Against the Jews

Expository Treatise Against the Jews

NOW THEN: listen to me, hear my words, and pay attention, you Jew. Many times you boast that you condemned Jesus of Nazareth to death and gave Him vinegar and gall to drink. You even brag about this. Come then, and let us consider together whether perhaps you are not boasting unjustly, O Israel, and whether that small portion of vinegar and gall has not brought down this terrible threat upon you, and whether this is not the cause of your present condition, caught up in these countless troubles.

LET THE ONE WHO SPEAKS BY THE HOLY SPIRIT AND TELLS THE TRUTH BE BROUGHT BEFORE US: David the son of Jesse. As he sang a certain song with a prophetic reference to the true Christ, he praised our God by the Holy Spirit. He also declared clearly everything that happened to Him at the hands of the Jews in His suffering. In that song, Christ, who humbled Himself and took on Himself the form of the servant Adam, calls on God the Father in heaven, as if speaking in our person, and says this in Psalm sixty-nine: "Save me, O God, for the waters have come into my soul. I have sunk in the mire of the abyss," that is, in the corruption of Hades, because of the transgression in paradise, "and there is no substance," that is, no help. "My eyes failed while I hoped in my God; when will He come and save me?"

3. Then, in what follows next, Christ speaks, as it were, in His own person: “Then I restored what I did not take away.” That is, because of Adam's sin I endured the death that was not mine by sinning. “For, O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You.” That is, as He means it, I did not sin. And for this reason it is added, “Let not those be ashamed who want to see my resurrection on the third day,” that is, the apostles. “Because for Your sake,” that is, for the sake of obeying You, “I have borne reproach,” namely, the cross, when they covered my face with shame, that is to say, the Jews; “when I became a stranger to my brothers after the flesh, and an alien to my mother's children,” meaning by the mother, the synagogue. “For the zeal of Your house, Father, has eaten me up; and the reproaches of those who reproached You have fallen on me,” and of those who sacrificed to idols. Therefore, “they that sit in the gate spoke against me,” for they crucified me without the gate. “And they that drink sang against me,” that is, those who drink wine at the feast of the Passover. “But as for me, in my prayer to You, O Lord,” I said, “Father, forgive them,” namely, the Gentiles, because it is the time for favor with Gentiles. “Let not the hurricane” of temptations “overwhelm me, neither let the deep,” that is, Hades, “swallow me up.” For “You will not leave my soul in hell,” that is, Hades; “neither let the pit shut her mouth upon me,” that is, the sepulcher. By reason of my enemies, deliver me, that the Jews may not boast, saying, “Let us consume him.”

CHRIST PRAYED ALL THIS IN THIS WAY AS A MAN: though he was also truly God. But, as I have already said, it was the form of the servant that spoke and suffered these things. Therefore he added, "My soul looked for reproach and trouble," that is, I suffered by my own will, and not by any force. Yet I waited for someone to mourn with me, and there was none, for all my disciples left me and ran away; and I looked for a comforter, and I found none.

LISTEN WITH UNDERSTANDING: O Jew, to what the Christ says: "They gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." And you really did make Him suffer these things. Hear also what the Holy Spirit tells you about what He gave back to you for that small portion of vinegar. For the prophet says, speaking as the person of God, "Let their table become a snare and retribution." What retribution is He speaking of? Clearly, it is the misery that has now taken hold of you.

6. Then hear what follows: "Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see." And surely your eyes have been darkened in the soul, with total and everlasting darkness. For now that the true light has risen, you wander as if in the night. You stumble in places where there are no roads, and you fall headlong, because you have abandoned the way that says, "I am the way." Further, hear this even more serious word: "And bend their back always." That means, so that they may be slaves to the nations, not for four hundred and thirty years as in Egypt, nor for seventy years as in Babylon, but, he says, bend them to servitude always. In the end, then, how can you hold on to empty hopes, expecting to be delivered from the misery that holds you? For that is very strange. And he has not unjustly called down this blindness of eyes upon you. But because you covered the eyes of Christ, and in this way beat Him, for this reason also you bend your back in servitude always. And since you poured out His blood in anger, hear what your repayment will be: "Pour out Your indignation upon them, and let Your wrathful anger take hold of them," and, "Let their habitation be desolate," that is, their famous temple.

BUT WHY: O prophet, tell us, and for what reason was the temple made desolate? Was it because of that ancient making of the calf? Was it because of the people’s idolatry? Was it because of the blood of the prophets? Was it because of the adultery and fornication of Israel? By no means, he says. In all these transgressions, pardon and kindness were always open to them. But it was because they killed the Son of their Benefactor, for He is coeternal with the Father. Therefore He says, "Father, let their temple be made desolate, for they have persecuted Him whom You, by Your own will, struck for the salvation of the world." That is, they have persecuted me with a violent and unjust death, and they have added to the pain of my wounds. In former times, as the Lover of mankind, I had pain because of the wandering of the Gentiles. But they have added another pain to this by also going astray themselves. Therefore, add iniquity to their iniquity, and tribulation to tribulation, and let them not enter into Your righteousness, that is, into Your kingdom. But let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous, that is, with their holy fathers and patriarchs.

8. What do you say to this, O Jew? It is not Matthew or Paul who says these things, but David, your anointed one, who gives and declares these terrible judgments because of Christ. And like the great Job, speaking to you who speak against the righteous and true one, he says, "You traded Christ like a slave. You went to Him in the garden like a robber."

9. I now present the prophecy of Solomon, which speaks of Christ. It clearly and plainly announces things concerning the Jews. It speaks not only of what is happening to them at the present time, but also of what will happen to them in the age to come, because of the stubbornness and boldness they showed toward the Prince of Life. For the prophet says, "The ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not rightly"—that is, about Christ—"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is not for our turn, and he is completely opposed to our deeds and words, and he reproaches us for offending the law, and professes to have knowledge of God. And he calls himself the Child of God." Then he says, "He is grievous to us even to look at, because his life is not like other men's, and his ways are of another kind. We are regarded by him as counterfeits, and he keeps away from our ways as from filthiness, and declares that the end of the just is blessed." And again, listen to this, O Jew! None of the righteous or prophets called himself the Son of God. Therefore, as speaking in the person of the Jews, Solomon says again of this righteous one, who is Christ: "He was made to reprove our thoughts, and he makes his boast that God is his Father. Let us see, then, whether his words are true, and let us test what will happen in his end. For if the just man is the Son of God, He will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. Let us condemn him with a shameful death, for by his own saying he will be respected."

AND AGAIN: David says in the Psalms about the age to come, “Then He,” that is, Christ, “will speak to them in His wrath, and trouble them in His fierce anger.” And again, Solomon says about Christ and the Jews that, “when the righteous man stands with great boldness before those who afflicted Him and paid no attention to His words, then, when they see it, they will be shaken with terrible fear and will be astonished at the greatness of His salvation. And they, repenting and groaning in anguish of spirit, will say within themselves, ‘This is He whom we once held in derision and made a proverb of reproach. We fools thought His life was madness, and that His end was without honor. How is He counted among the children of God, and why is His portion among the saints? Therefore we have wandered from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness has not shone on us, and the sun of righteousness did not rise on us. We exhausted ourselves in the path of wickedness and destruction. We traveled through deserts where there was no way. But we have not known the way of the Lord. What has our pride gained us? All those things have passed away like a shadow.’”

THE CONCLUSION IS MISSING: