Introduction
The Teaching of Jacob Newly Baptized (Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati) is a Greek dialogue text set in 7th-century Carthage (specifically, the action takes place in spring and summer of the year 634). The Jews of Carthage, including an unfortunate visiting merchant named Jacob, have been forcibly baptized upon the orders of the Emperor Heraclius. (The Doctrina is one of only two contemporary sources for this imperial order; the other is a letter from Maximos the Confessor, also resident in Carthage at the time, arguing against the forced baptisms.) Jacob alone of the converted Jews comes to believe truly in Christ as the messiah, through study and supernatural intervention, and instructs his fellow ex-Jews in a secret house. When another unbaptized Jew named Justus arrives (in Book III), Jacob convinces him as well that Jews are right to receive baptism and await the impending end of the world.
Jewish-Christian dialogues saw an upsurge in the seventh century as did apocalyptic texts. Unique among Christian anti-Jewish dialogue texts, the Teaching of Jacob anticipates and hopes for the imminent collapse of the Roman Empire as a precondition for the return of Christ in glory. Nonetheless it does seem to have been considered as part of the Christian literary genre of anti-Jewish dialogue, insofar as surviving codices place it with other late dialogues: in one major witness, Paris Coislin 299, the Teaching of Jacob is followed immediately by the fifth-century Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila.
Although the bulk of the Teaching of Jacob comprises long strings of often uncontextualized (if not at times seemingly random) proof-texts, it also contains realistic windows into the social world of the seventh-century Roman Empire: imperial politics; the public brawling of circus factions ("Blues" and "Greens"); the social conflicts of Jews and Christians; the devastation of the Persian wars of the 610s-620s; and the rise of Islam, including a reference to a "false prophet" in Book V who is indubitably Muhammad (perhaps the earliest non-Islamic reference to Muhammad).
The text below has been translated from the Greek text edited by Vincent Déroche, "Doctrina Jacobi," Travaux et Mémoires 11 (1991): 71-219. Bracketed numbers refer to page numbers in Déroche's edition. Book, chapter, and section division numbers are Déroche's. Section titles appearing in the margins are my own and are provided for convenience. I have also added markers to indicate breaks and meetings among the participants; note that the series of dialogues lasts several weeks.
I would like to thank my Advanced Greek students at Harvard Divinity School who read through portions of this text with me as I was revising this translation: Chance Bonar, David Malamud, and Yuan Tao.
You may link to, share, or reproduce this translation with attribution. You may not make any commercial use of this work. Any suggestions for corrections or additions to the text or annotations are more than welcome: andrew [at] andrewjacobs [dot] org.
If you prefer, you can download a PDF of this file here.
Translation
[71]
Skip ahead to: Book II, Book III, Book IV, Book V
BOOK I
First Meeting[71-75] [I.1-4 survives only in non-Greek witnesses. It describes Heraclius's order, executed by the eparch George, or Sergius, in Carthage and the forcible baptisms. Jacob arrives, pretends to be Christian to avoid baptism, but forgets himself and calls upon "Adonai." He is overheard by a suspicious local, who later sees Jacob's circumcision in the baths and turns him in. Jacob spends 100 days in prison and is forcibly baptized. Afterward, directed by a divine vision, he studies Scriptures and realizes that Christianity is true. He meets the discouraged baptized Jews and agrees to teach them; they meet in a hidden house on a Saturday.]
THAT CHRIST HAS COME … I.5. The holy law and the prophets proclaimed Christ coming as "a sun of righteousness" (Mal 4:2). The same law and the prophets in advance revealed him coming "out of the root of Jesse" (Isa 11:10) and "girding his loins in righteousness" and "binding his side with truth" (Isa 11:5), his coming, and they claimed that through him all of human nature would be saved, really inspired by the Holy Spirit; and they made clear the birth of the Anointed One and the incarnation and the wonders that would be done by him and the passion and the cross and the death and the resurrection from the dead and the ascent into heaven and the coming afterward of Hermolaos the devil and deceiver, Hermalaos appears as a negative apocalyptic figure in contemporary Jewish apocalypses, but as a positive figure in Christian apocalypses, in both cases usually called something like Armilos (=Romulus). His appearance in the Doctrina as an anti-Christ figure, especially in the last two books, has led some scholars to posit a Jewish background for the author and/or audience. which would be three and a half years (cf. Dan 7:25), and his destruction and the consummation of the world; and the second and great and estimable and fearsome and terrifying coming of Christ himself, "the great and remarkable day of the Lord" (Joel 2:11), just as the prophets said, on which "he is going to repay each person according to his deeds" (Rom 2:6). Just as Daniel the great prophet says: "I looked," he said, "and behold with the heavenly clouds one coming like the Son of Man and he has come unto the Ancient of Days and the rule and the honor and the kingdom were given to him and all the tribes and tongues will be enslaved to him" (Dan 7:13-14).
6. The divine Scripture therefore has taught us so no one would be deceived and accept another in the place of the true Anointed One Throughout the Doctrina uses the literal Greek Ēleimmenou (Ἠλειμμένου) to refer to the Anointed One; Déroche and others view this as a particularly Jewish terminological choice. when he came, and they have revealed in advance the times of the coming of Christ. [77] The Father of all, our heavenly God, says through David concerning his Son: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the provocation, just as your fathers tested me in the wilderness" (Ps 94 [95]:7-8). Our whole Jewish people have night and day prayed to see the coming of Christ, just as you know, the salvation of the whole world. But we have been mistaken, supposing that Christ was not the one born from Saint Mary. For we did not want to hear anything concerning Christ, nor could we behold with pleasure the divine Scriptures about Christ. Our "hearts were engorged" (Isa 6:10) truly, just as Isaiah the prophet says; "in drunkenness and strong drink" (Luke 21:34) we were deceived by the devil, so we wouldn't know and be healed. This is why God gave us the idleness of the Sabbath, so that we would pray and examine the divine Scriptures for when Christ comes so that he would save us. But every Sabbath we ate until we groaned, and we had intercourse and sinned with our wives, getting drunk and fornicating, and we sought out the works of the world in our love of money, and we had no care for divine things. And because of this we did not understand the coming of Christ and we did not ask why it was delayed, as the prophet says: "The one coming will come and he will not tarry" (Hab 2:3), and again, in case he was the one coming.
7. But I, as before God, was reassured that he is Christ who was begotten from Saint Mary, and I thank God that they baptized me even though I was unwilling and they made me a Christian. From the time I was baptized, night and day, with tears and weeping and fasting, I have not stopped scrutinizing the law and the prophets in the Greek language, consulting books from the church through Christian friends from one monastery in Carthage, asking if there was any chance that, having been baptized and having become Christian, I was not mistaken. And I found Mr. Throughout the Doctrina, the participants respectfully address each other using kuris (κύρις; "sir"), a form of the more common Greek kurios (κύριος; "lord," "master"). To capture this somewhat stiff formality, I render it as "Mr." (Déroche used the archaic French messire). Uniquely here Jacob uses the term of a hero from the biblical past. Moses saying, or rather the Holy Spirit through Moses, as out of our father Jacob in the blessing of his sons thus: "Judah, your brothers will praise you, your hands on the back of your enemies, the sons of your father will venerate you: a lion's cub is Judah, out of a shoot, my son, you have risen up" (Gen 49:8-9). And we see Christ coming, because he is out of Judah, truly human and truly God, he is the one Christ.
[79] 8. For David said: "Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord, the Lord God, and he has shined upon us" (Ps 117 [118]:26-27). And he says again: "And a person was begotten in her and the Most High himself has established her" (Ps 86 [87]:5). And again Jeremiah says: "He is our God, let no other be accounted before him" and again: "Afterward he was seen upon the earth and he conversed with humans" (Bar 3:36-37). And Isaiah said: "Behold, the virgin will conceive in her womb and she will give birth to a son and they will call him his name, Emanuel" (Isa 7:14) and again: "I came to the prophetess and she conceived in her womb and bore a son. And the Lord said: Call him by the name Quickly-Despoil-and-Swiftly-Plunder" (Isa 8:3). For Christ despoiled death and Hades and he liberated the prisoners from the hand of the devil and he defeated the diabolical error of the idols, just as Moses said. For he said: "Your hands on the backs of your enemies, and the sons of your father will venerate you." Well indeed has the prophet spoken: For when Adam the first human sinned, all humankind came under the control of the devil and was trampled, and all creation worshiped demons. As the divine Scripture says: "The idols of the nations are demons" (Ps 95 [96]:5) and neither the holy law nor the prophets rescued the world from the error of idols. Even the prophets were in danger and the kings who knew the law and the prophets were mistaken: Ahab and Manasseh and many others. For the prophets predicted that through the coming of Christ the salvation of the world would take place. When the Word of God came and took on flesh from the seed of Judah and was pleased to become a human (since humans cannot bear to look upon the bare divinity) he set his hands "on the back of his enemies"—for Christ, being human and God, chased back the demons, who were fleeing and quaking: for the one fleeing is thrashed on the back—but also in stretching his hands on the cross he defeated the devil. So humanity venerates Christ as a brother, on account of our flesh which he took up, and as God, whether they want to or not. For no one will dare to say: "I do not venerate the flesh, because it is created," just as no one dares to say to the emperor: "Strip off the cloak you're wearing, or else I shall not venerate you." But the Emperor is venerated with what he's wearing, just as also the Word of God is venerated with his flesh, which he took up from us humans. Just as Daniel says: "Behold with the clouds of heaven comes one like the Son of Man, and the authority and honor and kingdom are given to him, and all the peoples, tribes, tongues are enslaved to him" (Dan 7:13-14).
[81] 9. Just as also Isaiah says: "A child has been begotten for us, a son was given to us, almighty God, father of the age to come" (Isa 9:5-6). And Moses says in Numbers through Balaam: "A person will go forth from the seed of Israel and he will be lord of many nations and his empire will be exalted. He will eat the nations of his enemies and he will suck the marrow of their fat and he will shoot the enemy with his arrows" and again: "A star will rise from Jacob and a man will rise up out of Israel" "and he will be the lord of many nations" (Num 24:7-8, 17). And again in Deuteronomy Moses says: "If you enter into your land, which the Lord your God gives to you, you will not learn to act according to the abominations of those nations," and later: "But the Lord your God will raise up a prophet for you, like me, you will listen to him according to all things, as many as you asked from the Lord your God, saying on Horeb: We shall not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor shall we see any longer that great fire, or else we shall die. And the Lord said to Moses: Correctly have they spoken all these things. I shall raise up a prophet for them out of the midst of their brothers, just like you, and I shall give my words into his mouth and he will speak to them, just as I command him; and the person who doesn't hear such words as the prophet speaks in my name, I shall punish him" (Deut 18:9, 15-19). You see, brothers, that Christ came, who is also the Word of God and who was entirely with God but teaching us as a human the mysteries of God and the Kingdom of Heaven, giving us through the holy gospels a new law as a lawgiver, so that Moses might truthfully say "like me," he said a certain lawgiver was coming.
10. Just so Jeremiah proclaimed saying that the law of Moses would cease and another, better law would rise up, in which all sins would be forgiven to humans. For Jeremiah says: "Behold days come, says the Lord, and I shall establish for the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I established with their fathers, when I took them by their hands to bring them out of the land of Egypt, because they have not remained in the my covenant and I have overlooked them, says the Lord. Because this is the covenant which I shall establish with the house of Judah after those days, says the Lord, giving my laws into their minds and I shall write them upon their hearts, and I shall be for them as a God and they [83] will be for me as a people. And no one will teach his neighbor nor anyone his brother saying: Know the Lord, because from their smallest to their greatest they will know me, because I shall be gracious with their sins and their transgressions and their injustices I shall not remember, says the Lord" (Jer 38 [31]:31-34). For Christ came proclaiming a new covenant, to love even enemies with an exuberant love, teaching them to venerate the God of Abraham he also rescued the nations from the error of idols, teaching all creation knowledge of God. Therefore really Christ was shown to be the great lawmaker and is so as the Word of God. Similarly again God says through Ezekiel that another law, above the law of Moses, is going to be brought forth: "I shall remember my covenant with you in your youth and I shall establish with you an eternal covenant and you will remember your way" (Ezek 16:60-61); and again, "The parable which was spoken will not be, Until the third and fourth generation I shall repay sins; nor will the son receive on behalf of his father, but the one eating the unripe fruit his teeth will be set on edge" (Jer 38 [31]:29-30). Behold, brothers, the overturning the law, or rather the fulfillment of the holy law by God's command. For the law and the prophets proclaimed the coming of Christ appearing in the flesh. For it was not possible for the unseen God to appear except through flesh; for the Word of God is inaccessible to humans. That Christ is God, Isaiah says: "No ambassador or messenger, but God himself when he came has saved us" (Isa 63:9). And again God and the Father say through Isaiah concerning Christ: "Behold my child whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well-pleased. I shall set my spirit upon him, and he will bring forth judgment to the nations; he will not fight and he will not howl; he will not break the crushed reed and he will not quench the smoking flax until he sets judgment upon the earth. He will shine forth and he will not be aggrieved until he brings forth judgment upon the earth and the nations will have hope in his name" (Isa 42:1-4; Matt 12:18-21). Behold, my brothers, that, just as our God said, the nations place their hope in the name of Christ, and he is Christ who is the son of God begotten from the Virgin Mary.
11. And again Isaiah says: "Old things
have passed away" "and I proclaim new things to you,
and before proclaiming they were made clear to you. Sing to
God a new hymn,"
that is the new covenant of Christ. And again: "His rule is
glorified above. Those from the end of the earth glorify his
name, those who go down into the sea and sail it and all the
islands" (Isa 42:9-10). Behold, the new law of Christ is
proclaimed above in the heavens and on earth. And again Isaiah
says: "The redeemer will come out of Zion and he will turn
away [85] the impieties from Jacob and this covenant is
from me for them" "when I take away their sins"
(Isa 59:20-21, 27:9). See, my brothers, that creation will not
be saved through the law of Moses, but through another new law
which is arising. Just as also Jeremiah says: "He is our God,
let no other be considered before him; he has found every way
of knowledge and he has given it to his son Jacob and to
Israel who is beloved by him; afterward upon the earth he was
seen and he conversed with humans. This is the book of the
commandments of God and the law abiding forever; all those
possessing it [remain] in life, but those leaving it behind
will die" (Bar 3:35-4:1). Let us therefore, my brothers,
possess the book of life, the new covenant of Christ, so we
aren't destroyed in faithlessness. For he says: "Return,
Jacob, and seize her, pass through to the illumination before
her light" (Bar 4:2). Behold, my brothers, that the
prophet moved by the Holy Spirit calls the new covenant of
Christ "light" and "life," and [behold] those leaving it behind
condemned to eternal death and everlasting punishment. There can
be no more Judaizing now that Christ has come. And again
Jeremiah says: "Behold the days come, says the Lord, and I
shall raise up for David a righteous descendant, and the
righteous emperor will reign, and he will make judgment and
righteousness in the midst of the earth. And in his days Judah
will be saved and Israel will make camp, in trust. And this is
the name which the Lord will call him, Josedek, the Lord is
our righteousness, and he is in the prophets" (Jer
23:5-6). Have you heard the judgment and the righteousness, the
new covenant of Christ? Let no one stand apart from faith in
Christ.
12. Those from the circumcision
ON THE NEW COVENANT
answered and said: But why did Moses say: "Guard this law and
live in it" (cf. Lev 18:5), but you say, Mr.
Jacob, that it is necessarily no longer to Judaize and keep the
Sabbath? Throughout
the Doctrina "Judaize" translates the Greek word ioudaïzen
(ἰουδαϊζειν) and "keep the Sabbath" translates the Greek verb
sabbatizein (σαββατίζειν). We want both to
keep the Sabbath and believe in Christ.
Jacob answered and said: Moses, the great lawgiver, taught us, saying: "Guard" this law, which God gave you through me, and after you enter into the promised land do not do "according to the abominations of those nations." Because of the error of their abominations the Lord himself will wipe them out. But you are "not like this, but the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet out of your brothers, like me," that is, a great lawgiver, "a mediator of God and humans" (1 Tim 2:5) "heed him in all things" (Deut 18:9, 12, 14-15). Therefore Christ came, the Word of God who became a human unchanged and mediating between God and humans, just as the great prophet Moses said to us. Therefore let us listen to all the words of Christ when he came, or else Moses also [87] will become our accuser in the future. For even Malachi also says: "The sun of righteousness rises on those who fear" him (Mal 4:2). And David says: "The day is yours and the night is yours" (Ps 73 [74]:16). In the night "God made the lights," the moon "and the stars" (Gen 1:16). So suitably God made the moon and the stars, to shine in the night on the earth and the sea, but also conveniently burning lamps shine by night in a house. Once the morning-star has risen, we expect the rest of the light of the day and the sun. Once the sun has risen, no light of the moon or of the stars shines, but they are idle in shining, and burning lamps do not shine by day, on account of the superior illumination of the sun. I am not saying, to be sure, that the moon and the stars are not noble, but that God when he spoke established the moon "and the stars" "to regulate the night" (Gen 1:16). But it also happens often in the winter that neither moon nor stars shine, because they are hidden by the thickness and the dimness of the clouds. In this way also the holy law and the prophets, as in the night, on account of diabolical error occupying all the earth, shone in the souls of righteous people, and scarcely was a person able to look up at the one who made him. And out of the great and immense shadow people said: From the time we heard the prophets, evil things have seized us. But also the people of God, Israel, was always deceived and served idols. But when, as I said, "the sun of righteousness" rose up, Christ the son of God, having "healing in his wings" (Mal 4:2)—I mean the extraordinary wonders which came about through him—just as Isaiah the prophet said, "See: our God renders and will render judgment: then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will hear, then the lame will leap like a stag and the tongue of the slow of speech will be clear" (Isa 35:4-6), and again: "Death in its strength has swallowed, but God has taken every tear away from every face" (Isa 25:8). As "sons of light" we no longer have need of the shadow (cf. 1 Thess 5:5).
13. Nobly the holy law and prophets shone like the moon and stars as in the night for people. For the teaching of the holy Scriptures was a great light proclaimed through the law and the prophets to humans against the error of the vanity of idolatry. For the Word of God and his Holy Spirit spoke through the law [89] and the prophets. And after those many divine teachings and commands of the prophets, the world was deceived and darkened by diabolical error, just as thick and dim clouds in the night darkened for people the light of the moon and the stars. When "the sun of righteousness" (Mal 4:2) rose his rays shone upon the world, and it was necessary not to sleep. Before the dawn, we took rest in the law and in the prophets and we escaped the roughness and darkness of the night and the rains and the cold and the frost, keeping warm in our beds and the clothes which God gave to us as gifts through the teaching of the holy law and prophets. This is the manner of keeping the sabbath. But as the morning-star has risen around dawn, [that is] John who came in the form of Elijah the Tishabite—since it was not Elijah himself who was going to come at the first advent, but some other hermit comes in the form of Elijah—as Isaiah says, "You will see the emperor with glory" (Isa 33:17); "a voice crying out in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. Every gully will be filled and every mountain and hill will bow down and the crooked way will be straightened and the jagged ways made smooth, and the glory of the Lord will be seen, and all flesh will see the salvation of our God" (Isa 40:3-5).
14. Just as David says: "All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God" (Ps 97 [98]:3). And again: "It will fall like rain on wool" and "before the sun his name will endure" "and before the moon, unto generations of generations." "And all the tribes of the earth will be blessed in him, all the nations will bless him," saying: "Blessed is the Lord God of Israel who alone does wonders and blessed be the name of his glory forever and ever and ever." You see it, my brothers, that the son of David is Christ, and he is human and God, and the God of Israel is called "blessed forever" (Ps 71 [72]:6, 17, 5, 17-19). He says, "Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord," "the Lord God also has shined upon us" (Ps 117 [118]:26, 27). But if we say that David said this about Solomon his son, we lie. For Isaiah says: "He will be the root of Jesse, the one rising up to rule the nations. For the nations will put their hope in him" (Isa 11:10). And again: "Unto you they will pray and unto you they will bow down, because God is in you and God is not apart from you; for you are our God and we did not know, the God of saving" (Isa 45:14-15). At that time, he says, "the wolf will graze with the sheep, and the leopard will take rest with the kid, and the calf and the bull and the lion will graze together, and a little child will lead them, and [91] the ox and the bear will graze together, and the lion and the bull will eat husks together" (Isa 11:6-7). The prophet in this way indicates the divine knowledge of the nations.
15. Just as Amos says: "On that day, says the Lord, I shall
raise up the fallen tent of David, and I shall build up its
fallen parts and I shall raise up its razed parts: and I shall
raise it just like the days of eternity, such that the sons of
humankind will turn to it and all the nations, upon whom my
name has been called down upon them, says the Lords who does
these things" (Amos 9:11-12). And again: "Behold the
days are coming, says the Lord, and the threshing will
overtake the harvest, and the bunches of grapes will ripen in
the sowing, and sweetness will trickle down the mountains, and
all the hills will be thickly wooded. And I shall turn back
the captivity of my people" (Amos 9:13-14). Solomon is not
God, existing before the sun and the moon, nor is he the God of
saving, nor did he raise up the tent of David, that is, the
humanity which is from Adam, nor did he liberate the captivity
of the world which, because of Adam, has been controlled by the
devil, but even Solomon himself in his old age did evil before
the Lord, making shrines of idols, and in this way he died
causing grief to God, not turning the nations to God; but the
Word of God, coming down out of heaven and taking up flesh out
of David and becoming a human in truth unchangingly—just as
Jeremiah says: "And he is a human and who will know him?"
(Jer 17:9), that is, he is also God. And as a human he died,
just as the holy prophets foretold and the holy law, but as God
he worked wonders, healing all the diseases of humans; and he
defeated the diabolical error of the empty idols and taught the
world knowledge of God.
16. Just as Jeremiah says: "Behold, he says, the days are coming, says the Lord, and no one will teach his neighbor, saying: Know the Lord, because from the smallest to the greatest of them they will know me" (Jer 38 [31]:31, 34). And Isaiah says: "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: On that day the person will have believed in the one who made him, and his eyes will turn to gaze upon the holy one of Israel" (Isa 17:6, 7). The holy one of Israel, brothers, is Christ. And again Isaiah says about Christ: "The Lord will reign in Zion and in Jerusalem and before his elders he will be glorified. O Lord my God, I shall praise you and glorify your name, because you have done wondrous things, ancient and true counsel. So be it, Lord, because you have made cities into heaps, secure cities [93] to fall from their foundations, cities of the impious will not be built for eternity. For this the poor people will bless you and the cities of people ruined and fearing you will bless you. For you have been the help in every humbled city" (Isa 24:23-25:4). For when Christ came, my brothers, humans, ruined at that time by the error of the devil, coming into knowledge of God, gave thanks and blessed God. Just as Isaiah says about the call of the nations: "The Lord Sabaoth will make [a feast] for all the nations on Mount Zion. They will drink cheer, they will drink wine, they will be anointed in myrrh" (Isa 25:6, 7). And again: "For this is the counsel upon all the nations. And they will say on that day: See our God in whom we have hoped, and we shall rejoice at our Savior, and the Lord himself will save us" (Isa 25:7, 9).
17. Likewise Isaiah says concerning the new law of Christ's new covenant: "These things says the Lord: Those who are enslaved to me will be given a new name, which will be blessed upon the earth. For they will bless the true God, and they will swear an oath by the true God. For they will forget their former affliction" (Isa 65:13, 15, 16). So let us comprehend, my brothers, that God on high says: "Those who are enslaved to me will be given a new name, which will be blessed upon the earth. For they will bless the true God." He doesn't say: "They will bless me, the true God" but "They will bless the true God," that is, Christ. So if the highest God of Abraham testifies that this new people, of the Christians, venerates the true God and correctly believes, why then do we wish to Judaize and keep the Sabbath and rise up against God? For again Isaiah says concerning the new people: "Open the gates, let a righteous people enter in, keeping righteousness, loving truth, sharing in righteousness, keeping truth, loving peace, because upon you, Lord, they have placed their hope" (Isa 26:2-4). And again: "On that day God by counsel with glory will shine upon the earth to exalt and glorify the remnants of Israel" (Isa 4:2).
18. And again: "Because the Lord will wash off the filth from the sons and daughters of Zion" (Isa 4:4). "The Lord will wash" means the holy baptism of Christ. Just as also Ezekiel bears witness, saying: "I shall sprinkle pure water upon you, and you will be purified from your idols and your sins" (Ezek 36:25). And Isaiah says: "Be washed, become pure" (Isa 1:16), and again: "Because water has burst forth" " for those marching in thirst in the dry land" "and the dry land will be a pond, and a fountain of water will be upon the parched earth" (Isa 35:6, 44:3) "There will be a pure way and the way will be called holy" (Isa 35:7, 8). For really, brothers, the holy way is the baptism [95] of Christ. For through the middle of the waters of the Red Sea the people were saved (cf. Ex 14:15-30). But also Moses, as a prototype of holy baptism, as a son of the daughter of the king he was lifted up through the water of the river and he was saved (cf. Ex 2:5-10). But also Elisha sanctified the waters foreshadowing Christ's mysteries (cf. 2 Kgs 2:14). But also Naaman the Syrian through baptism was healed from leprosy as a prototype of those who were going to be baptized in the holy font of the holy church and be delivered from the "leprosy" of sins (cf. 2 Kgs 5:14). But also in the law it says: the priest "will bathe" and in this way "he will be pure" (Lev 14:9). And again God says through Isaiah: "I am the one who obliterates your sins and I shall not recall them. But you recall and we shall be judged together. You recite your sins first so that you might be made righteous" (Isa 43:25-26) "because I shall give water in thirst to those marching in the dry land and I shall set my Spirit upon your seed and my blessings upon your offspring" (Isa 44:3) and again: "God, having mercy on them, will take pity on them and will lead them through the fountains of water" (Isa 49:10). Similarly Micah says about holy baptism: "Who is like you, God, removing sins and passing over injustices for those who remain in your inheritance? He has not held on to anger as a witness to them, because he desires mercy. He will turn and take pity on us and he will sink our sins in the depths of the sea" (Mic 7:18, 19). And Joel says: "On that day sweetness will trickle down the mountains and the hills will rush with milk and all the sluices of Judah will rush with waters and a fountain of water will go forth from the house of the Lord" (Joel 3:18). Brothers, the "depth" is of "God's wisdom" that is the "remissions" "Sluices" (apheseis) in the Joel passage just cited may also mean "remissions"; Jacob understands the passage as an allegory of baptism, in which Judah's sins are remitted. of Judah through waters. That holy baptism is pleasing to God David says: "The Lord's voice is on the waters: God of glory has thundered, the Lord upon the many waters" (Ps 28 [29]:3).
19. Because God hates those who Judaize and keep the Sabbath after Christ's coming, through Malachi he says: "I take no pleasure in the children of Israel, and I shall not receive a sacrifice from their hands. Because from the rising of the sun until its setting my name is glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is brought forth in my name, because my name is great among the nations, I live, says the Almighty Lord" (Mal 1:10, 11). About those still wishing after Christ's coming to Judaize and keep the Sabbath and saying, "The Anointed One has not yet come and I shall persist in keeping the Sabbath and Judaizing, keeping the law of Moses," Isaiah says about them: "Woe to those who pull in their sins as if with a long rope and their transgressions as if by the strap of their heifer's yoke. Those saying: Let it come quickly, whatever God will do so that we may see, and may the counsel of holy Israel come so that [97] we may know. Woe to those saying the evil is good and the good evil, those supposing the light is darkness and the darkness light, those saying that the bitter is sweet and the sweet bitter" (Isa 5:18-20); and again: "My people has become a captive, because they did not know the Lord" (Isa 5:13); and again: "Their root will be like chaff and their flower will rise up like dust: for they did not wish to perform the law of the Lord Sabaoth, but they insulted the saying of holy Israel. And the Lord Sabaoth raged in anger upon his people and he cast his hand against them and he smote them" (Isa 5:24-25). And again Isaiah says about the faithless Jews: "You will hear and you will not understand, and you will look and you will not see. For the heart of this people has grown thick and they hear poorly with their ears and they have closed their eyes, no longer do they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand in their heart and repent so that I might heal them" (Isa 6:9, 10). And Moses says: "This people is foolish and not wise" (Deut 32:6). And Jeremiah says: "A foolish and heartless people, they have eyes and do not see, they have ears and do not hear; and will you not fear me and will you not be in awe from my presence, I who ordered the sand at the boundary of the sea, an eternal commandment and it will not pass away?" (Jer 5:21-22) And again Isaiah says: "This people approaches me with their mouths, and they honor me with their lips; but their hearts are far off from me. They worship me in vain, teaching human commands and teachings. Because of this behold: I shall ordain this people's removal and I shall remove them in a removal and I shall destroy the wisdom of their wise men and I shall hide the intellect of their intellectuals" (Isa 29:13-14); and again: "Because my people are of disobedience, false sons" "saying to the prophets: do not bear messages to us, and to those having visions, Do not speak correctly to us, but speak nonsense to us and bear to us a message of another deception" (Isa 30:9-10). And again God says through Malachi: "I take no pleasure in the children of Israel" (Mal 1:10).
20. And again Isaiah says concerning the Jews who did not believe in Christ: "Hear, o heaven, and hearken, o earth, because the Lord has spoken: I have begotten sons and I raised them up, but they denied me. The ox knows its owner and the ass its master's manger, but Israel does not know me and the people have not understood me" (Isa 1:2, 3). And God says through Hosea: "I shall indeed cast my net upon them, I shall draw them down just like birds of the sky, I shall discipline them in hearing of their affliction. Woe to them, because they have turned away from me. They are wretched, because they have been impious unto me. I redeemed them, but they spoke lies against me and their hearts did not cry to me, says the Lord" (Hos 7:12-14). And again Jeremiah says, in the character of Christ: "They have abandoned me, a fountain of living water" (Jer 2:13), [99] and again: "Because they hatched a plan for my capture and they hid traps for me, you, Lord, knew their whole plot to put me to death. Do not forgive their sins and do not erase their transgressions from your presence. Let their weaknesses be before you, you will attend to them in the time of wrath" (Jer 18:22-23). And again Christ says through David: "For food they gave me gall and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Let them be erased from the Book of the Living and let them not be inscribed with the just ones" (Ps 68 [69]:21, 28). My brothers and fathers, let's not fail to believe in Christ, because he is the savior of the world. For if we do not believe in him, all the evil things that have been written will befall us, both in the present time and in the future.
21. Those from the circumcision THAT CHRIST CAME IN HIS TIME answered and said to him: Mr. Jacob, why do our fathers and teachers of the law say that the era has not yet arrived for the coming of Christ, the King of Israel?
And Jacob said: Truly Christ came in his time and Christians have a timeline of his generations. But also just as righteous Daniel said, sixty-nine weeks after the building of the Temple and Jerusalem Christ came. For this is what the book of Daniel contains, for it says: Daniel pleaded with God, fasting on account of the people. And the angel Gabriel said to him: "Seventy weeks have been calculated for your people and for the holy city, for sealing their sins and ending their transgressions and expunging their injustices and propitiating their transgressions and to bring up eternal righteousness and to seal the vision and prophecy and to anoint the holy of holies" (Dan 9:24). Christ is the righteousness, the one who forgives all the sins for humankind. And from that time no prophet has come. For once Christ came there was no longer need of a prophet to say Christ is coming. For if Christ were not truly the one who was born from Saint Mary, until now it would have been necessary for prophets to proclaim him. But he is truly Christ who liberated the world from the error of idols and led all the nations to knowledge of God, as the prophets foretold. For through Christ the prophets said the nations would be saved.
22. In this way the prophet speaks also about the era. For he says: "And you will know and you will understand from the word going forth about the separating and building of Jerusalem until Christ the leader, seven weeks and sixty-two; and he will return and the wall and the street will be built and the times will be emptied out; and after the [101] sixty-two weeks the anointing will be annihilated, and there will be no judgment in it, and he will destroy the city and the holy place with the leader who has come" (Dan 9:25-26). He is talking about your leader, Aristobulus of the Jews, who was captured by the Romans and led off to Rome as a prisoner with his wife and children, when his brother was destroyed by the Parthians, This highly condensed narrative of the transition from the Hasmonean to Herodian dynasties is taken from Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica, 1.6.6-10. in order that "the leader and prince out of Judah" might fail, according to the prophecy of our righteous father Jacob, which said: "A prince will not fail out of Judah or a leader from his loins until he comes for whom it has been set aside, and he is the expectation of the nations" (Gen 49:10). For when Christ was born, who was our leader and master of all creation and God and emperor, in Bethlehem of Judea, Herod, the Ashkalonite foreigner, was ruling over our Jewish land, and we have been under the Romans until today and the prophecy of our father Jacob, son of Isaac, has come true. For Daniel says: "And you will know and you will understand from the word going forth of the answering and the building of Jerusalem until Christ the leader, seven weeks and sixty-two," that is 483 years, and so Christ came in the 484th year from the creation of the temple and the city. For when the seventieth week was reached Christ appeared and he saved us and he defeated the error of the devil. For when Aristobulus the leader was taken prisoner with his children by the Romans, the Romans destroyed the holy city and enslaved the people with our Jewish leader, the aforementioned Aristobulus. And so our Jewish reign ceased, as Herod the foreigner reigned under the Romans and cloaked himself in the holy vestment. And so our Jewish reign and priesthood ceased according to the prophecy of our father Jacob. And right away under Herod Christ was born in Bethlehem, the "expectation" and the salvation "of the nations." For if it had not been Christ who came under Herod [and] Augustus Caesar, really our father Jacob is a liar, and Moses is a liar, who composed Genesis which speaks about Jacob's prophecy, and Daniel the prophet is a liar and Gabriel who spoke to him about the era of Christ's arrival. But also the Holy Spirit lies, "the one speaking through the prophets" The phrase "the one speaking through the prophets," to lalēsan dia tōn prophētōn (τὸ λαλήσαν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν) comes from the Nicene Creed, perhaps unconsciously slipped in by the Christian author as if it were Scripture. according to the reasoning of those who don't believe in Christ and say that he has not yet come. And Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: "They have provoked the Holy Spirit and he has turned to them as an enemy" (Isa 63:10). For truly the Holy Spirit turned away from us Jews, since we would not have been trampled on by the nations for 640 years. From that time that our fathers the Jews crucified Christ, until this day we have been enslaved to all the nations [103] and trampled underfoot. Because the Holy Spirit is an enemy to those who do not believe in Christ, Josephus the Jewish wise man says that, when Christ was crucified, they heard some voices of the holy ones in the Temple of God saying, "Let us go, let us no longer stay here" Josephus, Bellum judaicum, 6.300, refers to the haunting voice but not Christ's crucifixion. The subsequent reference to the curtain tearing, found in the Gospel of Matthew, appears in the Slavonic version of Josephus, Bellum judaicum, 5.214. and "the curtain of the Temple was torn from top to bottom" (Matt 27:51). But also the Romans plundered all the country of Judea and divine justice burned up all the Jews in every place. Those who believed in Christ, both before his crucifixion and after his crucifixion, through the divine vision which appeared to them, he commanded them to leave and he ordered them to inhabit a land across the Jordan which was called Pella. On the flight of Christ-believing Jews to Pella during the First Jewish War, see Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica, 3.5.3. When the Romans came and conquered the entire East, they destroyed the Jews in every city and land, but they did not come near to those who believed in Christ in Pella, for they were guarded by the Holy Spirit.
23. Those from the circumcision THAT CHRIST HAD TO SUFFER answered and said: You have helped us, brother. May the Lord bless you! Because often we have been conflicted about whether we were mistaken when we were baptized. Help us, Mr. Jacob, also about this matter: for when we hear the gospel Here, as often in the text, the Doctrina uses the term megaleion (μεγαλεῖον) which refers to the "great" gospel-book and, by extension, the text of the gospel. saying that Christ rose from the dead, we are pleased; but when we hear he was insulted and beaten and died, we say that this is not Christ.
Jacob said to them: My brothers and fathers, it was necessary for Christ to suffer as the holy prophets foretold. For Isaiah said, as from God the Father: "Behold, my child will understand and he will be exalted and glorified and elevated; in this way they will be stunned at you, at how your human image and your glory will be held in contempt by human beings. In this way many nations will marvel at him and kings close their mouths; because the one they will see was not announced to them, and those who have not heard will understand" (Isa 52:13-15). And again: "A person who is in pain, and who knows how to bear sickness, that one turns away from, he was dishonored and misunderstood. For he bears our sins and he suffers for us. And we have understood that he is in pain and distress, he was wounded on account of our sins and he was made sick through our transgressions. We have all been healed by his bruise" (Isa 53:3-6). For when Christ was crucified the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and "blood and water came out" (John 19:34). The water prefigured holy baptism, the blood his body, the holy mysteries of the Christians. About the spear Zachariah said: "They will look upon him whom they have stabbed" (Zach 12:10; cf. John 19:37). For in the second coming of Christ, when "he will judge the living and the dead" (2 Tim 4:1), those who will not believe in Christ will have to look upon him coming with holy angels. And at that time they will weep keenly, having no hope, but they are handed over into eternal judgment.
[105] ON CHRIST'S DEATH24. Those from the circumcision answered and said: Mr. Jacob, what kind of Scripture says that Christ dies and rises from the dead?
Jacob said: The holy law says about the death of Christ: "Having fallen back he has fallen asleep like a lion and like a lion's cub. Who will raise him up?" (Gen 49:9) And again: "He eats the nations of enemies and he will suck the marrow from their fat and he will shoot his enemy dead with his arrows. Having laid down he rests like a lion and like a lion's cub: who will raise him up?" (Num 24:8-9). The Word of God dwelling in Christ's entombed body stripped away all the power of the devil and liberated all of humanity which was ruled by the devil. David says: "He has sent his Word and it has healed them." "They cried out," he says, "to the Lord, and he redeemed them from their bonds" [that is] "those seated in the darkness and in the shadow of death, those bound in poverty and iron," "he smashed the bronze gates and crushed the iron bars" (Ps 106 [107]:20, 6, 10, 16). For Isaiah says: "He was led into death from the transgressions of my people, and I shall give the wicked in exchange for his tomb and the rich in exchange for his death. Because he has committed no transgression, and no treachery was found in his mouth" (Isa 53:8, 9). And again Isaiah says thus: "The Lord says to my Christ, whom I held by his right hand, that the nations will pay heed before him and I shall bust the strength of kings. I shall open up before you gates and cities will not be shut up. For I shall proceed before you, and I shall level mountains, I shall smash bronze gates and crush iron bars. And I shall give you darkened storehouses, unseen, hidden, I shall open up to you" (Isa 45:1-3); and again: "Saying to those bound: Go forth; and to those in darkness: Be revealed" (Isa 49:9). For the death of Christ was the salvation of the world. For because Adam sinned, all the souls of humans after dying and being divided from the body were ruled in hell by the devil. Therefore, by his abundant goodness, God the Most High, as a lover of humanity, sent his Word into the world, well-pleased that he take up a soul and flesh and become truly human, "without confusion and change," As above (ch. 22), where the Doctrina cites the Nicene Creed as if it were Scripture, here the phrase "without confusion and change," asunchutōs kai atreptōs (ἀσυνχύτως καὶ ἀτρέπτως) comes from the Definition of Chalcedon appended to the Nicene Creed in 451. in order that, through our being, he might able to die, and through his incorruptible and ungraspable being he might give life to all things and liberate from the devil's bonds. For the holy prophets, seeing that the wounds of Adam are incurable and human souls after death were controlled and ruled by the evil and afflicted by Satan, as if they were humanity they cried out saying: "Quickly may your compassions overtake us, Lord, because we have fallen on exceedingly hard times. Help us, God our savior" (Ps 78 [79]:8, 9); and again, "Rise up, Lord, help us and free us for your name's sake" and "Wake up, why do you sleep, Lord?" (Ps 43 [44]:26, 24).
[107] 25. That the Word of God, as he was sleepless and deathless, was going to raise up his own temple which he received from us—that is the soul and body—David says: "Let God rise up and let his enemies be scattered abroad and let those who hate him flee from his presence" (Ps. 67 [68]:1). That Christ was going to liberate the souls which were from Adam from the devil's hand, David says: "You have gone up on high, you have redeemed captivity" (Ps 67 [68]:18). And Nahum likewise says: "The gates of the cities have been opened and the palaces have fallen and the foundation has been uncovered, and she has gone up and those women enslaved to her have been brought out like doves" (Nah 2:6-7). And again Isaiah says: "Those who have gone down into the area and into the shadow of death, light will shine upon you" (Isa 9:2). You see, then, brothers, what kind of salvation Christ's death was for humans. Just as again Isaiah says about Christ's death: "Do you see that the righteous one has died and no one has taken it to heart, and righteous ones are taken up and no one understands? From the presence of injustice the righteous one has been taken up: for his tomb will be in peace, he will be taken up from their midst" (Isa 57:1-2). And again Isaiah says about the death and about the thieves crucified with Christ: "My soul has been handed over into death and it has been reckoned with transgressors" (Isa 53:12). And Jeremiah says as if out of the character of our wretched fathers who crucified Christ: "Come, and let us cast wood into his bread and let us eradicate him from the land of the living" (Jer 11:19). And Solomon says about the Jews who crucified Christ: "They reckoned these things and they were mistaken: for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the mysteries of God" (Wisd 2:21-22).
26. Annas and Caiaphas, the miserable high priests who crucified Christ, were out of Levi and the Scribes were out of Simeon. When he was prophesying the blessed Jacob, our Jewish father, said: "Simeon and Levi have accomplished injustice from their choice. The Greek for "from their choice," ex haireseōs (ἐξ αἱρέσεως), might evoke for the Christian audience of the Doctrina the danger of heresy. My soul did not come into their counsel, and my emotion did not contest their collusion, but in their anger they killed people and in their passion they hamstrung a bull. Their anger is cursed, because stubborn, and their wrath, because it was hardened. I shall apportion them in Jacob and I shall scatter them in Israel" (Gen 49:5-7). And we might say it was because of Dinah, their sister, but this is not so. [109] For at that time they defended themselves to their father, saying: "But shall they use our sister like a prostitute?" (Gen 34:31) And righteous Jacob himself afterward, when he was giving the city to Joseph, said: "I give you the portion of Shechem, the city I took by my sword and by my bow" (Gen 48:22). Jacob himself accepted the defense of Simeon and Levi. How then were the things said by their father fulfilled? But then, as I said, Annas and Caiaphas were of the tribe of Levi and the Scribes of Simeon. Then by their plan and counsel Christ was handed over and through them he was taken up, as Jacob prophesying said: "In their scheme my soul did not enter"—just as also Isaiah says, "Woe to their soul: because they have devised a wicked counsel, saying among themselves: Let us give over the righteous one, because he is inconvenient to us" (Isa 3:10)—and "my passion was not in conflict with their plot, because in their anger they killed people and in their desire they hamstrung a bull: their anger is cursed" (Gen 49:6-7). Behold, then, my brothers, let none of you disbelieve in Christ, in case in the future both Jacob and Isaiah should be found opposed to you.
27. ON CHRIST'S
RESURRECTION Those from the
circumcision answered and said: What sort of Scripture
talks about the resurrection of Christ?
Jacob said: In Psalm 77 David
says: "And the Lord rose up, like one sleeping, like a
powerful man intoxicated from wine, and he struck his enemies
from behind, he gave them an eternal rebuke" (Ps 77
[78]:65-66). And Hosea says: "He has struck down and he will
heal, and he will plug our wounds and he will heal us after
two days, and on the third day we shall rise before him"
(Hos 6:1-2); and again: "Death, where is your victory? Hell,
where is your sting?" (Hos 13:14). And Zechariah says: "And
you, in the blood of your covenant, you have sent out your
prisoners from a pit having no water" (Zech 9:11). And
David says: "Rise up, God, judge the earth, for you shall be
made heir among all the nations" (Ps 81 [82]:8). And
Isaiah says: "The Lord wishes to take away from the pain of
his soul, to show him light, to form in understanding, justify
the righteous one who has been enslaved well to many, and he
himself will take away their sins. Because of this he will
inherit many and he will share the spoils of the mighty.
Instead of them his soul has been handed over to death and he
has been reckoned with the transgressors. And he has taken
away the sins of many and he has been handed over on account
of their sins" (Isa 53:10-12).
Those from the circumcision
said: Mr. Jacob, you're mistaken: for as our teachers tell us,
Isaiah said this about King Josiah.
[111] Jacob said: They are lying. This is how they are always misleading you. For Josiah was not crucified with transgressing thieves nor was he sufficient to forgive people's sins, nor after he died did he see light, nor did the nations place their hope in Josiah, but even our people went off into captivity. But even the gentiles believed in Christ. Christ defeated all the error of the idols and he brought up the souls who were in hell and he liberated them. Isaiah says as if from God the Father: "I have raised him as a king with righteousness, and all his paths are straight. For he will construct my city and he will overturn the captivity of my people, not with ransoms or gifts, said the Lord Sabaoth" (Isa 45:13). And again Isaiah says: "Thus says the Lord Sabaoth: Egypt has grown weary, and the Ethiopian markets and the lofty Sabaean men will cross over to you and they will be enslaved to you and they will follow behind you bound in shackles and they will cross over toward you and they will venerate you and they will pray to you. For God is in you, and there is no God except you. For you are God and we did not know it, the God of Israel, savior" (Isa 45:14-15). He says "God is in you" on account of the Word of God which inhabited the body of the Lord, and "there is no God except you" because Christ was truly God.
ON THE OLD LAW 28. Those from the circumcision answered
and said: May God grant that your words are true, so we don't
regret becoming Christian. "Becoming Christian"
translates the single word christianisantes
(χριστιανίσαντες), a contrast to the "judaizing"
(ἰουδαϊσαντες) the baptized Jews are being exhorted to
abandon. But what prevents us from also keeping the
Sabbath?
Jacob said: Just as those before the law of Moses were under the natural law ton phusikon nomon (τὸν φυσικὸν νόμον) and they didn't need to keep the Sabbath, but when the law came whoever didn't keep the Sabbath was cursed, so it is again now that Christ has come, the true light—just as Isaiah says: "On that day the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of sun will be seven-fold, like the light of seven days in a day, when the Lord will heal the ruin of his people, and he will heal the pain of its blow. Behold the name of God comes after a time, and his Spirit like water whistling into a gully" (Isa 30:26-28)—with the result, then, my brothers, that the law is also beautiful and holy, as it was given by God. But blessed Moses said for us to keep the law until Christ came. For Moses says: "When you enter into the land which the Lord God gives to you, the Lord will raise up a prophet for you; heed him in everything, as much as he says to you" (Deut 18:9, 15-16). Truly the law was beautiful, but the coming of Christ was seven times more beautiful. Just as Isaiah the prophet said: "All will be dishonored and ashamed who oppose him [113] and they will proceed into dishonor " (Isa 45:16). You see then, my brothers, that those who wish to keep the Sabbath will be ashamed as ones opposing Christ.
29. And again Isaiah says: "Who among you fears the Lord? Let him give heed to the voice of his child" "Of his child," tou paidos autou (τοῦ παιδὸς αὐτοῦ), in the original context of Isaiah would mean "of his servant." Early followers of Jesus began to understand the "Suffering Servant" section of Isaiah creatively by reading pais (παῖς) in its alternative sense, "son," rather than "servant." (Isa 50:10). For it is God's will to listen to Christ, his child. And again God says through Isaiah: "Hear me, my people, and kings, lend me your ears. Because the law will go forth from me and my judgment as a light of the nations. Quickly my righteousness nears and it will go forth as my saving light, and the nations will place their hope in my arm. Islands await me and will place their hope in my arm" (Isa 51:4-5). And Micah says about the new law of Christ, the new covenant: "At the end of days the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, at hand above the peaks of the mountains, and it will rise up above the hills. And many nations will be present on it and many peoples and they will say: Come and let us go up unto the mountain of the Lord and into the house of the God of Jacob, and they will show us his way and we shall proceed in his paths. For out of Zion the law will go out and the Word of the Lord out of Jerusalem" (Mic 4:1-2). You see, my bothers, that after the law of Moses another law is proclaimed which is of Christ, the holy gospels of the new covenant, the sevenfold light spoken of by the prophets. We should no longer wish to Judaize or keep the Sabbath, since we would really be enemies and opponents of God and the prophets. The prophet Isaiah said in the passage above: "All will be dishonored and ashamed who oppose him and they will proceed into dishonor" (Isa 45:16). And Moses says, as from God: "The person who does not hear his words, which the prophet speaks in my name, I shall be avenged upon him" (Deut 18:19). And Malachi says: "I take no pleasure in the children of Israel and I shall not accept sacrifice from their hands. For from the rising of the sun until its setting my name is glorified among the nations and in every place incense goes up in my name, because my name is great among the nations, as I live, says the Lord Almighty" (Mal 1:10-11). And in Psalm 49 God says: "Hear, my people, and I shall tell you, Israel, and I shall bear witness to you, I am God your God. I shall not condemn you for your sacrifices, your burnt offerings are continually before me. I shall not receive calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks. For all the beasts of the field are mine, flocks on the mountains and cattle. I know all the birds of the sky and the ripeness of the field is with me. If I am hungry I shall not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Shall I not eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice to God the offering of praise and offer up to the Most High your prayers, and call upon me on the day of your affliction" (Ps 49 [50]:7-15). You see, my brothers, the overturning of the law, or rather, the fulfillment of the law, as God commands. For it is necessary to celebrate the day of Christ's resurrection as the holy Lord's Day, when Christ rose up and illuminated the universe. Just as Isaiah [115] proclaiming in advance Christ's holy body said: "I have seen the King, Lord Sabaoth, with my eyes. And one of the seraphim was sent to me and in his hand he held a coal, which he took from the altar with tongs, and he touched my mouth and said: See this has touched your lips and taken away your transgressions and purified your sins" (Isa 6:5-7).
30. Also: in the law the bread of offering, which only the priests ate, there was a prototype. Also: Melchizedek offered bread and wine to God as a prototype of the holy mysteries of the holy church. And "he gave them heavenly bread" is perfected in the mystery of the church (Ps 77 [78]:24). For our fathers, who ate the bread—that is, manna—were utterly destroyed and nothing helped them, "they were struck down in the wilderness" (1 Cor 10:5), as rebels against God. But the bread which is Christ's illuminated all of creation from the error of idols: for no longer "does each one teach his neighbor nor each one his fellow citizen nor each one his own brother, saying: Know the Lord" (Jer 38 [31]:34), "for the universe is filled with knowing the Lord, as so much water completely covers the seas. And, he says, there will be in that day the root of Jesse who will rise up to lead the nations; and upon him will the nations place their hope, and his rest will be honor" (Isa 11:9-10). And again: "The leader has died, who trampled the earth; the throne will be restored with mercy and he will sit on it with truth in the tent of David, judging and seeking judgment and eager for righteousness" (Isa 16:4-5). And again Isaiah: "These things says the Lord God of Israel: On that day the person who will have placed his faith in him, his eyes will gaze upon the holy one of Israel, and they will no longer place their faith in the hills or in the works of their own hands" (Isa 17:6-8). Likewise also Zechariah says concerning the new people, the Christians: "Many nations will come and many peoples to seek the countenance of the Lord in Jerusalem and to propitiate the countenance of the Lord" (Zech 8:22) and again: "On that day, says the Lord, the names of the idols will be utterly destroyed from the earth and there will be no more memory of them" (Zech 13:2).
31. THAT CHRIST HAD TO BE BETRAYED Those from the circumcision answered and said: Really, Mr. Jacob, all the things God has spoken through your mouth today are true. For they are the words of the [117] Holy Spirit. But help us: why did Christ allow himself to be betrayed by his own disciple, Judas?
Jacob said: It had to happen, since the prophets proclaimed it in advance, in order to show that the Word of God took on true flesh. For Amos the prophet says: "They have delivered up the righteous one for silver" (Amos 2:6). And Zechariah says, as if from Christ: "And they set my price at thirty silver pieces" (Zech 11:12). And Jeremiah said: "They gave thirty silver pieces as the price for the one whose price was set, on whom some from the children of Israel set a price, and they gave them for the potter's field." This quote does not appear in Jeremiah, but is cited as if it were in Matt 27:9-10. And Isaiah said: "Woe to the transgressor: for wicked things will befall him according to the works of his hands" (Isa 3:11). And David says: "Set the sinner upon him and let the devil stand to his right: in judging him let him go forth condemned, and let his prayer be for sin. Let his days be short and let another receive his office" (Ps 108 [109]:6-8). For after Judas was thrown own another came in as apostle (cf. Acts 1:20). And Solomon says about the betrayal: "A foolish and unnatural man proceeds on ways that are not good. He signals with eyes, he indicates with a foot, he teaches in gestures of his fingers. His perverted heart devises bad things for every occasion. Such a one causes lots of trouble. This is why his destruction comes suddenly" (Prov 6:12-15). But also then Joseph being sold by his own brothers predicted the betrayal of Christ by the Jews, his brothers according to the flesh. And the prophecy of blessed Moses is fulfilled in the one betraying Christ. For he says in Deuteronomy: "Cursed is he who takes gifts to shed the lifeblood of a righteous one" (Deut 27:25), and again: "God will not wish to be merciful to him, but at that time the anger of the Lord will be kindled and his zeal against that person, and all the imprecations of that covenant will be bound to him" (Deut 29:19) and again: "The Lord will erase his name from the heaven" (Deut 29:19). And Gehazi, the disciple of Elisha, bore the prototype of Judas (cf. 2 Kgs 5:20).
32. ON GOD'S REJECTION OF THE SYNAGOGUE Those from the circumcision answered and said: Really, greatly you have demonstrated and you have cured us. But why, Mr. Jacob, did God reject the synagogue, as you say? You are not convincing us of this. For the first salvation for humans was the holy synagogue of Israel for knowledge of God.
Jacob said: Through Isaiah God says: "Go and enter the bridal chamber, [119] to Somnas to steward, and say to him: Why are you here, and what is for you here? For you have quarried for yourself here a monument and you have made for yourself a lofty tomb and you have engraved With Déroche I read egrapsas (ἔγραψας) for enklupsas (ἔγκλυψας). for yourself a tent in stone. Behold the Lord Sabaoth will cast out a man and he will wipe you out. And he will remove your robe and your headdress and your crown, which is esteemed, and he will toss you into the great and measureless country, and there you will die, and he will set your chariot, which is beautiful, into dishonor and the house of the ruler for trampling underfoot. And you will be taken away from your stewardship and from your position and he will demote you" (Isa 22:15-19). Somnas means "go back outside." apsostēthi exō (ἀπόστηθι ἔξω). The Doctrina's etymology here is unclear, perhaps related to the original Hebrew name (Shebnah) and so related Hebrew verb shuv (שוב), "(re)turn." In his roughly contemporary Quaestiones ad Thalassium 49.48, Maximos the Confessor translates Somnas as "conversion," epistrophē (ἐπιστροφή), which he almost certainly derives from the Hebrew shuv (although incorrectly). You see then, brothers, how Judaizing comes to an end and is fulfilled in its own time. About the coming of Christ immediately afterward Isaiah says: "And it will be on that day, I shall call my child, Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, and I shall dress him in your robe and I shall give him your crown, according to my might, and I shall give him your stewardship into his hands. And he will be like a father to those dwelling in Jerusalem and to the men of Judah. And I shall give him the glory of David and he will rule and no one will oppose him, and he will open up and no one will close and he will close and there will be no one opening up. And I shall set him as a ruler in the faithful place. And there will be a throne of glory in the house of his father. And everyone who is esteemed in the house of his father, from the small to the great, will trust in him, every vessel from the small to the vessel of aganoth, and they will be dependent upon him on that day" (Isa 22:20-25). Behold, then, my brothers, that the divine call is to believe in Christ the son of God and to celebrate his holy resurrection, the holy Lord's Day, through which Christ restored the world.
33. THAT CHRIST HAD TO BE CRUCIFIED Those from the circumcision said: You have helped us, one enslaved to God, and you have fully satisfied us. But we call upon you, Mr. Jacob: why was Christ crucified in such a shameful death?
Jacob answered and said: Doctrina 1.33-35 also appears in close paraphrase in Ps.-John Chrysostom, de adoratione pretiosae crucis 2 (PG 52:839), in which the preacher is responding to some hypothetical "demented and ignorant and unbelieving Jew" posing a version of the question from "those of the circumcision" above. The paraphrase contains all of the biblical citations, including the otherwise unknown saying of "Ezra" and the supposed quotation from Moses. Christ had to be crucified, because the law and the prophets proclaimed in advance that humanity would be saved in this way by Christ. For Moses says: "You will see your life hanging before your eyes" (Deut 28:66). That God is Christ crucified, Ezra says: "Blessed is the Lord who spreads out his hands and saves Jerusalem." And when the snakes were killing the people, at God's command Moses, suspending a snake from wood, said: "Pay heed to this and you will not die." No surviving book of Ezra (or with Ezra) contains this line (although it is found in the third-century de benedictione Jacobi by Hippolytus) and the line ascribed to Moses does not actually appear in Numbers 21. And Jeremiah says, as if in the character of those crucifying Christ: [121] "Come and let us cast wood into his bread and we shall remove him from the land of the living" (Jer 11:19). And the Word of God, Christ, says through Jeremiah: "I, like a blameless lamb led to be sacrificed, did not know; they hatched a scheme against me: 'Come and let us cast wood into his bread'" (Jer 11:19). And again through David Christ says: "They have gouged my hands and my feet," "and they have divided my clothes among them and they have cast lots for my cloak" (Ps 21 [22]:17, 19) and "for a whole day I extended my hands toward you" (Ps 87 [88]:10). And again through Isaiah Christ says: "I have spread my hands for a whole day toward a faithless and contrary people, who have not walked on a good way, but behind their sins. This people provoked me, who are preparing a table for the demon" (Isa 65:2, 3, 11).
34. ON VENERATING THE CROSS Those from the circumcision answered and said: Really do you teach us well. Help us, mister, also with this: is it right to venerate the image ton tupon (τὸν τύπον) of the cross of Christ? For it seems onerous to us.
Jacob said: Yes, it is right. For the prophets teach us. For David says: "You gave those who feared you a sign to flee from the presence of the bow" (Ps 59 [60]:6). And again: "Make with me a sign for good, and let those who hate me see it and be ashamed" (Ps 85 [86]:17). And God says through Ezekiel: "Give the sign upon the forehead of the people who mourn and who are distressed in all their transgressions. And cross through the city and strike, and do not have mercy on the old man or young man or women or the nursing infant, obliterate them all. But do not approach those who possess my sign" (Ezek 9:4, 6). And Solomon says about the holy cross: "May he bless the wood, through which comes righteousness" (Wisd 14:7). And Isaiah says about the source of the cross's wood: in cypress and pine and cedar, to glorify together the holy image (cf. Isa 41:19). And Moses, when he cast wood into Mara, into the bitter waters, he sweetened them as an image of the cross of Christ, which sweetens the world from the bitterness of empty idols (cf. Ex 15:23-25). And the rod of Moses, which split the stone, was an image of the cross of Christ, which split the hearts of the people and cast in the grace of the Holy Spirit (cf. Num 20:11).
35. ON CHRIST'S BODILY ASCENSION Those from the circumcision answered and they said to Jacob: You have made us happy, Mr. Jacob, and we thank you! But we beseech you, trouble yourself a little more and [123] take care of us. How was Christ raised into heaven in a body, as the Christians say? Because we don't believe it, it's unacceptable.
Jacob said: David in Psalm 46 says: "God ascends in a clamor, the Lord in the sound of a trumpet" (Ps 46 [47]:6) and in Psalm 63: "God will be raised on high" (Ps 63 [64]:8). And Amos says: "The one who constructs his ascent into heaven and founds his steadfastness upon the earth, who summons the water of the sea and pours it out upon the surface of the whole earth, Lord Almighty is his name" (Amos 9:6). And again David says: "He has gone up to the cherubim and he has flown, he has flown upon the wings of the winds" (Ps 17 [18]:11), and again: "Be raised on high, Lord, in your power" (Ps 20 [21]:14); and again: "May your leaders raise up the gates; rise up, eternal gates, and may the King of Glory enter in" (Ps 23 [24]:9). And again in Psalm 45: "Be at rest and know that I am God, I shall be raised up among the nations, I shall be raised up on the earth" (Ps 45 [46]:11), and again in [Psalm] 56: "Be raised up to the heavens, God, and upon all the earth your glory"; and again: "For your mercy has been magnified unto the heavens and your truth unto the clouds" (Ps 56 [57]:6, 11); and again: "You have gone up on high, you have made a prisoner of captivity" (Ps 67 [68]:19). For he has released the conquered human souls, in order that he might fulfill the prophecy spoken (through Isaiah), and he said: "Speaking to those in bonds: Go forth, and to those in darkness: Be revealed" (Isa 49:9). And again David says: "Sing a psalm to the one who has gone up into the heaven of heaven in the east" (Ps 67 [68]:34), and in [Psalm] 93: "Let the one judging the earth be raised up" (Ps 93 [94]:2), and in [Psalm] 98: "Lift up the Lord our God, and venerate the soles of his feet" and again "Lift up the Lord our God and venerate him on his holy mountain" (Ps 98 [99]:5, 9). And Zechariah says: "And the Lord my God will come and all the saints with him. And his feet will stand on that day on the Mount of Olives facing Jerusalem in the east" and he will be raised up (Zech 14:5, 4). The last words of Jacob's citation, "and he will be raised up," kai hupsōthēsetai (καὶ ὑψωθήσεται) does not appear in the Hebrew or Greek versions of this verse of Zechariah; yet Jacob must have known a version with this phrase at the end, or else he would not have included it in a chain of "raised up" proof-texts. For on the Mount of Olives Christ ascended, and his disciples venerated him. And the book of Kings says: "The Lord went up into heavens and thundered. Being righteous he will judge the ends of the earth" (1 Kgs [Sam] 2:10). And Habakkuk says: "His virtue has veiled the heavens, and the earth is full of his understanding" (Hab 3:3). And we see that all the nations praise Christ. And Isaiah says: "Behold my child will understand and he will be raised up and glorified and exalted" (Isa 52:13). And again through Isaiah Christ says: "Now I shall be raised up, says the Lord" (Isa 33:10).
[125] 36.
THE ETERNAL WORD OF GOD One of those from the circumcision,
by the name of Theodore, answered and said to him: Really, Mr.
Jacob, you don't persuade me of this, but it's a mistake. For
Christ had not come at the time of Isaiah.
Jacob said: The Word of God has always been, and he spoke through the mouth of the holy prophets. Just as David says, that "before the sun the name of the Son of the King remains, and all the tribes of the earth will be blessed in him and before the moon, generation upon generation" (Ps 71 [72]:17, 5). And Jeremiah said: "He is our God. Afterward he was seen upon the earth, he conversed with people" (Bar 3:36, 38), about the flesh which the holy Word of God took up from the holy virgin Mary. As also Jeremiah says: "Behold days come and I shall raise up a righteous descendant. And a righteous king will reign, and he will make judgment and righteousness in the midst of the earth. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will settle, in trust. And this is the name which the Lord will call him, Josedek, the Lord is our righteousness, and he is in the prophets" (Jer 23:5, 6). You see that the Word of God "he is in the prophets," who took up flesh from us at the end of days because people could not endure to look upon the bare divinity of the Word.
Everyone answered and said: This is the truth. And also [these verses]: "they have gouged my hands and my feet, they have counted all my bones. They perceived me and they looked upon me" and "They divided my clothes among themselves" and "they cast lots for my cloak" and "he was led as a sheep to the slaughter" were proclaimed in advance (Ps 21 [22]:17, 19; Isa 53:7).
37. THE NEW COVENANT AFFIRMED I myself, Joseph, Here the putative narrator and composer of the text, Joseph, appears for the first time (although presumably he also appeared in the lost Greek of the first four chapters). answered and said: Really great is the faith in Christ, because it was proclaimed through the law and the prophets. For Isaiah says: "Only the Lord will be raised up on that day, he will be raised up above the hills" (Isa 2:11, 2), "The Lord Sabaoth will be raised up in judgment" (Isa 5:16) and again: "I shall be raised up, said the holy one" (Isa 40:25) and again: "Rejoice and be happy, you who dwell in Zion, because the holy one of Israel has been raised up in your midst" (Isa 12:6).
