City of God, Book 17

By the favor of God we have dealt clearly with His promises made to Abraham, that both the nation of Israel according to the flesh, and all nations according to faith, would be his seed, and the City of God, proceeding according to the order of time, will point out how they were fulfilled. Having therefore in the previous book come down to the reign of David, we shall now treat of what remains, as far as may seem sufficient for the purpose of this work, beginning at the same reign. Now, from the time when holy Samuel began to prophesy, and onward until the people of Israel was led captive into Babylonia, and until, according to the prophecy of holy Jeremiah, on Israel's return from there after seventy years, the house of God was built anew, this whole period is the prophetic age. For although both the patriarch Noah himself, in whose days the whole earth was destroyed by the flood, and others before and after him down to this time when there began to be kings over the people of God, may deservedly be called prophets, on account of certain things concerning the city of God and the kingdom of heaven, which they either predicted or in any way signified would come to pass, and especially since we read that some of them, such as Abraham and Moses, were expressly so called, still what are most and chiefly called the days of the prophets date from the time when Samuel began to prophesy, who at God's command first anointed Saul to be king, and, on his rejection, David himself, whom others of his line were to succeed as long as it was fitting for them to do so. If, therefore, I wished to recount all that the prophets have predicted about Christ, while the city of God, with its members dying and being born in constant succession, ran its course through those times, this work would extend beyond all bounds. First, because the Scripture itself, even when, in dealing in order with the kings and of their deeds and the events of their reigns, it seems to be occupied in narrating with a historian's care the things that were done, will be found, if the things handled by it are considered with the aid of the Spirit of God, either more, or certainly not less, intent on foretelling things to come than on relating things past. And who, if he thinks even a little about it, does not know how laborious and lengthy a work it would be, and how many volumes it would require to search this out by thorough investigation and demonstrate it by argument? And then, because, of what indisputably belongs to prophecy, there are so many things about Christ and the kingdom of heaven, which is the city of God, that to explain these a larger discussion would be necessary than the proper scale of this work allows. Therefore I shall, if I can, so limit myself, that in carrying through this work, I may, with God's help, neither say what is superfluous nor omit what is necessary.

In the preceding book we said that in the promise of God to Abraham two things were promised from the beginning, the one, namely, that his seed would possess the land of Canaan, which was indicated when it was said, “Go into a land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation;” Genesis 12:1-2 but the other far more excellent, concerning not the carnal but the spiritual seed, by which he is the father, not of the one nation of Israel, but of all nations who follow the footsteps of his faith, which began to be promised in these words, “And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 12:3 And after that we showed by many other proofs that these two things were promised. Therefore the seed of Abraham, that is, the people of Israel according to the flesh, was already in the land of promise; and there, not only by holding and possessing the cities of the enemies, but also by having kings, had already begun to reign, since the promises of God about that people were already in great part fulfilled: not only those that were made to those three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and whatever others were made in their times, but also those that were made through Moses himself, by whom the same people was set free from servitude in Egypt, and by whom all bygone things were revealed in his times, when he led the people through the wilderness. But neither by the illustrious leader Jesus the son of Nun, who led that people into the land of promise, and, after driving out the nations, divided it among the twelve tribes according to God's command, and died; nor after him, in the whole time of the judges, was the promise of God about the land of Canaan fulfilled, that it would extend from some river of Egypt even to the great river Euphrates; yet it was no longer prophesied as something to come, but its fulfillment was expected. And it was fulfilled through David, and Solomon his son, whose kingdom was extended over the whole promised space; for they subdued all those nations, and made them tributary. And thus, under those kings, the seed of Abraham was established in the land of promise according to the flesh, that is, in the land of Canaan, so that nothing remained for the complete fulfillment of that earthly promise of God, except that, as far as temporal prosperity is concerned, the Hebrew nation would remain in the same land by the succession of posterity in an unshaken state even to the end of this mortal age, if it obeyed the laws of the Lord its God. But since God knew it would not do this, He used His temporal punishments also for training His few faithful ones in it, and for giving necessary warning to those who would afterward be in all nations, in whom the other promise, revealed in the New Testament, was about to be fulfilled through the incarnation of Christ.

Therefore just as that divine oracle to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the other prophetic signs or sayings which are given in the earlier sacred writings, so also the other prophecies from this time of the kings relate partly to the nation of Abraham's flesh, and partly to that seed of his in which all nations are blessed as fellow heirs of Christ by the New Testament, to the possessing of eternal life and the kingdom of the heavens. Therefore they relate partly to the slave woman who bears children for slavery, that is, the earthly Jerusalem, which is in slavery with her children; but partly to the free city of God, that is, the true Jerusalem eternal in the heavens, whose children are all those who live according to God on the earth: but there are some things among them which are understood to relate to both — to the slave woman literally, to the free woman figuratively. Galatians 4:22-31 Therefore prophetic utterances of three kinds are to be found; since there are some relating to the earthly Jerusalem, some to the heavenly, and some to both. I think it proper to prove what I say by examples. The prophet Nathan was sent to convict king David of heinous sin, and predict to him what future evils would follow from it. Who can question that this and similar things relate to the earthly city, whether publicly, that is, for the safety or help of the people, or privately, when divine utterances are given for each person's private good by which something of the future may be known for the use of temporal life? But where we read, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make for the house of Israel, and for the house of Judah, a new covenant: not according to the covenant that I made for their fathers in the day when I laid hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make for the house of Israel: after those days, says the Lord, I will give my laws in their mind, and will write them on their hearts, and I will see to them; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people;” Hebrews 8:8-10 — without doubt this is prophesied to the Jerusalem above, whose reward is God Himself, and whose chief and entire good it is to have Him, and to be His. But this relates to both, that the city of God is called Jerusalem, and that it is prophesied the house of God shall be in it; and this prophecy seems to be fulfilled when king Solomon builds that most noble temple. For these things both happened in the earthly Jerusalem, as history shows, and were figures of the heavenly Jerusalem. And this kind of prophecy, composed and blended, so to speak, of both the others in the ancient canonical books, containing historical narratives, is of very great significance, and has exercised and exercises greatly the minds of those who search holy Scripture. For example, what we read of historically as predicted and fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, we must also seek the allegorical meaning of, as it is to be fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to faith. And so much is this the case, that some have thought there is nothing in these books either foretold and done, or done although not foretold, that does not hint at something else which is to be referred by figurative signification to the city of God on high, and to her children who are pilgrims in this life. But if this is so, then the utterances of the prophets, or rather the whole of those Scriptures that are counted under the title of the Old Testament, will be not of three, but of two different kinds. For there will be nothing there which relates to the earthly Jerusalem only, if whatever is said and fulfilled there about her signifies something which also refers by allegorical prefiguration to the heavenly Jerusalem; but there will be only two kinds, one that relates to the free Jerusalem, the other to both. But just as, I think, those err greatly who are of the opinion that none of the records of affairs in that kind of writings mean anything more than that they so happened, so I think those very daring who contend that the whole gist of their contents lies in allegorical meanings. Therefore I have said they are threefold, not twofold. Yet, in holding this opinion, I do not blame those who may be able to draw out of everything there a spiritual meaning, provided that, first of all, the historical truth is preserved. For the rest, what believer can doubt that those things are spoken vainly which are such that, whether said to have been done or to be still to come, they do not suit either human or divine affairs? Who would not recall these to spiritual understanding if he could, or confess that they should be recalled by anyone who is able?

