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| Concerning Those Who Come in the Name of Christ. The Terrible Signs of His Coming. He Whose Coming is So Grandly Described Both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, is None Other Than the Christ of the Creator. This Proof Enhanced by the Parable of the Fig-Tree and All the Trees. Parallel Passages of Prophecy.
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Chapter
XXXIX.—Concerning Those Who Come in the Name of Christ. The
Terrible Signs of His Coming. He Whose Coming is So Grandly Described
Both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, is None Other Than the
Christ of the Creator. This Proof Enhanced by the Parable of the
Fig-Tree and All the Trees. Parallel Passages of Prophecy.
As touching the propriety of His names, it has
already been seen5015
| 5015 See above: book iii.
chap. xv. and xvi. pp. 333, 334. | that both of
them5016
| 5016 The illam here
refers to the nominum proprietas, i.e., His title
Christ and His name Jesus. | are suitable to Him who was the first both
to announce His Christ to mankind, and to give Him the further
name5017
of Jesus. The impudence, therefore,
of Marcion’s Christ will be evident, when he says that many will
come in his name, whereas this name does not at all belong to
him, since he is not the Christ and Jesus of the Creator, to
whom these names do properly appertain; and more especially when he
prohibits those to be received whose very equal in imposture he is,
inasmuch as he (equally with them5018
) comes in a
name which belongs to another—unless it was his business to warn
off from a mendaciously assumed name the disciples (of One) who, by
reason of His name being properly given to Him, possessed also the
verity thereof. But when “they shall by and by come and say, I am
Christ,”5019
they will be
received by you, who have already received one altogether like
them.5020
| 5020 Consimilem: of
course Marcion’s Christ; the Marcionite being challenged in the
“you.” | Christ, however, comes in His own
name. What will you do, then,
when He Himself comes who is the very Proprietor of these names, the
Creator’s Christ and Jesus? Will you reject Him? But how
iniquitous, how unjust and disrespectful to the good God, that you
should not receive Him who comes in His own name, when you have
received another in His name! Now, let us see what are the signs which
He ascribes to the times. “Wars,” I observe, “and
kingdom against kingdom, and nation against nation, and pestilence, and
famines, and earthquakes, and fearful sights, and great signs from
heaven”5021
—all which
things are suitable for a severe and terrible God. Now, when He goes on
to say that “all these things must needs come to
pass,”5022
| 5022 Compare, in
Bible:Luke.21.35-Luke.21.36">Luke xxi., verses 9, 22, 28,
31–33, 35, and 36. | what does He
represent Himself to be? The Destroyer, or the Defender of the
Creator? For He affirms that these appointments of His must fully come
to pass; but surely as the good God, He would have frustrated rather
than advanced events so sad and terrible, if they had not been His own
(decrees). “But before all these,” He foretells that
persecutions and sufferings were to come upon them, which indeed were
“to turn for a testimony to them,” and for their
salvation.5023
Hear what is
predicted in Zechariah: “The Lord of hosts5024
| 5024 Omnipotens:
παντοκράτωρ
(Sept.); of hosts—A.V. | shall protect them; and they shall devour
them, and subdue them with sling-stones; and they shall drink their
blood like wine, and they shall fill the bowls as it were of the altar.
And the Lord shall save them in that day, even His people, like sheep;
because as sacred stones they roll,”5025
etc. And that you may not suppose that these predictions refer to such
sufferings as await them from so many wars with strangers,5026
consider the nature (of the
sufferings). In a prophecy of wars which were to be waged with
legitimate arms, no one would think of enumerating stones as weapons,
which are better known in popular crowds and unarmed tumults.
Nobody measures the copious streams of blood which flow in war by
bowlfuls, nor limits it to what is shed upon a single altar. No one
gives the name of sheep to those who fall in battle with arms in hand,
and while repelling force with force, but only to those who are slain,
yielding themselves up in their own place of duty and with patience,
rather than fighting in self-defence. In short, as he says, “they
roll as sacred stones,” and not like soldiers fight. Stones
are they, even foundation stones, upon which we are ourselves
edified—“built,” as St. Paul says, “upon the
foundation of the apostles,”5027
who, like
“consecrated stones,” were rolled up and down exposed to
the attack of all men. And therefore in this passage He forbids men
“to meditate before what they answer” when brought before
tribunals,5028
even as once He
suggested to Balaam the message which he had not thought of,5029
nay, contrary to what he had thought; and
promised “a mouth” to Moses, when he pleaded in excuse the
slowness of his speech,5030
and that wisdom
which, by Isaiah, He showed to be irresistible: “One shall say, I
am the Lord’s, and shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and
another shall subscribe himself by the name of Israel.”5031
Now, what plea is wiser and more
irresistible than the simple and open5032
confession made in a martyr’s cause, who “prevails with
God”—which is what “Israel” means?5033
Now, one cannot wonder that He forbade
“premeditation,” who actually Himself received from the
Father the ability of uttering words in season: “The Lord hath
given to me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak
a word in season (to him that is weary);”5034
except that Marcion introduces to us a Christ who is not subject to the
Father. That persecutions from one’s nearest friends are
predicted, and calumny out of hatred to His name,5035
I need not again refer to. But “by
patience,”5036
| 5036 Per tolerantiam:
“endurance.” | says He, “ye
shall yourselves be saved.”5037
| 5037 Comp. Luke xxi. 19 with Matt. xxiv. 13. | Of this very
patience the Psalm says, “The patient endurance of the just shall
not perish for ever;”5038
because it is said
in another Psalm, “Precious (in the sight of the Lord) is the
death of the just”—arising, no doubt, out of their patient
endurance, so that Zechariah declares: “A crown shall be to them
that endure.”5039
| 5039 After the Septuagint
he makes a plural appellative (“eis qui toleraverint,” LXX.
τοῖς
ὑπομένονσι)
of the Hebrew םלֶח”לְ, which
in A.V. and the Vulgate (and also Gesenius and Fuerst) is the dative of
a proper name. | But that you may
not boldly contend that it was as announcers of another god that the
apostles were persecuted by the Jews, remember that even the prophets
suffered the same treatment of the Jews, and that they were not the
heralds of any other god than the Creator. Then, having shown what was
to be the period of the destruction, even “when Jerusalem
should begin to be
compassed with armies,”5040
He described the
signs of the end of all things: “portents in the sun, and the
moon, and the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in
perplexity—like the sea roaring—by reason of their
expectation of the evils which are coming on the earth.”5041
That “the very powers also of heaven have to
be shaken,”5042
you may find in
Joel: “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the
earth—blood and fire, and pillars of smoke; the sun shall be
turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and
terrible day of the Lord come.”5043
In
Habakkuk also you have this statement: “With rivers shall the
earth be cleaved; the nations shall see thee, and be in pangs. Thou
shalt disperse the waters with thy step; the deep uttered its voice;
the height of its fear was raised;5044
| 5044 Elata: “fear was
raised to its very highest.” | the sun and
the moon stood still in their course; into light shall thy coruscations
go; and thy shield shall be (like) the glittering of the
lightning’s flash; in thine anger thou shalt grind the earth, and
shalt thresh the nations in thy wrath.”5045
There is thus an agreement, I apprehend, between the sayings of the
Lord and of the prophets touching the shaking of the earth, and the
elements, and the nations thereof. But what does the Lord say
afterwards? “And then shall they see the Son of man coming from
the heavens with very great power. And when these things shall
come to pass, ye shall look up, and raise your heads; for your
redemption hath come near,” that is, at the time of the kingdom,
of which the parable itself treats.5046
“So
likewise ye, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know ye that
the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.”5047
This will be the great day of the Lord, and of the glorious coming of
the Son of man from heaven, of which Daniel wrote: “Behold, one
like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,”5048
etc. “And there was given unto Him the
kingly power,”5049
which (in the
parable) “He went away into a far country to receive for
Himself,” leaving money to His servants wherewithal to trade and
get increase5050
—even (that
universal kingdom of) all nations, which in the Psalm the Father had
promised to give to Him: Ask of me, and I will give Thee the heathen
for Thine inheritance.”5051
“And all that
glory shall serve Him; His dominion shall be an everlasting one, which
shall not be taken from Him, and His kingdom that which shall not be
destroyed,”5052
because in it
“men shall not die, neither shall they marry, but be like the
angels.”5053
It is about the
same advent of the Son of man and the benefits thereof that we read in
Habakkuk: “Thou wentest forth for the salvation of Thy people,
even to save Thine anointed ones,”5054
—in other words, those who shall look
up and lift their heads, being redeemed in the time of His kingdom.