[Per non-Greek versions, Jacob speaks here:] How did the one on high need to be raised up, unless on account of the flesh which God took up from us, when he dwelled with us humans? Just as Micah also says: "The Lord will be raised up above the hills, and many nations will come to him and many peoples and they will say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and they will show us his way and we shall walk in his paths. For out of Zion the law will go forth and the Word of the Lord out of Jerusalem" (Mic 4:1-2). Now do not think that Micah speaks of the Mosaic law. For the law given through Moses by God to humans was before Micah and it was given in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. The prophet saying "out of Zion [127] the law will go forth and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem" indicated the coming of Christ; "the law out of Zion and out of Jerusalem" [indicated] the gospels of Christ, the new covenant; and "the nations" [indicated] those whom we see coming at the time and believing in Christ and learning the way of Christ; and "his paths" [indicated] the new covenant.
[Per non-Greek versions, those from the circumcision speak here:] Really, Mr. Jacob, it is necessary not to Judaize any longer, since the new law of Christ has come, just as the prophets foretold to us. As also the great Moses prophesied to us saying: "The Lord God will raise up for a prophet like me," that is, a lawgiver, "listen to him in all things, however many he should say to you" (Deut 18:15-16). For no one else gave us the old covenant except Moses, and Christ gave us as law the new covenant of the holy gospels.
38. Jacob said: Mr. Joseph, but even the holy church was prefigured through the law and the prophets. For it says: Jacob took two wives, Leah the elder and Rachel the younger. But "he loved" Rachel more. Leah was as a figure of the synagogue, since she didn't see well (cf. Gen 29:16-30). Just as the prophet said: "They have eyes but do not see" (Jer 5:21). Now Rachel was beautiful and loved by her husband, but she was barren, as a type of the holy church. Just as Isaiah says: "Rejoice, you who are barren and have not given birth, cry aloud and shout, you who have not been in labor. For the offspring of the destitute are many, more than the one who has a husband. For the Lord said: Widen the place of your tent and fix the screens of your courtyards, don't be sparing, extend your allotments and reinforce your stakes, extend on the right and on the left and your seed will inherit nations" (Isa 54:1-3); and again: "Shine, shine, Jerusalem: for your light comes and the glory of the Lord has risen up over you. Behold darkness will hide the land and gloom upon the nations, but upon you the Lord will shine, and his glory will be seen upon you. And kings will walk by your light and rulers by your brightness. Rise up your eyes around, and see your children assembled. For your sons have come from far off and your daughters will be hoisted on their shoulders" (Isa 60:1-4), in order that David might be proven right when he says: "Hear, daughter, and see and incline your ear and forget your people and the your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty, because he is your Lord and you will venerate him, and the daughters of Tyre with presents" (Ps 44 [45]:11-13). By "daughters of Tyre," the prophet hints at the nations. So now, brothers, let us also forget our fathers' wicked and faithless deeds, so that the Son of God might desire the beauty of our souls and lovely and God-worthy works.
[129] 39. As David says about the call of the nations: "Praise the Lord, all the nations, sing praise to him, all the peoples. Because his mercy has prevailed over us and the Lord's truth endures forever" (Ps 116 [117]:1-2). Let us hear David and with the nations let us believe in Christ with all our hearts. For God says through Isaiah, speaking to the church from the nations: "Behold I cast into the foundations of Zion a costly stone and a valuable select cornerstone, and all who believe in it will not be ashamed" (Isa 28:16) and again, "Behold I prepare garnet for your stone, and sapphire for your foundations, and jasper for your battlements, and crystal for your gates, and chosen stone for your courtyard, and all your children as students of God and your offspring in great peace. And you will be edified in righteousness; stay away from evil and trembling will not approach you. Behold proselytes will come to you through me, and they will settle before you and will flee for refuge to you" (Isa 54:11-15). So if the one who believes in this cornerstone, that is Christ, should not be ashamed, then let those of us from the circumcision also believe in Christ and not be ashamed. For about those who do not believe in Christ Isaiah says: "Behold I set in Zion a stone of hindrance and a rock of stumbling" (Isa 8:14) and "all who believe in it will not be ashamed, forever" (Isa 28:16). So therefore those who don't believe in Christ will be ashamed forever and ever. And in this world they have are scattered and are trampled underfoot by the nations. And in the age to come, whenever they see Christ with glory, tribes will weep and be ashamed forever and ever and they will be given over to the unquenchable fire incessantly.
40. JACOB'S PRIOR LIFE Those from the circumcision answered and said: Your soul is really blessed, which has been found worthy of such a gift. For your teaching is the teaching of the Holy Spirit. But why didn't you teach the people ton laon (τὸν λαὸν) these things before, but, as you said, you did not want to hear about Christ?
Jacob answered and said: Because, brothers, I was truly misled by the devil and I hated Christ, not ever wanting to hear the prophecies about Christ. But I even undertook to do bad things to the Christians. And when Phocas reigned in Constantinople, I turned over Christians as Greens to the Blues, and I smeared them as "Jews" and "mamzers." Phocas seized control of the eastern empire from Maurice in 602 (see below). "Greens" and "Blues" were popular "clubs" affiliated with either of two major urban racing teams in the hippodrome, often incorporating in their partisan fights other discrete social groups (religious, professional, geographic, etc.). Greens or Blues enjoyed the patronage of key political figures, even emperors. Mamzer, Hebrew for "bastard," appears as a colorful term of Jewish opprobrium throughout the Doctrina. And when the Greens under Kroukis burned the Midway and did mischief (he said), as a Blue again I hobbled Christians, insulting them as Greens and smearing them as arsonists and Manicheans. On John Kroukis's riot, arson, and execution see Chronicon Paschale sub anno 603. Midway, Mese (Μεσή), refers to the main boulevard of the city. And when Bonosos [131] in Antioch took vengeance upon the Greens and murdered them, as a Blue and a supporter of the emperor I went up to Antioch and I cudgeled many Christians as Greens and smeared them as rebels (he said). Bonosos was Phocas's comes Orientis, who unsuccessfully put down a revolt of Jews in Antioch and whose career ended violently with Phocas's deposition in 609. And when in Constantinople the Greens dragged Bonosos in the street, I dragged him with them with my whole heart like a Christian. But I attacked Christians like a pagan, ethnisti (ἐθνιστὶ); Jacob compares himself to earlier pagan persecutors of Christians. thinking that I was serving God. For I was younger and strong in my body, just 24 years old, but empty-headed and wherever I saw or heard a fight I ran in. In return for these evils, the well-meaning God of my father Abraham impeded me for my own good and, by force, as I said, they made me become a Christian. And God put it into my heart to pore over the holy Scriptures. And I found truly that he is Christ, the one who came under Caesar Augustus, who was born in Bethlehem of Judea from Saint Mary, daughter of Joachim, from the tribe of Judah.
41. ON MARY'S DESCENT FROM JUDAH One of those from the circumcision, by the name of Isaac, answered and said with anger: Now really, you are not showing that Mary is out of Judah, but you are mistaken and you mislead everybody, and I don't believe you!
Jacob answered and said: Now really, always our people the Jews have been hard-hearted and disbelieving, fighting God. Now, if the Christians should hear of this, wouldn't they burn you up?
Isaac answered and said: I think you won't ever say anything bad about me to the Christians. Since, miserable and wretched Jacob, don't I know what you did at Butcher's Row and at the Julian port in Constantinople to the Christians, and how many Christians you killed in Pylai and across the way in Pythia and in Cyzicus and in Charax and in Aegae and in Ptolemaïs? And I'll tell them and they will kill you! Butcher's Row is ta Makellou, Déroche's correction for ta Markellou ("Marcellus Quarter"). The Julian Port was where, according to the Chronicon Paschale, Bonosos was executed (see above). Pylai (present-day Yalova), Cyzicus, Charax, and Aegae are all cities on the southern coast of the Sea of Marmara. Ptolemaïs, on the Palestinian coast, features heavily in the biographies of Jacob and Justus. Presumably, Isaac knows the details of Jacob's past from his own family connections (we know his cousins still reside in the East).
Jacob answered and said: By the name of the highest God, I never killed anyone, except I dragged Bonosos in the street with the Christians. I inflicted many wounds on the Christians, thinking I was serving the God of Israel.
[133] Those from the circumcision answered and said to Isaac: Mate, anthrōpe (ἄνθρωπε), a familiar, and sometimes condescending, form of address used throughout the Doctrina. calm down and don't get angry. Let him show us what he knows about Mary, whether she's a daughter of David.
Isaac answered and said: By the great name of the God who spoke to Moses, if you show me that Saint Mary, from whom Christ was born, was out of Judah then I shall no longer Judaize. For as the Lord lives, this has been a great stumbling block for me, that no one can show that Saint Mary is out of David. And the Gospel according to Matthew begins from Abraham until Joseph, but does not go until Saint Mary.
Those from the circumcision answered and said to Jacob: Mr. Jacob, don't hold a grudge, for even if we fight on account of belief, lift us up as our brother and prove to us that Saint Mary is out of David. For if you don't prove it, many will have this as a stumbling block, because Christ is not out of David, just as the law and prophets said.
42. Jacob answered and said to them: Does Master Isaac Here Jacob uses the more formal kurios rather than the typical kuris used throughout. agree that Joseph is the son of Abraham, our Father, according to the flesh, just as the Christians' gospel says?
Isaac answered and said: Yes, I do really know precisely that the Gospel according to Matthew tells the truth, that Joseph, who was entrusted with Mary, is a son of Judah. For having pored over very thoroughly the holy Scriptures and the apocrypha, I found that Joseph is out of the seed of David and Judah, and God's curse upon whoever doesn't say Joseph is of David's seed. But I have not discovered that Mary is out of David.
Jacob answered and said: Really, I don't blame you, Mr. Isaac, for asking where Saint Mary is from. For some Jews took foreign alloethneis (ἀλλοεθνεῖς) wives, and I myself was extremely scandalized. But the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who reveals mysteries, sent a certain Jew to Ptolemaïs and he recounted the genealogy of Saint Mary. He said, mocking, that she is of Judah. That Jew was a great teacher of the law from Tiberias, and he said: "Why do the Christians make such a big deal about Mary? She is a daughter of David, not the mother of God! Theotokos (Θεοτόκος), literally "bearer of God," an honorific affirmed for Mary in the fifth century. For Mary is a woman, she's the daughter of Joachim, her mother is Anne. Joachim is the son of Panther, Panther was the brother of Melchi, as our Jewish tradition of Tiberias has it, from the seed of Nathan the son of David out of the seed of Judah. Melchi is the son of Levi. [135] When Mathan, Jacob's father, died, he [Melchi] married the wife of Mathan, who was a widow, the mother of Jacob, who came along with his own mother to Melchi the brother of Panther, the father of Joachim. When Melchi begat Heli from the mother of Jacob, there were two, Jacob and Heli, brothers from the same mother, but with different fathers. When Heli passed away childless after getting married, Jacob was required according to the law to marry the wife of his brother Heli, in order to "establish the seed of his brother" (cf. Lev 18:16), and so he begat a child from the wife of his brother Heli, called Joseph. This Joseph was the natural offspring of Jacob, but legally the child of Heli. This dual fatherhood of Joseph allows the Doctrina to harmonize the genealogy of Matt 1:16, where his father is Jacob, with Luke 3:23, where his father is Heli. Now Joachim, the father of Mary: both his father Panther and his [Panther's] brother Melchi, who were sons of Levi, were relatives of Joachim, just as the attentive mind tracking from the Hebrew traditions establishes by succession. With the result that Mary, daughter of Joachim son of Panther brother of Melchi, given to Joseph, according to the two patriarchs Nathan and Solomon related to David on his father's side, but on his mother's from Heli, first cousin of her father Joachim out of a natural kinship (of Levi). So don't let the Christians think that Mary is from heaven!" I heard these things from the teacher of the law, before God! The Jew said these things disparagingly, but I glorified God who reveals hidden things. But the gospel speaks the truth when it says Mary is the relative of Elizabeth, for the tribes of Judah and Levi have been mixed together. Jacob's Tiberian genealogy of Jesus builds on earlier attempts to show Jesus's Davidic descent: Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 1.7 (citing Julius Africanus), narrates a similar account.
And Isaac answered and said to those listening from the circumcision: Really, brothers, I do not have anything to say to these things: and if anyone henceforth does not say that Saint Mary is out of the root of Jesse, that is, of Judah, let him be cursed!
43. And again Isaac said: Mr. Jacob, I wanted at this time to say something to you. I'm afraid that you will get angry and hand me over to the Christians and they will burn me in truth.
And Jacob said: By the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob our fathers, I shall never say anything bad against my brothers from the Hebrews. This is why we have sworn to each other that no one will write these things down and show them to the Christians. But this is why also we have taken the caution to sit together in a hidden house, so no one will know, except God alone, but even those things we say will pass away and be forgotten, and we shall not know what we spoke about.
[137] JOSEPH KEEPS A SECRET RECORD And we stopped and they all left in peace on that day, as they did every other day. But I Joseph—before God!— being uncertain about believing in Christ, I wished—even though I swore with the others not to write anything down—with God forgiving, to keep a record in secret of all these things which Jacob and those from the circumcision discussed with each other. And through my son Simeon, through tablets and papers, I had him note down exchange by exchange, going out through a window in a house next door where I had hidden my son Simeon, and we kept a record. Very often Isaac said to me: "Why are you going out all the time?" And I said: "Forgive me, because I have a violent discharge biasmous (βιασμοὺς), i.e., diarrhea. and I am afflicted." But I kept the record so that I might see whether I was misled when I was baptized and became a Christian.
BOOK II
1. THAT CHRIST IS THE SON OF GOD.
Second meeting. And after two
days they gathered altogether and they
said to Jacob: Mr. Jacob, Christians are mistaken when they say
that Christ is the Son of God. For God would not get married and
have a son! It is useful to say that Christ is the Anointed One
and Savior and Redeemer, but not Son of God.
Jacob answered and said: Really, my fathers and brothers, I too used to think this way, and I wept a lot concerning the subject of this affliction, for many days and nights calling upon God to clarify it for me. And I saw in a vision a man wearing a white cloak, saying to me: Why are you scandalized to call Christ God's Son? Didn't God through David say: "Out of my womb I begat you before the morningstar" (Ps 109 [110]:3)? And again Christ through David says concerning his birth according to the flesh: "The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask me and I shall give you nations as your inheritance and as your possession the ends of the earth" (Ps 2:7-8). And through Chronicles God says: "I shall prepare his kingdom, and he will build my house. And I shall restore his throne for eternity. I shall be for him as a father and he will be for me as a Son. I shall not withdraw my mercy from him" (1 Chron 17:11-13) and again: "He will be for me as a Son, and I shall be for him as a Father, and I shall restore his throne in Israel for eternity" (1 Chron 22:10).
Theodore answered and said: I think, Mr. Jacob, you were misled when you saw the vision. For the prophets were talking about Solomon.
[139] Jacob answered and said: I was not misled. "Before the morningstar I begat you" means before the creation of the world, and "I shall restore his throne for eternity" means eternally. Solomon didn't exist before light, nor is his throne for eternity. After reigning for forty years he heard the divine voice through the prophet: " I shall indeed break your kingdom" (1 Kgs 11:11), and having done wickedness before the Lord he died. And David says: "God, give your judgment to the king and your righteousness to the son of the king"; and again: "Before the sun his name endures and before the moon, generation upon generation" (Ps 71 [72]:1, 17, 5). And Hosea says: "Out of Egypt I called my Son" (Hos 11:1). And again the prophecy says, as out of Christ: "Before all the hills he begat me" and again: "When he prepared heaven I was present with him" (Prov 8:25, 27).
Theodore answered and said: As the Lord lives, you have demonstrated correctly, and the faith of the Christians is great.
2. THAT THE JEWISH PRIESTHOOD HAD ENDED Jacob said: But also our Jewish priesthood has been cast away by God. Here, unusually, Jacob introduces a new topic for discussion instead of being prompted by questions from his interlocutors.
Those from the circumcision answered and said: How can you demonstrate that?
Jacob said: Since we transgressed against God, he took the priesthood away from us. In 1 Kings he said: "A man of God came before Eli and said: Thus says the Lord: I made a revelation of myself before your father's house, when they were enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. And I chose the house of your father, out of all the tribes of Israel, to be my priests, to ascend into my sanctuary and offer incense and raise up the ephod. And I gave your father's house all the burnt offerings of the children of Israel as meat. And so why have you looked at my incense with a shameless eye, and glorified your sons above me, to bless yourself with the first fruit of every sacrifice in Israel before me? This is why the Lord God of Israel said: I said: your house and your father's house will go forth before me forever. But now the Lord says: None at all but the ones who have glorified me shall I glorify; and the one denying me I shall make dishonored. Behold days are coming and I shall utterly destroy your seed and the seed of your father's house, and there will be no elder presubteros (πρεσβύτερο`#962;), literally "venerable elder," but also commonly used for Christian priests for you before me all of your days. And I shall destroy a man for you before my sanctuary, that their eyes fail and their souls rush away. And everyone left over in your house will fall by the sword of men. And this sign for you will come upon your sons, Ophni and Phineas, they will both die in a single day" (1 Sam 2:27-34). See then, my brothers, how he was going to wipe out Judaizing at the right time and "the sevenfold light" would come, which Isaiah spoke of, which is the coming of Christ. [141] For the holy Scripture straightaway continues, saying: "And I shall raise up for me a faithful priest, who will do everything in my heart and in my soul and I shall build for him a faithful house and he will go before me all of his days, and the one left over in your house will come to venerate him with a silver obol, saying: Admit me into a single one of the priesthoods to eat bread" (1 Sam 2:35-36). And again the Lord says to Samuel: "See I shall effect your words in Israel, such that both the ears of everyone who hears will ring. On that day I shall rouse up all those things, as many as I pronounced against his house, I shall begin and I shall end. And I have announced to him that I am having revenge upon his house forever in the transgressions of his sons, which I know, that his sons, speaking evil of God, have also committed fornication with women and he has not rebuked them. And not in this way did I swear to the house of Eli, that the injustice of the house of Eli will be atoned in incense and in sacrifices forever" (1 Sam 3:11-14).
They all answered and said: Really you speak the truth, Mr. Jacob. This is why, through David, he said, the priests have been slain.
3. ON THE WORSHIP OF THE TRINITY Isaac answered and said: But bear with me once more and tell us if it is right for the Trinity to be worshiped as the Christians worship.
Jacob answered and said: Mr. Isaac, the holy law and the prophets proclaim the Trinity. For it says in the law: "Let us make humankind according to our image" (Gen 1:26). It is clear that the Father was speaking with the Son. And Job says: "The Spirit of the Lord that made me" (Job 33:4); and again Moses says: "The Lord your God is one Lord" (Deut 6:4), since there is one divinity of God and of his Word and of the Holy Spirit. And again he says through Moses: "I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (Ex 3:6; Matt 22:32) and he does not say: "I am the God of Abraham," so that the Word and his Spirit doesn't go unindicated. But he has indicated three times the triple naming of the single divinity. Also the holy powers of the cherubim and the seraphim say without cease: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth" (Isa 6:3). For the Lord is one, since there is a single divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Abraham welcomed three angels, but he imparted to the angels a single lordship of equal honor, saying: "Lord, if I have found grace before you" and so forth (Gen 18:3) And Sirach says: "I called upon the Lord, Father of my Lord" (Sir 51:10). And in Genesis it says: "Spirit of God was borne upon the water" (Gen 1:2); and again, "The Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the Lord upon Sodom" (Gen 19:24). Likewise also through Isaiah: "They provoked the Holy Spirit and he turned to them in hatred" (Isa 63:10). Taking three rods and casting them in the water Jacob watered the flocks of Laban (cf. Gen 30:36-38). For the baptism of Christ in the triple naming of the [143] Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit waters and saves the rational flocks of God, humans, just as God says through Ezekiel: "Behold I seek out and I review my flocks; and they know that I am the Lord their God" (Ezek 34:11, 15); and again, "Let us walk on this path for three days in the wilderness, to sacrifice to the Lord our God" (Ex 8:23). For the holy Trinity led our fathers out of Egypt and he [Moses] said: "Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been honorably glorified" (Ex 15:1). And David says: "He has sent his Word and he saved them" (Ps 106 [107]:20); and again, "He sent his Spirit, and the sea covered them" and again "And through the Spirit of your anger the water parted" (Ex 15:10, 8). After fasting for three days and three nights the Ninevites were saved, a prediction of worshiping the holy Trinity and being saved (Jonah 3:5-8). Three times Elijah poured water on the kindling and on the parts of the bull and brought down fire from heaven on them (1 Kgs 18:33-35). The triple water and the kindling and the parts of the bull and the heavenly fire are the holiness of the triple naming of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit on the holy baptism, and the cross, and the parts of Christ, and the heavenly light predicted sanctifying the baptized. Three times a day Daniel, opening the windows of his house and praying, obtained his request (Dan 6:10), teaching the mystery of the holy Trinity, that equal honor and glory and worship are ascribed to God and to his Word and to his Holy Spirit. For the holy Trinity created all things. For he says, as I said before, "Let us make humankind according to our image" and again: "You will send out your Spirit and they will be created" (Ps 103 [104]:30); and again, "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all of their power" (Ps 32 [33]:6).
4. And Job says: "The Lord lives, who judges me in this way, and the almighty who embittered my soul, and the divine Spirit passing through my nostrils" (Job 27:2, 3). By saying "Lord" and "Almighty" and "divine Spirit" he has indicated the holy Trinity. And David in Psalm 49 says: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise and sing to the most high your prayers, and call upon me on the day of your affliction" (Ps 49 [50]:14, 15)—you see how the holy Trinity is proclaimed?—and in Psalm 26: "My heart said to you: I shall seek the Lord; my countenance has sought you out, your countenance, Lord, I shall seek" (Ps 26 [27]:8). And Zechariah as if in the person of Christ says: "Rejoice and be of good cheer, daughter of Zion, for I am coming and I shall make camp in your midst, says the Lord. And on that day many nations will seek refuge before the Lord" (Zech 2:14-15); and again: "I shall pour out upon the house of David the Spirit of grace and mercies" (Zech 12:10). And again Zechariah says as if from Christ: "The Lord said: The Lord will rebuke you, devil" (Zech 3:2); and [145] again: "but in my Spirit" (Zech 4:6). And David says: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I set your enemies beneath your feet" (Ps 109 [110]:1); and again, "Your good spirit will lead me into a straight land" (Ps 142 [143]:10). And again in Psalm 17 he says: "The Lord lives, and God is blessed, and may the God of my salvation be exalted" (Ps 17 [18]:47).
