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He speaks about the spread of the earthly city together with the heavenly city from the time of Abraham until the end of the world, and cites the predictions about Christ of both the Sibyls and especially the sacred prophets who wrote from the foundation of the Roman kingdom. Chapter I. What was said in the previous seventeen books brought up to the time of the Savior I promised to write about the beginning, spread and inevitable end of two cities, of which one is the city of God, and the other is the city of the present age, where the city of God now wanders, as far as it belongs to the human race. But first, as far as the grace of Christ helped me, I refuted the opponents of the city of God, who prefer their gods to its Creator, Christ, and hate Christians with self-destructive malice. I did this in the first ten books. As for the threefold promise that I just mentioned, the beginning of both cities was set forth by me in the four books that follow the ten. Then in another, fifteenth book of this work, it is said about their spread from the first man to the flood; and then, both in history and in our work, both cities continue to go together until Abraham. But starting from the patriarch Abraham until the time of the kings of Israel, where we ended the sixteenth book, and from that time until the coming in the flesh of the Savior himself, where the seventeenth book ends, my essay tells about the expansion of the city of God alone, although in the present century this city did not live separately, but both of them, as from the very beginning, were always together, depending on the success of one or the other in human affairs, giving the times a different character. I did this so that from the first moment, when the promises of God began to be clearer, and until the very birth of the Virgin in Whom the promise was to be fulfilled, the destinies of the city of God, without intertwining with the opposite destinies of another city, would be outlined more clearly; although before the revelation of the New Testament he walked not in the light, but in the shadow. Now I consider it necessary to do what I omitted - I will also touch on the destinies of another city since the time of Abraham so much that readers themselves can compare both of them. Chapter II. About the kings and eras of the earthly city, with which the chronological dates about the lives of the saints coincide, starting with the birth of Abraham So, the society of mortals, scattered everywhere on earth and, despite all the differences in local conditions, united by a certain community of one and the same nature - due to the fact that everyone seeks his own benefit and the satisfaction of his desires, and what he strives for is either lacking for no one, or is enough, but not for everyone - not being identical, for the most part it is divided against itself, and the part that overpowers oppresses the other. The vanquished submits to the victorious, preferring, of course, not only domination, but also freedom itself, at least some kind of peace and salvation; and this - to such an extent that they were the subject of great surprise, who preferred to perish rather than endure slavery. For almost all peoples expressed in some way the voice of nature, according to which they usually preferred to submit to the victors than to be subjected to destruction as a result of a war of extermination. From this it turned out that not without the action of God's providence, in whose power it is that everyone, through war, either submits himself or conquers others, some possess kingdoms, while others submit to the reigning ones. But of the many earthly kingdoms into which the society of earthly interests or desires is divided (which we call the city of this world), we single out two kingdoms that have become the most famous: first the Assyrian, then the Roman, delimited and separated from each other both in time and place. For just as the first arose before, and the second after, so this arose in the East, and this in the West; and, moreover, the beginning of the other coincides with the end of the first. As for the remaining kingdoms and the remaining kings, I would call them the reserves of those two. So Ninus was the second king of the Assyrians, who succeeded his father Bel, the first king of this kingdom, when Abraham was born in the land of the Chaldeans. At that time there was still a small kingdom of Sikyon, from which the famous scientist Marcus Varro, telling about the tribe of the Roman people, begins as the most ancient in time. From the kings of Sicyon it passes to the Athenians, from the Athenians to the Latins, and from these to the Romans. But before the founding of Rome, the kingdoms of Sicyon and Athens seem very insignificant compared to Assyria. True, according to Sallust, the Roman historian, the Athenians were very famous in Greece, but more due to rumor than in reality. For, speaking about the Athenians, Sallust notes: “The actions of the Athenians, as I think, were quite great and brilliant, but somewhat less significant than rumor says about them. But since writers with great talent appeared among them, their deeds are extolled throughout the world as the greatest deeds. The valor of those who performed them seems as amazing as their great talents could describe.” Science and philosophy gave considerable fame to this city, since studies of this kind flourished primarily there. But as far as political significance is concerned, no state in the early times was stronger and spread as far and wide as the Assyrian. They say that the local king Nin, the son of Vel, conquered all of Asia, which is called the third, and in size is half of the entire globe, to the very borders of Libya. His power in the East did not extend to Indians alone; but even these, after his death, were conquered by his wife, Semiramis. Thus, all the peoples and kings in those countries obeyed the dominance and power of the Assyrians and did what they were ordered. So Abraham was born in this kingdom among the Chaldeans in the time of Ninus. But since the Greek events are much better known to us than the Assyrian ones, and those who were looking for the first and most ancient traces of the tribe of the Roman people, the sequence of historical periods led through the Greeks to the Latins, and from the latter to the Romans, who themselves are Latins, then we must, where necessary, mention the Assyrian kings, so that it can be seen how Babylonia, this, as it were, the first Rome, grew in parallel with the wandering in this world city of God; but we are forced to take the events that should be included in this work to compare both, that is, the earthly and heavenly cities, from the Greeks and Latins, for whom Rome itself is, as it were, a second Babylonia. So, when Abraham was born, the second kings were: among the Assyrians Ninus, among the Sicyonians Europs; and the first kings were: those Bel, those Aegials. When, after Abraham left Babylonia, God promised him that great descendants would come from him and that all nations would be blessed in his shadow, the Assyrians had a fourth king, and the Sicyonians had a fifth. The first, after their mother Semiramis, had their son Nina reign; the latter, they say, was killed by him when she dared to defile her son with incestuous intercourse. Some think that it was she who built Babylon, although she could only restore it: when and how it was built, we said about this in the sixteenth book. The son of Nin and Semiramis, who inherited the kingdom after his mother, is also called Nin by some, and Ninyas by others, deriving his name from the name of his father. The kingdom of Sicyon was ruled at that time by Thelkion. During his reign there were such serene and happy times that when he died, he was honored as a god with sacrifices and games, which, they say, were first established in his honor. Chapter III. Under what kings of Assyria and Sicyon, Isaac was born to hundred-year-old Abraham, according to the promise, and to sixty-year-old Isaac, twins Esau and Jacob were born from Rebekah At the same time, one hundred year old Abraham, according to the promise of God, had a son, Isaac, from Sarah, who, being barren and old, had already lost hope of offspring. And the Assyrians then had Aralia as their fifth king. To Isaac himself, in the sixtieth year, were born twins Esau and Jacob, whom Rebekah bore to him, while their grandfather Abraham was still alive and was one hundred and sixty years old: he died at the age of one hundred and seventy-five years, when the elder Xerxes, also called Ballei, was king among the Assyrians, and among the Sicyonians Thuriac, to whom some give the name Furimacha. These were the seventh kings. At the same time as the grandchildren of Abraham, the kingdom of Argos arose, in which Inach was the first king. It is impossible not to mention that, according to Varro, the Sicyonians also made sacrifices at the tomb of their seventh king, Thuriac. Under the eighth kings, the Assyrian Armamitra, the Sicyonian Leucippus, and under the first king of Argos, Inachus, God spoke to Isaac and repeated to him the very two promises that were given to his father, that is, that Canaan would belong to his descendants and that in his seed all nations would be blessed. The same was promised to his son, the grandson of Abraham, who was called first Jacob, and then Israel, when the ninth king, Beloch, reigned among the Assyrians, the second, the son of Inachus Phoroneus, reigned among the Argives, and Leucippus still remained among the Sicyonians. At this time, Greece, under the Argive king Phoroneus, became more famous for certain laws and the establishment of courts. However, when Phoroneus's younger brother, Fegoi, died, a church was built over his grave, in which he was worshiped as a god and bulls were sacrificed to him. I believe that he was awarded such an honor because in his inheritance (for his father gave them both regions in which they reigned during his lifetime) he established sacred places with altars for the gods and taught him to observe the times by months and years: how which of them is measured and calculated. Surprised by this news, people, still ignorant at that time, either thought that after death he became a god, or wished that he would be such. For Io, who, later called Isis, was revered in Egypt as a great goddess, was, they say, the daughter of Inachus; although others write that she came to Egypt as a queen from Ethiopia, and since she ruled the Egyptians with great power and fairly, introduced many useful things for them and laid the foundation for the sciences, after her death they showed her divine honor and such reverence that they considered it a criminal offense if anyone called her a man. Chapter IV. About the times of Jacob and his son Joseph Under the tenth king of Assyria, Baleas, and the ninth king of Sikyon, Mesappos, whom some also call Cephisus (unless, however, it was one man with two names, and unless those who put another name in their writings did not mean another person by it), when Apis was the third king of Argos, Isaac died at the age of one hundred and eighty years old and left behind his twins one hundred and twenty years old; of these, the youngest Jacob, who belonged to the city of God about which we write (while the eldest was rejected), had twelve sons, of whom the one called Joseph was sold by his brothers, during the lifetime of their grandfather Isaac, to merchants going to Egypt. But Joseph, when he was thirty years old, was accepted into the service of Pharaoh, having risen from the humiliation which he had suffered. Interpreting, by divine inspiration, the dreams of the king, he predicted that seven years of fertility would come, the abundance of which would be depleted by the other seven years of famine that followed; for this, the king made him the ruler of Egypt, freeing him from prison, where his chaste innocence had plunged him: because, courageously preserving it, he and his mistress, who was inflamed with unclean love for him and threatened to slander him before the gullible master, did not agree to fornication, breaking out of her arms and throwing away even his clothes. In the second year of the seven years of famine, Jacob and all his household came to Egypt to his son, being one hundred and thirty years old, as he himself reported (Gen. 47:9); Joseph was then thirty-nine years old, if to the thirty years that he had when he was showered with the king’s favors, we add seven years of fertility and two years of famine. Chapter V. About the Argive king Apis, whom the Egyptians honored with divine honors under the name of Serapis At this time, the king of Argos, Apis, sailed on ships to Egypt, and when he died, he became the greatest of all Egyptian gods, Serapis. Why after his death he was called not Apis, but Serapis, Varro gives a very satisfactory explanation. Since the coffin in which the deceased is placed and which everyone now calls σαρκοφάγος is called σορός in Greek, and after the funeral they began to honor him in this coffin, before they built a church for him; then at first it was called Soros and Apis, Sorapis, and then, with a change of one letter, as often happens, Serapis. And concerning him it was also decreed that whoever said that he was a man should be subject to the death penalty. And since in almost all the churches in which Isis and Serapis were honored, there was a statue, which, with a finger pressed to the lips, apparently advised to remain silent, Varro thinks that this means that they should remain silent about the fact that they were people. But that bull, which Egypt, possessed by amazing vanity, kept in honor of Apis with the greatest luxury, was called simply Apis, and not Serapis, because it was honored alive, without a sarcophagus. When this bull died and after that they found a calf of the same color, that is, having the same white spots, they considered it something miraculous and accomplished by divine providence. Indeed, to seduce them, it was not difficult for the demons to show the conceiving and pregnant cow the ghost of a similar bull, which only she would see; then the mother’s lust will attract what will be reflected in her fetus in a bodily image. Jacob achieved with the help of multi-colored sticks that sheep and goats were born of different colors (Gen. XXX, 37-42). And what people can produce in conceiving animals with the help of real colors and objects, demons can very easily do with the help of false images. Chapter VI. Under which kings of Argive and Assyria did Jacob die in Egypt? So, Apis, the king of Argos, and not of Egypt, died in Egypt. He was succeeded in the administration of the kingdom by his son Argos, from whose name Argos, and then the Argives, received their name; Under the previous kings, neither the city nor the people bore this name. So, when Argos reigned among the Argives, Erat among the Sicyonians, and Valei continued to reign among the Assyrians, Jacob died in Egypt at the age of one hundred and forty-seven years; moreover, feeling the approach of death, he blessed his sons and grandsons from Joseph and uttered a very clear prophecy about Christ, saying in his blessing to Judas: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until the Reconciler comes, and to Him the submission of the nations” (Gen. 49:10). During the reign of Argos, Greece began to use grain bread and engage in agricultural crops, using seeds brought from outside. And after his death, Argos began to be considered a god, building a church in his honor and making sacrifices. Previously, during his reign, this honor was given to a private man, Omogir, killed by thunder, for being the first to harness oxen to a plow. Chapter VII. During which kings did Joseph die in Egypt? Under the twelfth king of Assyria, Mamit, the eleventh Tribe of Sicyon, and under Argos, who was still alive, Joseph died in Egypt at the age of one hundred and ten (Gen. 50:25). After his death, the people of God, miraculously multiplying in number, lived in Egypt, first, while those who knew Joseph were alive, for one hundred and forty-five years, calmly, and then, since his increase aroused envy and seemed suspicious, he was oppressed by persecution (among which, however, by divine power, he did not cease to multiply) and the work of intolerable slavery, until his very liberation from there. During this time the same kingdoms remained in Assyria and Greece. Chapter VIII. During which kings was Moses born and the religion of which gods arose at the same time So, when the fourteenth king Safr reigned among the Assyrians, the twelfth Orthopolis among the Sicyonians, and the fifth Kriaz among the Argives, Moses was born in Egypt; through him the people of God were freed from the slavery of Egypt, in which they had to languish in order to desire the help of their Creator. Some believe that during the reign of the mentioned kings there lived Prometheus, who, they say, formed people from clay; because, as they say, he was the best teacher of wisdom; although, however, they do not indicate what kind of wise men there were in his time. They say about his brother Atlas that he was a great astrologer: this gave rise to rumors to imagine him as wearing the sky; although a mountain is named after him, the height of which most likely gave rise to the popular belief about wearing the sky. From that time on, many other fables began to appear in Greece; and until the very time of Cecrops, king of the Athenians, during whose reign this people began to be called by its present name and during which, through Moses, God led the Jews out of Egypt, many who died, thanks to the ignorant and empty custom and superstition of the Greeks, were classified among the gods. Among them was the wife of king Crias Melantomika and their son For-vas, who after his father was the sixth king of the Argives, as well as the son of the seventh king Triopus Nas, and the ninth king Sthenelai, or Sthenelus, or Sthenelus: different writers call him differently. During these times, according to some legends, Mercury, the grandson of Atlas from his daughter Maya, also lived, as discussed in many of the most widespread works. He was famous for his knowledge of many sciences and arts, which he passed on to people; by this he deserved that after his death he was declared and even imagined as a god. Later, they say, there lived Hercules, who, however, dates back to the same times of the Argives; although some believe that he lived before Mercury, but in my opinion they are mistaken. However, at whatever time they were born, completely reliable historians who wrote about these ancient events consider it undeniable that both of them were people and received divine honors for the fact that they showed many benefits to mortals in the sense of improving the comforts of real life. As for Minerva, she is much older. They say that in the time of Ogygia she appeared as a maiden on a lake called Triton; why it was called Tritonia. There is no doubt that she was the inventor of many arts, and the more easily she was considered a goddess, the less her origin was known. And what they sing about her, as if she was born from the head of Jupiter, then this must be attributed to poetry and fables, and not to the history of actual events. However, when Ogygius himself lived, during which there was a great flood - not that universal flood from which none of the people were saved, with the exception of those in the ark, and about which neither the Greek nor the Latin history of peoples knows, but the flood is still much greater than any was later in the time of Deucalion - historical writers speak differently regarding this. Thus, Varro begins his book, which I mentioned above, from this time, and the ancient flood of Ogygius, that is, what happened during the life of Ogygius, does not represent anything from which he could move on to Roman history. Our chroniclers, first Eusebius, and then Jerome, following some earlier historians, believe that the flood of Ogygia occurred more than three hundred years later, during the reign of the second Argive king Phoroneus. But whenever this flood occurred, Minerva was already revered as a goddess, when Cecrops reigned in Athens, under whom, they say, this city was restored or even built. Chapter IX. When was the city of the Athenians built and what reason does Varro give for its name? For Varro gives such a reason for the name of the city by the name of Athena, taken, of course, from Minerva, who in Greek is called Ἀθήνα. When an olive tree suddenly appeared there, and water appeared in another place, these miracles worried the king, and he sent to Apollo of Delphi to ask what their meaning was and what they required. Apollo replied that the olive tree signified Minerva, and the water signified Neptune, and that it depended on the will of the citizens which of the two gods these symbols signified would be better to name the city. Kekrops, having received this answer from the oracle, convened all citizens of both sexes to cast their votes (it was then the custom here for women to participate in public meetings). And so, after consulting, the men cast their votes for Neptune, and the women for Minerva, and since there was one more woman, Minerva remained the winner. Then the angry Neptune devastated the lands of the Athenians with agitated sea waters, for it is not difficult for demons to scatter any kind of waves over long distances. To soften his anger, the Athenians, as the same author says, subjected women to a triple punishment; after this none of them was to cast a vote, none of those born were to take the name of their mother, no one was to call them Athenians. Thus, this city, the mother and nurse of the liberal sciences and so many such great philosophers, a city more glorious and beautiful than which