Since, therefore, these descriptions of the promises, on the one hand,
agree together, as do also those of the great catastrophes, on the
other—both in the predictions of the prophets and the
declarations of the Lord, it will be impossible for you to interpose
any distinction between them, as if the catastrophes could be referred
to the Creator, as the terrible God, being such as the good god (of
Marcion) ought not to permit, much less expect—whilst the
promises should be ascribed to the good god, being such as the Creator,
in His ignorance of the said god, could not have predicted. If,
however, He did predict these promises as His own, since they differ in
no respect from the promises of Christ, He will be a match in the
freeness of His gifts with the good god himself; and evidently no more
will have been promised by your Christ than by my Son of man. (If you
examine) the whole passage of this Gospel Scripture, from the inquiry
of the disciples5055
down to the parable
of the fig-tree5056
you will find the
sense in its connection suit in every point the Son of man, so that it
consistently ascribes to Him both the sorrows and the joys, and the
catastrophes and the promises; nor can you separate them from Him in
either respect. For as much, then, as there is but one Son of man whose
advent is placed between the two issues of catastrophe and promise, it
must needs follow that to that one Son of man belong both the judgments
upon the nations, and the prayers of the saints. He who thus comes in
midway so as to be common to both issues, will terminate one of them by
inflicting judgment on the nations at His coming; and will at the same
time commence the other by fulfilling the prayers of His saints: so
that if (on the one hand) you grant that the coming of the Son of man
is (the advent) of my Christ, then, when you ascribe to Him the
infliction of the judgments which precede His appearance, you are
compelled also to assign to Him the blessings which issue from the
same. If (on the other hand) you will have it that it is the coming of
your Christ, then, when you ascribe to him the blessings which
are to be the result of his advent, you are obliged to impute to him
likewise the infliction of the evils which precede his
appearance. For the evils which precede, and the blessings which
immediately follow, the coming of the Son of man, are both alike
indissolubly connected with that event. Consider, therefore, which of
the two Christs you choose to place in the person of the Son of man, to
whom you may refer the execution of the two dispensations. You make
either the Creator a most beneficent God, or else your own god terrible
in his nature! Reflect, in short, on the picture presented in the
parable: “Behold the fig-tree, and all the trees; when they
produce their fruit, men know that summer is at hand. So likewise ye,
when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God
is very near.”5057
Now, if the
fructification of the common trees5058
be an
antecedent sign of the approach of summer, so in like manner do the
great conflicts of the world indicate the arrival of that kingdom which
they precede. But every sign is His, to whom belong the thing of which
it is the sign; and to everything is appointed its sign by Him to whom
the thing belongs. If, therefore, these tribulations are the
signs of the kingdom, just as the maturity of the trees is of the
summer, it follows that the kingdom is the Creator’s to whom are
ascribed the tribulations which are the signs of the kingdom. Since the
beneficent Deity had premised that these things must needs come to
pass, although so terrible and dreadful, as they had been predicted by
the law and the prophets, therefore He did not destroy the law and the
prophets, when He affirmed that what had been foretold therein must be
certainly fulfilled. He further declares, “that heaven and
earth shall not pass away till all things be fulfilled.”5059
What things, pray, are these? Are they the
things which the Creator made? Then the elements will tractably endure
the accomplishment of their Maker’s dispensation. If,
however, they emanate from your excellent god, I much doubt
whether5060
the heaven and
earth will peaceably allow the completion of things which their
Creator’s enemy has determined! If the Creator quietly submits to
this, then He is no “jealous God.” But let heaven and earth
pass away, since their Lord has so determined; only let His word remain
for evermore! And so Isaiah predicted that it should.5061
Let the disciples also be warned,
“lest their hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and
drunkenness, and cares of this world; and so that day come upon them
unawares, like a snare”5062
—if indeed
they should forget God amidst the abundance and occupation of the
world. Like this will be found the admonition of Moses,—so that
He who delivers from “the snare” of that day is none other
than He who so long before addressed to men the same
admonition.5063
Some places there
were in Jerusalem where to teach; other places outside Jerusalem
whither to retire5064
—“in the
day-time He was teaching in the temple;” just as He had foretold
by Hosea: “In my house did they find me, and there did I speak
with them.”5065
| 5065 Hosea xii. 4. One reading of the LXX. is, ἐν
τῳ οἴκῳ μου
εὕρεσάν με. | “But at night
He went out to the Mount of Olives.” For thus had Zechariah
pointed out: “And His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount
of Olives.”5066
Fit hours for an
audience there also were. “Early in the morning”5067
must they resort to Him, who (having said by
Isaiah, “The Lord giveth me the tongue of the learned”)
added, “He hath appointed me the morning, and hath also given me
an ear to hear.”5068
Now if this is to
destroy the prophets,5069
| 5069 Literally, “the
prophecies.” | what will it be to
fulfil them?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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