Adversus Judaeos

9. AGAINST THE JEWS. Direct your attention and understanding in the Holy Spirit, so that you may not only hear with your ears but also perceive with your eyes the divine mystery of Christ. You perceive, however, through your faith: for hearing is a matter of necessity, believing a matter of earnest concern. The function of the ears is to take in, indifferently and equally, both the worthless and the useful; but the function of faith is to believe only what it has approved. For it profits no one to listen willingly, unless credulity confirms what is heard. The eyes of faith are the spirit, through which spiritual things are seen. If, therefore, you are spiritual, understand heavenly things. For like recognizes its like: even dumb animals understand each other by the sound of their voices—lions by roaring, bulls by bellowing, and the soldier by the blast of the trumpet. How much more truly, then, do spiritual beings understand spiritual things, and those who are heavenly and heirs of their Father understand his precepts and those things which are provided for in their Father’s testament? Since you are heirs of Christ, therefore, understand his testament. But if anyone, by reason of age, is less teachable in understanding, he has the Holy Spirit as interpreter: let him follow that Spirit; with that Spirit as guide and teacher, he will most easily be able to recognize the laws and power of the New Testament, which has been allotted as an inheritance to the nations.

In this way the Lord and Father in the beginning made man with his own hand and placed him in paradise, having given a certain condition of precepts of the law of life and of the testament. But that man, having despised the father’s precepts, was expelled from paradise into his own earth-born nature, in which he also died. But the Lord raised up a righteous race from the seed of Adam, which seed he preserved into a people upon the river and his heirs. From that race he found a righteous man, whom he commanded to make a structure in the manner of a vessel of a certain capacity with joints of measures, so that that structure, built with his brothers, Noah might be preserved through that race. But God had ordered that, on account of the injustice of men, the orb of the earth should perish by inundating waters. Therefore afterwards Noah was saved with his own. And God established for him a testimony of his precept, saying: Every thing is food for you, like fodder of vegetables, except flesh with the blood of life, and he placed the sign of this testimony in the ark. After these things, again the Lord God testified to Abraham in Isaac in this manner, saying: I will give you this land and to your seed, and I will make you the father of many nations. And from then the seed grew into a multitude of people, and it was divided into twelve patriarchs.

but also to them the Lord placed a testimony on Mount Horeb through Moses, from which place, after the Gentiles were driven out, he established there the people whom he accepted and who took possession of the promised inheritance for themselves. To them also God showed many signs and miracles as to a most beloved son. But that same people, having received so many and such great benefits, opposed the father and abandoned the living God. For Israel abandoned the Lord, showing him its back and not its face: for it turned its face toward idols, and by killing the prophets sent to them who preached about Christ, from then on Israel became accustomed to persecute Christ not only when he came in the body but also when he was announced by the prophets. For they persecuted all the prophets, some of whom they stoned, others they killed by torturing them shamefully, not so much them as through them the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the proof of this? Namely, that they accepted those who were accused, faithless, perfidious, lying, and opposed to Christ, but attacked those who were true and full of faith. They cursed Moses because he preached Christ; they loved Dathan because he did not preach Christ; they rejected Aaron because he bore the likeness of Christ; they set up Abiram because he contradicted Christ; they hated David because he sang of Christ; they exalted Saul because he did not speak of Christ.

They rejected Samuel, because he spoke of Christ; they kept Ham, for he said nothing about Christ; they stoned Jeremiah, who prophesied Christ; they loved Ananias, who opposed Christ; they sawed Isaiah in two, who cried out for Christ; they exalted Manasseh, who persecuted Christ; they killed John, who pointed to Christ; they butchered Zechariah, who loved Christ; they loved Judas, who betrayed Christ. You see how those who love Christ are hated, those who hate him burn with love among the unworthy people. O the unworthy persistence of persecution even to the point of death and destruction: for not only did they attack the Lord’s witnesses, but also the Lord himself, the faithless tenants, they insulted the father in the son. What then did they deserve to suffer for this crime? Clearly, to be driven from the kingdom, to be disinherited: and so it was done and so it came to pass, fitting things befell the fitting. For the father, having suffered insults in his son, the son having suffered through the prophets at the time when he was dying: in his own time he was compelled by indignation to write a new testament, with witnesses summoned, heaven and earth and an angel from the temple, with Moses and Elijah assisting. For he summoned these witnesses when he suffered in Israel: these things, done thus, he foretold through the prophets in these words: “Hear, heaven, and lend an ear, earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they themselves have rejected me.