Therefore the advance of the city of God, where it reached the times of the kings, offered a figure when, on the rejection of Saul, David first obtained the kingdom on such a footing that from then on his descendants would reign in the earthly Jerusalem in continual succession; for the course of affairs signified and foretold, something not to be passed over in silence, about the change of things to come, what belongs to both Testaments, the Old and the New — where the priesthood and kingdom are changed by one who is a priest, and at the same time a king, new and everlasting, namely Christ Jesus. For both the substitution in the ministry of God, on Eli's rejection as priest, of Samuel, who held the office of priest and judge together, and the establishment of David in the kingdom, when Saul was rejected, prefigured what I am speaking of. And Hannah herself, the mother of Samuel, who formerly was barren, and afterward was gladdened with fertility, does not seem to prophesy anything else, when she exultantly pours out her thanksgiving to the Lord, on yielding up to God the same boy she had borne and weaned with the same piety with which she had vowed him. For she says, “My heart is made strong in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God; my mouth is enlarged over my enemies; I am made glad in Your salvation. Because there is none holy as the Lord; and none is righteous as our God: there is none holy but You. Do not glory so proudly, and do not speak lofty things, nor let boastful talk come out of your mouth; for a God of knowledge is the Lord, and a God preparing His curious designs. He has made the bow of the mighty weak, and the weak are armed with strength. Those who were full of bread are diminished; and the hungry have passed beyond the earth: for the barren woman has borne seven; and she who has many children has grown feeble. The Lord kills and makes alive: He brings down to hell, and brings up again. The Lord makes poor and makes rich: He brings low and lifts up. He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill, so that He may set him among the mighty of [His] people, and makes them inherit the throne of glory; giving the vow to the one who vows, and He has blessed the years of the just: for man is not mighty in strength. The Lord shall make His adversary weak: the Lord is holy. Let not the prudent glory in his prudence and let not the mighty glory in his might; and let not the rich glory in his riches: but let the one who glories glory in this, to understand and know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth. The Lord has ascended into the heavens, and has thundered: He shall judge the ends of the earth, for He is righteous: and He gives strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of His Christ.” Do you say that these are the words of a single weak woman giving thanks for the birth of a son? Can the mind of men be so turned away from the light of truth as not to perceive that the sayings this woman pours forth exceed her measure? Moreover, does anyone who takes a proper interest in these things which have already begun to be fulfilled even in this earthly pilgrimage not apply his mind, and perceive, and acknowledge, that through this woman— whose very name, which is Hannah, means “His grace”— the very Christian religion, the very city of God, whose king and founder is Christ, in short, the very grace of God, has spoken in this way by the prophetic Spirit, by which the proud are cut off so that they fall, and the humble are filled so that they rise, which that hymn chiefly celebrates? Unless perhaps someone will say that this woman prophesied nothing, but only praised God with exultant praise on account of the son whom she had obtained in answer to prayer. What then does she mean when she says, “He has made the bow of the mighty weak, and the weak are armed with strength; those who were full of bread are diminished, and the hungry have gone beyond the earth; for the barren woman has borne seven, and she who has many children has grown feeble?” Had she herself borne seven, although she had been barren? She had only one when she said that; nor did she bear seven afterward, nor six, with whom Samuel himself might be the seventh, but three males and two females. And then, when no one was yet king over that people, from where, if she did not prophesy, did she say what she puts at the end, “He gives strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of His Christ?” Therefore let the Church of Christ, the city of the great King, full of grace, prolific of offspring, let her say what the prophecy uttered about her so long before by the mouth of this pious mother confesses, “My heart is made strong in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God.” Her heart is truly made strong, and her horn is truly exalted, because not in herself, but in the Lord her God. “My mouth is enlarged over my enemies;” because even in pressing straits the word of God is not bound, not even in preachers who are bound. “I am made glad,” she says, “in Your salvation.” This is Christ Jesus Himself, whom old Simeon, as we read in the Gospel, embracing as a little one, yet recognizing as great, said, “Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen Your salvation.” Luke 2:25-30 Therefore may the Church say, “I am made glad in Your salvation. For there is none holy as the Lord, and none is righteous as our God;” as holy and sanctifying, just and justifying. “There is none holy beside You;” because no one becomes so except through You. And then it follows, “Do not glory so proudly, and do not speak lofty things, nor let boastful talk come out of your mouth. For a God of knowledge is the Lord.” He knows you even when no one knows; for “he who thinks himself to be something when he is nothing deceives himself.” Galatians 6:3 These things are said to the adversaries of the city of God who belong to Babylon, who presume in their own strength, and glory in themselves, not in the Lord; of whom are also the carnal Israelites, the earth-born inhabitants of the earthly Jerusalem, who, as the apostle says, “being ignorant of the righteousness of God,” Romans 10:3 that is, which God, who alone is just, and the justifier, gives to man, “and wishing to establish their own,” that is, one obtained, so to speak, by themselves, not bestowed by Him, “are not subject to the righteousness of God,” just because they are proud, and think they are able to please God with their own, not with that which is of God, who is the God of knowledge, and therefore also watches over consciences, seeing there the thoughts of men that they are vain, Psalm 94:11; 1 Corinthians 3:20 if they are of men, and are not from Him. “And preparing,” she says, “His curious designs.” What curious designs do we think these are, except that the proud must fall, and the humble rise? These curious designs she recounts, saying, “The bow of the mighty is made weak, and the weak are armed with strength.” The bow is made weak, that is, the intention of those who think themselves so powerful, that without the gift and help of God they are able by human sufficiency to fulfill the divine commandments; and those are armed with strength whose inward cry is, “Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak.” “Those who were full of bread,” she says, “are diminished, and the hungry have gone beyond the earth.” Who are to be understood as full of bread except those same who were as if mighty, that is, the Israelites, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted? Romans 3:2 But among that people the children of the slave woman were diminished — by which word minus, although it is Latin, the idea is well expressed that from being greater they were made less — because, even in the very bread, that is, the divine oracles, which the Israelites alone of all nations have received, they have a taste only for earthly things. But the nations to whom that law was not given, after they have come through the New Testament to these oracles, by thirsting much have gone beyond the earth, because in them they have tasted not earthly, but heavenly things. And the reason why this is done is as it were sought; “for the barren,” she says, “has borne seven, and she who has many children has grown feeble.” Here all that had been prophesied has shone forth to those who understood the number seven, which signifies the perfection of the universal Church. For which reason also the Apostle John writes to the seven churches, Revelation 1:4 showing in that way that he writes to the totality of the one Church; and in the Proverbs of Solomon it was said long before, prefiguring this, “Wisdom has built her house, she has strengthened her seven pillars.” Proverbs 9:1 For the city of God was barren in all nations before that child arose whom we see. We also see that the temporal Jerusalem, who had many children, has now grown feeble. Because, whoever in her were sons of the free woman were her strength; but now, since the letter is there, and not the spirit, having lost her strength, she has grown feeble. “The Lord kills and makes alive:” He has killed her who had many children, and made this barren one alive, so that she has borne seven. Although it may be more suitably understood that He has made those same alive whom He has killed. For she, as it were, repeats that by adding, “He brings down to hell, and brings up.” To whom truly the apostle says, “If you have died with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God.” Colossians 3:1-3 Therefore they are killed by the Lord in a saving way, so that he adds, “Set your minds on things which are above, not things on the earth;” so that these are those who, hungering, have passed beyond the earth. “For you have died,” he says: see how God kills in order to save! Then there follows, “And your life is hidden with Christ in God:” see how God makes the same alive! But does He bring them down to hell and bring them up again? It is beyond dispute among believers that we best see both parts of this work fulfilled in Him, that is, our Head, with whom the apostle has said our life is hidden in God. “For when He did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,” Romans 8:32 in that way, certainly, He has killed Him. And since He raised Him up again from the dead, He has made Him alive again. And since His voice is acknowledged in the prophecy, “You will not leave my soul in hell,” He has brought Him down to hell and brought Him up again. By this poverty of His we are made rich; 2 Corinthians 8:9 for “the Lord makes poor and makes rich.” But so that we may know what this is, let us hear what follows: “He brings low and lifts up;” and truly He humbles the proud and exalts the humble. We also read this elsewhere, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” This is the burden of the entire song of this woman whose name is interpreted “His grace.” Further, what is added, “He raises up the poor from the earth,” I understand of none better than of Him who, as was said a little while ago, “was made poor for us, when He was rich, so that by His poverty we might be made rich.” For He raised Him from the earth so quickly that His flesh did not see corruption. Nor shall I divert from Him what is added, “And raises up the poor from the dunghill.” For indeed the one who is the poor man is also the beggar. But by the dunghill from which he is lifted up we are with the greatest reason to understand the persecuting Jews, of whom the apostle says, when telling that when he belonged to them he persecuted the Church, “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; and I have counted them not only loss, but even dung, so that I might gain Christ.” Philippians 3:7-8 Therefore that poor one is raised up from the earth above all the rich, and that beggar is lifted up from that dunghill above all the wealthy, “that he may sit among the mighty of the people,” to whom He says, “You shall sit on twelve thrones,” Matthew 19:27-28 “and to make them inherit the throne of glory.” For these mighty ones had said, “See, we have forsaken all and followed You.” They had most mightily vowed this vow. But from where do they receive this, except from Him of whom it is here immediately said, “Giving the vow to him who vows?” Otherwise they would be of those mighty ones whose bow is weakened. “Giving,” she says, “the vow to the one who vows.” For no one could vow anything acceptable to God, unless he received from Him what he might vow. There follows, “And He has blessed the years of the just,” namely, that he may live forever with Him to whom it is said, “And Your years shall have no end.” For there the years remain; but here they pass away, indeed, they perish: for before they come they are not, and when they have come they will not be, because they bring their own end with them. Now of these two, that is, “giving the vow to the one who vows,” and “He has blessed the years of the just,” the one is what we do, the other what we receive. But this other is not received from God, the generous giver, until He, the helper, Himself has enabled us for the former; “for man is not mighty in strength.” “The Lord shall make his adversary weak,” namely, the one who envies the man who vows, and resists him, so that he may not fulfill what he has vowed. Owing to the ambiguity of the Greek, it may also be understood “his own adversary.” For when God has begun to possess us, immediately he who had been our adversary becomes His, and is conquered by us; but not by our own strength, “for man is not mighty in strength.” Therefore “the Lord shall make His own adversary weak, the Lord is holy,” so that he may be conquered by the saints, whom the Lord, the Holy of holies, has made saints. For this reason, “let not the prudent glory in his prudence, and let not the mighty glory in his might, and let not the rich glory in his riches; but let the one who glories glory in this — to understand and know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth.” He in no small measure understands and knows the Lord who understands and knows that even this, that he can understand and know the Lord, is given to him by the Lord. “For what have you,” says the apostle, “that you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” 1 Corinthians 4:7 That is, as if you had from yourself something in which to glory. Now, he does judgment and justice who lives rightly. But he lives rightly who gives obedience to God when He commands. “The end of the commandment,” that is, to which the commandment has reference, “is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.” Moreover, this “love,” as the Apostle John testifies, “is of God.” 1 John 4:7 Therefore to do justice and judgment is of God. But what is “in the midst of the earth?” For ought those who dwell in the ends of the earth not to do judgment and justice? Who would say so? Why, then, is it added, “In the midst of the earth?” For if this had not been added, and it had only been said, “To do judgment and justice,” this commandment would rather have applied to both kinds of men — both those dwelling inland and those on the seacoast. But so that no one would think that, after the end of the life led in this body, there remains a time for doing judgment and justice which he has not done while he was in the flesh, and that the divine judgment can thus be escaped, “in the midst of the earth” appears to me to be said of the time when everyone lives in the body; for in this life everyone carries about his own earth, which, on a man's dying, the common earth takes back, to be surely returned to him on his rising again. Therefore “in the midst of the earth,” that is, while our soul is shut up in this earthly body, judgment and justice are to be done, which will benefit us hereafter, when “everyone shall receive according to what he has done in the body, whether good or bad.” 2 Corinthians 5:10 For when the apostle there says “in the body,” he means in the time he has lived in the body. Yet if anyone blasphemes with a malicious mind and impious thought, without any member of his body being employed in it, he will not therefore be guiltless because he has not done it with bodily motion, for he will have done it in that time which he has spent in the body. In the same way we may suitably understand what we read in the psalm, “But God, our King before the worlds, has worked salvation in the midst of the earth;” so that the Lord Jesus may be understood to be our God who is before the worlds, because by Him the worlds were made, working our salvation in the midst of the earth, for the Word was made flesh and dwelt in an earthly body. Then after Hannah has prophesied in these words, that he who glories ought to glory not in himself at all, but in the Lord, she says, on account of the retribution which is to come on the day of judgment, “The Lord has ascended into the heavens, and has thundered: He shall judge the ends of the earth, for He is righteous.” Throughout she holds to the order of the creed of Christians: For the Lord Christ has ascended into heaven, and is to come from there to judge the living and dead. Acts 10:42 For, as the apostle says, “Who has ascended but He who has also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same who also ascended above all heavens, so that He might fill all things.” Ephesians 4:9-10 Therefore He has thundered through His clouds, which He has filled with His Holy Spirit when He ascended up. About these the slave woman Jerusalem — that is, the unfruitful vineyard — is threatened in Isaiah the prophet that they will rain no showers on her. But “He shall judge the ends of the earth” is spoken as if it had been said, “even the extremes of the earth.” For it does not mean that He shall not judge the other parts of the earth, who, without doubt, shall judge all men. But it is better to understand by the extremes of the earth the extremes of man, since those things shall not be judged which, in the middle time, are changed for the better or the worse, but the ending in which he shall be found who is judged. For which reason it is said, “Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:13 Whoever, therefore, perseveringly does judgment and justice in the midst of the earth shall not be condemned when the extremes of the earth shall be judged. “And gives,” she says, “strength to our kings,” so that He may not condemn them in judging. He gives them strength by which as kings they rule the flesh, and conquer the world in Him who has poured out His blood for them. “And shall exalt the horn of His Christ.” How shall Christ exalt the horn of His Christ? For He of whom it was said above, “The Lord has ascended into the heavens,” meaning the Lord Christ, Himself, as it is said here, “shall exalt the horn of His Christ.” Who, therefore, is the Christ of His Christ? Does it mean that He shall exalt the horn of each one of His believing people, as she says in the beginning of this hymn, “My horn is exalted in my God?” For we can rightly call all those christs who are anointed with His chrism, since the whole body with its head is one Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12 Hannah, the mother of Samuel, that holy and much-praised man, prophesied these things, in which, indeed, the change of the ancient priesthood was then figured and is now fulfilled, since she who had many children has grown feeble, so that the barren woman who has borne seven might have the new priesthood in Christ.

