Anti-Jewish Polemic: Julian of Toledo's 'Concerning the Proof of the Sixth Age'

Introduction and Book One

Of the various works of Archbishop Julian of Toledo (who is revered as a saint in the Catholic Church and died not long before the Muslim conquest of most of Spain), his De Comprobatione Sextae Aetatis (“Concerning the Proof of the Sixth Age”) was probably the least successful in terms of impact and influence, and only comes down to us today in a few manuscripts. From surviving medieval literature, the work only appears to have been given notable attention by the ninth century ‘Mozarab’ author Álvaro of Córdoba, who is best known for his lengthy polemic- Indiculus Luminosus- that tied Islam to the Antichrist, and his advocacy for the ‘martyrs of Córdoba’ who were executed for blasphemy against Islam and/or apostasy from it. By contrast, Julian’s Historia Wambae (“History of Wamba”), which covered the Visigothic king Wamba’s suppression of a revolt in southern Gaul, enjoyed influence among subsequent Iberian chroniclers and historians down the centuries, being used as a source in the 13th century CE by Lucas of Tuy in his “World Chronicle” and Rodrigo Ximenez de Rada’s “Gothic History” (depending on Lucas rather than directly using Julian), which were among the last major works of Iberian history in Latin and contributed to the development of a vernacular history of Spain.

The De Comprobatione Sextae Aetatis was an anti-Jewish polemic written by Julian at the request of the Visigothic king Erwig (d. 687 CE). Divided into three books, the work attempts to prove the truth of Christianity and that Jesus is the Messiah. In this post, I have translated the prefatory prayer, the preface, and book one (I will translate the second and third books in subsequent posts, or compile all of them as a book and study, if so desired).

Fundamentally, as the title suggests, the work revolves around the idea that the history and course of world events can be divided into six ages, and that it is in the sixth age (the current era of the word) that Jesus came as Messiah. This idea is not original to Julian, but can be found (for instance) in Isidore of Seville’s chronicle, which formed the backbone of the first book of Lucas of Tuy’s World Chronicle. According to Julian, the Jewish rejection of Jesus is based on the idea that we are not yet in the sixth age and thus Jesus could not have been the Messiah: a notion supposedly based on the fact that 6000 years have not yet passed since the beginning of the world, with each age being divided into 1000 years.

Julian argues that we are in fact in the sixth age, that the Messiah (i.e. Jesus) was born some time ago and is due to return, and that we do not have to await his first coming as the Jews claim. Julian rejects the idea that determining the Messiah’s birth requires counting the number of years from the beginning of the world as the Jews supposedly do, as he claims that this methodology has no foundation in the Sacred Scriptures.

In the first book, Julian attempts to show that Jesus’ birth was very evidently prophesied by the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament and that their predictions did not involve any counting of the number of years from the beginning of the world. For example, it was prophesied that the Messiah’s coming would be accompanied by justice and peace, which Julian claims was the case at the time of Jesus’ birth because of the Roman Empire’s dominion and establishment of worldwide peace (more or less). Similarly, the Messiah’s coming is portrayed as the expectation of Gentiles, and that all the Gentile peoples would come to adore the Messiah. This, Julian argues, was and is being fulfilled, as shown by the worldwide growth and spread of Christianity.

As for calculating any number of years until the Messiah’s first coming, Julian argues that the only relevant counting is Daniel’s counting of ‘70 weeks’ from the time of his prophetic vision until the coming of the Messiah: those ‘70 weeks’ not being literal weeks but rather corresponding to a period of years that matches with the histories of Gentile peoples going up to the birth of Jesus and his death. Alternatively, the ‘70 weeks’ corresponds to the time going up Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection, and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Whatever the case, Julian asks the Jews how they can expect the coming of their own Messiah when they have no state of their own, no high priesthood and no sacrificial offering. Rather, the Jews’ loss of their state and their ruin correspond to the prophetic predictions of divinely ordained punishment of the Jews for their rejection of the Messiah.

Julian’s work involves a number of Biblical quotations, and also shows influence from earlier Christian writers such as Augustine, Tertullian, Isidore and Eusebius (though these influences are not always properly acknowledged). These matters were noted in the critical edition of De Comprobatione Sextae Aetatis as printed in Corpus Christianorum. I have noted them in annotations accompanying my translation.

It is notable that Julian was raised Christian but was himself of Jewish origin, if one believes the account of the Mozarabic Chronicle, which is important as it is the only detailed surviving contemporary source for the Muslim conquest of Spain and its immediate aftermath. Indeed, the chronicle compares Julian’s career to a rose emerging out of thorn bushes! The De Comprobatione Sextae Aetatis is fiercely anti-Jewish in tone and perhaps reflects the zeal of a person from a lineage of Christian converts showing disdain for the ancestral faith. Although the work can be classed as an anti-Jewish polemic, it is nonetheless unlikely however that Julian could have expected to win over any Jews with this work. Rather, as Julian himself hints in Book One and as suggested by King Erwig’s original request and the tone of the preface, the primary and more realistic aim appears to have been to keep Christians on side and prevent them from lapsing by the Jews’ raising of doubts about Christianity’s veracity.

I would like to dedicate this translation and study to two dear friends who study anti-Semitism. One of them is Rachel Kantz Feder, whose primary expertise is Iraqi history and the works of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr. More recently, Rachel has done some very interesting work on contemporary anti-Semitism and how it is tied to certain Iranian outreach efforts to the far-left and far-right (check out her lecture on the topic last year). I am of course hoping that Rachel will also take the opportunity to study Latin and explore anti-Semitism in Visigothic Spain and medieval Iberia. The other friend to whom I dedicate this work is Richard Landes, who studies anti-Semitism in both the medieval and modern periods and shares my love of Latin and translating primary texts.

Below is the translated text of the opening prayer, preface and first book of De Comprobatione Sextae Aetatis.

The Prayer of Saint Julian, Bishop of the Toledan Seat, Regarding the Proof of the Sixth Age

I will approach You, oh Lord, in the humility of my spirit. I will speak to You, because You have given me much hope and confidence. “Who will rise with me against the malignant ones? Or who will stand with me against those who speak iniquity,”[i] if You, oh Lord, do not help me? So you, son of David, who came to us in the flesh through the revelation of the mystery, open the secrets of my heart with the key of your cross, sending one of the seraphim, through whom the glowing charcoal lifted from your altar[ii] may cleanse my dirty lips, clear up my mind, provide material to speak: so that my tongue, which serves through kindness to benefit those closest to me, may not diffuse the mishap of error, but rather relay the preaching of truth without end. In the meantime, God, my God, illuminate the heart of the glorious leader with the inextinguishable flame of this charcoal, so that through it he may entirely boil with the fire of your kindness,  and burn with the zeal of faith, such that he may be ever eager to keep your spouse wandering in the lands both defended from every pestilent contagion and pacified. With his mighty hand, may he destroy the poisons by which harm can be inflicted. With his heel, may he trample down those who create these poisons. May he not allow the judgement of blood to come against the spouse, so that ever rejoicing in the glory of defending her, now lying down on her breast, and defending the pure virgin with the chaste discipline of faith, he may remain pure, and after reaching You and having become glorious in her, he may approach with the intention of giving You a good account regarding his defence of her. Amen.

Here ends the prayer

Here begins the preface

To the illustrious, glorious and venerable Lord King Erwig, your humble servant Julian greets you.

This is the custom of skilled doctors: wherever a wound seeps in the body, they should remove the substance of the wound with a sword, and first cut out the purulent filth at the root before the harmful ulcer can infect healthy parts of the body. Thus, so that the site of a wound should not touch healthy limbs of the body, the practice of advance amputation of the site of the wound is always preferred. For the touch of a wound cannot give rise to healthiness. For wherever the wound’s touch approaches, it creates a site for the wound. If the site of the wound is not amputated in advance by the hand of a craftsman, then all the limbs will be infected and it will bring about death. I believe that your clemency, oh most consecrated leader, has wanted to imitate the soundness of this admirable remedy. For since you fear that the peoples entrusted to you by God are being infected by a lethal demise, you devise a useful sort of advance amputation, by which those who are to be saved can, through healing zeal, avoid the deadly corrupted matter of useless limbs and the incurable skin containing purulent filth. For this reason, you order me to provide care for the still healthy limbs, lest they should ever fall away because of illnesses that may come upon them, and so that the error should be amputated before a cause of risk should be generated. Thus, so long as one prudently shows concern for one’s health, the approach of illness that is to be avoided should be usefully thwarted.

