The Cross Foretold

But they put forward other reasons for the anger and envy they kept shut up inside them. He was loosening the binding force of the law given through Moses: he did not keep the Sabbath free of work, but worked for people’s good; he did away with circumcision; he took away the need to abstain from the flesh of pigs — and the mysteries of the Jewish religion consist in these very things. So the rest of the people, who had not yet gone over to Christ, were stirred up by the priests to think of him as impious, on the ground that he was destroying the binding force of God’s law. But he did not do this on his own judgment. He did it according to the will of God, and after the prophets had foretold it. For Micah announced that he would give a new law, in these words: “The law will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he will judge among many peoples, and rebuke strong nations.” For the earlier law, the one given through Moses, was not given on Mount Zion but on Mount Horeb; and the Sibyl shows that this law was going to be destroyed by the Son of God: [a]

But Moses himself — the man through whom the law was given that they hold on to so stubbornly, though they have fallen away from God and have not acknowledged God — had foretold that a very great prophet would be sent by God, one who would stand above the law and carry the will of God to people. In Deuteronomy he left this in writing: “And the Lord said to me: I will raise up for them a Prophet from among their brothers, like you; and I will put my word in his mouth, and he will speak to them everything I command him. And whoever will not listen to what that Prophet speaks in my name, I will call him to account for it.” So through the lawgiver himself the Lord plainly announced that he was about to send his own Son — that is, a law alive and present in person — and to destroy that old law given by a mortal man, so that through the one who was eternal he might establish a law that was eternal all over again.

In the same way Isaiah prophesied about the doing away of circumcision: “This is what the Lord says to the men of Judah who live at Jerusalem: Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord your God, and take away the foreskins of your heart, or my fury will go out like fire and burn, and no one will quench it.” Moses himself also says: “In the last days the Lord will circumcise your heart, so that you love the Lord your God.” And Jesus the son of Nun, his successor, said: “And the Lord said to Jesus: Make yourself knives of flint, very sharp, and sit down and circumcise the children of Israel a second time.” He meant that this second circumcision would not be of the flesh, as the first was — the one the Jews practice even now — but of the heart and the spirit, and that it was delivered by Christ, who was the true Jesus. For the prophet does not say, “And the Lord said to me,” but “to Jesus,” to show that God was not speaking about him but about Christ, to whom God was speaking then. That Jesus stood for Christ as a figure. At first he was called Auses; Moses, seeing what was coming, ordered that he be called Jesus, so that — since he had been chosen as leader in the war against Amalek, the enemy of the children of Israel — he might both beat down the enemy by what the name stood for and lead the people into the land that had been promised. That is also why he was Moses’ successor: to show that the new law given by Christ Jesus was about to succeed the old law given through Moses.

For circumcision of the flesh is plainly unreasonable. If God had wanted it that way, he could have formed man from the beginning without a foreskin. But it was a figure of this second circumcision, signifying that the breast is to be laid bare — that is, that we ought to live with an open and honest heart, since the part of the body that is circumcised has a certain likeness to the heart, and is to be treated with reverence. That is why God ordered it to be laid bare: so that by this argument he might warn us not to have our breast wrapped up in the dark — not, that is, to hide any shameful act away in the secret places of conscience. This is the circumcision of the heart the prophets speak of, which God moved from the mortal flesh to the soul, the one thing that is going to last. In his own goodness he wants our life and our salvation, and so in that circumcision he set repentance before us: if we lay our hearts open — that is, if we confess our sins and make amends to God — we will obtain pardon. It is denied to those who are stubborn and cover up their faults, and it is denied them by the one who does not look at the outward appearance, as a man does, but at the innermost secrets of the heart.

The forbidding of pork has the same purpose. When God commanded them to keep away from it, what he especially wanted understood was that they should keep away from sins and impurities. This animal is filthy and unclean. It never looks up at the sky; it throws itself down to the ground with its whole body and face. It is always the slave of its appetite and its food, and while it lives it can perform no other service, as the other animals do — which carry a rider, or help with working the fields, or draw wagons by the neck, or carry loads on their backs, or provide a covering with their hides, or give a plentiful supply of milk, or keep watch over our houses. So he forbade them to use the flesh of the pig for food: that is, not to imitate the life of pigs, which are fed only for slaughter. Otherwise, by giving themselves over to appetite and pleasure, they would be useless for doing what is right, and would be visited with death. And they were not to sink themselves in foul lusts, like the sow that wallows in the mire; and they were not to serve earthly images and so dirty themselves with mud — for people who worship gods do smear themselves with mud, since what they worship is mud and earth. So all the commands of the Jewish law aim at setting out righteousness, and they are given in a figurative way, so that under the figure of bodily things the things of the spirit might be known.

