Chapter XII.--Isaiah's Prophecy of Emmanuel. Christ Entitled to that Name.
And challenge us first, as is your wont, to consider Isaiah's description of Christ, while you contend that in no point does it suit. For, to begin with, you say that Isaiah's Christ will have to be called Emmanuel; [3251] then, that He takes the riches of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of Assyria. [3252] But yet He who is come was neither born under such a name, nor ever engaged in any warlike enterprise. I must, however, remind you that you ought to look into the contexts [3253] of the two passages. For there is immediately added the interpretation of Emmanuel, "God with us;" so that you have to consider not merely the name as it is uttered, but also its meaning. The utterance is Hebrew, Emmanuel, of the prophet's own nation; but the meaning of the word, God with us, is by the interpretation made common property. Inquire, then, whether this name, God-with-us, which is Emmanuel, be not often used for the name of Christ, [3254] from the fact that Christ has enlightened the world. And I suppose you will not deny it, inasmuch as you do yourself admit that He is called God-with-us, that is, Emmanuel. Else if you are so foolish, that, because with you He gets the designation God-with-us, not Emmanuel, you therefore are unwilling to grant that He is come whose property it is to be called Emmanuel, as if this were not the same name as God-with-us, you will find among the Hebrew Christians, and amongst Marcionites too, that they name Him Emmanuel when they mean Him to be called God-with-us; just indeed as every nation, by whatever word they would express God-with-us, has called Him Emmanuel, completing the sound in its sense. Now since Emmanuel is God-with-us, and God-with-us is Christ, who is in us (for "as many of you as are baptized into Christ, have put on Christ" [3255] ), Christ is as properly implied in the meaning of the name, which is God-with-us, as He is in the pronunciation of the name, which is Emmanuel. And thus it is evident that He is now come who was foretold as Emmanuel, because what Emmanuel signifies is come, that is to say, God-with-us.
[3251] Isa. vii. 14.
[3252] Isa. viii. 4. Compare adv. Judæos, 9.
[3253] Cohærentia.
[3254] Agitetur in Christo.
[3255] Gal. iii. 27.
Chapter XIII.--Isaiah's Prophecies Considered. The Virginity of Christ's Mother a Sign. Other Prophecies Also Signs. Metaphorical Sense of Proper Names in Sundry Passages of the Prophets.
You are equally led away by the sound of names, [3256] when you so understand the riches of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria, and the king of Assyria, as if they portended that the Creator's Christ was a warrior, not attending to the promise contained in the passage, "For before the Child shall have knowledge to cry, My father and My mother, He shall take away the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria before the king of Assyria." [3257] You should first examine the point of age, whether it can be taken to represent Christ as even yet a man, [3258] much less a warrior. Although, to be sure, He might be about to call to arms by His cry as an infant; might be about to sound the alarm of war not with a trumpet, but with a little rattle; might be about to seek His foe, not on horseback, or in chariot, or from parapet, but from nurse's neck or nursemaid's back, and so be destined to subjugate Damascus and Samaria from His mother's breasts! It is a different matter, of course, when the babes of your barbarian Pontus spring forth to the fight. They are, I ween, taught to lance before they lacerate; [3259] swathed at first in sunshine and ointment, [3260] afterwards armed with the satchel, [3261] and rationed on bread and butter! [3262] Now, since nature, certainly, nowhere grants to man to learn warfare before life, to pillage the wealth of a Damascus before he knows his father and mother's name, it follows that the passage in question must be deemed to be a figurative one. Well, but nature, says he, does not permit "a virgin to conceive," and still the prophet is believed. And indeed very properly; for he has paved the way for the incredible thing being believed, by giving a reason for its occurrence, in that it was to be for a sign. "Therefore," says he, "the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son." [3263] Now a sign from God would not have been a sign, [3264] unless it had been some novel and prodigious thing. Then, again, Jewish cavillers, in order to disconcert us, boldly pretend that Scripture does not hold [3265] that a virgin, but only a young woman, [3266] is to conceive and bring forth. They are, however, refuted by this consideration, that nothing of the nature of a sign can possibly come out of what is a daily occurrence, the pregnancy and child-bearing of a young woman. A virgin mother is justly deemed to be proposed [3267] by God as a sign, but a warlike infant has no like claim to the distinction; for even in such a case [3268] there does not occur the character of a sign. But after the sign of the strange and novel birth has been asserted, there is immediately afterwards declared as a sign the subsequent course of the Infant, [3269] who was to eat butter and honey. Not that this indeed is of the nature of a sign, nor is His "refusing the evil;" for this, too, is only a characteristic of infancy. [3270] But His destined capture of the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria before the king of Assyria is no doubt a wonderful sign. [3271] Keep to the measure of His age, and seek the purport of the prophecy, and give back also to the truth of the gospel what you have taken away from it in the lateness of your heresy, [3272] and the prophecy at once becomes intelligible and declares its own accomplishment. Let those eastern magi wait on the new-born Christ, presenting to Him, (although) in His infancy, their gifts of gold and frankincense; and surely an Infant will have received the riches of Damascus without a battle, and unarmed.
