De montibus Sina et Sion, adversus Judaeos

VII. ON THE MOUNTAINS SINAI AND ZION. A proof of the chapters which are contained in the divine scriptures: those things which are written figuratively in the Old Testament are to be understood spiritually through the New Testament, which things have been fulfilled in truth through Christ. For to us, through Jesus Christ, a spiritual understanding has been given by Jesus himself: indeed, it has been given to us to understand the sacraments of God, but to others in likenesses. We find written in the Gospel according to John: the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were made through Jesus Christ. That law of Moses was given on Mount Sinai. But again we find written: from Zion shall the law go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. How ought we to understand this? Whether Mount Sinai, where the law was given to Moses by God, and Mount Zion, whence the law went forth, are one and the same, or whether Mount Sinai is one and Mount Zion is another. For we find that these are the names of two mountains in Hebrew: but the Latin interpretation of the names differs from each other, showing that Mount Sinai is one thing and Mount Zion another.

This is the interpretation from the Hebrew language into Latin. Mount Sinai signifies ‘eternal temptation and hatred’; likewise Zion signifies ‘temptation of exacerbation and watchtower.’ You see, therefore, in the Hebrew interpretation that they are not similar to each other, nor are they one mountain, but rather two differing from each other in grace and honor. Moreover, when the prophet David says in the first psalm: ‘But I was appointed king by him over Zion, his holy mountain, proclaiming his dominion,’ behold how he designates Mount Zion as holy. Hence it is clear that Mount Zion is heavenly and spiritual, and Sinai is earthly. For nothing that is on earth can be holy, since the whole world has been stained by the evil deeds of the devil, as Jesus says: ‘The world hates me because I also hate it, because its evil deeds are its own doing.’ By reason of this, whatever is in this earthly world cannot be holy.

Now Zion, however, is established from prophetic utterance to be a holy and spiritual mountain, on which mountain the Holy Spirit, the Son of God, has been installed as king, proclaiming the will and command of God His Father; and Mount Sinai is a terrestrial mountain set in dry land, which is in Syria Palaestina, where the land of Judaea is, where also is that city, the slayer of prophets, before whose gates Christ was crucified by the Jews in a garden—which city is called Jerusalem, cursed and abandoned by the spiritual word through the prophet Isaiah, and not undeservedly. And God from that same terrestrial Mount Sinai through Moses, still placed in the terrestrial flesh of the first man, gave the law to the terrestrial and carnal people of the Jews. He received it from God to be handed over to them, written by sacred fingers on two stone tablets—although by sacred fingers, yet fingers in the form of flesh, as if for a carnal and very hard people, just as the stone tablets were very hard, on which tablets they received the law. Hence in two: signifying that from the unity of the people two parts are divided, the part which is saved and the unbelieving part which perishes, as the angel said to Rebecca, wife of Isaac: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be divided from your womb, and people will overcome people, and the greater will serve the lesser.” Indeed, Rebecca bears the figure of the Church, just as her husband Isaac bore in himself the type of Christ. Therefore, when it says, “Two nations are in your womb.

Because it also indicated that two parts of the Gentiles would come to be in the future, one part, idolatrous, lost, and the other part, believing, living through faith; this one part of the Gentiles it designates as remaining in the womb of the church, a generation forever, in the figure of Rebecca, and the part of the unbelieving Jewish people as then being divided from Rebecca’s womb and separated from the birth of the church. This was the prefiguration announced spiritually through the angel in Genesis. But these names of the mountains have such an interpretation in the Latin language, showing the truth, as to which are these two mountains, Sinai or now Zion: which indeed we shall state shortly. For we have thus proven this interpretation of the truth as coming from the beginning of the human race. For thus almighty God from the beginning of the world and thereafter, for every man being born, at the time and event, names were received from their parents: not indeed of themselves, but they were impelled in mind by God, who, before they come to be, is prescient of future things, as to what they would be like after the growth of their age; in later time, those who are vigorous are held to be designated in Hebrew names; what would befall each individual, the interpretation of the names designated the truth: just as at that time it was fulfilled in the Patriarchs, according to the flesh of the first man being from the slime of the earth. From that first-formed man himself we prove the truth.