And so one must deal with these limbs’ putridness that is to be avoided. By this I mean the tongues of the Jews, who think that Christ- the Son of God promised by their law- has still not been born, and await another that is to come in future, while engaging in silly talk with their pestilential objections, in that they count the number of years from the beginning of the world in accordance with their Hebrew codices, and thus suggest that we are still in the fifth age of the world and that Christ has not yet come, whereas they believe he will arrive in the sixth age. It is as though they have read somewhere in their holy literature that this has been commanded, that they should count a predetermined number of years from the beginning of the world so that the time of his sacred birth could be ascertained.

The august head and serene mind of your Highness command me to respond to this (I say) detestable error of impiety and very manifest blindness, covering the matter rather briefly in this little book. Since I am not unaware of my own weakness, I would decline this heavy burden imposed on me by you, were I not taking a precaution against the perdition of souls being prepared by my silence, particularly since not wanting to assert the faith and denying it are one and the same thing. For when there is some discussion about or against God, it is dangerous for the pastor to remain silent, disgraceful for him to flee, and deadly for him to be overcome. Speaking through His prophet, the Lord issues this reminder, rebuking the cowardly negligence of the pastors: “You have not come up to the face the enemy, nor have you placed a wall for the house of Israel so that you should stand in battle on the day of the Lord.”[iii] Thus, speaking through the same prophet, the Lord asserts that that from the hand of the observer, He requires the blood of the souls that perish.[iv] I fear such a severe pronouncement, act on the religious orders of your glorious majesty and have been assigned to the duties entailed by my rank. I also render the honour of obedience that is befitting your Highness, and due servitude to God. In light of all this, I have completed the task entrusted to me, and even if I have done so in a manner less informed than I should have been, I have nonetheless done it as far as I could in an obedient manner. In three books, I strove to finish this very simple little work entailing our response.

I have stuck to this order of reasoning, whereby in the first book of this work, people should be convinced by the manifest and evident signs of the Old Testament, by which it should be made plain clear without any counting of years that Christ the Son of God is not to be born but was born some time ago. Then, going through the second book, care has been taken to establish through the revealed teaching of the apostles that the revealed fullness of time, in which Christ appeared born in the flesh, was not shown to the Lord’s disciples and the other believers in the years counted from the beginning of the word, but rather was illustrated by the testimonies of the law and the prophets. This is particularly relevant because the Jews themselves at that time did not think that Christ was Christ, but rather disputed with Christ as to whether he was Christ, and they never put this objection about years to our Christ- the objection that is now put forth by their petulant and crude depth of ignorance. Reading through the third book, one should be convinced that the sixth age is here. Here also, the past five ages of the world are shown as needing to be distinguished not in years, but in a prefixed limit of generations, and at the same time it is also necessarily outlined that in terms of the variance of years that is found between the Hebrew codices and our codices, it is not the books of Hebraic translation that are to be followed, but rather the codices of the 70 translators, for the 70 translators’ authority has led to their being trusted by very many.

Indeed, the third book not only rather lucidly reveals the distinctions of the six ages, but also shows that Christ was born in the sixth age, and very plainly reveals why Christ wanted to be born in the sixth age, and dismantles every sort of questioning regarding the reckoning of the years. I say that we took the distinction to divide this work into three complete books regarding this issue, because it seemed to sufficiently better that one should not have a discussion with such people regarding this issue of the years before their falsehood should be exposed through the true divine signs and the evidence of the prophets, with the dogmas of the New Testament added to these signs and evidence, and thus only after doing these things should one freely proceed to establish the sixth age.  Thus, in the third book of this work there is the response to this issue of objection regarding the years, so that the reluctant mind should already be broken by the two prior books. Indeed, it is worthy that the mouths of such people, dirtied with ancient carnal sin, should first be restrained by the missile weapon of the Old Testament, and then struck with the strong and new dagger of the Gospel, and thus they should approach the book of the third disputation, in which they may also recognise the sixth age of the world, and understand that Christ was born in that age. Hence it is completely useless to read one of these books and pass over the other: otherwise, the one who is suppressed by reading the three books will not imbibe the doctrine in its full solidity. Since the Jews’ hostile wickedness raises an issue regarding the differing number of years between our codices and theirs, we on the contrary prepare our own objection regarding the outline of the generations that is one and the same among our codices and theirs, so that once they have shown the shortcoming of the years to distinguish the ages, we can show the fullness of the generations and thus dispose of their superfluous questioning about the years. For what could years accomplish if the generations were to be invalid? Thus, the truth about Christ’s birth must be sought out in the generations of the ages. This truth is demonstrated through the law and known through the Gospel.

So now, oh most mild leader, I beseech you to grant me mercy in your compassion because of these words I have spoken in a rather inelegant way and perhaps because I have stretched out the substance of my diction a little more than was necessary on account of the vice of my loquacity. For your glorious persona has imposed on me this necessity of responding to the Jews. Therefore, your Highness, you who have shown yourself a patron of Christ’s cause, may you believe that you are to be saved in every way when you come to judgement. For then there will be regard for your work, when the day of judgement manifestly shines forth. If only, most pious leader, you could both valiantly force the necks of Christ’s enemies to submit to the yoke of servitude to the Lord, and you could powerfully raise the banners of the Christian faith.

Here begins the first book

1. Leaving aside the nascent church’s faith that had to be strengthened by suitable witnesses, I will start this labour from the patriarchs and the prophets, and I will strive, as far as I can with God’s help, to respond to the mad barkings of the Jews, who, possessed by the blind night of infidelity, not only fall into the abyss of detestable perfidy but also compel some of the faithful to stumble regarding a number, since the Jews dare to argue that Christ the Son of God has not yet come into the world to save men, but also that he is still to come, and they engage in this disputation through cancerous discourse and some reckless calculation of years. For they say that the fifth age of the world is still playing out, and that the cycle of the sixth age has not yet come, with this cycle being the one in which Christ who is to come should be born (so they say). So on the basis of this very vain opinion, they dare to explore the issue of whether Christ came, reckoning the number of years from the beginning of the world in accordance with their codices. Through their blind faith, everything has been taken away from them.

2. What, I ask, will we say in response to such people, or how will we raise our arms against these defenceless people? Paul, I believe, pronounced that disputes of this sort should be avoided, when he instructed his disciple Timothy. “Avoid,” he said, “stupid issues without discipline: for they will often give rise to impiety, and their discourse creeps like a snake.”[v] Indeed, this issue is very stupid, for it does not come from the arcane matter of the law. Therefore, they are to be judged weak and defenceless in this sense, because they do not take up their arms from the scriptures, but rather they put forth these propositions from the cave of their malice. Indeed, the mouths of such people have been armed not with the sword of faith but the sword of perfidy, and not with prophetic testimony but deceitful obstinacy. So, in all respects they are to be pronounced weak, because they put forth these objections of theirs even as they have not been protected with any arms of the scriptures. Nonetheless, if they alone perished, we would perhaps be deemed liable because of our silence. Why is it that this sort of perniciousness also infects the faithful? Despite the fact that we are unworthy, we are nonetheless ministers of God’s Word and have received a dispensation to preach. And so, we must strive, so that the rock of truth emitted through our mouth should smash the teeth of such people, lest those who sincerely profess Christ but still cannot avoid Satan’s cunning traps should grow soft in their belief in the truth of the faith because of our silence. As such, even if the Jew cannot be corrected, the Christian should at least benefit.

3. So hear, oh workers of impiety, oh wicked sons: you are striving to fight not me, but Christ himself. So hear his response to your forefathers. For in the Gospel, he said this when the Jews tempted him: “You err in your lack of knowledge of the Scriptures and God’s power.”[vi] Indeed, according to Paul, Christ is the power and wisdom of God.[vii] So ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ. Is it any wonder that error should possess your hearts when he chides you for ignorance of the Scriptures? So scrutinise the hidden fields of the Scriptures, and then you will understand that your eyes are blind. Now I will speak without the pre-judgement of the Christian faith. Is there any place in the law or the prophets where it was predicted that Christ would be born in the sixth millennium? Or is it claimed anywhere that a counting of the years from the beginning of the world must be observed with regards to this human birth of his? Although by God’s help (that He may provide help in subsequent matters) all things have been clearly been computated by us, the law and prophets will both show the sixth age of the world and testify that Christ was born from a virgin in the sixth age. Indeed, it is my burden to prove what I say, and your born to respond.