But this is said more plainly by a man of God sent to Eli the priest himself, whose name indeed is not mentioned, but whose office and ministry show him to have been undoubtedly a prophet. For it is written: “And a man of God came to Eli, and said, Thus says the Lord, I plainly revealed myself to your father's house, when they were in the land of Egypt slaves in Pharaoh's house; and I chose your father's house out of all the tribes of Israel to fill the office of priest for me, to go up to my altar, to burn incense and wear the ephod; and I gave your father's house for food all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel. Why then have you looked at my incense and at my offerings with an impudent eye, and have glorified your sons above me, to bless the firstfruits of every sacrifice in Israel before me? Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel, I said your house and your father's house would walk before me forever: but now the Lord says, Far be it from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and whoever despises me shall be despised. Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your seed, and the seed of your father's house, and you shall never have an old man in my house. And I will cut off the man of yours from my altar, so that his eyes shall be consumed, and his heart shall melt away; and everyone of your house who is left shall fall by the sword of men. And this shall be a sign to you that shall come on these two sons of yours, Hophni and Phinehas; in one day both of them shall die. And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to all that is in my heart and in my soul; and I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before my Christ forever. And it shall come to pass that he who is left in your house shall come to worship him with a piece of money, saying, Put me into one part of your priesthood, so that I may eat bread.” We cannot say that this prophecy, in which the change of the ancient priesthood is foretold so plainly, was fulfilled in Samuel; for although Samuel was not of another tribe than that which had been appointed by God to serve at the altar, he was still not one of the sons of Aaron, whose offspring was set apart so that the priests might be taken from it. And thus by that event also the same change which was to come to pass through Christ Jesus is shadowed forth, and the prophecy itself in deed, not in word, belonged to the Old Testament properly, but figuratively to the New, signifying by the fact just what was said by the word to Eli the priest through the prophet. For there were afterward priests of Aaron's race, such as Zadok and Abiathar during David's reign, and others in succession, before the time came when those things which were predicted so long before about the changing of the priesthood had to be fulfilled by Christ. But who, now viewing these things with a believing eye, does not see that they are fulfilled? Since, indeed, no tabernacle, no temple, no altar, no sacrifice, and therefore no priest either, has remained to the Jews, to whom it was commanded in the law of God that he should be ordained from the seed of Aaron; which is also mentioned here by the prophet, when he says, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I said your house and your father's house shall walk before me forever: but now the Lord says, Far be that from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and whoever despises me shall be despised.” For that in naming his father's house he does not mean that of his immediate father, but that of Aaron, who was first appointed priest, to be succeeded by others descended from him, is shown by the preceding words, when he says, “I was revealed to your father's house, when they were in the land of Egypt slaves in Pharaoh's house; and I chose your father's house out of all the tribes of Israel to fill the office of priest for me.” Which of the fathers in that Egyptian slavery was his father, if not Aaron, who, when they were set free, was chosen to the priesthood? It was of his lineage, therefore, that he has said in this passage that they would no longer be priests, which we already see fulfilled. If faith is watchful, the things are before us: they are discerned, they are grasped, and are forced on the eyes of the unwilling, so that they are seen: “Behold, the days are coming,” he says, “when I will cut off your seed, and the seed of your father's house, and you shall never have an old man in my house. And I will cut off the man of yours from my altar, so that his eyes shall be consumed and his heart shall melt away.” Behold the days which were foretold have already come. There is no priest according to the order of Aaron; and whoever is a man of his lineage, when he sees the sacrifice of the Christians prevailing over the whole world, but that great honor taken away from himself, his eyes fail and his soul melts away consumed with grief. But what follows belongs properly to the house of Eli, to whom these things were said: “And everyone of your house who is left shall fall by the sword of men. And this shall be a sign to you that shall come on these two sons of yours, Hophni and Phinehas; in one day both of them shall die.” This, therefore, is made a sign of the change of the priesthood from this man's house, by which it is signified that the priesthood of Aaron's house is to be changed. For the death of this man's sons signified the death not of the men, but of the priesthood itself of the sons of Aaron. But what follows relates to that Priest whom Samuel prefigured by succeeding this one. Therefore the things which follow are said of Christ Jesus, the true Priest of the New Testament: “And I will raise up for myself a faithful Priest who shall do according to all that is in my heart and in my soul; and I will build Him a sure house.” This is the eternal Jerusalem above. “And He shall walk,” He says, “before my Christ always.” “He shall walk” means “he shall live in the presence of,” just as He had said before of Aaron's house, “I said that your house and your father's house shall walk before me forever.” But what He says, “He shall walk before my Christ,” is to be understood entirely of the house itself, not of the priest, who is Christ Himself, the Mediator and Savior. His house, therefore, shall walk before Him. “Shall walk” may also be understood to mean from death to life, all the time this mortality passes through, even to the end of this world. But where God says, “Who will do all that is in my heart and in my soul,” we must not think that God has a soul, for He is the Author of souls; but this is said of God figuratively, not literally, just as He is said to have hands and feet, and other bodily members. And, so that it would not be supposed from such language that man in the form of this flesh is made in the image of God, wings also are ascribed to Him, which man does not have at all; and it is said to God, “Hide me under the shadow of Your wings,” so that men may understand that such things are said of that ineffable nature not in literal but in figurative words. But what is added, “And it shall come to pass that he who is left in your house shall come to worship him,” is not said literally of the house of this Eli, but of that Aaron, the men of which remained even to the coming of Jesus Christ, and men of that race are not lacking even today. For of that house of Eli it had already been said above, “And everyone of your house who is left shall fall by the sword of men.” How, therefore, could it be truly said here, “And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left shall come to worship him,” if that is true, that no one shall escape the avenging sword, unless he means it to be understood of those who belong to the race of that whole priesthood after the order of Aaron? Therefore, if it is of these the predestined remnant, about whom another prophet has said, “The remnant shall be saved;” Isaiah 10:21 and so the apostle also says, “So too at the present time the remnant according to the election of grace is saved;” Romans 11:5 since it is easily understood to be of such a remnant that it is said, “He who is left in your house,” he certainly believes in Christ; just as in the time of the apostle very many of that nation believed; nor are those now lacking, although very few, who still believe, and in them is fulfilled what this man of God has here immediately added, “He shall come to worship him with a piece of money;” to worship whom, if not that Chief Priest, who is also God? For in that priesthood after the order of Aaron men did not come to the temple or altar of God for the purpose of worshipping the priest. But what does he mean by, “With a piece of money,” if not the short word of faith, about which the apostle quotes the saying, “The Lord will make a completing and shortening word on the earth?” But that money is put for the word the psalm is a witness, where it is sung, “The words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried in the fire.” What then does he say who comes to worship the priest of God, that is, the Priest who is God? “Put me into one part of Your priesthood, to eat bread.” I do not wish to be set in the honor of my fathers, which is none; put me in a part of Your priesthood. For “I have chosen to be lowly in Your house;” I desire to be a member, no matter what, or how small, of Your priesthood. By the priesthood he here means the people itself, of which He is the Priest who is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5 This people the Apostle Peter calls “a holy people, a royal priesthood.” 1 Peter 2:9 But some have translated, “Of Your sacrifice,” not “Of Your priesthood,” which no less signifies the same Christian people. So the Apostle Paul says, “We, being many, are one bread, one body.” 1 Corinthians 10:17 [And again he says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Romans 12:1] What, therefore, he has added, to “eat bread,” also elegantly expresses the very kind of sacrifice of which the Priest Himself says, “The bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” John 6:51 This is the sacrifice not according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchisedec: let the reader understand. Matthew 24:15 Therefore this short and savingly humble confession, in which it is said, “Put me in a part of Your priesthood, to eat bread,” is itself the piece of money, for it is both brief, and it is the Word of God who dwells in the heart of one who believes. For because He had said above that He had given for food to Aaron's house the sacrificial victims of the Old Testament, where He says, “I have given your father's house for food all things which are offered by fire of the children of Israel,” which indeed were the sacrifices of the Jews; therefore here He has said, “To eat bread,” which is in the New Testament the sacrifice of the Christians.

