BOOK XVIII. 
ARGUMENT. 
AUGUSTIN TRACES THE PARALLEL COURSES OF THE EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY CITIES FROM THE 
TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE END OF THE WORLD; AND ALLUDES TO THE ORACLES REGARDING 
CHRIST, BOTH THOSE UTTERED BY THE SIBYLS, AND THOSE OF THE SACRED PROPHETS WHO 
WROTE AFTER THE FOUNDATION OF ROME, HOSEA, AMOS, ISAIAH, MICAH, AND THEIR 
SUCCESSORS. 
CHAP. 1.--OF THOSE THINGS DOWN TO THE TIMES OF THE SAVIOUR WHICH HAVE BEEN 
DISCUSSED IN THE SEVENTEEN BOOKS. 
I PROMISED to write of the rise, progress, and appointed end of the two cities, 
one of which is God's, the other this world's, in which, so far as mankind is 
concerned, the former is now a stranger. But first of all I undertook, so far as 
His grace should enable me, to refute the enemies of the city of God, who prefer 
their gods to Christ its founder, and fiercely hate Christians with the most 
deadly malice. And this I have done in the first ten books. Then, as regards my 
threefold promise which I have just mentioned, I have treated distinctly, in the 
four books which follow the tenth, of the rise of both cities. After that, I 
have proceeded from the first man down to the flood in one book, which is the 
fifteenth of this work; and from that again down to Abraham our work has 
followed both in chronological order. From the patriarch Abraham down to the 
time of the Israelite kings, at which we close our sixteenth book, and thence 
down to the advent of Christ Himself in the flesh, to which period the 
seventeenth book reaches. the city of God appears from my way of writing to have 
run its course alone; whereas it did not run its course alone in this age, for 
both cities, in their course amid mankind, certainly experienced chequered times 
together just as from the beginning. But I did this in order that, first of all, 
from the time when the promises of God began to be more clear, down to the 
virgin birth of Him in whom those things promised from the first were to be 
fulfilled, the course of that city which is God's might be made more distinctly 
apparent, without interpolation of foreign matter from the history of the other 
city, although down to the revelation of the new covenant it ran its course, not 
in light, but in shadow. Now, therefore, I think fit to do what I passed by, and 
show, so far as seems necessary, how that other city ran its course from the 
times of Abraham, so that attentive readers may compare the two. 
CHAP. 2.--OF THE KINGS AND TIMES OF THE EARTHLY CITY WHICH WERE SYNCHRONOUS WITH 
THE TIMES OF THE SAINTS, RECKONING FROM THE RISE OF ABRAHAM. 
The society of mortals spread abroad through the earth everywhere, and in the 
most diverse places, although bound together by a certain fellowship of our 
common nature, is yet for the most part divided against itself, and the 
strongest oppress the others, because all follow after their own interests and 
lusts, while what is longed for either suffices for none, or not for all, 
because it is not the very thing. For the vanquished succumb to the victorious, 
preferring any sort of peace and safety to freedom itself; so that they who 
chose to die rather than be slaves have been greatly wondered at. For in almost 
all nations the very voice of nature somehow proclaims, that those who happen to 
be conquered should choose rather to be subject to their conquerors than to be 
killed by all kinds of warlike destruction. This does not take place without the 
providence of God, in whose power it lies that any one either subdues or is 
subdued in war; that some are endowed with kingdoms, others made subject to 
kings. Now, among the very many kingdoms of the earth into which, by earthly 
interest or lust, society is divided (which we call by the general name of the 
city of this world), we see that two, settled and kept distinct from each other 
both in time and place, have grown far more famous than the rest, first that of 
the Assyrians, then that of the Romans. First came the one, then the other. The 
former arose in the east, and, immediately on its close, the latter in the west. 
I may speak of other kingdoms and other kings as appendages of these. 
Ninus, then, who succeeded his father Belus, the first king of Assyria, was 
already the second king of that kingdom when Abraham was born in the land of the 
Chaldees. There was also at that time a very small kingdom of Sicyon, with 
which, as from an ancient date, that most universally learned man Marcus Varro 
begins, in writing of the Roman race. For from these kings of Sicyon he passes 
to the Athenians, from them to the Latins, and from these to the Romans. Yet 
very little is related about these kingdoms, before the foundation of Rome, in 
comparison with that of Assyria. For although even Sallust, the Roman historian, 
admits that the Athenians were very famous in Greece, yet he thinks they were 
greater in fame than in fact. For in speaking of them he says, "The deeds of the 
Athenians, as I think, were very great and magnificent, but yet somewhat less 
than reported by fame. But because writers of great genius arose among them, the 
deeds of the Athenians were celebrated throughout the world as very great. Thus 
the virtue of those who did them was held to be as great as men of transcendent 
genius could represent it to be by the power of laudatory words."(1) This city 
also derived no small glory from literature and philosophy, the study of which 
chiefly flourished there. But as regards empire, none in the earliest times was 
greater than the Assyrian, or so widely extended. For when Ninus the son of 
Belus was king, he is reported to have subdued the whole of Asia, even to the 
boundaries of Libya, which as to number is called the third part, but as to size 
is found to be the half of the whole world. The Indians in the eastern regions 
were the only people over whom he did not reign; but after his death Semiramis 
his wife made war on them. Thus it came to pass that all the people and kings in 
those countries were subject to the kingdom and authority of the Assyrians, and 
did whatever they were commanded. Now Abraham was born in that kingdom among the 
Chaldees, in the time of Ninus. But since Grecian affairs are much better known 
to us than Assyrian, and those who have diligently investigated the antiquity of 
the Roman nation's origin have followed the order of time through the Greeks to 
the Latins, and from them to the Romans, who themselves are Latins, we ought on 
this account, where it is needful, to mention the Assyrian kings, that it may 
appear how Babylon, like a first Rome, ran its course along with the city of 
God, which is a stranger in this world. But the things proper for insertion in 
this work in comparing the two cities, that is, the earthly and heavenly, ought 
to be taken mostly from the Greek and Latin kingdoms, where Rome herself is like 
a second Babylon. 
At Abraham's birth, then, the second kings of Assyria and Sicyon respectively 
were Ninus and Europs, the first having been Belus and AEgialeus. But when God 
promised Abraham, on his departure from Babylonia, that he should become a great 
nation, and that in his seed all nations of the earth should be blessed, the 
Assyrians had their seventh king, the Sicyons their fifth; for the son of Ninus 
reigned among them after his mother Semiramis, who is said to have been put to 
death by him for attempting to defile him by incestuously lying with him. Some 
think that she founded Babylon, and indeed she may have founded it anew. But we 
have told, in the sixteenth book, when or by whom it was founded. Now the son of 
Ninus and Semiramis, who succeeded his mother in the kingdom, is also called 
Ninus by some, but by others Ninias, a patronymic word. Telexion then held the 
kingdom of the Sicyons. In his reign times were quiet and joyful to such a 
degree, that after his death they worshipped him as a god by offering sacrifices 
and by celebrating games, which are said to have been first instituted on this 
occasion. 
CHAP. 3.--WHAT KINGS REIGNED IN ASSYRIA AND SICYON WHEN, ACCORDING TO THE 
PROMISE, ISAAC WAS BORN TO ABRAHAM IN HIS HUNDREDTH YEAR, AND WHEN THE TWINS 
ESAU AND JACOB WERE BORN OF REBECCA TO ISAAC IN HIS SIXTIETH YEAR. 
In his times also, by the promise of God, Isaac, the son of Abraham, was born to 
his father when he was a hundred years old, of Sarah his wife, who, being barren 
and old, had already lost hope of issue. Aralius was then the fifth king of the 
Assyrians. To Isaac himself, in his sixtieth year, were born twin-sons, Esau and 
Jacob, whom Rebecca his wife bore to him, their grandfather Abraham, who died on 
completing a hundred and seventy years, being still alive, and reckoning his 
hundred and sixtieth year.(1) At that time there reigned as the seventh 
kings,--among the Assyrians, that more ancient Xerxes, who was also called 
Balaeus; and among the Sicyons, Thuriachus, or, as some write his name, 
Thurimachus. The kingdom of Argos, in which Inachus reigned first, arose in the 
time of Abraham's grandchildren. And I must not omit what Varro relates, that 
the Sicyons were also wont to sacrifice at the tomb of their seventh king 
Thuriachus. In the reign of Armamitres in Assyria and Leucippus in Sicyon as the 
eighth kings, and of Inachus as the first in Argos, God spoke to Isaac, and 
promised the same two things to him as to his father,--namely, the land of 
Canaan to his seed, and the blessing of all nations in his seed. These same 
things were promised to his son, Abraham's grandson, who was at first called 
Jacob, afterwards Israel, when Belocus was the ninth king of Assyria, and 
Phoroneus, the son of Inachus, reigned as the second king of Argos, Leucippus 
still continuing king of Sicyon. In those times, under the Argive king 
Phoroneus, Greece was made more famous by the institution of certain laws and 
judges. On the death of Phoroneus, his younger brother Phegous built a temple at 
his tomb, in which he was worshipped as God, and oxen were sacrificed to him. I 
believe they thought him worthy of so great honor, because in his part of the 
kingdom (for their father had divided his territories between them, in which 
they reigned daring his life) he had founded chapels for the worship of the 
gods, and had taught them to measure time, by months and years, and to that 
extent to keep count and reckoning of events. Men still uncultivated, admiring 
him for these novelties, either fancied he was, or resolved that he should be 
made, a god after his death. Lo also is said to have been the daughter of 
Inachus, who was afterwards called Isis, when she was worshipped in Egypt as a 
great goddess; although others write that she came as a queen out of Ethiopia, 
and because she ruled extensively and justly, and instituted for her subjects 
letters and many useful things, such divine honor was given her there after she 
died, that it any one said she had been human, he was charged with a capital 
crime. 
CHAP. 4.--OF THE TIMES OF JACOB AND HIS 
SON JOSEPH. 
In the reign of Balaeus, the ninth king of Assyria, and Mesappus, the eighth of 
Sicyon, who is said by some to have been also called Cephisos (if indeed the 
same man had both names, and those who put the other name in their writings have 
not rather confounded him with another man), while Apis was third king of Argos, 
Isaac died, a hundred and eighty years old, and left his twin-sons a hundred and 
twenty years old. Jacob, the younger of these, belonged to the city of God about 
which we write (the elder being wholly rejected), and had twelve sons, one of 
whom, called Joseph, was sold by his brothers to merchants going down to Egypt, 
while his grandfather Isaac was still alive. But when he was thirty years of 
age, Joseph stood before Pharaoh, being exalted out of the humiliation he 
endured, because, in divinely interpreting the king's dreams, he foretold that 
there would be seven years of plenty, the very rich abundance of which would be 
consumed by seven other years of famine that should follow. On this account the 
king made him ruler over Egypt, liberating him from prison, into which he had 
been thrown for keeping his chastity intact; for he bravely preserved it from 
his mistress, who wickedly loved him, and told lies to his weakly credulous 
master, and did not consent to commit adultery with her, but fled from her, 
leaving his garment in her hands when she laid hold of him. In the second of the 
seven years of famine Jacob came down into Egypt to his son with all he had, 
being a hundred and thirty years old, as he himself said in answer to the king's 
question. Joseph was then thirty-nine, if we add seven years of plenty and two 
of famine to the thirty he reckoned when honored by the king. 
CHAP. 5 --OF APIS KING OF ARGOS, WHOM THE EGYPTIANS CALLED SERAPIS, AND 
WORSHIPPED WITH DIVINE HONORS. 
In these times Apis king of Argos crossed over into Egypt in ships, and, on 
dying there, was made Serapis, the chief god of all the Egyptians. Now Varro 
gives this very ready reason why, after his death, he was called, not Apis, but 
Serapis. The ark in which he was placed when dead, which every one now calls a 
sarcophagus, was then called in Greek <greek>soros</greek>, and they began to 
worship him when buried in it before his temple was built; and from Soros and 
Apis he was called first [Sorosapis, or] Sorapis, and then Serapis, by changing 
a letter, as easily happens. It was decreed regarding him also, that whoever 
should say he had been a man should be capitally punished. And since in every 
temple where Isis and Serapis were worshipped there was also an image which, 
with finger pressed on the lips, seemed to warn men to keep silence, Varro 
thinks this signifies that it should be kept secret that they had been human. 
But that bull which, with wonderful folly, deluded Egypt nourished with abundant 
delicacies in honor of him, was not called Serapis, but Apis, because they 
worshipped him alive without a sarcophagus. On the death of that bull, when they 
sought and found a calf of the same color,--that is, similarly marked with 
certain white spots,--they believed it was something miraculous, and divinely 
provided for them. Yet it was no great thing for the demons, in order to deceive 
them, to show to a cow when she was conceiving and pregnant the image of such a 
bull, which she alone could see, and by it attract the breeding passion of the 
mother, so that it might appear in a bodily shape in her young, just as Jacob so 
managed with the spotted rods that the sheep and goats were born spotted. For 
what men can do with real colors and substances, the demons can very easily do 
by showing unreal forms to breeding animals. 
CHAP. 6.--WHO WERE KINGS OF ARGOS, AND OF ASSYRIA, WHEN JACOB DIED IN EGYPT. 
Apis, then, who died in Egypt, was not the king of Egypt, but of Argos. He was 
succeeded by his son Argus, from whose name the land was called Argos and the 
people ArRives, for under the earlier kings neither the place nor the nation as 
yet had this name. While he then reigned over Argos, and Eratus over Sicyon, and 
Balaeus still remained king, of Assyria, Jacob died in Egypt a hundred and 
forty-seven years old, after he had, when dying, blessed his sons and his 
grandsons by Joseph, and prophesied most plainly of Christ, saying in the 
blessing of Judah, "A prince shall not fail out of Judah, nor a leader from his 
thighs, until those things come which are laid up for him; and He is the 
expectation of the nations."(1) In the reign of Argus, Greece began to use 
fruits, and to have crops of corn in cultivated fields, the seed having been 
brought from other countries. Argus also began to be accounted a god after his 
death, and was honored with a temple and sacrifices. This honor was conferred in 
his reign, before being given to him, on a private individual for being the 
first to yoke oxen in the plough. This was one Homogyrus, who was struck by 
lightning. 
CHAP. 7.--WHO WERE KINGSWHEN JOSEPH DIED IN EGYPT. 
In the reign of Mamitus, the twelfth king of Assyria, and Plemnaeus, the 
eleventh of Sicyon, while Argus still reigned over the Argives, Joseph died in 
Egypt a hundred and ten years old. After his death, the people of God, 
increasing wonderfully, remained in Egypt a hundred and forty-five years, in 
tranquillity at first, until those who knew Joseph were dead. Afterward, through 
envy of their increase, and the suspicion that they would at length gain their 
freedom, they were oppressed with persecutions and the labors of intolerable 
servitude, amid which, however, they still grew, being multiplied with God-given 
fertility. During this period the same kingdoms continued in Assyria and Greece. 

CHAP. 8.--WHO WERE KINGS WHEN MOSES WAS BORN, AND WHAT GODS BEGAN TO BE 
WORSHIPPED THEN. 
When Saphrus reigned as the fourteenth king of Assyria, and Orthopolis as the 
twelfth of Sicyon, and Criasus as the fifth of Argos, Moses was born in Eygpt, 
by whom the people of God were liberated from the Egyptian slavery, in which 
they behoved to be thus tried that they might desire the help of their Creator. 
Some have thought that Prometheus lived during the reign of the kings now named. 
He is reported to have formed men out of clay, because he was esteemed the best 
teacher of wisdom; yet it does not appear what wise men there were in his days. 
His brother Atlas is said to have been a great astrologer; and this gave 
occasion for the fable that he held up the sky, although the vulgar opinion 
about his holding up the sky appears rather to have been suggested by a high 
mountain named after him. Indeed, from those times many other fabulous things 
began to be invented in Greece; yet, down to Cecrops king of Athens, in whose 
reign that city received its name, and in whose reign God brought His people out 
of Egypt by Moses, only a few dead heroes are reported to have been deified 
according to the vain superstition of the Greeks. Among these were Melantomice, 
the wife of king Criasus, and Phorbas their son, who succeeded his father as 
sixth king of the Argives, and Iasus, son of Trio-pas, their seventh king, and 
their ninth king Sthenelas, or Stheneleus, or Sthenelus,--for his name is given 
differently by different authors. In those times also, Mercury, the grandson of 
Atlas by his daughter Main, is said to have lived, according to the common 
report in books. He was famous for his skill in many arts, and taught them to 
men, for which they resolved to make him, and even believed that he deserved to 
be, a god after death. Hercules is said to have been later, yet belonging to the 
same period; although some, whom I think mistaken, assign him an earlier date 
than Mercury. But at whatever time they were born, it is agreed among grave 
historians, who have committed these ancient things to writing, that both were 
men, and that they merited divine honors from mortals because they conferred on 
them many benefits to make this life more pleasant to them. Minerva was far more 
ancient than these; for she is reported to have appeared in virgin age in the 
times of Ogyges at the lake called Triton, from which she is also styled 
Tritonia, the inventress truly of many works, and the more readily believed to 
be a goddess because her origin was so little known. For what is 
sung about her having sprung from the head of Jupiter belongs to the region of 
poetry and fable, and not to that of history and real fact. And historical 
writers are not agreed when Ogyges flourished, in whose time also a great flood 
occurred,--not that greatest one from which no man escaped except those who 
could get into the ark, for neither Greek nor Latin history knew of it, yet a 
greater flood than that which happened afterward in Deucalion's time. For Varro 
begins the book I have already mentioned at this date, and does not propose to 
himself, as the starting-point from which he may arrive at Roman affairs, 
anything more ancient than the flood of Ogyges, that is, which happened in the 
time of Ogyges. Now our writers of chronicles--first Eusebius, and afterwards 
Jerome, who entirely follow some earlier historians in this opinion--relate that 
the flood of Ogyges happened more than three hundred years after, during the 
reign of Phoroneus, the second king of Argos. But whenever he may have lived, 
Minerva was already worshipped as a goddess when Cecrops reigned in Athens, in 
whose reign the city itself is reported to have been rebuilt or founded. 
CHAP. 9.--WHEN THE CITY OF ATHENS WAS FOUNDED, AND WHAT REASON VARRO ASSIGNS FOR 
ITS NAME. 
Athens certainly derived its name from Minerva, who in Greek is called 
'A<greek>qhnh</greek>, and Varro points out the following reason why it was so 
called. When an olive-tree suddenly appeared there, and water burst forth in 
another place, these prodigies moved the king to send to the Delphic Apollo to 
inquire what they meant and what he should do. He answered that the olive 
signified Minerva, the water Neptune, and that the citizens had it in their 
power to name their city as they chose, after either of these two gods whose 
signs these were. On receiving this oracle, Cecrops convoked all the citizens of 
either sex to give their vote, for it was then the custom in those parts for the 
women also to take part in public deliberations. When the multitude was 
consulted, the men gave their votes for Neptune, the women for Minerva; and as 
the women had a majority of one, Minerva conquered. Then Neptune, being enraged, 
laid waste the lands of the Athenians, by casting up the waves of the sea; for 
the demons have no difficulty in scattering any waters more widely. The same 
authority said, that to appease his wrath the women should be visited by the 
Athenians with the three-fold punishment--that they should no longer have any 
vote; that none of their children should be named after their mothers; and that 
no one should call them Athenians. Thus that city, the mother and nurse of 
liberal doctrines, and of so many and so great philosophers, than whom Greece 
had noticing more famous and noble, by the mockery of demons about the strife of 
their gods, a male and female, and from the victory of the female one through 
the women, received the name of Athens; and, on being damaged by the vanquished 
god, was compelled to punish the very victory of the victress, fearing the 
waters of Neptune more than the arms of Minerva. For in the women who were thus 
punished, Minerva, who had conquered, was conquered too, and could not even help 
her voters so far that, although the right of voting was henceforth lost, and 
the mothers could not give their names to the children, they might at least be 
allowed to be called Athenians, and to merit the name of that goddess whom they 
had made victorious over a male god by giving her their votes. What and how much 
could be said about this, if we had not to hasten to other things in our 
discourse, is obvious. 
CHAP. 10.--WHAT VARRO REPORTS ABOUT THE TERM AREOPAGUS, AND ABOUT DEUCALION'S 
FLOOD. 
Marcus Varro, however, is not willing to credit lying fables against the gods, 
lest he should find something dishonoring to their majesty; and therefore he 
will not admit that the Areopagus, the place where the Apostle Paul disputed 
with the Athenians, got this name because Mars, who in Greek is called 
'A<greek>rhs</greek>, when he was charged with the crime of homicide, and was 
judged by twelve gods in that field, was acquitted by the sentence of six; 
because it was the custom, when the votes were equal, to acquit rather than 
condemn. Against this opinion, which is much most widely published, he tries, 
from the notices of obscure books, to support another reason for this name, lest 
the Athenians should be thought to have called it Areopagus from the words" 
Mars" and" field,"(1) as if it were the field of Mars, to the dishonor of the 
gods, forsooth, from whom he thinks lawsuits and judgments far removed. And he 
asserts that this which is said about Mars is not less false than what is said 
about the three goddesses, to wit, Juno, Minerva, and Venus, whose contest for 
the palm of beauty, before Paris as judge, in order to obtain the golden apple, 
is not only related, but is celebrated in songs and dances amid the applause of 
the theatres, in plays meant to please the gods who take pleasure in these 
crimes of their own, whether real or fabled. Varro does not believe these 
things, because they are incompatible with the nature of the gods and of 
morality; and yet, in giving not a fabulous but a historic reason for the name 
of Athens, he inserts in his books the strife between Neptune and Minerva as to 
whose name should be given to that city, which was so great that, when they 
contended by the display of prodigies, even Apollo dared not judge between them 
when consulted; but, in order to end the strife of the gods, just as Jupiter 
sent the three goddesses we have named to Paris, so he sent them to men, when 
Minerva won by the vote, and yet was defeated by the punishment of her own 
voters, for she was unable to confer the title of Athenians on the women who 
were her friends, although she could impose it on the men who were her 
opponents. In these times, when Cranaos reigned at Athens as the successor of 
Cecrops, as Varro writes, but, according to our Eusebius and Jerome, while 
Cecrops himself still remained, the flood occurred which is called Deucalion's, 
because it occurred chiefly in those parts of the earth in which he reigned. But 
this flood did not at all reach Egypt or its vicinity. 
CHAP. 11.--WHEN MOSES LED THE PEOPLE OUT OF EGYPT; AND WHO WERE KINGS WHEN HIS 
SUCCESSOR JOSHUA THE SON OF NUN DIED. 
Moses led the people out of Egypt in the last time of Cecrops king of Athens, 
when Ascatades reigned in Assyria, Marathus in Sicyon, Triopas in Argos; and 
having led forth the people, he gave them at Mount Sinai the law he received 
from God, which is called the Old Testament, because it has earthly promises, 
and because, through Jesus Christ, there was to be a New Testament, in which the 
kingdom of heaven should be promised. For the same order behoved to be observed 
in this as is observed in each man who prospers in God, according to the saying 
of the apostle, "That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is 
natural," since, as he says, and that truly, "The first man of the earth, is 
earthly; the second man, from heaven, is heavenly."(2) Now Moses ruled the 
people for forty years in the wilderness, and died a hundred and twenty years 
old, after he had prophesied of Christ by the types of carnal observances in the 
tabernacle, priesthood, and sacrifices, and many other mystic ordinances. Joshua 
the son of Nun succeeded Moses, and settled in the land of promise the people he 
had brought in, having by divine authority conquered the people by whom it was 
formerly possessed. He also died, after ruling the people twenty-seven years 
after the death of Moses, when Amyntas reigned in Assyria as the eighteenth 
king, Coracos as the sixteenth in Sicyon, Danaos as the tenth in Argos, 
Ericthonius as the fourth in Athens. 
CHAP. 12.--OF THE RITUALS OF FALSE GODS INSTITUTED BY THE KINGS OF GREECE IN THE 
PERIOD FROM ISRAEL'S EXODUS FROM EGYPT DOWN TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA THE SON OF 
NUN. 
During this period, that is, from Israel's exodus from Egypt down to the death 
of Joshua the son of Nun, through whom that people received the land of promise, 
rituals were instituted to the false gods by the kings of Greece, which, by 
stated celebration, recalled the memory of the flood, and of men's deliverance 
from it, and of that troublous life they then led in migrating to and fro 
between the heights and the plains. For even the Luperci,(3) when they ascend 
and descend the sacred path, are said to represent the men who sought the 
mountain summits because of the inundation of water, and returned to the 
lowlands on its subsidence. In those times, Dionysus, who was also called Father 
Liber, and was esteemed a god after death, is said to have shown the vine to his 
host in Attica. Then the musical games were instituted for tile Delphic Apollo, 
to appease his anger through which they thought the regions of Greece were 
afflicted with barrenness, because they had not defended his temple which Danaos 
burnt when he invaded those lands; for they were warned by his oracle to 
institute these games. But king Ericthonius first instituted games to him in 
Attica, and not to him only, but also to Minerva, in which games the olive was 
given as the prize to the victors, because they relate that Minerva was the 
discoverer of that fruit, as Liber was of the grape. In those years Europa is 
alleged to have been carried off by Xanthus king of Crete (to whom we find some 
give another name), and to have borne him Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, and Minos, who 
are more commonly reported to have been the sons of Jupiter by the same woman. 
Now those who worship such gods regard what we have said about Xanthus king of 
Crete as true history; but this about Jupiter, which the poets sing, the 
theatres applaud, and the people celebrate, as empty fable got up as a reason 
for games to appease the deities, even with the false ascription of crimes to 
them. In those times Hercules was held in honor in Tyre, but that was not the 
same one as he whom we spoke of above. In the more secret history there are said 
to have been several who were called Father Liber and Hercules. This Hercules, 
whose great deeds are reckoned as twelve (not including the slaughter of Antaeus 
the African, because that affair pertains to another Hercules), is declared in 
their books to have burned himself on Mount (Eta, because he was not able, by 
that strength with which he had subdued monsters, to endure the disease under 
which he languished. At that time the king, or rather tyrant Busiris, who is 
alleged to have been the son of Neptune by Libya the daughter of Epaphus, is 
said to have offered up his guests in sacrifice to the gods. Now it must not be 
believed that Neptune committed this adultery, lest the gods should be 
criminated; yet such things must be ascribed to them by the poets and in the 
theatres, that they may be pleased with them. Vulcan and Minerva are said to 
have been the parents of Ericthonius king of Athens, in whose last years Joshua 
the son of Nun is found to have died. But since they will have it that Minerva 
is a virgin, they say that Vulcan, being disturbed in the struggle between them, 
poured out his seed into the earth, and on that account the man born of it 
received that name; for in the Greek language <greek>eris</greek> is "strife," 
and <greek>kqpn</greek> "earth," of which two words Ericthonius is a compound. 
Yet it must be admitted that the more learned disprove and disown such things 
concerning their gods, and declare that this fabulous belief originated in the 
fact that in the temple at Athens, which Vulcan and Minerva had in common, a boy 
who had been exposed was found wrapped up in the coils of a dragon, which 
signified that he would become great, and, as his parents were unknown, he was 
called the son of Vulcan and Minerva, because they had the temple in common. Yet 
that fable accounts for the origin of his name better than this history. But 
what does it matter to us? Let the one in books that speak the truth edify 
religious men, and the other in lying fables delight impure demons. Yet these 
religious men worship them as gods. Still, while they deny these things 
concerning them they cannot clear them of all crime, because at their demand 
they exhibit plays in which the very things they wisely deny are basely done, 
and the gods are appeased by these false and base things. Now, even although the 
play celebrates an unreal crime of the gods, yet to delight in the ascription of 
an unreal crime is a real one. 
CHAP. 13.--WHAT FABLES WERE INVENTED AT THE TIME WHEN JUDGES BEGAN TO RULE THE 
HEBREWS. 
After the death of Joshua the son of Nun, the people of God had judges, in whose 
times they were alternately humbled by afflictions on account of their sins, and 
consoled by prosperity through the compassion of God. In those times were 
invented the fables about Triptolemus, who, at the command of Ceres, borne by 
winged snakes, bestowed corn on the needy lands in flying over them; about that 
beast the Minotaur, which was shut up in the Labyrinth, from which men who 
entered its inextricable mazes could find no exit; about the Centaurs, whose 
form was a compound of horse and man; about Cerberus, the three-headed dog of 
hell; about Phryxus and his sister Hellas, who fled, borne by a winged ram; 
about the Gorgon, whose hair was composed of serpents, and who turned those who 
looked on her into stone; about Bellerophon, who was carried by a winged horse 
called Pegasus; about Amphion, who charmed and attracted the stones by the 
sweetness of his harp; about the artificer Daedalus and his son Icarus, who flew 
on wings they had fitted on; about OEdipus, who compelled a certain four-footed 
monster with a human face, called a sphynx, to destroy herself by casting 
herself headlong, having solved the riddle she was wont to propose as insoluble; 
about Antaeus, who was the son of the earth, for which reason, on falling on the 
earth, he was wont to rise up stronger, whom Hercules slew; and perhaps there 
are others which I have forgotten. These fables, easily found in histories 
containing a true account of events, bring us down to the Trojan war, at which 
Marcus Varro has closed his second book about the race of the Roman people; and 
they are so skillfully invented by men as to involve no scandal to the gods. But 
whoever have pretended as to Jupiter's rape of Ganymede, a very beautiful boy, 
that king Tantalus committed the crime, and the fable ascribed it to Jupiter; or 
as to his impregnating Dan�e as a golden shower, that it means that the woman's 
virtue was corrupted by gold: whether these things were really done or only 
fabled in those days, or were really done by others and falsely ascribed to 
Jupiter, it is impossible to tell how much wickedness must have been taken for 
granted in men's hearts that they should be thought able to listen to such lies 
with patience. And yet they willingly accepted them, when, indeed, the more 
devotedly they worshipped Jupiter, they ought the more severely to have punished 
those who durst say such things of him. But they not only were not angry at 
those who invented these things, but were afraid that the gods would be angry at 
them if they did not act such fictions even in the theatres. In those times 
Latona bore Apollo, not him of whose oracle we have spoken above as so often 
consulted, but him who is said, along with Hercules, to have fed the flocks of 
king Admetus; yet he was so believed to be a god, that very many, indeed almost 
all, have believed him to be the selfsame Apollo. Then also Father Liber made 
war in India, and led in his army many women called Bacchae, who were notable 
not so much for valor as for fury. Some, indeed, write that this Liber was both 
conquered and bound and some that he was slain in Persia, even telling where he 
was buried; and yet in his name, as that of a god, the unclean demons have 
instituted the sacred, or rather the sacrilegious, Bacchanalia, of the 
outrageous vileness of which the senate, after many years, became so much 
ashamed as to prohibit them in the city of Rome. Men believed that in those 
times Perseus and his wife Andromeda were raised into heaven after their death, 
so that they were not ashamed or afraid to mark out their images by 
constellations, and call them by their names. 
CHAP. 14.--OF THE THEOLOGICAL POETS. 
During the same period of time arose the poets, who were also called theologues, 
because they made hymns about the gods; yet about such gods as, although great 
men, were yet but men, or the elements of this world which the true God made, or 
creatures who were ordained as principalities and powers according to the will 
of the Creator and their own merit. And if, among much that was vain and false, 
they sang anything of the one true God, yet, by worshipping Him along with 
others who are not gods, and showing them the service that is due to Him alone, 
they did not serve Him at all rightly; and even such poets as Orpheus, Musaeus, 
and Linus, were unable to abstain from dishonoring their gods by fables. But yet 
these theologues worshipped the gods, and were not worshipped as gods, although 
the city of the ungodly is wont, I know not how, to set Orpheus over the sacred, 
or rather sacrilegious, rites of hell. The wife of king Athamas, who was called 
Ino, and her son Melicertes, perished by throwing themselves into the sea, and 
were, according to popular belief, reckoned among the gods, like other men of 
the same times, [among whom were] Castor and Pollux. The Greeks, indeed, called 
her who was the mother of Melicertes, Leucothea, the Latins, Matuta; but both 
thought her a goddess. 
CHAP. 15.--OF THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF ARGOS, WHEN PICUS THE SON OF SATURN 
FIRSTRECEIVEDHIS FATHER'S KINGDOM OF LAURENTUM. 
During those times the kingdom of Argos came to an end; being transferred to 
Mycene, from which Agamemnon came, and the kingdom of Laurentum arose, of which 
Picus son of Saturn was the first king, when the woman Deborah judged the 
Hebrews; bill it was the Spirit of God who used her as His agent, for she was 
also a prophetess, although her prophecy is so obscure that we could not 
demonstrate, without a long discussion, that it was uttered concerning Christ. 
Now the Laurentes already reigned in Italy, from whom the origin of the Roman 
people is quite evidently derived after the Greeks; yet the kingdom of Assyria 
still lasted, in which Lampares was the twenty-third king when Picus first began 
to reign at Laurentum. The worshippers of such gods may see what they are to 
think of Saturn the father of Picus, who deny that he was a man; of whom some 
also have written that he himself reigned in Italy before Picus his son; and 
Virgil in his well-known book says, 
"That race indocile, and through mountains high 
Dispersed, he settled, and endowed with laws, And named their country Latium, 
because Latent within their coasts he dwelt secure. Tradition says the golden 
ages pure Began when he was king."(1) 
But they regard these as poetic fancies, and assert that the father of Picus was 
Sterces rather, and relate that, being a most skillful husbandman, he discovered 
that the fields could be fertilized by the dung of animals, which is called 
stercus from his name. Some say he was called Stercutius. But for whatever 
reason they chose to call him Saturn, it is yet certain they made this Sterces 
or Stercutius a god for his merit in agriculture; and they likewise received 
into the number of these gods Picus his son, whom they affirm to have been a 
famous augur and warrior. Picus begot Faunus, the second king of Laurentum; and 
he too is, or was, a god with them. These divine honors they gave to dead men 
before the Trojan war. 
CHAP. 16.--OF DIOMEDE, WHO AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY WAS PLACED AMONG THE 
GODS, WHILE HIS COMPANIONS ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN CHANGED INTO BIRDS 
Troy was overthrown, and its destruction was everywhere sung and made well known 
even to boys; for it was signally published and spread abroad, both by its own 
greatness and by writers of excellent style. And this was done in the reign of 
Latinus the son of Faunus, from whom the kingdom began to be called Latium 
instead of Laurentum. The victorious Greeks, on leaving Troy destroyed and 
returning to their own countries, were torn and crushed by divers and horrible 
calamities. Yet even from among them they increased the number of their gods for 
they made Diomede a god. They allege that his return home was prevented by a 
divinely imposed punishment, and they prove, not by fabulous and poetic 
falsehood, but by historic attestation, that his companions were turned into 
birds. Yet they think that, even although he was made a god, he could neither 
restore them to the human form by his own power, nor yet obtain it from Jupiter 
his king, as a favor granted to a new inhabitant of heaven. They also say that 
his temple is in the island of Diomedaea, not far from Mount Garganus in Apulia, 
and that these birds fly round about this temple, and worship in it with such 
wonderful obedience, that they fill their beaks with water and sprinkle it; and 
if Greeks, or those born of the Greek race, come there, they are not only still, 
but fly to meet them; but if they are foreigners, they fly up at their heads, 
and wound them with such severe strokes as even to kill them. For they are said 
to be well enough armed for these combats with their hard and large beaks. 
CHAP. 17.--WHAT VARRO SAYS OF THE INCREDIBLE TRANSFORMATIONS OF MEN. 
In support of this story, Varro relates others no less incredible about that 
most famous sorceress Circe, who changed the companions of Ulysses into beasts, 
and about the Arcadians, who, by lot, swam across a certain pool, and were 
turned into wolves there, and lived in the deserts of that region with wild 
beasts like themselves. But if they never fed on human flesh for nine years, 
they were restored to the human form on swimming back again through the same 
pool. Finally, he expressly names one Demaenetus, who, on tasting a boy offered 
up in sacrifice by the Arcadians to their god Lycaeus according to their custom, 
was changed into a wolf, and, being restored to his proper form in the tenth 
year, trained himself as a pugilist, and was victorious at the Olympic games. 