He received his name from God. The Hebrew "Adam" is interpreted in Latin as "earth made flesh," because from the four corners of the world he grasped a handful, as it is written: "I measured the sky with my palm and grasped the earth with my fist, and I fashioned man from all the mud of the earth: I made him in the image of God." It was necessary that he bear within himself the name Adam from these four corners of the earth: we find in the scriptures that by the founder of the world four stars were placed in each of the corners of the earth. The first star, of the east, is called Anatole; the second, of the west, Dysis; the third star, of the north, Arctus; the fourth star, of the south, is called Mesembrion. From the names of the four stars, take the first letters of each star's name: from the star Anatole, A; from the star Dysis, D; from the star Arctos, A; from the star Mesembrion, M: in these four cardinal letters you have the name ADAM. For also in a fixed number through four Greek letters the name is designated as ΑΔΑΜ: thus A + Δ + A + M makes the number 46. This number 46 designates the passion of Adam's flesh, which flesh of Adam Christ bore figuratively in himself and hung it on the wood. This Lordly flesh was called Jesus by God the Father: the Holy Spirit who descended from heaven is called Christ, that is, the Anointed of the living God, the spirit mixed with flesh is Jesus Christ.

This number, the forty-sixth, therefore declares the passion, because he suffered in the sixth hour of the six-thousandth year, and, rising from the dead, ascended into heaven on the fortieth day; or because Solomon built the temple for God in forty-six years, in the likeness of which temple Jesus said his own flesh was, saying to the Pharisees: "Destroy this shrine, and I will raise it up in three days." And the Pharisees said: "That shrine was built in forty-six years, and this man will raise it up in three days?" But Jesus was speaking of the shrine of his own body. Then Abel, the son of Adam, received a Hebrew name, signifying the slaying of a brother and the grief of parents. Likewise Enoch, who before the flood pleased God by his righteousness, and therefore was translated alive from this world in the birth of his flesh to a place which God knows; from which place, at the consummation of the world, he is to be renewed in this world, whence he was translated, to confound and vanquish the Antichrist; by whom those slain will complete their martyrdoms, living forever unto ages of ages.

And so Enoch means 'renewed'; then Job, the righteous man, who before the day of judgment deserved to be praised by the voice of the judge, and therefore, with the devil conquered and overcome, Job means 'most dear to God'. Likewise Abraham, at his birth, was called Abram by his parents; but when tempted by God, he was found faithful and was blessed by God and established as the father of many nations; and therefore, with his name changed by God, he was called Abraham, which means 'father of many peoples'. Behold, we have said a few things from among many proofs, so that, coming to the names of the two mountains, we may prove the interpretations of those mountain names, how they have been designated for our instruction, so that from this interpretation of the names we may understand that Mount Sinai is earthly and Mount Sion is heavenly. Spiritually, Sinai means 'eternal temptation and hatred', and Mount Sion means 'temptation of exacerbation and watchtower'. Thus it is understood when it says [Mount] Sinai 'eternal temptation and hatred', because from that mountain Moses received the law for a very harsh and stubborn people. Through which law, tempted by the eternal God, they were found unable to sustain that same law forever, and from that time they turned to hatred of God.

Therefore, in the name of Mount Sinai, from which they had received the law, the interpretation of the name designated the people as tempted by God and turned into eternal hatred. Thus it says: Sinai, 'eternal temptation and hatred.' For we find in the Scriptures that they were tempted by God, set down in this way, with the Lord saying to Moses: 'Let this people go out and gather for themselves day by day, and I will test them whether they can sustain my law or not.' And tempted by God through the law, they were found alien to that law. From then on, they were turned into eternal hatred with God, and the interpretation of Sinai was made manifest. Indeed, also Moses, through whom God tempted them by the law, is interpreted similarly in Latin: Moses, 'temptation of God and finding.' Through whom, tempted by God, they were found alien to the observance of the law; therefore, they were turned into eternal hatred with God. We find this hatred written in the very race of the Jews, with Isaac saying of his two sons, Esau the elder and Jacob the younger: 'I have loved Jacob, but I have held Esau in hatred.' Now Esau, the elder, was entirely hairy, it says, like a hairy hide, in the figure of the elder people established in the impiety of their sins. And Jacob was smooth and younger, in the figure of the newer people, who, from the obedience of faith through credulity, was turned from the harshness of the age into gentleness, to Christ the Lord and the Son of God.

Behold, we have proven through the trustworthiness of the scriptures that the greater and more ancient people were turned into hatred toward God, according to the interpretation of Mount Sinai, which says: 'eternal temptation and hatred.' Equally, Mount Sion is interpreted thus: 'temptation of exacerbation and speculation.' But this Latin interpretation designates the passion of the sacred wood, as Solomon says concerning that same Dominical passion: 'Let us interrogate him with insult and torment, that we may know his reverence and test his patience, and let us tempt what things are to come to him. For if he is truly the Son of God, he will receive him, and will free him from the hands of his adversaries: let us condemn him to a most shameful death.' These things they thought and they erred: their own malice blinded them, and they did not understand the sacrament of God. Behold, the tempters, the Jews. Likewise it is written: 'And they tempted the Lord in a waterless place.' But the speculation declares the height of the wood, as Solomon says: 'They placed me like a guard of an orchard,' because in the garden he hung fixed on a tree between two thieves. And from the height of the wood he looked out upon both in the figure of two peoples of malefactors: the Gentiles, lying in ages of evil deeds, and the Jews, slayers of the prophets. These are the two peoples of malefactors, whose figure the two thieves bore in themselves, between whom the innocent one hung: one blasphemed, the other indeed confessed, because the innocent one suffers injury.

