the first and to the second, that Herod was of the same mind as the other Politicians, who are lovers of kingdom rather than of religion, and under the pretext of religion inaugurate innovations and domination: for easily, with this cast of mind, Herod, when driven out, abandoned the religion of the Idumaeans and practiced the Jewish, that he might peacefully rule the Jewish Empire handed over to him by Caesar, knowing that the Jews would sooner undergo death than a change of religion; chiefly at that time, when they were being spurred thereto by the Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees. But that he was not so greatly zealous for the divine law and the Jewish rites is evident from the temples which he erected to Caesar as to a kind of god and divinity, as Josephus testifies, book 19 of the Antiquities, c. 7. He adorned the Temple of Jerusalem of his own accord, I confess: but the Kings of Asia illustrated it with their gifts, who therefore are not to be reckoned Jews.

Greater, you will say, shall therefore serve lesser? And why could this not have come about for a little while without prejudice to the prophecy, since generally, and for a long time, the Jews, driven into divers captivities, served an alien nation? Whence this opinion is not without difficulty. Nevertheless it is more apt for proving Christ to have been the true Messiah from the prophecy of Jacob; for when Herod died a little after the birth of Christ, the scepter began gradually to be withdrawn from Juda; for although after the death of Herod Archelaus his son is said to have reigned, constituted Ethnarch of Judaea by Augustus; yet he never prevailed with him to obtain royal dignity, as appears in Josephus, book 17 of the Antiquities, chapter 18; nay rather he was banished by the same Augustus into Gaul, and Judaea was wholly reduced under the empire and governance of the Romans throughout the whole time of the life of Christ, having no King but Caesar, as the Jews themselves Pi-⟦OCR dropped one or more lines here; see notes⟧ Caesar, as Josephus testifies, book 19 of the Antiquities, c. 7, gave the kingdom of Judaea to Herod Agrippa, who, as the same Josephus has it, book 18, ch. 7, was grandson of Herod the Ascalonite by Aristobulus his son; and who thereafter in Judaea killed James the brother of John with the sword: and sent Peter into prison, intending after Pascha to bring him forth to the people, as we read in Acts chapter 12. That, I say, is no obstacle, for a very brief space indeed was intercepted by divine dispensation, that the complement of the aforesaid Prophecy might be fulfilled: since that Herod, who four years before had been tetrarch of Philip, and in that part of Galilee prefect in place of his deceased uncle, at length died three years after he had obtained the kingdom of Judea, as Josephus relates, book 19, toward the end, and so his brief rule is counted as nothing.

Second conclusion. — ACCORDING TO THAT TESTIMONY AND PROPHECY IN WHICH THE OBSTINACY OF THE JEWS IS BROKEN, SOUGHT FROM THOSE WORDS OF THE ARCHANGEL GABRIEL SPEAKING TO DANIEL, AND PROMISING THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH AFTER SEVENTY WEEKS:

Mark the word, and understand the vision: seventy weeks are shortened upon thy people, and upon thy holy city: that transgression may be consummated, and sin may receive its end, and iniquity be blotted out, and everlasting justice be brought in, and vision be fulfilled, and prophecy, and the Saint of saints be anointed. Know thou therefore, and take notice: that from the going forth of the word to build up Jerusalem again unto Christ the Prince there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks; and the street shall be built again, and the walls in straitness of times. And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain, and his people shall not be he that shall deny him. And the city and the sanctuary shall a people come with their leader destroy, and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war desolation shall be appointed. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and in the half of the week the victim and sacrifice shall fall, and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation, and until the consummation and the end the desolation shall last.

Thence I argue thus: That Christ whom the Angel promises shall come after seventy weeks is the Messiah promised to the Fathers: but the seventy weeks defined beforehand by the Angel have truly long ago passed away: therefore the Messiah has already come. The major stands, namely that that Christ is the Messiah; but not any Pontiff of the Jews, especially Hyrcanus of the Machabees, the last Pontiff by legitimate election, slain by Herod, as the Jews invent: because that Christ who is foretold to be anointed and slain is called the Saint of saints, and is said to be about to bring in everlasting justice; so that through him the iniquity of the earth is blotted out, and transgression receives its end: but these things cannot be verified of any of the Pontiffs of the Jews: therefore that prophecy is not to be understood of anyone other than the Messiah. The minor also is evident, namely that the seventy weeks defined by the Angel, however they be expounded, long ago passed away. For those weeks are either of days, or of years: but whichever way they be expounded, they have long ago passed away: therefore, etc. The minor stands: for if the prophecy be understood of weeks of days, it stands that the Messiah came after a year and a half from the time when that promise was made: if of weeks of years, whereas seventy weeks of years make only 490 years, it follows also that the Messiah came long ago, because from that time in which that angelic prophecy was uttered down to us, two thousand years and more have flowed away. The major also stands: since among the Jews a week is taken in only two ways, either for the number of seven days, as Leviticus 13, when the solemnity of Weeks, or of the Feast of Pentecost, is instituted, fifty days after Pascha, for 49 days make seven weeks: but the week of years, or that which consists of seven years, is gathered from Leviticus 25, where there is question of celebrating the holy year of Jubilee: Thou shalt number to thee seven weeks of years, that is seven times seven, which together make 49 years; and thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year.

The Jews reply, that there the discourse is of longer weeks, namely either of Jubilees, or Olympiads, or Saecula, and consequently that the small number is not yet filled up, nor consequently has the Messiah come; for seventy weeks of saecula comprise forty-nine thousand years, but of Jubilees more than twenty-four thousand: but of Olympiads nearly two thousand: whereas scarcely two thousand years have flowed away since that promise made to Daniel of the coming Messiah: therefore the Messiah has not yet come.