And the same historian thinks that the epithet Lycaeus was applied in Arcadia to 
Pan and Jupiter for no other reason than this metamorphosis of men into wolves, 
because it was thought it could not be wrought except by a divine power. For a 
wolf is called in Greek <greek>lukos</greek>, from which the name Lycaeus 
appears to be formed. He says also that the Roman Luperci were as it were sprung 
of the seed of these mysteries. 
CHAP. 18.--WHAT WE SHOULD BELIEVE CONCERNING THE TRANSFORMATIONS WHICH SEEM TO 
HAPPEN TO MEN THROUGH THE ART OF DEMONS. 
Perhaps our readers expect us to say something about this so great delusion 
wrought by the demons; and what shall we say but that men must fly out of the 
midst of Babylon?(2) For this prophetic precept is to be understood spiritually 
in this sense, that by going forward in the living God, by the steps of faith, 
which worketh by love, we must flee out of the city of this world, which is 
altogether a society of ungodly angels and men. Yea, the greater we see the 
power of the demons to be in these depths, so much the more tenaciously must we 
cleave to the Mediator through whom we ascend from these lowest to the highest 
places. For if we should say these things are not to be credited, there are not 
wanting even now some who would affirm that they had either heard on the best 
authority, or even themselves experienced, something of that kind. Indeed we 
ourselves, when in Italy, heard such things about a certain region there where 
landladies of inns, imbued with these wicked arts, were said to be in the habit 
of giving to such travellers as they chose, or could manage, something in a 
piece of cheese by which they were changed on the spot into beasts of burden, 
and carried whatever was necessary, and were restored to their own form when the 
work was done. Yet their mind did not become bestial, but remained rational and 
human, just as Apuleius, in the books he wrote with the title of The Golden Ass, 
has told, or feigned, that it happened to his own self that, on taking poison, 
he became an ass, while retaining his human mind. 
These things are either false, or so extraordinary as to be with good reason 
disbelieved. But it is to be most firmly believed that Almighty God can do 
whatever He pleases, whether in punishing or favoring, and that the demons can 
accomplish nothing by their natural power (for their created being is itself 
angelic, although made malign by their own fault), except what He may permit, 
whose judgments are often hidden, but never un-righteous. And indeed the demons, 
if they really do such things as these on which this discussion turns, do not 
create real substances, but only change the appearance of things created by the 
true God so as to make them seem to be what they are not. I cannot therefore 
believe that even the body, much less the mind, can really be changed into 
bestial forms and lineaments by any reason, art, or power of the demons; but the 
phantasm of a man which even in thought or dreams goes through innumerable 
changes may, when the man's senses are laid asleep or overpowered, be presented 
to the senses of others in a corporeal form, in some indescribable way unknown 
to me, so that men's bodies themselves may lie somewhere, alive, indeed, yet 
with their senses locked up much more heavily and firmly than by sleep, while 
that phantasm, as it were embodied in the shape of some animal, may appear to 
the senses of others, and may even seem to the man himself to be changed, just 
as he may seem to himself in sleep to be so changed, and to bear burdens; and 
these burdens, if they are real substances, are borne by the demons, that men 
may be deceived by beholding at the same time the real substance of the burdens 
and the simulated bodies of the beasts of burden. For a certain man called 
Praestantius used to tell that it had happened to his father in his own house, 
that he took that poison in a piece of cheese, and lay in his bed as if 
sleeping, yet could by no means be aroused. But he said that after a few days he 
as it were woke up and related the things he had suffered as if they had been 
dreams, namely, that he had been made a sumpter horse, and, along with other 
beasts of burden, had carried provisions for the soldiers of what is called the 
Rhoetian Legion, because it was sent to Rhoetia. And all this was found to have 
taken place just as he told, yet it had seemed to him to be his own dream. And 
another man declared that in his own house at night, before he slept, he saw a 
certain philosopher, whom he knew very well, come to him and explain to him some 
things in the Platonic philosophy which he had previously declined to explain 
when asked. And when he had asked this philosopher why he did in his house what 
he had refused to do at home, he said, "I did not do it, but I dreamed I had 
done it." And thus what the one saw when sleeping was shown to the other when 
awake by a phantasmal image. 
These things have not come to us from persons we might deem unworthy of credit, 
but from informants we could not suppose to be deceiving us. Therefore what men 
say and have committed to writing about the Arcadians being often changed into 
wolves by the Arcadian gods, or demons rather, and what is told in song about 
Circe transforming the companions of Ulysses,(1) if they were really done, may, 
in my opinion, have been done in the way I have said. As for Diomede's birds, 
since their race is alleged to have been perpetuated by constant propagation, I 
believe they were not made through the metamorphosis of men, but were slyly 
substituted for them on their removal, just as the hind was for Iphigenia, the 
daughter of king Agamemnon. For juggleries of this kind could not be difficult 
for the demons if permitted by the judgment of God; and since that virgin was 
afterwards, found alive it is easy to see that a hind had been slyly substituted 
for her. But because the companions of Diomede were of a sudden nowhere to be 
seen, and afterwards could nowhere be found, being destroyed by bad avenging 
angels, they were believed to have been changed into those birds, which were 
secretly brought there from other places where such birds were, and suddenly 
substituted for them by fraud. But that they bring water in their beaks and 
sprinkle it on the temple of Diomede, and that they fawn on men of Greek race 
and persecute aliens, is no wonderful thing to be done by the inward influence 
of the demons, whose interest it is to persuade men that Diomede was made a god, 
and thus to beguile them into worshipping many false gods, to the great dishonor 
of the true God; and to serve dead men, who even in their lifetime did not truly 
live, with temples, altars, sacrifices, and priests, all which, when of the 
right kind, are due only to the one living and true God. 
CHAP. 19.--THAT AENEAS CAME INTO ITALY WHEN ABDON THE JUDGE RULED OVER THE 
HEBREWS. 
After the capture and destruction of Troy, AEneas, with twenty ships laden with 
the Trojan relics, came into Italy, when Latinus reigned there, Menestheus in 
Athens, Polyphidos in Sicyon, and Tautanos in Assyria, and Abdon was judge of 
the Hebrews. On the death of Latinus, AEneas reigned three years, the same kings 
continuing in the above-named places, except that Pelasgus was now king in 
Sicyon, and Samson was judge of the Hebrews, who is thought to be Hercules, 
because of his wonderful strength. Now the Latins made AEneas one of their gods, 
because at his death he was nowhere to be found. The Sabines also placed among 
the gods their first king, Sancus, [Sangus], or Sanctus, as some call him. At 
that time Codrus king of Athens exposed himself incognito to be slain by the 
Peloponnesian foes of that city, and so was slain. In this way, they say, he 
delivered his country. For the Peloponnesians had received a response from the 
oracle, that they should overcome the Athenians only on condition that they did 
not slay their king. Therefore he deceived them by appearing in a poor man's 
dress, and provoking them, by quarrelling, to murder him. Whence Virgil says, 
"Or the quarrels of Codrus."(1) And the Athenians worshipped this man as a god 
with sacrificial honors. The fourth king of the Latins was Silvius the son of 
AEneas, not by Creusa, of whom Ascanius the third king was born, but by Lavinia 
the daughter of Latinus, and he is said to have been his posthumous child. Oneus 
was the twenty-ninth king of Assyria, Melanthus the sixteenth of the Athenians, 
and Eli the priest was judge of the Hebrews; and the kingdom of Sicyon then came 
to an end, after lasting, it is said, for nine hundred and fifty-nine years. 
CHAP. 20.--OF THE SUCCESSION OF THE LINE OF KINGS AMONG THE ISRAELITES AFTER THE 
TIMES OF THE JUDGES. 
While these kings reigned in the places mentioned, the period of the judges 
being ended, the kingdom of Israel next began with king Saul, when Samuel the 
prophet lived. At that date those Latin kings began who were surnamed Silvii, 
having that surname, in addition to their proper name, from their predecessor, 
that son of AEneas who was called Silvius; just as, long afterward, the 
successors of Caesar Augustus were surnamed Caesars. Saul being rejected, so 
that none of his issue should reign, on his death David succeeded him in the 
kingdom, after he had reigned forty years. Then the Athenians ceased to have 
kings after the death of Codrus, and began to have a magistracy to rule the 
republic. After David, who also reigned forty years, his son Solomon was king of 
Israel, who built that most noble temple of God at Jerusalem. In his time Alba 
was built among the Latins, from which thereafter the kings began to be styled 
kings not of the Latins, but of the Albans, although in the same Latium. Solomon 
was succeeded by his son Rehoboam, under whom that people was divided into two 
kingdoms, and its separate parts began to have separate kings. 
CHAP. 21.--OF THE KINGS OF LATIUM, THE FIRST AND TWELFTH OF WHOM, AENEAS AND 
AVENTINUS, WERE MADE GODS. 
After AEneas, whom they deified, Latium had eleven kings, none of whom was 
deified. But Aventinus, who was the twelfth after AEneas, having been laid low 
in war, and buried in that hill still called by his name, was added to the 
number of such gods as they made for themselves. Some, indeed, were unwilling to 
write that he was slain in battle, but said he was nowhere to be found, and that 
it was not from his name, but from the alighting of birds, that hill was called 
Aventinus.(2) After this no god was made in Latium except Romulus the founder of 
Rome. But two kings are found between these two, the first of whom I shall 
describe in the Virgilian verse: 
"Next came that Procas, glory of the Trojan race."(3) 
That greatest of all kingdoms, the Assyrian, had its long duration brought to a 
close in his time, the time of Rome's birth drawing nigh. For the Assyrian 
empire was transferred to the Medes after nearly thirteen hundred and five 
years, if we include the reign of Belus, who begot Ninus, and, content with a 
small kingdom,was the first king there. Now Procas reigned before Amulius. And 
Amulius had made his brother Numitor's daughter, Rhea by name, who was also 
called Ilia, a vestal virgin, who conceived twin sons by Mars, as they will have 
it, in that way honoring or excusing her adultery, adding as a proof that a 
she-wolf nursed the infants when exposed. For they think this kind of beast 
belongs to Mars so that the she-wolf is believed to have given her teats to the 
infants, because she knew they were the sons of Mars her lord; although there 
are not wanting persons who say that when the crying babes lay exposed, they 
were first of all picked up by I know not what harlot, and sucked her breasts 
first (now harlots were called lupae, she-wolves, from which their vile abodes 
are even yet called lupanaria), and that afterwards they came into the hands of 
the shepherd Faustulus, and were nursed by Acca his wife. Yet what wonder is it, 
if, to rebuke the king who had cruelly ordered them to be thrown into the water, 
God was pleased, after divinely delivering them from the water, to succor, by 
means of a wild beast giving milk, these infants by whom so great a city was to 
be rounded? Amulius was succeeded in the Latian kingdom by his brother Numitor, 
the grandfather of Romulus; and Rome was rounded in the first year of this 
Numitor, who from that time reigned along with his grandson Romulus. 
CHAP. 22.--THAT ROME WAS FOUNDED WHEN THE ASSYRIAN KINGDOM PERISHED, AT WHICH 
TIME HEZEKIAH REIGNED IN JUDAH. 
To be brief, the city of Rome was rounded, like another Babylon, and as it were 
the daughter of the former Babylon, by which God was pleased to conquer the 
whole world, and subdue it far and wide by bringing it into one fellowship of 
government and laws. For there were already powerful and brave peoples and 
nations trained to arms, who did not easily yield, and whose subjugation 
necessarily involved great danger and destruction as well as great and horrible 
labor. For when the Assyrian kingdom subdued almost all Asia, although this was 
done by fighting, yet the wars could not be very fierce or difficult, because 
the nations were as yet untrained to resist, and neither so many nor so great as 
afterward; forasmuch as, after that greatest and indeed universal flood, when 
only eight men escaped in Noah's ark, not much more than a thousand years had 
passed when Ninus subdued all Asia with the exception of India. But Rome did not 
with the same quickness and facility wholly subdue all those nations of the east 
and west which we see brought under the Roman empire, because, in its gradual 
increase, in whatever direction it was extended, it found them strong and 
warlike. At the time when Rome was rounded, then, the people of Israel had been 
in the land of promise seven hundred and eighteen years. Of these years 
twenty-seven belong to Joshua the son of Nun, and after that three hundred and 
twenty-nine to the period of the judges. But from the time when the kings began 
to reign there, three hundred and sixty-two years had passed. And at that time 
there was a king in Judah called Ahaz, or, as others compute, Hezekiah his 
successor, the best and most pious king, who it is admitted reigned in the times 
of Romulus. And in that part of the Hebrew nation called Israel, Hoshea had 
begun to reign. 
CHAP. 23.--OF THE ERYTHRAEAN SIBYL, WHO IS KNOWN TO HAVE SUNG MANY THINGS ABOUT 
CHRIST MORE PLAINLY THAN THE OTHER SIBYLS.(1) 
Some say the Erythraean sibyl prophesied at this time. Now Varro declares there 
were many sibyls, and not merely one. This sibyl of Erythrae certainly wrote 
some things concerning Christ which are quite manifest, and we first read them 
in the Latin tongue in verses of bad Latin, and unrhythmical, through the 
unskillfulness, as we afterwards learned, of some interpreter unknown to me. For 
Flaccianus, a very famous man, who was also a proconsul, a man of most ready 
eloquence and much learning, when we were speaking about Christ, produced a 
Greek manuscript, saying that it was the prophecies of the Erythraean sibyl, in 
which he pointed out a certain passage which had the initial letters of the 
lines so arranged that these words could be read in them: 'I<greek>hsous</greek> 
X<greek>ristos</greek> <greek>Qeou</greek> <greek>uios</greek> 
<greek>spthr</greek>, which means, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour." 
And these verses, of which the initial letters yield that meaning, contain what 
follows as translated by some one into Latin in good rhythm: 
I Judgment shall moisten the earth with the sweat 
of its standard, H Ever enduring, behold the King shall come 
through the ages, <greek>S</greek> Sent to be here in the flesh, and Judge at 
the last 
of the world. 
<greek>o</greek> O God, the believing and faithless alike shall behold Thee 
<greek>U</greek> Uplifted with saints, when at last the ages are 
ended. <greek>S</greek> Seated before Him are souls in the flesh for His 
judgment <greek>c</greek> Hid in thick vapors, the while desolate lieth the 
earth. P Rejected by men are the idols and long hidden 
treasures; E Earth is consumed by the fire, and it searcheth the 
ocean and heaven; I Issuing forth, it destroyeth the terrible portals of 
hell. <greek>S</greek> Saints in their body and soul freedom and light 
shall inherit: T Those who are guilty shall burn in fire and brimstone for ever. 
<greek>o</greek> Occult actions revealing, each one shall publish 
his secrets; <greek>S</greek> Secrets of every man's heart God shall reveal in 
the light. 
<greek>Q</greek> Then shall be weeping and wailing, yea, and 
gnashing of teeth; E Eclipsed is the sun, and silenced the stars in their 
chorus. <greek>o</greek> Over and gone is the splendor of moonlight, 
melted the heaven, <greek>g</greek> Uplifted by Him are the valleys, and east 
down 
the mountains. 
<greek>o</greek> Utterly gone among men are distinctions of lofty 
and lowly. I Into the plains rush the hills, the skies and oceans 
are mingled. <greek>o</greek> Oh, what an end of all things! earth broken in 
pieces shall perish; <greek>S</greek> Swelling together at once shall the waters 
and 
flames flow in rivers. 
<greek>S</greek> Sounding the archangel's trumpet shall peal down 
from heaven, <greek>W</greek> Over the wicked who groan in their guilt and their 

manifold sorrows. T Trembling, the earth shall be opened, revealing 
chaos and hell. H Every king before God shall stand in that day to 
be judged. P Rivers of fire and brimstone shall fall from the 
heavens. 
In these Latin verses the meaning of the Greek is correctly given, although not 
in the exact order of the lines as connected with the initial letters; for in 
three of them, the fifth, eighteenth, and nineteenth, where the Greek letter 
<greek>g</greek> occurs, Latin words could not be found beginning with the 
corresponding letter, and yielding a suitable meaning. So that, if we note down 
together the initial letters of all the lines in our Latin translation except 
those three in which we retain the letter T in the proper place, they will 
express in five Greek words this meaning, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the 
Saviour." And the verses are twenty-seven, which is the cube of three. For three 
times three are nine; and nine itself, if tripled, so as to rise from the 
superficial square to the cube, comes to twenty-seven. But if you join the 
initial letters of these five Greek words, 'I<greek>hsous</greek> 
<greek>cristos</greek> <greek>Qeou</greek> <greek>uios</greek> 
<greek>swthr</greek>, which mean, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour," 
they will make the word <greek>ikdus</greek>, that is, "fish," in which word 
Christ is mystically understood, because He was able to live, that is, to exist, 
without sin in the abyss of this mortality as in the depth of waters."(1) 
But this sibyl, whether she is the Erythraean, or, as some rather believe, the 
Cumaean, in her whole poem, of which this is a very small portion, not only has 
nothing that can relate to the worship of the false or reigned gods, but rather 
speaks against them and their worshippers in such a way that we might even think 
she ought to be reckoned among those who belong to the city of God. Lactantius 
also inserted in his work the prophecies about Christ of a certain sibyl, he 
does not say which. But I have thought fit to combine in a single extract, which 
may seem long, what he has set down in many short quotations. She says; 
"Afterward He shall come into the injurious hands of the unbelieving, and they 
will give God buffets with profane hands, and with impure mouth will spit out 
envenomed spittle; but He will with simplicity yield His holy back to stripes. 
And He will hold His peace when struck with the fist, that no one may find out 
what word, or whence, He comes to speak to hell; and He shall be crowned with a 
crown of thorns. And they gave Him gall for meat, and vinegar for His thirst: 
they will spread this table of inhospitality. For thou thyself, being foolish, 
hast not understood thy God, deluding the minds of mortals, but hast both 
crowned Him with thorns and mingled for Him bitter gall. But the veil of the 
temple shall be rent; and at midday it shall be darker than night for three 
hours. And He shall die the death, taking sleep for three days; and then 
returning from hell, He first shall come to the light, the beginning of the 
resurrection being shown to the recalled." Lactantius made use of these 
sibylline testimonies, introducing them bit by bit in the course of his 
discussion as the things he intended to prove seemed to require, and we have set 
them down in one connected series, uninterrupted by comment, only taking care to 
mark them by capitals, if only the transcribers do not neglect to preserve them 
hereafter. Some writers, indeed, say that the Erythraean sibyl was not in the 
time of Romulus, but of the Trojan war 
CHAP. 24.--THAT THE SEVEN SAGES FLOURISHED IN THE REIGN OF ROMULUS, WHEN THE TEN 
TRIBES WHICH WERE CALLED ISRAEL WERE LED INTO CAPTIVITY BY THE CHALDEANS, AND 
ROMULUS, WHEN DEAD, HAD DIVINE HONORS CONFERRED ON HIM. 