there was no one in Greece, thanks to the mockery of demons, received the name of Athens from the dispute of its gods, man and woman, and from the victory of woman through women; but, having been defeated by the vanquished, he was forced to punish the very victory of the victor, fearing more the waters of Neptune than the weapons of Minerva. For in the person of the women so punished, the victorious Minerva was also defeated: she did not help her voters even enough that with the loss from that time of the right to vote and with the alienation of sons from the names of their mothers, they could at least be called Athenians and be considered worthy of the name of that goddess, to whom by their vote they brought victory over the male god. What and how much could be said on this matter if our speech were not in a hurry to move on to other subjects! Chapter X. What Varro conveys about the name of the Areopagus and the flood of Deucalion Marcus Varro, however, does not want to trust the fabulous fabrications about the gods, lest he think something unworthy of greatness. Therefore, he does not allow that the Areopagus, in which the Apostle Paul reasoned with the Athenians (Acts XVII, 19) and from the name of which all the Athenian senators were called Areopagites, received its name from the fact that Mars, in Greek Ἄρης, when on this field (pago) he was tried by twelve gods on charges of murder, was acquitted by six votes; for when the votes were equally divided at the pronouncement of the verdict, acquittal was usually preferred to accusation. Contrary to this most widespread opinion, he tries, on the basis of unknown works, to find some other explanation for this name, so that they would not think that the Athenians called the Areopagus by the name of Mars and the field, as if the Field of Mars, that is, as an insult to the deities, to whom, in his opinion, quarrels and litigation are alien. Varro claims that this legend about Mars is as false as the legend about the three goddesses, Juno, Minerva and Venus, who allegedly argued before Judge Paris about the superiority of their beauty because of a golden apple; although the latter serves as the subject of both storytelling and performance in singing and dancing, with thunderous theatrical applause during games established to appease the gods, delighting in such true or false crimes. Varro does not believe this out of fear that he might conceive something that does not correspond to the nature and morals of the gods. However, giving not a fabulous, but a historical explanation of the name of Athens, he enters into his work a dispute between Neptune and Minerva regarding whose name the city should be named - a dispute of such a nature that when they discovered rivalry by the manifestation of miraculous signs, Apollo, to whom they turned for advice, did not dare to sort them out, but in order to end the quarrel between the gods, just as Jupiter sent the three mentioned goddesses to Paris, so he sent them to people, at the trial of which Minerva won with a majority of votes and at the same time suffered defeat in the face of her punished voters, having won Athens from the men who turned out to be her opponents, but losing the right to consider the women friendly to her Athenians. At the same time, according to the testimony of Varro, under the Athenian king Kranai, the successor of Kekrops, and according to the testimony of our historians, Eusebius and Jerome, during the life of Kekrops himself, there was a flood, called Deucalion because Deucalion reigned in those countries where this flood predominantly took place. But this flood did not at all extend to Egypt and the countries adjacent to it. Chapter XI. When did Moses lead the people out of Egypt, and under which kings did Moses’ successor Joshua die? So, Moses led the people of God out of Egypt in the very last years of the reign of the king of Athens, Kekrops, when Askatad reigned among the Assyrians, Maratha among the Sicyonians, and Triopas among the Argives. He communicated to the people the law received from God on Mount Sinai, which is called the Old Testament because it contains earthly promises; and through Jesus Christ there was to be a New Covenant, in which the kingdom of heaven was promised. This order should have been observed, since in every person who prospers in God, what the apostle speaks about in the words: “But the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual” (1 Cor. 15:46); and so it really is, as he says: “The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). Moses ruled the people of God forty years in the wilderness and died one hundred and twenty years old, prophesying about Christ under bodily images in the establishment of the Tabernacle, the priesthood, sacrifices and in many other sacraments and institutions. Moses was succeeded by Joshua, and, having led the people into the promised land, he installed them there, defeating, by divine authority, the peoples who previously possessed those places. Having ruled the people for twenty-seven years after the death of Moses, he also died under the eighteenth Assyrian king Amyntas, under the sixteenth Korak of Sicyon, under the tenth Argos Danae and under the fourth Athenian Erichthonius. Chapter XII. About the cults of false gods established by the Greek kings in the period of time from the exodus of Israel from Egypt to the death of Joshua During this time, that is, from the exodus of Israel from Egypt until the death of Joshua, thanks to whom this people received the Promised Land, the Greek kings established cults of false gods, which in solemn celebrations reproduced memories of the flood, the liberation of people from it and their disastrous life at that time: how they either rose to the heights or descended to the lowlands. For the ascent and descent along the sacred road of the Luperci are interpreted in the sense that they mean people who, due to the flood, climbed to the tops of the mountains, and when the water subsided, they went down. In those days, they say, Dionysius, also called Liber the Father and after his death numbered among the gods, showed his guest a grapevine in Attica. At the same time, musical games were established in honor of Apollo of Delphi to appease his anger, as a result of which, it was thought, Greece was struck by infertility for not defending his church, which was burned by King Danaus when he devastated Greece with war. It was his (Apollo’s) oracle who advised him to install these games. In Attica, King Erichthonius was the first to establish these games for Apollo, and not only for him, but also for Minerva, at the games in whose honor the winner was given an olive as a reward, because the discovery of its fruit was attributed to Minerva, just as Liberus was credited with the discovery of wine. During these same years, as they say, the king of Crete, Xanthus, whom other writers call by a different name, kidnapped Europe; from them were born Rhadamanthus, Saperdon and Minos, whom the most common opinion considers to be the sons of Jupiter from this woman. But admirers of such gods consider only what we said about the king of the Cretans to be historical truth; and what the poets sing about Jupiter, what the theaters applaud, what the peoples celebrate, they consider a fabulous fiction, in order to have a reason for establishing games to appease the deities, even with their false crimes. At the same time, Hercules was famous in Tyria - not the one mentioned above, but another; the story, which is kept secret, speaks of many Liber fathers as well as many Hercules. It was this Hercules, to whom twelve great deeds are attributed, but among whom the murder of the African Antaeus is not mentioned, since it refers to another Hercules, burned himself, as they say in their writings, on Mount Ete with the courage with which he defeated monsters, but with which he could not endure the disease that weakened him. At the same time, the king, or rather the tyrant Vuziris, sacrificed his guests to his gods. They say about him that he was the son of Neptune from his mother Livia, daughter of Epaphus. That Neptune committed this adultery is, of course, considered false, for fear of blaspheming the gods; and this is assigned to poets and theaters, so that they have something to appease the gods with. They also say that the parents of the king of Athens, Erichthonius, in the last years of whose life Joshua died, were Vulcan and Minerva. But since Minerva is considered a virgin, they say that Vulcan, during a mutual dispute between them, excited by passion, poured out his seed on the ground; hence the person born from this seed was given such a name. For the Greek word ἔρις means dispute, and χθῶν means land; From these two words the name Erichthonius was formed. It must be admitted, however, that more learned men reject such things and do not allow them in relation to their gods; according to them, this fabulous opinion arose because in the church of Vulcan and Minerva, which in Athens was the same for both of them, a foundling was found - a boy entwined with a dragon who predicted a great future for him; since the parents of this boy were unknown, for the sake of the common church he was called the son of Vulcan and Minerva. The above fable, however, explains better than this story the origin of the name Erichthonius. But what do we care about that? Let one of these legends, as the subject of truthful writings, edify religious people, and the other, as the plot of deceitful games, delight wicked demons; but these religious people worship them as gods; and therefore, although they do not allow such things to happen to them, they cannot clear them of another type of crime: since, at their own request, they are given games in which things are shamefully presented, supposedly wisely denied, and the gods are appeased with these false and vile games. Let the fable in these games glorify a crime that is undoubtedly false; but to take pleasure in a false crime is already a true crime. Chapter XIII. What fables were invented at the time when the Jews began to be ruled by the Judges After the death of Joshua, the people of God had judges, during whose times the Jews alternated between humiliating states of disaster for their sins and states of comforting prosperity due to the mercy of God. At this time, fables were invented: about Triptolemus, supposedly, at the behest of the church, he flew on winged snakes, supplying needy countries with wheat; about the Minotaur, supposedly this animal was imprisoned in a labyrinth, from which the people who entered it, wandering endlessly, could not leave; about the centaurs, supposedly they had at the same time the nature of horses and people; about Cerberus, as if it were the three-headed dog of the underworld; about Frixus and his sister Helle, they allegedly fled on a ram; about the Gorgon, who supposedly had snakes instead of hair and turned those who looked at her into stones; about Bellerophon, as if he was carried by a winged horse called Pegasus; about Amphion, as if with the pleasant sounds of a zither he softened and attracted stones to himself; about the craftsman Daedalus and his son Icarus, as if they were flying with wings; about Oedipus, as if he forced a certain four-legged monster with a human face, called the Sphinx, to die from falling into an abyss after solving its riddle, which it used to ask, considering it insoluble; about Antaeus, whom Hercules killed, as if he was the son of the Earth, because, falling to the ground, he usually rose with great strength; and many others that I am not mentioning. All these fables, right up to the Trojan War itself, with which Marcus Varro ends the second book about the tribe of the Roman people, human ingenuity invented stories that contained true deeds in such a way that they did not serve as a reproach to the gods. But then some wrote about Jupiter that he kidnapped the most beautiful boy Ganymede to satisfy his vile passion: this abomination was committed by King Tantalus, and the fable was attributed to Jupiter; or as if Jupiter appeared in the form of a golden shower to have intercourse with Danae, which makes it clear that female chastity was bribed with gold. Whether this actually happened at that time or was fictitious, or made by others and attributed to Jupiter, in any case it is impossible to express in words how much evil accumulated in the human heart, if it not only could patiently endure such a lie, but even willingly believed it; meanwhile, the more piously they honored Jupiter, the more severely they should punish those who dared to say such things about him. In fact, not only were they not angry with those who composed such fables, but, on the contrary, they were afraid that the gods themselves would be angry with them if such fictions about them were not played out in theaters. During these times, Latona gave birth to Apollo, not the Apollo whose oracles were usually turned to for advice, as we mentioned above, but the one about whom they say that he, together with Hercules, tended the flocks of King Admetus, but who is also considered a god, so that very many, even almost all, believe that this is the same Apollo. At the same time, Father Liber fought in India, and in his army he had many women called bacchantes, famous not so much for their courage as for their fury. Some write that this Liber was defeated and imprisoned, and some - that he was killed in battle by Perseus, and do not remain silent about the place of his burial; nevertheless, in his honor, as if in honor of God, a cult was established by unclean demons, or better yet, the sacrilege of bacchanalia, the violent abomination of which, many years later, so ashamed the Senate that it forbade their celebration in Rome. At the same time, when Perseus and his wife Andromeda died, they were considered with such confidence to be taken to heaven that they were not ashamed or afraid to point out their images between the constellations and call the latter by their names. Chapter XIV. About poet-theologians During the same period of time, there were poets who are called theologians because they wrote poems about gods, but about gods who, although they were great people, were still people, or were the elements of this world created by the true God, or, by the will of the Creator, for their merits, were invested with command and authority; and if, along with many empty and false fabrications, they said something about the one true God, then, worshiping together with Him others who are not gods, and demanding for them service befitting only God alone, in any case they did not serve Him correctly and could not even get behind the fabulous vileness of their gods. These were Orpheus, Musey and Lin. But these theologians revered the gods, but were not considered gods; although the city of the wicked, I don’t know how, places Orpheus at the head of the underground cult, or rather, sacrilege. The wife of King Adamant, named Ino, and his son Melicert died by voluntarily throwing themselves into the sea, and human opinion ranked them among the gods, like their other contemporaries, Castor and Pollux. There is no doubt that the Greeks called this mother Melicerta Leucotea, and the Latins Matuta; but both considered her, however, a goddess. Chapter XV. About the fall of the Argive kingdom, during which Picus, the son of Saturn, was the first to take over his father's kingdom from the Lavretians At this time, the Argive kingdom ended its existence, moving to Mycenae, where Agamemnon was from; and the kingdom of the Laurentians arose, in which the first king was Picus, the son of Saturn. The Jews then had the woman Deborah as their judge. The Spirit of God acted through her, for she was also a prophetess; although its prophecy is not so clear that we can show his relationship to Christ without a lengthy interpretation. At that time, the Laurentians undoubtedly already reigned in Italy, from whom, after the Greeks, the origin of the Romans is more clearly deduced. The Assyrian kingdom also continued to exist, in which Lampar was the twenty-third king, when Picus became the first king of the Laurentians. It does not concern us what the admirers of those gods think about his father, Saturn, who do not allow the thought that he was a man; others wrote about him that he reigned in Italy before his son Picus, and Virgil in his most famous work says about him: He is a wild people, scattered across the high mountains, He brought it together, gave it the law and called it Latium, For he himself hid safely in those deserted places. So they say: under this king the golden age continued 179. All this is considered poetic fiction. More precisely, they claim that Picus’s father was Sterceus, who, as a very experienced farmer, was said to have the idea of ​​fertilizing the land with cattle manure, named after him stercus; according to some, his name was Stercutius. For whatever reason he was named Saturn, it is certain, however, that this Sterceus or Stercutius was made the god of agriculture for his merits. In the same way, his son Picus was accepted among such gods, who, they say, was an excellent augur and military leader. From Picus was born Faunus, the second king of the Laurentians; and this one was considered a god among them. Such divine honors were given to dead people before the Trojan War. Chapter XVI. About Diomedes, who after the destruction of Troy was numbered among the gods and whose companions, they say, were turned into birds After the destruction of Troy - this event, sung everywhere and even very well known to children, which, both due to its significance and thanks to the excellent works of writers, is extremely famous and glorified and took place during the reign of the son of Faunus Latinus, from whom the kingdom of the Latins received its name, while the kingdom of the Laurentians ceased to exist - the victorious Greeks, leaving the destroyed Troy and returning home, suffered and died from various and terrible disasters; nevertheless, the number of their gods was replenished from them. Thus, Diomedes was made a god, who, they say, as a punishment sent from above, did not return to his own, and his companions, as they no longer present this as a fabulous and poetic lie, but as a historical truth, were turned into birds, to whom, even having become, as they think, a god, he himself could not return human nature, nor, like a recent celestial inhabitant, did not ask for it from his king Jupiter. They say that there is even a church of him on the island of Diomedes, not far from Mount Gargana in Apulia, and those birds fly around this church, live there and show such amazing helpfulness that they take water into their noses and perform irrigation; and if Greeks or people of Greek origin come there, they are not only calm, but also kind to them; and if they see strangers, they fly up on their heads and inflict such heavy blows that they even kill them. For such a war, they are said to be armed with sufficiently strong and large beaks. Chapter XVII. What did Varro think about the incredible transformations of people? To confirm this, Varro tells other equally incredible things about the famous sorceress Circe, who turned the companions of Ulysses into animals, and about the Arcadians who, drawn by fate, swam across a certain lake, turned into wolves there and lived together with similar animals in the deserts of that country. If they then did not eat human meat, then after nine years, swimming back across the same lake, they again turned into people. Varro even calls by name a certain Dementus, who supposedly tasted the sacrifice that the Arcadians usually made to their god Lyceus, stabbing a boy, turned into a wolf, and, having again taken on human form in the tenth year, practiced fist fighting and remained the winner at the Olympic competition. The historian believes that in Arcadia Pan-Lyceus and Jupiter-Lyceus were given such a name because of the transformation of people into wolves, which, they thought, could only be accomplished by divine power. For the wolf in Greek is called Λύκος: a modification of this word is the name Lycea. Varro says that the Roman Luperci also descended, as it were, from the seed of these mysteries. Chapter XVIII. What should we think about the transformations that were performed on people, apparently by demonic art? Those reading this may be expecting us to talk about this extreme mockery of demons? What can we say except that we need to flee from the midst of Babylon? This prophetic commandment (Isa. 48:20) has the spiritual meaning that we from the city of this age, which is a society of the most ungodly people and angels, with the feet of faith promoted by love, must through success find refuge in the living God. For the greater the power of demons in this lowland we see, the more firmly we must cleave to the Intercessor, with whose help we ascend from the lowlands to the highest. After all, if we said that this should not be believed, then there would still be people today who would claim that they either heard something similar in the most reliable way, or even experienced it. For we, too, when we were in Italy, heard something similar about one part of that country, where, they told us, women who run inns and have such nasty arts often give travelers, whatever they want or can, something in cheese, from which they instantly turn into beasts of burden and carry some kind of burden on themselves, and then, after finishing the work, they again take on their previous appearance. At the same time, their mind does not become animal, but remains rational and human, just as Apuleius in his work “The Golden Ass” tells about himself a real or fictitious case, as if he, having taken poison, became a donkey, preserving the human soul. All this is either false or so unusual that it is not justly