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| Chapter X.—The Old Testament Scriptures, and those written by Moses in particular, do everywhere make mention of the Son of God, and foretell His advent and passion. From this fact it follows that they were inspired by one and the same God.
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Chapter X.—The Old Testament
Scriptures, and those written by Moses in particular, do everywhere make
mention of the Son of God, and foretell His advent and passion. From this fact
it follows that they were inspired by one and the same God.
1. Wherefore
also John does appropriately relate that the Lord said to the Jews:
“Ye search the Scriptures, in which ye think ye have eternal life;
these are they which testify of me. And ye are not willing to come unto
Me, that ye may have life.”3916
How
therefore did the Scriptures testify of Him, unless they were from one
and the same Father, instructing men beforehand as to the advent of His
Son, and foretelling the salvation brought in by Him? “For if ye
had believed Moses, ye would also have believed Me; for he wrote of
Me;”3917
[saying this,] no doubt,
because the Son of God is implanted everywhere throughout his writings:
at one time, indeed, speaking with Abraham, when about to eat with him;
at another time with Noah, giving to him the dimensions [of the ark]; at
another; inquiring after Adam; at another, bringing down judgment upon
the Sodomites; and again, when He becomes visible,3918
| 3918 See Gen. xviii. 13
and Gen. xxxi. 11, etc. There is an allusion here to
a favourite notion among the Fathers, derived from Philo the Jew, that
the name Israel was compounded from the three Hebrew words
אִישׁ רָאָה אֵל, i.e., “the man seeing God.”
| and directs Jacob on his journey, and speaks with Moses from the
bush.3919
And it would be endless to recount [the
occasions] upon which the Son of God is shown forth by Moses. Of the day
of His passion, too, he was not ignorant; but foretold Him, after a
figurative manner, by the name given to the passover;3920
| 3920 Feuardent infers with great probability
from this passage, that Irenæus, like Tertullian and others of the
Fathers, connected the word Pascha with πάσχειν, to
suffer. [The LXX. constantly giving colour to early Christian ideas
in this manner, they concluded, perhaps, that such coincidences were
designed. The LXX. were credited with a sort of inspiration, as we learn
from our author.] | and at that very festival, which had been
proclaimed such a long time previously by Moses, did our Lord suffer,
thus fulfilling the passover. And he did not describe the day only, but
the place also, and the time of day at which the sufferings ceased,3921
| 3921 Latin, “et extremitatem
temporum.” | and the sign of the setting of the sun,
saying: “Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any other of
thy cities which the Lord
God gives thee; but in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose that
His name be called on there, thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even,
towards the setting of the sun.”3922
2. And already he had also declared His advent, saying,
“There shall not fail a chief in Judah, nor a leader from his
loins, until He come for whom it is laid up, and He is the hope of the
nations; binding His foal to the vine, and His ass’s colt to the
creeping ivy. He shall wash His stole in wine, and His upper garment
in the blood of the grape; His eyes shall be more joyous than
wine,3923
| 3923 The Latin is,
“lætifici oculi ejus a vino,” the Hebrew method of
indicating comparison being evidently imitated. | and His teeth
whiter than milk.”3924
For, let
those who have the reputation of investigating everything, inquire at
what time a prince and leader failed out of Judah, and who is the hope of
the nations, who also is the vine, what was the ass’s colt
[referred to as] His, what the clothing, and what the eyes, what the
teeth, and what the wine, and thus let them investigate every one of the
points mentioned; and they shall find that there was none other announced
than our Lord, Christ Jesus. Wherefore Moses, when chiding the
ingratitude of the people, said, “Ye infatuated people, and unwise,
do ye thus requite the Lord?”3925
And again, he indicates that He who from the beginning founded
and created them, the Word, who also redeems and vivifies us in the last
times, is shown as hanging on the tree, and they will not believe on Him.
For he says, “And thy life shall be hanging before thine eyes, and
thou wilt not believe thy life.”3926
| 3926 Deut. xxviii. 66. Tertullian,
Cyprian, and other early Fathers, agree with Irenæus in his exposition
of this text. | And again, “Has not this same one thy
Father owned thee, and made thee, and created thee?”3927
| 3927 Deut. xxxii.
6. “Owned thee,” i.e., following the meaning of
the Hebrew, “owned thee by generation.” | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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