4. Where have you read these things you maliciously contrive? Or perhaps you say this on the basis of the opinion that is written in the psalm, where it says: “For 1000 years are like one day in Your eyes,”[viii] so that just as the world is written to have been created by God in six days, so also the six ages are to be divided into 6000 years? Perish the thought. Indeed we say without erring that the six ages of the world are to be divided like those six days. But we do not say that the six ages are to be divided into 6000 years, that is, that each age should be delineated with 1000 years. But is there anything mentioned in this prophetic testimony regarding the distinction of the ages, or is anything said about Christ’s birth? Indeed it has been said: “1000 years are like one day in Your eyes,” because “any long period of time may be chosen for this life,”[ix] and one may live for any long period of times, but in the eyes of Him who does not die, 1000 years are thought to be like one passing day, and thus are not considered to be of any importance. Yes, some believe that on this basis and in accordance with the number of six days, 6000 years are meant. Nonetheless, if this were so or if each age had been determined to be 1000 years, the disciples would not then have asked the Lord about the end of the world. That is, if they had known how to be able to reckon the end of the world through some reckoning of years and on this basis could have known the end of the world by counting the years from the beginning of the world, they would not have tried to ascertain this matter from the Lord in any way: for they would have known the end of the world for certain through the proof of the ages that had already passed, in that each age would go through a cycle of 1000 years. Describing this issue, the blessed Augustine said[x]: “Men have dared to presume knowledge of eras of time, when the Lord said to his disciples who wanted to know: ‘It is not for you to know the eras of time that the Father has set by His authority.’[xi] They have determined that this world could be brought to an end in 6000 years: in six days, as it were. They have not paid attention to what has been said: ‘Like one day that has passed.’[xii] When this was said, it did not mean that only 1000 years had passed.”

5. Through such reasoning, I have exposed the emptiness of the objection of this aforementioned opinion, so what pre-judgement, I ask, does the mention of this testimony bring upon the sacrament of the Lord’s birth when it is said: “1000 years are like one day in Your eyes”? Are the 1000 years mentioned here meant to be understood as meaning that we are compelled to recognise something in them with regards to the time of Christ’s birth? Never and nowhere will anyone find it insinuated in the divine canon of books that the time of Christ’s birth depends on applying a computation of the years from the establishment of the world. True, we read the following in Daniel: the angel said that after the passing of 70 weeks, Christ would be born and would die on the basis of a set count of years.[xiii] But the angel who wished to reckon the time to come until Christ on the basis of counting years did not care to pay attention to the total number of years that had passed since the beginning of the world. Indeed, either the angel did not consider that these past years were necessary for the Lord’s birth, or if he believed them to be necessary, he passed over them in much more necessary silence.

Therefore the prophet Daniel understood the number of years through divine revelation, and so he not only wrote that Christ would come (something the other prophets also predicted), but also he revealed when Christ would come, and he listed the kings in order and showed the years in numerical form and preached about the other rather clear signs. Given this, he did not want to count the years from the beginning of the world until Christ’s advent. He had not read in the divine literature that those years should be observed for this sort of question, nor did he know of a requirement to observe them among the examples of the forefathers. So he taught of the future cycles of years regarding Christ: cycles which he indeed understood more deeply than others. For thus he says: “Very many will pass over, and there will be much knowledge.”[xiv] So there was much knowledge in this man. For he kept to the apostolic rules in some way, forgot things that go backwards, but at the same time followed those precepts that came before him. And so in recognising the birth of Christ the Son of God, he did not pay attention to calculations of the number of years that had passed, but very openly made clear the reckonings of the years to come. So through this prophetic reckoning, out faith is added and your perfidy is destroyed. When this reckoning is put in its own place, it will either illustrate the wholesale darkness of your error so that you should come to life, or it will confound it so that you should depart to hell.

6. Now therefore, lest your error should infect the Christian soldiery in any way (may that not happen!), it is suitable for all to know this first: that there has been no such preaching in the law or prophets whereby the advent of the Lord’s incarnation is to be known from the number of years counted since the beginning of the world. Although there are very places (whether in the law or in the prophets) where it is preached that Christ will be born, it is always in the last days that the presence of his first advent is promised: among us, this is taken to mean the sixth age of the world. These six ages are not reckoned through an equal counting of years, but rather are to be recognised according to the arranged order of generations: like the three ages that we find counted in the Gospel of Matthew.[xv] We recognise these ages as determined not by the course of years but rather the enumeration of the generations. In the third book of this work, the distinction of each of these ages will be broken down and shown and will also be recognised as brought to completion with its lines of separation between the ages. So per the law and the prophets, it is not the number of years counted from the beginning of the world that promise that Christ will be born, but rather more evident testimonies portend that this thing will happen- and it is commemorated among us as having already happened.

So let us leave these countings for a little, since the patriarchs and the prophets did not make use of them to recognise Christ’s birth, and let us only use the testimonies, by which those things that are still believed by you to be future events may be shown to have already happened, in the sense that they were already entirely fulfilled in the time of Christ’s first arrival, and so they are not to be awaited now, since they have in fact already passed. Now it is not necessary for me to count the supporting testimonies regarding Christ’s birth, death and resurrection, for this undertaking has been abundantly and sufficiently carried out by many. But rather it is only necessary to excerpt them, and prepare these very small excerpts with many rhetorical ornaments, so that they can show with manifest evidence that Christ the Son of God has already come in the flesh.

7. So first I will look into the signs of the times of Christ’s birth, and in proper order I will examine whether these signs were as peaceful as predicted by the prophets. For regarding the days of Christ’s birth, the prophet David thus says: “In his days, justice and an abundance of peace will arise.”[xvi] Micah also similarly insinuates that there will be peace associated with his name and the time of his birth, when he says: “And you Bethlehem of Ephraim, surely you are very small among the thousands of Judah? From you there will come out for me the one who will be ruler in Israel, and his coming out will be from the beginning, from the days of eternity. Because of this, he will give them up until the time in which the woman will give birth. The remaining siblings of the ruler-to-be will be converted into to the sons of Israel, and he will stand and feed his flock on the Lord’s strength, in the sublimity of the name of his God. And he will be turned, because then he will be magnified to the ends of the earth and this man will be peace.”[xvii]

Behold, the peace of his name was proclaimed. And the peace of the time of his birth is proclaimed. Indeed, a little earlier, the same prophet expounds in an evident way how peaceful those same times were, as he predicted that all wars would cease at the time when Christ was supposed to be born. For Micah says: “In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s home will be prepared on the peak of the mountains and will be elevated above the hills, and all the peoples will flow to the mountain and many peoples will hasten and say: ‘Come, let us ascend to the Lord’s mountain and to the home of Jacob’s God, and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in his ways, for the law will come out of Zion and the word of God will come out of Jerusalem.’ And He will judge among many peoples and will rebuke the strong peoples who are far away, and they will dismember their swords and their spears, converting them into ploughshares and mattocks respectively. No people will take up arms against another people, nor will they learn how to wage war anymore.”[xviii] Isaiah also insinuates those same signs regarding the time of Christ’s birth and says: “In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s home will be prepared on the peak of the mountains and will be elevated above the hills, and all the peoples will flow to him and many peoples will go and say: ‘Come, and let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord and to the home of Jacob’s God, and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His ways, for the law will come out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’ And He will judge the peoples, and will censure many peoples who are far away, and they will smelt their swords and lances, turning them into ploughshares and sickles respectively. No people will raise the sword against another people, and they will no longer be engaged in battle.”[xix]

8. Do you now see the oracles of these three prophets are in concordance on everything, as though they were brought forth from the mouth of one man? For no peace is felt so long as wars are waged. So when wars are taken away, what remains except an abundance of peace? Therefore, David says this: “In his days, justice and an abundance of peace will arise.” Isaiah and Micah said this regarding the cessation of wars in Christ’s days: “No people will raise the sword against another people.” So once the wars cease in the entire world, Christ- our peace arises. So that you can truly recognise, scrutinise, if you please, the old courses of the histories of individual peoples, and you will find that until the 28th year of Caesar Augustus (Christ was born in Judaea in the 41st year of his reign), there was discord in the entire world and each nation burned with zeal to wage war against its neighbouring peoples, such that they were slaughtering people and were themselves being slaughtered. Our Lord Saviour arose at the time when the first census took place in the world while Quirinius was governor of Syria[xx]: at that time, the peace imposed by the Roman Empire had been prepared for the teaching of the Gospel, and all wars ceased and in no way were there provocations to battles throughout the towns and villages, but rather to cultivate the fields, while the pursuit of waging war was only delegated to the Roman soldiers and legions for the purpose of fighting against the barbarian nations. Thus, the angels’ song in harmony was fulfilled: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on Earth to men of good will.”[xxi] For thus in Christ’s days did justice and much peace arise. Behold, just as the signs of the times of Christ’s birth were predicted by the prophets to have been peaceful, so also those peaceful times are recognised by us as having already passed. For they were fulfilled and it is not to be believed that any future times will be peaceful, since this world is rather brought to an end consisting of wars rather than peace, as the Lord said the following in response to the disciples when they asked him about the sign of the end of the world: “One people will arise against another people, and one kingdom against another kingdom,” etc.[xxii]

