CHAPTER 2

From Isaiah.

How the Lord resting in the Sacred Body which He took from the Virgin will come to Egypt, is both Literally and Figuratively foretold, and that all the Superstition of the Heathen will be destroyed at His Advent.

[Passage quoted, Isa. xix. 1.]

I SUPPOSE that the reason why it is foretold that the Lord (d) would come to Egypt is this: The Egyptians are said to have been the first to practise the errors of polytheism - 155 - and the daemons, and to have introduced superstition to the rest of mankind, and to have been concerned more than others with the activities and meddling of the daemons. And Holy Scripture witnesses that they were the enemies of God's people from the very beginning, for it is written that their ancient king confessed that he did not know the Lord, when he said: "I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go." So, then, it is because Scripture wishes to shew the great marvel of the divine power of Christ that it foretells His going to Egypt, in (422) predicting that the Egyptians will undergo an extraordinary conversion, when it goes on to say: "And the Egyptians shall know the Lord, who before knew Him not, and shall pray to the Lord," and so on. Above in the previous chapter Edom and Esau are called the inheritance of the subject of the prophecy, these names being used for strangers to Israel. Here it is predicted of Egypt and its people that they will not acknowledge idols any more, (b) but the Lord revealed by the Jewish prophets. Now if we cannot see this actually fulfilled before our eyes, we must not say that the Lord's coming to Egypt has taken place; but if beyond all need of argument the truth is shewn by facts, and reveals clearly to the most unobservant the Egyptians rescued from hereditary superstition, and followers of the God of the prophets who foretold that this would take place, serving Him only, and greeting every (c) form of death for their duty to Him, to what else can we attribute it, but to the Lord coming to Egypt, as the prophecy before us predicted?

It is, of course, possible that the prophecy from another point of view teaches in a figurative and disguised way about the earthly universe, into which it prophesies that the Lord will come on a light cloud, a figure of the Humanity that He took of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit. And that the idols of Egypt to be shaken, are the idols of (all) nations, while the vanquished Egyptians are all those (d) who were of old distracted by idolatry. This may be so, yet when our Lord in bodily form was carried into Egypt, when Joseph arose in obedience to the oracle, and took Mary and the young Child, and went into Egypt, it is probable that the evil daemons who dwelt there of old were greatly moved by His unspeakable power and might; and - 156 - most of all when, through His teaching, so many of Egypt's inhabitants afterwards rejected the errors of the daemons, and even now profess to know the God of the Universe alone.

(423) That which immediately follows I will interpret when I have more leisure, for it is figuratively expressed, and would need considerable labour.