De Montibus Sina et Sion Tractatus [Adscriptus]

A Treatise on the Mountains Sinai and Sion, of Unknown Author, Against the Jews. I. Proof that the chapters which are contained in the divine Scriptures, which are written figuratively in the Old Testament, are to be understood spiritually through the New Testament, which have been fulfilled in truth through Christ. For to us, through Jesus Christ, a spiritual understanding has been given, Jesus Himself saying: “To you indeed it is given to understand the sacraments of God, but to others in similitudes.” We find in the Gospel written by John: “The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were accomplished through Jesus Christ.” That Law of Moses was given on Mount Sinai. But again we find it written: “For out of Sion 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 Sion, whence the law went forth, are one and the same; or whether Mount Sinai is one, and Mount Sion is another. For we find these names of two mountains to be Hebrew; but the Latin interpretation of the names, differing from each other, shows that Mount Sinai is one thing, and Mount Sion another.

II. This is the interpretation from the Hebrew language into Latin. Mount Sinai is interpreted as “eternal temptation” and “hatred”; likewise Sion is interpreted as “temptation of exacerbation” and “watching.” 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 Psalm II: “But I was appointed king by him over Sion, his holy mountain, proclaiming his rule,” behold how he designates Mount Sion as holy. Whence it is evident that Mount Sion is heavenly and spiritual, and Mount Sinai is earthly. For nothing that is on earth can be holy, since the whole world has evil deeds and has been stained by the devil, as Jesus says: “The world hates me, and I hate it, because its deeds are evil.” By reason of which, whatever is in this earthly world cannot be holy.

III. Now Mount Sion is known from prophetic utterance to be holy and spiritual: on this mountain the Holy Spirit, the Son of God, was established 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 Judea is, where also is that city, the slayer of prophets: before whose gate Christ was crucified by the Jews in a garden: which city is called Jerusalem by the prophet Isaiah, but spiritually it is accursed and abandoned. Nor is this without reason, because God, from that same terrestrial Mount Sinai, through Moses, who was still placed in the earthly flesh of the first man, received the law to be handed over to the earthly and carnal people of the Jews, written by sacred fingers on two stone tablets (although by sacred fingers, yet fingers in the form of flesh, as if for a most carnal and hard people; just as the stone tablets were very hard, on which tablets they received the Law). It was on two tablets because it signified that the unity of the people would be divided into two parts, the part that is saved and the unbelieving part that perishes; as the angel said to Rebecca, the wife of Isaac: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be divided from your belly, and one people will overcome the other, and the greater will serve the lesser.” Now Rebecca bore the figure of the Church, just as her husband Isaac bore in himself the type of Christ.

Therefore, when it says, "two peoples are in your womb," it was designating that from the peoples two parts would come: the part of the idolaters, lost, and the part of the believers, living through faith. This one part of the peoples it designates as remaining in the womb of the Church for eternal generation in the figure of Rebecca; and the part of the unfaithful Jewish people as then being divided from the womb of Rebecca and separated from the birth of the Church. This was the prefiguration announced spiritually through the angel in Genesis. Now these names of the mountains have such an interpretation in the Latin language as to demonstrate the truth of what these two mountains, Sinai or Sion, are, which we will state shortly. For we have proven this interpretation of the truth as coming from the beginning of the human race. Thus from the beginning of the world and thereafter, all men being born received names from their parents according to time and deed (not indeed from themselves, but were impelled in mind by God, who is prescient of future things before they happen), so that what they would later be after the growth of their age would be designated in later time by Hebrew words and names; and what would befall each individual, the interpretation of the names would designate 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, we prove the truth from the protoplast himself.