While Romulus reigned, Thales the Milesian is said to have lived, being one of 
the seven sages, who succeeded the theological poets, of whom Orpheus was the 
most renowned, and were called <greek>Sofoi</greek>, that is, sages. During that 
time the ten tribes, which on the division of the people were called Israel, 
were conquered by the Chaldeans and led captive into their lands, while the two 
tribes which were called Judah, and had the seat of their kingdom in Jerusalem, 
remained in the land of Judea. As Romulus, when dead, could nowhere be found, 
the Romans, as is everywhere notorious, placed him among the gods,--a thing 
which by that time had already ceased to be done, and which was not done 
afterwards till the time of the Caesars, and then not through error, but in 
flattery; so that Cicero ascribes great praises to Romulus, because he merited 
such honors not in rude and unlearned times, when men were easily deceived, but 
in times already polished and learned, although the subtle and acute loquacity 
of the philosophers had not yet culminated. But although the later times did not 
deify dead men, still they did not cease to hold and worship as gods those 
deified of old; nay, by images, which the ancients never had, they even 
increased the allurements of vain and impious superstition, the unclean demons 
effecting this in their heart, and also deceiving them by lying oracles, so that 
even the fabulous crimes of the gods, which were not once imagined by a more 
polite age, were yet basely acted in the plays in honor of these same false 
deities. Numa reigned after Romulus; and although he had thought that Rome would 
be better defended the more gods there were, yet on his death he himself was not 
counted worthy of a place among them, as if it were supposed that he had so 
crowded heaven that a place could not be found for him there. They report that 
the Samian sibyl lived while he reigned at Rome, and when Manasseh began to 
reign over the Hebrews,--an impious king, by whom the prophet Isaiah is said to 
have been slain. 
CHAP. 25.--WHAT PHILOSOPHERS WERE FAMOUS WHEN TARQUINIUS PRISCUS REIGNED OVER 
THE ROMANS, AND ZEDEKIAH OVER THE HEBREWS, WHEN JERUSALEM WAS TAKEN AND THE 
TEMPLE OVERTHROWN. 
When Zedekiah reigned over the Hebrews, 
and Tarquinius Priscus, the successor of Ancus Martius, over the Romans, the 
Jewish people was led captive into Babylon, Jerusalem and the temple built by 
Solomon being overthrown. For the prophets, in chiding them for their iniquity 
and impiety, predicted that these things should come to pass, especially 
Jeremiah, who even stated the number of years. Pittacus of Mitylene, another of 
the sages, is reported to have lived at that time. And Eusebius writes that, 
while the people of God were held captive in Babylon, the five other sages 
lived, who must be added to Thales, whom we mentioned above, and Pittacus, in 
order to make up the seven. These are Solon of Athens, Chilo of Lacedaemon, 
Periander of Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus, and Bias of Priene. These flourished 
after the theological poets, and were called sages, because they excelled other 
men in a certain laudable line of life, and summed up some moral precepts in 
epigrammatic sayings. But they left posterity no literary monuments, except that 
Solon is alleged to have given certain laws to the Athenians, and Thales was a 
natural philosopher, and left books of his doctrine in short proverbs. In that 
time of the Jewish captivity, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Xenophanes, the 
natural philosophers, flourished. Pythagoras also lived then, and at this time 
the name philosopher was first used. 
CHAP. 26.--THAT AT THE TIME WHEN THE CAPTIVITY OF THE JEWS WAS BROUGHT TO AN 
END, ON THE COMPLETION OF SEVENTY YEARS, THE ROMANS ALSO WERE FREED FROM KINGLY 
RULE. 
At this time, Cyrus king of Persia, who also ruled the Chaldeans and Assyrians, 
having somewhat relaxed the captivity of the Jews, made fifty thousand of them 
return in order to rebuild the temple. They only began the first foundations and 
built the altar; but, owing to hostile invasions, they were unable to go on, and 
the work was put off to the time of Darius. During the same time also those 
things were done which are written in the book of Judith, which, indeed, the 
Jews are said not to have received into the canon of the Scriptures. Under 
Darius king of Persia, then, on the completion of the seventy years predicted by 
Jeremiah the prophet, the captivity of the Jews was brought to an end, and they 
were restored to liberty. Tarquin then reigned as the seventh king of the 
Romans. On his expulsion, they also began to be free from the rule of their 
kings. Down to this time the people of Israel had prophets; but, although they 
were numerous, the canonical writings of only a few of them have been preserved 
among the Jews and among us. In closing the previous book, I promised to set 
down something in this one about them, and I shall now do so. 
CHAP. 27.--OF THE TIMES OF THE PROPHETS WHOSE ORACLES ARE CONTAINED IN BOOKS AND 
WHO SANG MANY THINGS ABOUT THE CALL OF THE GENTILES AT THE TIME WHEN THE ROMAN 
KINGDOM BEGAN AND THE ASSYRIAN CAME TO AN END. 
In order that we may be able to consider these times, let us go back a little to 
earlier times. At the beginning of the book of the prophet Hosea, who is placed 
first of twelve, it is written, "The word of the Lord which came to Hoses in the 
days of Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah."(1) Amos also writes 
that he prophesied in the days of Uzziah, and adds the name of Jeroboam king of 
Israel, who lived at the same time.(2) Isaiah the son of Amos--either the 
above-named prophet, or, as is rather affirmed, another who was not a prophet, 
but was called by the same name--also puts at the head of his book these four 
kings named by Hosea, saying by way of preface that he prophesied in their 
days.(3) Micah also names the same times as those of his prophecy, after the 
days of Uzziah;(4) for he names the same three kings as Hosea named,--Jotham, 
Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We find from their own writings that these men prophesied 
contemporaneously. To these are added Jonah in the reign of Uzziah, and Joel in 
that of Jotham, who succeeded Uzziah. But we can find the date of these two 
prophets in the chronicles,(5) Dot in their own writings, for they say nothing 
about it themselves. Now these days extend from Procas king of the Latins. or 
his predecessor Aventinus, down to Romulus king of the Romans, or even to the 
beginning of the reign of his successor Numa Pompilius. Hezekiah king of Judah 
certainly reigned till then. So that thus these fountains of prophecy, as I may 
call them, burst forth at once during those times when the Assyrian kingdom 
failed and the Roman began; so that, just as in the first period of the Assyrian 
kingdom Abraham arose, to whom the most distinct promises were made that all 
nations should be blessed in his seed, so at the beginning of the western 
Babylon, in the time of whose government Christ was to come in whom these 
promises were to be fulfilled, the oracles of the prophets were given not only 
in spoken but in written words, for a testimony that so great a thing should 
come to pass. For although the people of Israel hardly ever lacked prophets from 
the time when they began to have kings, these were only for their own use, not 
for that of the nations. But when the more manifestly prophetic Scripture began 
to be formed, which was to benefit the nations too, it was fitting that it 
should begin when this city was founded which was to rule the nations. 
CHAP. 28.--OF THE THINGS PERTAINING TO THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST WHICH HOSEA AND AMOS 
PROHESIED. 
The prophet Hosea speaks so very profoundly that it is laborious work to 
penetrate his meaning. But, according to promise, we must insert something from 
his book. He says, "And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was 
said unto them, Ye are not my people, there they shall be called the sons of the 
living God."(6) Even the apostles understood this as a prophetic testimony of 
the calling of the nations who did not formerly belong to God; and because this 
same people of the Gentiles is itself spiritually among the children of Abraham, 
and for that reason is rightly called Israel, therefore he goes on to say, "And 
the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together in 
one, and shall appoint themselves one headship, and shall ascend from the 
earth."(7) We should but weaken the savor of this prophetic oracle if we set 
ourselves to expound it. Let the reader but call to mind that cornerstone and 
those two walls of partition, the one of the Jews, the other of the Gentiles,(8) 
and he will recognize them, the one under the term sons of Judah, the other as 
sons of Israel, supporting themselves by one and the same headship, and 
ascending from the earth. But that those carnal Israelites who are sow unwilling 
to believe in Christ shall afterward believe, that is, their children shall (for 
they themselves, of course, shall go to their own place by dying), this same 
prophet testifies, saying, "For the children of Israel shall abide many days 
without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice, without an altar, without 
a priesthood, without manifestations."(9) Who does not see that the Jews are now 
thus? But let us hear what he adds: "And afterward shall the children of Israel 
return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall be amazed 
at the Lord and at His goodness in the latter days."(10 Nothing is clearer than 
this prophecy, in which by David, as distinguished by the title of king, Christ 
is to be understood, "who is made," as the apostle says, "of the seed of David 
according to the flesh."(1) This prophet has also foretold the resurrection of 
Christ on the third day, as it behoved to be foretold, with prophetic loftiness, 
when he says, "He will heal us after two days, and in the third day we shall 
rise again."(2) In agreement with this the apostle says to us, "If ye be risen 
with Christ, seek those things which are above."(3) Amos also prophesies thus 
concerning such things: "Prepare thee, that thou mayst invoke thy God, O Israel; 
for lo, I am binding the thunder, and creating the spirit, and announcing to men 
their Christ."(4) And in another place he says, "In that day will I raise up the 
tabernacle of David that is fallen, and build up the breaches thereof: and I 
will raise up his ruins, and will build them up again as in the days of old: 
that the residue of men may inquire for me, and all the nations upon whom my 
name is invoked, saith the Lord that doeth this."(5) 
CHAP. 29.--WHAT THINGS ARE PREDICTED BY ISAIAH CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE CHURCH. 

The prophecy of Isaiah is not in the book of the twelve prophets, who are called 
the minor from the brevity of their writings, as compared with those who are 
called the greater prophets because they published larger volumes. Isaiah 
belongs to the latter, yet I connect him with the two above named, because he 
prophesied at the same time. Isaiah, then, together with his rebukes of 
wickedness, precepts of righteousness, and predictions of evil, also prophesied 
much more than the rest about Christ and the Church, that is, about the King and 
that city which he founded; so that some say he should be called an evangelist 
rather than a prophet. But, in order to finish this work, I quote only one out 
of many in this place. Speaking in the person of the Father, he says, "Behold, 
my servant shall understand, and shall be exalted and glorified very much. As 
many shall be astonished at Thee."(6) This is about Christ. 
But let us now hear what follows about the Church. He says, "Rejoice, O barren, 
thou that barest not; break forth and cry, thou that didst not travail with 
child: for many more are the children of the desolate than of her that has an 
husband."(7) But these must suffice; and some things in them ought to be 
expounded; yet I think those parts sufficient which are so plain that even 
enemies must be compelled against their will to understand them. 
CHAP. 30--WHAT MICAH, JONAH, AND JOEL PROPHESIED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE NEW 
TESTAMENT. 
The prophet Micah, representing Christ under the figure of a great mountain, 
speaks thus: "It shall come to pass in the last days, that the manifested 
mountain of the Lord shall be prepared on the tops of the mountains, and it 
shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall hasten unto it. Many nations 
shall go, and shall say, Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and 
into the house of the God of Jacob; and He will show us His way, and we will go 
in His paths: for out of Zion shall proceed the law, and the word of the Lord 
out of Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong 
nations afar off."(8) This prophet predicts the very place in which Christ was 
born, saying, "And thou, Bethlehem, of the house of Ephratah, art the least that 
can be reckoned among the thousands of Judah; out of thee shall come forth unto 
me a leader, to be the prince in Israel; and His going forth is from the 
beginning, even from the days of eternity. Therefore will He give them [up] even 
until the time when she that travaileth shall bring forth; and the remnant of 
His brethren shall be converted to the sons of Israel. And He shall stand, and 
see, and feed His flock in the strength of the Lord, and in the dignity of the 
name of the Lord His God: for now shall He be magnified even to the utmost of 
the earth."(9) 
The prophet Jonah, not so much by speech as by his own painful experience, 
prophesied Christ's death and resurrection much more clearly than if he had 
proclaimed them with his voice. For why was he taken into the whale's belly and 
restored on the third day, but that he might be a sign that Christ should return 
from the depths of hell on the third day? 
I should be obliged to use many words in explaining all that Joel prophesies in 
order to make clear those that pertain to Christ and the Church. But there is 
one passage I must not pass by, which the apostles also quoted when the Holy 
Spirit came down from above on the assembled believers according to Christ's 
promise. He says, "And it shall come to pass after these things, that I will 
pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall 
prophesy, and your old men shall dream, and your young men shall see visions: 
and even on my servants and mine handmaids in those days will I pour out my 
Spirit."(1) 
CHAP. 31.--OF THE PREDICTIONS CONCERNING THE SALVATION OF THE WORLD IN CHRIST, 
IN OBADIAH, NAHUM, AND HABAKKUK. 
The date of three of the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk, is 
neither mentioned by themselves nor given in the chronicles of Eusebius and 
Jerome. For although they put Obadiah with Micah, yet when Micah prophesied does 
not appear from that part of their writings in which the dates are noted. And 
this, I think, has happened through their error in negligently copying the works 
of others. But we could not find the two others now mentioned in the copies of 
the chronicles which we have; yet because they are contained in the canon, we 
ought not to pass them by. 
Obadiah, so far as his writings are concerned, the briefest of all the prophets, 
speaks against Idumea, that is, the nation of Esau that reprobate eider of the 
twin sons of Isaac and grandsons of Abraham. Now if, by that form of speech in 
which a part is put for the whole, we take Idumea as put for the nations, we may 
understand of Christ what he says among other things, "But upon Mount Sion shall 
be safety, and there shall be a Holy One."(2) And a little after, at the end of 
the same prophecy, he says, "And those who are saved again shall come up out of 
Mount Sion, that they may defend Mount Esau, and it shall be a kingdom to the 
Lord."(3) It is quite evident this was fulfilled when those saved again out of 
Mount Sion--that is, the believers in Christ from Judea, of whom the apostles 
are chiefly to be acknowledged--went up to defend Mount Esau. How could they 
defend it except by making safe, through the preaching of the gospel, those who 
believed that they might be "delivered from the power of darkness and translated 
into the kingdom of God?"(4) This he expressed as an inference, adding, "And it 
shall be to the Lord a kingdom." For Mount Sion signifies Jades, where it is 
predicted there shall be safety, and a Holy One, that is, Christ Jesus. But 
Mount Esau is Idumea, which signifies the Church of the Gentiles, which, as I 
have expounded, those saved again out of Sion have defended that it should be a 
kingdom to the Lord. This was obscure before it took place; but what believer 
does not find it out now that it is done? 
As for the prophet Nahum, through him God says, "I will exterminate the graven 
and the molten things: I will make thy burial. For lo, the feet of Him that 
bringeth good tidings and announceth peace are swift upon the mountains! O 
Judah, celebrate thy festival days, and perform thy vows; for now they shall not 
go on any more so as to become antiquated. It is completed, it is consumed, it 
is taken away. He ascendeth who breathes in thy face, delivering thee out of 
tribulation."(5) Let him that remembers the gospel call to mind who hath 
ascended from hell and breathed the Holy Spirit in the face of Judah, that is, 
of the Jewish disciples; for they belong to the New Testament, whose festival 
days are so spiritually renewed that they cannot become antiquated. Moreover, we 
already see the graven and molten things, that is, the idols of the false gods, 
exterminated through the gospel, and given up to oblivion as of the grave, and 
we know that this prophecy is fulfilled in this very thing. 
Of what else than the advent of Christ, who was to come, is Habakkuk understood 
to say, "And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision openly on a tablet 
of boxwood, that he that readeth these things may understand. For the vision is 
yet for a time appointed, and it will arise in the end, and will not become 
void: if it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, and will not be 
delayed?"(6) 
CHAP. 32.--OF THE PROPHECY THAT IS CONTAINED IN THE PRAYER AND SONG OF HABAKKUK. 