credible. However, one must firmly believe that almighty God can do whatever he wants, either as punishment or as a warning, and demons, by the power of their nature (for she is an angelic creature, although through her own fault she is evil) can only do what He allows, whose advice is many in secret, but unjust - not a single one. But if demons do something like what we are talking about, then, of course, they do not create new natures, but change in appearance those that were created by the true God, so that they do not seem to be what they really are. So, I would believe that not only the soul, but also the body, demons cannot in any way, by their art or power, transform into actual members and forms of animals; but the images of human fantasy, which both in thinking and in dreams take the form of a countless number of different things and, although they are not bodies, take on bodily forms with amazing speed when the bodily senses are lulled or dulled, can in some incomprehensible way take on bodily images for the feelings of others; so that the bodies of people themselves are in another place, remaining, however, alive, but in a state of soporific feelings much more difficult and deeper than during sleep, and a certain fantastic image appears to the feelings of others as if embodied in the form of some animal; and it seems to the person himself, as happens to him in dreams, that he is like this and endures heavy burdens; Moreover, if these heavinesses are true bodies, then they are carried by demons in mockery of people, who in this case see, on the one hand, the true bodies of heaviness, on the other, the false bodies of beasts of burden. Thus, someone named Prestancius talks about such an incident with his father: he took poison in cheese at home and lay in his bed as if sleeping, but in such a way that they could in no way wake him up. A few days later he woke up and told about the difficult dreams he had allegedly had, namely: that he was a draft horse and, among other pack animals, carried soldiers' fodder, called Rhaetian, because it was transported to Rhaetia. It turned out later that this really happened, as he said; although he imagined all this in his own dream. Another said that at night at home, before going to bed, he saw how a well-known philosopher came to him and explained something from Plato’s philosophy that he had not wanted to explain before, when he asked him to do it. And when he asked the philosopher afterward why he did in his house what he refused to do in his own house when he was asked to do it, he answered: “I didn’t do it, but I dreamed in a dream that I did it...” And in this case, in a fantastic image, what the other saw in a dream appeared to the waking person. We heard about these things not from anyone whom we would consider unworthy to believe, but from narrators who, in our opinion, were not liars. It seems to me that what people tell and what is recorded in books, that the Arcadian gods, or rather demons, turned people into wolves, and that Circe turned Ulysses’ companions with her spells, could have happened as I explained - if only it really happened. As for the Diomedean birds, in view of the fact that their race, as they say, continues by successive breeding of chicks, in my opinion, they were not transformed from people, but were substituted in place of those kidnapped, just as the doe was substituted in the place of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon. For the demons, when this was allowed to them by the judgment of God, could not find this kind of deception of the senses difficult. But since Iphi the Genius was subsequently found alive, it naturally became clear that the doe had been substituted in her place. The companions of Diomedes neither at the same time appeared anywhere, nor were subsequently seen in any place, having been destroyed by the vengeance of the evil angels; That is why the belief arose that they were transformed into those birds that were secretly transferred to these places from other countries where this kind of bird is found, and suddenly substituted in their place. And that they bring water with their noses to the church of Diomedes and carry out irrigation, and that they caress the Greeks and attack strangers - one need not be surprised at this, for this is done at the instigation of demons; for them it was important to convince that Diomedes became a god in order to fool people and force them to worship many false gods and for dead people, who did not live a true life during their lifetime, to serve as churches, altars, sacrifices and priesthoods, although all this, if done properly, befits only the one living and true God. Chapter XIX. About the fact that Aeneas arrived in Italy at a time when the judge Labdon was in charge of the Jews At this time, after the capture and destruction of Troy, with twenty ships on which the remnants of the Trojans sailed, Aeneas arrived in Italy, when Latinus reigned there, and Menestheus among the Athenians, Polyphides among the Sicyonians, and Tautan among the Assyrians; The Jews then had Labdon as their judge. After the death of Latinus, Aeneas reigned for three years, when the same kings remained in the above-mentioned countries, with the exception of the Sicyonians, whose king was already Pelasgus, and the Jews, whose judge was Samson; the latter, since he possessed amazing strength, was mistaken for Hercules. Since Aeneas was nowhere to be found when he died, the Latins made him their god. In exactly the same way, the Sabines ranked their first king Sanka, or as some call him Sancta, among the gods. At the same time, the Athenian king Codrus, under the guise of an unknown person, gave himself up to be killed by the Peloponnesians, enemies of the Athenians, and was killed. They say that by doing this he saved the fatherland. For the Peloponnesians received an answer from the oracle that they would win only if they did not kill the king of the Athenians. And so he deceived them, appearing in the clothes of a poor man, and through a quarrel challenged them to murder. Hence Virgil’s expression “Cedar quarrels” 180. And the Athenians honored Codras with sacrifices as a god. Under the fourth king of the Latins, Silvius, the son of Aeneas (not from Creusa, from whom was Ascanius, the third king of the Latins, but from Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus), who, they say, was born after the death of his father, under the twenty-ninth king of Assyria, Oneyas, the sixteenth of Athens, Melanthus, and under the judge of the Jews, Elijah the High Priest, the kingdom of Sicyon perished, which according to legend existed for nine hundred and fifty-nine years. years Chapter XX. On the succession of kingship among the Israelites after the time of the Judges During the reign of the mentioned persons in the designated places, following the end of the times of the Judges, the kingdom of Israel began with King Saul; Then the prophet Samuel lived. From the same time, a series of Latin kings began, who were called Silvii; for from Aeneas's son, who was first called Silvius, his successors were given their own names, and this nickname, just as those who succeeded Caesar Augustus were later called Caesars. When Saul was rejected, so that no one from his family should reign, and when he died, he was succeeded in the kingdom by David, forty years after Saul's accession to the throne. At this time, after the death of Codrus, the Athenians ceased to have kings, but began to have civil dignitaries to govern the state. After David, who also reigned for forty years, the king of the Israelites was his son Solomon, who built the most famous Temple of Jerusalem to God. In his time, the Latins built Alba, from which the kings, although they reigned in the same Latium, began to be called not Latin, but Albanian. Solomon's successor was his son Rehoboam, under whom the Jewish people were divided into two kingdoms and each part began to have its own kings. Chapter XXI. About the kings of Latium, of whom the first Aeneas and the twelfth Aventine are numbered among the gods After Aeneas, who was recognized as a god, Latium had eleven kings, of whom not one was made a god. But then Aventine, who was the twelfth king after Aeneas, when he was killed in war and buried on that mountain, which is still called by his name, was numbered among such gods as they made for themselves. Others, however, did not want to say that he was killed in the battle, and argued that he simply disappeared, and that the mountain received its name not from his name, but from the arrival of birds (ex adventu avium). After him, no one was made a god in Latium except Romulus, the founder of Rome. Between the one and the other there were, however, two kings, of whom the first was, in the words of Virgil, Proka, glory to the Trojan people" 181. Since in his time the birth of Rome had already begun in some way, the greatest of all kingdoms, the Assyrian, ended its very long existence. It passed to the Medes, having existed for almost one thousand three hundred and five years, if we include here the time of Bel, who was the father of Nin and the first king of the then small Assyrian kingdom. Proca reigned before Amulius. This Amulius dedicated the daughter of his brother Numitor, Rhea, the mother of Romulus, otherwise called Ilie, as a vestal virgin. They claim that she conceived her twins from Mars: with this they want to brighten up or excuse her fall and add as proof that the abandoned children were fed by a she-wolf. This kind of animals they consider to belong to Mars; so the she-wolf gave her teats to the boys because she recognized them as the children of her master Mars. There are, however, those who say that when the children were lying thrown out and crying, some public woman first picked them up and gave them her breasts (and they called public women she-wolves 182, hence brothels are now called lupanaria), and then brought them to the shepherd Faustulus, whose wife Akka raised them. Although, is it surprising if God, in order to denounce the king, who so cruelly ordered them to be thrown into the water, wanted to send a mammalian beast to help these children miraculously saved from the water, who were to found such a great city? After Amulius, the kingdom of Latium was inherited by his brother, the grandfather of Romulus Numitor. In the first year of Numitor's reign, Rome was founded, so he reigned simultaneously with his grandson, i.e. Romulus. Chapter XXII. That Rome was founded at the time when the Assyrian kingdom ceased and when Hezekiah reigned in Judea Let me say briefly: Rome arose as a second Babylon, as if the daughter of the first Babylon, through which God was pleased to conquer the whole world and pacify it for a long time and everywhere, uniting it into a society under one state power and laws. For the peoples at this time were already strong and brave, and the tribes were skilled in military affairs; They did not yield easily and victory over them was fraught with great dangers, considerable devastation on both sides and terrible difficulties. And when the Assyrian kingdom conquered almost all of Asia, although this was accomplished through conquest, it could not have been achieved by too cruel and difficult wars; because the tribes were still inexperienced in resistance, not so numerous and great. Although after the famous great and universal flood, from which only eight people were saved in Noah’s ark, a little more than a thousand years passed, Nin conquered all of Asia, with the exception of India. Rome did not so quickly and not so easily deal with those peoples of the East and West that we see now subject to the Roman Empire; because, growing gradually, wherever he expanded, he met them strong and warlike. So, at the time Rome was built, the people of Israel lived in the promised land for seven hundred and eighteen years. Of these, twenty-seven years belong to the time of Joshua, the next three hundred and twenty-nine years belong to the period of the Judges, and three hundred and sixty-two years have passed since the kings began to reign. And at that time there was a king in Judah, and his name was Ahaz, or, as others believe, his successor Hezekiah, of whom it is known that this most excellent and most pious king reigned during the time of Romulus. In the same part of the Jewish people, which was called Israel, Hosea then began to reign. Chapter XXIII. About the Sibyl of Erythraea, who, among other Sibyls, is considered to have given many completely clear predictions about Christ At the same time, some believe, the Erythraean Sibyl made her predictions. According to Varro, there were many Sibyls, not just one. But the Erythraean Sibyl wrote something clearly concerning Christ, which we had previously read in Latin, set out in bad Latin verse by some, as we later learned, inexperienced translator. For Flactian, a most famous man, who was even a proconsul, a very eloquent and wise man, when we were talking with him about Christ, showed us the Greek codex, saying that this was the prediction of the Erythraean Sibyl, and pointed out in it one such place in which the initial letters of the verses are arranged in such an order that the phrase is composed of them: Ἰησῦς Χριστòς Θεοῦ Yἱòς Σωτήρ, i.e. “Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior.” These verses, the initial letters of which have the same meaning as we have said, contain, as someone translates them in Latin verses that still exist today, the following: Ι Iudicii signum tellus sudore madescet. Η E caelo rex adveniet per saecla futurus, Σ Scilicet ut carnem praesens, ut iudicet orbem. Ο Unde Deum cernent incredulus atque fidelis Y Celsum cum sanctis aevi iam termino in ipso. Σ Sic animae cum carne aderunt, quas iudicat ipse, Χ Cum iacet incultus densis in vepribus orbis. Ρ Reicient simulacra viri, cunctam quoque gazam, Ε Exuret terras ignis pontumque polumque Ι Inquirens, taetri portas effringet Averni. Σ Sanctorum sed enim cunctae lux libera carni Τ Tradetur, sontes aeterna flamma cremabit. Ο Occultos actus retegens tunc quisque loquetur Σ Secreta, atque Deus reserabit pectora luci. Θ Tunc erit et luctus, stridebunt dentibus omnes. Ε Eripitur solis iubar et chorus interit astris. Ο Volvetur caelum, lunaris splendor obibit; Y Deiciet colles, valles extollet ab imo. Y Non erit in rebus hominum sublime vel altum. Ι Iam aequantur campis montes et caerula ponti Ο Omnia cessabunt, tellus confracta peribit: Σ Sic pariter fontes torrentur fluminaque igni. Σ Sed tuba tum sonitum tristem demittet ab alto Ω Orbe, gemens facinus miserum variosque labores, Τ Tartareumque chaos monstrabit terra dehiscens. Η Et coram hic Domino reges sistentur ad unum. Ρ Reccidet e caelo ignisque et sulphuris amnis. 183 (The sound of the trumpet of judgment will be heard, and the face of the earth will then be covered. Behold, the King is coming from heaven, and His kingdom will be forever, In whom, having appeared in the flesh, he will judge this woeful world. At this hour the unjust God will behold with the righteous Surrounded by saints, for the end of the century is approaching. And His souls will appear for judgment, once again clothed in their flesh, For the world lies uncultivated; it is overgrown with thorns. All men will throw away their idols, their beloved wealth, And fire, mercilessly devouring both land and water, and towards the pole As it approaches, the gates will destroy the gloomy Hades. At that time the clearest light will be revealed to all the flesh of the saints, And the criminals will be burned by a fierce, eternal flame, Revealing secret deeds, for then there will be hidden speak; So God will reveal the folds of the heart to the light. Then weeping and gnashing of teeth will be heard throughout the entire earth, And the radiance of the sun will fade, the twinkling of all the stars will diminish, The sky will become a scroll, the moon will become dark and bloody, And the high mountains will fall, the low valleys will rise, And in human affairs everything will immediately turn out to be small, Both the peaks and the abysses of the abyss - everything with the fields will then be equalized. Thus the earth will perish, the passage of time will cease forever, The seas, the springs, and the springs will be dried up by fire. At this moment a trumpet sound will sound, so sad and sublime, To mourn the atrocities and poor destinies of the most unfortunate. And the earth, scattered to dust, will reveal the chaos of bottomless hell. All the kings who once reigned will appear before the Lord. A fiery stream will pour from the sky, sulphurous, flaming rain.) In these Latin verses, no matter how accurately they conveyed the Greek text, where the letter Y was placed in the Greek version, it was impossible to preserve the meaning that comes out if you connect the letters at the beginning of each verse; because it was impossible to find Latin words that would begin with this letter and correspond to the meaning of the phrase. There are three such verses: the fifth, the eighteenth and the nineteenth. But if, connecting the letters at the beginning of all verses, we do not read these three verses, but instead remember Y, which is in these places, then we get five words: Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior; but this is if we read in Greek, and not in Latin. There are twenty-seven verses in total: this number forms a complete triple square. For three multiplied by three gives nine, and nine itself, taken three times, is just as if we gave a height to a flat figure, twenty-seven. If the first letters of these Greek words: Ἰησῦς Χριστòς Θεοῦ Yἱòς Σωτήρ (which means: Jesus Christ the Son of God, Savior), are combined together, you get the word Ἰχθῦς fish. The name of fish mysteriously refers to Christ, because in the abyss of real mortality, as if in the depths of water, He could remain alive, that is, sinless. This Sibyl, whether she is Erythraean, or, as some think, rather Cumaean, in all her verses, of which we have given only a small part, does not express anything that would relate to the cult of false or fictitious gods, and that, on the contrary, would not speak against them and their admirers; so that she herself, apparently, was one of those who belong to the city of God. Lactantius also cites in his work some predictions of the Sibyl, without, however, indicating which one. But what he cites separately, I considered it best to present together: since what he cites in many places and in brief expressions constitutes one lengthy speech. “He will then betray himself,” she says, “into the lawless hands of the infidels: with defiled hands they will slap God in the face and spit on Him with poisonous eruptions of unclean lips; He will humbly expose his holy spine for blows. And while suffering slaps, He will remain silent, so that no one will know what kind of Word He is and where He came from to speak to the kingdom of the dead; and He will be crowned with thorns. They will give him bile for food, and ocet for him to drink; such an inhospitable meal will be assigned to Him. Foolish, you yourself did not know your God, who laughed at the minds of mortals; but she crowned Him with thorns and mixed gall into the drink. The curtain of the church will be torn, and in the middle of the day for three hours there will be dark night. He will die, indulging in sleep for three days, and then, emerging from hell into the light, he will appear as the first Beginning of resurrection for those returned.” Lactantius cited these Sibylline testimonies fragmentarily in different places of his work, as it seemed to him to be required by the order of his speech; we, for our part, without interrupting them with any insertions, but presenting them in the form of one coherent speech, took care only to divide them into paragraphs, if, however, subsequent writers consider it necessary to retain them. According to other sources, the Erythraean Sibyl lived not during the time of Romulus, but during the Trojan War. Chapter XXIV. That during the reign of Romulus the seven wise men were famous, that at that time the ten tribes, called Israel, were taken into captivity in Babylon, and that Romulus was awarded divine honor after his death They say that during the reign of Romulus there lived Thales of Miletus, one of the seven sages who, after the poet-theologians, of whom the most famous is Orpheus, were called σοφοì, that is, sages. At the same time, the ten tribes, which received the name Israel during the division of the people of God, were defeated by the Chaldeans and taken captives to their country, while two more tribes remained in the land of Judea, named after Judah and having Jerusalem as their capital. When Romulus was nowhere to be found after his death, the Romans, as everyone knows, included him among the gods. Then they stopped doing this, and if they did it later, during the time of the Caesars, it was only out of flattery, and not as a result of delusion. Therefore, Cicero places great praise on Romulus that this honor was awarded to him not in rude and ignorant times, when people were easily mistaken, but in enlightened and civilized times; although, however, refined and witty philosophical chatter was not yet in full swing and multiplying. But if in later times they stopped including dead people among the gods, they did not stop honoring and having as gods those who were included among them by the ancients; They even increased the temptation of empty and impious superstition by adding idols, which the ancients did not know; and this is due to the action in their hearts of unclean demons, who deceived them with false oracles to such an extent that, to please their false deities, they represented in vile games the fabulous crimes of the gods, although in this comparatively more enlightened age these crimes were no longer invented. After