Against this first: they invent this gratuitously and without foundation; but if it were permitted to institute weeks at pleasure, all certainty of prophecy would perish. Moreover, neither the prophets nor the Jews are accustomed to reckon by Olympiads, but the Greeks alone; for no trace of that reckoning appears in all Scripture. Finally, if that answer had any weight of truth, it would follow that temple and city were not to be laid waste except after forty-nine thousand years, or after twenty-four thousand, or at least after two thousand, from which the Jews restored both under the administration of Esdras and Zorobabel: but the contrary plainly stands; for scarcely two thousand years have flowed away since the time when that promise was made, and yet in the year 75 above sixteen hundred, the city together with the temple was destroyed and utterly desolated, and that general devastation of the Jews perseveres to the present day without any hope of recovering city or liberty; therefore the aforesaid answer of the Jews is altogether fictitious, nor would it present any appearance of truth; but that precisely those seventy weeks of years, that is 490 years, fall upon the nativity of Jesus of Nazareth, and that not all the particulars of that prophecy can be expounded of another than himself, I shall clearly demonstrate, if first I observe certain things.

To be observed 1. These seventy weeks began during the Kingdom of the Persians, continued throughout the whole time of the Monarchy of the Greeks, and ended finally almost at the beginning of the Empire of the Romans, from whose beginning to the baptism of Christ fifty-nine years are computed, namely forty-four of the Empire of Augustus, and fifteen of Tiberius, in which year Christ was baptized, as St Luke witnesses. As to the Monarchy of the Greeks, which began with Alexander, or especially after him, the more common opinion is that it lasted about three hundred and two years, computing under it six or nine years, during which Alexander is said to have lived after he had acquired the Monarchy. So Eusebius in the Chronicle, and Bede in the book De sex aetatibus; whatever be brought forward to the contrary out of Joannes Annius, whose history, as fabricated from false authorities, obtains no authority. Yet there is one thing, as Suarez notes, disputation 1, section 2, which renders this opinion difficult and suspect: for those who assign so many years to the Monarchy of the Greeks suppose that from its beginning down to John the son of Simon, surnamed Hyrcanus, Pontiff of the Jews, more than 191 years flowed away, as stands from Eusebius in the Chronicle, where he marks the death of Alexander the Great at the beginning of Olympiad 111; but the Pontificate of John Hyrcanus at the end of Olympiad 163. Whereas however it stands from the first book of Machabees, last chapter, v. 11, that from the first year of the Greek Empire down to John Hyrcanus only one hundred seventy-seven years flowed by, to which Scripture greater faith must be given than to all the Olympiads: therefore error crept into that computation; for twenty years, more than is fitting, are added to the Empire of the Greeks. Finally, as to the Monarchy of the Persians, it is uncertain how long it lasted: for nothing certain is gathered from Scripture; among authors however there is so great dissension, that some assign to it less than a hundred years, others fifty above two hundred, among whom the middle opinion computes the duration of that Monarchy at two hundred and thirty years, which is gathered from the reckoning of the Olympiads, for that Empire began in the time of Cyrus, whose beginning is assigned to the first year of the fifty-fifth Olympiad, and received its end under Darius at the end of Olympiad 112; yet this computation supposes that Cyrus reigned thirty years after Babylon was captured, which does not seem so established: for although Cyrus reigned thirty years, nevertheless it is likely that he did not reign so many after Babylon was captured; and accordingly the first year of his Monarchy of which mention is made in Esdras one was not the first year of his reign absolutely, but only the beginning of the Babylonian reign; for in 2 Paralipomenon chapter 36 it is said: Whosoever had escaped the sword, he led into Babylon, to serve the king and his sons until the King of the Persians should reign: and he is called King of the Persians before he obtained the Babylonian kingdom: and consequently he reigned before he held the Babylonian kingdom.

Likewise he distributed the time of the solution of the Babylonian captivity after seventy weeks, that is after 490 years, into three parts, that in each of them there should be an event of notable things: for he divides those weeks, first, into seven; secondly, into sixty-two; thirdly, into one. He divides them into seven, that is 49 years, because so many septennia, more or less (for Scripture often neglects drawn-out numbers and smaller divisions of time), were to be spent in perfecting the restoration of the whole city, temple, and land, on account of the hindrances of enemies. Which straitnesses of times the Angel names for two causes; that he may signify the immense affliction of the people on account of the frequent incursions of enemies, on account of which those who applied themselves to the work were compelled with one hand to build, and with the other to hold the sword, as we have in book 2 of Esdras, chapter 1. Then that he may denote the utmost brevity of the time; for, as we have in chapter 6, the walls were joined together with great haste and finished within an interval of fifty days; which signification fits better the letter and the Hebrew phrase: so that in straitness of times it signifies the same as in a short time: just as in the same place is said abomination of desolation, that is abominable desolation: or in a shorter time; for the Hebrews are accustomed to use the positive for the comparative; as Genesis 25, v. 23, they write: the greater shall serve the lesser: that is, the greater shall serve the lesser. Secondly, he divides them into sixty-two, that is, into 434 years, because thereafter the Republic of the Jews restored and ordered by the laws of the fathers would endure only so much time unto the slaying and death of the Messiah. Finally, he distributes those weeks into one, because the Messiah in it was to manifest himself through preaching and miracles: but this last week he divides into two parts, because not in the former, but in the latter half of it, he was to accomplish this, making a pact with men, that he might bestow eternal life upon those who should receive his doctrine.