In his prayer, with a song, to whom but the Lord Christ does he say, "O Lord, I 
have heard Thy hearing, and was afraid: O Lord, I have considered Thy works, and 
was greatly afraid?"(7) What is this but the inexpressible admiration of the 
foreknown, new, and sudden salvation of men? "In the midst of two living 
creatures thou shalt be recognized." What is this but either between the two 
testaments, or between the two thieves, or between Moses and Elias talking with 
Him on the mount? "While the years draw nigh, Thou wilt be recognized; at the 
coming of the time Thou wilt be shown," does not even need exposition. "While my 
soul shall be troubled at Him, in wrath Thou wilt be mindful of mercy." What is 
this but that He puts Himself for the Jews, of whose nation He was, who were 
troubled with great anger and crucified Christ, when He, mindful of mercy, said, 
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?(1)"God shall come from 
Teman, and the Holy One from the shady and close mountain."(2) What is said 
here, "He shall come from Teman," some interpret "from the south," or "from the 
southwest," by which is signified the noonday, that is, the fervor of charity 
and the splendor of truth. "The shady and close mountain" might be understood in 
many ways, yet I prefer to take it as meaning the depth of the divine 
Scriptures, in which Christ is prophesied: for in the Scriptures there are many 
things shady and close which exercise the mind of the reader; and Christ comes 
thence when he who has understanding finds Him there. "His power covereth up the 
heavens, and the earth is full of His praise." What is this but what is also 
said in the psalm, "Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; and Thy glory 
above all the earth?"(3) "His splendor shall be as the light." What is it but 
that the fame of Him shall illuminate believers? "Horns are in His hands." What 
is this but the trophy of the cross? "And He hath placed the firm charity of His 
strength"(4) needs no exposition. "Before His face shall go the word, and it 
shall go forth into the field after His feet." What is this but that He should 
both be announced before His coming hither and after His return hence? "He 
stood, and the earth was moved." What is this but that "He stood" for succor, 
"and the earth was moved" to believe? "He regarded, and the nations melted;" 
that is, He had compassion, and made the people penitent. "The mountains are 
broken with violence;" that is, through the power of those who work miracles the 
pride of the haughty is broken "The everlasting hills flowed down;" that is, 
they are humbled in time that they may be lifted up for eternity. "I saw His 
goings [made] eternal for his labors;" that is, I beheld His labor of love not 
left without the reward of eternity. "The tents of Ethiopia shall be greatly 
afraid, and the tents of the land of Midian" that is, even those nations which 
are not under the Roman authority, being suddenly terrified by the news of Thy 
wonderful works, shall become a Christian people. "Wert Thou angry at the 
rivers, O Lord? or was Thy fury against the rivers? or was Thy rage against the 
sea? This is said because He does not now come to condemn the world, but that 
the world through Him might be saved.(5) "For Thou shall mount upon Thy horses, 
and Thy riding shall be salvation;" that is, Thine evangelists shall carry Thee, 
for they are guided by Thee, and Thy gospel is salvation to them that believe in 
Thee. "Bending, Thou wilt bend Thy bow against the sceptres, saith the Lord;" 
that is, Thou wilt threaten even the kings of the earth with Thy judgment. "The 
earth shall be cleft with rivers;" that is, by the sermons of those who preach 
Thee flowing in upon them, men's hearts shall be opened to make confession, to 
whom it is said, "Rend your hearts and not your garments."(6) What does "The 
people shall see Thee and grieve" mean, but that in mourning they shall be 
blessed?(7) What is "Scattering the waters in marching," but that by walking in 
those who everywhere proclaim Thee, Thou wilt scatter hither and thither the 
streams of Thy doctrine? What is "The abyss uttered its voice?" Is it not that 
the depth of the human heart expressed what it perceived? The words, "The depth 
of its phantasy," are an explanation of the previous verse, for the depth is the 
abyss; and "Uttered its voice" is to be understood before them, that is, as we 
have said, it expressed what it perceived. Now the phantasy is the vision, which 
it did not hold or conceal, but poured forth in confession. "The sun was raised 
up, and the moon stood still in her course;" that is, Christ ascended into 
heaven, and the Church was established under her King. "Thy darts shall go in 
the light;" that is, Thy words shall not be sent in secret, but openly. For He 
had said to His own disciples, "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in 
the light."(8) "By threatening thou shall diminish the earth;" that is, by that 
threatening Thou shall humble men. "And in fury Thou shall cast down the 
nations;" for in punishing those who exalt themselves Thou dashest them one 
against another. "Thou wentest forth for the salvation of Thy people, that Thou 
mightest save Thy Christ; Thou hast sent death on the heads of the wicked." None 
of these words require exposition. "Thou hast lifted up the bonds, even to the 
neck." This may be understood even of the good bonds of wisdom, that the feet 
may be put into its fetters, and the neck into its collar. "Thou hast struck off 
in amazement of mind the bonds" must be understood for, He lifts up the good and 
strikes off the bad, about. which it is said to Him, "Thou hast broken asunder 
my bonds,"(1) and that "in amazement of mind," that is, wonderfully. "The heads 
of the mighty shall be moved in it;" to wit, in that wonder. "They shall open 
their teeth like a poor man eating secretly." For some of the mighty among the 
Jews shall come to the Lord, admiring His works and words, and shall greedily 
eat the bread of His doctrine in secret for fear of the Jews, just as the Gospel 
has shown they did. "And Thou hast sent into the sea Thy horses, troubling many 
waters," which are nothing else than many people; for unless all were troubled, 
some would not be converted with fear, others pursued with fury. "I gave heed, 
and my belly trembled at the voice of the prayer of my lips; and trembling 
entered into my bones, and my habit of body was troubled under me." He gave heed 
to those things which he said, and was himself terrified at his own prayer, 
which he had poured forth prophetically, and in which he discerned things to 
come. For when many people are troubled, he saw the threatening tribulation of 
the Church, and at once acknowledged himself a member of it, and said, "I shall 
rest in the day of tribulation," as being one of those Who are rejoicing in 
hope, patient in tribulation.(2) "That I may ascend," he says, "among the people 
of my pilgrimage," departing quite from the wicked people of his carnal kinship, 
who are not pilgrims in this earth, and do not seek the country above.(3) 
"Although the fig-tree," he says, "shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in 
the vines the labor of the olive shall lie, and the fields shall yield no meat; 
the sheep shall be cut off from the meat, and there shall be no oxen in the 
stalls." He sees that nation which was to slay Christ about to lose the 
abundance of spiritual supplies, which, in prophetic fashion, he has set forth 
by the figure of earthly plenty. And because that nation was to suffer such 
wrath of God, because, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, it wished to 
establish its own,(4) he immediately says, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I 
will joy in God my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He will set my 
feet in completion; He will place me above the heights, that I may conquer in 
His song," to wit, in that song of which something similar is said in the psalm, 
"He set my feet upon a rock, and directed my goings, and put in my mouth a new 
song, a hymn to our God."(5) He therefore conquers in the song of the Lord, who 
takes pleasure in His praise, not in his own; that "He that glorieth, let him 
glory in the Lord."(6) But some copies have, "I will joy in God my Jesus," which 
seems to me better than the version of those who, wishing to put it in Latin, 
have not set down that very name which for us it is dearer and sweeter to name. 
CHAP. 33.--WHAT JEREMIAH AND ZEPHANIAH HAVE, BY THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, SPOKEN 
BEFORE CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE CALLING OF THE NATIONS. 
Jeremiah, like Isaiah, is one of the greater prophets, not of the minor, like 
the others from whose writings I have just given extracts. He prophesied when 
Josiah reigned in Jerusalem, and Ancus Martius at Rome, when the captivity of 
the Jews was already at hand; and he continued to prophesy down to the fifth 
month of the captivity, as we find from his writings. Zephaniah, one of the 
minor prophets, is put along with him, because he himself says that he 
prophesied in the days of Josiah; but he does not say till when. Jeremiah thus 
prophesied not only in the times of Ancus Martius, but also in those of 
Tarquinius Priscus, whom the Romans had for their fifth king. For he had already 
begun to reign when that captivity took place. Jeremiah, in prophesying of 
Christ, says, "The breath of our mouth, the Lord Christ, was taken in our 
sins,"(7) thus briefly showing both that Christ is our Lord and that He suffered 
for us. Also in another place he says, "This is my God, and there shall none 
other be accounted of in comparison of Him; who hath found out all the way of 
prudence, and hath given it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved: 
afterwards He was seen on the earth, and conversed with men."(8) Some attribute 
this testimony not to Jeremiah, but to his secretary, who was called Baruch; but 
it is more commonly ascribed to Jeremiah. Again the same prophet says concerning 
Him, "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise up unto David a 
righteous shoot, and a King shall reign and shall be wise, and shall do judgment 
and justice in the earth. In those days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall 
dwell confidently: and this is the name which they shall call Him, Our righteous 
Lord."(9) And of the calling of the nations which was to come to pass, and which 
we now see fulfilled, he thus spoke: "O Lord my God, and my refuge in the day of 
evils. to Thee shall the nations come from the utmost end of the earth, saying, 
Truly our fathers have worshipped lying images, wherein there is no profit." But 
that the Jews, by whom He behoved even to be slain, were not going to 
acknowledge Him, this prophet thus intimates: "Heavy is the heart through all; 
and He is a man, and who shall know Him?"(2) That passage also is his which I 
have quoted in the seventeenth book concerning the new testament, of which 
Christ is the Mediator. For Jeremiah himself says, "Behold, the days come, saith 
the Lord, that I will complete over the house of Jacob a new testament," and the 
rest, which may be read there.(3) 
For the present I shall put down those predictions about Christ by the prophet 
Zephaniah, who prophesied with Jeremiah. "Wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, in 
the day of my resurrection, in the future; because it is my determination to 
assemble the nations, and gather together the kingdoms."(4) And again he says, 
"The Lord will be terrible upon them, and will exterminate all the gods of the 
earth; and they shall worship Him every man from his place, even all the isles 
of the nations."(5) And a little after he says, "Then will I turn to the people 
a tongue, and to His offspring, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, 
and serve Him under one yoke. From the borders of the rivers of Ethiopia: shall 
they bring sacrifices unto me. In that day thou shall not be confounded for all 
thy curious inventions, which thou hast done impiously against me: for then I 
will take away from thee the Haughtiness of thy trespass; and thou shalt no more 
magnify thyself above thy holy mountain. And I will leave in thee a meek and 
humble people, and they who shall be left of Israel shall fear the name of the 
Lord."(6) These are the remnant of whom the apostle quotes that which is 
elsewhere prophesied: "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the 
sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved."(7) These are the remnant of that 
nation who have believed in Christ. 
CHAP. 34.--OF THE PROPHECY OF DANIEL AND EZEKIEL, OTHER TWO OF THE GREATER 
PROPHETS. 
Daniel and Ezekiel, other two of the greater prophets, also first prophesied in 
the very captivity of Babylon. Daniel even defined the time when Christ was to 
come and suffer by the exact date. It would take too long to show this by 
computation, and it has been done often by others before us. But of His power 
and glory he has thus spoken: "I saw in a night vision, and, behold, one like 
the Son of man was coming with the clouds of heaven, and He came even to the 
Ancient of days, and He was brought into His presence. And to Him there was 
given dominion, and honor, and a kingdom: and all people, tribes, and tongues 
shall serve Him. His power is an everlasting power, which shall not pass away, 
and His kingdom shall not be destroyed."(8) 
Ezekiel also, speaking prophetically in the person of God the Father, thus 
foretells Christ, speaking of Him in the prophetic manner as David, because He 
assumed flesh of the seed of David, and on account of that form of a servant in 
which He was made man, He who is the Son of God is also called the servant of 
God. He says, "And I will set up over my sheep one Shepherd, who will feed them, 
even my servant David; and He shall feed them, and He shall be their shepherd. 
And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince in the midst of 
them. I the Lord have spoken."(9) And in another place he says, "And one King 
shall be over them all: and they shall no more be two nations, neither shall 
they be divided any more into two kingdoms: neither shall they defile themselves 
any more with their idols, and their abominations, and all their iniquities. And 
I will save them out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and 
will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And my 
servant David shall be king over them, and there shall be one Shepherd for them 
all."10 
CHAP. 35.--OF THE PROPHECY OF THE THREE PROPHETS, HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, AND 
MALACHI. 
There remain three minor prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who 
prophesied at the close of the captivity. Of these Haggai more openly prophesies 
of Christ and the Church thus briefly: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet one 
little while, and I will shake the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the 
dry land; and I will move all nations, and the desired of all nations shall 
come."(11) The fulfillment of this prophecy is in part already seen, and in part 
hoped for in the end. For He moved the heaven by the testimony of the angels and 
the stars, when Christ became incarnate. He moved the earth by the great miracle 
of His birth of the virgin. He moved the sea and the dry land, when Christ was 
proclaimed both in the isles and in the whole world. So we see all nations moved 
to the faith; and the fulfillment of what follows, "And the desired of all 
nations shall come," is looked for at His last coming. For ere men can desire 
and and wait for Him, they must believe and love Him. 
Zechariah says of Christ and the Church, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; 
shout joyfully, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King shall come unto thee, 
just and the Saviour; Himself poor, and mounting an ass, and a colt the foal of 
an ass: and His dominion shall be from Sea to sea, and from the river even to 
the ends of the earth."(1) How this was done, when the Lord Christ on His 
journey used a beast of burden of this kind, we read in the Gospel, where, also, 
as much of this prophecy is quoted as appears sufficient for the context. In 
another place, speaking in the Spirit of prophecy to Christ Himself of the 
remission of sins through His blood, he says, "Thou also, by the blood of Thy 
testament, hast sent forth Thy prisoners from the lake wherein is no water."(2) 
Different opinions may be held, consistently with right belief, as to what he 
meant by this lake. Yet it seems to me that no meaning suits better than that of 
the depth of human misery, which is, as it were, dry and barren, where there are 
no streams of righteousness, but only the mire of iniquity. For it is said of it 
in the Psalms, "And He led me forth out of the lake of misery, and from the miry 
clay."3 
Malachi, foretelling the Church which we now behold propagated through Christ, 
says most openly to the Jews, in the person of God, "I have no pleasure in you, 
and I will not accept a gift at your hand. For from the rising even to the going 
down of the sun, my name is great among the nations; and in every place 
sacrifice shall be made, and a pure oblation shall be offered unto my name: for 
my name shall be great among the nations, saith the Lord."(4) Since we can 
already see this sacrifice offered to God in every place, from the rising of the 
sun to his going down, through Christ's priesthood after the order of 
Melchisedec, while the Jews, to whom it was said, "I have no pleasure in you, 
neither will I accept a gift at your hand," cannot deny that their sacrifice has 
ceased, why do they still look for another Christ, when they read this in the 
prophecy, and see it fulfilled, which could not be fulfilled except through Him? 
And a little after he says of Him, in the person of God, "My covenant was with 
Him of life and peace: and I gave to Him that He might fear me with fear, and be 
afraid before my name. The law of truth was in His mouth: directing in peace He 
hath walked with me, and hath turned many away from iniquity. For the Priest's 
lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at His mouth: for He is 
the Angel of the Lord Almighty."(5) Nor is it to be wondered at that Christ 
Jesus is called the Angel of the Almighty God. For just as He is called a 
servant on account of the form of a servant in which He came to men, so He is 
called an angel on account of the evangel which He proclaimed to men. For if we 
interpret these Greek words, evangel is "good news," and angel is "messenger." 
Again he says of Him, "Behold I will send mine angel, and He will look out the 
way before my face: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come into His 
temple, even the Angel of the testament, whom ye desire. Behold, He cometh, 
saith the Lord Almighty, and who shall abide the day of His entry, or who shall 
stand at His appearing?"(6) In this place he has foretold both the first and 
second advent of Christ: the first, to wit, of which he says, "And He shall come 
suddenly into His temple;" that is, into His flesh, of which He said in the 
Gospel, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again."(7) 
And of the second advent he says, "Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord Almighty, 
and who shall abide the day of His entry, or who shall stand at His appearing?" 
But what he says, "The Lord whom ye seek, and the Angel of the testament whom ye 
desire," just means that even the Jews, according to the Scriptures which they 
read, shall seek and desire Christ. But many of them did not acknowledge that He 
whom they sought and desired had come, being blinded in their hearts, which were 
preoccupied with their own merits. Now what he here calls the testament, either 
above, where he says, "My testament had been with Him," or here, where he has 
called Him the Angel of the testament, we ought, beyond a doubt, to take to be 
the new testament, in which the things promised are eternal, and not the old, in 
which they are only temporal. Yet many who are weak are troubled when they see 
the wicked abound in such temporal things, because they value them greatly, and 
serve the true God to be rewarded with them. On this account, to distinguish the 
eternal blessedness of the new testament, which shall be given only to the good, 
from the earthly felicity of the old, which for the most part is given to the 
bad as well, the same prophet says, "Ye have made your words burdensome to me: 
yet ye have said, In what have we spoken ill of Thee? Ye have said, Foolish is 
every one who serves God; and what profit is it that we have kept His 
observances, and that we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord 
Almighty? And now we call the aliens blessed; yea, all that do wicked things are 
built up again; yea, they are opposed to God and are saved. They that feared the 
Lord uttered these reproaches every one to his neighbor: and the Lord hearkened 
and heard; and He wrote a book of remembrance before Him, for them that fear the 
Lord and that revere His name."(1) By that book is meant the New Testament. 
Finally, let us hear what follows: "And they shall be an acquisition for me, 
saith the Lord Almighty, in the day which I make; and I will choose them as a 
man chooseth his son that serveth him. And ye shall return, and shall discern 
between the just and the unjust, and between him that serveth God and him that 
serveth Him not. For, behold, the day cometh burning as an oven, and it shall 
burn them up; and all the aliens and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and 
the day that shall come will set them on fire, saith the Lord Almighty, and 
shall leave neither root nor branch. And unto you that fear my name shall the 
Sun of Righteousness arise, and health shall be in His wings; and ye shall go 
forth, and exult as calves let loose from bonds. And ye shall tread down the 
wicked, and they shall be ashes under your feet, in the day in which I shall do 
[this], saith the Lord Almighty."(2) This day is the day of judgment, of which, 
if God will, we shall speak more fully in its own place. 
CHAP. 36.--ABOUT ESDRAS AND THE BOOKS OF 
THE MACCABEES. 
After these three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, during the same 
period of the liberation of the people from the Babylonian servitude Esdras also 
wrote, who is historical rather than prophetical, as is also the book called 
Esther, which is found to relate, for the praise of God, events not far from 
those times; unless, perhaps, Esdras is to be understood as prophesying of 
Christ in that passage where, on a question having arisen among certain young 
men as to what is the strongest thing, when one had said kings, another wine, 
the third women, who for the most part rule kings, yet that same third youth 
demonstrated that the truth is victorious over all.(3) For by consulting the 
Gospel we learn that Christ is the Truth. From this time, when the temple was 
rebuilt, down to the time of Aristobulus, the Jews had not kings but princes; 
and the reckoning of their dates is found, not in the Holy Scriptures which are 
called canonical, but in others, among which are also the books of the 
Maccabees. These are held as canonical, not by the Jews, but by the Church, on 
account of the extreme and wonderful sufferings of certain martyrs, who, before 
Christ had come in the flesh, contended for the law of God even unto death, and 
endured most grievous and horrible evils. 