Romulus, Numa reigned. He considered it necessary to protect Rome with such a multitude of false gods that after his death he himself was not worthy to be included in their number; the sky seemed so crowded with deities that there could be no place for him there. They say that during his reign in Rome and at the beginning of the reign of the Jews of the wicked king Manasseh, who, as is known, killed the prophet Isaiah, lived the Sibyl of Samos. Chapter XXV. What philosophers were famous during the reign of the Roman king Tarquin the Ancient and the Jewish Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was taken and the church was destroyed During the reign of the Jews Zedekiah, and the Romans Tarquin the Ancient, successor of Ancus Marcius, the Jewish people were taken into Babylonian captivity, and Jerusalem and the church built by Solomon were destroyed. These events were predicted by the prophets, who denounced the Jews for their lawlessness and wickedness, especially Jeremiah, who even determined the number of years of captivity (Jer. XXV, 11). At this time, they say, lived Pittacus of Mytilene, the second of the seven wise men. And during the stay of the people of God in captivity in Babylon, as Eusebius writes, the other five lived, who, together with the aforementioned Thales and Pittacus, are considered the seven wise men. These are Solon of Athens, Chilon of Lacedaemon, Periander of Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus and Biant of Priene. All of them, called the seven sages, acquired fame after the poet-theologians because they surpassed other people in a praiseworthy way of life and set out some moral rules in short sayings. But in relation to the sciences they left nothing memorable to posterity, except that Solon, as they say, composed certain laws for the Athenians; Thales was a physicist and left behind him works expounding his teaching. During the Jewish captivity, the physicists Anaximander, Anaximenes and Xenophanes flourished. Pythagoras also lived at the same time, from whom the philosophers took their name. Chapter XXVI. That at the time when, after seventy years, the captivity of the Jews ended, the Romans were also freed from royal power At that time, the Persian king Cyrus, whose power extended to the Chaldeans and Assyrians, somewhat eased the captivity of the Jews and allowed fifty thousand of them to return to build the church. They laid only the foundation and built the altar. They were unable to continue construction due to enemy raids, and the matter dragged on until Darius. During the same time, the events described in the book of Judith took place: the Jews wisely did not accept this book into the canon of Scripture. During the time of Darius, king of Persia, after the fulfillment of the seventy years predicted by the prophet Jeremiah, freedom was returned to the Jews; At the same time, the seventh king of Rome, Tarquinius, reigned. After the expulsion of Tarquin, the Romans were also freed from royal power. Before this time the Israelites had prophets; although there were many of them, only a few have preserved canonical writings. Finishing the previous book, I promised to say something about them in this one, which I now consider it my duty to fulfill. Chapter XXVII. About the times of the prophets, whose prophecies are set out in books, and who spoke a lot about the calling of the pagans at the time when the Roman state began and the Assyrian ended To determine the time of these prophets, let's go back a little. At the beginning of the book of the prophet Hosea, who is considered the first in the series of twelve, the following is written: “The word of the Lord, which came to Hoshea the son of Bener in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (Hosea 1:1). Amos also writes that he prophesied in the days of King Uzziah, adding also King Jotham, who lived in the same days (Amos 1:1). In the same way, Isaiah, the son of Amos, or the prophet just mentioned, or, as many believe, another Amos, who, although not a prophet, was called by the same name, at the beginning of his book names the same four kings in whose days he prophesied, whom Hosea also names. Likewise, Micah indicates the same times of his prophecy, only after the days of Uzziah. For he names the next three kings, whom Hosea also names: Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (Mic. 1:1). All of them, as can be seen from their own books, prophesied together at the same time. They are joined by Jonah, (who prophesied) during the reign of the same Uzziah, and Joel, (who prophesied) when Jotham, Uzziah’s successor, was already reigning. But we were able to determine the time of these two prophets from the chronicles, and not from their books, since they themselves are silent about their time. This period of time continues from the Latin king Proca or his predecessor Aventine until the time of Romulus, already king of Rome, or even until the first years of the reign of his successor Numa Pompilius; for until this time king Hezekiah reigned in Judah. Thus, these, so to speak, keys of prophecy broke through simultaneously when the Assyrian kingdom collapsed and the Roman one began; so that, just as in the first time of the Assyrian kingdom lived Abraham, to whom the clearest promises were given about the blessing of all nations in his seed, so at the beginning of Western Babylon, during the time of whose dominion Christ was to appear, in whom these promises were fulfilled, the predictions of the prophets were heard, not only speaking, but also writing in evidence of this great future event. For although the people of Israel almost never lacked prophets from the time their kings appeared, their ministry concerned only the Jews, and not the pagans. The appearance of those clearer prophetic writings, which were once supposed to benefit the pagans, should have begun from the time when the city that was to be the ruler of the pagans began to be built. Chapter XXVIII. What in the prophecies of Hosea and Amos relates to the Gospel of Christ The prophet Hosea becomes more difficult to understand the more deeply he speaks. But we must take some of it and explain it here according to our promise. “And there,” he writes, “where they said to them: “You are not My people,” they will say to them: “You are the sons of the living God.” the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will gather together and set themselves one head and come out of the land” (Hos. 1:11). If we wanted to explain this place even more, we would only obscure the meaning of the prophetic speech. Let us remember, however, the well-known cornerstone and two walls, one of the Jews and the other of the Gentiles (Eph. II, 14-15: 20-22): the first is recognized under the name of the sons of Judah, the second - under the name of the sons of Israel; and both together rest on the same strength of that stone and come out of the earth. About those same carnal Israelites who now do not want to believe in Christ, but will believe later, that is, about their sons (for they will go to their own place by death), the same prophet testifies, saying: “For a long time the children of Israel will remain without a king and without a prince and without a sacrifice, without an altar, without an ephod and a teraphim” (Hos. III, 4). Who does not understand that the Jews are currently in exactly this situation? But let us listen to what the prophet adds: “After this the children of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and they will revere the Lord and His goodness in the last days” (Hos. III, 5). Nothing can be clearer than this prophecy, if by the name of David we mean Christ, who was, as the apostle says, “of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3). The prophet also predicted the future resurrection of Christ on the third day, as it should have been predicted in sublime prophetic language: “He will revive us in two days, on the third day he will raise us up” (Hosea VI, 3). In accordance with this, the apostle tells us: “If you have been raised with Christ, then seek the things that are above” (Col. III, 1). Amos also prophesies about similar things: “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel. For here is He who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man his intention” (Amos. IV, 12-13). And in another place: “In that day I will restore the fallen tabernacle of David, I will mend the cracks in it, and I will restore what was destroyed, and I will build it as in the days of old, so that they will take possession of the remnant of Edom and all the nations among whom my name will be proclaimed, says the Lord who does all these things” (Amos. IX, 11-12). Chapter XXIX. What was predicted about Christ and the Church by Isaiah The prophet Isaiah is not one of the twelve prophets, who are called minor because their speeches are short compared to the speeches of the major prophets, so called because they wrote lengthy books. Among these great prophets is Isaiah, whom I add to the two above because he prophesied at the same time as them. Convicting sins, instructing them on the path of righteousness and predicting future misfortunes for a sinful people, Isaiah, more than others, prophesied about Christ and the Church, that is, about the King and the city He created; so that some call him an evangelist rather than a prophet. But in order not to increase the volume of the essay, in this place I will cite only one of many. “Behold, My servant will prosper, and will be exalted, exalted, and exalted. How many were amazed, looking at You, - His face was so disfigured more than any man, and His appearance - more than the sons of men! So He will make many nations astonished; the kings will shut their mouths before Him, for they will see what was not told to them, and they will know what they have not heard. Who believed what they heard from us, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? For He rose up before Him as an offspring and as a sprout from dry ground; there is neither appearance nor grandeur in it; and we saw Him, and there was no appearance in Him that would attract us to Him. He was despised and belittled before men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain, and we turned our faces away from Him; He was despised, and we thought nothing of Him. But He took upon Himself our illnesses; and we thought that He was defeated, punished and destroyed by God. But He was revealed for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. We have all gone astray like sheep, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord laid the sins of us all on Him. He was tortured, but He suffered voluntarily, without opening His mouth; like a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. He was taken from bonds and judgment; but who will explain His generation? For He is cut off from the land of the living; for the crimes of my people I suffered execution. He was assigned a grave with evildoers, but He was buried with a rich man, because He committed no sin and there was no lie in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased to strike Him, and He gave Him over to torture; when His soul brings a sacrifice of propitiation, He will see long-lasting offspring, and the will of the Lord will be successfully fulfilled by His hand. He will look at the feat of His soul with contentment; through the knowledge of Him, He, the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify many, and bear their sins on Himself. Therefore, I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will share the spoil with the mighty because He gave His soul to death and was counted among the evildoers, while He bore the sin of many and became an intercessor for the criminals” (Isaiah 52:13–53:12). This is about Christ. Now let’s listen to what he writes further about the Church: “Rejoice, O barren, unbearing; shout and shout, you who have not suffered from childbirth; because she who is abandoned has many more children than she who has a husband, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, expand the covers of your dwellings; do not be shy, make your ropes longer and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread to the right and to the left, and your descendants will take possession of the nations and people the desolate cities. Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame; do not be embarrassed, for you will not be reproached; you will forget the shame of your youth and will no longer remember the disgrace of your widowhood. For your Creator is your husband; The Lord of hosts is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He will be called the God of all the earth” (Isaiah 54:1–5), etc. Let's stop there. Something in these words requires clarification; but, I think, there is enough in them and so clear that even our opponents will inevitably have to understand them. Chapter XXX. What does the prophecy of Micah, Jonah and Joel have to do with the new covenant? The Prophet Micah, presenting Christ under the image of a certain great mountain, says: “And it will happen in the last days: the mountain of the House of the Lord will be set at the top of the mountains and will rise above the hills, and the nations will flow to it. And many nations will go and say: “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths; For out of Zion will come the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge many nations and rebuke many nations in distant countries” (Mic. IV, 1-3). The prophet also indicates the place in which Christ will be born: “And you, Bethlehem-Ephratha, are you small among the thousands of Judah? from you will come to me one who is to be ruler in Israel, and whose origin was from the beginning, from the days of eternity. Therefore He will leave them until the time when she who is about to give birth gives birth; then the children of Israel and their remaining brothers will return, and He will stand and shepherd in the power of the Lord, in the greatness of the name of the Lord His God, and they will live safely, for then He will be great to the ends of the earth” (Mic. V, 2-4). The prophet Jonah prophesied about Christ not so much in words as through some of his suffering, but much more clearly than if he had proclaimed his death and resurrection in words. For why was he swallowed up by a whale and cast out on the third day, if not to signify Christ, who returned from the depths of hell on the third day? The prophecies of Joel in their entirety require a lengthy exposition so that it becomes clear what exactly they refer to Christ and the Church. However, I will cite one of his prophecies, which was also given by the apostles, when the Holy Spirit descended on the gathered believers according to the promise of Christ (Acts II, 17-18). “And it shall come to pass after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. And also on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out My Spirit” (Joel II: 28-29). Chapter XXXI. What prophecies about the salvation of the world in Christ are found in Obadiah, Nahum and Habakkuk? Three of the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum and Habakkuk, do not themselves speak about the time of their prophecy; The time of their prophecy is not indicated in the chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome. True, they put Obadiah together with Micah, but not in the place where the years are marked when, as is known from his own book, Micah prophesied, which, in my opinion, was due to the mistake of those who carelessly copied the works of others. We could not find the other two mentioned in the lists of chronicles we have; but since they are contained in the canon, we cannot ignore them either. Obadiah, the shortest of all the prophets in the scope of his book, speaks against Idumea, that is, the people of Esau, the rejected firstborn of the two twin sons of Isaac, the grandsons of Abraham. If we assume that by the way of expression, by which the part is accepted instead of the whole, Idumea is put instead of the pagans, then we can understand the following words of the prophet about Christ: “And in Mount Zion there will be salvation, and there will be shrine" (Abd. 1:17); and a little further, at the very end of the prophecy: “And they will rise up from Mount Zion to take vengeance on Mount Esau: and the kingdom of the Lord will be” (Abd. I, 21). For it is clear that this was fulfilled when the salvation from Mount Zion, that is, the believers in Christ from Judea, by which we mainly mean the apostles, went up to defend Mount Esau. And what did this defense consist of, if not that by preaching the gospel they arranged the salvation of those who believed, in order to get rid of the power of darkness and enter the kingdom of God? The prophet expressed this in his final words, adding: “And the kingdom of the Lord will be.” For Mount Zion means Judea, where, according to prediction, salvation and the holy thing, that is, Jesus Christ, was to take place; under the mountain of Esau is meant Idumea, signifying the pagan church, which, as I explained, is protected by those being saved from Zion, so that it becomes the kingdom of the Lord. It was dark until it came true; but which of the believers does not know that it has come true? The prophet Nahum, or better yet, God himself through him, says: “I will destroy the idols and idols from the house of your god, I will prepare a grave for you in it, because you will be despised in it. Behold, on the mountains are the feet of the evangelist, proclaiming peace: Celebrate, O Judea, your festivals, fulfill your vows, for the wicked will no longer come after you: he is completely destroyed. The destroyer is rising against you” (Nahum. I:14-II:1). Whoever remembers the Gospel will guess who rose from the underworld and breathed the Holy Spirit into the face of Judas (i.e., the disciples of the Jews). Those festivals that are spiritually renewed in such a way that they protect against the wicked belong to the New Testament. We also see that the idols and idols of false gods are destroyed by the gospel and consigned to oblivion, as if to a grave; and thus we learn that the prophecy was fulfilled at this point as well. And the following words of Habakkuk speak of nothing else but the future coming of Christ: “And the Lord answered me and said: Write down the vision and write it clearly on the tablets, so that the reader can easily read it. For the vision still refers to a certain time and speaks of the end and will not deceive; and even if it slows down, wait for it, for it will certainly come true, it will not be canceled” (Habak. II, 2-3)? Chapter XXXII. About the prophecy contained in the prayer and song of Habakkuk And in his prayer and song, to whom, if not the Lord Christ, does he say: “Lord, I heard Your hearing and was afraid. Lord, I understood Your works and was horrified!” (Habak. III, 2 and below)? For what does this exclamation mean if not inexpressible surprise at the predicted new and unexpected salvation of people? “In the midst of two animals you will be known 184" (Hab. III: 2) - what does this mean, if not among the two covenants, or among the two thieves, or among Moses and Elijah, who talked with Him on the mountain? “When my soul is troubled into anger, remember Thy mercy” - what does this mean, if not what (the prophet) represents in his person Jews, to whom he belonged by origin? Confused by great anger, they nailed Christ to the cross, and He, remembering mercy, said: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke XXIII, 34). and the Holy One is from the overshadowed mountain” (Hab. 3:3). The expression “from Feman” is translated by some as “from the south” or “from Africa,” which means noon, that is, the flame of love and the brilliance of truth. The shady and thicket-covered mountain can be explained in different ways; but I would rather understand by it the sublimity of the divine Scriptures that prophesied about Christ. For there are many objects covered with shadow and darkness, which give exercise to the mind of the explorer. And He comes from there when one who understands them finds Him there. “His majesty covered the heavens, and the earth was filled with His glory” (Hab. 3:3). What is this if not the same as what is said in the psalm: “Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and let your glory be over all the earth” (Ps. 56:6)? “Her brilliance is like the light of the sun” (Hab. 3:4) – what if not “The glory of Him will enlighten those who believe.” “The horns are in his hands” (Hab. 3:4). Isn’t this a sign of the victory of the cross? “The word will go before Him, and He will go out into the field following His steps” (Hab. 3:5): what does this mean, if not that it was foretold about Him before He came here, and preached after He left here? “He became - and the earth moved”: (Hab. 3:6) doesn’t it mean that He stood to help, that the earth would shake in order to believe. “He looked and made the nations tremble” (Hab. 3:6), that is, he took pity and turned the nations to repentance. “The centuries-old mountains fell apart” (Hab. 3:6), that is, the pride of the arrogant was crushed by the power of miracles. “The primeval hills fell” (Hab. 3:6), that is, they were humbled for a time in order to be exalted forever. “His ways are eternal” (Hab. 3:6), that is, he saw a feat of love that received an eternal reward. “I saw the tents of Ethiopia sad; the tents of the land of Midian shook” (Hab. 3:7), that is, the peoples, frightened by the sudden news of Your miracles, even those not part of the Roman Empire, will enter the bowels of the Christian people. “Has Your anger kindled against the rivers, O Lord? Is Your indignation on the rivers, or Your wrath on the sea?” (Hab.3:8). This is said because He now came not to judge the world, but so that the world would