These words the Lord poured forth in Israel, crying out and saying: "You were unwilling; others will receive me who have not yet even heard mention of me. You spurned my marriage; others will go who were not invited. You refused to cultivate my field and vineyard, whence the fruits of righteousness come; others will cultivate them and will reap the fruits in God." What is this so harsh a mind and accursed thought? Were you then able to kill the king and bridegroom? For this, heaven and earth and the elements that are in them are witness; moreover, every creature is witness to the death of Christ. O novel cruelty! All nature was stirred in the Lord's passion; the people remained unmoved, without trembling. The angel, with its veil rent, fled in penitence; the people, without fear, remained with garment whole. The elements were turned and confounded; Israel, secure, endured. O novel hardness, O singular audacity, O bloody perfidy! Pilate, a judge of a foreign nation, with temporal power, purified his hands and washed away the crime of necessity, saying: "I am immune and innocent of this man's blood." But the people imitated neither a stranger nor a foreigner, but moreover cried out: "Take him, affix him to the cross: the blood of this man is upon us and upon our sons." Violent, insatiable, inhuman cruelty, and hearts obtuse and eyes closed: they killed their own well-deserving one and shed no tears.

The apostles were grieving, and the people were rejoicing; the earth was trembling, and the common people were exulting; the Lord was being judged, and Israel was celebrating. [Christ was suffering, and the impious were shouting; the Lord was being tormented, and the common people were rejoicing; the Lord was being buried, and the common people were feasting; with their shameful solemnity they marked their iniquitous crimes and cruelty.] Tell me and speak, impious Israel, did you offer such a sacrifice to the father by immolating his own son? Did you pour out such libations with the blood of a most acceptable offspring to God? You led dances in Jerusalem when Christ was being killed; you gave songs with favorable cries when you said: "Nail him, hang him." Because of this, in hunger and in sickness, O people of Israel, the Lord complains about you: "I do not endure," he says, "the Numenias and the Sabbath and the Great Day; my soul abhors your festivals and fast." And not undeservedly did the Lord hate your ceremonies, in which you destroyed his only and firstborn son. O harsh day and lamentable hour and mournful solemnity and accursed land and profane city and people bloodied by the Lord's murder: for they killed the Lord and freed the thief. For this reason, therefore, the Lord was compelled to make a new testament, with seven spirits bearing witness, with Moses and Elijah on the mountain, where he commanded that the mystery of the scripture not be revealed unless the son of man had risen from the dead.

But soon the Lord rose on the third day, opened the new testament, the life-giving testament, and spoke thus: "Come, foreign nations, my heirs: for Israel did not obey; therefore, disciples, go to the farthest land and preach throughout the world with these words. Come from all sides, peoples of the nations, enter into the eternal inheritance, for Israel refused. Do not hesitate: there is here no exception of low birth, nor of rank, nor of condition, nor of station, nor of appearance, nor of age. Whether you are magnificent in rank, whether noble, whether old, whether young, poor, rich, good or evil, masters and slaves, enter into the inheritance indifferently and equally: even if one were lame of foot, deformed in body, even if foul with spots and lacking in head, even if bereft of eyes, all may freely recline at the feast and banquet at the wedding of the bridegroom." Let no one be ashamed of age, nor of lowliness, nor of infirmity, nor of condition: for the Lord is accustomed to sustain such people. For he restored sight to the blind, made the lame walk, gave speech back to the mute, cleansed the spotted, and raised the dead. And do not fear, you who have sinned; come first to life, and let not even one who has committed homicide be afraid because of what he did, nor let one who has stolen another's property despair because he pilfered, nor let a publican fear because he extorted.

For all, remission of sins is established, and the Lord desires such as are cast down by humility, uncomely in appearance, broken in health, and oppressed by servitude. For the blessed, the glorious, the magnificent, the powerful, the rich, and the strong were unwilling to acquiesce to the Lord, nor to enter into the wedding of the bridegroom; moreover, they most shamefully slew the bridegroom. Therefore, each of them who was most high became most low, and the strongest became weak, and the wise became foolish, and the noble became [base], and the rich became most poor, and the heir became disinherited: since indeed they themselves disowned the most modest and most benign king, saying, "We do not know who this is, for he is not our king: we have another king, Caesar." Therefore, let them have the one they proclaimed. Then the voice of prophecy was fulfilled, which had foretold to them: "You did not know the water of Siloam which flows in silence, but you rather desired the water of Raassom." Wherefore, I bring upon you the king of the Assyrians, who will level your mountains and will enter your lands. And so it came to pass: for Christ, repudiated, sent to the people the tyrant whom they had desired, who destroyed their cities, condemned their people to captivity, took their spoils, and reduced their homeland to the desolation of Sodom. For the Lord, out of indignation, took away from Jerusalem the power of bread and water: the strong man, the giant, the warrior, the judge, the prophet, the ordainer and the elder, the praiseworthy counselor and the skilled architect and the prudent helper.