For besides the generally known fact, that the riches of the East, that is to say, its strength and resources, usually consist of gold and spices, it is certainly true of the Creator, that He makes gold the riches of the other [3273] nations also. Thus He says by Zechariah: "And Judah shall also fight at Jerusalem and shall gather together all the wealth of the nations round about, gold and silver." [3274] Moreover, respecting that gift of gold, David also says: "And there shall be given to Him of the gold of Arabia;" [3275] and again: "The kings of Arabia and Saba shall offer to Him gifts." [3276] For the East generally regarded the magi as kings; and Damascus was anciently deemed to belong to Arabia, before it was transferred to Syrophoenicia on the division of the Syrias (by Rome). [3277] Its riches Christ then received, when He received the tokens thereof in the gold and spices; while the spoils of Samaria were the magi themselves. These having discovered Him and honoured Him with their gifts, and on bended knee adored Him as their God and King, through the witness of the star which led their way and guided them, became the spoils of Samaria, that is to say, of idolatry, because, as it is easy enough to see, [3278] they believed in Christ. He designated idolatry under the name of Samaria, as that city was shameful for its idolatry, through which it had then revolted from God from the days of king Jeroboam. Nor is this an unusual manner for the Creator, (in His Scriptures [3279] ) figuratively to employ names of places as a metaphor derived from the analogy of their sins. Thus He calls the chief men of the Jews "rulers of Sodom," and the nation itself "people of Gomorrah." [3280] And in another passage He also says: "Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite," [3281] by reason of their kindred iniquity; [3282] although He had actually called them His sons: "I have nourished and brought up children." [3283] So likewise by Egypt is sometimes understood, in His sense, [3284] the whole world as being marked out by superstition and a curse. [3285] By a similar usage Babylon also in our (St.) John is a figure of the city of Rome, as being like (Babylon) great and proud in royal power, and warring down the saints of God. Now it was in accordance with this style that He called the magi by the name of Samaritans, because (as we have said) they had practised idolatry as did the Samaritans. Moreover, by the phrase "before or against the king of Assyria," understand "against Herod;" against whom the magi then opposed themselves, when they refrained from carrying him back word concerning Christ, whom he was seeking to destroy.
[3256] Compare with this chapter, T.'s adv. Judæos, 9.
[3257] Isa. viii. 4.
[3258] Jam hominem, jam virum in Adv. Judæos, "at man's estate."
[3259] Lanceare ante quam lancinare. This play on words points to the very early training of the barbarian boys to war. Lancinare perhaps means, "to nibble the nipple with the gum."
[3260] He alludes to the suppling of their young joints with oil, and then drying them in the sun.
[3261] Pannis.
[3262] Butyro.
[3263] Isa. vii. 14.
[3264] The tam dignum of this place is "jam signum" in adv. Judæos.
[3265] Contineat.
[3266] This opinion of Jews and Judaizing heretics is mentioned by Irenæus, Adv. Hæret. iii. 21 (Stieren's ed. i. 532); Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 8; Jerome, Adv. Helvid. (ed. Benedict), p. 132. Nor has the cavil ceased to be held, as is well known, to the present day. The hlmh of Isa. vii. 4 is supposed by the Jewish Fuerst to be Isaiah's wife, and he quotes Kimchi's authority; while the neologian Gesenius interprets the word, a bride, and rejects the Catholic notion of an unspotted virgin. To make way, however, for their view, both Fuerst and Gesenius have to reject the LXX. rendering, parthenos.
[3267] Disposita.
[3268] Et hic.
[3269] Alius ordo jam infantis.
[3270] Infantia est. Better in adv. Judæos, "est infantiæ."
[3271] The italicised words we have added from adv. Judæos, "hoc est mirabile signum."
[3272] Posterior. Posteritas is an attribute of heresy in T.'s view.
[3273] Ceterarum, other than the Jews, i.e., Gentiles.
[3274] Zech. xiv. 14.
[3275] Ps. lxxii. 15.
[3276] Ps. lxxii. 10.
[3277] See Otto's Justin Martyr, ii. 273, n. 23. [See Vol. I. p. 238, supra.]
[3278] Videlicet.
[3279] The Creatori here answers to the Scripturis divinis of the parallel passage in adv. Judæos. Of course there is a special force in this use of the Creator's name here against Marcion.
[3280] Isa. i. 10.
[3281] Ezek. xvi. 3.
[3282] To the sins of these nations.
[3283] Isa. i. 2.
[3284] Apud illum, i.e., Creatorem.
[3285] Maledictionis.