So when Christ was carrying out these things that God wanted done, and had foretold many ages before through his prophets, they were stirred up by them; and knowing nothing of the sacred writings, they plotted together to condemn their own God. He knew this was going to happen, and said again and again that he had to suffer and be put to death for the salvation of many. Even so, he withdrew with his disciples — not to escape what it was necessary for him to undergo and endure, but to show what ought to be done in every persecution: no one should appear to have brought it on himself by his own fault. And he announced that he would be betrayed by one of them. So Judas, drawn on by a payment, handed the Son of God over to the Jews. They took him and brought him before Pontius Pilate, who at that time was administering the province of Syria as governor, and they demanded that he be crucified — though they laid nothing else to his charge except that he said he was the Son of God, the King of the Jews; and also this saying of his: “Destroy this temple, which took forty-six years to build, and in three days I will raise it up again without hands.” By that he was signaling that his suffering would come shortly, and that after being put to death by the Jews he would rise again on the third day; for he himself was the true temple of God. They attacked these words of his as ill-omened and impious. When Pilate had heard all this, and Christ said nothing in his own defense, Pilate gave sentence that there appeared to be nothing in him deserving condemnation. But those utterly unjust accusers, together with the crowd they had stirred up, began to shout and to demand at the top of their voices that he be crucified. [p]

Then Pontius was overpowered both by their shouting and by the pressure of Herod the tetrarch, who was afraid of being thrown out of his own rule. Even so, he did not pass sentence himself; he handed him over to the Jews, so that they might judge him by their own law. So they led him away after he had been beaten with rods, and before they crucified him they mocked him. They put a scarlet robe on him and a crown of thorns, and saluted him as king; they gave him gall for food, and mixed vinegar for him to drink. After that they spat in his face and struck him with the flat of their hands; and when the executioners themselves argued over his clothes, they cast lots among themselves for his tunic and his cloak. While all this was being done, he made no sound with his mouth, as though he were mute. Then they lifted him up between two criminals who had been condemned for robbery, and fastened him to the cross. What can I lament here, in a crime so great? In what words can I mourn wickedness on such a scale? For it is not the crucifixion of Gavius that we are describing — the one Marcus Tullius pursued with all the spirit and force of his eloquence, pouring out, as it were, the springs of his whole genius, declaring it a shameful thing that a Roman citizen should be crucified against all law. And Christ was innocent, and did not deserve that punishment; yet he was put to death, and put to death by an impious man who knew nothing of justice. What shall I say about the outrage of that cross, on which the Son of God was hung and nailed? Who will be found eloquent enough, supplied with so great a wealth of deeds and words, whose speech pours out with such abundance, as to mourn as it deserves that cross which the world itself, and all the elements of the world, wept for?

But that all this was going to happen was announced both by the words of the prophets and by the predictions of the Sibyls. In Isaiah this is found in writing: “I am not rebellious, and I do not resist. I gave my back to the whip, and my cheeks to the hand; I did not turn my face away from the foulness of spitting.” In the same way David, in the thirty-fourth Psalm: “Men fit for the whip were gathered together against me, and they did not know me. They were scattered, and they felt no remorse. They put me to the test, and mocked me with utter mockery, and they gnashed at me with their teeth.” The Sibyl also showed that the same things would happen:

Likewise about his silence, which he kept up all the way to his death, Isaiah spoke again in this way: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb before its shearer he was silent, so he did not open his mouth.” And the Sibyl already mentioned said:

But about the food and the drink they offered him before they fastened him to the cross, David speaks this way in the sixty-eighth Psalm: “And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” The Sibyl foretold that this would happen too:

And another Sibyl rebukes the land of Judea in these lines:

Now that the Jews would lay hands on their God and put him to death — this the testimonies of the prophets foretold. In Ezra it is written like this: “And Ezra said to the people: This Passover is our Savior and our refuge. Think it over, and let it come into your heart, that we have to bring him low in a sign; and after that we will hope in him, so that this place may not be deserted forever, says the Lord God of hosts. If you will not believe him, or listen to his announcement, you will be a laughing-stock among the nations.” From which it appears that the Jews had no other hope, unless they cleansed themselves from blood and put their hope in the very person they denied. Isaiah also points out what they did, and says: “In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who will describe his generation? For his life will be taken away from the earth; because of the transgressions of my people he was led away to death. And I will give the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death, because he did no wickedness, nor spoke deceit with his mouth. Therefore he will obtain many, and will divide the spoils of the strong; because he was handed over to death, and was counted among the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and was handed over on account of their transgressions.” David also, in the ninety-third Psalm: “They will hunt down the soul of the righteous man, and condemn innocent blood; and the Lord has become my refuge.” And Jeremiah: “Lord, tell me and I will know. Then I saw what they were plotting. I was led like an innocent lamb to the sacrifice; they thought out a plan against me, saying: Come, let us put wood into his bread, and let us sweep his life away from the earth, and his name will be remembered no more.” Now the wood stands for the cross, and the bread for his body; for he himself is the food and the life of all who believe in the flesh he carried, and in the cross on which he was hung.

About this, though, Moses himself spoke more plainly, in Deuteronomy: “And your life will hang before your eyes; and you will be afraid day and night, and will have no assurance of your life.” And the same man again in Numbers: “God is not in doubt like a man, nor does he give way to threats like a son of man.” Zechariah too wrote this: “And they will look on me, whom they pierced.” And David in the twenty-first Psalm: “They pierced my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones; they themselves looked and stared at me; they divided my clothes among them, and cast lots for my garment.” It is clear that the prophet was not saying these things about himself. He was a king, and he never went through such sufferings. It was the Spirit of God, who was going to suffer these things one thousand and fifty years later, who spoke through him; for that is the number of years from the reign of David to the crucifixion of Christ. But Solomon his son, who built Jerusalem, also prophesied that this very city would perish in revenge for the sacred cross: “But if you turn away from me, says the Lord, and will not keep my truth, I will drive Israel out of the land I have given them; and this house, which I have built for them in my name, I will cast out from everything. And Israel will be given over to ruin and to reproach among the peoples; and this house will be desolate, and everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will say: Why has God done these evil things to this land and to this house? And they will say: Because they abandoned the Lord their God, and persecuted their King, the one most loved by God, and crucified him with great degradation — that is why God has brought these evils upon them.”