be saved through Him (John III, 17). “Thou hast ascended upon Thy horses, upon Thy chariots of salvation” (Hab. 3:8) - that is, Thy evangelists, guided by Thy, will bear You, and Thy Gospel is salvation for those who believe in You. “You have drawn Your bow according to the oath promise given to the tribes” (Hab. 3:9), that is, You will threaten even the kings of the earth with Your judgment. “The earth will be divided into rivers” (Hab. 3:9), that is, then the speeches of those preaching about You will flow, and the hearts of people will open to confession. What does it mean: “When the mountains saw You, the mountains trembled, the waters rushed in” (Hab. 3:10), if not that they will be blessed, shedding tears, that, passing here and there in the presence of those everywhere who preach the good news about You, You pour out streams of teaching? What does it mean: “The deep has given its voice” (Hab.3:10)? Is it not the depth of the human heart that reveals what appears to it? “The sun and the moon rose a hundred in their order” (Hab. 3:11), that is, Christ ascended into heaven, and the Church was established under the rule of its King. “In the light your arrows will go, in the flash of the lightning of your weapons” (Hab. 3:11), that is, His words will not be hidden, but open, for He said to His disciples: “What I say to you in the dark, speak in the light” (Matthew X, 27). With rebuke you will bring down the earth and with wrath you will overthrow the nations (Hab. 3:12), that is, you will humble people with threats, and you will crush those who are arrogant with punishments. “You come forward for the salvation of Your people, for the salvation of Your anointed. You crush the head of the wicked house, stripping it from the foundation to the top” (Hab. 3:13). Nothing here requires any special explanation. “And you brought your horses upon the sea, troubling many waters” (Hab. 3:15) - here many nations are meant. For some would not have turned out of fear, others would not have been persecuted with rage, if they had not all been thrown into confusion. “I was preserved and my heart was afraid at the voice of the prayer of my lips, and there was a trembling in my bones, and my strength was shaken within me” (Hab. 3:16). He paid attention to what he was talking about, and he himself was afraid of his speech, which poured out prophetically from him and in which he contemplated the future. For in the confusion of many nations, he saw the continuous sorrows of the Church, recognized himself as a member of it, and therefore spoke as one of those who are patient in sorrow, constant in prayer (Rom. XII, 12). “But I,” he says, “must be calm in the day of disaster, when the robber of my people comes” (Hab. 3:16), that is, he resolutely moves away from the evil people, related to him in the flesh, - a people who do not wander on this earth, seeking a high fatherland. “Even though the fig tree did not blossom, and there was no fruit on the vines, and the olive tree failed, and the field yielded no food, even though there were no sheep in the fold and cattle in the stalls” (Hab. 3:17). The prophet clearly sees that the people who kill Christ will lose the abundance of spiritual riches, which, according to prophetic custom, they represent under the guise of earthly fertility. So, since this people deserved the wrath of God, because, not knowing the truth of God, they wanted to establish their own, then further (the prophet) says: “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will rejoice in God my Savior. The Lord my God is my strength, and will make my troubles perfect, and will lift me up on high, so that I can overcome him in his songs” (Hab. 3:18–19), that is, in that song about which something similar is said in the psalm: “And he set my feet on a rock, and established my steps; and he put a new song in my mouth - praise to our God" (Ps. XXXIX, 3-4). So, he wins in the song of the Lord who sings praise to Him and not to himself, according to the expression: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. I, 31) But, in my opinion, some codes, in which it says: “I will rejoice in my God Jesus,” set out this place better than those who, wanting to translate this place into Latin, did not put the name itself, the very sound of which is dear and pleasant to us. Chapter XXXIII. What Jeremiah and Zephaniah predicted in the prophetic Spirit about Christ and the calling of the Gentiles The prophet Jeremiah belongs to the number of great prophets, like Isaiah, and not small ones, like others, from whose writings I have already cited something. He prophesied when Hosea reigned in Jerusalem, and Ankh Marcius reigned among the Romans, and when the time of the Jewish captivity was approaching. He continued prophecy until the fifth month of captivity, as we see from his writings. Next to him we place Zephaniah, one of the little ones. For the latter himself says that he prophesied in the days of Hosea (Zeph. I, 1), although he does not indicate until what time. Thus, Jeremiah prophesied during the time not only of Ancus Marcius, but also of Tarquin the Ancient, who was the fifth king of the Romans. For the latter had already begun to reign when this captivity occurred. So, prophesying about Christ, Jeremiah says: “The breath of our life, the anointed of the Lord is caught in their pits” (Lamentations IV, 20), indicating in these short words that Christ is our Lord and that He suffered for our sins. And in another place he also says: “This our God... will appear on earth and will live with men” (Baruch, III, 36-38). Some attribute this testimony not to Jeremiah, but to his scribe, who was called Baruch; but the more common opinion considers him Jeremiah. The prophet also speaks about Christ in the following words: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will raise up a righteous Branch for David, and the King will reign, and will act wisely, and will execute judgment and righteousness on earth. In His days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety; and this is His name by which they will call Him: “The Lord is our justification!”" (Jer. XXIII, 5-6). About the calling of the pagans, which was to follow and which we see now fulfilled, he says this: “The nations will come to you from the ends of the earth and say: our fathers inherited only lies, emptiness and that in which there is no benefit” (Jer. XVI, 19). And that the Jews, who were supposed to kill Him, do not recognize Him, the prophet makes it clear in this way: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who will recognize him? (Jer. XVII, 9). Jeremiah also owns the well-known prophecy about the New Testament, the Mediator of which is Christ, which I set out in the seventeenth book. For these are the words of Jeremiah: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jer. XXXI, 31), and so on, what is written there. As for the prophet Zephaniah, who prophesied with Jeremiah, I will cite here his following predictions about Christ: “Wait for Me, says the Lord, when I arise for desolation, for I have determined to gather nations, to call together kingdoms” (Zeph. VIII, 8). And again: “The Lord will be terrible to them; for he will destroy all the gods of the earth, and all the islands of the nations will worship Him, each from his own place” (Zeph. II, 11). And a little lower: “Then again I will give clean lips to the nations, so that everyone will call on the name of the Lord and serve Him with one accord. From the countries beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, My worshipers - the children of My scattered ones - will bring Me gifts. On that day you will not disgrace yourself by all your deeds with which you have sinned against Me, for then I will remove from among you those who boast of your nobility, and you will no longer exalt yourself on My holy mountain. But I will leave among you a humble and simple people, and they will trust in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel will not commit iniquity” (Zeph. III, 9–13). These are the remnants about which there is a prophecy in another place, cited by the apostle: “Even though the children of Israel were as in number as the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved” (Isa. X, 22; Rom. IX, 27). For this remnant of the people of Israel believed in Christ. Chapter XXXIV. About the prophecy of Daniel and Ezekiel relating to Christ and the Church Then, during the Babylonian captivity itself, Daniel and Ezekiel prophesied first, that is, the other two from among the great prophets. From these, Daniel determined by the number of years the very time in which Christ was to come and suffer: to show this by calculation would take a long time, and more than once this has been done by others before us. The prophet spoke about His power and glory like this: “I saw in the night visions, behold, with the clouds of heaven there came as it were the Son of Man, came to the Ancient of Days and was brought to Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all nations, nations, and languages ​​should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and His kingdom will not be destroyed” (Dan. VII, 13-14). Ezekiel, depicting Christ according to prophetic custom under the image of David, since he took flesh from the seed of David (and because of this slave image in which He became man, the Son of God is also called the servant of God), thus prophesies about Him on behalf of God the Father: “And I will appoint over them one shepherd, who will feed them, my servant David; he will shepherd them and he will be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be a prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken this” (Ezek. XXXIV, 23–24). And in another place: “One King will be king over them all, and they will no longer be two nations, and will no longer be divided into two kingdoms. And they will no longer defile themselves with their idols and their abominations and all their vices, and I will free them from all their places of residence where they have sinned, and I will cleanse them - and they will be My people, and I will be their God. And My servant David will be King over them and Shepherd of them all” (Dan. XXXVII, 22-24). Chapter XXXV. About the predictions of the three prophets, namely Ages, Zechariah and Malachi There remain three minor prophets who prophesied at the end of the captivity, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. From these, Haggai prophesied with greater clarity about Christ and the Church in the following brief words: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, and this will be soon, I will shake heaven and earth, sea and dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the One desired by all nations will come” (Hag. II, 6-7). We see this prophecy partly already fulfilled, and partly we hope that it will be fulfilled in the end. Thus, with the testimony of the angels and stars at the incarnation of Christ, God shook the sky. He shook the earth with the greatest miracle of His birth from the Virgin. He shook heaven and land with his sermon about Christ throughout the islands and throughout the whole earth. Thus, we saw how all nations were moved to faith. And what is said further: “The One Desired by All Nations will come,” is still expected regarding His second coming. Indeed, in order to be desirable to those who wait, He must first have been beloved to those who believe. Zechariah says about Christ and the Church: “Rejoice with joy, daughter of Zion, rejoice, daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and saving, meek, sitting on a donkey and on the colt of a donkey... He will proclaim peace to the nations, and His dominion will be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth” (Zechariah IX, 9-10 ). We read in the Gospel how it happened that Christ used a pack animal of this breed on his journey; This prophecy itself is also given there in that part of it in which it seemed sufficient in that place (Matthew XXI). In another place, turning his speech to Christ in a prophetic spirit about the forgiveness of sins by His blood, he says: “And as for you, for the sake of the blood of your covenant I will free your prisoners from the pit in which there is no water” (Zech. IX, 11). One can understand in different ways, even from the point of view of the right faith, what the prophet wanted to make clear under this ditch. In my opinion, it is best to understand by it the kind of dry and barren depths of human poverty, where there are no sources of truth, but a lot of dirt of untruth. This is also stated in the psalm: “He brought me out of a terrible ditch, out of a muddy swamp” (Ps. XXXIX, 3). Malachi, prophesying about the Church, which we see spread through Christ, speaks on behalf of God, turning most obviously to the Jews: “My favor is not with you, says the Lord of hosts, and the offering from your hands is not pleasing to Me. For from the east of the sun to the west my name will be great among the nations, and in every place they will offer incense to my name, a pure sacrifice; My name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 1:10–11). When we see that this sacrifice is already performed by the priesthood of Christ according to the order of Melchizedek in every place from the east of the sun to the west, and the sacrifices of the Jews, to whom it was said: “I have no favor with you, says the Lord of hosts, and an offering from your hands is not pleasing to Me,” ceased, which they themselves cannot deny, then why are they still waiting for another Christ, when what they read about in prophecy and what they see already fulfilled, could only be fulfilled through Christ? For a little lower the prophet speaks about Him on behalf of God: “My covenant with him was a covenant of life and peace, and I gave it to him for fear, and he feared Me and stood in awe of My name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his tongue; and he walked with Me in peace and righteousness and turned many away from sin. For the mouth of the priest must keep knowledge, and the law is sought from his mouth, because he is the messenger (angel) of the Lord of hosts” (Mal. II, 5-7). It should not be surprising that Jesus Christ is called the angel of almighty God. Just as because of the image of a servant in which Christ appeared to people, He is a servant, so He is an angel because of the Gospel that He proclaimed to people. If these two words are translated from Greek, then the Gospel means good news, and the angel means messenger. The prophet also says about Him: “Behold, I am sending My angel, and he will prepare the way before Me, and suddenly the Lord, whom you seek, and the Angel of the covenant, whom you desire, will come to His church; Behold, He comes, says the Lord of hosts. And who will endure the day of His coming, and who will stand when He appears?” (Mal. III, 1–2). In this place, the prophet foreshadowed both the first and second comings of Christ, the first in words. “And suddenly he will come to his church,” that is, to his flesh, about which Christ said in the Gospel: “Destroy this church, and in three days I will raise it up” (John II, 19); the second is when he says: “Behold, He comes, says the Lord of hosts. And who will endure the day of His coming, and who will stand when He appears?” ; By this the prophet made it clear that the Jews, in agreement with the Scriptures, who read, seek and desire Christ. But many of them, blinded in their hearts by their previous merits, did not know that the One whom they sought and desired had come. And by the covenant, which the prophet mentions above and here, when he calls (Christ) the Angel of the covenant, we must understand, of course, the New covenant, which contains eternal promises, and not the Old, which contains temporal promises. While they attach great importance to these last promises, and serve the true God in the hope of being rewarded with such temporary things, very many weak people are disturbed when they see them possessed in abundance by the wicked. Therefore, in order to show the difference between the eternal bliss of the New Testament, which is given only to the virtuous, from the temporary prosperity of the Old, which very often goes to the wicked, the prophet says: “Your words are bold before Me, says the Lord. You will say: “What are we saying against You?” You say: “Serving God is in vain, and what profit is it that we kept His statutes and walked in mournful clothing before the Lord of hosts? And now we consider the arrogant happy: those who commit iniquity are better off, and although they tempt God, they remain unharmed.” But those who fear God say to each other: “The Lord listens and hears this, and before Him a book of remembrance is written about those who fear the Lord and honor His name” (Mal. III, 13-16). This book means the New Testament. Let us listen to what follows: “And they will be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, My property in the day that I will do, and I will have mercy on them, as a man has mercy on his son who serves him. And then again you will see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not serve Him. For behold, the day will come, burning like an oven; Then all the arrogant and those who do wickedness will be like stubble, and the coming day will burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. And for you, who revere My name, the Sun of righteousness will rise and healing in His rays, and you will go out and leap like fat calves; and you will trample on the wicked, for they will be dust under the soles of your feet in the day that I will do, says the Lord of hosts” (Mal. III, 17-18, IV, 1-3). This is the so-called day of judgment. If God is willing, we will talk about it in more detail in its place. Chapter XXXVI. About Ezra and the Books of Maccabees After these three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, Ezra also wrote at the time of the liberation of the people from the slavery of Babylon. He is considered more of a historical writer than a prophet; just like the book called Esther, which tells for the glory of God about an event that happened shortly before these times. One can, perhaps, recognize as a prophecy about Christ the story of Ezra about a dispute that arose between some young men about what is most powerful in the world: one said that kings are most powerful, another - wine, and a third - women, who very often commanded kings; but then this same third proved that truth conquers everything. (2 Esdras, chapters 3 and 4) From the Gospel we know that the truth is Christ. From that time on, after the restoration of the church, the Jews had not kings, but princes, right up to Aristobulus himself. The chronology of these princes is not found in those sacred Scriptures that are called canonical, but in others. Among the latter are the books of Maccabees, which are recognized as canonical not by the Jews, but by the Church, for the sake of the grave and amazing suffering of some martyrs, who, even before the coming of Christ in the flesh, fought for the law of God to death and suffered the most severe and terrible disasters. Chapter XXXVII. That the authority of the prophets is older than the very first beginnings of pagan philosophy So, at the time of our prophets, whose Scriptures have recently become known to almost all nations, there were no pagan philosophers yet. And this very name by which they are called originated from Pythagoras of Samos, who became famous and famous at the time when the captivity of the Jews ended. Consequently, the rest of the philosophers lived much later than the prophets. Thus, Socrates of Athens himself, this teacher of all the most famous philosophers at that time, occupying the first place in that part of philosophy called moral or practical, is found in the chronicles after Ezra. A little later, Plato was born, far superior to all the other students of Socrates. If we add to them even the oldest in time, who have not yet been called by the name of philosophers, i.e. the seven wise men and those physicists who were followers of Thales and imitated him in the study of nature: Anaximander, Anaximenes and Anaxagoras, as well as some others who lived before Pythagoras first began to call himself a philosopher; then even these do not surpass our prophets in their antiquity. For about Thales, after whom the others lived, it is known that he became famous during the reign of Romulus, that is, when from Israeli sources a whole river of prophecies was already formed in those Scriptures that have now spread throughout the world. Thus, only theologian-poets: Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus and others, if the Greeks had such - only they seem to have lived in time earlier than those prophets whose Scriptures are used by us authority. But even they do not exceed in time our true theologian Moses, who rightly preached about the one true God and whose Scriptures currently occupy first place in the sacred canon. Therefore, as for the Greeks, who gave preference mainly to literary works of secular content, they have nothing that could prove the greater antiquity of their wisdom, not to mention the greater depth, in comparison with our religion, in which true wisdom lies. It must be admitted, however, that if not in Greece, then among the barbarian peoples, namely in Egypt, there actually existed even before Moses a certain doctrine called their wisdom; otherwise it would not have been written in the sacred books that Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts VII, 22) at that time, of course, when he was born there and was adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh, fed and raised as a noble man. But the wisdom of the Egyptians could not surpass in antiquity the wisdom of our prophets: for Abraham was also a