Note 3. Those years 490., in which the seventy weeks are completed, are to be solar years, not lunar; between which, as is well known, this difference intervenes, that solar years consist of 365 days with at least six hours, if you deduct certain minutes: for 11 minutes are wanting, which in an interval of 131 years make one whole day, as is clear from the Alphonsine tables, which the Church approved in the last emendation of the Calendar: but lunar years are shorter than solar by about eleven days, and contain only 351 days, which indeed eleven days with three years make a whole month, whence every third year there occurs a lunar Embolismus, that is, an addition, or intercalation of one lunation, so that the embolimaeal year has not twelve lunations, as others, but thirteen, in order that the lunar year may be reduced to equality with the solar. But that in computing those weeks solar years, not lunar, are to be observed, is evident first from this, that the Hebrews had the common custom of computing by the solar motion, as may be seen in their Chronicle, which is called Seder olam, that is, the order of the world, which you will find inserted at the end of Genebrard's Chronology: Second from the first book of Maccabees chapter 1, where Alexander is said to have reigned twelve years, which number of years is also reckoned among the profane authors, who certainly defined years by the solar course: Third and finally because the Jews took the first month of the whole year from the vernal equinox, as may be seen in Exodus 12, and celebrated the Pasch on the 14th day of the Moon after the Sun had first touched the degree of Aries, and accordingly ordered their computation by the motion of the Sun, not of the Moon. To these add that this opinion is that of Eusebius book 8 of the Evangelical Demonstration, of Chrysostom in Oration 2 against the Jews, of Lyra on the aforesaid words of Daniel, and also of the more celebrated Moderns. Nor does it stand in the way that the Angel calls those weeks abbreviated and cut short: for by this he does not intend to signify that the weeks consist of lunar years, as being shorter, for those weeks are not called abbreviated on that account, but because they hastened toward the end of the time in which the Messias was awaited: for that time was brief when compared with the preceding: hence with so familiar a speech, when the time prescribed for some action is brought to an end, we are accustomed to say that now now the days are being shortened, not that they become fewer in length, but that few remain: even as in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 it is said: Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved.

Note 4. The opinion of the Authors varies in assigning the beginning of those weeks: for since the Angel had said that it must be reckoned from the going forth of the word, until Jerusalem be again rebuilt, thence various men judged variously: for some began that starting point from the time in which Jeremias prophesied in chapter 28 that there would someday be a time in which God would recall the dispersed Israelites into their land, in these words: The Lord saith: and I will gather together the remnant of my flock out of all lands into which I have cast them out: and I will return them to their own fields: and they shall increase and be multiplied. So judge Lyranus, Burgensis, etc. Some think that the beginning of those seventy weeks should be taken from the very time in which the Angel spoke these things to Daniel. So Origen, and Tertullian in the book against the Jews chapter 8. Some think that that computation must be begun from the first year of Cyrus, when he made it possible for the Jews to return into their fatherland and to erect the temple, as we read in book 1 of Esdras chapter 1. So Clement of Alexandria.

Others from the second year of Darius Hystaspes, when he made it possible for the Jews to continue the rebuilding of the temple begun under Cyrus, but afterward interrupted, as we read in Esdras 6. So Eusebius, and Cyril of Jerusalem in Catechesis 12; very many Moderns subscribe to whose opinion.

Almost all the more recent writers will have them to be ordered from the year 20 of Artaxerxes Longimanus: but I judge it truer to say that they must be computed only from the 2nd of that reign; namely, when that decree was put into execution.

It must be observed 5. As regards the series of the Kings of the Persians, different men think differently; for some number only three, as the Rabbins cited by Galatinus in book 1 chapter 15, namely Cyrus, who first held the empire of Persis: Assuerus, of whom mention is made in Esdras chapter 4, whom they will have to have been the husband of Esther, and Darius, who, conquered by Alexander the Great, lost the Empire, whom some of them will have to be that Artaxerxes of whom mention is made in 1 Esdras chapter 1.

Others number four, as rabbi Salomon and Lyranus, adding to the three aforesaid the son of Cyrus named Cambyses: but St. Jerome affirms this opinion to be most ancient, in chapter 7 of Daniel.

Tertullian in the book against the Jews names five, to wit Ochus, who by another name is called Cyrus by him: Darius Hystaspes, or Nothus, Artaxerxes, whom one may conjecture to be Mnemon, Jugus, and Darius, whom he calls Malus.

Others name Codomanus, conquered by Alexander.

Genebrardus in book 2 from page 210 establishes six. The first with him is Darius son of Assuerus surnamed Hystaspes. The second, Cyrus. The third Xerxes, of whom he wills mention to be made under the name of Assuerus in 1 Esdras chapter 4 verse 6, and under the name of Artaxerxes in the same place verse 7. The fourth, Darius Longimanus, concerning whom he contends that mention is made under the name of Darius in 2 Esdras chapter 1, and under the name of Artaxerxes chapter 7. The fifth, Artaxerxes, whom he contends to indicate none too obscurely that he is Mnemon. The sixth, Artaxerxes Codomanus, conquered by Alexander: but he names these alone, for the reason that he judges them truly to have reigned: but he excludes the others, as either illegitimate, or reigning together with others, as Cambyses with his father Cyrus.