9. Now we have gone over the signs of those peaceful times, let us now talk again about the last days, in which the advent of the Lord our Saviour was predicted to occur. Behold, the peaceful times of Christ’s birth were predicted by the two prophets Micah and Isaiah, but both of them said that these times would be in the last days. Why, I say, do they predict that the signs of the time of Christ’s first arrival will occur in the last days, and yet they did not contrive to reveal the secret of such a great matter in reckoning the number of years since the beginning of the world, unless (as I think to be the case despite my shallow sense) it seemed better to them that the last days should be understood as referring to the fall of the Israelite kingdom when the leader and prince of the line of Judah fell away, rather than being determined by speculation about years? For if (for the sake of argument) they had said that there will be so many years from the beginning of the world till the advent of Christ, it would not be sufficient for something to be deemed the last there, since many years would still remain until the end of the world. But since they have said that those things that they had predicted about Christ would be fulfilled in the last days, they understood those last days (I believe), which were deemed the last in referring to the kingdom of Israel as the leaders of the line of Judah fell away, when Herod became the first foreigner to succeed in rule among the Israelite people. It is in Herod’s time that Christ is known to have been born in Judaea.

10. Although these so-called last days are understand as the sixth age, which is the last age for every man, these days should nonetheless be understood as the last ones but also the peaceful ones in which Christ should have been born and which were predicted by Micah and declared by Isaiah, so that those days should not be expected in the future as per your error. Thus the patriarch Jacob revealed the sign of those same days, when he summoned his sons, similarly called those days the last ones and said: “Gather, that I may announce what is to come for you in the last days. Gather and hear, oh sons of Jacob, hear your father Israel.”[xxiii] Here he also said to Judah, from whose seed Christ arose: “A prince will not fall away from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until there should come the one for whom rule has been reserved, and he will be the expectation of the peoples.”[xxiv] Behold, it is clear, behold it is evident, that days already past and not those still to come are to be understood as those last days, when it is expressed in such a way that it is said: “A prince will not fall away from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until there should come the one for whom rule has been reserved.” Behold, a manifest sign of the last days, in which, since the princes and leaders from the line of Judah fell away, the foreigner King Herod succeeded in rule. In his time, Christ was born in Judaea. These three men, I say, were full of divine spirit, and thus predicted the last days as though they spoke with one mouth. For they discerned that in those days, this great sacrament would be fulfilled in spirit.

11. Behold, we showed two signs, in which we showed that both the peaceful times and the last days occurred in the time of Christ’s birth, as though we said that peace arose in the last days. Now in third place it follows that we should speak about the testimony of the precursor, in whom the heralding voice revealed the advent of the judge. For Malachi, virtually the last prophet of the Israelite people, not only clearly predicted the sign of Christ’s birth but also his precursor. For he says: “Behold, I will send My angel, and he will discern the path before you, and suddenly the Lord whom you seek and the angel whom you desire will come into the temple.”[xxv] Whereas you accept this testimony as something said about Elijah, we believe it was a prophecy about John, for Christ our Lord and master says and interprets this very matter, when he wanted this to be understood about John and said: “This is the man about whom it has been written: behold, I will send My angel before you.”[xxvi] For John preceded the advent of Christ’s birth by six months, and with his finger he pointed out the Lord who had taken the form of flesh, saying: “Behold the lamb of God, behold, He who takes away the sin of the world.”[xxvii] Indeed, the precursor bore witness to his Lord, and his voice to the Word: but bearing his testimony in water, he taught that the presence of the Saviour was manifest in flesh. Indeed, Iras the Adullamite embodied the figure of the precursor. We read in Genesis that Iras came with Judah to Thamnas in order to shear sheep. Judas signifies Christ here, for we believe that Christ’s flesh came from the line of Judah. As for the pastor called Iras the Adullamite, he indicates John, “for Adullam translates as ‘testimony in water.’ Plainly, the Lord came with this testimony, bearing a testimony greater than John, but nonetheless because of the weak sheep he made use of this testimony in water. For Iras, which was the pastor’s name, is translated as “the vision of my brother.” Indeed, John entirely saw his brother: that is, his brother Christ, in terms of Abraham’s seed. Whereas John greeted him from the womb,[xxviii] John recognised him more completely from the dove, and thus, like the Adullamite, he bore witness in the water.”[xxix]

12. Behold, we have said that Christ was signified at that time through the person of Judah, and that the person of John was signified through Iras the Adullamite. The signification of these two persons was also made clear in a prophecy of the prophet Malachi, when he declares that it was a prophecy about Christ and John. He says: “Behold, I will send My angel, and he will discern the path before you, and suddenly the Lord whom you seek and the angel of testament whom you desire will come into the temple.” Now consider here, if you can, how he can be said to suddenly come into the temple, if his advent is reckoned through counting a set number of years from the beginnings of the world. For in this case, he does not suddenly come, because he arrives after a set number of years. Since you think that this testimony was said regarding the prophet Elijah, and since you take the following words (“The ruler whom you seek will come to his temple”)[xxx] as referring to your Christ, whom you think will come at the end of time, I indeed wonder how what has actually happened does not inform you of the truth. For into what sort of temple of his will the ruler come, for the temple has been utterly destroyed? Or if a temple must be built by someone else before Christ can arrive, what else is your Christ going to do, if everything is restored by someone else?

For if, as you wish, you accept Elijah in this place where you hear only an angel being mentioned, why does the same prophet not express the name of the angel and why does he hide the name of Elijah in the place where he foretells of the time of the first advent of Christ? There was no reason why he who explicitly mentioned Elijah’s name at the end of his prophecy with regards to the end of the world should not be mentioned where he only named the angel. For this prophet said the following when he predicted that Elijah would come before the end of the world: “Behold, I will send you the prophet Eljah of Thesbite before the great and terrifying day of the Lord should come, so that he will turn the hearts of fathers to their sons and the hearts of the sons to their fathers.”[xxxi] Indeed, before the arrival of the judgement, the Lord will send Elijah to convert the heart of sons to the heart of the patriarchs and prophets, so that their posterity may believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom the patriarchs and prophets expected in their prophecies. For if the Jews rightly believe up to this point, why does the prophet testify that they will be eventually converted by Elias? For they cannot now understand the Saviour whom they hear of, except at the end of the world, when the ages will be brought to completion.

Indeed, the Lord makes this pronouncement through His prophet Isaiah, saying: “Hear, hearers, and do not understand, and see a vision, and do not realise. Blind the heart of this people and weigh down their ears and eyes, lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart and be converted, and lest I should heal them. The prophet said: Until when, Lord? The Lord said: until their cities become devoid of inhabitants, and their homes without people, and the land will be left deserted, and the Lord will remove men to a place far away. Then the land will be converted and will be on display like a terebinth and like an oak that spreads its branches. What will stand in the land will be a holy land.”[xxxii] So now realise that this time of your blindness lasts till the end of the world. In this time, you do not recognise the Saviour. Unless you believe in Christ before the advent of Elijah, you will all perish in this blindness before Elijah should come. If by chance some of your seed are to be saved when Elijah comes, you nonetheless, who presently exist before his advent, will be confounded with the due grief of death and you will perish in the perpetual punishment of torments after death.