While, therefore, these things now shine forth as clearly as they were loftily foretold, still someone may with good reason be moved to ask, How can we be confident that all things are to come to pass which are predicted in these books as about to come, if this very thing which is there divinely spoken, “Your house and your father's house shall walk before me forever,” could not take effect? For we see that priesthood has been changed; and there can be no hope that what was promised to that house may at some time be fulfilled, because what succeeds it on its being rejected and changed is rather predicted as eternal. Whoever says this does not yet understand, or does not recall, that this very priesthood according to the order of Aaron was appointed as the shadow of a future eternal priesthood; and therefore, when eternity is promised to it, it is not promised to the mere shadow and figure, but to what is shadowed forth and prefigured by it. But so that it would not be thought the shadow itself was to remain, its change also had to be foretold. In this way, too, the kingdom of Saul himself, who certainly was condemned and rejected, was the shadow of a kingdom still to come which would remain to eternity. For, indeed, the oil with which he was anointed, and from that chrism he is called Christ, is to be taken in a mystical sense, and is to be understood as a great mystery; which David himself venerated so much in him, that he trembled with a stricken heart when, hidden in a dark cave, which Saul also entered when pressed by the necessity of nature, he had come secretly behind him and cut off a small piece of his robe, so that he might be able to prove how he had spared him when he could have killed him, and might thus remove from his mind the suspicion through which he had vehemently persecuted the holy David, thinking him his enemy. Therefore he was very much afraid of being accused of violating so great a mystery in Saul, because he had interfered in this way even with his clothes. For so it is written: “And David's heart struck him because he had taken away the skirt of his cloak.” But to the men with him, who advised him to destroy Saul, delivered in this way into his hands, he says, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's christ, to lay my hand on him, because he is the Lord's christ.” Therefore he showed so great reverence to this shadow of what was to come, not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it prefigured. So also what Samuel says to Saul, “Since you have not kept my commandment which the Lord commanded you, and the Lord would now have prepared your kingdom over Israel forever, yet now your kingdom shall not continue for you; and the Lord will seek for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord will command him to be prince over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you,” is not to be taken as if God had settled that Saul himself would reign forever, and afterward, when he sinned, would not keep this promise; nor was He ignorant that he would sin, but He had established his kingdom so that it might be a figure of the eternal kingdom. Therefore he added, “Yet now your kingdom shall not continue for you.” Therefore what it signified has stood and will stand; but it will not stand for this man, because he himself was not to reign forever, nor his offspring; so that at least that word “forever” might seem to be fulfilled through his posterity one to another. “And the Lord,” he says, “will seek for Himself a man,” meaning either David or the Mediator of the New Testament, Hebrews 9:15 who was figured in the chrism with which David also and his offspring was anointed. But it is not as if He did not know where he was that God seeks for Himself a man in this way, but, speaking through a man, He speaks as a man, and in this sense seeks us. For not only to God the Father, but also to His Only-begotten, who came to seek what was lost, Luke 19:10 we had been known already even so far as to be chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1:4 “He will seek Him” therefore means, He will have His own (just as if He had said, Whom He already has known to be His own He will show to others to be His friend). So in Latin this word (quærit) receives a preposition and becomes acquirit (acquires), the meaning of which is plain enough; although even without the addition of the preposition quærere is understood as acquirere, which is why gains are called quæstus.

Again Saul sinned through disobedience, and again Samuel says to him in the word of the Lord, “Because you have despised the word of the Lord, the Lord has despised you, so that you may not be king over Israel.” 1 Samuel 15:23 And again for the same sin, when Saul confessed it, and prayed for pardon, and begged Samuel to return with him to appease the Lord, he said, “I will not return with you: for you have despised the word of the Lord, and the Lord will despise you, so that you may not be king over Israel. And Samuel turned his face to go away, and Saul took hold of the edge of his cloak, and tore it. And Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom from Israel out of your hand this day, and will give it to your neighbor, who is good above you, and will divide Israel in two. And He will not be changed, nor will He repent: for He is not as a man, that He should repent; who threatens and does not persist.” He to whom it is said, “The Lord will despise you that you may not be king over Israel,” and “The Lord has torn the kingdom from Israel out of your hand this day,” reigned forty years over Israel — that is, just as long a time as David himself — yet heard this in the first period of his reign, so that we may understand it was said because no one of his line was to reign, and that we may look to the race of David, from which also is sprung, according to the flesh, Romans 1:3 the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5 But the Scripture does not have what is read in most Latin copies, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel out of your hand this day,” but just as we have set it down it is found in the Greek copies, “The Lord has torn the kingdom from Israel out of your hand;” so that the words “out of your hand” may be understood to mean “from Israel.” Therefore this man figuratively represented the people of Israel, which was to lose the kingdom, since Christ Jesus our Lord was to reign, not carnally, but spiritually. And when it is said of Him, “And will give it to your neighbor,” that is to be referred to the fleshly kinship, for Christ, according to the flesh, was of Israel, from which also Saul sprang. But what is added, “Good above you,” may indeed be understood, “Better than you,” and indeed some have translated it so; but it is better taken as, “Good above you,” as meaning that because He is good, therefore He must be above you, according to that other prophetic saying, “Till I put all Your enemies under Your feet.” And among them is Israel, from whom, as His persecutor, Christ took away the kingdom; although the Israel in whom there was no guile may have been there too, a sort of grain, as it were, of that chaff. For certainly from there came the apostles, from there so many martyrs, of whom Stephen is the first, from there so many churches, which the Apostle Paul names, magnifying God in their conversion. I do not doubt that what follows is to be understood of this, “And will divide Israel in two,” namely, into the Israel that belongs to the slave woman, and the Israel that belongs to the free. For these two kinds were at first together, as Abraham still clung to the slave woman, until the barren, made fruitful by the grace of God, cried, “Cast out the slave woman and her son.” Genesis 21:10 We know, indeed, that on account of the sin of Solomon, in the reign of his son Rehoboam, Israel was divided in two, and continued so, the separate parts having their own kings, until that whole nation was overthrown with a great destruction, and carried away by the Chaldeans. But what was this to Saul, when, if any such thing was threatened, it would be threatened against David himself, whose son Solomon was? Finally, the Hebrew nation is not now divided internally, but is dispersed through the earth indiscriminately, in the fellowship of the same error. But that division with which God threatened the kingdom and people in the person of Saul, who represented them, is shown to be eternal and unchangeable by what is added, “And He will not be changed, nor will He repent: for He is not as a man, that He should repent; who threatens and does not persist,”— that is, a man threatens and does not persist, but not God, who does not repent like man. For when we read that He repents, a change of circumstance is meant, flowing from the divine immutable foreknowledge. Therefore, when God is said not to repent, it is to be understood that He does not change. We see that this sentence about this division of the people of Israel, divinely uttered in these words, has been altogether beyond remedy and entirely perpetual. For whoever have turned, or are turning, or shall turn from there to Christ, it has been according to the foreknowledge of God, not according to the one and the same nature of the human race. Certainly none of the Israelites, who, clinging to Christ, have continued in Him, will ever be among those Israelites who persist in being His enemies even to the end of this life, but will forever remain in the separation which is here foretold. For the Old Testament, from the Mount Sinai, which bears children for slavery, Galatians 4:25 is of no benefit, except that it bears witness to the New Testament. Otherwise, however long Moses is read, the veil is put over their heart; but when anyone turns from there to Christ, the veil will be taken away. 2 Corinthians 3:15-16 For the very desire of those who turn is changed from the old to the new, so that each no longer desires to obtain carnal but spiritual happiness. Therefore that great prophet Samuel himself, before he had anointed Saul, when he had cried to the Lord for Israel, and He had heard him, and when he had offered a whole burnt offering, as the aliens were coming to battle against the people of God, and the Lord thundered above them and they were confused, and fell before Israel and were overcome; [then] he took one stone and set it up between the old and new Massephat [Mizpeh], and called its name Ebenezer, which means “the stone of the helper,” and said, “Until now the Lord has helped us.” Massephat is interpreted “desire.” That stone of the helper is the mediation of the Savior, by which we go from the old Massephat to the new — that is, from the desire with which carnal happiness was expected in the carnal kingdom to the desire with which the truest spiritual happiness is expected in the kingdom of heaven; and since nothing is better than that, the Lord helps us up to this point.

And now I see I must show what, as it bears on the matter I am treating, God promised to David himself, who succeeded Saul in the kingdom, whose change prefigured that final change on account of which all things were divinely spoken, all things were committed to writing. When many things had gone prosperously with king David, he planned to make a house for God, namely that most renowned temple which was afterward built by king Solomon his son. While he was thinking of this, the word of the Lord came to Nathan the prophet, which he brought to the king, in which, after God had said that a house would not be built for Him by David himself, and that in all that long time He had never commanded any of His people to build Him a house of cedar, he says, “And now you shall say this to my servant David, Thus says God Almighty, I took you from the sheepfold so that you might be ruler over my people in Israel: and I was with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before your face, and have made a name for you, according to the name of the great ones who are over the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant him, and he shall dwell apart, and shall be troubled no more; and the son of wickedness shall not humble him any more, as from the beginning, from the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies, and the Lord will tell [has told] you, because you shall build a house for Him. And it shall come to pass when your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, which shall come from your own body, and I will prepare his kingdom. He shall build me a house for my name; and I will order his throne even to eternity. I will be his Father, and he shall be my son. And if he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of men: but my mercy I will not take away from him, as I took it away from those whom I put away from before my face. And his house shall be faithful, and his kingdom forever before me, and his throne shall be set up forever.” 2 Samuel 7:8-16 Whoever thinks this grand promise was fulfilled in Solomon is greatly mistaken; for he attends to the saying, “He shall build me a house,” but he does not attend to the saying, “His house shall be faithful, and his kingdom forever before me.” Let him therefore pay attention and look at the house of Solomon full of strange women worshipping false gods, and the king himself, once wise, seduced by them, and cast down into the same idolatry: and let him not dare to think that God either promised this falsely, or was unable to foreknow that Solomon and his house would become what they did. But we ought not to be in doubt here, or to see the fulfillment of these things except in Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, Romans 1:3 so that we do not vainly and uselessly look for some other here, like the carnal Jews. For even they understand this much, that the son whom they read of in that place as promised to David was not Solomon; so that, with wonderful blindness to Him who was promised and is now declared so plainly, they say they hope for another. Indeed, even in Solomon there appeared some image of the future event, in that he built the temple, and had peace according to his name (for Solomon means “peaceable”), and in the beginning of his reign was wonderfully praiseworthy; but while, as a shadow of Him who was to come, he foreshadowed Christ our Lord, he did not also in his own person resemble Him. So some things about him are so written as if they were prophesied of himself, while the Holy Scripture, prophesying even by events, somehow delineates in him the figure of things to come. For, besides the books of divine history, in which his reign is narrated, the 72nd Psalm also carries his name in its title, in which so many things are said which cannot at all apply to him, but which apply to the Lord Christ with such evident fitness as makes it quite apparent that in the one the figure is in some way shadowed forth, but in the other the truth itself is presented. For it is known within what bounds the kingdom of Solomon was enclosed; and yet in that psalm, not to speak of other things, we read, “He shall have dominion from sea even to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth,” which we see fulfilled in Christ. Truly He began His reign from the river where John baptized; for, when pointed out by him, He began to be acknowledged by the disciples, who called Him not only Master, but also Lord. Nor was it for any other reason that, while his father David was still living, Solomon began to reign, which happened to no other of their kings, except that from this also it might be clearly apparent that it was not himself this prophecy spoken to his father signified beforehand, saying, “And it shall come to pass when your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed which shall come from your own body, and I will prepare His kingdom.” How, therefore, can it be thought on account of what follows, “He shall build me a house,” that this Solomon is prophesied, and not rather be understood on account of what precedes, “When your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you,” that another Peaceable One is promised, who is foretold as about to be raised up, not before David's death, as he was, but after it? For however long the interval of time might be before Jesus Christ came, beyond doubt it was after the death of king David, to whom He was so promised, that He had to come, who would build a house of God, not of wood and stone, but of men, such as we rejoice He does build. For to this house, that is, to believers, the apostle says, “The temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” 1 Corinthians 3:17