But Jesus was watching both from the wood of the watchtower—the blasphemer and the confessor; he saved the confessor and destroyed the blasphemer, just as he did with the two peoples. The persecutors who were abandoned, if they did not believe in the sentence of eternal death for themselves and departed from the world thus, perished; but the Gentiles who turned to him, having faith in him because he is the Son of God, were saved and will live in eternal ages of ages with their emperor and king. Indeed, while hanging on the wood in that passion, looking out from the high wood, he watched the two parts of the people: the part of the people who had seen his miraculous and divine works, grieving at his suffering, wept; but the other Jews, mocking him, struck his head with a reed, blaspheming and saying: "Hail, king of the Jews, where is your father? Let him come and free you from the cross." Thereupon, the father, provoked, made the heaven open, and unbearable thunders occurred, the earth was shaken, tombs were opened and cast forth bodies, the veil of the temple was torn, and from such a crash of the sky and earthquake, all who stood before the wood—some grieving, others blaspheming and mocking—fell prostrate on their faces, trembling as if dead. Then the Jews understood that they had offended God and turned to mourning, and there was provocation. For at that time when he hung nailed to the wood, it was the days of the Azymes, which are the feast days of the Jews.

on that day, terrified by the earthquake and the crashing of the sky, they fell prostrate on the ground, turning to lamentation and mourning; and in their own passion, the prophetic saying was fulfilled: "And I will turn their feast days into mourning and their songs into lamentation." For earlier, when they were held captive by the Babylonians, the Babylonians said to them: "Sing for us songs from the songs of Zion," and the Jews, lamenting their captivity, said to the Babylonians, as we have said, lamenting: "How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land?" Behold how fully the interpretation of Mount Zion—"temptation of bitterness and watchtower"—has been fulfilled. Hence it is clear that Mount Zion, the mountain of the sacred wood, is the kingdom justified in holiness, as David says: "Proclaim the kingdom of God among the nations, because the Lord has reigned from the wood and has passed among the nations." Concerning this kingdom of the royal wood, the same prophet says: "But I say to you: I have been appointed king by him over his holy Mount Zion, proclaiming his rule." This saying of the prophet, when he hung on the wood in his passion, was fulfilled through Pontius Pilate; Pontius Pilate, his mind impelled by God, took a tablet and a title and wrote in three languages—Hebrew, Greek, and Latin: "JESUS NAZARENUS REX.

of the Jews, and on the top of a wooden post he fixed a tablet with the name of the king of the Jews, and he revealed the prophetic saying, because spiritually Mount Zion is the cross, which is the power of God, the apostle Paul saying: the cross of Christ is foolishness to those who do not believe, but to believers the cross is the power of God, and again he says: but we proclaim to you Christ; and this crucified one, a scandal indeed to the Jews, but foolishness to the Gentiles, but to you who are called Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Thus another prophet truly declares the wood of the Lord's passion to be the holy Mount Zion, in spirit saying thus: who will ascend the mountain of the Lord, and who will stand in his holy place? Innocent in hands and pure in heart, with right and left hands stretched out, fixed with nails, demonstrating innocence. Therefore he says innocent in hands and pure in heart. He who did not take his soul in vain and did not swear deceitfully to his neighbor, from his Lord he will receive blessing and mercy from his saving God. Every passion of men falls to the ground, this alone, the passion of the cross, shows one standing: hence we truly say the holy mountain is the wood of the passion. Thence innocent in hands and pure in heart: by this prophetic saying he refuted the Jews, who preferred Moses to Christ, the Lord of that one, because when Moses had ascended Mount Sinai to receive the law for the Jews, he was not innocent in hands nor pure in heart. For he was not pure in mouth nor...

but in heart, because he struck an Egyptian with his heel in Egypt and buried him with his own hands in the sand, having killed him: Christ, however, ascended the holy mountain, the wood of his kingdom, to die at the hands of the Jews, rather than that he himself killed any man, except only the devil, the enemy of the human race. Then, ascending the mountain innocent and pure in heart, and therefore the prophet says: Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord, and who will stand in his holy place? Innocent in hands and so forth, and he declared Mount Zion to be holy, the holy cross, as the prophet likewise says: From Zion the law will go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. The law of Christians is the holy cross of Christ, the Son of the living God, as the prophet likewise says: Your law in the midst of my belly. Struck in the side of the belly, from the side blood mixed with water flowed forth abundantly, from which he built for himself the holy church, in which he consecrated the law of his passion, as he himself says: Whoever thirsts, let him come and drink. Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from his belly. Likewise in the Psalms: And it will be like a tree that is planted beside the courses of waters, which will give its fruit in its time. Behold the prophetic word, the fruit of the resurrection on the third day to be understood spiritually, as it says: For from Zion the law will go forth, that is, from the royal wood, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, which is the church.

Flesh fixed to the wood sent forth the Lord's word, saying: Eli, Eli. And the prophetic spiritual prophecy spoken beforehand was fulfilled: from Sion the law will go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. It speaks of Jerusalem descending from heaven as a new city, squared by the four Gospels, having twelve foundations of the twelve prophets and twelve gates of the twelve apostles: through whose proclamation Christians entered into this holy and new city, which is the spiritual Church. Behold, we have proven through the faith of all the deified scriptures that two mountains, Sinai on earth and Sion in heaven, bear the figure of the two testaments, the old of Sinai and the new of Sion: from which two mountains, that is, the two testaments, two peoples were shown and revealed in later time, the old and prior people of the Jews and the new and later people of the Christians: the earthly Jews, to whom the land promised by God (they received carnal things) and the heavenly Christians, to whom the kingdoms of heaven are promised by God (they are to receive in the future age). For the flesh of Christians will be spiritual and immortal.

Another proof of the truth is placed in the scriptures, and from it we make a figurative comparison of the heavenly spiritual truth from the turning of this world. For we have said that the holy mountain Sion has a royal and sacred wood, which has an interpretation from Hebrew into Greek or Latin: 'temptation of exacerbation and speculation', because from the wood he used to look out at the good and evil standing before him. Thus we find that the Savior himself is said by Solomon to be the immaculate mirror of the Father, because the Holy Spirit sees the Son of God doubled, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, each seeing themselves in the other: therefore the immaculate mirror. For we also who believe in him see Christ in ourselves as in a mirror, with him himself instructing and admonishing us in the epistle of his disciple John to the people: 'See me in yourselves, just as one of you sees himself in water or in a mirror,' and he confirmed the saying of Solomon about himself, saying: 'Who is the immaculate mirror of the Father.

Indeed, He also said that He is the true vine, and His father is the farmer. Therefore, if Christ is the true vine, it is certainly evident that we who believe in Him and have put Him on are also the true vine which is in the Lord's vineyard, and Christ is the guardian of His vineyard, as Solomon says: "They have set me as a guardian in the vineyard." We find, indeed, in the turning of this world, in a spiritual likeness figuratively, a vineyard having its lord and possessor. Truly, at the ripe time, near the days of the vintage, they place in the middle of the vineyard a boy as a guardian on a high piece of wood fixed in the middle of the vineyard, and on that wood they make a square watchtower of shaken reeds, and on each side of the square of the watchtower they make three openings, which become twelve openings: through which square of openings the boy guardian, looking over the whole vineyard, guards it while singing, lest a traveler entering the Lord's vineyard assigned to him should damage it, or thieves should track the path of the vineyard. But if a troublesome thief, in need, should wish to enter the vineyard and take grapes, there the boy, watchful over his vineyard, from inside the watchtower gives a shout, cursing and threatening, lest the traveler-thief dare to approach the vineyard, saying: "Walk straight." The thief, however, fearing the boy's voice threatening him, flees from the vineyard; he sees the watchtower, he hears the voice, he does not see the boy inside the watchtower threatening him, and, afraid, he goes on his way.

Here, the worldly one, having turned, imitates spiritual grace. For it is so also in the deified people as in an earthly vineyard. The Lord’s vineyard is the spiritual people of Christians, which is guarded by the command of God the Father by the boy Christ, raised up in the mirror of the wood. But if the traveler, the devil, walking the worldly way, should dare to separate and harass a man of the Lord’s people from the spiritual vineyard, he is immediately seized by the heavenly boy and corrected with spiritual whips, and, exiled, flees to the hundredth place in arid and desert regions. This guardian is the boy, the Lord’s son, who holds his vineyard, commended to him by his father, to be saved and preserved. Concerning him, the prophet Isaiah sang, saying: “Behold my boy, my most beloved son; I will place my spirit upon him, and he will announce judgment to the nations; he will not cry out nor contend. He will not break a shattered reed, and he will not place smoking flax, until he drives out judgment in contention; and in his name the nations will believe.