prophet (Gen. XX, 7). What wisdom could the Egyptians have had before they were introduced to the writings of Isis, whom they, when she died, considered it necessary to honor as a great goddess? And Isis was, according to legend, the daughter of Inachus, who first began to reign among the Argives, when the grandchildren of Abraham were born. Chapter XXXVIII. About the fact that some writings of saints are not included in the church canon because of their extreme antiquity, for fear that false things might be mixed with the true about them Even if we turn to more ancient times, then even before the famous great flood we had the patriarch Noah, whom I will also call a prophet, because the ark itself, which he built and in which he and his people were saved from the flood, was a prophecy about our times. And about Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is it not said in the canonical epistle of the Apostle Jude that he prophesied (Jude 1:14)? If their writings have not received authority either among the Jews or among us, the reason for this is extreme antiquity, as a result of which they considered it necessary to treat them with distrust, so as not to mistake the false for the true. Indeed, there are scriptures in circulation that are presented as their scriptures by people who believe according to their own tastes and indiscriminately what they want to believe. But the purity of the canon did not accept them; not because the authority of those people who have become pleasing to God is not recognized, but because these writings are not considered to belong to them. And we should not be surprised that writings dealing with a name of such great antiquity are considered suspicious. In the history of the kings of Judah and Israel, which contains narratives of acts regarding which we believe in the same canonical Scripture, many things are mentioned that are not described in detail there, but it is said that this can be read in other books written by the prophets, and in other places even the names of the prophets themselves are mentioned (1 Chron. XXIX, 29; 2 Chron. IX, 29); however, we do not find these writings in the canon accepted by the people of God. I confess that I cannot explain this circumstance to myself otherwise than by the assumption that these people, to whom the Holy Spirit revealed what should have had religious authority, could themselves write one thing as people, out of love for historical research, another as prophets, by divine inspiration; and these two kinds of writings were so different that the first was supposed to be attributed to themselves, and the other to God speaking through them, and thus the first related to the expansion of knowledge, and the second to the authority of religion. Under the cover of this authority, the canon is preserved to such an extent that if some writings are presented even as the writings of the ancient prophets, but are not included in the canon, they are of no importance even for the expansion of knowledge; because it is not known whether they belong to those for whom they are presented. They are not considered trustworthy, and especially those of them in which anything contrary to the teaching of the canonical books is read; since this serves as obvious proof that these books do not belong to those prophets. Chapter XXXIX. About Jewish writing, which has never been alien to the Hebrew language So, one should not think that, as some believe, through the one who was called Eber, from where the name of the Jews comes, only the Hebrew language was preserved and passed on to Abraham, and Jewish writing began from the time of the law given by Moses; or rather, through the indicated succession of patriarchs, the mentioned language was preserved along with its writing. Then Moses appointed among the people of God people who were obliged to supervise the teaching of literacy, when they were not yet familiar with a single letter of the divine law (Ex. XVIII, 21-25). Scripture calls γραμματοεισαγωγεῖς, i.e. in Latin - introducers of writing or into writing: since they in some way introduce writing into the hearts of students, or better, introduce into writing those whom they teach. So, let no people, out of some kind of arrogance, boast of the antiquity of their wisdom in comparison with our patriarchs and prophets, who had divine wisdom; for it turns out that Egypt, which usually falsely and vainly boasts of the antiquity of its sciences, in time does not surpass in any of its wisdom the wisdom of our patriarchs. After all, no one will dare to assert that the Egyptians were very knowledgeable in amazing sciences before they became acquainted with literacy, that is, before Isis came to them and taught them writing. Their most memorable science, called wisdom, what else was it, if not primarily astronomy, which, like any other science of this kind, is usually more important for the exercise of abilities than for enlightening the mind with true wisdom? And as for philosophy, which supposedly teaches something that makes people happy, this kind of activity flourished in those countries during the time of Mercury, nicknamed Trismegistus, i.e. although much earlier than the Greek sages or philosophers, yet later than Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, even later than Moses. For it appears that at the time when Moses was born, there lived only the famous great astrologer Atlas, the brother of Prometheus, the maternal grandfather of Mercury the elder, whose grandson was the aforementioned Mercury Trismegistus. Chapter XL. About the most deceitful boastfulness of the Egyptians, who determine the antiquity of their science by hundreds of thousands of years So, it is in vain that some try to give rise to the most absurd opinion that since the Egyptians possessed the knowledge of stargazing, there are more than a hundred thousand years. In what books are such a number recorded by the Egyptians, who learned to write under the guidance of Isis at most two thousand years ago? After all, Varro, who reports this, is not the last authority in history, and this does not contradict the truth of the Divine Scriptures. After all, if not even six thousand years have passed since the first man, called Adam, then don’t those who, regarding chronology, try to convince of such peculiar and so contradictory to the established truth, deserve ridicule rather than refutation? For which storyteller about the past should we believe, if not the one who predicted the future, which has already come true before our eyes? And the very disagreement between historians that we have indicated serves as an incentive for us to believe rather those of them that do not contradict the history that we recognize as divine. When the citizens of an impious city, scattered throughout the face of the earth, read the most learned people, of whom, apparently, no one’s authority should be neglected, then, being disagreeing among themselves regarding events that are very remote from our time, they do not know whom they should believe more. But we, relying in the history of our religion on divine authority, have no doubt considered everything that contradicts it to be decidedly false; and no matter how everything else is told in secular writings, whether the rest is true or false, it will not give us anything for a correct and blessed life. Chapter XLI. On the differences of philosophical opinion and the agreement of the canonical writings contained by the Church But let us leave the area of ​​historical knowledge; among the philosophers themselves, from whom we made this digression into history - who, apparently, in their studies only tried to discover the way to live in order to achieve bliss - why did these disagreements arise between students and teachers and fellow students among themselves, if not because people sought this out with human meaning and human conclusions? There could, of course, also be a desire for glory, as a result of which each of them wanted to appear wiser and wittier than the other, to be not a slave, so to speak, of someone else’s opinion, but the inventor of his own teaching and his own theory; but let us assume that there were some among them, and even very many, who disagreed with their teachers and fellow students out of love for the truth, in order to defend what they considered to be such, whether it was really the truth or not; in any case, what should human misfortune do, where and on which side should it lean to achieve bliss if it is not guided by divine authority? Meanwhile, as for our authors, on whom, not without reason, the canon of the Holy Scriptures is established and ends, they absolutely do not contradict each other in any respect. That is why, when they wrote, it was not in vain that they believed that God spoke to them or through them, not some few chatterboxes in word debates in schools and gymnasiums, but so many learned and unlearned peoples. Naturally, there should have been few of them (the authors of the Scriptures), so that their large number would not lose the value of what should be dear to the religious feeling; but, however, not so small that their agreement does not cause surprise. For in the crowd of philosophers, even those who left monuments of their teachings in their literary works, it is difficult to meet those who would agree with each other in all their opinions. However, it would take a long time to prove this in this essay. However, which of the authors of any sect enjoys such authority in this demon-worshipping city that others who think differently and disagree with him are not approved? Didn’t the Epicureans, who argued that the gods do not care about human affairs, and the Stoics, who thought, on the contrary, that these affairs were managed and protected by gods, helpers and patrons, enjoy fame in Athens? Therefore I wonder why Anaxagoras, who said that the sun is a burning stone and denied that it is a god, was accused when in the same city Epicurus enjoyed fame and lived in complete security, not only did not believe that the sun or any of the stars were gods, but even asserted that there was no Jupiter or any of the gods in the world at all, to whom the prayers and requests of people could reach. And Aristippus, who believed the highest good in sensual pleasure, and Antisthenes, who argued that a person is blessed by virtue of the spirit, both famous philosophers and both belonged to the school of Socrates, who, however, believed the good of life for such different and opposite purposes, and the first even said that the wise should avoid state affairs, and the last - that he should rule the state - did not each of them attract students there to convert them into followers of his sect? In front of everyone, in a prominent and lively portico, in gymnasiums, in gardens, in public and private places, they argued in crowds, and everyone defended their opinion: some argued that there was one world, others that there were countless worlds; some - that this only world has a beginning, others - that it does not; some - that it will have an end, others - that it will exist forever; some - that it is controlled by the divine mind, others - by chance; some said that souls are immortal, others - mortal; and of those who recognized souls as immortal, some argued that they pass into animals, others - that this in no case could be; Of those who called souls mortal, some said that they die after the bodies, others - that they also live after the bodies, a little or a lot, but not forever; Some placed the final good in the body, others in the soul, others in both, and some added to the soul and body the good existing outside them; Some believed that bodily feelings should always be trusted, others - that not always, and others - that never. What people, what senate, what public or governmental authority of an impious city has ever tried to understand these and other countless contradictory opinions of philosophers, to approve and accept some of them, to condemn and reject others? Didn’t they, on the contrary, indiscriminately endure these endless disputes between people who disagreed with each other - disputes not about fields and houses or some monetary issue, but about such objects that make life miserable or blissful? Although at the same time something true was expressed, lies were also spoken with the same complete freedom, so that such a city can rightfully bear the mysterious name of Babylon. For Babylon in translation means “confusion,” which, I remember, I already told the book. 16, ch. IV. For the king of this city, the devil, it makes absolutely no difference over what opposing errors those over whom he equally rules because of their great and varied wickedness argue among themselves. But that tribe, that people, that city, that state, those Israelites to whom the word of God was entrusted, did not so arbitrarily confuse pseudo-prophets with true prophets; but they recognized and accepted with each other the true authors of the Holy Scriptures who agreed with each other. For them they were philosophers, that is, lovers of wisdom, and sages, theologians, and prophets, and teachers of virtue and piety. Those who thought and lived in accordance with them, thought and lived not according to man, but according to God, who spoke through them. If blasphemy is forbidden among them, God has forbidden it. If it was said: “Honor your father and your mother,” then God commanded it. If it is said: “Do not kill. Don't commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal” (Ex. XX, 12–15) and so on in the same vein, then this was spoken not by human, but by divine lips. Everything that some philosophers, among the lies they expressed, could discern the truth and which they tried to convince through difficult reasoning, such as, for example, that the real world was created by God and is governed by His providence, as well as about the honesty of virtues, about love for the fatherland, about loyalty of friendship, about good deeds and in general about everything related to good morals, although they did not know to what purpose and how all this should be directed - all this is in the city was commanded to the people by prophetic, i.e. divine, lips, albeit through people, and not interpreted through verbal debate, so that everyone who received knowledge about those subjects would be afraid to despise not human reason, but the word of God. Chapter XLII. By what dispensation of divine providence were the sacred writings of the Old Testament translated from Hebrew into Greek in order to become known to all nations? One of the Egyptian kings, the Ptolemies, wished to know and have these sacred books. After the amazing but short-lived reign of Alexander the Great (also called the Great), during which he partly by force, that is, by army, and partly by fear, conquered all of Asia, even almost the entire world, conquering Judea among other kingdoms of the East in his campaigns, his companions did not amicably divide his enormous monarchy among themselves in order to take possession of it, but rather tore it apart in order to devastate everything wars. Then the Ptolemies became kings in Egypt. The first of the Ptolemies, the son of Lagus, transferred many captives from Judea to Egypt. His successor, another Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, granted freedom to all whom he brought as captives; Moreover, he sent royal gifts to the church of God and asked the then high priest Eleazar to tell him the Scriptures, which, as he heard from rumors circulating, were considered truly divine and which he wanted to have in his then famous library. When the high priest Eleazar sent him the holy books in Hebrew, he asked for translators; Seventy-two people were sent to him, six from each of the twelve tribes, people very knowledgeable in both languages, that is, Hebrew and Greek. Their translation is usually called the translation of the Seventy. Tradition says that there was such an amazing agreement in their words that amazed everyone that although they sat at their work separately from one another (in this way Ptolemy wanted to test their conscientiousness), there was no difference between them either in any word, which had the same meaning and the same meaning, or in the arrangement of the words; but as if there was only one translator, what they translated was identical; for the same Spirit was in fact at work in all of them. Such an amazing gift of God was communicated to them in order to give these even greater authority to the Scriptures, not human, but divine, which they were - an authority that was supposed to benefit future believers from the pagans, which we see already fulfilled. Chapter XLIII. About the authority of seventy translators, which, due to the beauties of the Hebrew style preserved in it, should be preferred to all other translations Although there were other translators who translated the sacred Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek, such as: Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion; although there is also a translation, the author of which is unknown and therefore, without indicating the translator, it is simply called the fifth edition; however, the translation of the Seventy is accepted by the Church as if it were the only one, and is in use among the Greek Christian peoples, many of whom do not even know whether any other still exists. The Latin translation used by the Latin churches was also made from the translation of the Seventy. Even in our time there lived Presbyter Jerome, a most learned man, versed in all three languages, who translated the Holy Scriptures into Latin not from Greek, but from Hebrew. But despite the fact that the Jews recognize his scientific translation as correct, and the translation of the Seventy in many places is inaccurate, the Church of Christ believes that no one should be preferred to the authority of so many people chosen for this matter by the then high priest Eleazar, on the basis that even if the one and undoubtedly divine Spirit had not manifested itself in them, and the learned Seventy, according to human custom, agreed among themselves regarding certain words translation in order to use those that would be accepted by everyone, then even in this case they should not prefer one, no matter who he is. But since we see in them such a clear sign of divine inspiration, then no matter how accurate any other translator of the Scriptures from Hebrew into any other language is, whether he agrees with the Seventy or not, we must recognize the prophetic superiority of the Seventy. For the same Spirit that was in the prophets when they composed the Scripture, the same Spirit was also in the Seventy when they translated it. This Spirit, by divine authority, could, of course, say something else, just as the famous prophet said both, because the same Spirit spoke both, and could say the same thing differently, so that people who understood well could see, although not under the same words, the same meaning; Finally, he could omit some things and add others, so that from this it would be clear that this was not a matter of human slave labor, as a literal translation should have been, but a matter of divine power, which filled and directed the mind of the translator. Some, however, believed that the Greek translation codes of the Seventy should have been corrected according to the Hebrew codes, but they did not dare to omit what the Hebrew codes do not have, but the Seventy have, but only inserted what the Hebrew codes have, but the Seventy do not, and these insertions were marked at the beginning of the verses with a certain kind of signs like stars, therefore called asterisks. The same thing that, on the contrary, the Jewish codes do not have, but the Seventy do have, they designated, and the same at the beginning of the verses, with dashes, just as ounces are written. Many Latin codes with such icons are distributed everywhere. But everything that is not omitted or added, but is said differently, and gives either a different meaning, not incompatible, however, with that, or the same one, but expressed in a different way, can only be revealed by comparing those and other codes. So, if in Scripture we should, as we should, see only what the Spirit of God spoke through people, then everything that is in the Jewish codes, but not in the Seventy, all this the Spirit of God deigned to say not through them, but through the prophets. Yet whatever the Seventy have that is not in the Jewish codes, the same Spirit chose to speak through them rather than through the prophets, thus showing that both were prophets. For in the same way he spoke one thing through Isaiah, another through Jeremiah, a third through some other prophet, or one and the same thing, but differently, through one or the other, as He pleased. Everything that is in the prophets and in the Seventy was spoken by one and the same Spirit through both, but in such a way that they preceded, prophesying, and these followed them, prophetically explaining them; for just as in those who spoke the truth and agreed with each other, the same Spirit of the world dwelt, so in those who translated separately from each other, as if with one mouth, the same one Spirit was manifested. Chapter XLIV. What should we think about the destruction of the Ninevites, the onset of which, according to the Hebrew text, is foretold after forty days, and according to the Seventy is limited to a period of three days? But someone will say: “How can I know whether the prophet Jonah said to the Ninevites: “Three more days - and Nineveh will be destroyed,” or: “Forty more days” (Jon. III, 4)?” Indeed, who will not agree that the prophet, who was sent to frighten the city with the threat of imminent destruction, could not say both at the same time? If death threatened on the third day, then not on the fortieth, and