Therefore also in the 89th Psalm, of which the title is, “An instruction for himself by Ethan the Israelite,” mention is made of the promises God made to king David, and some things are there added similar to those found in the Book of Samuel, such as this, “I have sworn to David my servant that I will prepare his seed forever.” And again, “Then you spoke in vision to your sons, and said, I have laid help upon the mighty One, and have exalted the chosen One out of my people. I have found David my servant, and with my holy oil I have anointed him. For my hand shall help him, and my arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not prevail against him, and the son of iniquity shall harm him no more. And I will beat down his enemies from before his face, and those who hate him I will put to flight. And my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name his horn shall be exalted. I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. He shall cry to me, You are my Father, my God, and the upholder of my salvation. I will also make him my firstborn, high among the kings of the earth. I will keep my mercy for him forever, and my covenant shall be faithful (sure) with him. I will also establish his seed forever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” These words, when rightly understood, are all understood to be about the Lord Jesus Christ, under the name of David, on account of the form of a servant, which the same Mediator assumed Philippians 2:7 from the virgin of the seed of David. For immediately something is said about the sins of his children, such as is set down in the Book of Samuel, and is more readily taken as if of Solomon. For there, that is, in the Book of Samuel, he says, “And if he commits iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of men; but I will not take my mercy away from him,” 2 Samuel 7:14-15 meaning by stripes the strokes of correction. This is the meaning of that saying, “Do not touch my christs.” For what else is that than, Do not harm them? But in the psalm, when speaking as if of David, He says something of the same kind there too. “If his children,” He says, “forsake my law, and do not walk in my judgments; if they profane my statutes, and do not keep my commandments; I will visit their iniquities with the rod, and their faults with stripes: but my mercy I will not make void from him.” He did not say “from them,” although He spoke of his children, not of himself; but he said “from him,” which means the same thing if rightly understood. For of Christ Himself, who is the head of the Church, there could not be found any sins which required to be divinely restrained by human correction, while mercy was still continued; but they are found in His body and members, which is His people. Therefore in the Book of Samuel it is said, “iniquity of Him,” but in the psalm, “of His children,” so that we may understand that what is said of His body is in some way said of Himself. Therefore also, when Saul persecuted His body, that is, His believing people, He Himself says from heaven, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Acts 9:4 Then in the following words of the psalm He says, “Nor will I do harm in my truth, nor profane my covenant, and the things that come from my lips I will not disown. Once I have sworn by my holiness, if I lie to David,” — that is, I will by no means lie to David; for Scripture often speaks in this way. But what that is in which He will not lie, He adds, saying, “His seed shall endure forever, and his throne like the sun before me, and like the moon perfected forever, and a faithful witness in heaven.”

So that it might not be supposed that a promise so strongly expressed and confirmed was fulfilled in Solomon, as if he hoped for it, yet did not find it, he says, “But You have cast off, and have brought to nothing, Lord.” This truly was done concerning the kingdom of Solomon among his posterity, even to the overthrow of the earthly Jerusalem itself, which was the seat of the kingdom, and especially the destruction of the very temple which had been built by Solomon. But so that God would not on this account be thought to have acted contrary to His promise, he immediately adds, “You have delayed Your Christ.” Therefore he is not Solomon, nor yet David himself, if the Christ of the Lord is delayed. For while all the kings are called His christs, who were consecrated with that mystical chrism, not only from king David onward, but even from that Saul who was first anointed king of that same people, for David himself called him the Lord's christ, there was still one true Christ, whose figure they bore by the prophetic anointing, who, according to the opinion of men, who thought he was to be understood as come in David or in Solomon, was long delayed, but who, as God had arranged, was to come in His own time. The following part of this psalm goes on to say what in the meantime, while He was delayed, was to become of the kingdom of the earthly Jerusalem, where it was hoped He would certainly reign: “You have overthrown the covenant of Your servant; You have profaned in the earth his sanctuary. You have broken down all his walls; You have put his strongholds in fear. All who pass by the way plunder him; he is made a reproach to his neighbors. You have set up the right hand of his enemies; You have made all his enemies to rejoice. You have turned aside the help of his sword, and have not helped him in war. You have destroyed him from cleansing; You have dashed down his seat to the ground. You have shortened the days of his seat; You have poured confusion over him.” All these things came on Jerusalem the slave woman, in which some also reigned who were children of the free woman, holding that kingdom in temporary stewardship, but holding the kingdom of the heavenly Jerusalem, whose children they were, in true faith, and hoping in the true Christ. But how these things came on that kingdom, the history of its affairs points out if it is read.

But after having prophesied these things, the prophet turns to praying to God; yet even the very prayer is prophecy: “How long, Lord, do You turn away in the end?” “Your face” is understood, as it is elsewhere said, “How long do You turn away Your face from me?” For this reason some copies have here not “do,” but “will You turn away;” although it could be understood, “You turn away Your mercy, which You promised to David.” But when he says, “in the end,” what does it mean, except even to the end? By this end is to be understood the last time, when even that nation is to believe in Christ Jesus, before which end what he has just sorrowfully lamented must come to pass. For this reason it is also added here, “Your anger shall burn like fire. Remember what is my substance.” This cannot be better understood than of Jesus Himself, the substance of His people, of whose nature His flesh is. “For not in vain,” he says, “have You made all the sons of men.” For unless the one Son of man had been the substance of Israel, through which Son of man many sons of men would be set free, all the sons of men would have been made wholly in vain. But now, indeed, all mankind through the fall of the first man has fallen from the truth into vanity; for which reason another psalm says, “Man is like vanity: his days pass away as a shadow;” yet God has not made all the sons of men in vain, because He frees many from vanity through the Mediator Jesus, and those whom He did not foreknow as to be delivered, He did not make wholly in vain, in the most beautiful and most just ordering of the whole rational creation, for the use of those who were to be delivered, and for the comparison of the two cities by mutual contrast. After that it continues, “Who is the man who shall live, and shall not see death? Shall he snatch his soul from the hand of hell?” Who is this but that substance of Israel out of the seed of David, Christ Jesus, of whom the apostle says that “rising from the dead He now dies no more, and death shall no more have dominion over Him?” Romans 6:9 For He will live and not see death in such a way that He will nevertheless have been dead, but will have delivered His soul from the hand of hell, to which He had descended in order to loose some from the chains of hell; but He has delivered it by that power of which He says in the Gospel, “I have the power of laying down my life, and I have the power of taking it again.” John 10:18