CHAP. 37.--THAT PROPHETIC RECORDS ARE FOUND WHICH ARE MORE ANCIENT THAN ANY 
FOUNTAIN OF THE GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 
In the time of our prophets, then, whose writings had already come to the 
knowledge of almost all nations. the philosophers of the nations had not yet 
arisen,--at least, not those who were called by that name, which originated with 
Pythagoras the Samian, who was becoming famous at the time when the Jewish 
captivity ended. Much more, then, are the other philosophers found to be later 
than the prophets. For even Socrates the Athenian, the master of all who were 
then most famous, holding the pre-eminence in that department that is called the 
moral or active, is found after Esdras in the chronicles. Plato also was born 
not much later, who far outwent the other disciples of Socrates. If, besides 
these, we take their predecessors, who had not yet been styled philosophers, to 
wit, the seven sages, and then the physicists, who succeeded Thales, and 
imitated his studious search into the nature of things, namely, Anaximander, 
Anaximenes, and Anaxagoras, and some others, before Pythagoras first professed 
himself a philosopher, even these did not precede the whole of our prophets in 
antiquity of time, since Thales, whom the others succeeded, is said to have 
flourished in the reign of Romulus, when the stream of prophecy burst forth from 
the fountains of Israel in those writings which spread over the whole world. So 
that only those theological poets, Orpheus, Linus, and Musaeus, and, it may be, 
some others among the Greeks, are found earlier in date than the Hebrew prophets 
whose writings we hold as authoritative. But not even these preceded in time our 
true divine, Moses, who authentically preached the one true God, and whose 
writings are first in the authoritative canon; and therefore the Greeks, in 
whose tongue the literature of this age chiefly appears, have no ground for 
boasting of their wisdom, in which our religion, wherein is true wisdom, is not 
evidently more ancient at least, if not superior. Yet it must be confessed that 
before Moses there had already been, not indeed among the Greeks, but among 
barbarous nations, as in Egypt, some doctrine which might be called their 
wisdom, else it would not have been written in the holy books that Moses was 
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,(1) as he was, when, being born 
there, and adopted and nursed by Pharaoh's daughter, he was also liberally 
educated. Yet not even the wisdom of the Egyptians could be antecedent in time 
to the wisdom of our prophets, because even Abraham was a prophet. And what 
wisdom could there be in Egypt before Isis had given them letters, whom they 
thought fit to worship as a goddess after her death? Now Isis is declared to 
have been the daughter of Inachus, who first began to reign in Argos when the 
grandsons of Abraham are known to have been already born. 
CHAP. 38.--THAT THE ECCLESIASTICAL CANON HAS NOT ADMITTED CERTAIN WRITINGS ON 
ACCOUNT OF THEIR TOO GREAT ANTIQUITY, LEST THROUGH THEM FALSE THINGS SHOULD BE 
INSERTED INSTEAD OF TRUE. 
If I may recall far more ancient times, our patriarch Noah was certainly even 
before that great deluge, and I might not undeservedly call him a prophet, 
forasmuch as the ark he made, in which he escaped with his family, was itself a 
prophecy of our times.(2) What of Enoch, the seventh from Adam? Does not the 
canonical epistle of the Apostle Jude declare that he prophesied?(3) But the 
writings of these men could not be held as authoritative either among the Jews 
or us, on account of their too great antiquity, which made it seem needful to 
regard them with suspicion, lest false things should be set forth instead roof 
true. For some writings which are said be theirs are quoted by those who, 
according to their own humor, loosely believe what they please. But the purity 
of the canon has not admitted these writings, not because the authority of these 
men who pleased God is rejected, but because they are not believed to be theirs. 
Nor ought it to appear strange if writings for which so great antiquity is 
claimed are held in suspicion, seeing that in the very history of the kings of 
Judah and Israel containing their acts, which we believe to belong to the 
canonical Scripture, very many things are mentioned which are not explained 
there, but are said to be found in other books which the prophets wrote, the 
very names of these prophets being sometimes given, and yet they are not found 
in the canon which the people of God received. Now I confess the reason of this 
is hidden from me; only I think that even those men, to whom certainly the Holy 
Spirit revealed those things which ought to be held as of religious authority, 
might write some things as men by historical diligence, and others as prophets 
by divine inspiration; and these things were so distinct, that it was judged 
that the former should be ascribed to themselves, but the latter to God speaking 
through them: and so the one pertained to the abundance of knowledge, the other 
to the authority of religion. In that authority the canon is guarded. So that, 
if any writings outside of it are now brought forward under the name of the 
ancient prophets, they cannot serve even as an aid to knowledge, because it is 
uncertain whether they are genuine; and on this account they are not trusted, 
especially those of them in which some things are found that are even contrary 
to the truth of the canonical books, so that it is quite apparent they do not 
belong to them. 
CHAP. 39.--ABOUT THE HEBREW WRITTEN CHARACTERS WHICH THAT LANGUAGE ALWAYS 
POSSESSED. 
Now we must not believe that Heber, from whose name the word Hebrew is derived, 
preserved and transmitted the Hebrew language to Abraham only as a spoken 
language, and that the Hebrew letters began with the giving of the law through 
Moses; but rather that this language, along with its letters, was preserved by 
that succession of fathers. Moses, indeed, appointed some among the people of 
God to teach letters, before they could know any letters of the divine law. The 
Scripture calls these men <greek>UrammateisaUpUeis</greek>, who may be called in 
Latin inductores or introductores of letters, because they, as it were, 
introduce them into the hearts of the learners, or rather lead those whom they 
teach into them. Therefore no nation could vaunt itself over our patriarchs and 
prophets by any wicked vanity for the antiquity of its wisdom; since not even 
Egypt, which is wont falsely and vainly to glory in the antiquity of her 
doctrines, is found to have preceded in time the wisdom of our patriarchs in her 
own wisdom, such as it is. Neither will any one dare to say that they were most 
skillful in wonderful sciences before they knew letters, that is, before Isis 
came and taught them there. Besides, what, for the most part, was that memorable 
doctrine of theirs which was called wisdom but astronomy, and it may be some 
other sciences of that kind, which usually have more power to exercise men's wit 
than to enlighten their minds with true wisdom? As regards philosophy, which 
professes to teach men something which shall make them happy, studies of that 
kind flourished in those lands about the times of Mercury, whom they called 
Trismegistus, long before the sages and philosophers of Greece, but yet after 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and even after Moses himself. At that time, 
indeed, when Moses was born, Atlas is found to have lived, that great 
astronomer, the brother of Prometheus, and maternal grandson of the eider 
Mercury, of whom that Mercury Trismegistus was the grandson. 
CHAP. 40.--ABOUT THE MOST MENDACIOUS VANITY OF THE EGYPTIANS, IN WHICH THEY 
ASCRIBE TO THEIR. SCIENCE AN ANTIQUITY OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS. 
In vain, then, do some babble with most empty presumption, saying that Egypt has 
understood the reckoning of the stars for more than a hundred thousand years. 
For in what books have they collected that number who learned letters from Isis 
their mistress, not much more than two thousand years ago? Varro, who has 
declared this, is no small authority in history, and it does not disagree with 
the truth of the divine books. For as it is not yet six thousand years since the 
first man, who is called Adam, are not those to be ridiculed rather than refuted 
who try to persuade us of anything regarding a space of time so different from, 
and contrary to, the ascertained truth? For what historian of the past should we 
credit more than him who has also predicted things to come which we now see 
fulfilled? And the very disagreement of the historians among themselves 
furnishes a good reason why we ought rather to believe him who does not 
contradict the divine history which we hold. But, on the other hand, the 
citizens of the impious city, scattered everywhere through the earth, when they 
read the most learned writers, none of whom seems to be of contemptible 
authority, and find them disagreeing among themselves about affairs most remote 
from the memory of our age, cannot find out whom they ought to trust. But we, 
being sustained by divine authority in the history of our religion, have no 
doubt that whatever is opposed to it is most false, whatever may. be the case 
regarding other things in secular books, which, whether true or false, yield 
nothing of moment to our living rightly and happily. 
CHAP. 41.--ABOUT THE DISCORD OF PHILOSOPHIC OPINION, AND THE CONCORD OF THE 
SCRIPTURES THAT ARE HELD AS CANONICAL BY THE CHURCH. 
But let us omit further examination of history, and return to the philosophers 
from whom we digressed to these things. They seem to have labored in their 
studies for no other end than to find out how to live in a way proper for laying 
hold of blessedness. Why, then, have the disciples dissented from their masters, 
and the fellow-disciples from one another, except because as men they have 
sought after these things by human sense and human reasonings? Now, although 
there might be among them a desire of glory, so that each wished to be thought 
wiser and more acute than another, and in no way addicted to the judgment of 
others, but the inventor of his own dogma and opinion, yet I may grant that 
there were some, or even very many of them, whose love of truth severed them 
from their teachers or fellow-disciples, that they might strive for what they 
thought was the truth, whether it was so or not. But what can human misery do, 
or how or where can it reach forth, so as to attain blessedness, if divine 
authority does not lead it? Finally, let our authors, among whom the canon of 
the sacred books is fixed and bounded, be far from disagreeing in any respect. 
It is not without good reason, then, that not merely a few people prating in the 
schools and gymnasia in captious disputations, but so many and great people, 
both learned and unlearned, in countries and cities, have believed that God 
spoke to them or by them, i.e. the canonical writers, when they wrote these 
books. There ought, indeed, to be but few of them, lest on account of their 
multitude what ought to be religiously esteemed should grow cheap; and yet not 
so few that their agreement should not be wonderful. For among the multitude of 
philosophers, who in their works have left behind them the monuments of their 
dogmas, no one will easily find any who agree in all their opinions. But to show 
this is too long a task for this work. 
But what author of any sect is so approved in this demon-worshipping city, that 
the rest who have differed from or opposed him in opinion have been disapproved? 
The Epicureans asserted that human affairs were not under the providence of the 
gods; and the Stoics, holding the opposite opinion, agreed that they were ruled 
and defended by favora ble and tutelary gods. Yet were not both sects famous 
among the Athenians? I wonder, then, why Anaxagoras was accused of a crime for 
saying that the sun was a burning stone, and denying that it was a god at all; 
while in the same city Epicurus flourished gloriously and lived securely, 
although he not only did not believe that the sun or any star was a god, but 
contended that neither Jupiter nor any of the gods dwelt in the world at all, so 
that the prayers and supplications of men might reach them! Were not both 
Aristippus and Antisthenes there, two noble philosophers and both Socratic? yet 
they placed the chief end of life within bounds so diverse and contradictory, 
that the first made the delight of the body the chief good, while the other 
asserted that man was made happy mainly by the virtue of the mind. The one also 
said that the wise man should flee from the republic; the other, that he should 
administer its affairs. Yet did not each gather disciples to follow his own 
sect? Indeed, in the conspicuous and well-known porch, in gymnasia, in gardens, 
in places public and private, they openly strove in bands each for his own 
opinion, some asserting there was one world, others innumerable worlds; some 
that this world had a beginning, others that it had not; some that it would 
perish, others that it would exist always; some that it was governed by the 
divine mind, others by chance and accident; some that souls are immortal, others 
that they are mortal,--and of those who asserted their immortality, some said 
they transmigrated through beasts, others that it was by no means so; while of 
those who asserted their mortality, some said they perished immediately after 
the body, others that they survived either a little while or a longer time, but 
not always; some fixing supreme good in the body, some in the mind, some in 
both; others adding to the mind and body external good things; some thinking 
that the bodily senses ought to be trusted always, some not always, others 
never. Now what people, senate, power, or public dignity of the impious city has 
ever taken care to judge between all these and oilier well-nigh innumerable 
dissensions of the philosophers, approving and accepting some, and disapproving 
and rejecting others? Has it not held in its bosom at random, without any 
judgment, and confusedly, so many controversies of men at variance, not about 
fields, houses, or anything of a pecuniary nature, but about those things which 
make life either miserable or happy? Even if some true things were said in it, 
yet falsehoods were uttered with the same licence; so that such a city has not 
amiss received the title of the mystic Babylon. For Babylon means confusion, as 
we remember we have already explained. Nor does it matter to the devil, its 
king, how they wrangle among themselves in contradictory errors, since all alike 
deservedly belong to him on account of their great and varied impiety. 
But that nation, that people, that city, that republic, these Israelites, to 
whom the oracles of God were entrusted, by no means confounded with similar 
licence false prophets with the true prophets; but, agreeing together, and 
differing in nothing, acknowledged and upheld the authentic authors of their 
sacred books. These were their philosophers, these were their sages, divines, 
prophets, and teachers of probity and piety. Whoever was wise and lived 
according to them was wise and lived not according to men, but according to God 
who hath spoken by them. If sacrilege is forbidden there, God hath forbidden it. 
If it is said, "Honor thy father and thy mother,"(1) God hath commanded it. If 
it is said, "Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not 
steal,"(2) and other similar commandments, not human lips but the divine oracles 
have enounced them. Whatever truth certain philosophers, amid their false 
opinions, were able to see, and strove by laborious discussions to persuade men 
of,--such as that God had made this world, and Himself most providently governs 
it, or of the nobility of the virtues, of the love of country, of fidelity in 
friendship, of good works and everything pertaining to virtuous manners, 
although they knew not to what end and what rule all these things were to be 
referred,--all these, by words prophetic, that is, divine, although spoken by 
men, were commended to the people in that city, and not inculcated by contention 
in arguments, so that he who should know them might be afraid of contemning, not 
the wit of men, but the oracle of God. 
CHAP. 42.--BY WHAT DISPENSATION OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE THE SACRED SCRIPTURES OF THE 
OLD TESTAMENT WERE, TRANSLATED OUT OF HEBREW INTO GREEK, THAT THEY MIGHT BEMADE 
KNOWN TO ALL THE NATIONS. 
One of the Ptolemies, kings of Egypt, desired to know and have these sacred 
books. For after Alexander of Macedon, who is also styled the Great, had by his 
most wonderful, but by no means enduring power, subdued the whole of Asia, yea, 
almost the whole world, partly by force of arms, partly by terror, and, among 
other kingdoms of the East, had entered and obtained Judea also on his death his 
generals did not peaceably divide that most ample kingdom among them for a 
possession, but rather dissipated it, wasting all things by wars. Then Egypt 
began to have the Ptolemies as her kings. The first of them, the son of Lagus, 
carried many captive out of Judea into Egypt. But another Ptolemy, called 
Philadelphus, who succeeded him, permitted all whom he had brought under the 
yoke to return free; and more than that, sent kingly gifts to the temple of God, 
and begged Eleazar, who was the high priest, to give him the Scriptures, which 
he had heard by report were truly divine, and therefore greatly desired to have 
in that most noble library he had made. When the high priest had sent them to 
him in Hebrew, he afterwards demanded interpreters of him, and there were given 
him seventy-two, out of each of the twelve tribes six men, most learned in both 
languages, to wit, the Hebrew and Greek and their translation is now by custom 
called the Septuagint. It is reported, indeed, that there was an agreement in 
their words so wonderful, stupendous, and plainly divine, that when they had sat 
at this work, each one apart (for so it pleased Ptolemy to test their fidelity), 
they differed from each other in no word which had the same meaning and force, 
or, in the order of the words; but, as if the translators had been one, so what 
all had translated was one, because in very deed the one Spirit had been in them 
all. And they received so wonderful a gift of God, in order that the authority 
of these Scriptures might be commended not as human but divine, as indeed it 
was, for the benefit of the nations who should at some time believe, as we now 
see them doing. 
CHAP. 43.--OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATION, WHICH, SAVING THE 
HONOR OF THE HEBREW ORIGINAL, IS TO BE PREFERRED TO ALL TRANSLATIONS. 
For while there were other interpreters who translated these sacred oracles out 
of the Hebrew tongue into Greek, as Aquila, Symmathus, and Theodotion, and also 
that translation which, as the name of the author is unknown, is quoted as the 
fifth edition, yet the ChUrch has received this Septuagint translation just as 
if it were the only one; and it has been used by the Greek Christian people, 
most of whom are not aware that there is any other. From this translation there 
has also been made a translation in the Latin tongue, which the Latin churches 
use. Our times, however, have enjoyed the advantage of the presbyter Jerome, a 
man most learned, and skilled in all three languages, who translated these same 
Scriptures into the Latin speech, not from the Greek, but from the Hebrew.(1) 
But although the Jews acknowledge this very learned labor of his to be faithful, 
while they contend that the Septuagint translators have erred in many places, 
still the churches of Christ judge that no one should be preferred to the 
authority of so many men, chosen for this very great work by Eleazar, who was 
then high priest; for even if there had not appeared in them one spirit, without 
doubt divine, and the seventy learned men had, after the manner of men, compared 
together the words of their translation, that what pleased them all might stand, 
no single translator ought to be preferred to them; but since so great a sign of 
divinity has appeared in them, certainly, if any other translator, of their 
Scriptures from the Hebrew into any other tongue is faithful, in that case he 
agrees with these seventy translators, and if he is not found to agree with 
them, then we ought to believe that the prophetic gift is with them. For the 
same Spirit who was in the prophets when they spoke these things was also in the 
seventy men when they translated them, so that assuredly they could also say 
something else, just as if the prophet himself had said both, because it would 
be the same Spirit who said both; and could say the same thing differently, so 
that, although the words were not the same, yet the same meaning should shine 
forth to those of good understanding; and could omit or add something, so that 
even by this it might be shown that there was in that work not human bondage, 
which the translator owed to the words, but rather divine power, which filled 
and ruled the mind of the translator. Some, however, have thought that the Greek 
copies of the Septuagint version should be emended from the Hebrew copies; yet 
they did not dare to take away what the Hebrew lacked and the Septuagint had, 
but only added what was found in the Hebrew copies and was lacking in the 
Septuagint, and noted them by placing at the beginning of the verses certain 
marks in the form of stars which they call asterisks. And those things which the 
Hebrew copies have not, but the Septuagint have, they have in like manner marked 
at the beginning of the verses by horizontal spit-shaped marks like those by 
which we denote ounces; and many copies having these marks are circulated even 
in Latin.(1) But we cannot, without inspecting both kinds of copies, find out 
those things which are neither omitted nor added, but expressed differently, 
whether they yield another meaning not in itself unsuitable, or can be shown to 
explain the same meaning in another way. If, then, as it behoves us, we behold 
nothing else in these Scriptures than what the Spirit of God has spoken through 
men, if anything is in the Hebrew copies and is not in the version of the 
Seventy, the Spirit of God did not choose to say it through them, but only 
through the prophets. But whatever is in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew 
copies, the same Spirit chose rather to say through the latter, thus showing 
that both were prophets. For in that manner He spoke as He chose, some things 
through Isaiah, some through Jeremiah, some through several prophets, or else 
the same thing through this prophet and through that. Further, whatever is found 
in both editions, that one and the same Spirit willed to say through both, but 
so as that the former preceded in prophesying, and the latter followed: in 
prophetically interpreting them; because, as the one Spirit of peace was in the 
former when they spoke true and concordant words, so the selfsame one Spirit 
hath appeared in the latter, when, without mutual conference they yet 
interpreted all things as if with one mouth. 