13. Here follows the fourth and very true indication of Christ’s birth, by which the calling of the Gentiles is commended. Through this calling, Christ who was once born is approved, such that he is commended as being the expectation of the peoples. For after Christ’s birth, the first fruits of the Gentiles were immediately consecrated for the Lord. This is declared in a sufficient clear way in the mystical gifts of the Magi who came from the East.[xxxiii] Indeed, this had been prophesied as follows: “The kings of Tharsis and the islands offer gifts. The kings of the Arabs and Sheba will bring gifts. All the kings of the earth will adore him: all the Gentiles will serve him. All the tribes of the Earth will be blessed in him, all the Gentiles will magnify him.”[xxxiv] Since you see that this has already been fulfilled in our Christ, it will not perhaps be necessary for very many testimonies of this to be forth for you. For Christ who was once born, received the peoples as a possession from God the Father. David long ago predicted this, when he spoke in the persona of the same Christ: “The Lord said to me: you are My son, today I have begotten You. Seek from Me and I will give you the Gentiles as your inheritance and the ends of the Earth as your possession.”[xxxv] Isaiah thus declares this very manifest sign of the Gentiles who will believe. He says: “This man will scatter many peoples and the kings will hold back their mouth against him.”[xxxvi] Also speaking about Christ, he says the same thing: “Behold, I have given him as a witness of the people, a leader and commander for the Gentiles.”[xxxvii] The same prophet continues and says: “The Lord has prepared His holy arm in the eyes of all the Gentiles and all ends of the Earth have seen the salvation of our God.” [xxxviii]

So if Christ has still not come, as you say, how do you already see him revealed in the sight of the Gentiles? For David also says: “God has made His salvation known. He has revealed His justice before the sight of the Gentiles.”[xxxix] You should know that the very thing that was prophesied through prophetic oracle has already been fulfilled in the fact that there is one gathering in Christ for all the Gentiles. He said: “In gathering the peoples and kingdoms as one so that they should serve the Lord.”[xl] So how do all the kings and peoples of the Earth obey him, if his birth has not preceded, and if this glorious birth of his has not provided them a reason to believe? For it has been written: “He will rise up to rule the Gentiles. The Gentiles will have hope in him.”[xli] So he previously arose in the world by being born and appearing, and thus the Gentiles began to have hope in him. The same prophet continues to declare this matter. He said: “The root of Jesse, who stands as a sign of the peoples: the Gentiles will implore him, and his tomb will be glorious.”[xlii] Behold, his tomb is already considered glorious, and his birth is not believed.

14. Then follows the fifth sign that is manifest in all regards. Through this sign, his rule is now extended over the entire world. For thus it had been prophesied through David: “He will rule from sea to sea and from the rivers to the ends of the Earth.”[xliii] This testimony is shown not to match any kingdom among the Israelite people: for it has been noted by what boundaries that kingdom was delineated. But we see that this was fulfilled in Christ: from East to West, his great named is adored by the Gentiles, since the cult of his adoration is now extended not only into Judaea but also into the entire world.[xliv] Indeed, the prophet Zephaniah had predicted this, when he foresaw this era of the Christian religion in spirit and said: “Each man, based in his own land, will adore him: that is, all the islands of the Gentiles will adore him.”[xlv] A little later: “I will bring across the ability to speak and progeny to the peoples, so that all may invoke the name of the Lord and serve him under one yoke.”[xlvi] But here, perhaps someone appears to contradict in an impudent way and say that not all the peoples have come to believe in Christ yet. One may easily respond to such a person: for even if there are still disbelieving peoples in some places, nonetheless they do not at all escape Christ’s dominion in this, for they are suppressed by such leaders, in whose hearts Christ is already known to dwell via their faith in him. For I do not think there has remained any people that is ignorant of Christ’s name. Although a people may not have experienced the preaching, nonetheless they cannot ignore the opinion of faith from their neighbouring nations. So with this reasoning rendered, I ask that you respond: in what corner of the Earth will he whom you still expect be born? How will he be able to rule, when our Christ has already filled the entire world with his domination, such that even the demons that appear to lack a bodily presence have become subject to him? I say: if you still believe Christ has not been born, consider from the following four other signs: that is, the confoundment of fear of you, the punishment that befell you after Christ’s death and resurrection, the loss of your realm and priesthood, and the rejection of your sacrifice.

15. Concerning your confoundment, by which you were able to be confounded after Christ’s death and resurrection, the prophet Isaiah predicted thus: “Jacob will not be confounded, nor will his face blush, until he sees his sons, the works of My hands, sanctifying My name in their midst.”[xlvii] Behold the time, take note of the mystery, in which Jacob is now confounded, whereas previously he was not confounded. Now, the days after Christ’s arrival pass by, in which your forefathers were afflicted with grave confoundment, when they saw their sons (that is, the apostles and apostolic men, who were of the Jewish race), working the Lord’s miracles in the midst of the nations, and preaching Christ’s name among the peoples. For confoundment of this credulity among the Gentiles did not befall Israel before Christ’s arrival, but rather after Christ appeared in the flesh and the multitude of the Gentiles came to believe in the Son of God thanks to the preaching of the apostles, Israel was then dumbstruck as it was confounded and blinded. If only this confoundment were a reason for your salvation rather than your grief with which you ragefully lament within yourselves, for thus do you see Christ’s kingdom being expanded.

16. Now it remains for us to speak about the punishment that befell you after Christ’s death and resurrection because you nailed him to the woodwork of the Cross. For thus does the Lord proclaim through the prophet Hosea: “Woe to them, for they have receded from Me. They will be subject to devastation, for they transgressed against Me. I redeemed them and they spoke falsehood against Me.”[xlviii] The followed is added shortly after this: “My God has cast them away, because they did not listen to Him: and they will wander among the nations.”[xlix] Indeed, Isaiah clearly says this as well. For after he had spoken about Christ (“He was led to the killing like sheep”),[l] he immediately added: “Because of My people’s crime, I struck him, and I will give the impious for his burial and the rich for his death.”[li] Jeremiah also says: “Ascend his walls and destroy him: take away his offspring, for they are not of the Lord. Judah has committed transgression in the midst of His house. The Lord says: they have denied Me and said: it is not He.”[lii] Behold, see how long ago the the blasphemy of your mouth was predicted. For you engage in this argument whereby you say that Christ has still not yet come, while waiting for another: namely, the Antichrist. The psalmist, speaking from Christ’s persona, also says this, saying: “Lord, have mercy on Me and revive Me, that I may render unto them.”[liii] Who is now to deny this, when that person sees that after Christ’s death and resurrection, the Jews were utterly eradicated from their abodes through the calamity and disaster of war? Though Christ was killed by them, he gloriously rose again, and in the meantime rendered temporal discipline unto them.

17. After this, it follows that we should speak about the kingdom, priesthood and sacrifice of the Jews, which clearly fell away when the Holy of Holies- our Christ-appeared in the world. Although these matters were expressed Daniel’s prophecy with evident indications that will have to be dealt with in their proper place, nonetheless what is happening now should not be passed over. So now we should pass over to the manifestation of the times, whereby the sacrifice carried out by Aaron’s order had to fall away, and the sacrifice of Christ carried out by Melchisedech’s order should begin to be celebrated.[liv] For regarding those days (namely, the loss of the kingdom and priesthood of the Jews), thus does the prophet Hosea preach: “For many days the Sons of Israel will sit without a king without a leader, without sacrifice, without an altar, without a priesthood, without manifestations.”[lv] Who could not see that, all this has already been fulfilled in reality among you, just as predicted by the prophet?  One also reads that this was manifestly prophesied in the Book of Kings. For thus it has been written: “The man of God came to Eli and said to him: ‘Behold, the days will come and I will wipe out your seed and the seed of the house of your father, and you will have no elder in My house for all the days, and I will extirpate any man of yours from My altar, so that his eyes should fail and his soul should fail.”[lvi] Behold, the days that were announced in advance have already come, and there is no priest from Aaron’s order, and when any man from Aaron’s line sees that the Christians’ sacrifice flourishes in the entire world and that the great honour has been taken away from him, his eyes fail because of the weariness of grief and the crushing pressure of bitterness.[lvii]

With regards to the rejection of your sacrifice, Malachi also shows a clear sign of the Christian faith and the rejection of you, and thus says: “I have no will among you, says the Lord of Hosts: and I will not accept a gift from your hand. From East to West, My name is great among the Gentiles and in every place there is sacrifice, and a pure offering is offered to My name, for My name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord.”[lviii] So already it is evident that your sacrifice was rejected from the time when Christ’s name began to be great among the Gentiles. Even if you pass over all these things with deaf ears and minds, these realities are here and now. They are heaped upon your eyes even as you are willing. Together they inform you and prove that you should believe that what you seem to wait for in the future has already come to pass.