St. Isidore in book 3 of the Etymologies, Metasthenes, and Philo recount eight: to wit Darius the Mede, Xerxes, Artaxerxes Longimanus, Darius Nothus, Artaxerxes Mnemon, Artaxerxes Ochus, Xerxes, and Darius Codomanus.

Calvisius establishes ten. Pererius however demonstrates so many from holy Scripture, to which adding eight from profane authors he numbers thence fourteen Kings of the Persians, which opinion St. Jerome confirms by his calculation in chapter 7 of Daniel, saying:

But we, since after Cyrus, who reigned 80 years, we know that among the Persians reigned Cambyses his son, and his brother the Magus: and next Darius, in whose 2nd year the Temple of Jerusalem began to be built: fifth Xerxes son of Darius: sixth Artabanus: seventh Artaxerxes, who was called μακρόχειρ: eighth Xerxes: ninth Sogdianus: tenth Darius: eleventh Artaxerxes, who was called μνήμων: twelfth Artaxerxes Ochus: thirteenth Arsaces son of Ochus: fourteenth Darius son of Arsames, who was overcome by Alexander King of the Macedonians.

Although, in settling this controversy, scarcely anything certain can be determined as to how many heads and how many senses there are, I judge it truer to say that there were only four Emperors of the Persians, from the auspicious beginning of their kingdom under Cyrus down to the complete and consummate restoration of the temple and of the city of Jerusalem — namely those who are related in the books of Esdras and Nehemias: first, Cyrus, who reigned seven years, reckoning from the first year of his general and universal empire; for before the Persian kingdom had begun, he reigned in Greece, as we have said. Second, Assuerus, whom Esdras calls Artaxerxes and Assuerus in chapter 4; but Josephus calls him, with all the Greeks, Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, who alone after his father's death reigned seven years and several months, although he had also reigned before with his father, especially at the time when Cyrus undertook the war against the Scythians. Third, Darius Hystaspis, who succeeded the Magi, whose empire and dominion neither Esdras nor Nehemias mention, since perhaps they had reigned only six months; but Darius reigned thirty-six years. And fourth there was Artaxerxes, called Longimanus, whom Josephus, the writer of the history of the Jews, calls only Xerxes, who held the Empire for at least thirty-two years; since the thirty-second year of that kingdom is recalled by Nehemias, chapter 5, verse 14, and chapter 13, verse 6.

A difficulty could be raised whether Assuerus, of whom Esdras makes mention in chapter 4, verse 6, is one and the same as him who is called Artaxerxes by the same author at verse 7; for he says:

But in the reign of Assuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Juda and Jerusalem; and in the days of Artaxerxes, Beselam, Mithridates, and Thabeel, and the rest who were in their council, wrote to Artaxerxes king of the Persians.

Yet it can easily be gathered that one and the same King was called by this twofold name, as Josephus relates, who names him Cambyses. For if the aforesaid words contained a twofold complaint and accusation against the Jews, of which one had been directed to Assuerus, the other to Artaxerxes, as to two distinct Kings, without doubt Esdras would have narrated the outcome and success of both complaints framed against the Jews; but since he relates the outcome of only one, namely that notwithstanding it, permission was granted to him and to the Jews his companions to set out for Jerusalem and to carry thither all the gifts and vessels which had been offered by the Jews dwelling in the province of Babylon for the ministry of the house of God, it is a sign that there was only one King, called by a twofold name. Add that, if there had been two complaints framed against the Jews, which would have been followed by two edicts from different Kings, it is likely that the last edict from the later of those Kings would have made mention of the former edict; and moreover, the adversaries of the Jewish people would not have kept silent about that edict of Assuerus, so that they might the more easily obtain from Artaxerxes what they demanded against the Jews; and since it is not read that this was done, it must be an indication that by the names Assuerus and Artaxerxes one sole King is designated. Nor ought it seem strange that one and the same King is called by a twofold name in the same chapter; for this was frequent among the Jews, as may be seen in the book of Judges, chapter 8, where one and the same man is called both Gedeon and Jerobaal in two immediately following verses; and in book 1 of Esdras, chapter 2, he who is called Nehemias is also there called Athersatha. Nor indeed can it be denied that King Xerxes, whom all authors, both Greek and Latin, affirm to have succeeded Darius the son of Hystaspes immediately, is another King distinct from Artaxerxes, of whom alone Esdras and Nehemias make mention; but we can assert that therefore Esdras and Nehemias made mention of Artaxerxes alone because Xerxes his father, having taken up arms against the Greeks, had designated Artaxerxes himself as the partner and administrator of the Empire; wherefore certain Authors relate that he himself reigned fifty-six years, although from elsewhere it is established that he alone reigned only forty years; whence it ought to seem wonderful to no one that the Jews, while Xerxes was reigning, had recourse to his son Artaxerxes, since he himself was then King and, in the absence of his father, the supreme moderator of the kingdom.

These things having been set forth beforehand, I judge it more probable that the beginning of those weeks is to be undertaken from the twenty-eighth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, whom Josephus simply calls Xerxes in book 11, chapter 5, toward the end; but Esdras and Nehemias name Artaxerxes, and make no mention of any Xerxes, whom profane writers relate reigned only twenty years before that Artaxerxes. The truth of this opinion appears first, because the words of the aforesaid Prophecy cannot fit any other assertion. Indeed, the opinion of those cannot stand who will have these weeks to be computed from the first year of Sedecias, namely at that time when Jeremias, sixteen years before the Babylonian captivity, foretold that the whole people would be led away captive and would return into their homeland after seventy years and would repair the overthrown walls; otherwise there would be not only seventy weeks unto the overthrow of the city, but nearly ninety; and not only four hundred ninety-nine years would have to be numbered, but six hundred and more.

