CHAPTER 11

From the same.

Of the Signs and Wonders which He worked. 

[Passage quoted, Isa. viii. 16-20 a.]

IN the Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle, quoting the (d) above passage, "Behold, I and the children which God has given me," expounds it of the Christ, saying, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, - 181 - he also himself took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death."

And here the prophet calls God's children the Apostles, through whom he teaches that the Lord of Sabaoth, Who dwells in Mount Zion, will do signs and wonders in the house of Jacob, and that they will be manifest if sealed, as is our custom, with the seal of Christ on their foreheads, and taught no more to learn the Law of Moses, since it stands no longer, and since that which is called the house of Jacob is deserted by God.

This is rendered obscurely in the Septuagint:

"Then they shall be manifest who seal up the law, so (451) as not to learn. And he will say, I await God, who turns his face away from the house of Jacob, and I will trust in him." 

Symmachus translates more clearly, thus:

"Bind the testimony, seal the law in my ordinances. And I will expect the Lord that hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will await him." 

And Aquila also translates in this way:

"Bind up the witness, seal the law in my teachings. And I will expect God that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will await him."

This, then, the apostles of our Saviour are taught to do. (b) And He proceeds to say to them:

"Behold, I and the children, which God has given me. And they shall be for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of Sabaoth who dwells in Mount Sion." 

And the Lord of Sabaoth, the Word of God dwelling in the Humanity He has taken, and sojourning in Mount Zion, working signs and wonders, commands both His disciples and all those that believe on Him, sprung from all those who before were idolaters, to fear idolatrous error no longer: (c) therefore if idolaters of the Gentiles would sap their foundations and induce them to inquire of pythons and the daemon oracles, as if they were equal to the prophetic inspiration of inspired and godly men, they ought to answer and say, "Wherefore do they inquire of the dead concerning the living? For he has given a law for succour," and the - 182 - rest of the passage. For they that have once taken the law and the commandments of salvation for succour and help (d) in their individual life have little need to trouble themselves about the prophecy that springs from daemonic deceit.