All those from the circumcision answered, crying out and saying: Really this is the way of life, and all those taking hold of it go into life, while those leaving it behind go into death and endless punishment. For the law and the prophets proclaim the holy Trinity. For we recognize God almighty and the Word of God, which is upon the prophets, and the holy Spirit!
5. I, Joseph, answered, who was making a record of these things and marking them down, and I said to them: Why don't we dissolve the oath which we swore, that the Christians would not learn [about our meeting]?
And Jacob said: No, brothers, no one should reveal anything to the Christians, because they guard a great and precise and holy faith of orthodox teachings. Besides saying that the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one substance homoousion (ὁμοούσιον), the technical term for the identity of the persons of the Trinity formalized in the Nicene Creed. Jacob does not explain this theological term, although he does reveal later (in Book V) how he came to be familiar with its meaning long before his baptism. with the Father, they also possess other incredible paradoxa (παράδοξα) and invaluable teachings which we have not yet received: what if they anathematize us as heretics? For God poured out his Spirit upon all the flesh of the nations, just as God said through the prophet Joel (cf. Joel 2:28 [3:1]), and they believe correctly, as it is written. For God says through Isaiah: "Those enslaved to me will be called by a new name, which will be blessed upon the earth. For they will bless the true God. And those swearing will swear by the true God. For they will forget their first affliction" (Isa 65:15-16)—that is, the diabolical error of empty idols. But we who are from the Jews apo Ioudaiōn (ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων), a phrase used frequently in the Doctrina to describe these baptized Jews. Déroche translated it as "ex-Juifs," but I am less certain the phrase intends such finality. have not yet learned the basics of the faith of Christ. For Christians exile and anathematize bishops and patriarchs who deviate a little bit.
6. ON CHRIST'S COMING Those from the circumcision answered and said: You teach us well, father, but make us strong and joyful out of the prophets, bringing to light for us further proof-texts marturias (μαρτυρίας) concerning Christ's coming.
Jacob answered and said: Isaiah as if from the Father says: "Behold I put in Zion, says the Lord, a stone as an obstacle and a rock as a stumbling block, and everyone who believes in him will not be dishonored forever" (Isa 28:16). Now the obstacle stone and the stumbling rock [147] was Christ for us Jews who didn't believe in Christ, just as also Job says concerning those who didn't believe in and crucified Christ: "The Lord will not save the impious, since they didn't want to know the Lord" (Job 36:12). And Isaiah likewise says about those crucifying: "The counsel of your spirit was in vain" (Isa 33:11); and again: "You took counsel that wasn't through me and you made a plan that was not through my Spirit" (Isa 30:1). And again Isaiah says: "They have diverted the righteous one among the unjust" (Isa 29:21). And Hosea says about those who do not believe: "God will reject them, because they did not listen to him and they will be wanderers among the nations" (Hos 9:17). For we committed an offense against Christ in our disbelief for 600 years and we are trampled underfoot by all the nations and the demons, since we are in a captivity of soul and body. About those who believe in Christ Isaiah says: "Behold, the Lord comes with strength" (Isa 40:10); and again, "On that day the deaf will hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind which are in darkness and which are in gloom will see. And the tongues that hesitate will learn to speak of peace" (Isa 29:18, 24). For, really, in truth [he has healed] the deaf and all those weak in soul and in body, and "the tongues" of people "which hesitate," which were swearing at that time by vain idols, they have learned to speak of peace about Christ. For Christ is peace and salvation for those who believe in him. For God says through Isaiah about the faithful: "I am the Lord God, I shall listen to them, the God of Israel, and I shall not leave them behind, but I shall lead rivers up the mountains and springs in the midst of their plains, and I shall make the desert into pools of water and I shall set their parched land in canals" (Isa 41:17-18).
7. And again God says through Isaiah, so no one would Judaize after Christ's coming, but instead would be baptized: "Do not remember the former things and do not take account of the ancient ones; for behold I make all things new, which will rise up now, and you shall know them. And I shall make a path in the wilderness and rivers in the waterless place. The beasts of the field will bless me" (Isa 43:18-20); and again, "I myself am speaking righteousness, pronouncing truth; be gathered and come forth, take counsel together you who are saved" "I am God, and there is no other beside me; righteous one and savior, there is no one outside me. Turn to me and you will be saved, from the end of the earth" (Isa 45:19-22). Again Moses says: "Let my saying be anticipated, like rain, and may my words fall down like dew, like showers [149] on the grass and like snowfall on the pasture" (Deut 32:2). And again through Isaiah he says to Christ: "Do not fear because you have been dishonored, nor turn away because you have been upbraided" (Isa 54:4); and again, "I live, says the Lord, you shall wear them all like a cloak" (Isa 49:18)—he's saying this on account of the flesh. And Zechariah says: "The Lord will save them on that day, his people as the flocks," also about the apostles of Christ: "So the holy stones are rolled along on his earth, because if anything is good and right it is his" (Zech 9:16, 17). And David says about the apostles: "The heavens recount the glory of God" (Ps 18 [19]:1). And again Isaiah says about Christ: "My God is great, he will not pass me by, the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our leader, the Lord is our King, the Lord is our Savior" (Isa 33:22); and again: "He will come and he will save us" (Isa 35:4). And again Isaiah says about Christ: "In the way the lion or the cub will roar at the prey which he takes and he cries out at it until the mountains are filled with his voice and the crowd is overcome from his anger and is terrified, just so the Lord Sabaoth will come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on his mountains: like a bird in flight, so the Lord Sabaoth will protect Jerusalem, he will protect and propitiate and preserve and shield and save" (Isa 31:4, 5). And again Isaiah says: "Who among you fears the Lord? Let him listen to the voice of his child" (Isa 50:10). And again about the new law of grace of the holy gospels of Christ God says through Isaiah: "Hear, my people and kings hearken to me: for a law will go out from me and my judgment as a light to the nations. Quickly my righteousness approaches and will go forth as my saving light, and in my arm the nations will place their hope" (Isa 51:4-5). And again Isaiah says about Christ: "The Lord will uncover his holy arm before all the nations, and all the ends of the world will see the salvation which is from our God" (Isa 52:10). And again the highest God says to Christ through Isaiah: "It is great for you to be called my child, to set up the tribes of Jacob and to return the scattering of Israel. Behold I have given you as a covenant of the people, as a light of the nations, for you to be the salvation unto the ends of the earth. Thus says the Lord, who delivered you, the God of Israel: Sanctify the one who diminishes his soul, who is abhorred by" Pilate and the soldiers, "those enslaved to the leaders of the nations. Kings will see him and leaders will rise up and venerate him on account of the Lord, because he is faithful, the holy one of Israel, and he has chosen you. Thus says the Lord: At the appointed time I heard you and on the day of salvation I helped you, and I formed you and I gave you as a covenant of the nations, to establish the earth and receive the bereft inheritance, to say to those in [151] bondage: Go forth, and to those in darkness: Be revealed" (Isa 49:6-9). And again through Isaiah: "And your soul will be saved among the good people, and I shall make with you an eternal covenant, holy and faithful, of David. Behold I have given him as a witness among the nations, leading and presiding over the nations. Behold the nations who did not know you will call upon you, peoples who did not believe in you will seek refuge in you" (Isa 55:3-5).
8. And again Isaiah says: "Seek God and when you find him
call upon him"; and again: "For he will remit your
many sins: for my counsels are not like your counsels, nor are
your ways like my ways, says the Lord" (Isa 55:6, 7-8);
and again: "These things says the Lord: Guard judgment and
make righteousness: for the coming of my salvation is near and
the unveiling of my mercy"; and again: "For my house
will be called a house of prayer for all the nations" (Isa
56:1, 7). And again Isaiah says about Christ: "No elder or
angel but God himself when he came saved them" (Isa 63:9);
and again: "The one walking in righteousness, speaking in a
straight path, hating transgression and injustice, and shaking
off his hands from bribes: holding down his ears so as not to
hear the judgment of unrighteous blood, closing his eyes, lest
he see evil; he will live in a lofty cave of strong rock,
bread will be given to him and his water assured. You will see
the king with glory" (Isa 33:15-17). And again about the
holy baptism of Christ through Isaiah God says: "I am the
Lord God, I shall listen to them, the God of Israel, and I
shall not leave them behind, but I shall lead rivers up the
mountains and springs in the midst of their plains, and I
shall make the desert into pools of water and I shall set
their parched land in canals" (Isa 41:17-18). And again: "You
who thirst proceed to the water" and again "Hear me
and eat good things, and your soul will revel in good things"
(Isa 55:1, 2).
Those from the circumcision answered and said: Really this is true and Christ is the Son of God, who was born from Saint Mary.
And when evening came they left, giving thanks to God with great thanks. But I, Joseph, as before God, as I was able, I recorded in secret from them with my son Symeon.
BOOK III
[153] 1. JUSTUS, AN UNBAPTIZED JEW, ARRIVES After five days Justus came, an unbaptized Jew, from the East, a first cousin of Isaac, and Isaac received him into his house. And he reproached Isaac, saying: You should not have been baptized, for Christ hasn't come yet.
And Isaac said to him: Mr. Justus, really I was greatly afflicted when I was baptized and I fell into despair. But a certain person was found from the Jews by the name of Jacob, and I think he speaks from the Holy Spirit, and he greatly reassured us from the law and the prophets that the one who came was Christ.
And Justus said: Don't I know Jacob, the son of Thanuma, Θανουμᾶ, a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic Tan?uma, the only non-biblical, non-Greek name of a Jew in the Doctrina. This Greek form appears in a handful of late antique inscriptions. a highwayman and a thief, the one who committed so many bad acts against the Christians under the Emperor Phocas and Bonosos? Show him to me, and I shall prove that he is a deceiver who is fighting against God, and I shall prove that those who have been baptized have been misled.
And those of us from the circumcision heard and we were shaken and dejected. And Theodore said: Mr. Joseph, I think we're in a bad way. For if Justus proves that Jacob has been misled, we're in a bad way. Justus has disturbed all those from the Jews, and we have a lot of distress and despondency.
2.
JACOB REASSURES THOSE FROM THE CIRCUMCISION
Third Meeting And after a
time Jacob came into the place where we gathered and sent
and called for those who had been coming and pondering the holy
Scriptures and, as he said, were fond of God. Coming with a lot
of grief they said among
themselves: It's too bad we didn't write down the fountain of
things that gushed from Jacob's mouth, so Justus might read
them. In all likelihood he would learn the whole truth, whether
we were misled upon being baptized or saved, as Mr. Jacob says.
I, Joseph, answered and I said to them: As before God, I and my son Symeon have kept a record of them; but keep it secret and for now don’t say anything to anybody.
And those from the circumcision came in before Jacob, sullen and aggrieved. And Jacob said to them: What's the matter with you? I notice that you are sullen.
And Isaac said: Yes, we are really in great distress. For my first cousin Justus came from the East and he says that we have been misled by being baptized. For Christ has not yet come.
Jacob answered and said to them: Oh, I am familiar with Mr. Justus and his brother Little Abraham Jacob calls Justus's brother Abraamios (Ἀβραάμιος), but Justus later (Doctrina V.16) calls him Abraamēs (Ἀβραάμης). Both are declinable forms of the biblical name Abraham, but I have decided Jacob here is using a diminutive. and their father, Mr. Samuel, who are well versed in holy Scriptures. And I was taught many things by their father, blessed Samuel. For I learned about the prophets from him, and I came to know Christ. [155] But I beseech you: seek him out and bring him and let him be useful to us, because he is scriptural and a great teacher.
Isaac answered and said: If you wish, I'll bring him to you.
Jacob said: Be so kind as to bring him, in order that if God should put something to him he might teach us.
And Isaac set out and found him studying up against Christ and against the Jews who had been baptized and taking notes, because, he said: They have been deceived, for Christ has not yet come.
And Isaac said to him: Mr. Justus, Mr. Jacob wishes to pay his respects to you.
And Justus said to him: I don't want to see him; what if, at some point, I insult him and the Christians learn about it and rough me up? Now if I were in Sykamina or Ptolemaïs, Towns on the Palestinian coast with significant Jewish populations in the seventh century and the scene of most of Justus's and Jacob's youthful recollections (see below). I would prove from the law and the prophets that Christ has not yet come, and it is not yet the time of baptism.
Isaac answered and said: Don't be afraid because of this. We have sworn to each other that the Christians won't learn [about our meetings] and so he teaches us in a hidden place. For Jacob doesn't want the Christians to learn about it. And he is very afraid of them and trembles and doesn't want the Christians to learn about it at all.
And Justus said: Let's go and I shall show you that you have been misled upon being baptized and that Jacob is a devil and a great deceiver and swindler.
And Isaac said to him: Mr. Justus, it's already the tenth hour and it's evening. But if you insist, I'll go and speak to Mr. Jacob this evening and tomorrow we shall show up at that hidden place, in order that even if you cry out the Christians won't learn of it, or anyone else, no one but God and those of us who usually show up and who fear God and keep the secret.
And Justus said: That sounds all right.
And Isaac went and spoke to Jacob.
3.
FIRST CONFRONTATION
OF JUSTUS AND JACOB
Fourth Meeting Now Justus did
not sleep all night, searching the holy Scriptures and taking
notes against those who were baptized on how they were misled.
And from early on the fifth day [Thursday] they gathered, Jacob
and the rest in the house, where they always showed up. And
Justus came with Isaac, holding papers, to do battle.
Jacob looked at him and said: Rightly has God brought my father and teacher, Mr. Justus, who has fear of God: please, sit.
Sitting, Justus said: Wrongly have I found you, my children and students, who have no fear of God, but are apostates from God.
Jacob answered and said: Calm down, Mr. Justus!
Justus said: Really I should not calm down, because you—garbage! apostate! abomination of the Jews!—through your fraud you have come to be seen as a teacher.
[157] Jacob answered and said: Really you speak the truth because I was at one time garbage and apostate and abomination and blind and fraudulent, not knowing the highest God. In this you have spoken truth and have prophesied. But he is the highest, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and of the prophets, who makes all things for the best, who stood in my way; and I was overtaken and I was baptized and I became a Christian by force. And I wailed and I lamented and I fasted a lot and I searched the holy Scriptures and I knew out of the holy Scriptures and I was greatly assured that the one proclaimed by the law and the prophets, "coming in the name of the Lord" (Ps 117 [118]:26) was Christ, and no other except the one born "in Bethlehem of Judea" (Mic 5:1) from Saint Mary under Caesar Augustus, and the one not accepting Christ or believing in him is apostate from God and a mamzer and cursed.
4. Justus answered and said: You insult me, wretched Jacob! Wasn't my father, blessed Samuel, your teacher in the holy Scriptures?
Jacob answered and said: I do not insult you, certainly not. But the Holy Spirit "who spoke through the prophets" Jacob again cites the Nicene Creed. insults and curses those who do not accept Christ.
At that point Justus rose up with anger and threw his turban around Jacob's neck and said: All right, I am choking you if you can't prove from the holy Scriptures that those of us who weren't baptized have been misled.
Isaac and Theodore rose up and they said to Justus: Really, Mr. Justus, this is not what teachers do!
I, Joseph, went out for a little bit and took notes with my son Symeon. And Justus said to me: Where do you go every second, mamzer? Do you want to hand me over to the Christians? All right, if you ever say anything against me to the Christians, I'll have you all burned up and I'll say that you insulted Christ!
I, Joseph, answered and said: I have a violent discharge and I am afflicted, Mr. Justus. Don't be upset because I go out.
Justus said: Grant me a single week, in order that I might gather my thoughts, and I shall prove that Christ has not yet come and it is not the time for holy baptism.
And they all left on that day. It was resolved that, after a week, they would show up there again and again there would be a great debate about belief and disbelief. Isaac took Justus into his house and he gave him a separate room. And, taking notes day and night, he struggled in order that he might prove that Christ had not yet come and it was not yet the time for holy baptism.
[159] 5. Fifth Meeting
And after seven days those from the circumcision were gathered
and sent for Justus. And he came and
he said to them: You have been greatly misled in being
baptized, and I shall prove it right now. Jacob, misled and
apostate from God, will say against me whatever he can!
ON THE REJECTION OF THE JEWS Jacob said: You know, Mr. Justus, that it says in Hosea: "Go, take for yourself a wife of fornication and children of fornication. For in fornicating the land fornicates behind the Lord's back. And he went and he married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. And she conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said to him: Call his name Jezreel. For in a little while I shall avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Judah and I shall end the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it will be on that day I shall eradicate the bow of Israel in the vale of Jezreel. And she conceived and she bore a daughter. And he said to him: Call her name Not Pitied. For I shall not continue to have pity on the house of Israel but in opposition I shall line up against them, says the Lord" (Hos 1:2-6); and again: "She weaned Not Pitied and she conceived yet again and bore a son. And he said: Call him Not My People, because you are not my people and I am not your God" (Hos 1:8-9).
And Justus said: This is indeed how the Scripture shows the turning of God away from his people.
6. And again Jacob said: Hosea said about those who, from disbelief, were going to believe in God: "And it will be in that place, where it was said to them: You are not my people, they will be called also sons of the living God. And the sons of Judah will be gathered and the sons of Israel in the same place and they will establish for themselves a single rule, and they will be raised up out of the land because the day of Jezreel is great" (Hos 2:1-2). For Judah and Israel and the nations believing in Christ have a single ruler and king, Christ. "Will be raised up out of the land" means they will no longer have earthly and diabolical works but heavenly and God-pleasing works. "The day of Jezreel is great" means the coming of Christ which illuminates all things out of the darkness of empty idolatry and leads to knowledge of God. And again: "Say to your brother: My people, and to your sister: Pitied" (Hos 2:3). And again about those not believing in Christ and about the synagogue he said: "Your mother" "is not my wife and I am not her husband" (Hos 2:4) And other bad things the prophet says about the synagogue of unbelievers, until: "And no one will deliver her from my hand; for I shall divert all of her celebrations." "And I shall have vengeance upon her for the days of Baalim" (Hos 2:12-13, 15). See, Mr. Justus, the prophets speaks about the cessation of keeping the Sabbath.
About the call of the nations, the new people, who are enslaved to God as Isaiah [Hosea] says, or rather God through Isaiah [Hosea]: "And I shall make a covenant with them on that day, [161] with the beasts and the birds of the sky and with things that creep on the earth. And bow and sword and war I shall eradicate from the earth, and I shall make you dwell upon hope. And I shall betroth you to myself forever and I shall betroth you to myself in righteousness and in judgment and in pity and in mercies. And I shall betroth you to myself in faith and you will know the Lord" (Hos 2:20-22). Oh wonder, that God says: "You will know the Lord"! He does not say, "You will know me as the Lord," but "You will know the Lord," as he's talking about Christ. For right away the holy Scripture continues: "And it will be on that day, says the Lord, I shall listen to the heaven and the heaven will listen to the earth and the earth will listen to the grain and the wine and the oil. And these things will hear Israel, which is called the seed of God, and I shall sow it for myself upon the earth and I shall have pity on Not Pitied and I shall say to Not My People: You are my people. And he will say: You are the Lord my God" (Hos 2:23-25); he is talking about the new people, the Christians. For there will no longer be "famine upon the land" "to hear the Word of the Lord" (Amos 8:11). "For everything will be filled with knowing the Lord, as so much water covers the sea. And there will be on that day the root of Jesse and the one rising up to rule the nations, in whom the nations will place their hope" (Isa 11:9-10). And Hosea says: "The children of Israel will return and they will seek the Lord their God and David their king and they will be astounded at the Lord and at his good things at the end of days" (Hos 3:5). The prophet says these things about us, those who were baptized from among the Hebrews and who returned to God through Christ. For he is Christ as God says through Hosea: "They will rise up early toward me, saying: Come and let us return to the Lord our God. For he has struck and he will heal us, he will plug our wound and he will cure us after two days, and on the third days we shall be raised up before him" (Hos 5:15). And again Hosea says about the faithful: "Who is wise and will understand these things or who understands and will recognize those things? For the ways of the Lord are straight and righteous ones walk on them, but the impious stumble on them" (Hos 14:10). And about those who did not believe in Christ God says through Hosea: "I have hated them on account of the wickedness of their habits. I shall cast them out of my house and I shall not continue to love them. For if they have children, I shall slay the longings of their wombs. God will destroy them, because they did not listen to him, and they will be wanderers among the nations" (Hos 9:15-17). And again through Hosea Christ says about those who did not believe in him: "Casting I shall cast upon them my net, and I shall bring them down like birds from the sky. I shall discipline them at the rumor of their affliction. Woe unto them, because they were turning away from me. They are wretched because they were not pious toward me. I [163] have redeemed them, but they have spoken lies against me, and their hearts do not cry out to me" (Hos 7:12-14); and again: "They plotted wicked things against me" "for this they will be handed over to the nations" (Hos 7:15, 8:10).