But the rest of this psalm runs as follows: “Where are Your ancient compassions, Lord, which You swore to David in Your truth? Remember, Lord, the reproach of Your servants, which I have borne in my bosom of many nations; with which Your enemies have reproached, Lord, with which they have reproached the change of Your Christ.” Now it may with very good reason be asked whether this is spoken in the person of those Israelites who desired that the promise made to David might be fulfilled to them; or rather of the Christians, who are Israelites not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 3:28-29 This certainly was spoken or written in the time of Ethan, from whose name this psalm gets its title, and that was the same as the time of David's reign; and therefore it would not have been said, “Where are Your ancient compassions, Lord, which You have sworn to David in Your truth?” unless the prophet had assumed the person of those who would come long afterward, to whom that time when these things were promised to David was ancient. But it may be understood to mean that many nations, when they persecuted the Christians, reproached them with the passion of Christ, which Scripture calls His change, because by dying He is made immortal. The change of Christ, according to this passage, may also be understood to be reproached by the Israelites, because, when they hoped He would be theirs, He was made the Savior of the nations; and many nations who have believed in Him by the New Testament now reproach those who remain in the old with this: so that it is said, “Remember, Lord, the reproach of Your servants;” because through the Lord's not forgetting, but rather pitying them, even they after this reproach are to believe. But what I have put first seems to me the most suitable meaning. For to the enemies of Christ who are reproached with this, that Christ has left them, turning to the Gentiles, Acts 13:46 this speech is not fittingly assigned, “Remember, Lord, the reproach of Your servants,” for such Jews are not to be called the servants of God; but these words fit those who, if they suffered great humiliations through persecution for the name of Christ, could call to mind that an exalted kingdom had been promised to the seed of David, and in desire of it, could say not despairingly, but as asking, seeking, knocking, Matthew 7:7-8 “Where are Your ancient compassions, Lord, which You swore to David in Your truth? Remember, Lord, the reproach of Your servants, that I have borne in my bosom of many nations;” that is, have patiently endured in my inward parts. “That Your enemies have reproached, Lord, with which they have reproached the change of Your Christ,” not thinking it a change, but a consumption. But what does “Remember, Lord,” mean, but have compassion, and would for my patiently borne humiliation reward me with the excellency which You swore to David in Your truth? But if we assign these words to the Jews, those servants of God who, on the conquest of the earthly Jerusalem, before Jesus Christ was born after the manner of men, were led into captivity, could say such things, understanding the change of Christ, because indeed through Him was to be surely expected, not an earthly and carnal happiness, such as appeared during the few years of king Solomon, but a heavenly and spiritual happiness; and when the nations, then ignorant of this through unbelief, exulted over and insulted the people of God for being captives, what else was this than ignorantly to reproach with the change of Christ those who understand the change of Christ? And therefore what follows when this psalm is concluded, “Let the blessing of the Lord be forever, amen, amen,” is suitable enough for the whole people of God belonging to the heavenly Jerusalem, whether for the things that lay hidden in the Old Testament before the New was revealed, or for those that, being now revealed in the New Testament, are plainly seen to belong to Christ. For the blessing of the Lord in the seed of David does not belong to any particular time, such as appeared in the days of Solomon, but is to be hoped for forever, in which most certain hope it is said, “Amen, amen;” for this repetition of the word is the confirmation of that hope. Therefore David understanding this, says in the second Book of Kings, in the passage from which we digressed to this psalm, “You have spoken also for Your servant's house for a great while to come.” 2 Samuel 7:19 Therefore also a little after he says, “Now begin, and bless the house of Your servant forever,” and so on, because the son was then about to be born from whom his posterity would be continued to Christ, through whom his house would be eternal, and would also be the house of God. For it is called the house of David on account of David's race; but the very same is called the house of God on account of the temple of God, made of men, not of stones, where the people shall dwell forever with and in their God, and God with and in His people, so that God may fill His people, and the people be filled with their God, while God shall be all in all, Himself their reward in peace who is their strength in war. Therefore, when it is said in the words of Nathan, “And the Lord will tell you what a house you shall build for Him,” 2 Samuel 7:8 it is afterward said in the words of David, “For You, Lord Almighty, God of Israel, have opened the ear of Your servant, saying, I will build you a house.” 2 Samuel 7:2 For this house is built both by us through living well, and by God through helping us to live well; for “unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” And when the final dedication of this house takes place, then what God says here through Nathan will be fulfilled, “And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant him, and he shall dwell apart, and shall be troubled no more; and the son of iniquity shall not humble him any more, as from the beginning, from the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel.” 2 Samuel 7:10-11

If anyone hopes for so great a good in this world and on this earth, his wisdom is only folly. Can anyone think it was fulfilled in the peace of Solomon's reign? Scripture certainly commends that peace with excellent praise as a shadow of that which is to come. But this opinion is to be carefully resisted, since after it is said, “And the son of iniquity shall not humble him any more,” it is immediately added, “as from the beginning, from the days in which I appointed judges over my people Israel.” 2 Samuel 7:10-11 For the judges were appointed over that people from the time when they received the land of promise, before kings had begun to be there. And certainly the son of iniquity, that is, the foreign enemy, humbled him through periods of time in which we read that peace alternated with wars; and in that period longer times of peace are found than Solomon had, who reigned forty years. For under that judge who is called Ehud there were eighty years of peace. Judges 3:30 We must never, therefore, believe the times of Solomon are predicted in this promise, much less indeed those of any other king whatever. For no other of them reigned in such great peace as he; nor did that nation ever at all hold that kingdom so as to have no anxiety about being subdued by enemies: for in the very great mutability of human affairs such great security is never given to any people that it need not dread invasions hostile to this life. Therefore the place of this promised peaceful and secure dwelling is eternal, and of right belongs eternally to Jerusalem the free mother, where the genuine people of Israel shall be: for this name is interpreted “Seeing God;” in the desire of which reward a pious life is to be led through faith in this miserable pilgrimage.

In the progress of the city of God through the ages, therefore, David first reigned in the earthly Jerusalem as a shadow of that which was to come. Now David was a man skilled in songs, who dearly loved musical harmony, not with a common delight, but with a believing disposition, and by it served his God, who is the true God, by the mystical representation of a great thing. For the rational and well-ordered harmony of different sounds in harmonious variety suggests the compact unity of the well-ordered city. Then almost all his prophecy is in psalms, of which a hundred and fifty are contained in what we call the Book of Psalms, of which some hold that only those were composed by David which are inscribed with his name. But there are also some who think none of them were made by him except those which are marked “Of David;” but those which have in the title “For David” have been made by others who assumed his person. This opinion is refuted by the voice of the Savior Himself in the Gospel, when He says that David himself by the Spirit said Christ was his Lord; for the 110th Psalm begins: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool.” And truly that very psalm, like many more, has in the title, not “of David,” but “for David.” But those seem to me to hold the more credible opinion, who ascribe to him the authorship of all these hundred and fifty psalms, and think that he prefixed to some of them the names even of other men, who prefigured something relevant to the matter, but chose to have no man's name in the titles of the rest, just as God inspired him in the management of this variety, which, although obscure, is not meaningless. Nor should it keep anyone from believing this that the names of some prophets who lived long after the times of king David are read in the inscriptions of certain psalms in that book, and that the things said there seem to be spoken as it were by them. Nor was the prophetic Spirit unable to reveal to king David, when he prophesied, even these names of future prophets, so that he might prophetically sing something which would suit their persons; just as it was revealed to a certain prophet that king Josiah would arise and reign after more than three hundred years, who predicted his future deeds also along with his name.

And now I see it may be expected of me to set out in this part of this book what David may have prophesied in the Psalms about the Lord Jesus Christ or His Church. But although I have already done so in one instance, I am prevented from doing as that expectation seems to demand, by the abundance rather than the scarcity of material. For the need to avoid excessive length forbids my setting down everything; yet I am afraid that if I select some I will appear to many, who know these things, to have passed over the more necessary ones. Besides, the proof that is brought forward ought to be supported by the context of the whole psalm, so that at least there may be nothing against it if everything does not support it; so that we do not seem, in the manner of a patchwork poem, to gather for our own purpose, like verses from a grand poem, what will be found to have been written not about it, but about some other and widely different thing. But before this could be pointed out in each psalm, the whole of it would have to be explained; and how great a work that would be, the volumes of others, as well as our own, in which we have done it, show well enough. Let anyone, then, who wishes and is able read these volumes, and he will find out how many and great things David, at once king and prophet, has prophesied about Christ and His Church, that is, about the King and the city which He has built.

For whatever direct and plain prophetic utterances there may be about anything, it is necessary that figurative ones should be mingled with them; and these, chiefly on account of those of slower understanding, thrust on the more learned the laborious task of clearing them up and explaining them. Some of them, indeed, at the very first glance, as soon as they are spoken, show Christ and the Church, although some things in them that are less intelligible remain to be explained at leisure. We have an example of this in that same Book of Psalms: “My heart bubbled up a good matter: I utter my words to the king. My tongue is the pen of a scribe, writing swiftly. Your form is beautiful beyond the sons of men; grace is poured out in Your lips: therefore God has blessed You forever. Fasten Your sword on Your thigh, Most Mighty One. With Your splendor and Your beauty go forward, proceed prosperously, and reign, because of Your truth, and meekness, and righteousness; and Your right hand shall lead You on wonderfully. Your sharp arrows are most powerful: in the heart of the king's enemies. The people shall fall under You. Your throne, God, is forever and ever: a rod of direction is the rod of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness, and have hated iniquity: therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of exultation above Your fellows. Myrrh and drops, and cassia from Your garments, from the houses of ivory: out of which the daughters of kings have delighted You in Your honor.” Who is there, no matter how slow, who does not recognize here the Christ whom we preach, and in whom we believe, if he hears that He is God, whose throne is forever and ever, and that He is anointed by God, as God indeed anoints, not with a visible, but with a spiritual and intelligible chrism? For who is so untaught in this religion, or so deaf to its fame, spread far and wide, as not to know that Christ is named from this chrism, that is, from this anointing? But when it is acknowledged that this King is Christ, let each one who is already subject to Him who reigns because of truth, meekness, and righteousness, inquire at his leisure into these other things that are said here figuratively: how His form is beautiful beyond the sons of men, with a certain beauty that is the more to be loved and admired the less it is bodily; and what His sword, arrows, and other things of that kind may be, which are set down, not literally, but figuratively. Then let him look at His Church, joined to so great a Husband in spiritual marriage and divine love, of which it is said in these words which follow, “The queen stood at Your right hand in gold-embroidered garments, clothed in many colors. Listen, daughter, and look, and incline your ear; forget also your people, and your father's house. Because the King has greatly desired your beauty; for He is the Lord your God. And the daughters of Tyre shall worship Him with gifts; the rich among the people shall entreat Your face. The daughter of the King has all her glory within, in golden fringes, clothed in many colors. The virgins shall be brought after her to the King: her neighbors shall be brought to You. They shall be brought with gladness and exultation: they shall be led into the temple of the King. Instead of your fathers, sons shall be born to you: you shall establish them as princes over all the earth. They shall be mindful of your name in every generation and descent. Therefore the people shall acknowledge you forever, even forever and ever.” I do not think anyone is so stupid as to believe that some poor woman is here praised and described, as the bride, that is, of Him to whom it is said, “Your throne, God, is forever and ever: a rod of direction is the rod of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity: therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of exultation above Your fellows;” that is, plainly, Christ above Christians. For these are His fellows, out of the unity and concord of whom in all nations that queen is formed, as it is said of her in another psalm, “The city of the great King.” She is Sion spiritually, which name in Latin is interpreted speculatio (discovery); for she looks out for the great good of the world to come, because her attention is directed there. In the same way she is also Jerusalem spiritually, of which we have already said many things. Her enemy is the city of the devil, Babylon, which is interpreted “confusion.” Yet out of this Babylon this queen is in all nations set free by regeneration, and passes from the worst to the best King, — that is, from the devil to Christ. Therefore it is said to her, “Forget your people and your father's house.” Of this impious city those also are a portion who are Israelites only in the flesh and not by faith, enemies also of this great King Himself, and of His queen. For Christ, having come to them, and been killed by them, has the more become the King of others, whom He did not see in the flesh. So our King Himself says through the prophecy of a certain psalm, “You will deliver me from the contradictions of the people; You will make me head of the nations. A people whom I have not known has served me: in the hearing of the ear it has obeyed me.” Therefore this people of the nations, which Christ did not know in His bodily presence, has nevertheless believed in that Christ as announced to it; so that it might be said of it with good reason, “In the hearing of the ear it has obeyed me,” for “faith is by hearing.” Romans 10:5 This people, I say, added to those who are the true Israelites both by the flesh and by faith, is the city of God, which has brought forth Christ Himself according to the flesh, since He was in these Israelites only. For from there came the Virgin Mary, in whom Christ assumed flesh so that He might be man. Of this city another psalm says, “Mother Sion, shall a man say, and the man is made in her, and the Highest Himself has founded her.” Who is this Highest, if not God? And thus Christ, who is God, before He became man through Mary in that city, Himself founded it by the patriarchs and prophets. Just as, therefore, what we can already see fulfilled was said by prophecy so long before to this queen, the city of God, “Instead of your fathers, sons are born to you; you shall make them princes over all the earth;” so out of her sons truly are set up even her fathers [princes] through all the earth, when the people, coming together to her, confess to her with the confession of eternal praise forever and ever. Beyond doubt, whatever interpretation is put on what is here expressed somewhat obscurely in figurative language ought to agree with these very plain things.