CHAP. 44.--HOW THE THREAT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE NINEVITES IS TO BE 
UNDERSTOOD WHICH IN THE HEBREW EXTENDS TO FORTY DAYS, WHILE IN THE SEPTUAGINT IT 
IS CONTRACTED TO THREE. 
But some one may say, "How shall I know whether the prophet Jonah said to the 
Ninevites, `Yet three days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,' or forty days?"(2) 
For who does not see that the prophet could not say both, when he was sent to 
terrify the city by the threat of imminent ruin? For if its destruction was to 
take place on the third day, it certainly could not be on the fortieth; but if 
on the fortieth, then certainly not on the third. If, then, I am asked which of 
these Jonah may have said, I rather think what is read in the Hebrew, "Yet forty 
days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Yet the Seventy, interpreting long 
afterward, could say what was different and yet pertinent to the matter, and 
agree in the self-same meaning,although under a different signification. And 
this may admonish the reader not to despise the authority of either, but to 
raise himself above the history, and search for those things which the history 
itself was written to set forth. These things, indeed, took place in the city of 
Nineveh, but they also signified something else too great to apply to that city; 
just as, when it happened that the prophet himself was three days in the whale's 
belly, it signified besides, that He who is Lord of all the prophets should be 
three days in the depths of hell. Wherefore, if that city is rightly held as 
prophetically representing the Church of the Gentiles, to wit, as brought down 
by penitence, so as no longer to be what it had been, since this was done by 
Christ in the Church of the Gentiles, which Nineveh represented, Christ Himself 
was signified both by the forty and by the three days: by the forty, because He 
spent that number of days with His disciples after the resurrection, and then 
ascended into heaven, but by the three days, because He rose on the third day. 
So that, if the reader desires nothing else than to adhere to the history of 
events, he may be aroused from his sleep by the Septuagint interpreters, as well 
as the prophets, to search into the depth of the prophecy, as if they had said, 
In the forty days seek Him in whom thou mayest also find the three days,--the 
one thou wilt find in His ascension, the other in His resurrection. Because that 
which could be most suitably signified by both numbers, of which one is used by 
Jonah the prophet, the other by the prophecy of the Septuagint version, the one 
and self-same Spirit hath spoken. I dread prolixity, so that I must not 
demonstrate this by many instances in which the seventy interpreters may be 
thought to differ from the Hebrew, and yet, when well understood, are found to 
agree. For which reason I also, according to my capacity, following the 
footsteps of the apostles, who themselves have quoted prophetic testimonies from 
both, that is, from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, have thought that both should 
be used as authoritative, since both are one, and divine. But let us now follow 
out as we can what remains. 
CHAP. 45.--THAT THE JEWS CEASED TO HAVE PROPHETS AFTER THE REBUILDING OF THE 
TEMPLE, AND FROM THAT TIME UNTIL THE BIRTH OF CHRIST WERE AFFLICTED WITH 
CONTINUAL ADVERSITY, TO PROVE THAT THE BUILDING OF ANOTHER TEMPLE HAD BEEN 
PROMISED BY PROPHETIC VOICES. 
The Jewish nation no doubt became worse after it ceased to have prophets, just 
at the very time when, on the rebuilding of the temple after the captivity in 
Babylon, it hoped to become better. For so, indeed, did that carnal people 
understand what was foretold by Haggai the prophet, saying, "The glory of this 
latter house shall be greater than that of the former."(1) Now, that this is 
said of the new testament, he showed a little above,where he says, evidently 
promising Christ, "And I will move all nations, and the desired One shall come 
to all nations."(2) In this passage the Septuagint translators giving another 
sense more suitable to the body than the Head, that is, to the Church than to 
Christ, have said by prophetic authority, "The things shall come that are chosen 
of the Lord from all nations," that is, men, of whom Jesus saith in the Gospel, 
"Many are called, but few are chosen."(3) For by such chosen ones of the nations 
there is built, through the new testament, with living stones, a house of God 
far more glorious than that temple was which was constructed by king Solomon, 
and rebuilt after the captivity. For this reason, then, that nation had no 
prophets from that time, but was afflicted with many plagues by kings of alien 
race, and by the Romans themselves, lest they should fancy that this prophecy of 
Haggai was fulfilled by that rebuilding of the temple. 
For not long after, on the arrival of Alexander, it was subdued, when, although 
there was no pillaging, because they dared not resist him, and thus, being very 
easily subdued, received him peaceably, yet the glory of that house was not so 
great as it was when under the free power of their own kings. Alexander, indeed, 
offered up sacrifices in the temple of God, not as a convert to His worship in 
true piety, but thinking, with impious folly, that He was to be worshipped along 
with false gods. Then Ptolemy son of Lagus, whom I have already mentioned, after 
Alexander's death carried them captive into Egypt. His successor, Ptolemy 
Philadelphus, most benevolently dismissed them; and by him it was brought about, 
as I have narrated a little before, that we should have the Septuagint version 
of the Scriptures. Then they were crushed by the wars which are explained in the 
books of the Maccabees. Afterward they were taken captive by Ptolemy king of 
Alexandria, who was called Epiphanes. Then Antiochus king of Syria compelled 
them by many and most grievous evils to worship idols, and filled the temple 
itself with the sacrilegious superstitions of the Gentiles. Yet their most 
vigorous leader Judas, who is also called Maccabaeus, after beating the generals 
of Antiochus, cleansed it from all that defilement of idolatry. 
But not long after, one Alcimus, although an alien from the sacerdotal tribe, 
was, through ambition, made pontiff, which was an impious thing. After almost 
fifty years, during which they never had peace, although they prospered in some 
affairs, Aristobulus first assumed the diadem among them, and was made both king 
and pontiff. Before that, indeed, from the time of their return from the 
Babylonish captivity and the rebuilding of the temple, they had not kings, but 
generals or principes. Although a king himself may be called a prince, from his 
principality in governing, and a leader, because he leads the army, but it does 
not follow that all who are princes and leaders may also be called kings, as 
that Aristobulus was. He was succeeded by Alexander, also both king and pontiff, 
who is reported to have reigned over them cruelly. After him his wife Alexandra 
was queen of the Jews, and from her time downwards more grievous evils pursued 
them; for this Alexandra's sons, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, when contending with 
each other for the kingdom, called in the Roman forces against the nation of 
Israel. For Hyrcanus asked assistance from them against his brother. At that 
time Rome had already subdued Africa and Greece, and ruled extensively in other 
parts of the world also, and yet, as if unable to bear her own weight, had, in a 
manner, broken herself by her own size. For indeed she had come to grave 
domestic seditions, and from that to social wars, and by and by to civil wars, 
and had enfeebled and worn herself out so much, that the changed state of the 
republic, in which she should be governed by kings, was now imminent. Pompey 
then, a most illustrious prince of the Roman people, having entered Judea with 
an army, took the city, threw open the temple, not with the devotion of a 
suppliant, but with the authority of a conqueror, and went, not reverently, but 
profanely, into the holy of holies, where it was lawful for none but the pontiff 
to enter. Having established Hyrcanus in the pontificate, and set Antipater over 
the subjugated nation as guardian or procurator, as they were then called, he 
led Aristobulus with him bound. From that time the Jews also began to be Roman 
tributaries. Afterward Cassius plundered the very temple. Then after a few years 
it was their desert to have Herod, a king of foreign birth, in whose reign 
Christ was born. For the time had now come signified by the prophetic Spirit 
through the mouth of the patriarch Jacob, when he says, "There shall not be 
lacking a prince out of Judah, nor a teacher from his loins, until He shall come 
for whom it is reserved; and He is the expectation of the nations."(1) There 
lacked not therefore a Jewish prince of the Jews until that Herod, who was the 
first king of a foreign race received by them. THerefore it was now the time 
when He should come for whom that was reserved which is promised in the New 
Testament, that He should be the expectation of the nations. But it was not 
possible that the nations should expect He would come, as we see they did, to do 
judgment in the splendor of power, unless they should first believe in Him when 
He came to suffer judgment in the humility of patience. 
CHAP. 46.--OF THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOUR, WHEREBY THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH; AND OF 
THE DISPERSION OF THE JEWS AMONG ALL NATIONS, AS HAD BEEN PROPHESIED. 
While Herod, therefore, reigned in Judea, and Caesar Augustus was emperor at 
Rome, the state of the republic being already changed, and the world being set 
at peace by him, Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judah, man manifest out of a 
human virgin, God hidden out of God the Father. For so had the prophet foretold: 
"Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and bring forth a Son, and they 
shall call His name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us."(2) He 
did many miracles that He might commend God in Himself, some of which, even as 
many as seemed sufficient to proclaim Him, are contained in the evangelic 
Scripture. The first of these is, that He was so wonderfully born, and the last, 
that with His body raised up again from the dead He ascended into heaven. But 
the Jews who slew Him, and would not believe in Him, because it behoved Him to 
die and rise again, were yet more miserably wasted by the Romans, and utterly 
rooted out from their kingdom, where aliens had already ruled over them, and 
were dispersed through the lands (so that indeed there is no place where they 
are not), and are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have 
not forged the prophecies about Christ. And very many of them, considering this, 
even before His passion, but chiefly after His resurrection, believed on Him, of 
whom it was predicted, "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the 
sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved."(3) But the rest are blinded, of 
whom it was predicted, "Let their table be made before them a trap, and a 
retribution, and a stumbling-block. Let their eyes be darkened lest they see, 
and bow down their back alway."(4) Therefore, when they do not believe our 
Scriptures, their own, which they blindly read, are fulfilled in them, lest 
perchance any one should say that the Christians have forged these prophecies 
about Christ which are quoted under the name of the sibyl, or of others, if such 
there be, who do not belong to the Jewish people. For us, indeed, those suffice 
which are quoted from the books of our enemies, to whom we make our 
acknowledgment, on account of this testimony which, in spite of themselves, they 
contribute by their possession of these books, while they themselves are 
dispersed among all nations, wherever the Church of Christ is spread abroad. For 
a prophecy about this thing was sent before in the Psalms, which they also read, 
where it is written, "My God, His mercy shall prevent me. My God hath shown me 
concerning mine enemies, that Thou shalt not slay them, lest they should at last 
forget Thy law: disperse them in Thy might."(5) Therefore God has shown the 
Church in her enemies the Jews the grace of His compassion, since, as saith the 
apostle, "their offence is the salvation of the Gentiles."(6) And therefore He 
has not slain them, that is, He has not let the knowledge that they are Jews be 
lost in them, although they have been conquered by the Romans, lest they should 
forget the law of God, and their testimony should be of no avail in this matter 
of which we treat. But it was not enough that he should say, "Slay them not, 
lest they should at last forget Thy law," unless he had also added, "Disperse 
them;" because if they had only been in their own land with that testimony of 
the Scriptures, and not every where, certainly the Church which is everywhere 
could not have had them as witnesses among all nations to the prophecies which 
were sent before concerning Christ. 
CHAP. 47.--WHETHER BEFORE CHRISTIAN TIMES THERE WERE ANY OUTSIDE OF THE 
ISRAELITE RACE WHO BELONGED TO THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE HEAVENLY CITY. 
Wherefore if we read of any foreigner--that is, one neither born of Israel nor 
received by that people into the canon of the sacred books--having prophesied 
something about Christ, if it has come or shall come to our knowledge, we can 
refer to it over and above; not that this is necessary, even if wanting, but 
because it is not incongruous to believe that even in other nations there may 
have been men to whom this mystery was revealed, and who were also impelled to 
proclaim it, whether they were partakers of the same grace or had no experience 
of it, but were taught by bad angels, who, as we know, even confessed the 
present Christ, whom the Jews did not acknowledge. Nor do I think the Jews 
themselves dare contend that no one has belonged to God except the Israelites, 
since the increase of Israel began on the rejection of his elder brother. For in 
very deed there was no other people who were specially called the people of God; 
but they cannot deny that there have been certain men even of other nations who 
belonged, not by earthly but heavenly fellowship, to the true Israelites, the 
citizens of the country that is above. Because, if they deny this, they can be 
most easily confuted by the case of the holy and wonderful man Job, who was 
neither a native nor a proselyte, that is, a stranger joining the people of 
Israel, but, being bred of the Idumean race, arose there and died there too, and 
who is so praised by the divine oracle, that no man of his times is put on a 
level with him as regards justice and piety. And although we do not find his 
date in the chronicles, yet from his book, which for its merit the Israelites 
have received as of canonical authority, we gather that he was in the third 
generation after Israel. And I doubt not it was divinely provided, that from 
this one case we might know that among other nations also there might be men 
pertaining to the spiritual Jerusalem who have lived according to God and have 
pleased Him. And it is not to be supposed that this was granted to any one, 
unless the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,(1) was 
divinely revealed to him; who was pre-announced to the saints of old as yet to 
come in the flesh, even as He is announced to us as having come, that the 
self-same faith through Him may lead all to God who are predestinated to be the 
city of God, the house of God, and the temple of God. But whatever prophecies 
concerning the grace of God through Christ Jesus are quoted, they may be thought 
to have been forged by the Christians. So that there is nothing of more weight 
for confuting all sorts of aliens, if they contend about this matter, and for 
supporting our friends, if they are truly wise, than to quote those divine 
predictions about Christ which are written in the books of the Jews, who have 
been torn from their native abode and dispersed over the whole world in order to 
bear this testimony, so that the Church of Christ has everywhere increased. 
CHAP. 48.--THAT HAGGAI'S PROPHECY, IN WHICH HE SAID THAT THE GLORY OF THE HOUSE 
OF GOD WOULD BE GREATER THAN THAT OF THE FIRST HAD BEEN,(2) WAS REALLY 
FULFILLED, NOT IN THE REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE, BUT IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
This house of God is more glorious than that first one which was constructed of 
wood and stone, metals and other precious things. Therefore the prophecy of 
Haggai was not fulfilled in the rebuilding of that temple. For it can never be 
shown to have had so much glory after it was rebuilt as it had in the time of 
Solomon; yea, rather, the glory of that house is shown to have been diminished, 
first by the ceasing of prophecy, and then by the nation itself suffering so 
great calamities, even to the final destruction made by the Romans, as the 
things above-mentioned prove. But this house which pertains to the new testament 
is just as much more glorious as the living stones, even believing, renewed men, 
of which it is constructed are better. But it was typified by the rebuilding of 
that temple for this reason, because the very renovation of that edifice 
typifies in the prophetic oracle another testament which is called the new. 
When, therefore, God said by the prophet just named, "And I will give peace in 
this place,"(3) He is to be understood who is typified by that typical place; 
for since by that rebuilt place is typified the Church which was to be built by 
Christ, nothing else can be accepted as the meaning of the saying, "I will give 
peace in this place," except I will give peace in the place which that place 
signifies. For all typical things seem in some way to personate those whom they 
typify, as it is said by the apostle, "That Rock was Christ."(4) Therefore the 
glory of this new testament house is greater than the glory of the old testament 
house; and it will show itself as greater when it shall be dedicated. For then 
"shall come the desired of all nations,"(5) as we read in the Hebrew. For before 
His advent He had not yet been desired by all nations. For they knew not Him 
whom they ought to desire, in whom they had not believed. Then, also, according 
to the Septuagint interpretation (for it also is a prophetic meaning), "shall 
come those who are elected of the Lord out of all nations." For then indeed 
there shall come only those who are elected, whereof the apostle saith, 
"According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world."(6) 
For the Master Builder who said, "Many are called, but few are chosen,"(1) did 
not say this of those who, on being called, came in such a way as to be cast out 
from the feast, but would point out the house built up of the elect, which 
henceforth shall dread no ruin. Yet because the churches are also full of those 
who shall be separated by the winnowing as in the threshing-floor, the glory of 
this house is not so apparent now as it shall be when every one who is there 
shall be there always. 
CHAP. 49.--OF THE INDISCRIMINATE INCREASE OF THE CHURCH, WHEREIN MANY REPROBATE 
ARE IN THIS WORLD MIXED WITH THE ELECT 
In this wicked world, in these evil days, when the Church measures her future 
loftiness by her present humility, and is exercised by goading fears, tormenting 
sorrows, disquieting labors, and dangerous temptations, when she soberly 
rejoices, rejoicing only in hope, there are many reprobate mingled with the 
good, and both are gathered together by the gospel as in a drag net;(2) and in 
this world, as in a sea, both swim enclosed without distinction in the net, 
until it is brought ashore, when the wicked must be separated from the good, 
that in the good, as in His temple, God may be all in all. We acknowledge, 
indeed, that His word is now fulfilled who spake in the psalm, and said, "I have 
announced and spoken; they are multiplied above number."(3) This takes place 
now, since He has spoken, first by the mouth of his forerunner John, and 
afterward by His own mouth, saying, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand."(4) He chose disciples, whom He also called apostles,(5) of lowly birth, 
unhonored, and illiterate, so that whatever great thing they might be or do, He 
might be and do it in them. He had one among them whose wickedness He could use 
well in order to accomplish His appointed passion, and furnish His Church an 
example of bearing with the wicked. Having sown the holy gospel as much as that 
behoved to be done by His bodily presence, He suffered, died, and rose again, 
showing by His passion what we ought to suffer for the truth, and by His 
resurrection what we ought to hope for in adversity; saving-always the mystery 
of the sacrament, by which His blood was shed for the remission of sins. He held 
converse on the earth forty days with His disciples, and in their sight ascended 
into heaven, and after ten days sent the promised Holy Spirit. It was given as 
the chief and most necessary sign of His coming on those who had believed, that 
every one of them spoke in the tongues of all nations; thus signifying that the 
unity of the catholic Church would embrace all nations, and would in like manner 
speak in all tongues. 
CHAP. 50.--OF THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL, WHICH IS MADE MORE FAMOUS AND 
POWERFUL BY THE SUFFERINGS OF ITS PREACHERS. 