All these aids, fortifications, and bulwarks he transferred to the Gentiles, and established his entire kingdom with an implanted sign: he dwelt in them, pitched his camp at the threshold, and there stationed his army of virtue, and there reigned. The kingdom of Jerusalem is no more; rather, here among us is the camp, here the army, here the leader, here the virtue, here the bridegroom, here the wedding, here the king, here Christ, here life, here resurrection, here eternity. This is he who was prefigured from the beginning, honored by the prophets, embodied in the womb, baptized in the Jordan, despised by the people, suspended on the wood, and buried in the earth. This is he who broke his old covenant and wrote a new one, by which he called the Gentiles to the possession of his goods: therefore we Gentiles bear on our shoulders the cross of our Lord, the cross which Israel confessed as Lord, who spoke to them gently with these words: "Come to me, all you who labor under burdens, and I will refresh you; for my yoke is gentle and my burden very light." And they answered: "We have not heard." But the Gentiles heard and believed the saving word, by which their ears were opened, the eyes of the blind were illuminated, the tongues of the speech-impaired were loosened, and the lame leaped forth like a wild beast frisking.

And Christ, with his kingdom, established a seat for them. But the people were left naked, deserted, widowed of the heavenly and earthly kingdom: for they were cast out of the heavenly realm. They obtained all the instruments and what they possessed: the lamp of seven lights, the machine of the testament, the sacred vessels and trumpets, and a homeland from heaven and a holy land flowing with milk and honey. Israel was deprived of this inheritance. And now you are left in all your land without food, without the aid of light. For you have destroyed aid and protection, you have persecuted the light, you have repelled the protector, you have hung up the suspended one, you have hanged the king. Therefore you are an exile from your own country; you wander around the rivers of the nations, with a suppliant voice and tearful prayer, saying: 'I have been cast out, wretched, from my own abodes; I have become a guest and a stranger in another's possession, without a home, without a roof. Have mercy on the deserted, the impious, and the one unworthily conquered.

This punishment is upon Israel and this condition upon Jerusalem: and unless they change their minds and say, "The Lord lives forever," they will not be able to enter into the life of the Lord. For He lives, His inheritances live, and He whom you killed lives, impious Jerusalem, and yet the Lord has not entirely denied you hope: for He has granted the pardon of repentance, if in any way you can repent. Who is so good, who is so dutiful, so merciful? "Take," He says, "salvation, although you have killed me: be an heir along with the virgin, although you do not deserve it. I forgive, if you repent." Therefore, if it is lawful, take up a good mind, even late or belatedly understand the new testament. Come now, you Gentiles, absolve them of their scriptures, but say: worship the Lord according to His merits: although you stretch out your hand to Him, even if you heap up your prayer, He does not hear: for your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, be clean, and come let us speak together, says the Lord God; He will wash the blood from you and will cleanse your hearts whiter than snow and your souls whiter than milk.

Come here, believe the scriptures—here is salvation. The law of God will go forth from Zion and the word from Jerusalem, and it will judge among the nations and rebuke the many people: those who clash together turn their swords into plowshares and their spears into sickles; no people will take up sword against another, they will cease to wage war. And you, house of Jacob, come, let us go into the light of the Lord; for He has released His people. Your region is filled with foreign prophecies, and your children are estranged. For this land is your own, and outsiders have become the Lord’s kindred. Come therefore, enter, and be as one people. Have mercy on those who err. It is fitting that the judgment of God be honored: how the great have been laid low and the humble raised up, the strong weakened, the weak strengthened, the rich reduced to poverty, the poor ** of inheritance, the masters enslaved, the enslaved ruling, the subjects called to rule, the seeing blinded, the blind enlightened, the wise turned to folly, the foolish turned to wisdom.

For indeed those who were once senseless and untaught in spirit now teach the scriptures and know and understand them; but those who from the beginning were learned and skilled and knew the discipline of the law do not know how to read nor understand spiritual things, and one of those wise men, desiring to see, comes, understands, asks a little boy or an old woman or a widow or a rustic, saying: 'I desire to live; be a guide, man, in Zion; explain to me the new testament, reconcile me to the Lord; behold, I deliver myself to you as a disciple; interpret for me the law which was given on Horeb; expound the precepts which are in Zion and in the law.' Without letters he expounds the scriptures to them, and a boy teaches an old man, and an old woman persuades an eloquent man. So Israel, rebuked, follows with a hand laid upon him to the bath, and there testifies that he has believed, and having received the sign, purified through the spirit, he asks to receive life through the food of the grace of the bread which is from the blessing, and a wondrous spectacle occurs: and those who as Levites used to offer and as priests used to sacrifice and as high priests used to pour libations stand by while a boy offers; they learn who once taught, and those who used to command are commanded, and those who used to baptize are baptized, and those who used to circumcise are circumcised: thus the Lord did not wish the nations to flourish. You see how much Christ loved you.