Nor do the opinions of others seem more probable, some of whom will have those weeks to be computed from the edict of Cyrus; others from the permission granted to the Jews by Darius Hystaspis to build the walls of Jerusalem; the rest from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, namely at that time when Nehemias, as we read in chapter 2, obtained the authority to restore the city of Jerusalem, which at that time, as is asserted there, was still laid waste; for we read of three royal edicts in the books of Esdras in favor of and for the grace of the Jews: the first of Cyrus, the second of Darius Hystaspis, the third of Artaxerxes Longimanus. Yet Cyrus did not give the power of restoring the city, but only of rebuilding the Temple, as is gathered from the end of book 2 of Paralipomenon and chapters 1 and 6 of the book of Esdras. Nor does it stand in the way that in chapter 4 of Esdras there is mention made of the rebuilding of the city; for it is not said there that the Jews rebuilt it by the edict of Cyrus. Nor does it stand in the way that Isaiah, chapter 45, has it that Cyrus would build the city and release the captivity; for first it can be answered that this was not said of Cyrus, but of Christ; so Jerome. Second, that there the building of the city signifies not the material structure of the walls, but only the civil building, which comes about through the union and cohabitation of citizens, in such wise that the Jews, when they restored the temple, can be said also, the captivity being dissolved, to have restored and built Jerusalem. Third, supposing that it be understood of the material structure of the walls, the city is said to have been built by Cyrus because perhaps he commanded that it be built; yet nevertheless the beginning of the computation of the weeks cannot be taken from this time, but only from the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus, because then, the surrounding nations hindering it, as though the King had not commanded this, the work was not fulfilled but only attempted; and it was accomplished only by Nehemias. Finally, Scripture attributes the restoration of the city to that one man alone.

Ecclesiasticus 49: Nehemias in memoriam multi temporis, qui erexit nobis muras eversos, et stare fecit portas et seras, qui erexit domos nostras.

Nor can the opinion stand of those who will have those weeks to be begun from the edict of Darius Hystaspis, who, as is related in book 3 of Esdras, chapters 3 and 4, gave letters to Zorobabel for all the dispensers, prefects, and purple-clad nobles, that they should lend him aid, insofar as he himself together with the Israelitic people might be able to restore Jerusalem. First, because that third book of Esdras is not counted among the canonical Scriptures, and therefore full faith is not to be given to it. Second, scarcely can those things stand which are related there, namely that all these things were completed in the same year: to wit, the decree of Darius, by which he granted the power of building the city and the temple; the departure of Zorobabel and of those ascending with him to Jerusalem; the beginning of the building; its impediment by Tathanai and the other leaders who were beyond the river; the return of Zorobabel into Babylonia, that he might implore the protection of the King against those opposing Princes; the inquiry made in the royal library, which was in Babylonia, for the decree of Cyrus, by which he had granted the power of building the temple of Jerusalem; the new decree of the same Darius, which is read in book 1 of Esdras, chapter 6, and by which Darius commanded Tathanai and the other leaders not to impede the restoration of the city of Jerusalem, nay rather to supply from the royal treasury the expenses necessary for the building of the temple and the celebration of the sacrifices; the return of Zorobabel himself with that decree to Jerusalem; and the prophecy of Aggaeus and Zacharias, who, as we read in

1. Esdras, chapter 5, prophesied against the Jews that, having the power of restoring the Temple of the Lord, they were laboring only at the building of their own private houses. For who would believe that all these things could have been fulfilled within the space of the second year of Darius? Especially since the city of Babylon stood far distant from Jerusalem, as is seen in book 1 of Esdras, chapter 7; for Esdras, returning to Jerusalem with the Israelitic people, set out from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and they arrived at Jerusalem only on the first day of the fifth month. Therefore that Darius from whom Zorobabel obtained the power in the
2. year of his reign must have been either Cyrus or Cambyses, who perhaps were called not only Artaxerxes and Assuerus, but even Darius.

It is confirmed. Because Zorobabel at the time of that Darius from whom he obtained license to build the city and temple of Jerusalem was a youth and an adolescent, as is related in book 3 of Esdras, chapter 3, verse 4, and chapter 4, verse 51. But while Darius Hystaspis was reigning Zorobabel could not be accounted an adolescent; since already in the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians he was leader and prince among the Israelites, as is seen in book 1 of Esdras, chapter 2, and book 2, chapter 1, and likewise in Aggaeus 2, verse 22. Now Cyrus reigned at least thirty years; Cambyses his son also reigned just as many; after whom for some time the Magi held the empire, to whom Darius Hystaspis succeeded; therefore while he reigned Zorobabel must have been born at least forty-five years earlier, at which certain age he could not be esteemed either a youth or an adolescent. Add that that Darius, whoever he was, did not grant license for building Jerusalem, but only for restoring the temple; since he merely renewed the concession of Cyrus, by which he had granted license to the Jews to build the temple of Jerusalem and to offer sacrifices in it. Wherefore Darius commands Tathanai and the other leaders who were impeding that restoration of the temple: Let that temple be built by the duke of the Jews and by the ancients, that they may build that house of God in its place, as is seen not only in book 1 of Esdras, chapter 6, but book 3, chapter 6, where that edict of Darius is related; but also in chapter 2 of book 2, where we read that while Artaxerxes was reigning, who had succeeded Darius Hystaspis, the city of Jerusalem was still laid waste. For Nehemias, who had obtained from Artaxerxes the power of restoring the walls, addressing the Jews says: You know the affliction in which we are: because Jerusalem is desolate, and her gates are consumed with fire; come, let us build the walls of Jerusalem, etc. And presently, at that time the city of Jerusalem was not yet built up; now the words of the prophecy signify that those seventy weeks are to begin not from the going forth of the word or edict that the temple should be built, but that Jerusalem should be built; therefore those seventy weeks are not to be computed from that edict of Darius Hystaspis.