7. And Amos says: "For behold I command and I scatter among all the nations the house of Israel, in the way that chaff is separated in the winnowing-fan, and no crumb will fall upon the earth, all the sinners of my people will be killed by the sword" (Amos 9:9-10). And Isaiah says: "My people has become captive because they did not know the Lord" (Isa 5:13). You see, brothers, that God says through Isaiah: "My people has been captive because they did not know the Lord," that is, Christ. From the time when Christ came, the power of our Jewish army and priesthood has been dissolved, and we have been scattered abroad by the Romans among the nations until this day. For Isaiah says about those who crucified Christ: "On account of your sins his countenance has turned away from you, to have no pity on you. For your hands have become stained with blood, and your fingers in sins, your lips have uttered transgression, and your tongue contrives injustice." "The works of transgression, the unrighteous work is in their hands. Their feet run to wickedness, they are swift to pour out innocent blood, and their considerations are those of thoughtless people. Affliction and distress are on their paths, and they do not know the path of peace. For their paths on which they travel are twisted and they do not know peace. This is why judgment has been absent from them and righteousness has not accepted them. While they await the light, darkness has been upon them." "They shall fall down at noontime as at midnight," "because truth has been consumed on their ways and they were not able to come through the straight way" (Isa 59:2-3, 6-10, 14). For since we did not believe in Christ, from peace and righteousness and from the true light we have been darkened and we are in wretchedness in all the land. For if he were not Christ, the one coming out of Mary, the chosen one of God, who was proclaimed by the law and the prophets, our Jewish people would have been glorified and exalted and reigning, as having crucified and killed an opponent of God and a deceiver. But from the time when our fathers crucified Christ, from then until today we have been in destruction and dishonor, and God's anger at us has been worse than the captivity in Babylon. For there after seventy years God took pity and called out his people and gave us the gift of the army of the Maccabees and the land, and "A prince out of Judah will not cease and a ruler from his parts" (Gen 49:10) remained true. But from the time when Christ came, "the expectation of the nations" (Gen 49:10), and the nations accepted Christ, and the prophet who does not lie, our father the righteous Jacob, has remained true and all of our rulers have fallen away and we have been exiled from our land of Judea to every place.
[165] 8. ON CHRIST'S COMING Justus answered and said: I said to you, Mr. Jacob, that I await Christ, the savior of the world. But it is clear to me that he has not yet come. Since we all know from the divine Scriptures that Christ comes in peace and calm, unnoticed. For Scripture says: "The son of the king will descend like rain on wool" (Ps 71 [72]:6, 1).
Jacob answered and said: By the soul of the blessed Samuel, your father, tell me the truth. In an inversion of the first two books, in his discussions with Justus Jacob poses the questions that structure the discussion.
Justus answered and said: As the Lord lives, as much as I comprehend, I shall not lie to you. For it is not necessary for me to lie.
And Jacob said: When does the prophet Daniel say that the coming of Christ will come?
Justus answered and said: After sixty-nine weeks and all prophecy has ceased, and then after a time the coming of Hermolaos and the deceiving devil, and then the great and brilliant and glorious day of Christ, the Son of Man, of which Daniel speaks.
Jacob answered and said: And so do you think there will be two advents?
Justus said: Yes, as the Lord lives. For about the first Joel says: "The sun will turn itself into darkness and the moon into blood, until the great and brilliant day of the Lord comes. And everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved" (Joel 3:4-5). And about the second coming of Christ Zephaniah says: "Because the day of the Lord which is great is near" "and brilliant" and "exceedingly swift" "and who will be sufficient for it?" (Zeph 1:14, Joel 2:11).
ON DANIEL'S FOUR BEASTS And Jacob answered and said: So I also believe. Then: about the beasts, of which Daniel the prophet speaks, who are four, what do you say, Mr. Justus, is the prophet speaking the truth or not?
Justus answered and said: Yes, as the Lord lives. Because the four beasts about which Daniel speaks are four kingdoms, and afterward into ten horns, that is into ten kings, and straightaway the small horn is the devil, and straightaway "with clouds of heaven" the Son of Man comes, the judge of all humanity. And likewise is also the matter of the statue which Nebuchadnezzar saw, which also he interpreted, for the head which is gold is the kingdom of the Chaldeans and the breast and arms are the Persians and Medians and the third kingdom, the belly, is that of the Greeks of Alexander and the fourth is of the Romans, the thighs and the calves (cf. Dan 7:2-26, Dan 7:13, Dan 2:26-45).
Jacob said: So then, Christ came after sixty-nine weeks, and the prophets have ceased to prophesy, or not?
Justus answered: Yes, as the Lord lives, and I do not lie. From the time that Christ came, no prophet has come, and I cannot lie.
[167] THAT ROME IS DIMINISHED Jacob said: How does Rhōmania seem to you? Does it stand as it was from the beginning or has it diminished? Throughout this discussion, the discussants use Rhōmania (Ῥωμανία) for the Roman Empire when they are interpreting it as the fourth beast of Daniel's prophecy.
Justus answered: Even if it has diminished a little, we hope that it will rise up again. Because it is necessary that Christ come first while the fourth beast, that is Rhōmania, yet stands.
[…] Just as God says through Isaiah: "May righteousness not be far off and I shall not delay the salvation which is from me" (Isa 46:13). And Habakkuk says: "He shall rise up in the evening on time. And if he should be late, wait for him because the one coming will arrive and he will not take his time"; and again: "Everything will be filled with knowing the glory of the Lord God […] because the day of the Lord is near" (Hab 2:3, 14; Zeph 1:14). And Zechariah says: "These things says the Lord Almighty: Behold the man, his name is East, and he will rise up from below him" "and he will sit upon his throne" (Zech 6:12-13); and again, "Be of great cheer, daughter of Zion: behold your king comes to you, righteous and saving, mild and having mounted a beast of burden" (Zech 9:9).
9. Jacob said: Really this is the truth. For straightaway the prophet Zechariah goes on, saying: "Many peoples will come and many nations to seek out the countenance of the Lord Almighty in Jerusalem to propitiate the countenance of the Lord" (Zech 8:22). And we observe the nations believing in Christ and the fourth beast having fallen and torn apart by the nations, in order that the ten horns might prevail and Hermolaos might come, Satan, the small horn, and in order that straightaway "they might be stirred out of the mound of earth, some for eternal life, others for eternal dishonor" (Dan 12:2). For really, Mr. Justus, Christ truly is the one who came under Caesar Augustus, who was born, just as Micah says, in Bethlehem from Saint Mary, and just as Moses the righteous one said in Numbers, blessed is he who blesses Christ and venerates him and believes, because he is the Word of God (cf. Num 24:9). Just as David says: "He sent his Word and he healed them" (Ps 106 [107]:20). Moses says: "Cursed is the one who curses" Christ and doesn't believe in him (cf. Num 24:9). For about those who don't believe in Christ Zechariah says: "the Lord God Almighty sent through his Spirit into the hands of the prophets before, and they did not listen to them. And the anger was great from the Lord Almighty upon Israel. And in this way he said they didn't listen to him, just so it has been proclaimed: I shall not listen to them, says the Lord Almighty" (Zech 7:12, 13). O wisdom! For he says "they did not listen" to my son, and "I shall not listen to them, says the Lord Almighty." He doesn't say: "They did not listen to him and I have not listened to them" but "I shall not listen to them," those not accepting Christ. For the Scripture of the prophet continues [169] straightaway saying: "I shall cast them among all the nations whom they do not know, and the land will be removed from them" (Zech 7:14). And all these things have happened to us Jews. From the time our fathers crucified Christ until today the anger of God has extended against those Jews who did not believe in Christ. For also Micah says about those who crucified Christ: "Committing evil acts in their beds, together by day they finish them, they raise their hands to God" (Mic 2:1). And again God and the Father through Micah say to Christ: "Rise up, crush them, because I shall put iron horns on you and I shall put bronze armor on you and you will winnow out many peoples and you will raise up to the Lord their multitude" (Mic 4:13); and again, "Listen for the Lord said: Rise up and judge before the mountains and let the hills listen to your voice. Listen, hills, to the judgment of the Lord and the gullies and foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a judgment toward his people and will converse with Israel" (Mic 6:1-2). You see, Mr. Justus, that Christ is God and human. As God the foundations of the earth tremble at him while as a human he speaks with the Jews. And these things happened and took place.
10. Justus answered and said: Mr. Jacob, was the fourth beast so great once?
Jacob answered and said: Yes, really. For from the ocean, that is, from Scotland and Britain and Spain and France and Italy and Greece and Thrace and until Antioch and Syria and Persia and the entire East, and Egypt and Africa and beyond Africa, stood the boundaries of the Romans until today and the pillars of their emperors are visible through bronze and marble. For all the nations were subject to the Romans, by God's command; but today we observe that Rhōmania is humbled.
Isaac answered and said: It's time for us to leave.
And everyone left. And Jacob left alone to his house. He fasted and kept many vigils, in order that his mind might be sober for the divine Scriptures.
11. JUSTUS BEGINS TO BELIEVE As they departed the rest of those from the circumcision said to Justus: What do you say, Mr. Justus, about the things Jacob spoke of?
Justus said to them: As the Lord lives, it appears to me that he speaks the truth, and that he recites the Scriptures by heart from the Holy Spirit and that Christ who has come is God and King of Israel.
[171] They said to him: We
wish you might read those words also which he spoke to us before
you came.
Justus answered and said: By the name of God, show me and from that I shall see if Jacob has been misled.
Those from the circumcision said: We swore that no one would write it down. But Joseph, one of us, without our knowing, took the trouble to write it down, as he says.
Isaac took Justus into his house and he ate with him—for before Justus had been horrified to eat with those who were baptized—and after they ate Justus said to Isaac: Mr. Isaac, send for Mr. Joseph to come and to bring what he wrote from Jacob's mouth.
And Isaac sent and brought Joseph, and Joseph read these things from the beginning to the end. It's not clear why Joseph appears in the third person in this section, and not as narrator. Are we supposed to imagine this scene exists outside of the "notes from the dialogue" that comprise the rest of the Doctrina? And Justus was amazed, saying: As the Lord lives, because my father Samuel, who taught him, never knew these things. But my father said: "Really I think we Jews were mistaken. And I think there is no other Christ except the one who came, whom the Christians worship." And really I Justus believe that the Spirit of God is in Jacob. For, as you say, he spoke all these things by heart.
Isaac and Joseph said: Yes, as before God, we bear witness that he held no book or paper, when he spoke all these things. Jacob's prodigious ability to recite long chains of Scripture—taken for granted in other Jewish-Christian dialogues—is understood in the Doctrina as a divine gift.
Justus said: I was amazed also at the one who wrote, how was he able to make these notes?
Joseph answered and said: Don’t you remember, Mr. Justus, when you cried out every moment and you were disturbed and you said: "Where do you keep going out every second, mamzer?"
And Justus said: Yes, as the Lord lives, I remember, you speak the truth.
Joseph said: As before God, going out to my son Symeon I was able to record out of the mouth of Jacob and my brothers from the circumcision.
12. Justus said: The highest God knows that I speak the truth and I am not lying. For in Sykamina, after the death of the emperor Maurice we were standing down by the house of Mr. Marianos, and our Jewish leader expounded: "Why do the Jews rejoice that the Emperor Maurice has died and Phocas has become emperor through blood? Really we are able to see the diminishment of the Roman Empire. And if the fourth beast, that is, Rhōmania, is diminished and split and crushed, just as Daniel said, really nothing else is happening except the ten fingers, the ten horns of the fourth beast, and then the small horn mutating all knowledge of God and straightaway the consummation of the world and the resurrection of the dead. And if this happens, [173] then we were mistaken not accepting Christ when he came. Before the tribulation and the splitting of the fourth beast and the ten horns comes the one coming out of the root of Jesse, the Anointed One in the name of the Lord, the Lord God." And the Jews residing in Sykamina mocked the priest Here, and below at Doctrina IV.5, the "leader" (prōtos, πρῶτος) of the Jewish community is also identified as a "priest" (hiereus, ἱερέυς). as foolish. And so I, Justus, by the name of the highest God, I was residing there in Sykamina and I heard these things from the old priest and we considered him ridiculous.
Straightaway the wife of Isaac and his mother-in-law answered and said to Justus: Mr. Justus, quickly has that deceiver Jacob bewitched you! We hoped you would have been able to prove to us his error.
Justus said: God's will be done.
By night and day Jacob called upon God for the salvation of Justus and those who were usually present with him, as he confessed to us later. First person narration returns.
BOOK FOUR
1. After a few days Justus desired to see Jacob and said to Isaac: Mr. Isaac, I have not seen Jacob anywhere.
Isaac said to him: Jacob studies the holy Scriptures while fasting every day and keeps vigils by night and prays and calls upon God to forgive him for his transgressions, which he committed against the Christians. And he does not come except when we want to meet with him. For whenever despondency and wicked thoughts overtake us, we meet with him in that place which is hidden and he revives us and makes us joyful.
Justus said: By the name of God, tell him that I desire to see him.
And Isaac went in the evening and said to Jacob: Be present, Mr. Jacob, and help us as usual.
THAT CHRIST IS THE
ANOINTED ONE
Sixth Meeting And early the
next day Jacob came and those from the circumcision with Justus
to that house which was hidden, where everyone gathered. And
after they sat Justus spoke up
and said: Mr. Jacob, prove to me that Christ is the Anointed
One.
2. Jacob answered and said: God said through Jeremiah: "They will not help you, saying: the Lord's Temple. But if you correct yourselves" "and you do not oppress the proselyte and orphan and widow you do not shed the blood of innocents" "I shall make you to dwell in that place. But if" you don't listen to me "I shall remove you from my presence" (Jer 7:4-8, 15). And from the time our fathers shed Christ's blood, from then until today we have been removed from our God, and the regulations have ceased. Just as God says through Jeremiah: "My tent has suffered hardship, my curtains have been torn, for the leaders of my people did not know me" (Jer 10:20), "they are senseless and misunderstanding children. [175] Wise at doing bad things, they do not know how to do the right thing" (Jer 4:22). And again: "Even if Moses stood in my presence, and Samuel, I would not have pity on them" (Jer 15:1). And until this point we have not been pitied. And again through Jeremiah God says to the faithless Jews: "Turn toward me, dwelling place of Israel, says the Lord, and I shall not hold fast my presence from you, but I am merciful, says the Lord, and I shall not be angry at you forever. But know your injustice, because you have been impious toward the Lord your God" (Jer 3:12-13). God does not say: "Because you have been impious against me, your God" but "Because you have been impious against the Lord your God," speaking about Christ. For if we believe in Christ God will have pity on us; if we do not believe, we shall never be pitied.
3. And again, because Christ is the one who came, Jeremiah says about the Jews who believe in Christ: "The Lord has redeemed Jacob and taken him out of the hands of those mightier than he" "and they will come and they will make merry and rejoice on Mount Zion, and they will come and they will be astounded at the good things of the Lord," and again: "My people will be filled up with my good things, says the Lord." And again Jeremiah says about the children destroyed by Herod (cf. Matt 2:18): "A voice was heard in Ramah, a lament and weeping and much mourning. Rachel crying over her children and she did not want to be consoled, for they are not. These things says the Lord: let your voice leave off from weeping and your eyes from tears, for this is the payment for your deeds" (Jer 38 [31]: 11-12, 14-16). For the payment is for those who die on account of Christ. And we know that Christ came and redeemed us from the error of idols, An odd statement here about the Jews, as earlier Jacob had spoken of "the nations" (gentiles) being redeemed from the error of empty idols. and the children were slaughtered by Herod in Bethlehem. And really Christ who came is truth just as God says through Jeremiah: "Behold the days come, says the Lord, and I shall raise up my good Word, which I have spoken upon my house of Israel and upon my house of Judah. In those days and in that time I shall raise up for David a righteous descendant, and he will make judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days Judea will be saved and Jerusalem will settle, in trust. And this is the name which the Lord will be called, Josedek, the Lord is our righteousness. For these things says the Lord: For David, a man sitting on the throne over the house of Israel will not be utterly destroyed" (Jer 23:5, 6; Jer 33:15-17). So then if Christ did not come, the prophet lies. For we Jews have fallen down into the underworld and we do not reign. Let not God grant to us to say that the prophet of God is a liar! But Jeremiah tells the truth. For until Christ we Jews were ruling but Christ coming out of David according to the flesh, who is eternal God, he is the King of Israel and of the whole world, never ceasing; Christ is called both "Lord" of "righteousness" and "Good" "Word" of God. [177] Now those Jews who have accepted Christ with the nations are ruled over by Christ for eternity. And "a prince from Judah and a leader will not fail until the expectation of the nations comes" (Gen 49:10) speaks truly. For the Jews who were worthy, a large crowd, accepted Christ with the nations, and God tells the truth when he says: "I shall establish for them a covenant with the beasts" (Hos 2:20), that is, the nations. For those out of the Jews and the nations believing in Christ have and hold a single faith. Those not wishing to believe in Christ but "preparing a table for the demon, they will all fall by slaughter" (Isa 65:11, 12) and they will be in eternal destruction. For God said through Jeremiah: "My covenant will be disbanded, until there is no day or night, my covenant will be disbanded which was with David, enslaved to me, that no son of his will reign" (Jer 33:20-21). And in truth Christ the son of David reigns as God over the nations and over the Jews who believed. Those Jews who did not believe in Christ, just as the dregs of drained wine left in the jug are dried and useless and unsuitable, so also they will remain bereft, for Isaiah says: "preparing a table for the demon," that is, for Hermolaos the devil, whom Daniel calls the small horn. For the kingship out of David lasted until Joakim the king the son of Josiah, just as God says through Jeremiah the prophet: "The Lord spoke unto Joakim, the King of Judah: He will have no one sitting on the throne of David, and his dead body will be thrown out into the heat of the day and into the frost of the night. And I shall visit upon him and upon his seed and upon his children all their transgressions. And I shall draw down upon them and upon those dwelling in Jerusalem and upon the land of Judah all the bad things which I spoke of to them" (Jer 43 [36]: 30-31). Behold then, Mr. Justus, the kingdom of David has ceased and we Jews do not reign.
4. That Christ who came, the son of David, born out of Saint Mary the daughter of David, reigns over the nations and over those Jews who believed, this is truth. Just as we said before, that Judaizing was going to cease in its own time by command of God, in order that also the prophets might tell the truth. Just as Jacob our father said: "A ruler will not fail from Judah," that is, Judaism will not fail, "until he comes," the awaited Christ (Gen 49:10). Just as also Isaiah says: "He was dressed in righteousness like a breastplate and wore a helmet of salvation on his head, and he wrapped himself in a cloak of vengeance and a cape of zeal, as one making a reproach [179] and retribution to his opponents, a defense against his enemies. He will repay a gift to the islands. And those from the West will be afraid by the Lord's name, and those from the East, by his glorious name. For, like a forceful river, anger will come from the Lord, it will come with wrath and on account of Zion the redeemer will come and will turn back impiety from Jacob, said the Lord. And this is a covenant from me to them, whenever I take away their sins, says the Lord Almighty" (Isa 59:17-21; Rom 11:27). And again Christ says through Isaiah: "I the Lord shall gather them at the time whenever I take away their transgressions, says the Lord Almighty. For the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, through which he has anointed me, he has sent me to proclaim the good news to the poor" (Isa 60:22-61:1, Rom 11:27). And again: "I shall make an eternal covenant with them" (Isa 61:8). The prophet said these things about the first coming of Christ and about the second: for he connected both. Just as David likewise says in Psalm 95: "At that time all the trees of the forest will rejoice at the countenance of the Lord. Because he comes, because he comes to judge the earth, to judge the world in righteousness and peoples in his truth" (Ps 95 [96]: 12, 13). For Christ is the truth of God. Let us not disbelieve in Christ or else an eternal reproach will seize us as opponents of his Christ, and he will take vengeance on us as enemies. And let us hear what God said through Jeremiah: "That people had an unfeeling and unbelieving heart" (Jer 5:23); and again: "Wise men were shamed, they were terrified and captured, because they rejected the Word of the Lord," that is, they crucified Christ (Jer 8:9). And again: "This is why the Lord of powers says these things, the God of Israel: Behold I shall feed them with pains and I shall give them water of bile to drink, and I shall scatter them among the nations" (Jer 9:14-15). And again: "Behold I bring bad things down upon them, from which they will not be able to depart on their own. And they will cry out to me and I shall not listen to them" (Jer 11:11). For all the bad things in this word have taken us, Mr. Justus, and we have been scattered among all the nations. So if we do not believe in Christ then in the future we shall have to cry out eternally and be driven out from the chorus of saints and be punished with the impious and the sinful, and we shall have to say as we repent, whenever we see Christ in glory venerated by angels and humans: "It was he whom we considered at that time ridiculous and as a figure of reproach, since we were senseless; we reckoned his life as madness and his death as shameless. How was he considered among the children of God, says Solomon, and his lot is among the saints? Yes, we have been led astray from the way of truth and the light of righteousness has not shone upon us" (Wisd 5:4-6).
Justus answered and said: As the Lord lives, Mr. Jacob, you have spoken correctly. Except this quotation from Solomon is from an apocryphal book. Jacob before and after this point cites from the Wisdom of Solomon without objection.
[181] 5. JUSTUS RECALLS EARLIER SIGNS And they stopped and left. For his part, Jacob went off to his own house, fasting and sobbing, that he should be forgiven his earlier blasphemies against Christ. And we left with Justus. And we said to him: Mr. Justus, we hear you are a great teacher who fears God. What do you say to us about what Jacob says?
Justus said: By the holy name of God, that he speaks the truth and his words are out of the Holy Spirit. And thus I believe that God, well-intentioned, not wishing to destroy the Jews in the end, who were always rebelling against God himself, commanded that even if by force the Jews should be baptized and they should come into the light. Just as David says: "Furthermore, wash me from my transgressions and cleanse me from my sins, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow" (Ps 50 [51]:4, 9). As also Isaiah says: "Bathe and become clean" (Isa 1:16); and again the Lord says through Ezekiel: "I shall sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will be cleansed from your transgressions" (Ezek 36:25). And I believe that Christ is the one who came. Now I'm telling you the actual truth.
