BOOK X

INTRODUCTION

(461) HAVING considered the passages that predict the Coming among men of the God that was foretold, we are now called to expound those that refer to His departure from this life, and to study what the prophets said would (462) happen to Him from the earliest days of prophecy. And I will begin by expounding those which have to do with the men that plotted His Death, which will occupy no small part of the present Book.

But before beginning my argument let me repeat what I have often said about the dispensation of Christ, that we must strictly distinguish what belongs to His Divinity from what belongs to His Humanity. As Divine we recognize Him as the Word of God, the Power of God, the Wisdom of God, the Angel of Great Counsel, and the Great Eternal High Priest, offering sacrifice for the existence and preservation of all, and propitiating the Father. (b) And as Human we know Him as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, and as a sheep led to the slaughter. And this was the human body, which as a high priest He took like a lamb or sheep from the flock of humanity, and offering the firstfruits of the human (c) race, sacrificed them to the Father. By it He entered into human nature, which could only thus perceive the Word of God, and His spiritual unembodied power, being able with eyes of flesh to see nothing higher than flesh and physical things. So that everything that follows, which may seem to lower His glory, must be taken as conceived of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, and of His human body. ^{- 191 -} 

For He was the Lamb that takes away sin, according to John the Baptist, when he said: "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world," and He was the Lamb led to the slaughter in the oracle of Isaiah, which said: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before her shearers is dumb." And of Him as of a lamb was it said: "For the sins of my people he was led to death." For it was necessary that the Lamb of God, taken by the great High-Priest on behalf of the other kindred lambs, for all the flock of mankind, should be offered as a sacrifice to God: "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead," says the apostle; "and as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation: even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." Hence, also, He taught His disciples that He was life and light and truth, and the other conceptions of His Divinity, whereas to them that were not initiated into the secrets of His nature, He said: "Why do ye seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth?"

As then in what has gone before I have dealt with what specially concerns His Divinity, so now in like manner I will shew the human sufferings of the Lamb of God, since what occurred before His Passion lies between the two, partaking both of the nature of His Divinity and His Humanity. With this necessary proviso, let us now consider the oracles which concern the traitor Judas, and his fellow-conspirators against Christ, and the events at the time of His Passion.