18. Now there remain the mystical signs of the patriarchs brought forth for the blessings of their suns and the final prophecy of Daniel that was concluded regarding the defined end of the weeks. These things insinuate that Christ’s birth has already happened, such that human astuteness cannot contradict them in any regard. Now if we look for the flesh of Christ in the seed of Abraham, let us find the mystical blessings upon Abraham’s seed. For Abraham’s son Isaac blessed his son Jacob, and said: “‘May the Lord give you an abundance of grain and win from the dew of the sky and the fat of the land, and let the Gentiles serve you, the leaders adore you, and you will become your brother’s master and your father’s children will adore you.’[lix] This blessing of Jacob is the preaching of Christ among all the Gentiles. This happens, and this is being done. For the Gentiles serve Christ, and the kings adore him. Indeed, the sons of his father adore him: that is, the children of Abraham in terms of descent by faith, for Christ is also Abraham’s son in flesh.”[lx] Behold, Jacob who was blessed with this mystical blessing of his father also blessed his son Judah born to him. Christ descended from Judah’s tribe in terms of flesh, via the seed of David: “Judah, your brothers will praise you: your hands will be over your enemies’ backs. Your father’s children will adore you. Judah, the whelp of a lion, my son born to me, you have ascended while lying on your back, you have slept like a lion and like the whelp of a lion. Who will raise him? A prince of Judah and a leader from his loins will not fall away, until there should come the one who is to be sent, and he himself will be the expectation of the peoples, tying his foal to his vineyard and his ass’s foal with a sack-cloth: he will wash his tunic in wine and his mantle in the blood of a grape.”[lxi]

Judge and notice all these things: “if they have not already been fulfilled with the most evident light in Christ; if Christ’s apostle brothers and all his co-heirs do not praise him, not seeking their own glory, but his glory; if Christ’s hands are not over the backs of his enemies; if those who still oppose Christ are not crushed and made to bend to the earth as the Christian peoples grow in size (something that is still happening until now); if the remaining sons of Jacob who were saved by the election of grace have not adored him; if he is not the whelp of the lion, for he was created small when he was born; if he did not ascend the Cross lying on his back, when he bowed his head and gave up his spirit[lxii]; if he did not sleep like a lion, for in death he was not overcome but rather he overcame; if he was not raised from the dead by the One whom no man has seen or can see.[lxiii] For in that which was said (Who will raise him?) the signification of a seemingly unknown entity has been sufficiently expressed.”[lxiv]

19. If you were to say that all these things will still happen in future times and have not yet happened, see how the following prophetic discourse does away with all this erroneous suspicion of yours and proves it to be mendacious. It is as follows: “A prince of Judah and a leader from his loins will not fall away, until there should come the one who is to be sent, and he himself will be the expectation of the Gentiles.” The prophetic discourse has given a special description regarding the time when all these things should be received. In spirit, the patriarch foresaw (I believe) these clouds of your error and your inept propositions, by which you can say (as you also say now) that we must still wait for the Christ, and that he who will be the expectation of the Gentiles has not yet been born. Thus he predicted something particular and evident regarding this time in which he should be born: that is, when a prince of Judah would be lacking, then the glorious birth of Christ would be recognised. For thus he says: with all this erroneous suspicion of yours and proves it to be mendacious: “A prince of Judah and a leader from his loins will not fall away, until there should come the one who is to be sent, and he himself will be the expectation of the Gentiles.” Behold, the expectation of the Gentiles- Christ- already came, when the leader and prince of Judah fell away. So review your trustworthy histories, and you will establish that never did the Israelite people every lack a leader or prince of Judah, until it came to the reign of the foreign King Herod, during whose time Christ was born from the Virgin.[lxv]

20. But lest I should perhaps be following up on these things in a fabricated way and not with veracity, I will also outlined the leaders and princes in order, so that it should become plainly clear whether the succession of Judah’s generation ever fell away from his loins or went astray at some point in the line of Judah’s princes, before the time of the Lord’s birth arrived. So that I should skip over things of the past, I will only begin to reckon them from the time of Cyrus’ reign, when the people returned to Judaea and began to build the temple, until the birth of Christ. Eusebius wrote that these men were in charge of the people, in the following order: “The first person who was in charge after Daniel’s prophecy and after the people returned from Babylon, was Jesus the son of Jesedech and Zorobabel the son of Salathiel. After them, Joachim the son of Jesus succeeded as high priest, and he was succeeded by Eli. Eli was also succeeded by Joiades. Then there was John, and after Jadus, and Aonias came after Jadus. Then the high priest Eleazar was in charge of the Jews. After Eleazar, another Aonias succeeded. Then came Simon, who was succeeded by Aonias in the high priesthood. Then came Judas Maccabee, who was succeeded by his brother Jonathan, after whom Simon- the brother of both of them- succeeded. Then came John, after whom there was Aristobulus. Alexander succeeded Aristobulus Alexander was both king and high priest. After Alexander, his wife Alexandra was in charge of the people, together with her sons Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. In this time, Herod- whose father was the Antipater the Ashkelonite and whose mother was Cypris the Arab- killed Hyrcanus and took control of the Jews’ kingdom via a senate decree, and he was the first foreigner to be in charge of the Jews.”[lxvi] In the time of Herod’s rule, Christ is known to have been born in Judaea, since his glorious birth was indicated to the Hebrews’ shepherds by the voice of an angel.

21. Behold, you know already that Jacob’s prophecy was fulfilled, and you cannot at all find a means to respond to such a great manifestation of matters. Or perhaps while you still endure with this “shamefully impudent obstinacy, you throw up an objection that your kinsfolk normally and lyingly put forth, claiming that there is still some king from the line of Judah today, who appears to wield rule in the furthest parts of the East? Blinded in their mind, they do not heed the fact that their pretentious mendacity is completely exposed, because just as there is no longer a temple, altar or sacrifice, so there is no longer a king or priest for the Jews. Indeed, the prophet Hosea cannot be lying when he says: ‘The Sons of Israel will sit without a king without a leader, without sacrifice, without an altar, without a priesthood, without manifestations.’ Who could not see that all this has now been fulfilled among you?”[lxvii] Now have a look at that place in the prophet Daniel that the Lord mentioned through His angel, saying: “When you see the abomination of devastation standing in the holy place; may he who reads this understand.”[lxviii] So if the number of weeks is to be investigated by counting the times, not only will Christ be found, but also the time in which he was supposed to suffer, although the issue is also made clear by manifest realities without counting the years.[lxix]

So that I should keep silent for now about the number of weeks, I will first prove the arrival of Christ’s birth through the developments of the kings in accordance with Daniel’s prophecy. For when he explained the dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had seen about the statue, Daniel thus said: “You are the golden head, oh king.” Through this head, the first kingdom (the Babylonian one) that was acquired with very precious gold is illustrated. “After this, another kingdom that is less than you will arise”- namely, the kingdom of the Medes and Persians- “that has the likeness of silver. There will be a third kingdom- the bronze one- that will rule over the whole Earth.” The bronze one signifies Alexander and the Macedonian kingdom and Alexander’s successors. The fourth kingdom, which clearly belongs to the Romans, is the iron one, which “diminishes and subdues everything,” but its feet and fingers are partly iron, “and partly fictile.” This is very manifestly proven in this time. For just as in the beginning there was nothing stronger and harder than the Roman Empire, so in the end there is nothing weaker, because in both the civil wars and the wars against various nations of other barbarian peoples, the empire seems to be in need of help.” See now how the prophet continues: “At the end of all these kingdoms” (of gold, silver, bronze and iron) “God will raise the kingdom of heaven, which will never be destroyed, and His kingdom will not be handed to another people. This kingdom will diminish and destroy all these kingdoms and will stand forever.”[lxx] This is Christ’s kingdom that was declared to the world in the time of the rule of the Emperor Octavian, and it will indeed last forever without end.

22. However, lest this should appear dubious to you, the counting through the 70 weeks is expressed in terms of the number of years. Now consider how the number in the years of the weeks (a number that Daniel understood as going up to the time of Christ) is not taken from the beginning of the world, but rather goes from his time until Christ’s birth. This would indeed be said in vain, if it had been previously predicted in the Scriptures (i.e. if the evident notion of Christ’s birth had been revealed by counting the years from the beginning of the world until the time of Christ). For what necessity would there be for Daniel’s prophecy to count the years and express the future times until Christ’s time, if an evident part of the Scripture revealed this matter through countings of the years from the beginning of the world? So tell me why the times prior to Daniel were not examined through calculations of the number of years in them, when the angel also predicted the future times and Daniel very evidently understood them? Now see and notice, because time regarding Christ’s birth that was revealed through very true signs and was predicted by the patriarch Jacob in terms of the successive leaders and princes from Judah’s loins, is the same one that the prophet Daniel establish through his very evident countings of the years. So where Jacob elaborated his prophecy regarding Christ, Daniel clarified both the prophecy and number of years. For the prophetic blessing of the patriarch Jacob concords so much with the counting of years in Daniel that they also have no disagreement with the histories of the Gentile peoples, such that the correspondence in ages between the patriarchs and kings of this world will become apparent to the one who diligently pays attention.

