CHAPTER 15

From the same.

Concerning Christs Reticence about His Miracles. (452) 

[Passage quoted, Isa. xlii. 1-7.]

THE Evangelist alludes to this passage, when the Pharisees went out and took counsel against our Saviour to put Him (c) to death, when He healed the sick on the Sabbath day. But Jesus, knowing, as He says, this conspiracy against Him, departed thence, and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all, and He straitly charged them that they should not make Him known. And lie adds to this the words, "All this was done" (that is to say His departure, and His yielding to those that plotted, and His effort to escape notice in the miracles that He did, and His pledging those that were healed not to make Him known), in order that what was said by the prophet might be fulfilled, when He said:

"Behold, my son, in whom I am well pleased, my beloved in whom my soul delighteth; I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall bear forth judgment to the Gentiles; he shall not strive nor cry, neither shall his (d) voice be heard in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, until he bring forth judgment to victory, and on his name shall the Gentiles trust."

Notice carefully how Matthew, when he says, "Behold my son, in whom I am well pleased, my beloved in whom my soul delighteth," mentions neither Jacob nor Israel. He does not say, "Jacob my son and Israel my beloved," but simply "Behold, my son and my beloved." Hence the - 183 - names of Jacob and Israel are obelized in the Septuagint, as if the prophecy were not in the Hebrew. And it is silently omitted by the other translators, as it is not found in the Hebrew. And thus it is not inserted by the Evangelist, (453) who was a Hebrew, and followed the Hebrew text in his quotation. Therefore the prophecy does not apply either actually or figuratively to the Jews, but only to the Christ of God, to Whom the clear evidence and the results bear witness. For He alone prophesied the future judgment to the Gentiles, quietly sojourning in human life, and setting judgment on the earth. And not only did He not break the bruised (b) reed, but so to say bound it up, setting up and strengthening the weak and the bruised in heart. And just as He did not neglect the sick and corrupt, who needed His medicine, nor bruise the repentant with hard judgment, so He did not quench them that continued in evil, and were smoking under the fire of passion, by preventing their following their own choice, nor did He punish any of (c) them before the time, reserving the time of their due chastisement for the general Judgment: therefore it is said, "And the smoking flax He shall not quench."

The words, "And in his name shall the Gentiles trust," have also been exactly fulfilled. For the nations of Christians trust only in the Name of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and are marked with His Name as that of the Father of the religion with which they are associated. For it was foretold that He should be given for a Light to none but the Gentiles. And by Him in accordance with the prediction, the eyes of the blind—those that had long been impaired in understanding, and not only of these but of (d) those who had lost their very bodies, and those who before were involved, bound and chained in sin, in darkness and ignorance of true religion, by Him freed from their sins— were accounted worthy of the light of knowledge and of the freedom of God. And if you at your leisure test the rest of the passage, as I have so far done, you will find each one of its predictions fulfilled in our Lord and Saviour, and in Him alone.