Then was fulfilled that prophecy, "Out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the 
word of the Lord out of Jerusalem;"(6) and the prediction of the Lord Christ 
Himself, when, after the resurrection, "He opened the understanding" of His 
amazed disciples "that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, 
that thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from 
the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be 
preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."(7) And again, 
when, in reply to their questioning about the day of His last coming, He said, 
"It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in 
His own power; but ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, 
and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and 
Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth."(8) First of all, the Church 
spread herself abroad from Jerusalem; and when very many in Judea and Samaria 
had believed, she also went into other nations by those who announced the 
gospel, whom, as lights, He Himself had both prepared by His word and kindled by 
His Holy Spirit. For He had said to them, "Fear ye not them which kill the body, 
but are not able to kill the soul."(9) And that they might not be frozen with 
fear, they burned with the fire of charity. Finally, the gospel of Christ was 
preached in the whole world, not only by those who had seen and heard Him both 
before His passion and after His resurrection, but also after their death by 
their successors, amid the horrible persecutions, diverse torments and deaths of 
the martyrs, God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and 
divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost,(10) that the people of the nations, 
believing in Him who was crucified for their redemption, might venerate with 
Christian love the blood of the martyrs which they had poured forth with 
devilish fury, and the very kings by whose laws the Church had been laid waste 
might become profitably subject to that name they had cruelly striven to take 
away from the earth, and might begin to persecute the false gods for whose sake 
the worshippers of the true God had formerly been persecuted. 
CHAP. 51.--THAT THE CATHOLIC FAITH MAY BE CONFIRMED EVEN BY THE DISSENSIONS OF 
THE HERETICS. 
But the devil, seeing the temples of the demons deserted, and the human race 
running to the name of the liberating Mediator, has moved the heretics under the 
Christian name to resist the Christian doctrine, as if they could be kept in the 
city of God indifferently without any correction, just as the city of confusion 
indifferently held the philosophers who were of diverse and adverse opinions. 
Those, therefore, in the Church of Christ who savor anything morbid and 
depraved, and, on being corrected that they may savor what is wholesome and 
right, contumaciously resist, and will not amend their pestiferous and deadly 
dogmas, but persist in defending them, become heretics, and, going without, are 
to be reckoned as enemies who serve for her discipline. For even thus they 
profit by their wickedness those true catholic members of Christ, since God 
makes a good use even of the wicked, and all things work together for good to 
them that love Him.(1) For all the enemies of the Church, whatever error blinds 
or malice depraves them, exercise her patience if they receive the power to 
afflict her corporally; and if they only oppose her by wicked thought, they 
exercise her wisdom: but at the same time, if these enemies are loved, they 
exercise her benevolence, or even her beneficence, whether she deals with them 
by persuasive doctrine or by terrible discipline. And thus the devil, the prince 
of the impious city, when he stirs up his own vessels against the city of God 
that sojourns in this world, is permitted to do her no harm. For without doubt 
the divine providence procures for her both consolation through prosperity, that 
she may not be broken by adversity, and trial through adversity, that she may 
not be corrupted by prosperity; and thus each is tempered by the other, as we 
recognize in the Psalms that voice which arises from no other cause, "According 
to the multitude of my griefs in my heart, Thy consolations have delighted my 
soul."(2) Hence also is that saying of the apostle, "Rejoicing in hope, patient 
in tribulation."(3) 
For it is not to be thought that what the same teacher says can at any time 
fail, "Whoever will live piously in Christ shall suffer persecution."(4) Because 
even when those who are without do not rage, and thus there seems to be, and 
really is, tranquillity, which brings very much consolation, especially to the 
weak, yet there are not wanting, yea, there are many within who by their 
abandoned manners torment the hearts of those who live piously, since by them 
the Christian and catholic name is blasphemed; and the dearer that name is to 
those who will live piously in Christ, the more do they grieve that through the 
wicked, who have a place within, it comes to be less loved than pious minds 
desire. The heretics themselves also, since they are thought to have the 
Christian name and sacraments, Scriptures, and profession, cause great grief in 
the hearts of the pious, both because many who wish to be Christians are 
compelled by their dissensions to hesitate, and many evil-speakers also find in 
them matter for blaspheming the Christian name, because they too are at any rate 
called Christians. By these and similar depraved manners and errors of men, 
those who will live piously in Christ suffer persecution, even when no one 
molests or vexes their body; for they suffer this persecution, not in their 
bodies, but in their hearts. Whence is that word, "According to the multitude of 
my griefs in my heart;" for he does not say, in my body. Yet, on the other hand, 
none of them can perish, because the immutable divine promises are thought of. 
And because the apostle says, "The Lord knoweth them that are His;(5) for whom 
He did foreknow, He also predestinated [to be] conformed to the image of His 
Son,"(6) none of them can perish; therefore it follows in that psalm, "Thy 
consolations have delighted my soul."(7) But that grief which arises in the 
hearts of the pious, who are persecuted by the manners of bad or false 
Christians, is profitable to the sufferers, because it proceeds from the charity 
in which they do not wish them either to perish or to hinder the salvation of 
others. Finally, great consolations grow out of their chastisement, which imbue 
the souls of the pious with a fecundity as great as the pains with which they 
were troubled concerning their own perdition. Thus in this world, in these evil 
days, not only from the time of the bodily presence of Christ and His apostles, 
but even from that of Abel, whom first his wicked brother slew because he was 
righteous,(8) and thenceforth even to the end of this world, the Church has gone 
forward on pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of 
God 
CHAP. 52.--WHETHER WE SHOULD BELIEVE WHAT SOME THINK, THAT, AS THE TEN 
PERSECUTIONS WHICH ARE PAST HAVE BEEN FULFILLED, THERE REMAINS NO OTHER BEYOND 
THE ELEVENTH, WHICH MUST HAPPEN IN THE VERY TIME OF ANTICHRIST. 
I do not think, indeed, that what some have thought or may think is rashly said 
or believed, that until the time of Antichrist the Church of Christ is not to 
suffer any persecutions besides those she has already suffered,--that is, 
ten,--and that the eleventh and last shall be inflicted by Antichrist. They 
reckon as the first that made by Nero, the second by Domitian, the third by 
Trajan, the fourth by Antoninus, the fifth by Severus, the sixth by Maximin, the 
seventh by Decius, the eighth by Valerian, the ninth by Aurelian the tenth by 
Diocletian and Maximian. For as there were ten plagues in Egypt before the 
people of God could begin to go out, they think this is to be referred to as 
showing that the last persecution by Antichrist must be like the eleventh 
plague, in which the Egyptians, while following the Hebrews with hostility, 
perished in the Red Sea when the people of God passed through on dry land. Yet I 
do not think persecutions were prophetically signified by what was done in 
Egypt, however nicely and ingeniously those who think so may seem to have 
compared the two in detail, not by the prophetic Spirit, but by the conjecture 
of the human mind, which sometimes hits the truth, and sometimes is deceived. 
But what can those who think this say of the persecution in which the Lord 
Himself was crucified? In which number will they put it? And if they think the 
reckoning is to be made exclusive of this one, as if those must be counted which 
pertain to the body, and not that in which the Head Himself was set upon and 
slain, what can they make of that one which, after Christ ascended into heaven, 
took place in Jerusalem, when the blessed Stephen was stoned; when James the 
brother of John was slaughtered with the sword; when the Apostle Peter was 
imprisoned to be killed, and was set free by the angel; when the brethren were 
driven away and scattered from Jerusalem; when Saul, who afterward became the 
Apostle Paul, wasted the Church; and when he himself, publishing the glad 
tidings of the faith he had persecuted, suffered such things as he had 
inflicted, either from the Jews or from other nations, where he most fervently 
preached Christ everywhere? Why, then, do they think fit to start with Nero, 
when the Church in her growth had reached the times of Nero amid the most cruel 
persecutions; about which it would be too long to say anything? But if they 
think that only the persecutions made by kings ought to be reckoned, it was king 
Herod who also made a most grievous one after the ascension of the Lord. And 
what account do they give of Julian, whom they do not number in the ten? Did not 
he persecute the Church, who forbade the Christians to teach or learn liberal 
letters? Under him the elder Valentinian, who was the third emperor after him, 
stood forth as a confessor of the Christian faith, and was dismissed from his 
command in the army. I shall say nothing of what he did at Antioch, except to 
mention his being struck with wonder at the freedom and cheerfulness of one most 
faithful and steadfast young man, who, when many were seized to be tortured, was 
tortured during a whole day, and sang under the instrument of torture, until the 
emperor feared lest he should succumb under the continued cruelties and put him 
to shame at last, which made him dread and fear that he would be yet more 
dishonorably put to the blush by the rest. Lastly, within our own recollection, 
did not Valens the Arian, brother of the foresaid Valentinian, waste the 
catholic Church by great persecution throughout the East? But how unreasonable 
it is not to consider that the Church, which bears fruit and grows through the 
whole world, may suffer persecution from kings in some nations even when she 
does not suffer it in others! Perhaps, however, it was not to be reckoned a 
persecution when the king of the Goths, in Gothia itself, persecuted the 
Christians with wonderful cruelty, when there were none but catholics there, of 
whom very many were crowned with martyrdom, as we have heard from certain 
brethren who had been there at that time as boys, and unhesitatingly called to 
mind that they had seen these things? And what took place in Persia of late? Was 
not persecution so hot against the Christians (if even yet it is allayed) that 
some of the fugitives from it came even to Roman towns? When I think of these 
and the like things, it does not seem to me that the number of persecutions with 
which the Church is to be tried can be definitely stated. But, on the other 
hand, it is no less rash to affirm that there will be some persecutions by kings 
besides that last one, about which no Christian is in doubt. Therefore we leave 
this undecided, supporting or refuting neither side of this question, but only 
restraining men from the audacious presumption of affirming either of them 
CHAP. 53.--OF THE HIDDEN TIME OF THE FINAL 
PERSECUTION. 
Truly Jesus Himself shall extinguish by His presence that last persecution which 
is to be made by Antichrist. For so it is written, that "He shall slay him with 
the breath of His mouth, and empty him with the brightness of His presence."(1) 
It is customary to ask, When shall that be? But this is quite unreasonable. For 
had it been profitable for us to know this, by whom could it better have been 
told than by God Himself, the Master, when the disciples questioned Him? For 
they were not silent when with Him, but inquired of Him, saying, "Lord, wilt 
Thou at this time present the kingdom to Israel, or when?"(2) But He said, "It 
is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own power." 
When they got that answer, they had not at all questioned Him about the hour, or 
day, or year, but about the time. In vain, then, do we attempt to compute 
definitely the years that may remain to this world, when we may hear from the 
mouth of the Truth that it is not for us to know this. Yet some have said that 
four hundred, some five hundred, others a thousand years, may be completed from 
the ascension of the Lord up to His final coming. But to point out how each of 
them supports his own opinion would take too long, and is not necessary; for 
indeed they use human conjectures, and bring forward nothing certain from the 
authority of the canonical Scriptures. But on this subject He puts aside the 
figures of the calculators, and orders silence, who says, "It is not for you to 
know the times, which the Father hath put in His own power." 
But because this sentence is in the Gospel, it is no wonder that the worshippers 
of the many and false gods have been none the less restrained from feigning that 
by the responses of the demons, whom they worship as gods, it has been fixed how 
long the Christian religion is to last. For when they saw that it could not be 
consumed by so many and great persecutions, but rather drew from them wonderful 
enlargements, they invented I know not what Greek verses, as if poured forth by 
a divine oracle to some one consulting it, in which, indeed, they make Christ 
innocent of this, as it were, sacrilegious crime, but add that Peter by 
enchantments brought it about that the name of Christ should be worshipped for 
three hundred and sixty-five years, and, after the completion of that number of 
years, should at once take end. Oh the hearts of learned men! Oh, learned wits, 
meet to believe such things about Christ as you are not willing to believe in 
Christ, that His disciple Peter did not learn magic arts from Him, yet that, 
although He was innocent, His disciple was an enchanter, and chose that His name 
rather than his own should be worshipped through his magic arts, his great 
labors and perils, and at last even the shedding of his blood! If Peter the 
enchanter made the world so love Christ, what did Christ the innocent do to make 
Peter so love Him? Let them answer themselves then, and, if they can, let them 
understand that the world, for the sake of eternal life, was made to love Christ 
by that same supernal grace which made Peter also love Christ for the sake of 
the eternal life to be received from Him, and that even to the extent of 
suffering temporal death for Him. And then, what kind of gods are these who are 
able to predict such things, yet are not able to avert them, succumbing in such 
a way to a single enchanter and wicked magician (who, as they say, having slain 
a yearling boy and torn him to pieces, buried him with nefarious rites), that 
they permitted the sect hostile to themselves to gain strength for so great a 
time, and to surmount the horrid cruelties of so many great persecutions, not by 
resisting but by suffering, and to procure the overthrow of their own images, 
temples, rituals, and oracles? Finally, what god was it--not ours, certainly, 
but one of their own--who was either enticed or compelled by so great wickedness 
to perform these things? For those verses say that Peter bound, not any demon, 
but a god to do these things. Such a god have they who have not Christ. 
CHAP. 54.--OF THE VERY FOOLISH LIE OF THE PAGANS, IN FEIGNING THAT THE CHRISTIAN 
RELIGION WAS NOT TO LAST BEYOND THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE YEARS. 
I might collect these and many similar arguments, if that year had not already 
passed by which lying divination has promised, and deceived vanity has believed. 
But as a few years ago three hundred and sixty-five years were completed since 
the time when the worship of the name of Christ was established by His presence 
in the flesh, and by the apostles, what other proof need we seek to refute that 
falsehood? For, not to place the beginning of this period at the nativity of 
Christ, because as an infant and boy He had no disciples, yet, when He began to 
have them, beyond doubt the Christian doctrine and religion then became known 
through His bodily presence, that is, after He was baptized in the river Jordan 
by the ministry of John. For on this account that prophecy went before 
concerning Him: "He shall reign from sea even to sea, and from the river even to 
the ends of the earth."(1) But since, before He suffered and rose from the dead, 
the faith had not yet been defined to all, but was defined in the resurrection 
of Christ (for so the Apostle Paul speaks to the Athenians, saying, "But now He 
announces to men that all everywhere should repent, because He hath appointed a 
day in which to judge the world in equity, by the Man in whom He hath defined 
the faith to all men, raising Him from the dead"(2)), it is better that, in 
settling this question, we should start from that point, especially because the 
Holy Spirit was then given, just as He behoved to be given after the 
resurrection of Christ in that city from which the second law, that is, the new 
testament, ought to begin. For the first, which is called the old testament was 
given from Mount Sinai through Moses. But concerning this which was to be given 
by Christ it was predicted, "Out of Sion shall go forth the law and the word of 
the Lord out of Jerusalem;"(3) whence He Himself said that repentance in His 
name behoved to be preached among all nations, but yet beginning at 
Jerusalem.(4) There, therefore, the worship of this name took its rise, that 
Jesus should be believed in, who died and rose again. There this faith blazed up 
with such noble beginnings, that several thousand men, being converted to the 
name of Christ with wonderful alacrity, sold their goods for distribution among 
the needy, thus, by a holy resolution and most ardent charity, coming to 
voluntary poverty, and prepared themselves, amid the Jews who raged and thirsted 
for their blood, to contend for the truth even to death, not with armed power, 
but with more powerful patience. If this was accomplished by no magic arts, why 
do they hesitate to believe that the other could be done throughout the whole 
world by the same divine power by which this was done ? But supposing Peter 
wrought that enchantment so that so great a multitude of men at Jerusalem was 
thus kindled to worship the name of Christ, who had either seized and fastened 
Him to the cross, or reviled Him when fastened there, we must still inquire when 
the three hundred and sixty-five years must be completed, counting from that 
year. Now Christ died when the Gemini were consuls, on the eighth day before the 
kalends of April. He rose the third day, as the apostles have proved by the 
evidence of their own senses. Then forty days after, He ascended into heaven. 
Ten days after, that is, on the fiftieth after his resurrection, He sent the 
Holy Spirit; then three thousand men believed when the apostles preached Him. 
Then, therefore, arose the worship of that name, as we believe, and according to 
the real truth, by the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, but, as impious vanity has 
reigned or thought, by the magic arts of Peter. A little afterward, too, on a 
wonderful sign being wrought, when at Peter's own word a certain beggar, so lame 
from his mother's womb that he was carried by others and laid down at the gate 
of the temple, where he begged alms, was made whole in the name of Jesus Christ, 
and leaped up, five thousand men believed, and thenceforth the Church grew by 
sundry accessions of believers. Thus we gather the very day with which that year 
began, namely, that on which the Holy Spirit was sent, that is, during the ides 
of May. And, on counting the consuls, the three hundred and sixty-five years are 
found completed on the same ides in the consulate of Honorius and Eutychianus. 
Now, in the following year, in the consulate of Mallius Theodorus, when, 
according to that oracle of the demons or figment of men, there ought already to 
have been no Christian religion, it was not necessary to inquire, what perchance 
was done in other parts of the earth. But, as we know, in the most noted and 
eminent city, Carthage, in Africa, Gaudentius and Jovius, officers of the 
Emperor Honorius, on the fourteenth day before the kalends of April, overthrew 
the temples and broke the images of the false gods. And from that time to the 
present, during almost thirty years, who does not see how much the worship of 
the name of Christ has increased, especially after many of those became 
Christians who had been kept back from the faith by thinking that divination 
true, but saw when that same number of years was completed that it was empty and 
ridiculous? We, therefore, who are called and are Christians, do not believe in 
Peter, but in Him whom Peter believed,--being edified by Peter's sermons about 
Christ, not poisoned by his incantations; and not deceived by his enchantments, 
but aided by his good deeds. Christ Himself, who was Peter's Master in the 
doctrine which leads to eternal life, is our Master too. 
But let us now at last finish this book, after thus far treating of, and showing 
as far as seemed sufficient, what is the mortal course of the two cities, the 
heavenly and the earthly, which are mingled together from the beginning down to 
the end. Of these, the earthly one has made to herself of whom she would either 
from any other quarter, or even from among men, false gods whom she might serve 
by sacrifice; but she which is heavenly and is a pilgrim on the earth does not 
make false gods, but is herself made by the true God of, whom she herself must 
be the true sacrifice. Yet both alike either enjoy temporal good things, or are 
afflicted with temporal evils, but with diverse faith, diverse hope, and diverse 
love, until they must be separated by the last judgment, and each must receive 
her own end, of which there is no end. About these ends of both we must next 
treat.