23. For it is evident that Abraham was born in the time of Ninus. It is demonstrated that Abraham was born when Ninus was ruling for the 43rd year among his own people. Similarly, Jacob is found to have existed in the times of Inachus, whom they say was the first to reign over the Argives. Aa for Moses, who is shown to have written down this prophecy in which he reports Jacob as having said: “A prince will not fall away from Judah”- one reads that he was coeval in all respects with Cecrops, who was the first king of the Athenians. Thus, one finds a concordance in the number of years between the codices of the 70 translators and the histories of the Gentile peoples. Since the 70 translators agree with the histories of the Gentile peoples in this regard, they show one and the same end-point of time, and they retain that boundary on the correct number of years up to the time of Herod’s reign. It is this boundary that Jacob signified with his prophecy, and Daniel expressed it through the mystery of the weeks that was revealed to him. So those years from the beginning of the world that you think should be noted from the Hebrew codices regarding Christ’s birth should be rejected and are unnecessary. For Jacob was silent about them, the angel did not predict them, and Daniel did not decide to count them. The only years to be counted are those that the angel taught under the prior statement of the 70 weeks. For thus does the angel say to Daniel: “Pay attention to the discourse and understand the vision. 70 weeks have been recorded for your people and your holy city, so that transgression should be brought to an end, sin should come to an end, iniquity should be destroyed, eternal justice should be brought about, the vision and prophecies should be fulfilled, and the Holy of Holies should be anointed.”[lxxi]

24. On the question of how the number of years of the 70 weeks seems to concord with the prophecy that was foretold by Jacob regarding Christ, Eusebius thus explains in his book of Chronicles, beginning to count the same weeks from the 65th Olympiad until the 186th Olympiad: i.e. from the restauration of the temple or the time of Darius’ reign until the death of Hyrcanus the high priest. During the latter period, the priesthood fell away from Judah’s lions, as the foreign King Herod succeeded. In the time of Herod’s reign, Christ was born in Judaea. Thus does the same historian continue after the years of the high priest Hyrcanus came to an end: “Herod - whose father was the Antipater the Ashkelonite and whose mother was Cypris the Arab- received leadership of the Jews from the Romans. In the time of his reign, when Christ’s birth was near, the kingdom and priesthood of the Jews, which were previously held through the successions of offspring, were destroyed, thereby fulfilling the prophecy that thus says per Moses: ‘A prince will not fall away from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until there should come the one for whom rule has been reserved, and he will be the hope of the peoples.’ In addition, in this place, Christ, whom the writing of Daniel foretells, received his own end. For until Herod, the Christs- that is the priests- were the kings of the Jews: they began to rule from the 65th Olympias and from the time of the restoration of temple during the reign of Darius, until Hyrcanus and the 186th Olympiad: a period of 483 years. Daniel also indicates these years, saying: ‘You will know and understand: from the beginning of the giving of the response and the building of Jerusalem until the leadership of Christ are seven weeks and 62 weeks.’ These 69 weeks make 483 years, in which the Christs- that is the priests consecrated by anointment- ruled until Hyrcanus. Once Hyrcanus- the last of all the priests- was captured by the Parthians, Antipater’s son Herod received Judaea from the Augustus and the Senate, even though Judaea did not belong to him in any way. His sons reigned after him until the last captivity of Jerusalem, and no priests were appointed in any way from the succession of the priestly line.”[lxxii]

25. I say, we have put forth these things here, so that we should prove that the prophecy of Jacob and the number of works in Daniel have agreed in all respects. For the patriarch Jacob signified the same end of the times up to Christ that Daniel’s prophecy expressed in counting the years. Let no one be troubled by the fact that the 70th week is not counted with these 69 weeks, since the truth of the predicted matter is shown to have been fulfilled within it. “Now one week is accepted as being seven years in the sacred literature, as the Lord says to Moses: ‘You will count seven weeks of years for yourself’- i.e. 7x7, which makes 49 years.”[lxxiii] Therefore the 70 weeks make 490 years: for 70x7 make 490 years. Some begin to count these 70 weeks from the 20th year of Artaxerxes’ reign, when it was the fourth year of the 83rd Olympiad. They extend the number of these aforementioned weeks until the 202nd Olympiad, the second year of the same Olympiad and the 18th year of Tiberius Caesar. For they wish both to show that Christ was born within this number of weeks, and establish that he died at the end of the 70th week, as reported by Africanus, the very noble chronicler.[lxxiv]

26. But others have explained that 62 and a half weeks had passed from the first year of Darius (when Daniel also saw this vision) until the advent of Christ, on the basis that these weeks are shown to have been thus subdivided in Daniel’s prophecy. As for the remaining seven and half weeks, they define these as having been brought to completion in the passion of Christ and the assault on the Jews where they were defeated by Vespasian. As I suppose, they follow a different order of kings and counting of years than held to by those whom we have previously mentioned.

This is the case with Tertullian, who premises his discourse as such in the book that he wrote against the Jews. His words are now to be briefly quoted here.[lxxv] For thus he says: “So from where have we shown that Christ came within the 62 weeks? Let us count from the first year of Darius, for in that time the vision is shown to Daniel. The angel says to him: ‘Understand and realise from the prophetic discourse that I am saying these things in response to you.’ So we should count from the first year of Darius, when Daniel saw this vision. So let us see how the years are completed until Christ’s advent: Darius reigned for 19 years; Artaxerxes for 40 years; Ochus (aka Cyrus) for 24 years; Argus for one year; another Darius (also called Melas) for 21 years; Alexander of Macedon for ten years. Alexander had ruled over the Medes and Persians whom he had conquered, and had established his realm in Alexandria when he also named the city after himself. After Alexander, Soter ruled there in Alexandria for 35 years. He was succeeded by Philadelphus, who reigned for 38 years. After Philadelphus, Esethehac ruled for 25 years. Then Philopator ruled for 17 years. After Philopator, Epiphanes ruled for 24 years. Then another Esethehac ruled for 27 years. Then Soter ruled for 38 years. The Ptolemy ruled for 37 years. Then Cleopatra ruled for 20 years and five months. Then Cleopatra co-ruled with Augustus for 13 years. After Cleopatra, Augustus ruled for another 43 years. For the total number of years of Augustus’ rule was 56 years. We see that in the 41st year of the rule of Augustus (who ruled after Cleopatra’s death), Christ was born. The same Augustus survived for 15 years after Christ was born. So the number of years up to the day of Christ’s birth (which was in the 41st year of Augustus’ reign and after Cleopatra’s death) was 437 years and five months. Thus, up to the day of Christ’s birth, 62 and a half weeks are filled, which make 437 years and six months. And ‘the eternal justice was made manifest, and the Holy of Holies was anointed (i.e. Christ), and the vision and prophecies were sealed, and sins were taken away.’ Through the faith of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, these gifts are bestowed on all who believe in him.

Why is it that he says that ‘the vision and prophecy are sealed,’ since all the prophets declared that he will come and would have to suffer? Answer: since the prophecy was fulfilled through Christ’s arrival, thus he said that the vision and prophecy were sealed, for Christ is the seal of all the prophets, fulfilling everything that the prophets declared about him. For after his arrival and passion, there is no longer a vision or prophet, who will announce that Christ will come. A little while later, he says: Let us see how the other seven and half weeks that were separated from the prior weeks were fulfilled. For after Augustus, who lived after Christ’s death, 15 years passed. Augustus was succeeded by Tiberius Caesar, who ruled for 22 years, seven months and 28 days. In the 15th year of his rule, Christ suffered. Gaius Caesar (aka Caligula), ruled for three years, eight months and 13 days. Nero ruled for nine years, nine months and 13 days. Galba ruled for seven months and 28 days. Otho ruled for three months and five days. Vitellius ruled for eight months and 28 days. Vespasian waged war on the Jews in the first year of his own rule. In total there are 52 years and six months, for Vespasian ruled for 11 years. And so on the day of his assault, the Jews fulfilled the 70 weeks predicted by Daniel.”