if on the fortieth, then not on the third. So, if I am asked what Jonah actually said, I will answer that, rather, what is read in the Hebrew text, i.e.: “Another forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” For the Seventy, who translated much later, could say something different, which, however, relates to the same subject and has the same meaning, but forces the reader, while maintaining respect for both authorities, to turn from history to the study of what this history was written to signify. Although these events took place in the city of Nineveh, they signified something that exceeded the measure of this city; just as the prophet himself was three days in the belly of a whale, but he signified another who had to be three days in the depths of hell, the One who is the Lord of all the prophets. Therefore, if by that city they rightly mean the prophetically depicted church of the pagans, crushed by repentance, so as not to be what it was; then since in the pagan church, of which Nineveh was the image, this was accomplished by Christ, then by forty and three days the same Christ is designated; under forty because He talked with His disciples for forty days after the resurrection and then ascended to heaven; under three because on the third day He rose again. The reader, whose thought does not want to rise above the historical fact, is seventy translators, who are also prophets, as if awakening from sleep to the contemplation of the prophetic heights and as if saying to him: “In forty days look for Him in whom you can find three days: the first you will see in the ascension, the last in His resurrection.” Thus, a completely consistent prediction could be given by both numbers; Moreover, this was through the prophet Jonah, and this was through the prophecy of the Seventy translators, but the same Spirit spoke. I try to be brief and therefore do not cite as evidence many other passages in which the Seventy Translators appear to deviate from the Hebrew original, but, correctly understood, turn out to agree with it. Therefore, following as best I could the example of the apostles, who cited prophetic testimonies from both, that is, from both the Jewish codes and the Seventy, I, for my part, considered it necessary to use the authority of both, since the authority of both is the same and divine. But let us continue, as best we can, our speech about what still remains. Chapter XLV. The fact that after the restoration of the church the Jews ceased to have prophets and until the Nativity of Christ were subjected to constant disasters, confirming that the prophets promised the construction of another church After the people of Judah ceased to have prophets, they undoubtedly turned out to be the worst, and precisely at the time when, with the restoration of their church after the Babylonian captivity, they hoped to see themselves as the best. For in this sense, that carnal people understood what was predicted by the prophet Haggai: “The glory of this last church will be greater than the first” (Hag. II, 9). But the prophet showed that this was about the New Testament a little higher, where a clear promise about Christ is expressed: “And I will shake all nations, and the One desired by all nations will come” (Hag. II, 7). To this place, the Seventy translators, by prophetic authority, gave a different meaning, applicable rather to the body, that is, to the Church, than to the head, that is, Christ: “The elect of the Lord will come from all languages,” that is, about whom Jesus himself speaks in the Gospel: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew XXII, 14). From such chosen ones from the pagans, as from living stones, the New Testament creates the house of God, much more glorious than that which was the temple built by Solomon and renewed after the captivity. That is why, from that time on, the people of Judah did not have prophets, and were subjected to many disasters from foreign kings and even from the Romans themselves, so that they would not think that the prophecy of Haggai was fulfilled by this restoration of the church. For after a little time he was subdued by Alexander who arrived there; although no devastation was made, since they did not dare to resist him and therefore, submitting without any struggle, gained his favor: yet the glory of this church was no longer the same as it was during the free reign of their kings. True, Alexander made sacrifices in the church of God, but not because he turned to the veneration of God with true piety, but because with ungodly vanity he believed that He should be worshiped along with false gods. Then Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, as I already mentioned above, after the death of Alexander, led captives from Judea to Egypt, whom his successor Ptolemy Philadelphus very favorably released from there; thanks to the latter we have the Scriptures of the Seventy Translators. Then Judea was shaken by the wars described in the books of Maccabees. After that, it went to the king of Alexandria, Ptolemy, called Epiphanes; Then Antiochus, king of Syria, through many and cruel oppressions, the Jews were forced to worship idols, and their temple was desecrated by the sacrilegious superstitions of the pagans. However, their leader, the valiant Judas, also called Maccabee, after the expulsion of the generals of Antiochus, cleansed the church of all idolatrous defilement. Somewhat later, as a result of intrigues, a certain Alcimus, who did not come from a priestly family, became the high priest, which was illegal. Then, after almost fifty years, during which the Jews did not enjoy the world, although they lived to some extent prosperously, Aristobulus, the first to wear a diadem, became their king and high priest. For before him, from the time of the return from Babylonian captivity and the restoration of the church, they had not kings, but leaders or princes. However, the king can be called both a prince from the primacy of power and a leader, since he leads the army; but not all princes and leaders can be called kings at the same time, as that Aristobulus was. His successor was Alexander, also a king and high priest, who, they say, ruled his subjects very cruelly. After him, his wife Alexandra reigned among the Jews, from whose time even more severe disasters followed one after another for the Jews. For her sons, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, fighting among themselves for power, called Roman forces into Israel; more precisely, Hyrcanus asked them for help against his brother. Rome had already conquered Africa and Greece and, widely spreading its power over other parts of the world, but as if not being able to support itself, so to speak, it was exhausted from its own greatness. He reached strong internal revolts, then allied, and soon civil wars, and became so weak and exhausted that he was faced with the need to change the political system in order to become under the control of the kings. So, the most famous ruler of the Roman people, Pompeii, having entered Judea with an army, took the city, opened the church (but not with prayerful piety, but by the right of a conqueror, and entered it not as a pious admirer, but as a desecrator of the shrine) and entered the Holy of Holies, where no one was allowed to enter except the high priest; then, having confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priestly rank and appointed Antipater over the defeated people as an overseer or, as they called it then, procurator, he took Aristobulus with him in chains. From that time on, the Jews became tributaries of Rome. Then Cassius plundered the church itself. Finally, several years later, the Jews were punished to have as king the foreigner Herod, during whose reign Christ was born. For the fullness of times has already arrived, determined by the prophetic Spirit through the patriarch Jacob: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until the Reconciler comes, and to Him the submission of the nations” (Gen. 49:10). So, the Jews did not cease to have princes from among the Jews until Herod, in whose person they received their first foreign king. But the time has already come for Him to come, to whom the promise given to the New Testament was set aside, that He would be the hope of the nations. The nations could not have expected His coming, as they now expect that He would come to carry out judgment in the blaze of glory, if they had not first believed in Him, who came to accept judgment in the humiliation of patience. Chapter XLVI. Of the birth of our Savior, whereby the Word became flesh, and of the dispersion of the Jews among all nations, as foretold by the prophets So, when Herod reigned in Judea, and among the Romans, with a change in the political system, Augustus Caesar was emperor, with whom times of peace came in the world, according to the previous prophecy (Mic. V, 2), Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea as a visible man - from the Virgin man, and as a hidden God - from God the Father. For the prophet predicted: “Behold, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel, which means: God is with us” (Is. VII, 14; Matt. I, 23; Luke I, 31). To prove His divinity, He performed many miracles; the Gospel Scripture tells about some of them, as far as it seemed sufficient for preaching about Him. The first of these is that He was born in such a miraculous way, and the last is that He ascended into heaven with His body resurrected from the dead. The Jews, who killed Him and did not want to believe in Him, because He had to die and rise again, were defeated in the most disastrous way by Rome, uprooted from their kingdom, where foreigners already ruled over them, and scattered over the entire face of the earth (for they are everywhere), serve as evidence for us through their Scriptures that the prophecy about Christ is not our invention. Very many of them, delving into the meaning of these prophecies, even before suffering, and especially after the resurrection of Christ, believed in Him; these are those about whom it was predicted: “For even though your people, O Israel, were as many as the sand of the sea, only the remnant of them will return” (Isa. X, 22). But others remain blinded; about them it is predicted: “Let their table be a snare for them, and their peaceful feast a snare. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and let their loins relax forever” (Ps. 69:23-24). Thus, while our scriptures are not believed by the Jews, they are fulfilled by their own, which they read with blind eyes. Or, perhaps, someone will say that Christians invented those prophecies about Christ that are eaten up in the name of the Sibyl or someone else, if there really are prophecies that do not belong to the people of Israel? But for us, those contained in the codes of our opponents are sufficient. We are convinced that they are scattered among all nations, where only the Church of Christ spreads, for the sake of testimony about these prophecies - a testimony that they give us against their will, having and preserving the same codes. For in the psalms, which they themselves read, there is a prophecy regarding this in the words: “My God, who has mercy on me, will go before me; God will allow me to look at my enemies. Do not kill them, lest my people forget; scatter them with Thy strength” (Ps. 59:11–12). Thus, God showed the Church the grace of His mercy on her enemies the Jews, because, as the Apostle says, their fall is the salvation of the pagans (Rom. XI, 11). And He does not kill them, that is, He does not lose in them the fact that they are Jews, although they were defeated and oppressed by the Romans, for the very purpose that, without forgetting the law of God, they would be a witness to what we are talking about. Therefore, it was not enough to say: “Do not kill them”; but it is also added: “Waste them,” for if the Jews with this testimony of the Scriptures remained only in their own land, and were not scattered everywhere, the Church, which is spread everywhere, could not have them among all nations as witnesses to those prophecies that were spoken about Christ. Chapter XLVII. Before Christianity, were there people outside the Israeli people who belonged to the society of the Heavenly City? In addition, we are ready to mention any foreigner, that is, not belonging to Israel by origin and not accepted into the canon of the Holy Scriptures by this people, from whom any prophecy about Christ is read, if the news of this has reached or will come to our attention. This is not because in the absence of such a foreigner there would have been a need for it, but because there is no inconsistency in thinking that among other nations there were people to whom this sacrament was revealed and who were even prompted to preach about it - they were either involved in the same grace, or were alien to it, but taught by evil angels, who, as is known, confessed Christ who came, not known by the Jews. And the Jews themselves, I believe, will not dare to assert that from the time the branch of Israel appeared after the rejection of his elder brother, no one except the Israelites had access to God. True, there was no other people who could be called the people of God; but that among other nations there were people who belonged not to the earthly, but to the heavenly city, to the number of true Israelites, citizens of the heavenly fatherland, this the Jews cannot deny. If they deny this, it is very easy to expose them by pointing to the holy and amazing man Job, who was neither a native nor even a proselyte, that is, a stranger to the people of Israel, but came from the people of Edom, among whom he was born and died, the divine Scripture so praises him that it becomes clear: not one of his contemporaries was equal to him in regard to righteousness and piety (Job. I; Eze. XIV, 20). Although we do not find any indication of the time of his life in the chronicles, we conclude from his book, which the Israelis included in the canon for the sake of his righteousness, that he lived three generations later than Israel. I have no doubt that this was arranged by divine providence for the purpose of letting us know that among other nations there could be people who lived according to God and pleased Him, belonging to the heavenly Jerusalem. And this could be, as one should think, only one to whom the one Intercessor of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, was revealed by God, whose future coming in the flesh was predicted by the ancient saints in the same way as what was announced to us about what had happened, so that the same faith would lead through Him all those predestined to God to the city of God, to the house of God, to the church of God. But all prophecies about the grace of God through Christ Jesus, spoken by others, can be considered fictitious Christians. Therefore, in order to convince any of the strangers, if they began to talk about this subject, and to make them ours, if they turn out to be sane, the surest means is to bring those divine prophecies about Christ that are contained in the codes of the Jews, with the removal of which from their fatherland and scattering throughout the whole world for the sake of witnessing this, the Church of Christ grew everywhere. Chapter XLVIII. That the prophecy of Haggai, who predicted that the house of God would be more glorious than before, was fulfilled not at the restoration of the church, but at the Church of Christ This house of God is much more glorious than the first one, which was built of wood, stone and other precious materials and metals. Thus, Haggai's prophecy was not fulfilled in the rebuilding of that church. For since the time of its restoration, that church has never had such glory as it had in the time of Solomon; on the contrary, as it turns out, the glory of that church, first as a result of the cessation of the prophecies, and then as a result of the great disasters of the people themselves, was diminished until its final destruction, which was done by the Romans, as shown by what we said above. Meanwhile, this house of God, which belongs to the New Testament, is so much more glorious in all respects, how much better are those living stones, believing and regenerated, from which it is built. Under the guise of restoring that church, he is depicted because the very renovation of this building in prophetic language means another covenant, called the New. Thus, in the words that God spoke in the mentioned prophecy: “And in this place I will give peace” (Hag. II, 9), by the signifying place we must understand the signified place; and since that renewed place signifies the Church, which was to be created by Christ, then the words: “And in this place I will give peace” should be understood as follows: “I will give peace in the place that is signified by this place.” For everything that signifies appears in some way to be a personification of those objects that it designates, as, for example, in the words of the Apostle: “The Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. X, 4); because the stone about which this is said undoubtedly meant Christ. So, the glory of this New Testament house is greater than the glory of the former, Old Testament house, and it will appear greater when it is sanctified. Then “the Desired of all nations will come” (Hag. II, 8), as read in the Jewish (code). For before His coming He was not yet desired by all nations: whom they should desire, they did not yet know, they did not yet believe in Him. Then, according to the translation of the Seventy (this meaning of their translation is also prophetic), “the chosen ones” of the Lord will come “from all nations.” For then only the elect will really come, about whom the apostle says: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. I, 4). After all, the Savior himself, having said: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew XXII, 14), wanted to show by this that that house, which will no longer fear any destruction, is built not from those who, being called, honor Him so much that they are cast out, but from the elect. At the present time, when there are still those in the Church whom He will separate, as if winnowing on a current, the glory of this house is not yet the same as it will be when everyone who remains in it will abide forever. Chapter XLIX. About the indifferent increase in the composition of the Church, in which in the present century the many and the rejected are mixed with the elect So, in this evil age, in these unhappy days, when the Church achieves future greatness through present humiliation and is brought up by the impulses of fears, the torments of sorrows, the burden of exploits, the danger of temptations, finding joy only in hope, if it rejoices correctly, many outcasts are mixed in with the good: both are united, as it were, in the gospel net (Matt. XIII, 47) and float in the present world, as in the sea, indifferently captured by these nets, until they reach the shore, where the evil will be separated from the good, and in the good, as in His church, “God will be all in all” (1 Cor. XV, 28). Therefore, we recognize as fulfilled today His word, which He spoke in the psalms: “I would like to preach and say about your wonders and thoughts about us: but they exceed the number” (Ps. XXXIX, 6). This has been happening since the time when He first announced through the mouth of His forerunner, John, and then with His own, saying: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew III, 2, IV, 17). He chose as disciples, whom he called apostles (Luke VI, 13), low-born, ignorant, unlearned people, so that everything that was great in them and was done by them, He himself would be and do everything in them. Among them He had one, taking advantage of whose malice in a good way, He fulfilled His plans for His suffering, and He gave His Church an example of tolerance towards the evil. Having sowed the seed of the holy Gospel, as far as He had to do this by His bodily presence, He suffered, died, rose again, showing by His suffering what we must endure for the truth, and by His resurrection what we must hope for in eternity, having become partakers of the sublime sacrament of His shed blood for the remission of sins. He talked on earth with His disciples for forty days, before their eyes He ascended to heaven and ten days later sent the promised Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit descended on the believers, the greatest and most appropriate sign took place: each of them began to speak in the languages ​​of all nations, thus signifying the unity of the Catholic Church, which should spread among all nations to speak all languages. Chapter L. Of the Preaching of the Gospel, Made More Glorious and Powerful by the Suffering of the Preachers. After this, in accordance with the prophecy: “From Zion will go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isa. II, 3), and in accordance with the predictions of the Lord Christ himself, when He opened “the minds of His astonished disciples to understand the Scriptures and said to them: Thus it is written and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning with Jerusalem" (Luke XXIV, 45-47), and when again, in response to their question about the time of His second coming, He said: “It is not your business to know the times and seasons which the Father has appointed in His authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth” (Acts I, 7-8); The Church first went beyond the borders of Jerusalem, when very many believers appeared in Judea and Samaria, and spread among other nations thanks to the preachers of the Gospel, whom, like lamps, He prepared with the word and kindled with the Holy Spirit. He told them: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew X, 28). So that fear would not cool them, they