IV. Adam 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 it with his fist, as it is written: "I have measured the sky with my palm, and I have grasped the earth with my fist, and I have fashioned man from every mud of the earth: I made him in the image of God." It was necessary that he bear in himself the name Adam from those four corners of the world. We find in the Scriptures that by each corner of the world the Creator of the world established four stars in each corner. The first star is called the eastern, the second the western, the third the star of the north, the fourth the star of the south. From the names of the stars, four in number, take from each of the star names the first letters: from the star Anatole, A; from the star Dysis, D; from the star Arctos, A; from the star Mesembria, M; in these four cardinal letters you have the name Adam. For also in a certain number through four Greek letters the name is designated, thus: alpha, which is one; delta, which is four; alpha, which is one; mu, which is forty. Do the calculation, and you will find the number forty-six. This number, 46, designates the passion of the flesh of Adam, which flesh Christ figuratively bore in himself, and he hung it on the wood. This flesh was called by God the Father "Jesus" the Holy Spirit, who descended from heaven; Christ, that is, the anointed of the living God, was called by God; the spirit mixed with flesh, Jesus Christ.

Therefore this number 46 declares the passion, because in the sixth thousandth year, at the sixth hour he suffered, and rising from the dead, on the fortieth day he ascended into the heavens, or because Solomon built the temple for God in forty-six years. In the likeness of which temple Jesus said his flesh was, saying to the Pharisees: Destroy that 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 called the temple his body. V. Next Abel, the son of Adam, received a Hebrew name, signifying the killing of a brother and the grief of parents. Likewise Enoch, who before the flood was pleasing to God as a just man, and therefore was translated alive from this world in the flesh of his birth 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 also translated to confound and overcome Antichrist. By whom slain, his martyrdoms will be completed, living forever in the ages of ages. And therefore Enoch is interpreted as renewed. Next Job the just, who before the day of judgment merited to be praised by the voice of the Judge, and therefore, with the devil conquered and overcome, Job is interpreted as most dear to God.

Likewise, Abraham was called Abram by his parents at his birth; but when tested by God, he was found faithful, and was blessed by God and established as father of many nations, and therefore, with his name changed by God, he was called Abraham, which is interpreted as "father of many peoples." VI. Behold, we have said a few things from among many proofs, so that, arriving at the names of the two mountains, we may prove the interpretations of those mountain names, how they were designated for our instruction; so that from this interpretation of names, we may understand that Mount Sinai is earthly, and Mount Sion is heavenly. Spiritually interpreted, Sinai means "eternal temptation and hatred"; and Mount Sion means "temptation of exacerbation and watchtower." Thus it is understood when Mount Sinai is spoken of, "eternal temptation and hatred," because from that mountain Moses received the law for a very harsh and stubborn people. Through that law, when tested by the eternal God, they were found unable to endure that same law forever, and thereafter they were turned into 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 tested by God and turned into eternal hatred: hence Sinai is called "eternal temptation and hatred." For we find in the Scriptures that they were tested by God.

Thus it is set forth when the Lord says 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 tested by God through the law, they were found alien to that law. From then on they were turned into eternal hatred of God, and the interpretation of Sinai was fulfilled. It is also manifest that Moses, through whom God tested them by the law, is similarly interpreted in Latin as "trial of God and discovery," through whom those tested by God were found alien to the observance of the law, and therefore they were turned into eternal hatred of God. We find this hatred written in the very race of the Jews, as Isaac says concerning his two sons, Esau the elder and Jacob the younger: "I loved Jacob, but I 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 hearing of the word through the faith of belief, turned from the harshness of the age into gentleness toward Christ, God and Son of God.

Behold, we have proven through the trustworthiness of the Scriptures that the greater and older people turned into hatred for God, according to the interpretation of Mount Sinai, which means "eternal temptation and hatred." Likewise, Mount Sion is interpreted as "temptation of exacerbation and speculation." 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 try what will befall him. For if he is truly the Son of God, he will receive him and free him from the hands of his adversaries; let us condemn him to a most shameful death. These things they thought and erred; their own malice blinded them, and they did not understand the sacraments of God." Behold, the Jewish tempters: likewise it is written: "And they tempted God in a waterless place." The "speculation" declares the height of the wood, as Solomon says: "They placed me like a guard of an orchard," because in a garden he hung fixed on a tree between two thieves; and from the height of the wood he looks out at both in the figure of two peoples of evildoers: the Gentiles lying in the evil deeds of the world, and the Jews, the slayers of the prophets. These are the two peoples of evildoers, whose figure the two thieves between whom the innocent one hung bore within themselves. One blasphemed; the other, however, confessed that the innocent one was suffering injury.

But Jesus was watching both from the lookout wood, the blasphemer and the confessor; he saved the confessor and destroyed the blasphemer, just as he did with the two peoples. VIII. The persecutors who are abandoned, if they do not believe in the sentence of eternal death for themselves, if they depart from the world in this way, will perish. But the Gentiles who have turned to him, having faith in themselves that he is the Son of God, will see themselves saved in the eternal ages of ages, their emperor and king. Indeed, in that very passion, hanging on the wood, looking out over the two parts of the people, he watched from the high wood. The part of the people who had seen his wonderful and divine miracles, grieving at the injuries he suffered, wept; but the other Jews, mocking, 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 sky open up, and thunders occurred, and unbearable darkness; the earth was shaken, tombs were opened, and they cast out their bodies and sent them forth from themselves; the veil of the temple was torn; and from such a great crash of the sky and earthquake, all who stood before the wood, some grieving, others indeed blaspheming and mocking, lay 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 was nailed and hung on the wood, it was the days of Unleavened Bread, which are the feast days of the Jews.

On that day, fearing that an earthquake and a crashing of the heavens had occurred, they fell on their faces, beating the ground, and were turned to mourning; and in their own suffering they fulfilled the prophetic saying: “And I will turn their feast days into mourning, and their songs into lamentation.” For before, when they were held captive in Babylon, the Babylonians said to them: Sing to us songs from the songs of Zion. And the Jews, lamenting their captivity, said to the Babylonians, as we have said, lamenting: How can we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land? IX. Behold how fully the interpretation of Mount Zion has been completed: the trial of bitterness and the watchtower. Whence it is clear that Mount Zion is the kingdom of the sacred wood 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 have been appointed king by him over his holy Mount Zion, proclaiming his rule. Which prophetic saying he fulfilled through Pontius Pilate, hanging on the wood in his passion.

Pontius Pilate, his mind impelled by God, took a tablet and wrote a title in three languages—Hebrew, Greek, and Latin: "Jesus Nazarenus, King of the Jews"; and at the top of the wood he fastened the tablet with the name of the King of the Jews with nails; and then he made manifest the prophetic saying, because spiritually Mount Sion is the cross, which is the power of God, the Apostle saying: "The cross of Christ is folly to unbelievers, but to believers the cross is the power of God"; and again he says: "But we proclaim to you Christ, and this crucified: to the Jews indeed a scandal, to the Gentiles folly; but to those called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God." Thus also another prophet declares the wood of the Lord's passion to be the holy Mount Sion, speaking in the Spirit thus: "Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord, or who will stand in his holy place? Innocent in hands; with right and left extended, fixed with nails, demonstrating innocence." Therefore it says: "Innocent in hands and pure in heart, who has not taken his soul in vain, and has not sworn deceitfully to his neighbor, he will receive a blessing from the Lord, and mercy from his saving God." Every passion of men falls to the ground; this alone, the passion of the cross, shows one standing: whence we truly say that the holy mountain is the wood of the passion. Hence he was not innocent in hands and pure in heart.

For the man was not clean of heart, because he struck an Egyptian with his heel in Egypt and killed him, and buried him with his own hands in the sand; but Christ ascended the holy mountain, the wood of his kingdom, to die at the hands of the Jews, although he himself killed no man, except only the devil, the enemy of the human race. Thence he ascended the mountain innocent and clean of heart; and therefore the prophet says: "Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord, and who will stand in his holy place? He who is innocent with his hands and clean of heart." And he declared that Mount Sion is the holy cross, as the prophet likewise says: "From Sion will come forth the law, 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 is in the midst of my belly." Struck in the side of his belly with a lance, blood and water mixed together flowed forth, 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, as it is written, rivers of living water will flow from his belly." Likewise in the Psalms: "And it will be like a tree 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 he says: "From Sion will come forth the law," that is, from the royal wood, "and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," which is the Church.

X. The 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.” Jerusalem is said to descend from heaven, a new city, squared by the four Gospels, having twelve foundations of the twelve prophets, twelve gates of the twelve apostles; through whose proclamation Christians have entered into this holy and new city, which is the spiritual Church. XI. Behold, we have proven through the faith of all the deified Scriptures two mountains, Sina on earth and Sion in heaven, to bear the figure of the two Testaments: the Old, Sina, and the New, Sion. From these two mountains, that is, the two Testaments, we have in later time shown and declared two peoples: the old and prior people of the Jews, and the new and later people of the Christians: the Jews earthly, who received the land promised by God as carnal; and the Christians heavenly, who are to receive the kingdoms of heaven promised by God in the future age. For the flesh of Christians will be spiritual and immortal.

XII. Another proof of the truth placed in the Scriptures, from that celestial truth we make a spiritual comparison of figures, concerning the conduct of this world. For we have said of the holy mount Sion, that the royal and sacred wood would have an interpretation from the Hebrew, into Greek or Latin, as “trial of exacerbation” or “watching,” because from the wood he watched the good and the evil standing before him. XIII. Thus we find the Savior himself, through Solomon, said 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 an immaculate mirror. For we also who believe in him see Christ in ourselves as in a mirror, with him 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 confirms the saying of Solomon about himself, saying: “Who is the immaculate mirror of the Father.

XIV. Moreover, He said that He Himself is the eternal and true vine, and His Father the farmer. Therefore, if Christ is the true vine, it is certainly evident that we also, who believe in Him and have put Him on, are the true vines, which are 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 conduct of this world, in a spiritual comparison of figures, that there is a vineyard, having its lord and possessor. At the ripe time, near the days of the vintage, a boy-guardian is placed in the vineyard on a high piece of wood fixed in the middle of the vineyard; and on that wood they make a square watchtower of broken reeds, and on each side of the square they make three openings, which make twelve openings: through which square of openings the boy-guardian, surveying the whole vineyard, keeps watch, singing, so that a traveler entering the Lord's vineyard assigned to him does not disturb it, or thieves trample the grapes of the vineyard. But if a troublesome thief, in need, should wish to enter the vineyard and take the grapes, there the boy, watchful over his vineyard, from inside the watchtower gives a harsh shout, cursing and threatening, so that the traveler-thief dares not approach the vineyard, saying: "Walk straight." The thief, however, fearing the boy's voice threatening him, flees from the vineyard; he sees the watchtower, hears the voice, does not see the boy inside the watchtower threatening him, and, afraid, goes on his way.

XV. This worldly way of life is likened to spiritual grace. For it is in the godly people as it is 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 on the watchtower of the wood. But if the wayfaring devil, traveling along the worldly path, should dare to separate a man from the Lord’s people in the spiritual vineyard and harass him, immediately, rebuked by the heavenly voice of the boy and corrected by spiritual whips, he flees into exile to the hundredth place, escaping into dry and deserted regions. This is the guardian boy, the Lord’s son, who received his vineyard commended to him by his Father to be saved and preserved. Concerning him the prophet Isaiah sings, saying: Behold my most beloved boy, I will place my spirit upon him, and he will announce judgment to the nations: he will not cry out, nor will he contend. He will not break a shattered reed, nor will he extinguish smoking flax, until he drives out judgment in contention; and in his name the nations will believe and hope.