27. So pay attention more studiously and see that if you wish to count these 70 weeks in accordance with Eusebius from the 65th Olympiad until the 186th Olympiad,[lxxvi] you will find that after 483 years, the priesthood of the line of Judah fell away once Hyrcanus died, and that the foreign King Herod succeeded, during whose reign Christ our Lord was born. But if you wish to count these weeks according to Tertullian, you will see that in their unfolding, Christ’s birth and passion and the destruction of Jerusalem were fulfilled just as predicted by the prophet.

So when the angel foretold this number of weeks to Daniel, he both explained the anointment of the Holy of Holies and indicated Christ’s death. He also did not keep silent on the destruction of the Jewish people. For thus did the angel say to Daniel: “Daniel, now I have come out, that I may inform you and you may understand. From the beginning of your prayers, the discourse has come out: I have come to indicate to you, for you are a man of longings. Notice the discourse and understand the vision. 70 weeks have been recorded for your people and your holy city, so that transgression should be brought to an end, sin should come to an end, iniquity should be destroyed, eternal justice should be brought about, the vision and prophecies should be fulfilled, and the Holy of Holies should be anointed. So know and notice from the end of the discourse, that there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks from the time Jerusalem is built again until the time of Christ the leader. The street and walls will be built again in the narrowness of the times. After these weeks, Christ will be killed. The people will destroy their city, sanctuary and their leader to come, and their end will be devastation, and after the war’s end, desolation has been decreed.”[lxxvii]

Behold, after this angel predicted the killing of Christ, he thus announced that all these things would follow. Surely all this befell the city of Jerusalem and its citizens after the death of the Saviour? For after they shouted against the Son of God, demanding that he be killed, punishment came upon them from the Lord some time later. For the Roman army came with their commander Vespasian and the city of Jerusalem was assailed. The Jews were attacked and many thousands of them were killed, and none of the Jews is now permitted to approach where they proclaimed for Christ to be crucified. I say: it is evident that these things happened to the Jews because of Christ, as the sense of the Scriptures concords with the outcome of events and the ordering of the times. Or if Christ has not yet come, because of whom were they predicted to suffer these things? Will they therefore suffer when he comes? And where is the daughter of Zion to be left,[lxxviii] when she does not exist today? Where are the cities to be burned, when these cities already lie in graves? Where is the dispersion of the people that is already banished? Restore the state of Judaea so that Christ may find it, and argue that another Christ has come. Or if I am lying, tell me: where is your kingdom, where is your temple, where is your priesthood, where is your sacristy, where is the gathering of your prophets? Certainly, all of this has completely fallen away, for the sacrifice has fallen away, the priest is gone, the original anointment has fallen away. So if all these things fall away and the anointing itself has ceased, how will your Christ be anointed when he comes? For the law has mandated that the anointment of the king may not be done in captivity. How will your leader who will be born in Bethlehem be anointed, or how will he come forth from Bethlehem, when there is no one at all from the line of Israel in Bethlehem? For we see that no one form the race of Israel has remained in the city of Bethlehem since it became forbidden for any of the Jews to reside in the confines of that region, so that this should be fulfilled in accordance with the prophet’s words: i.e. “Your land has become deserted, your cities have been burned with fire (this is what happened to them in the time of the war), foreigners will devour your region in your sight.”[lxxix]

28. What now can you say in response to this, you mad people who have been blinded by God’s hidden justice? “Where is your promised land, in which you sinned while you dwelled there, and from which you have migrated after it was destroyed? You inquire about the kingdom of the Jews: it does not exist. You inquire about the altar of the Jews: it does not exist. You inquire about the Jews’ sacrifice: it does not exist.”[lxxx] Daniel predicted that all this would fall away, when he clearly prophesied that the Holy of Holies would be anointed. Since you now see that all these things have already been fulfilled among you, then through the manifest lines of evidence you show yourselves to be lying about Christ’s birth to come. Behold, you have already been overcome by means of a very small number of preliminary testimonies, which are nonetheless very strong and very clear. There are many other things expressed in the divine books. Not all of them can be mentioned by me, because it would be excessive, and not many of them can be mentioned by me either, because it would take a long time. Indeed, we have only brought together a very small number of testimonies, so that we may open up the way of this understanding. Nonetheless whether in these things that have been said or those things that can still be said regarding the divine volumes, nowhere will one find it said that the time of the Lord’s incarnation may be known by counting the number of years from the beginning of the world. So through this rational objection, the brevity of the years that is thrown up as an objection from the Hebrew codices should be rejected with regards to knowing the logic behind this sacrament. Now, as we pass over to the suitable witnesses of the New Testament and its ministers of the Word, let us give this book its due end.

Here ends the first book.

Notes

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[i] Psalm 93:16.

[ii] For this image, cf. Isaiah 6:6.

[iii] Ezekiel 13:5.

[iv] Cf. Ezekiel 3:18.

[v] 2 Timothy 2:16, 17 and 23.

[vi] Matthew 22:29.

[vii] Cf. 1 Corinthians 1:24.

[viii] Psalm 89:4.

[ix] Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 89.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Acts 1:7.

[xii] Psalm 89:4.

[xiii] Cf. Daniel 9:24 ff.

[xiv] Daniel 12:4.

[xv] Matthew 1:2 ff.

[xvi] Psalm 71:7.

[xvii] Micah 5:2-5.

[xviii] Micah 4:1-3.

[xix] Isaiah 2:2-4.

[xx] Cf. Luke 2:2.

[xxi] Luke 2:14.

[xxii] Matthew 24:7.

[xxiii] Genesis 49:1-2.

[xxiv] Genesis 49:10.

[xxv] Malachi 3:1.

[xxvi] Matthew 11:10.

[xxvii] John 1:29.

[xxviii] Cf. Luke 1:41.

[xxix] For these extended passages, cf. Augustine, Against Faustus the Manichean, 22.

[xxx] Malachi 3:1.

[xxxi] Malachi 4:5-6.

[xxxii] Isaiah 6:9-13.

[xxxiii] Cf. Matthew 2:1 ff.

[xxxiv] Psalm 71:10-11 and 17.

[xxxv] Psalm 2:7-8.

[xxxvi] Isaiah 52:15.

[xxxvii] Isaiah 55:4.

[xxxviii] Isaiah 52:10.

[xxxix] Psalm 97:2.

[xl] Psalm 101:23.

[xli] Isaiah 11:10 as quoted in Romans 15:12.

[xlii] Isaiah 11:10

[xliii] Psalm 71:8.

[xliv] Cf. Malachi 11:11.

[xlv] Zephaniah 2:11.

[xlvi] Zephaniah 3:9.

[xlvii] Isaiah 29:22-23.

[xlviii] Hosea 7:13.

[xlix] Hosea 9:17.

[l] Isaiah 53:7.

[li] Isaiah 53:8-9.

[lii] Jeremiah 5:10-12.

[liii] Psalm 40:11.

[liv] Cf. Hebrews 7. Melchisedech is mentioned in Genesis 14:18-20. The idea is that the order of Melchisedech replaces the old Jewish priesthood of Aaron’s order.

[lv] Hosea 3:4.

[lvi] 1 Samuel 2:27-33.

[lvii] Cf. Augustine, Concerning God’s City, 17.

[lviii] Malachi 1:10-11.

[lix] Genesis 27:28-29.

[lx] Cf. Augustine, Concerning God’s City, 16.

[lxi] Genesis 49:8-11.

[lxii] Cf. John 19:30.

[lxiii] Cf. John 1:18.

[lxiv] Cf. Augustine, Against Faustus the Manichean, 12.

[lxv] Cf. ibid.

[lxvi] Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel, 8.

[lxvii] Cf. Isidore, Concerning the Catholic Faith, 1.

[lxviii] Daniel 9:27.

[lxix] Cf. Augustine, Against Faustus the Manichean, 12.

[lxx] For the passage and explanation, see Daniel 2:38-44 and Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel.

[lxxi] Daniel 9:23-24. For the chronicle data in this chapter, cf. Augustine, Concerning the City of God, 16-18 and Eusebius’ Chronicle.

[lxxii] Cf. Eusebius’ Chronicle.

[lxxiii] Cf. Isidore, Concerning the Catholic Faith, 1.

[lxxiv] Cf. A chronicler cited by Eusebius in Proof of the Gospel, 8.

[lxxv] Cf. Tertullian, Against the Jews, 8.

[lxxvi] An Olympiad is a system of measuring years, based on the Olympic Games that were held every four years.

[lxxvii] Daniel 9:22-26.

[lxxviii] Cf. Isaiah 1:8.

[lxxix] Isaiah 1:7.

[lxxx] Cf. Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 88.