Just as in that psalm also where Christ is most openly proclaimed as Priest, even as He is here as King, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool.” That Christ sits on the right hand of God the Father is believed, not seen; that His enemies also are put under His feet does not yet appear; it is being done, [therefore] it will appear at last: indeed, this is now believed, afterward it will be seen. But what follows, “The Lord will send out the rod of Your strength out of Sion, and rule You in the midst of Your enemies,” is so clear, that to deny it would imply not merely unbelief and mistake, but downright impudence. And even enemies must certainly confess that out of Sion has been sent the law of Christ which we call the gospel, and acknowledge as the rod of His strength. But that He rules in the midst of His enemies, these same enemies among whom He rules themselves bear witness, gnashing their teeth and consuming away, and having power to do nothing against Him. Then what he says a little after, “The Lord has sworn and will not repent,” by which words He indicates that what He adds is unchangeable, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,” who can doubt of whom these things are said, since there is now nowhere a priesthood and sacrifice according to the order of Aaron, and everywhere men offer under Christ as the Priest, which Melchizedek showed when he blessed Abraham? Therefore the things in the same psalm that are set down a little more obscurely are to be referred, when rightly understood, to these plain things, and we have already made known in our popular sermons how these things are to be rightly understood. So also in that where Christ utters through prophecy the humiliation of His passion, saying, “They pierced my hands and feet; they counted all my bones. Indeed, they looked and stared at me.” By these words he certainly meant His body stretched out on the cross, with the hands and feet pierced and perforated by the striking through of the nails, and that He had in that way made Himself a spectacle to those who looked and stared. And he adds, “They parted my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” How this prophecy has been fulfilled the Gospel history narrates. Then, indeed, the other things also which are said there less openly are rightly understood when they agree with those which shine with such great clearness; especially because those things also which we do not believe as past, but survey as present, are seen by the whole world, being now displayed just as they are read of in this very psalm as predicted so long before. For it is there said a little after, “All the ends of the earth shall remember, and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before Him; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He shall rule the nations.”

About His resurrection also the oracles of the Psalms are by no means silent. For what else is it that is sung in His person in the 3rd Psalm, “I lay down and slept, [and] I awoke, for the Lord shall sustain me?” Is there perhaps anyone so stupid as to believe that the prophet chose to point it out to us as something great that He had slept and risen up, unless that sleep had been death, and that awaking the resurrection, which had to be prophesied in this way about Christ? For in the 41st Psalm also it is shown much more clearly, where in the person of the Mediator, in the usual way, things are narrated as if past which were prophesied as still to come, since these things which were still to come were in the predestination and foreknowledge of God as if they were done, because they were certain. He says, “My enemies speak evil of me; When shall he die, and his name perish? And if he came in to see me, his heart spoke vain things: he gathered iniquity to himself. He went outside, and uttered it all at once. All my enemies whisper together against me: against me they devise evil. They have planned an unjust thing against me. Shall not he who sleeps also rise again?” These words are certainly so set down here that he may be understood to say nothing else than if he said, Shall not He who died recover life again? The previous words clearly show that His enemies have contemplated and planned His death, and that this was carried out by the one who came in to see, and went out to betray. But who does not think here of Judas, who, from being His disciple, became His betrayer? Therefore because they were about to do what they had plotted — that is, were about to kill Him — he, to show them that with useless malice they were about to kill Him who would rise again, adds this verse, as if he said, What vain thing are you doing? What will be your crime will be my sleep. “Shall not He who sleeps also rise again?” And yet he indicates in the following verses that they would not commit so great an impiety with impunity, saying, “Indeed, the man of my peace in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has enlarged the heel over me;” that is, has trampled me under foot. “But You,” he says, “Lord, be merciful to me, and raise me up, so that I may repay them.” Who can now deny this who sees the Jews, after the passion and resurrection of Christ, utterly rooted up from their homes by the slaughter of war and destruction? For, having been killed by them, He has risen again, and has repaid them meanwhile with temporal discipline, except that for those who are not corrected He keeps it in store for the time when He will judge the living and the dead. For the Lord Jesus Himself, in pointing out that very man to the apostles as His betrayer, quoted this very verse of this psalm, and said it was fulfilled in Himself: “He who ate my bread enlarged the heel over me.” But what he says, “In whom I trusted,” does not suit the head but the body. For the Savior Himself was not ignorant of the man about whom He had already said before, “One of you is a devil.” John 6:70 But He often assumes the person of His members, and to ascribe to Himself what should be said of them, because the head and the body is one Christ; 1 Corinthians 12:12 from which comes that saying in the Gospel, “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat.” Matthew 25:35 Explaining this, He says, “Since you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40 Therefore He said that He had trusted, because his disciples then had trusted Judas; for he was counted among the apostles. Acts 1:17 But the Jews do not expect that the Christ whom they expect will die; therefore they do not think ours to be Him whom the law and the prophets announced, but invent for themselves some other of their own, exempt from the suffering of death. Therefore, with wonderful emptiness and blindness, they contend that the words we have set down signify, not death and resurrection, but sleep and awaking again. But the 16th Psalm also cries to them, “Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue has exulted; moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope: for You will not leave my soul in hell; nor will You give Your Holy One to see corruption.” Who but He who rose again on the third day could say his flesh had rested in this hope; that His soul, not being left in hell, but speedily returning to it, would revive it, so that it would not decay as corpses usually do, which they can by no means say of David the prophet and king? The 68th Psalm also cries out, “Our God is the God of Salvation: even of the Lord the exit was by death.” What could be more openly said? For the God of salvation is the Lord Jesus, which is interpreted Savior, or Healing One. For this reason this name was given, when it was said before He was born of the virgin: “You shall bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21 Because His blood was shed for the remission of their sins, He had to have no other exit from this life than death. Therefore, when it had been said, “Our God is the God of salvation,” immediately it was added, “Even of the Lord the exit was by death,” in order to show that we were to be saved by His dying. But that saying is marvelous, “Even of the Lord,” as if it was said, Such is that life of mortals, that not even the Lord Himself could go out of it in any other way than through death.

But when the Jews will not in the least yield to the testimonies of this prophecy, which are so plain, and are also brought by events to so clear and certain a completion, certainly that is fulfilled in them which is written in that psalm which here follows. For when the things which concern His passion are prophetically spoken there also in the person of Christ, that is mentioned which is unfolded in the Gospel: “They gave me gall for my food; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar for drink.” And as it were after such a feast and dainties in this way given to Himself, He immediately adds [these words]: “Let their table become a trap before them, and a retribution, and an offense: let their eyes be dimmed so that they do not see, and their back be always bowed down,” and so on. These things are not spoken as wishes, but are predicted under the prophetic form of wishing. What wonder, then, if those whose eyes are dimmed so that they do not see fail to see these plain things? What wonder if those do not look up at heavenly things whose back is always bowed down so that they grovel among earthly things? For these words transferred from the body signify mental faults. Let these things which have been said about the Psalms, that is, about king David's prophecy, suffice, so that we may keep within some limit. But let those readers excuse us who knew them all before; and let them not complain about those perhaps stronger proofs which they know or think I have passed by.