burned with the fire of love. Then, just as through them, who both before the suffering and after the resurrection saw and heard Him, so, after their death, and through their successors, the Gospel was preached to the whole world amid cruel persecution, various torments and beatings of the martyrs, confirmed by divine signs, wonders, various powers and gifts of the Holy Spirit; so that the pagan peoples, having believed in Him who was crucified for their redemption, began to venerate with Christian love the blood of the martyrs, which they shed with devilish malice. And the kings themselves, whose laws devastated the Church, salutarily submitted to the name, which they tried with bitterness to erase from the face of the earth, and began to persecute the false gods, because of which the worshipers of the true God had previously been persecuted. Chapter LI. That the Catholic faith is strengthened by heretical differences of opinion But the devil, seeing that the churches of demons are empty and the human race clings to the name of the Liberator and Mediator, raised heretics who, hiding behind the name of Christians, oppose Christian teaching; as if in the city of God they could be tolerated calmly, without taking any measures against them, just as the city of confusion tolerates philosophers preaching different and opposing opinions! And so those who in the Church of Christ think something harmful and perverse, when they stubbornly resist the measures taken to direct them towards a sound and correct way of thinking and do not want to correct their harmful and destructive teachings, become heretics and, leaving the Church, join the ranks of the enemies who give it occupation. Thus, with their evil they even bring benefit to true members of the Church of Christ, because God uses even evil for good and “for those who love God... all things work together for good” (Rom. VIII, 28). For all the enemies of the Church, no matter how deluded and no matter what malice they may be blinded and corrupted, if they receive the power to harm her physically, exercise her patience, and if they are her opponents only in their way of thinking, they exercise her wisdom; and since enemies must also be loved, they give exercise to her goodwill or even charity, whether they act towards them with the convincing word of teaching or the threat of discipline. Therefore, the devil, the prince of the wicked city, putting forward his weapons against the city of God wandering in the present world, is unable to harm it in any way. Divine providence sends this city both prosperity as a consolation, so that misfortunes do not crush it, and misfortunes as exercise, so that prosperity does not spoil it; both are balanced mutually in such a way that it is from this city, and not from anywhere else, that we should consider the well-known exclamation of the psalm to be coming: “When my sorrows multiply in my heart, Your consolations delight my soul” (Ps. 93:19). Hence the words of the apostle: “Be comforted by hope; be patient in tribulation” (Rom. XII, 12). For what was said by the same teacher: “And all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. III, 12) can be applied to all times. Because although there is a certain time when external enemies do not rage, it seems calm, and even is so in fact and brings great consolation, especially to the weak; however, even then there are, and even very many within, those who, with their corrupt morals, torment the feelings of people who live piously. For through them the Christian Catholic name is also blasphemed. And the more dear it is to those who want to live a pious life in Christ, the more they grieve that, through the fault of their bad household, it is not as beloved as the souls of the pious desire. And the heretics themselves, since they appear to have the name, the sacraments of Scripture and the Christian confession, cause great sorrow to the hearts of the pious; because, on the one hand, many who want to be Christians become necessarily indecisive due to their differences of opinion, and on the other hand, many slanderers find in them reason to blaspheme the Christian name; for they too are called Christians. Given the existence of these and similar corrupt morals and errors, those who want to live godly in Christ suffer persecution, although their bodies are not attacked and tortured. They endure this persecution not on the body, but in the heart. Therefore it is said: “As my sorrows multiply in my heart,” and not “in my body.” But on the other hand, since the promises of God are considered immutable, and since the apostle says: “The Lord knows those who are His; for those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son” (2 Tim. II, 19; Rom. VIII, 29); and none of them can perish, then the psalm further says: “Your consolations delight my soul.” And this very sorrow, which appears in the hearts of pious people who are embarrassed by the morals of evil or false Christians, brings benefit to those who grieve; because its source is love, due to which they do not want them to perish themselves, nor to interfere with the salvation of others. Finally, their correction also serves as a great consolation, which fills the souls of pious people with as great joy as their death grieved them with great sorrows. So in this age, in these ill-fated days, not only from the time of the bodily presence of Christ and His apostles, but from Abel himself, the first righteous man killed by his wicked brother, and until the very end of the present age, the Church spreads, making its pilgrimage among persecutions from the world and consolations from God. Chapter LII. Should we think, as some believe, that after the ten persecutions that have taken place, there will be no more, except for the eleventh, which will take place during the Antichrist itself? Therefore, I do not consider it correct to say or believe, as it seemed or seems to some, that the Church until the time of the Antichrist will not experience any more persecution than the number of them, that is, ten, which it has already experienced, so that the eleventh and last persecution will supposedly be from the Antichrist. For the first persecution is considered to be that which was from Nero, the second from Domitian, the third from Trajan, the fourth from Antoninus, the fifth from Severus, the sixth from Maximinus, the seventh from Decius, the eighth from Valerian, the ninth from Aurelian, the tenth from Diocletian and Maximilian. Since there were ten Egyptian plagues before the people of God began to leave Egypt, it is believed that they should be understood in the sense that the last persecution of the Antichrist will correspond to the eleventh plague, when the Egyptians, who were hostilely pursuing the Jews, died in the Red Sea, while the people of God crossed through it on dry land. But I do not think that those events in Egypt prophetically foreshadowed persecution; although those who think so with apparent subtlety and wit compare each execution with each of the persecutions, not according to the prophetic Spirit, but according to the guess of the human mind, which sometimes reaches the truth, but is often deceived. In fact, what will those who think so say about that persecution during which the Lord himself was crucified? What number will it be included in? Or they think it should be excluded; because it is necessary to count those that relate to the body, and not that which was directed against the Head itself when this Head was killed? And what will they say about the persecution that, after Christ’s ascension to heaven, took place in Jerusalem, when blessed Stephen was stoned; when James, John's brother, was beheaded by the sword; when the Apostle Peter was condemned to death and imprisoned, from where an angel freed him; when the brothers fled from Jerusalem; when Saul, who later became the Apostle Paul, devastated the Church; when he himself, already preaching the very faith that he persecuted, endured what he himself did, both in Judea and among other nations, where he preached Christ with fiery zeal? Why do they think that they should begin with Nero, when by the time of Nero the Church had grown amid the most severe persecutions, which would take too long to talk about in detail? If they believe that it is necessary to take into account the persecutions carried out by the kings, then Herod, who after the Ascension of the Lord into heaven initiated the most severe persecution, was also a king. Then what will they answer us about Julian, who is also not numbered among the ten? Didn’t he persecute the Church - he who forbade Christians to teach and study the liberal sciences? Under him, Valentian the Elder, who was the third emperor after him, became a confessor of the Christian faith and was deprived of his military position for this. I will keep silent about what he would have done in Antioch if one most faithful and courageous young man, who, of the many captured for torture, was the first to be tortured for a whole day, singing psalms under the instruments of torture and in suffering, had not terrified him with his amazing firmness and calmness and had not aroused in him the fear that the others would force him to find himself in even more shameful position. Finally, in our memory, the brother of the aforementioned Valentian, the Arian Valens, did not cause devastation in the Catholic Church with cruel persecution in the eastern countries? Further, is it reasonable not to take into account the fact that the Church, which bears fruit and grows everywhere, can endure persecution from kings among some nations, while it does not tolerate it among other nations? Or, perhaps, we should not consider it persecution that the king persecuted Christians in Gothia with amazing cruelty at a time when there were only Orthodox Christians there, many of whom were crowned with martyrdom, as we heard about this from some of the brethren, who were then still children and clearly recalled that they themselves saw it? And recently in Persia? Was not the persecution of Christians raging there (if it does not continue even now) to such an extent that some who fled from there even arrived in Roman cities? Reflecting on these and similar circumstances, I think that we should not limit the persecutions with which the Church must be tested to a certain number. But on the other hand, it is no less reckless to assert that there will be some other persecutions from the kings, except for the last one, about which not a single Christian doubts. Therefore, let us leave the question open and only note that to assert one of the two would be a bold and even daring matter. Chapter III. About the time of the last persecution The mentioned last persecution, which is about to come from the Antichrist, will be stopped by Jesus himself by His appearance. For it is written that He will “slay (the wicked) with the breath of His mouth and destroy him by the manifestation of His coming” (2 Thess. II, 8). People often ask: “When will this be?” The question is completely inappropriate! If we needed to know about this, then who better than the teacher God Himself to inform the disciples who asked Him about this? And they were not silent before Him then, but asked Him, saying: “Are You at this time, O Lord, restoring the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, “It is not your business to know the times and seasons which the Father has appointed in His authority” (Acts 1:6–7). They asked not about the hour, of course, or the day, or the year, but about the time when they received this answer. Thus, it would be in vain for us to begin to count and determine the years that remain for the present century, as long as we hear from the mouth of the Truth that it is not our business to know this. Some, however, said that four hundred years could pass from the ascension of the Lord to His last coming, others - five hundred, others - even a thousand years. And on what each of them bases his opinion, it takes a long time to find out, and there is no need. They are guided by human conjectures, and do not indicate anything certain from the authority of canonical Scripture. All of them who tell fortunes with their fingers are untied and told to calm down by the One who says: “It is not your business to know the times and seasons that the Father has set in His power.” But since this saying is from the Gospel, it is not surprising that it did not prevent the worshipers of many false gods from inventing, on the basis of the answers of the demons whom they consider gods, that the time has been determined during which the Christian religion will exist. For when they saw that they could not destroy it with so many and such persecutions, but, on the contrary, in them it primarily achieved amazing growth, then they invented who knows what Greek verses, supposedly spoken from above to one of those who asked the oracle; in these verses they present Christ as innocent of the crime of this alleged sacrilege, but add that Peter, with the help of sorcery, arranged so that the name of Christ would be revered for three hundred and sixty-five years, but then, after this number of years was completed, this reverence would immediately cease. Oh, the meaning of learned people! Oh, enlightened minds, capable of believing such things about Christ that you do not want to see in Christ himself - as if His disciple Peter did not learn magical art from Him, but in His innocence was, nevertheless, His sorcerer and wanted the name of the teacher to be revered more than his own, thanks to his magical art, his great works, his dangers and, finally, his shed blood! If Peter the sorcerer made the world love Christ, then what did the innocent Christ do so that Peter loved Him so much? Let them answer this question for themselves and let them, if they can, understand that it was a work of supernatural grace, that the world loved Christ for the sake of acquiring eternal life from Him, and loved it even to the point of accepting temporary death for Him. And what kind of gods are these who can predict such things, but cannot eliminate them, having submitted to one sorcerer and one magical atrocity, during the commission of which, as they say, a one-year-old boy was killed, torn to pieces and buried according to an obscene rite - submitting to such an extent that they allowed a sect hostile to them to spread for such a long time, to overcome, not by perseverance, but by patience, the terrible cruelties of numerous persecutions and overthrow their idols, churches, cults and oracles? Finally, what kind of god is this - not ours, of course, but theirs - who was seduced by such an atrocity or was forced to patronize such things? After all, according to the telling of those verses, Peter, with his magical art, intended all this not to some demon, but to God. They have such a god as they do not imagine Christ to be. Chapter LIV. About the senseless lie of the pagans that the Christian religion will exist no more than three hundred and sixty-five years I could have cited many other similar things if the very year had not already passed, which was determined by the invented fortune-telling and which the deceived vanity believed. But since from the time that the veneration of the name of Christ was established through His presence in the flesh and through His apostles, three hundred and sixty-five years have already passed several years ago; then why should we look for other data to prove the falsity of this? We will not begin to establish the beginning of the Christian religion with the birth of Christ, because, being a baby and a youth, He had no disciples; although when He began to have them, then, without any doubt, the doctrine and Christian religion became known through His fleshly presence, that is, after He was baptized by John in the Jordan River. For this reason, there was a prophecy about Him: “He will rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth” (Ps. 71:8). But since before His passion and resurrection faith was not yet destined for everyone, since it received this destiny at the resurrection of Christ (for this is exactly what the Apostle Paul says to the Athenians: “Having left the times of ignorance, God now commands people everywhere to repent, for He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness, through the Man He has appointed, having given proof to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts XVII, 30-31 ); then it is best to take the resurrection of Christ as the starting point in resolving this issue, especially since at the same time the Holy Spirit was given, as it should have been given to Him after the resurrection of Christ in that city, from which the second law was to begin, that is, the New Testament. For the first law, called the Old Testament, was given from Mount Sinai through Moses. About the same, which was to be given through Christ, it was predicted: “Out of Zion will come the law, and the word of the Lord is from Jerusalem” (Isa. II, 3). Therefore, He Himself said that repentance should be preached to all nations, starting from Jerusalem (Luke XXIV, 47). So, in Jerusalem, the veneration of this name began, consisting of faith in the crucified and risen Christ Jesus. There this faith flared up with such a hot flame that several thousand people, who turned with amazing liveliness to the name of Christ, having sold their property to distribute to the poor, accepted, moved by holy determination and the most ardent love, voluntary poverty and prepared among the raging and bloodthirsty Jews to fight for the truth to the death, not with armed force, but with prevailing patience. If all this happened without any magical art, then why don’t they want to believe that all over the world this could have been accomplished by the same divine power that happened here? If the turning to the veneration of the name of Christ in Jerusalem by such a multitude of people after an even larger multitude either nailed Him to the cross when He was captured, or laughed at Him when He was nailed, was the effect of Peter’s sorcery, then from this very year we must begin counting those notorious three hundred and sixty-five years. Christ died during the consulate of the two Geminas, on the eighth day of the Kalends of April. He rose again on the third day, as the apostles attest by the testimony of their very feelings. Then, after forty days, He ascended into heaven, and ten days later, that is, on the fiftieth day after His resurrection, He sent down the Holy Spirit. Then, as a result of the preaching of the apostles, three thousand people believed. So, it was then that the veneration of His name began, as we believe and as the truth testifies, by the active power of the Holy Spirit, and according to the invention or opinion of ungodly vanity - by the magical art of Peter. A little later, as a result of a miracle that happened - when one beggar, who was so lame from his mother’s womb that others carried him and laid him at the doors of the church, where he asked for alms, according to the word of Peter, received healing in the name of Jesus Christ - five thousand people believed; and then the Church began to grow due to new and new tides of believers. Thus, even the day itself is determined from which that year begins: this is the day when the Holy Spirit was sent, i.e. Ides of May. Recounting the subsequent consulates, we find that three hundred and sixty-five years were completed on the same Ides of May during the consulate of Honorius and Eutychian. What could have happened in the year following that during the consulate of Manlius Theodore in other countries, when, according to the meaning of that oracle of demons or the invention of people, the Christian religion should no longer exist, we did not need to find out. But we know, for example, that in the most famous and main African city of Carthage, the comites of the emperor Honorius, Gaucentius and Jobius, on the fourteenth day of the April calendars, destroyed the churches of the gods and crushed the idols. Who does not see how much from that time until now, that is, for almost thirty years, the veneration of the name of Christ has increased, especially after many of those who lost confidence in the mentioned prophecy and found it, when that number of years were completed, empty and deserving of ridicule, became Christians? So, we, being and calling ourselves Christians, do not believe in Peter, but in Him in whom Peter also believed; we are edified by Peter's preaching about Christ, and are not enchanted by his magic; They were not seduced by his witchcraft, but strengthened by his good deeds. The same Christ, Peter’s mentor in the teaching leading to eternal life, is also our mentor. But let us finally finish this book, in which we have discussed so far and, as it seems to us, have shown quite clearly what is the mortal outcome of two cities, heavenly and earthly, mixed from beginning to end. From them, the earthly city created for itself whatever it wanted, false gods, or from anything, or even from people, and served these gods with sacrifices; and the heavenly, but wandering city on earth did not create false gods, but was itself created by the true God, Whom it itself served as a true sacrifice. Both of them, however, with different faith, hope and love, either enjoy the same temporary well-being, or are equally depressed by temporary misfortunes, until they are separated from one another at the final judgment and each receives his own end, of which there will be no end. We will now move on to a discussion about these ends of both cities. Virg. A_Eneid lib. VIII. v. 321–325 Oracula Sibyllina 8:217–243. In medio duorum animalium cognosceris, and further in the same verse: “When you approach in the summer, you get to know each other; when the time comes, appear.” You might be interested in: