Chapter XIX.—Prophecies of the Death of Christ.

Come now, when you read in the words of David, how that “the Lord reigneth from the tree,”1035    Ps. xcvi. 10, with a ligno added. I want to know what you understand by it.  Perhaps you think some wooden1036    Lignarium aliquem regem. king of the Jews is meant!—and not Christ, who overcame death by His suffering on the cross, and thence reigned! Now, although death reigned from Adam even to Christ, why may not Christ be said to have reigned from the tree, from His having shut up the kingdom of death by dying upon the tree of His cross?  Likewise Isaiah also says: “For unto us a child is born.”1037    Isa. ix. 6. But what is there unusual in this, unless he speaks of the Son of God? “To us is given He whose government is upon His shoulder.”1038    Isa. ix. 6. Now, what king is there who bears the ensign of his dominion upon his shoulder, and not rather upon his head as a diadem, or in his hand as a sceptre, or else as a mark in some royal apparel? But the one new King of the new ages, Jesus Christ, carried on His shoulder both the power and the excellence of His new glory, even His cross; so that, according to our former prophecy, He might thenceforth reign from the tree as Lord.  This tree it is which Jeremiah likewise gives you intimation of, when he prophesies to the Jews, who should say, “Come, let us destroy the tree with the fruit, (the bread) thereof,”1039    Jer. xi. 19. that is, His body. For so did God in your own gospel even reveal the sense, when He called His body bread; so that, for the time to come, you may understand that He has given to His body the figure of bread, whose body the prophet of old figuratively turned into bread, the Lord Himself designing to give by and by an interpretation of the mystery. If you require still further prediction of the Lord’s cross, the twenty-first Psalm1040    The twenty-second Psalm. A.V. is sufficiently able to afford it to you, containing as it does the entire passion of Christ, who was even then prophetically declaring1041    Canentis. His glory. “They pierced,” says He, “my hands and my feet,”1042    Ps. xxii. 16. which is the special cruelty of the cross.  And again, when He implores His Father’s help, He says, “Save me from the lion’s mouth,” that is, the jaws of death, “and my humiliation from the horns of the unicorns;” in other words, from the extremities of the cross, as we have shown above. Now, David himself did not suffer this cross, nor did any other king of the Jews; so that you cannot suppose that this is the prophecy of any other’s passion than His who alone was so notably crucified by the nation.  Now should the heretics, in their obstinacy,1043    Hæretica duritia. reject and despise all these interpretations, I will grant to them that the Creator has given us no signs of the cross of His Christ; but they will not prove from this concession that He who was crucified was another (Christ), unless they could somehow show that this death was predicted as His by their own god, so that from the diversity of predictions there might be maintained to be a diversity of sufferers,1044    Passionum, literally sufferings, which would hardly give the sense. and thereby also a diversity of persons.  But since there is no prophecy of even Marcion’s Christ, much less of his cross, it is enough for my Christ that there is a prophecy merely of death. For, from the fact that the kind of death is not declared, it was possible for the death of the cross to have been still intended, which would then have to be assigned to another (Christ), if the prophecy had had reference to another. Besides,1045    Nisi. if he should be unwilling to allow that the death of my Christ was predicted, his confusion must be the greater1046    Quo magis erubescat. if he announces that his own Christ indeed died, whom he denies to have had a nativity, whilst denying that my Christ is mortal, though he allows Him to be capable of birth. However, I will show him the death, and burial, and resurrection of my Christ all1047    Et—et—et. indicated in a single sentence of Isaiah, who says, “His sepulture was removed from the midst of them.” Now there could have been no sepulture without death, and no removal of sepulture except by resurrection. Then, finally, he added: “Therefore He shall have many for his inheritance, and He shall divide the spoil of the many, because He poured out His soul unto death.”1048    Isa. liii. 12. For there is here set forth the cause of this favour to Him, even that it was to recompense Him for His suffering of death. It was equally shown that He was to obtain this recompense for His death, was certainly to obtain it after His death by means of the resurrection.1049    Both His own and His people’s.

CAPUT XIX.

Age nunc, si legisti penes David (Ps. XCV, 10), Dominus regnavit a ligno, expecto quid intelligas, nisi forte lignarium aliquem regem significari Judaeorum, et non Christum, qui exinde a passione ligni superata morte regnavit. Etsi enim mors ab Adam regnavit usque ad Christum, cur Christus non regnasse dicatur a ligno, ex quo crucis ligno mortuus, regnum 0347C mortis exclusit? Proinde et Isaias (Is. IX, 6): Quoniam, inquit, puer natus est nobis, et datus est nobis filius . Quid novi, si non de Filio Dei dicit ? Cujus imperium factum est super humerum ipsius. Qui omnino regum insigne potestatis suae humero praefert, et non aut capite diadema, aut manu sceptrum, 0348A aut aliquam propriae vestis notam; Sed solus novus rex novorum aevorum Christus Jesus, novae gloriae et potestatem et sublimitatem suam humero extulit, crucem scilicet, ut, secundum superiorem prophetiam, exinde Dominus regnaret a ligno. Hoc lignum et Hieremias (Jerem., XI, 9) tibi insinuat, dicturis praedicans Judaeis: Venite, mittamuslignum in panem ejus, utique in corpus. Sic enim Deus in Evangelio quoque vestro revelavit panem corpus suum appellans , ut et hinc jam eum intelligas corporis sui figuram pani dedisse, cujus retro corpus in panem Prophetes figuravit, ipso Domino hoc sacramentum postea interpretaturo. Si adhuc quaeris dominicae crucis praedicationem, satis jam tibi potest facere vigesimus primus psalmus , totam Christi continens 0348B passionem, canentis jam tunc gloriam suam: Foderunt, inquit (Ps., XXI, 17), manus meas et pedes; quae proprie atrocitas crucis. Et rursus, cum auxilium Patris implorat: Salvum, inquit (ibid. 22), fac me ex ore leonis, utique mortis; et de cornibus unicornishumilitatem; de apicibus scilicet crucis, ut supra ostendimus. Quam crucem nec ipse David passus est, nec ullus rex Judaeorum; ne putes alterius alicujus prophetari passionem, quam ejus qui solus a populo tam insigniter crucifixus est. Nunc et si omnes istas interpretationes respuerit et irriserit haeretica duritia, concedam illi nullam Christi crucem significatam a Creatore: quia nec ex hoc probabit alium esse qui crucifixus est, nisi forte ostenderit hunc exitum ejus a suo Deo praedicatum; ut diversitas 0348C passionum, ac per hoc etiam personarum, ex diversitate praedicationum vindicetur. Caeterum, nec ipso Christo ejus praedicato, nedum cruce ipsius, sufficit in meum Christum solius mortis prophetia. Ex hoc enim quod non est edita qualitas mortis, potuit et per crucem evenisse, tunc alii deputanda, 0349A si in alium fuisset praedicatum, nisi si nec mortem volet Christi mei prohetatam; quo magis erubescat, si suum quidem Christum mortuum annuntiat, quem negat natum: meum vero mortalem negat, quem nascibilem confitetur. Et mortem autem et sepulturam et resurrectionem Christi mei, una voce Isaiae volo ostendere, dicentis (Is. LVIII, 2): Sepultura ejus sublata de medio est. Nec sepultus enim esset, nisi mortuus; nec sepultura ejus sublata de medio, nisi per resurrectionem. Denique subjecit (Is., LIII, 12): Propterea ipse multos haereditati habebit et multorum dividet spolia. Quis enim alius, nisi qui natus est, ut supra ostendimus? Pro eo quod tradita est anima ejus in mortem. Ostensa est enim caussa gratiae hujus, pro injuria scilicet mortis repensandae: pariter ostensum est, haec illum propter mortem consecuturum , post mortem utique per resurrectionem consecuturum .