The same judgment must be passed upon that decree of the same Artaxerxes by which in the seventh year of his reign he granted license to Esdras to ascend to Jerusalem with chosen men from among the sons of Israel, to finish and consecrate the temple, whose restoration had long since been begun; since that decree looked only to the building of the temple, and not truly to the restoration of the city; as is evident from book 1 of Esdras, chapter 7.

From these things, therefore, it follows that those seventy weeks are to be ordered only from the edict of the same Artaxerxes by which in the twentieth year of his empire he granted power to Nehemias, insofar as with the Jews his companions he might ascend to Jerusalem and restore its walls and houses; for this is the first going forth of the word that Jerusalem should again be built, from which going forth the Angel signifies that there still remain seventy weeks even unto Christ the leader.

§ IV.

Nevertheless I do not judge that the beginning of the weeks is to be taken precisely from that twentieth year in which that edict was sanctioned, but only from the second year, in which that edict was committed to execution. For although Nehemiah received that edict in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, yet, as Josephus narrates in book 11, chapter 5, Nehemiah could not set out for Judaea before the twenty-fifth year of the same King: since he had spent almost these five years from the acceptance of the edict in gathering together the Jews scattered throughout the Babylonian kingdom and dealing with them, and above all with the most familiar princes, so that, according to the King's grant, they might abandon the Babylonian lands and return to their fatherland alone. Which indeed was difficult to persuade of men already so beguiled by the companionship and familiarity of the Babylonians that they could scarcely be torn from their fellowship, and could abandon that most fruitful land in which most of them had been born, so as to inhabit another wholly devastated and uncultivated land, beset with very many adversaries. Hence it came about that Nehemiah, as Josephus relates, arrived at Jerusalem only about the twenty-fifth year of Artaxerxes; whence, since he spent two years in restoring the walls and houses of that city, it follows that he did not complete this immense and great work except about the ninth month of the twenty-eighth year of the same Artaxerxes; which Josephus would not have related so accurately unless he had had testimonies and documents certain and beyond all exception. Now this twenty-eighth year of the reign of Artaxerxes falls in the year of the world 3527., from which if you number 490. you will find 4017., which certainly is the year in which Christ was crucified, and thus immediately the event answers the prophecy most exactly.

But that those weeks are rather to be begun from the execution of that edict than from its grant and promulgation is to me no slight argument: especially since that edict was not granted by the King except by divine inspiration, and therefore ought rather to be judged an edict of God than of a King; and since the decrees of God obtain an infallible effect, according to that of the Psalm: The words that proceed out of my mouth I will not make void: it is manifest that the Angel in that prophecy signified not so much the promulgation of that edict as its execution, when he said, from the going forth of the word: whence also significantly he does not add, that license be given to build Jerusalem, but, that Jerusalem be again built up. By which he signifies that he is speaking of the real and effective restoration of Jerusalem, and from it weaving the whole series and order of his prophecy. But that all the parts of that prophecy accord in a marvelous manner with Jesus of Nazareth I prove thus: 1. That promised Messias is called the Saint of Saints, or in Hebrew the Holiness of Holinesses, or the Sanctified of Saints. Now these things most aptly befit Jesus of Nazareth, both according to his divinity and his humanity, which in hypostatic union is anointed with the oil of joy superabounding in graces and all celestial charisms beyond its fellows. And he is called the Saint of Saints just as being of beings, light of light, life of life: because all holiness flowed forth from him; for to each one of us grace is given according to the measure of the donation of Christ, who is full of grace and truth; of whose fullness we have all received.

You ask perhaps here, how Christ in his death is said to have received the unction of the Saint of Saints, since death seems rather the destruction than the preservation of unction. But this question is easily answered sufficiently: for although Christ before his death, and from the instant of his conception, had received the unction and delibation of the Divinity, as he himself testifies in Luke

1. adapting to himself that prophecy of Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me: nevertheless he had not yet received the fullness, majesty, and manifestation of this unction, as truly happened after he was raised from the dead. For in the resurrection the unction of the Divinity, and the ointment of immortality, descended from the head of that mystical Aaron, and Pontiff of men most high, not only into the beard, but even into the hem of his garment, that is, from the superior portion of his soul, not only into the interior portion of his soul, but also into his body. Whence deservedly the Apostle in Romans 1. commends the resurrection of Christ in these words: Predestinated the Son of God in power according to the spirit of sanctification by the resurrection from the dead. Therefore, since Christ died that our iniquity might be blotted out, as the Angel had foretold: so by the resurrection he was anointed the Saint of Saints; for, as the Apostle says in Romans
2. He was delivered for our sins, and rose again for our justification.

Secondly, he is that in whom transgression was consummated: for the Jews, filling up the measure of their Fathers, not only sold the just Joseph, not only changed the glory of God into the likeness of the golden calf and other idols, not only finally killed the Prophets, but also killed the very Son of God himself: now this is their fourth sin, which is to be punished not for a time, but unto the end of the world. Thus the Prophet Amos is to be understood, saying in chapter 2.: For three crimes of Israel I will transfer, or convert them, and for four I will not convert them, because they sold the just one for silver. For although the Jews understand the just one sold for silver to be Joseph the son of Jacob, delivered for a price by his brothers to be carried into Egypt: nevertheless Rabbi Samuel in his Epistle to Rabbi Isaac, Master of the Synagogue, which is under Hulmoza in the Moroccan Kingdom, and which was found by Father Bonihomin of the Order of Preachers in the ancient library of Spain, and rendered into Latin from the Arabic idiom, and printed together with the Opuscula of St. Anthony — in which epistle he asks that most wise Rabbi why in that captivity with which they are now oppressed there is no Prophet present, no rite of sacrifice, no hope of recovering liberty, as in prior captivities promise was made through the Prophets: inquiring likewise what that most grievous sin might be on account of which they were oppressed by so hard and so long-lasting a captivity — has this in chapter 1. Christians also, to whom the study of the sacred books seems to have been handed down by God, respond to our aforesaid teaching, that first among the four crimes of Israel Joseph was sold by his brothers: and they assign as the second sin the adoration of the calf in Oreb: and the third was the killing of the Prophets: the fourth crime was the selling of the Just One, namely Jesus. In vengeance of the first our fathers were in the captivity of Egypt. In punishment of the second many perished in the desert, and they dwelt exiles therein for forty years. In vengeance of the third they suffered innumerable and diverse captivities, especially the Babylonian for seventy years. But since the Prophet Amos sets down expressly the selling of the Just One, and no Just One appeared sold except Jesus of Nazareth, it seems to me that we are in that fourth greatest sin, and therefore in that captivity of which God speaks, that he will bring back no more. For already there are a thousand years in which we profit nothing among the Gentiles, nor is there hope of profiting further.

Through him sin came to an end, and all iniquity was blotted out; for he washed us from our sins in his own blood, and offered himself to the Father on the altar of the cross as an immaculate victim, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and become a propitiation for our sins; not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Through him everlasting justice was brought in, true indeed and eternal, not legal and figurative, which was to endure not for a time, like the Mosarcae, but always in heaven and on earth; for whoever drinks of the water which Christ came to give shall not thirst again; but it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting. In him finally every vision and prophecy was fulfilled, for he did, said, and suffered all things which the Prophets prophesied concerning the Messias to come. Thence he has three principal effects and fruits to be bestowed through the advent of the Messias: 1. the purging away of sin: 2. the bestowal of true justice: 3. the fulfillment of the Prophecies.

Thirdly, he suffered in the midst of the last week, namely in the eighteenth year of Tiberius.

Fourthly, in the death of the Lord Christ the temple was violated and profaned, when namely the veil of the temple was rent from the top even to the bottom, at least the outer veil, by which the people were separated from the Priests, as if that temple now had nothing in its mysteries, nothing of reverence, nothing of religion. Thence the approach to the Sanctuary was permitted to the high Priest alone, and that only each single year on the day of Expiation, under threat of death should he enter more often, as Philo notes in the book On the Embassy to Caius; much less did it lie open to many Priests, to whom from that time it was permitted to enter into the Holy of Holies, as Josephus Gorionides writes in book 3., chapter 25., but also to the Jews themselves, when in the time of Florus, governor of Syria after Pilate, a sedition having arisen, all the Jews fled together to the temple of God; indeed even in the times of Vespasian himself, when not only his statue was placed in the temple, but also his soldiers entered the temple and despoiled and burned it. Therefore in the death of Christ the lintel of the temple collapsed in a great earthquake, and the voices of the Angels, guardians of the temple, were heard in it saying: Let us depart hence, as St. Jerome observes from the Gospel of the Nazarenes, chapter 9. Although Josephus refers this to the time of Pentecost, fifty days after the death of Christ: yet he may have erred either through uncertain report, or because he was ignorant of the Mysteries of our Religion, or perhaps hostile to the Christians. Therefore there was in the temple abomination, since soldiers stood in it worshipping idols: desolation, since they stripped it of all its vessels and ornaments, and afterwards, fire being applied, reduced it to ashes and cinders, and slew all the Jews either by bloody death, or, driven into exile into diverse provinces, enslaved them in perpetual and harsh captivity: as Christ had prophesied in Luke 21.:

When you shall see Jerusalem encompassed by an army, then know that the desolation thereof is at hand: then those who are in Judaea, let them flee to the mountains; and those who are in the midst thereof, let them depart; and those who are in the countries, let them not enter into it; for these are the days of vengeance, that all things may be fulfilled that are written: and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Nations be fulfilled.

Third Conclusion. — It can be proved that the Messias has come from many testimonies of Scripture, in which are designated the birth of the Messias, the state of his life, his ministry, the manner of his death, his resurrection, and his reception into heaven; all of which seem to be fulfilled in a marvelous manner in Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed it is foretold that the Messias was to be of the seed of David. Ps. 131.: The Lord hath sworn to David in truth, and he will not make it void: of the fruit of thy womb I will set upon thy throne: which indeed was fulfilled in that adorable Jesus of Nazareth, who, as the Angel foretold while speaking to his Mother, in Luke 1., was the son of David, and the Lord God gave him the throne of David his father, that he might reign in the house of Jacob forever.

Secondly, the Messias is declared to be born of a Virgin, Isai. 7.: Behold a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, etc. But Jesus was born of Mary the Virgin before birth, in birth, and after birth: for in Luke 1.: The Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a Virgin espoused to a man, etc. Similarly the Messias was to be born in Bethlehem according to that of Micheas 5.: And thou Bethlehem Ephrata art a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity. But Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as is read in Luke 2.

Thirdly, the Messias to come was poor and abject, according to that of Zacharias 9.: Behold thy King shall come to thee just, and a savior: he is poor, and riding upon an ass. But Jesus was most poor; for, as he said in Luke 9.: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head: whence Bernard says excellently that he was poor in his nativity, poorer in his life, poorest in his death; likewise he mounted upon an ass in his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, as is read in Matthew 21.

Fourthly, the Messias was to be delivered unto death for thirty pieces of silver. Zacharias 11.: They weighed my wages thirty pieces of silver. He was to die a most shameful death, Wisdom 2.: With a shameful death let us condemn him. He was to be fastened to a cross and torn with scourges: Psalm 21.: They have dug my hands and feet, and numbered all my bones. His garments were to be divided by lot: in the same place: Upon my vesture they cast lots. His bones and the members of his body were not to be broken, according to that of Exodus 12.: You shall not break a bone thereof.

Fifthly, his Resurrection is foretold. Psalm 56: Arise, O my glory, saith the heavenly Father; to whom the Son answereth: I shall rise at dawn. About to ascend into heaven, Psalm 67: Thou hast ascended on high; thou hast led captivity captive. About to send the Holy Ghost, Joel chapter two: I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh. About to exterminate idols, Zechariah 13: It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will destroy the names of them out of the land, and they shall be remembered no more. About to establish another law, Baruch chapter two: And I will establish for them another everlasting testament. About to be rejected by the people of the Jews, Jeremiah chapter five: They have denied the Lord, and said: It is not he. But all these things, as is evident from the Evangelical History, were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth: therefore he was the true Messias.

To these add what the Angel had foretold while speaking to Daniel, namely that after the Messias should be slain the Jews were to be rejected, the city and the Sanctuary to be destroyed by a coming Prince, the whole Jewish nation to be laid waste, and its desolation to endure unto the end; yet the Jews cannot deny that after Jesus of Nazareth was slain, the City of Jerusalem was laid waste under the Princes Vespasian and Titus, the temple razed to the ground, all sacrifices extinguished, the Jews dispersed throughout the world, groaning under hard captivity: whence Saint Jerome elegantly says in his Epistle to Dardanus, addressing the Jewish nation: How is it that God, once most merciful, who was never before unmindful of thee, is now not moved, through so great spaces of time, to loose thy captivity, and — to speak more truly — to send thee the Anti-Christ whom thou expectest? For what deed, for so execrable a crime, hath He turned away His eyes from thee? Thy blind parents shall cry out: His blood be upon us, and upon our children! And: This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours: and: We have no king but Caesar. Thou hast him whom thou hast chosen; thou shalt serve Caesar even unto the end of the world; until the fulness of the Gentiles enter in, thou who once wast at the summit art cast down beneath the rest.

You will object that there are many prophecies of the Prophets concerning the future advent of the Messias which cannot possibly fit Jesus of Nazareth: therefore from those which we have brought forward it cannot clearly be gathered that he himself is the true Messias. To prove their antecedent, they bring forward many texts of Scripture. First indeed, that in the time of the Messias, as we read in Isaiah chapter 11: The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them. Likewise Isaiah chapter two: In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains: thence they gather that in the time of the Messias the Temple of Jerusalem, and the mountain on which it was founded, were to be raised above all mountains, etc.

But I answer, that the Jews, in bringing forward and expounding these texts, are shamefully deceived and labour under a twofold error: of which the first is that they would have very many things said of the advent of the Messias enigmatically, spiritually, or metaphorically understood literally, such being the texts just cited: their second error is that they distinguish two advents of the Messias: one as Saviour to deliver men, the other as judge to judge them; the former in humility, the latter in majesty and glory. Hence it has come about that in reconciling the oracles concerning the future Messias they labour greatly, yet find no issue: for certain prophecies set him forth overflowing with riches, crowned with glory and honour, holding and governing the sceptre and empire of all nations: but other oracles designate him as one to come poor, abject, lowest of men, despised by all: wherefore the Jews are compelled to distinguish two Messias, of whom one is poor and humble, the other rich and mighty.

Thirdly, how empty these things are, and without foundation, is sufficiently gathered from Holy Scripture, which makes mention of one Messias alone: yet distinguishes in him a twofold advent. This Saint Augustine pursues most elegantly in Tractate 1 upon John, weighing that verse of the Psalm: God shall come manifestly, our God, and shall not keep silence: where he says:

He kept silence, that He might be judged: He will not keep silence when He shall begin to judge. He would not be said to come manifestly, unless He had first come hidden: nor would it be said, He will not keep silence, unless because He first kept silence. But how did He keep silence? Ask Isaiah: He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer was without voice: so He opened not His mouth. But He shall come manifest, and will not keep silence: how manifest? A fire shall go before Him, and round about Him a strong tempest.

Add that the obstinacy of the Jews, and their most grave error concerning a twofold Messias, can be most plainly refuted from chapter 53 of Isaiah, where is foretold of the Messias his birth, contempt, persecution, slaying, glorious resurrection, and the conversion of all peoples unto himself, so that it appears that the same Messias is both foretold poor and rich, abject and exalted, subject and Lord of all, as we said above.

We do not treat here of the arguments by which it is proved that the Messias must needs be God and man: for we shall discuss and resolve these in a more fitting order in Disputation the second, demonstrating the dignities and excellencies of the Word Incarnate.