David therefore reigned in the earthly Jerusalem, a son of the heavenly Jerusalem, much praised by the divine testimony; for even his faults are overcome by great piety, through the most wholesome humility of his repentance, so that he is altogether one of those of whom he himself says, “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.” After him Solomon his son reigned over the same whole people, who, as was said before, began to reign while his father was still alive. This man, after good beginnings, made a bad end. For indeed “prosperity, which wears out the minds of the wise,” hurt him more than that wisdom benefited him, which is renowned even now and will be hereafter, and was then praised far and wide. He also is found to have prophesied in his books, of which three are received as of canonical authority, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. But it has been customary to ascribe to Solomon two others, of which one is called Wisdom, the other Ecclesiasticus, on account of some resemblance of style — but the more learned have no doubt that they are not his; yet from early times the Church, especially the Western, received them into authority⁠a — in the one of which, called the Wisdom of Solomon, the passion of Christ is most openly prophesied. For indeed His impious murderers are quoted as saying, “Let us lie in wait for the righteous, for he is unpleasant to us, and contrary to our works; and he upbraids us with our transgressions of the law, and charges us to our disgrace with the transgressions of our upbringing.⁠b He professes to have the knowledge of God, and he calls himself the Son of God. He was made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous for us even to look at; for his life is unlike other men's and his ways are different. We are regarded by him as counterfeits; and he abstains from our ways as from filthiness. He extols the final end of the righteous; and glories that he has God for his Father. Let us see, therefore, if his words are true; and let us test what will happen to him, and we shall know what his end will be. For if the righteous man is the Son of God, He will take up his cause, and deliver him from the hand of those who are against him. Let us examine him with insult and torture, so that we may know his reverence, and test his patience. Let us condemn him to the most shameful death; for by His own sayings He shall be respected. These things they devised, and were mistaken; for their own malice has quite blinded them.” But in Ecclesiasticus the future faith of the nations is predicted in this manner: “Have mercy on us, God, Ruler of all, and send Your fear on all the nations: lift up Your hand over the strange nations, and let them see Your power. As You were sanctified in us before them, so be sanctified in them before us, and let them acknowledge You, as we also have acknowledged You; for there is no God besides You, Lord.”⁠c We see this prophecy in the form of a wish and prayer fulfilled through Jesus Christ. But the things which are not written in the canon of the Jews cannot be quoted against their contradictions with such great force. But as regards those three books which it is evident are Solomon's and held canonical by the Jews, to show what of this kind may be found in them relating to Christ and the Church demands a laborious discussion, which, if now entered on, would lengthen this work unduly. Yet what we read in the Proverbs of impious men saying, “Let us unrighteously hide in the earth the righteous man; indeed, let us swallow him up alive as hell, and let us take away his memory from the earth: let us seize his precious possession,” Proverbs 1:11-13 is not so obscure that it may not be understood, without laborious explanation, of Christ and His possession the Church. Indeed, the gospel parable about the wicked tenants shows that our Lord Jesus Himself said something like it: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” Matthew 21:38 In the same way that passage also in this same book, on which we have already touched when we were speaking of the barren woman who has borne seven, must soon after it was uttered have come to be understood of only Christ and the Church by those who knew that Christ was the Wisdom of God. “Wisdom has built herself a house, and has set up seven pillars; she has sacrificed her victims, she has mingled her wine in the bowl; she has also furnished her table. She has sent her servants summoning to the bowl with excellent proclamation, saying, Whoever is simple, let him turn aside to me. And to those lacking sense she has said, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for you.” Here certainly we perceive that the Wisdom of God, that is, the Word coeternal with the Father, has built Himself a house, namely a human body in the virgin's womb, and has joined the Church to it as members to a head, has sacrificed the martyrs as victims, has furnished a table with wine and bread, where appears also the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek, and has called the simple and those lacking sense, because, as the apostle says, “He has chosen the weak things of this world to shame the things which are mighty.” 1 Corinthians 1:27 Yet to these weak ones she says what follows, “Forsake simplicity, so that you may live; and seek prudence, so that you may have life.” Proverbs 9:6 But to be made partakers of this table is itself to begin to have life. For when he says in another book, which is called Ecclesiastes, “There is no good for a man, except that he should eat and drink,” what can he be more credibly understood to say, than what belongs to the participation of this table which the Mediator of the New Testament Himself, the Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, furnishes with His own body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were slain as a shadow of that which was to come; therefore also we recognize the voice in the 40th Psalm as that of the same Mediator speaking through prophecy, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; but a body You have perfected for me.” Because, instead of all these sacrifices and offerings, His body is offered, and is served up to the partakers of it. For that this Ecclesiastes, in this sentence about eating and drinking, which he often repeats, and very much commends, does not have in mind the delicacies of carnal pleasure, is made plain enough when he says, “It is better to go into the house of mourning than to go into the house of feasting.” Ecclesiastes 7:2 And a little after He says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of the simple in the house of feasting.” Ecclesiastes 7:4 But I think that more worthy of quotation from this book which relates to both cities, the one of the devil, the other of Christ, and to their kings, the devil and Christ: “Woe to you, land,” he says, “when your king is a youth, and your princes eat in the morning! Blessed are you, land, when your king is the son of nobles, and your princes eat in season, in fortitude, and not in confusion!” Ecclesiastes 10:16-17 He has called the devil a youth, because of the folly and pride, and rashness and unruliness, and other vices which usually abound at that age; but Christ is the Son of nobles, that is, of the holy patriarchs, of those belonging to the free city, from whom He was born in the flesh. The princes of that and other cities are eaters in the morning, that is, before the suitable hour, because they do not expect the happiness that comes in due season, which is the true one, in the world to come, desiring to be made happy quickly with the renown of this world; but the princes of the city of Christ patiently wait for the time of a blessedness that is not deceptive. This is expressed by the words, “in fortitude, and not in confusion,” because hope does not deceive them; of which the apostle says, “But hope does not put to shame.” Romans 5:5 A psalm also says, “For those who hope in You shall not be put to shame.” But now the Song of Songs is a certain spiritual pleasure of holy minds, in the marriage of that King and Queen-city, that is, Christ and the Church. But this pleasure is wrapped up in allegorical veils, so that the Bridegroom may be more ardently desired, and more joyfully unveiled, and may appear; to whom it is said in this same song, Equity has delighted You; Song of Songs 1:4 and the bride who there hears, “Love is in your delights.” Song of Songs 7:6 We pass over many things in silence, in our desire to finish this work.

The other kings of the Hebrews after Solomon are scarcely found to have prophesied, through certain enigmatic words or actions of theirs, what may relate to Christ and the Church, either in Judah or Israel; for that is what the parts of that people were called, when, on account of Solomon's offense, from the time of Rehoboam his son, who succeeded him in the kingdom, it was divided by God as a punishment. The ten tribes, indeed, which Jeroboam the servant of Solomon received, being appointed the king in Samaria, were distinctively called Israel, although this had been the name of that whole people; but the two tribes, namely, of Judah and Benjamin, which for David's sake, so that the kingdom would not be wholly torn from his line, remained subject to the city of Jerusalem, were called Judah, because that was the tribe from which David sprang. But Benjamin, the other tribe which, as was said, belonged to the same kingdom, was that from which Saul sprang before David. But these two tribes together, as was said, were called Judah, and were distinguished by this name from Israel which was the distinctive title of the ten tribes under their own king. For the tribe of Levi, because it was the priestly one, bound to the servitude of God, not of the kings, was counted the thirteenth. For Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Israel, did not, like the others, form one tribe, but two, Ephraim and Manasseh. Yet the tribe of Levi also belonged more to the kingdom of Jerusalem, where the temple of the God it served was. On the division of the people, therefore, Rehoboam, son of Solomon, reigned in Jerusalem as the first king of Judah, and Jeroboam, servant of Solomon, in Samaria as king of Israel. And when Rehoboam wished as a tyrant to pursue that separated part with war, the people were prohibited from fighting with their brothers by God, who told them through a prophet that He had done this; from this it was clear that in this matter there had been no sin either of the king or people of Israel, but the accomplished will of God the avenger. When this was known, both parts settled down peaceably, for the division made was not religious but political.

But Jeroboam king of Israel, with perverse mind, not believing in God, whom he had proved true in promising and giving him the kingdom, was afraid that, by coming to the temple of God in Jerusalem, where, according to the divine law, that whole nation was to come to sacrifice, the people would be drawn away from him, and return to David's line as the royal seed; and so he set up idolatry in his kingdom, and with horrible impiety deceived the people, ensnaring them to the worship of idols with himself. Yet God did not altogether cease to reprove by the prophets, not only that king, but also his successors and imitators in his impiety, and the people too. For there the great and illustrious prophet Elijah and Elisha his disciple arose, who also did many wonderful works. Even there, when Elijah said, “Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life,” it was answered that seven thousand men were there who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

So also in the kingdom of Judah belonging to Jerusalem prophets were not lacking even in the times of succeeding kings, just as it pleased God to send them, either for the prediction of what was necessary, or for correction of sin and instruction in righteousness; 2 Timothy 3:16 for there, too, although far less than in Israel, kings arose who grievously offended God by their impieties, and, along with their people, who were like them, were struck with moderate scourges. The no small merits of the pious kings there are praised indeed. But we read that in Israel the kings were, some more, others less, yet all wicked. Each part, therefore, as the divine providence either ordered or permitted, was both lifted up by prosperity and weighed down by adversity of various kinds; and it was afflicted not only by foreign, but also by civil wars with each other, so that, as particular causes arose, the mercy or anger of God might be shown; until, by His growing indignation, that whole nation was by the conquering Chaldeans not only overthrown in its own land, but also for the most part transported to the lands of the Assyrians — first, that part of the thirteen tribes called Israel, but afterward Judah also, when Jerusalem and that most noble temple was cast down — in which lands it rested seventy years in captivity. After that time they were released from there, and, they rebuilt the overthrown temple. And although very many stayed in foreign lands, the kingdom no longer had two separate parts, with different kings over each, but in Jerusalem there was one prince over them; and at certain times, from every direction wherever they were, and from whatever place they could, they all came to the temple of God which was there. Yet not even then were they without foreign enemies and conquerors; indeed, Christ found them tributaries of the Romans.

But in that whole time after they returned from Babylon, after Malachi, Haggai, and Zechariah, who then prophesied, and Ezra, they had no prophets down to the time of the Savior's coming except another Zechariah, the father of John, and Elisabeth his wife, when the birth of Christ was already close at hand; and when He was already born, Simeon the aged, and Anna a widow, and now very old; and, last of all, John himself, who, being a young man, did not predict that Christ, now a young man, was to come, but by prophetic knowledge pointed Him out though unknown; for which reason the Lord Himself says, “The law and the prophets were until John.” Matthew 11:13 But the prophesying of these five is made known to us in the gospel, where the virgin mother of our Lord herself is also found to have prophesied before John. But the wicked Jews do not accept this prophecy of theirs; but those innumerable persons received it who from them believed the gospel. For then truly Israel was divided in two, by that division which was foretold by Samuel the prophet to king Saul as unchangeable. But even the rejected Jews hold Malachi, Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezra as the last received into canonical authority. For there are also writings of these, as of others, who, being only a very few in the great multitude of prophets, have written those books which have obtained canonical authority, of whose predictions it seems good to me to put in this work some which relate to Christ and His Church; and this, with the Lord's help, will be done more conveniently in the following book, so that we may not further burden this one, which is already too long.