When in Ptolemaïs Christians fled on account of the invasion of the Persians, the Jews, finding a pretext, burned the churches of the Christians and plundered their houses, and they harassed and killed many Christians. As they seized a certain man by the name of Leontius, a Caparsine cleric, klērikon Kaparsinon (κληρικὸν Καπαρσινὸν), an otherwise unattested place-name. Paul Maas (Byzantinische Zeitschrift 20 [1911]:577) suggested that it refers to Kaparasima, a village in Galilee mentioned by John Moschus. Déroche was skeptical of this identification. Certainly "Kaparsina/os" sounds like a Greek version of a Hebrew town name (prefix Kfar, as in Capernaum). Leontius appears again below (Doctrina V.12). they wanted to kill him, because he was a great lover of Christ and hated the Jews. He was afraid he would be killed and so he renounced Christ and became a Jew. ioudaizein (ἰουδαϊζειν) And a certain Christian subdeacon in passing saw Leontius sitting before the synagogue in the portico which goes along the Midway. And he said to him: "Mr. Leontius, how could you ever have been a spokesman on Christ's behalf, but now you have renounced him? What kind of defense will you be able to give to Christ and to God?" And Leontius, coming back to himself and repenting, went up to the house of Gemellus which was along the sea at the head of the Samaritan Quarter of Ptolemaïs and he hanged himself. And great tribulation seized us Jews. For we had taken joy in observing a cleric Judaizing against Christians.
Our Jewish leader saw a vision over seven days every night: that the churches which the Jews had burned had been built through gold and pearls, and gleamed like light, and our synagogue which was on the harbor of Ptolemaïs was razed to its foundations, and plunging into blood and stinking filth. As the priest swore, he saw this vision over seven nights in a row. There was a certain man in Ptolemaïs named Isaac, a Jew who feared [183] God whom we held (he said) to be very righteous. And he said: "Really, brothers, our priest seeing this same vision seven times indicates destruction for us Jews until the consummation of the world, and that Christ who came is the King of Israel, whom the Christians venerate." Five Jews, disturbed and afraid that this rumor would go out among the people and that Jews would be misled, by night entered Isaac's house and strangled him—for all those who were in his house had died and he was alone—so that everyone thought he died by natural causes. As before God one of the stranglers, seeing me fighting on behalf of our people and cudgeling the Christians, confided in me. But now we see the fourth beast, Rhōmania, fallen and divided by the nations, and next is the wait for the ten horns.
And we left, each to his own house.
BOOK FIVE
1. And after a few more days Justus said to me: Speak to Jacob, so that I may meet with him.
And I Joseph went out and I said to him: Show up tomorrow and help us, mister, as always.
ON THE ANTI-CHRIST
HERMOLAOS
Seventh Meeting Early on the
next day we gathered in the place which is hidden. And Justus said: Mr. Jacob, now that
Rhōmania is crushed and divided by the nations and is in ten
toparchies, is it necessary for the deceiving devil to come?
And Jacob said: Yes, Hermolaos the deceiver is really going to come now that Rhōmania is divided, and woe to the one accepting him. Just as Jeremiah says: "Cursed is the person who has hope in a human and who rests the flesh of his arm on him and his heart stands apart from God. And he will be like a tamarisk and he will not see whenever the good things come, and he will inhabit marine areas, in salt land, which will be uninhabited forever" (Jer 17:5, 6). And: "At that time they will say to this people and to Jerusalem: Like a spirit of deception in the wilderness is the way of my people's daughter, not into purity, not into holiness. A spirit of gratification will come to me from them. Like a cloud it will rise up; his chariots are like a whirlwind, his horses are lighter than air. For a voice of messengers will come from Dan" (Jer 4:11-13, 15). And again: "Behold the eagerness: from Dan we shall hear the sound of the rushing of horse-led chariot. From the sound of the warning of his chariot all the earth has been shaken. And he will come and he devours all the land and its fullness, cities and those dwelling in them" (Jer 8:15, 16). It's not yet, brothers, as Christ descends "like rain on wool" in peace (Ps 71 [72]:6), but Hermolaos comes in disorder and instability, he is complete destruction. And to be sure at first the crafty one will seem peaceful and quite stable. As Daniel says: "And he will overcome the saints from on high, he will consider mutating the laws and times and it will be granted to him until [185] times and time and a half time" (Dan 7:25). Jeremiah says about his craftiness: "A partridge has called out, it has gathered those who have not been born; [so too] the one making his wealth without judgment. Halfway through his days they will abandon him; at his end he will be senseless" (Jer 17:11). Just as also Isaiah talks about the destruction of the opponent Hermolaos. For he says: "God will bring out on that day his holy and great and mighty sword against the serpent, the dragon, the crafty one, against the serpent, the dragon who is fleeing. And the Lord will destroy by his sword the serpent in the sea" (Isa 27:1).
Justus answered and said: As the Lord lives, Mr. Jacob, your words are true, and woe be to the people who accept the opponent and apostate Hermolaos.
2. Jacob said: That Christ is the Anointed One, who came and was born in Bethlehem from Saint Mary, truly he was the one proclaimed by the holy law and the prophets, is very clear. For since Christ came after the sixty-nine weeks, of which the angel of God spoke to Daniel, the sins of idolatry have been brought to an end and prophecies about the coming eternal righteousness—that is, Christ—have ceased (cf. Dan 9:24-25). Both "praise God in the churches" and "we shall confess to you in the great church" have happened (Ps 67 [68]:27, Ps 21 [22]:26). For really the church of Christ is great, because it has taken hold from the East and the West and the north and the south. And we have observed "the people who are established will praise the Lord" (Ps 101 [102]:19). And we have seen "I shall give your rulers in peace and your bishops in righteousness" (Isa 60:17). "For God will be for you, he says, an eternal light" (Isa 60:20). These things the prophet Isaiah said about the overpowering knowledge of God brought about by Christ. And through Jeremiah God says about the bishops of the church: "I shall give to you shepherds after my own heart, and they will be shepherds for you, shepherding with knowledge" (Jer 3:15). And David says: "Your priests will be clothed in righteousness" and again: "Then I shall raise up a horn for David" (Ps 131 [132]: 9, 17). Great wonder, that the prophets proclaimed both Christ and the priests of the new covenant! For he says: "Sons were born to you in the place of your fathers. You will establish them as leaders over all the land" (Ps 44 [45]:17). "For throughout all the land has gone forth the sound" of the apostles (Ps 18 [19]:5). And David says, exhorting the synagogue: "Listen, daughter, and see and incline your ear and forget your people and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty, because he is your lord and you will venerate him" (Ps 44 [45]:11, 12). As God says through Malachi: "I take no [187] pleasure in the children of Israel and I shall not accept sacrifice from their hands. For from the rising of the sun until it sets my name is glorified among the nations" (Mal 1:10, 11). As also Jeremiah says: "In those days and at that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations they will be gathered in her in the name of the Lord, in Jerusalem, and they will not follow behind idols" (Jer 3:17). And we have seen all these things, and nothing else is left, except the admixture of the nations. And I am afraid it's going to be the case for Jews not believing in Christ the prophecy speaking through Jeremiah: "This people had a deaf and disobedient heart" (Jer 5:23), and again: "Behold I send bad things upon them, from which they will not be able to go out, and they will cry out to me and I shall not listen to them" (Jer 11:11). "At that time they will say to this people and to Jerusalem: Like a spirit of deception in the desert…" (Jer 4:11). He says these things about those who have not believed in Christ and who are going to accept Hermolaos instead of Christ, just as Isaiah likewise says: "Those preparing a table for the demon, all of them will fall by slaughter" (Isa 65:11, 12).
Justus answered and said: By the Holy Spirit, you speak the truth. And woe to those who don't believe in Christ who has come, but are still waiting and Judaizing.
3. JUSTUS'S NIGHT-TIME VISIONS And they all left, glorifying God. I, Joseph, took Justus to my lodging ospition (ὀσπίτιον), a Greek loan-word from the Latin hospitium so he could have lunch. And after we had lunch I said to him: In God's name, Mr. Justus, how do the things spoken by Jacob appear to you?
Justus said: As the Lord God of Israel lives, that the Holy Spirit is in his heart.
And groaning and weeping Justus said: Believe me, Mr. Joseph, for I'm not lying: For fifteen nights in a row I have been seeing in a vision Moses and the prophets, and Jacob praised by the prophets. But I don't want to encourage him, for fear that he gets swelled up and the grace of God leaves him. You are doing the right thing by taking notes and writing down the divine wisdom gushing forth from Jacob's mouth, so that I too shall copy so that from it I can also give instruction to the members of my household. But I want to ask him about the end of the world and about the second coming of Christ.
And after ten days Justus said to me, Joseph: Mate, why don't I see Jacob coming around? Speak to him, in order that we might meet with him.
And I went out, Joseph, and I said to Jacob: Mr. Jacob, show up tomorrow and help us.
ON THE END OF THE WORLD
Eighth and Final Meeting And
the next day we were gathered in the lodging
ospitin
(ὀσπίτιν), another Greek form from the Latin hospitium;
elsewhere the meeting place is always described as a "house" (oikos).
where we always showed up, with Justus. And Justus said: Have the prophets
spoken of great affliction at the end of the world?
4. Jacob said: Great, to such an extent that nothing else has ever occurred. For Isaiah says: "Behold the day of the Lord comes, without a cure, with anger and wrath, to make the whole world a desert and to destroy the impious from it. For the stars of the heaven and Orion and all of their adornment will not give their luster. And there will be darkness when the sun sets, and the moon will not give its luster. And I shall ordain bad things for the whole world and their sins to the impious" (Isa 13:9-11). "And all the powers of the heavens will be shaken and the heaven will be rolled up like a scroll and all the stars will fall like a leaf falls from the vine and like the leaf falls away from the fig tree" (Isa 34:4). And again: "For the heaven will be shaken and the earth will quake from its foundations" (Isa 13:13). And again: "For the day of the Lord's judgment and the year of its repayment is a judgment of Zion. And its depths will be overturned into pitch and its land into brimstone. And its land will be like burning pitch day and night and it will not be quenched for all time" (Isa 34:8-10). And again: "They will see the limbs of people who offended me. For their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched, and they will be visible in all their flesh" (Isa 66:24). Let us not offend Christ, or else we shall be destroyed forever. For the disorder of the nations will have to come to pass, when the ten horns are roused up and Hermolaos the deceiver comes. "Great affliction at that time" (Matt 24:21) occurs. "Woe," says Joel [Amos] "to those who desire to see that day" (Amos 5:18), as also Zephaniah says: "A day of darkness and anguish, a day of affliction and wrath" (Zeph 1:15). And Solomon says: "Turn away anger from your heart and cast out wickedness from your flesh before the sun should be darkened and the light and the moon and the stars fail in their luster" (Eccl 11:10, 12:2). As also Malachi says: "Behold the day of the Lord comes burning like an oven, and all the impious and the sinful will be kindling and the day that is coming will burn them up and nothing will be left from them, twig or root" (Mal 3:19). As also Haggai says: "For once more I shake the heaven and the earth and the dry land and the sea, and I shall shake all the nations" (Hag 2:6-7). And Isaiah says: "And I shall clothe the heaven in darkness and I shall make its cloak like sackcloth" (Isa 50:3). And through Zephaniah the Lord says: "And I shall afflict the people who are sinners, and they will go forth like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord" (Zeph 1:17). The Lord does not say: "because they have sinned against me" but "the Lord," to those who have not believed in Christ. And again straightaway: "I shall pour out their blood like dust and their flesh like dung [191] and their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them on that day of the Lord's wrath, because in the fire of his zeal all the world will be entirely burned up" (Zeph 1:17-18). God did not say: "in the day of my wrath" and "in fire of my zeal," but "in the day of the Lord's wrath" and "in the fire of his zeal"; God is talking about his Son. And again Jeremiah says about the consummation: "I have gazed upon the earth and behold nothing, and in the heaven, and its lights were not there. For I saw mountains and behold they were trembling and all the hills disturbed from the countenance of the Lord" (Jer 4:23-24, 26).
5. And again David says about Christ: "Lord, in your power the king is made merry" and again: "He asked you for life and you gave him the length of days for ever and ever" (Ps 20 [21]:1, 5). "Forever and ever" is the Word of God, who took flesh and was called Christ. And again: "May your hand be present against all my enemies, may your right hand find all those who hate me; because you will set them as if in an oven of fire at the time of your presence. The Lord in his wrath will disturb them and fire devours them. You will destroy their fruit from the earth and their seed from the children of men, for they have tended to bad things against you, they considered counsels which they were not able to sustain. For you will set them back and you will make ready their presence among your survivors" (Ps 20 [21]:9-13). You see, brothers, how great a judgment has been prepared for those who did not accept Christ, "because the might is God's and mercy yours, Lord, because you render to each according to his works" (Ps 61 [62]:13). For Christ arrives in his second coming with crowds of angels and powers, and Isaiah says: "And he will cast the serpent into the sea" (Isa 27:1), and again: "And in the breath through his lips he will destroy the impious one" (Isa 11:4) that is, Hermolaos "and all the powers of the heaven will be melted" and all of creation, seen and unseen "seen and unseen" may be another citation of the Nicene Creed (see above) (Isa 34:4). For Christ comes in that same body which he assumed out of us, since the creation cannot bear to see the bare divinity of the Word of God, which is inexpressible and inscrutable. For Christ comes "like lightning" which shines "from the East until the West" (Matt 24:27). Just as Daniel said: "Behold, the one coming like the Son of Man"; the prophet indicated the flesh, which he assumed as God from us humans. And again: "Behold with the clouds of heaven one coming like the Son of Man and he has gone until the Ancient of Days and he was brought before him and the rule and honor and kingdom were given to him, and all the peoples, tribes, tongues will be enslaved to him, his authority [193] is eternal authority, which will not depart, and his kingdom will not be destroyed" (Dan 7:13, 14). As also David said about Christ: "God will come clearly, and our God will not be silenced. Fire will walk before him" (Ps 49 [50]:2-3) "and he will burn his enemies all around" (Ps 96 [97]:3). And again: "The heavens will announce his righteousness, that God is judge" (Ps 49 [50]:6). And again Moses says: "Because the Lord will judge his people and he will relent toward those enslaved to him" (Deut 32:36). May no one remain Christ's enemy, or else he will be burned forever by the fire which is eternal.
Justus answered and said: As the Lord lives, you have told the truth, Mr. Jacob, and you teach without error. For no one else is going to come after the diminishment of the fourth beast, that is Rhōmania, except the admixture of the nations, the ten horns, and the arrival of the blasphemer and deceiver, the devil. Just as Daniel said about his ten horns and the one which was going up and rooting out three of its predecessors, "whose eyes and mouth were uttering great blasphemies and his sight was greater than the ones remaining. I looked upon that beast, and he waged war with the saints." And again Daniel says: "I beheld from those great and blasphemous words, which that horn spoke, until the beast was killed and destroyed, and its mouth was given into the burning fire" (Dan 7:8, 11). Woe to those who are going to really accept the devil when he comes, because with him they will be utterly burned forever and ever.
Jacob rose up and prostrated himself at Justus's knees and said to him: Really the Holy Spirit has spoken through you today, Mr. Justus, and this is the truth.
6. AN EARLIER CONFESSION And again Jacob said to Justus: When I ask you this, Mr. Justus, don't ever hide anything from me, and don't lose your temper or get angry at the question, but tell me the truth.
Justus said: I shall speak the truth as much as I am able and I won't lose my temper.
Jacob said: In God's name, do you remember when we were in Ptolemaïs, under the Emperor Maurice, when we were still a young age, on a Sabbath on the bulwarks near the dry dock of the ships and the custom-house—me and you and your father, Mr. Samuel, my teacher, and a crowd of Jews? And as we were heading back, some of the Hebrews said that in Tiberias one of our Jewish priests saw a great revelation in a vision, telling him that after eight years the Anointed One would come, the King of Israel, Christ, and he would be born from a virgin and he would rouse up the nation [195] of the Jews. And we all took this with great joy and inexpressible delight, and we said: Blessed is that virgin and her parents, she from whom the Anointed One is incarnate!
Justus said: Yes, as the Lord lives, you speak the truth.
Jacob said: And how did the old man answer, the father of Levi who was from Fountain Square, tėn Phialēn (τὴν Φιαλήν), presumably a city quarter with a public fountain and your father, Mr. Samuel?
Justus answered and said: The two of them said, as if in one voice: Really the priest who saw this vision was mistaken, just like the ancient false prophets. For it seems to us that there is no other Christ except the one who came and was born from Mary.
7. Jacob said: Really you spoke the truth. For the conscience of our fathers always goaded them. But we observe the facts: both the four kingdoms passing away and the time arriving for the ten horns. For Daniel says: "In the days of those kings," that is, of the ten horns and the one which is small, "God will raise up a kingdom, which is eternal and will not be divided and his kingdom will not be left behind for another people, he will winnow and thin out all the kingdoms, and this one will be raised up forever. In this way you saw that the stone was cut from the hills and it was reduced to a shard, the iron, the bronze, the silver, the gold. God has revealed what must happen" at the end of time (Dan 2:44, 45, 28).
Justus answered and said: By the Holy Spirit, that is how the prophecy goes.
8. ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD Jacob said: But also God speaks to Daniel about the resurrection of the dead. "At that time, he says, all my people who have been written into the book of life will be saved. And many of those sleeping will be raised out of the mound of earth, some into eternal life and others into eternal shame and reproach" (Dan 12:1-2). As also Isaiah says about the universal resurrection of the dead: "The dead will be raised and those who are in tombs will be roused and those sleeping in the earth will be wakened" (Isa 26:19). As God also says through Ezekiel: "Behold I am opening your tombs; and I shall lead you out from your tombs," "and you will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves to lead you out of your graves" (Ezek 37:12-13). So Christ (the son of God) comes in [197] his glorious, fearful, and terrible arrival, like lightning. Just as David said: "His lightning strikes have shone to the world" (Ps 96 [97]: 4). For Christ comes beyond the flash of lightning, and no one at that time can be mistaken in seeing the powers of the holy angels, with fear and trembling, shuddering at him. Just as the prophet says: "And the greatness of kings has been given to the saints on high, which will not pass away. And to him they will be enslaved and obedient unto the end" (Dan 7:27, 14). Just as Isaiah also says: "Behold the Lord will come like fire and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render vengeance in anger and utter condemnation in the flame of fire. For all the land will be judged in the Lord's fire and all flesh by his sword" (Isa 66:15, 16). Likewise Malachi says: "Behold he comes, says the Lord Almighty"—he did not say, "I come, God Almighty," but "He comes, the Lord Almighty," he's talking about someone else who is coming—he says, "And who will survive the day of his arrival? Or who will remain standing at his coming? For he enters in like a fire on a furnace and like the lye of washers, and he descends smelting and purifying, as if gold and silver" (Mal 3:1-3).
9. As David says in Psalm 96: "Fire will go forth before him and it will burn his enemies all around. His lightning flashes have shone upon the world" (Ps 96 [97]:3-4). For just as we said, Christ comes beyond the flash of lightning, being light, who made the light and the lightning as God. "He looked and the earth was shaken. The hills were disturbed and trembled from the Lord's countenance" (Ps 96 [97]:4-5). For the Christ who came earlier is really coming "in the name of the Lord," the Lord God, the one who appeared to the world, who was born from Saint Mary. He comes again for the consummation of the world, he comes with great and incalculable glory, showing both the cross and the spear-wound so that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: "They will look upon him whom they pierced" (Zech 12:10 following John 19:37). At that time, seeing Christ in glory, the Jews who have not believed in him will cry out, tribe by tribe, uselessly, speaking in great tribulation just as Solomon speaks: "He was the one whom we held at that time in ridicule and as a figure of reproach, since we were senseless. We reckoned his life as madness and his death as worthless. How was he considered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints?" (Wisd 5:4-5). It was he whom our wretched fathers crucified. "We have gotten our fill on the paths of destruction, we did not know the way of the Lord" (Wisd 5:7). "At that time really [199] the righteous will stand up in full freedom of speech in the presence of those afflicting him," and crucifying him, "and those dismissing his pains, and those looking will be disturbed by terrible fear and they will be stunned at the marvel of his salvation" (Wisd 5:1-2). So let no one of us doubt in the faith in Christ, so we shall not be found falling into such a great abyss of inexpressible destruction. But rather let us believe in Christ the King of glory, giving thanks to God and to humans, through whom God commanded us to be baptized by force.
All those from the circumcision cried out, saying: Glory to God who illuminates us through your teaching, Mr. Jacob!
10. ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST Justus said: By the great name of God, tell me, if you have anything else on your mind about the second and fearful coming of Christ.
Jacob answered and said: You are my teacher, and you know all things more correctly than I. Except, Mr. Justus, Isaiah says: "The Lord alone will be elevated on that day and he will refute a numerous people" (Isa 2:11, 4). And David says: "The countenance of the Lord is upon those doing evil, for the utter destruction of their memory from the earth" (Ps 33 [34]:17). And Solomon says: "And afterward they will be like a shameful cadaver and like an insult among the dead forever, because he will break them, voiceless, prone, and until the end they will be left barren and they will be in pain, and their memory will be destroyed" (Wisd 4:19).
Justus answered and said: You speak well, Mr. Jacob, except you have spoken from an apocryphal book.
Jacob said: And through Isaiah God says: "I live, says the Lord, for every knee will bend to me and every tongue will confess to me" (Isa 45:23). And through Jeremiah he says: "I shall judge each of you on your ways and according to your customs, house of Israel, I live, says the Lord" (Jer 17:10; Ezek 18:30/33:20; Jer 22:24). And Solomon says: "He who molds every breath, he knows everything and he will render to each according to his works" (Prov 24:12). All righteous things are from the Lord, because the Son of God, Christ, is going to judge all people. And David says, just as we said before, in Psalm 61: "Because the might is God's and mercy is yours, Lord; because you render to each according to his works" (Ps 61 [62]:13).
11. But let us not disbelieve in Christ the judge of all, or else in the age to come Christ the judge will be found to be our enemy, and repenting in weeping and in pain we would say: We have been misled, turning away from God, and "the sun of righteousness" has not risen for us (Mal 3:20), as Isaiah says: "And we all became impure, and [201] all of our righteousness was like a menstrual rag. But now, Lord, you are our Father and we are all the works of your hands. Do not be exceedingly angry with us and at the time do not remember our sins" (Isa 64:5, 7-8). And at that time the King of Glory, Christ, God, the Lord of powers, will answer us and let him say to us: "I have become manifest to those who do not seek me" (as Isaiah says) "I am present among those who do not ask after me and I said: Behold I am among the people, who have not sought my name. For a whole day I have spread out my hands to a disbelieving and disagreeable people, who have not walked on the good way, but follow their sins. This people angers me" (Isa 65:1-3) "you who abandoned me, preparing a table for the demon, all of you shall perish in slaughter, since I called and you did not hear me and I have spoken and you have not paid attention" (Isa 65:11-12). Isaiah says these things about those receiving Christ: "Behold those who are enslaved to me will rejoice and be cheered with joy" (Isa 65:13-14). For those who believed in Christ will receive in the future age eternal good things which "are for life eternal," just as Daniel said (Dan 12:2). Christ says at that time to the unbelievers through Isaiah: "You who abandoned me," and crucified me, he says, "You will cry out on account of the pain of your hearts and you will shriek from the tribulation of your spirit" (Isa 65:11, 14) "into eternal shame and eternal punishment" (Dan 12:2).
12. HOW JACOB LEARNED ABOUT THE HOMOOUSION Justus answered and said with weeping: Jesus Christ, Son of God, do not hold against me the blasphemies which I uttered against you, my God, on that day of judgment, and make me "kindling" like an impious person, "and burn" me on that "day which is coming" (Mal 3:19) and I would be an eternal reproach before your righteous ones! For we have all really been mistaken, seeing you and hearing through the divine Scriptures about you being tortured and insulted and crucified and dying. But I call upon you, Mr. Jacob, through God, if the holy Scriptures have spoken beforehand or prefigured the sufferings of Christ, tell me. Because of this there was a stumbling block for us wretched Jews, and we took offense at "the stone of obstacle" (Isa 8:14, 28:16, Rom 9:32, 33; 1 Pet 2:7), Christ our savior. But also teach me and help me, from where did you learn to say that Christ is the same substance homoousion (ὁμοούσιον) and shares a throne and exists eternally with the Father, and that God was born in Bethlehem?
[203] Jacob answered and said: By the name of God on high, I do not lie to you, Mr. Justus. But when we set fire to the church of Ptolemaïs, to burn it down, and all the Christian dwelling places, I was with the Jews and was the first adviser of the wicked ones. And I came into the episcopal residence and I found there the Old and New Testament. And the books of the law and the prophets we extracted, but we ripped up those of Christ. But I extracted the amazing manuscripts of the bishops, having the names of Basil and Gregory and Epiphanius and Ambrose and Ephraim and Antiochus. Fourth-century church fathers Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa (or of Nazianzus, or both), Epiphanius of Consantia (Cyprus), Ambrose of Milan, Ephraim the Syriac poet, and Antiochus who is presumably the late fourth-/early fifth-century bishop of that name from Ptolemaïs itself. And I read them and I made fun of them and I laughed at them. But I read them to Leontius, who had come from the Christians on account of fear of us Jews—for we did many bad things to the Christians. Leontius and his tragic fate were mentioned by Justus above (Doctrina IV.5). And this same Leontius the Kaparsine told me that the catholic church of the Christians says that the Son is the same substance as the Father and is with the Father eternally and was begotten outside of time before the ages and was begotten out of the virgin according to the flesh. And at that time I laughed, but I have since become fully assured before God that those books of the bishops spoke the truth.
13. ON CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS Justus answered and said: Blessed are you, Mr. Jacob, because God revealed such great mysteries to you. But I importune you, Mr. Jacob, teach me also about the sufferings of Christ and his ineffable condescension. For I am astounded on account of Christ's sufferings and what great insults he endured. For on account of his sufferings and on account of his ineffable humiliation, which we have seen, and the shameful death in Christ himself, Christ was for us "a stone of obstacle and a rock of stumbling" (Isa 8:14), just as Isaiah says and we did not want to hear the subsequent speech of the prophet. For the Scripture goes on straightaway, saying, "And who believes in him will not be dishonored for eternity" (Isa 28:16).
Jacob answered and said: In the first book of the law, Genesis, God says to Abraham: "Take your son, your only-begotten, he said, whom you love and slaughter him and offer him up as a sacrifice to me in that place I shall tell you." And fulfilling the will of God Abraham took his beloved son, whom he loved, and with him two enslaved men and offered him up in "that place which God told him." "And binding the feet of his son Isaac, he stretched out his hand in order to [205] slaughter his son." And an angel of God appeared to him and prevented him and he showed him a ram, and Abraham offered it up to God instead of Isaac, his true son (cf. Gen 22:2, 3, 9, 10-13; cf. Origen, Hom. in Gen. 8). For Abraham was a type of God, who says through Isaiah about Christ: "Behold my child whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I am well-pleased" (Isa 42:1). Through Christ, God was happy to save humans from the error of empty idolatry. Slaughtering the ram taken from the Sabek plant in Isaac's place indicates the flesh of Christ crucified on the wood of the cross. For the Word of God, being immortal, remained without suffering, like Isaac. Taking the two enslaved men was a prototype of the two thieves (cf. Matt 27:38 parr.). For in truth the thieves were and are enslaved to Christ on account of the Word of God dwelling in Christ. Isaac bearing wood was a prototype that Christ was going to bear his own cross. The high place, where the sacrifice of Abraham took place, is the Place of the Skull, where Christ was crucified. In truth some Jews recounted accurately that the skull of the head of Adam, the first human, lay there. This is why it is called the Place of the Skull, which is Golgotha.
14. And Joseph being plotted against by his own brothers and cast into the pit and being sold was a prototype of the plot of the Jews, the brothers of Christ according to the flesh (cf. Gen 37:18, 24, 28). And the thirty silver pieces, which the Jews gave for Christ to be betrayed, as Moses predicted, saying in Deuteronomy: "Cursed in the person who receives gifts to smite the life blood of the righteous person" (Deut 27:25). Just as also Zechariah said as out of the person of Christ: "For they gave the price of thirty silver pieces" (Zech 11:12), as also Jeremiah says: "They gave thirty silver pieces as the price of the one bought" (Matt 27:9).
Justus answered and said: You drew this from an apocryphon.
Jacob said: As I was saying, also Joseph cast into the pit by his own brothers was a prototype: for humans cast their own brother according to the flesh, Christ, into the pit of the tomb. For although he was God, Christ was also human. But just as Joseph lived after the pit and ruled over the land of the Egyptians (cf. Gen 37:24, 45:26), just so also Christ rose from the dead and ruled over the error of the spiritual Egyptians, that is, the demons. What the Scripture says about Jeremiah: "Before forming you I sanctified you, I put you to rooting out and razing to the ground [207] and rebuilding" (Jer 1:5, 10), applies to the divinity of the Word of God which was in Christ. Jews saying to the king about Jeremiah: "Indeed let that man be removed, for he makes the hands of the fighting men slack" and again "That man does not speak peace to the people, but evil" (Jer 45 [38]:4) about this place, applies to Christ. For likewise also the Jews said to Pilate, the legate of Caesar of the Romans: "Away, away, crucify him!" (John 19:15). "That person ought to die" (John 19:7) because "he speaks against the law and evil things against this place" (Acts 13:3). And again: "The king said to the Jews about Jeremiah: Behold, he is in your hands" (Jer 45 [38]:5), just as Pilate said to the Jews about Christ: "Take him and crucify him" (John 19:6). And again: They took Jeremiah the man of God "and they hurled him into the pit" so that he would die. "And in that pit there was no water, but mire" (Jer 45 [38]: 6). And they brought him up in an old rag but they did not kill him. Similarly the Jews took and crucified Christ, and cast him in a pit—in the tomb—"having no water," just as Zechariah says (cf. Zech 9:11). And in place of the old rags the old covenant of the law and the prophets testify that Christ lives for eternity. And as many as did not believe in Jeremiah went out into captivity, similarly so many who did not accept Christ have gone out into captivity among the nations.
15. And again Daniel was cast into the lion's pit so he would die. And he did not die, but even the lions trembled at him (Dan 6:16, 22). Similarly Christ was put into the pit, into the holy tomb as a human but as God he despoiled Death. I render Hades (ᾅδης) as "Death," meaning the place where the dead reside, and thanatos (θάνατος) as "death," meaning the state of dying/being dead. Just as David says: "God will smash their teeth in their mouths, the Lord has crushed the molars of lions" (Ps 57 [58]:7). As Job also testifies and says: "In fear the gates of death opened to you, seeing you Death's porters were frightened" (Job 38:17). And just as Zechariah said: you have led out "prisoners," Christ who is God, "out of the pit having no water" (Zech 9:11). And again: "The rulers grew irritated" at Jeremiah and flogged him and handed him over (Jer 44 [37]:15). Likewise also the Jews flogged Christ and handed him over. Again Jeremiah said: "I was laughed at, I spent all day being mocked" (Jer 20:7), similarly also Christ, suspended on the cross, was mocked by the Jews the whole day. That Christ was God Sirach says: "Blessed is the Lord God who stretched forth his hands and saved Jerusalem." Not from Sirach, but the same unattested scripture ascribed to Ezra in Doctrina II.33. And again Christ as a human says through David in Psalm 87: "All day I stretched forth my hands" (Ps 87 [88]:10), and in Psalm 142 he says: "I stretched out my hands to you" (Ps 142 [143]:6). And through Isaiah [209] Christ says: "I stretched forth my hands all day to my disbelieving and disobedient people, who did not walk on the good path, but followed their sins. This people angers me, you who have abandoned me" (Isa 65:2-3, 11). And again Christ says through Isaiah, "I do not disbelieve, I do not disobey. I gave my back to the whips, my cheeks to slaps, I did not turn my face away from shameful spitting" (Isa 50:5, 6). And again Isaiah says about Christ: "And being a human and knowing to bear up weakness, he turned away his face, he was dishonored and discounted. For he bears our sins and is in pain concerning us, and we reckoned that he was in pain and in a blow and in distress. And he was wounded on account of our sins." And again: "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb before the one shearing him, voiceless" (Isa 53:3-5, 7). That Christ who suffered these things on our account is also God and was going to be resurrected, it continues: "And the Lord wants to raise up my soul from the pain, to show it the light, to form it in conscience, to justify the righteous one, who was enslaved well to many, and will take up himself their sins" (Isa 53:10, 11).
16. A FALSE PROPHET IN THE EAST Justus answered and said: You really speak the truth, and thus the salvation is great, to believe in Christ. I confess to you, Mr. Jacob, the whole truth. For Abraham my brother Earlier, Jacob had referred to Justus's brother Abraam?s as Abraamios. has written to me that a deceiving prophet has appeared:
"For at the time when (Sergius) the Candidatus Candidatus (transliterated in Greek, Κανδιδάτος ) refers to an imperially appointed military officer. The name "Sergius" only appears in non-Greek translations of the Doctrina; the Chronographia of Theophanes (9th century) recounts the defeat of the Byzantine general Sergius in 633 at the beginning of the Islamic conquest of Palestine. was slaughtered by the Saracens I was in Caesarea"— Abraham says—"and I went out by boat to Sykamina. And they said: the Candidatus was slaughtered. And we Jews rejoiced greatly. And they said that a prophet appeared, coming with the Saracens and he is proclaiming the arrival of the coming Anointed One and Christ. And when I went out into Sykamina I communicated it to a certain very scriptural old man and I said to him: 'What do you say to me about this prophet who is appearing with the Saracens?' And with a great groan he said: 'He is a deceiver. Do prophets come with swords and chariots? Really these are works of disorder set in motion today, and I fear that the Christ who came earlier, whom the Christians worship, was the one sent by God and instead of him we shall accept Hermolaos. For Isaiah said that we Jews have a mistaken and hardened heart, until all the land is made a desert. But go forth, [211] Mr. Abraham, and learn about this prophet who is appearing.' And I, Abraham, thoroughly investigating, heard from those who met him that you find nothing true in this so-called prophet, except shedding human blood. For he says that he has keys of Paradise which is unbelievable." This "deceiving prophet" refers to Muhammad.
These things my brother Abraham wrote from the East. And I Justus believe in Christ who was born from Saint Mary, that he is the one sent by God on high to the earth, the savior and King of Israel.
And Jacob said: Take care, Mr. Justus, that your mouth say nothing else and your heart hold nothing else against Christ.
Justus answered and said: By the name of God Almighty, who knows what is hidden in hearts, out of my whole soul I believe in Christ, whom the Christians worship, from today, the one who was born in Bethlehem from Saint Mary; I have been made certain by your teaching and through the revelation of visions which appeared to me.
17. THE INSTRUCTION AND DEPARTURE OF JUSTUS And everyone left. And Jacob said to Justus: I wished that you would trouble yourself to come to my lodging-place and that you would bless us.
And Justus said: I'm coming if you invite me. But I ask you that brother Joseph might come also, because he is a lover of God.
And Jacob received Justus into his house and me, Joseph. It was still the seventh hour. And he made a salad and served it. And he said to Justus: Say a blessing, Mr. Justus.
He said: You do it.
And Jacob, testing Justus, said: O Christ, God, bless this.
And Justus said: Amen.
Justus said: I think, Mr. Jacob, this is why you invited me, so you could test me. That is, Jacob wanted to see if Justus would eat food blessed in Christ's name. By the name of God Almighty, I have been made steady out of your teaching, but also I have seen a certain man, wearing white, appearing in a vision to me over many nights and saying: "Jacob teaches correctly from divine grace, and that one is Christ whom Jacob proclaims."
And Jacob said to him: Why don't you get baptized and become a Christian?
Justus answered and said: As before God I speak the truth: first I want to go back into my house and to instruct my relatives. For I have a brother, as you know, and we have wives and children, and I want to make them Christians too.
[213] Jacob said: And if your brother turns you away, or the Jews who are mixed up with the Saracens, what shall we do?
Justus said: Trust in God, Mr. Jacob, that if the Jews and Saracens impede me or cut my body up, little piece by little piece, I shall not renounce Christ the Son of God. For I have been greatly steadied not only by your teaching, but also by God, that he is Christ. But if God puts it into you, teach me and instruct me, as you were taught yourself by the Christians, Here was have perhaps a unique reference to Jacob (and the other baptized Jews?) receiving official "instruction" (katēchēsis) from the Christians of Carthage. and every day I shall come and bow before you.
18. So Justus studied with Jacob, and he taught him "I believe in one God, Father Almighty," the creed of the Christians, and "Our Father, who is in heaven." And Justus loved Jacob with an inexpressible love, not leaving him at any time, as many days as he passed with us. And in getting ready to sail off and leave, he embraced Jacob with great weeping, kissing him and saying: God, who has come to inhabit your holy soul, until your final breath may he freely grant you the grace of the Holy Spirit and may he spur you to pray on my behalf. For you have edified us, you who are enslaved to God, in the faith of Christ. As the Lord lives, because the admixture of the nations and the humiliation of the Roman Empire indicates nothing else except the ten horns, and then the small horn, the devil, and the consummation of the world.
19. Justus copied all the things that teemed from the mouth of Jacob, with weeping, from me Joseph, without Jacob knowing, thanking God and saying: Never have I been edified before a person knowing the holy Scriptures by heart like this.
And when he was going to embark onto the boat, to set sail, we embraced him: me, Joseph, and my brother, Joseph's brother has not appeared previously in the Doctrina; perhaps the author meant his son, Symeon? We might also expect to see Justus's cousin, Isaac, at this farewell scene. and those who were with me: Theodore and Jacob, both crying.
And Justus said to Jacob: Teacher of light—for Christ is the light, and your teaching leads to the light, to Christ—pray for me, the sinner, so Christ might forgive me those blasphemies I uttered against him, and that God might find me worthy and all my relatives to become Christians.
Jacob said: I hope in the name of God that he will save both you and all the members of your household, but hurry, go up to Constantinople and give back other people's things, Apparently Justus, like Jacob, is some kind of traveling salesman. and go down into the East to your family.
And he set sail. And we too were edified by the ineffable conversion tēi metabolēi (τῇ μεταβολῇ) of Justus, [215] and we were steadied in the faith of Christ. I alone made him swear: Write me, if God wills and you are saved, how you proceed and concerning your household.
20. THE LIFE AND DEPARTURE OF JACOB Now Jacob went out on a small launch, which had been rented from Thenai, one city of Byzacena, and he set sail. For he had a business matter, as he said, having been entrusted with the deposit of a certain important man of Byzantium. And there in Thenai the ship from Byzantium which had brought him into Africa was unmoored. He had come in this way to Carthage to sell clothes. He had brought with him a letter from the owner of the deposit so he would not be seized or bothered in Africa, as a Jew. Until today I had not revealed to Jacob the things which I had written down. For on the whole he did not wish for any person to learn things about him. For he saw someone in a vision, as he told me, saying to him: "Flee from the people, Jacob, and in fasting and in weeping weep for your countless sins, the impieties you committed against Christ. For if you seek glory among people, these things will be unforgiveable for you, and what you possess will flee from you, and a great famine will befall you, such that you will not know by what name you are called." Like many converts in hagiography, Jacob is apparently going to be come a monk.
Jacob himself was from the East by birth, as he confided to me. He did many bad things to Christians. And in the city of Rhodes, as a Green with the sail-stitchers, he did bad things to those Blues fleeing from the East. And he betrayed them to the sail-stitchers as people of Bonosos This would have been after the fall of Phocas and Bonosos' subsequent lynching described earlier by Jacob, in 610. and they were cudgeled. Entering Constantinople after a time he met a certain rich man. And having remained in his service for a short time, he rented lodgings from him and made commissions for him. This [217] rich person seeing, as he said, that Jacob was free, entrusted to him a small account. The rich man, observing things being moved by Asmiktos Who this is or what he is doing in unclear; from context he seems to be another traveling salesman moving merchandise for a wealthy speculator in Constantinople; Déroche speculates the nickname comes from smēchō (σμήχω), "to soap [off]", so Asmiktos would mean something like "Unwashed" or "Grimy." It may also be a racial slur referring to black skin: later Byzantine texts use the purportedly Aesopian phrase "wash (σμήχειν) an Ethiopian" to describe a futile act. and by others, said to Jacob: "I want to give you a few items of clothing, up to two pounds, for you to go into Africa and sell them." And Jacob said: "As you wish." And he entrusted his business matter to him and he discharged him, making him swear that: "By the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob who gave the holy law to Moses, if I live and arrive in Africa or in Gaul and sell, I shall set aside the gold for you in this holy and royal city, without guile or theft, taking as my wage fifteen nomismata per year." And he went to Africa in Carthage and he was selling covertly, little by little, the deposit which he had. He found out at that time, by chance, that Jews were being baptized.
And Déroche asserts that this paragraph (until "he who had come") was inserted by a copyist from loose folio pages, now lost, that contained otherwise lost passages from the opening chapter in Greek. More complete surviving translations into Slavonic and Arabic here refer the reader back to the prologue for Jacob's baptism story. so he wouldn't be baptized, he fashioned himself a Christian, swearing, he says, by Christ and Saint Mary, as also in the East he had fooled people. Having sold to someone three of his better items of clothing, as evening came, he decided that he would leave the clothing and come back early the next day and take his payment for the clothes. And as he exited and left from the house of the one receiving the clothes, his foot went into a drain and he cried out: "Adonai, my God, help me!" The purchaser of the clothes heard and kept silent; and after some days he spied upon him in the bath and knew that he was a Jew. Presumably because he saw that Jacob was circumcised; the surviving opening chapters in Slavonic and Arabic make this observation of Jacob's circumcision in the baths explicit. And he turned him in, and he was baptized unwillingly. And after that he cried out to God to show him if he was misled when he was baptized and after that with weeping and fasting every day he pored over the holy Scriptures, and he was persuaded from the holy Scriptures that Christ, the King of Israel, was he who had come.
He wrote to the owner of the deposit in Constantinople: "Covertly I sold the clothing which you entrusted to me, unobserved, but I was not allowed to sail to you in the same boat, as we had agreed, and I was not granted leave to sail." The owner [219] of the deposit, having a certain patron who was a cubicularius palatii, Palace chamberlain; the Latin title is here transliterated into Greek: koubikoularion en palatiōi (κουβικουλάριον εν παλατίῳ) asked him if he might send into Africa and have him brought out. The cubicularius sent one of his own people and setting sail he came into Carthage and took him. And he went to Byzacena, and from there he set sail. As Jacob was departing from Carthage I embraced him with great weeping. And I made him swear, saying: Mr. Jacob, by Christ the son of God whom you proclaimed, if God saves you, write to me how you are doing and how you are proceeding. He left Carthage on July 13 in the seventh indiction [634 C.E.], fortified in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is the glory and the might with the immaculate Father and the all-holy and vivifying Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. Amen.
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