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CHAPTER FOUR In which it is demonstrated that the Christ is not still to come, as the Jews foolishly think, but rather that he has come at a sure and preordained time for the salvation of the world T REMAINS for me to pursue a fourth and penultimate battle against you, O Jew, a battle in which (so I think) the one who conferred an easy palm of victory upon me in the earlier battles will do so once more. I will not be without the sword of Goliath to destroy you, as I hope to do if you do not want to live, a sword that I will use against you while you lie prostrate in your complete ruin, and I will cut off once again a blasphemous head with that blade’s edge with which you, girded up, had advanced against God. Once this last battle that alone remains has been finished, you will cease to draw another breath; once this battle has been concluded, you will never again dare to murmur [against God]. Furthermore, this is the cause for which this last clash must be fought: I say that the Christ predicted by the prophets has already come; you deny this, and you say that he has not come but is still to come. I say, he has come; you say, he will come. It is incumbent upon me, then, to test what I have proposed. And in order not to delay too long, in order not to hold you in suspense too long, hear this. Hear, I say, not just any of the prophets but that great father of prophets, the great prophet— rather, patriarch—Jacob. Hear him, in whose lineage and name you pride yourselves, from whom you are called Israel—would that you were called after him both in reality just as in name “a 137 138 PETER THE VENERABLE man who sees God.”1 If, then, you are a man who sees, then see, understand, and pay attention to what he says: “The scepter will not be taken away from Judah, nor a ruler from his thigh, until he come that is to be sent. And he will be the expectation of nations.”2 Alas, what more evasions do you seek? What subterfuges ? There is nothing here to offer you any escape. In fact, if this is said about the Christ, then either show me the royal scepter of Judah or the ruler from the thigh of Judah, or concede that the Christ has already come. No Jew, in my estimation, will contradict that this is said about the Christ.3 At one time I had a conversation about this passage with some Jews who said that they thought that this had been proclaimed of none other than the Christ and that all Jews agreed in this view. But if anyone from among the number of the perfidious [Jews], overcome by the fruitless task of leading others astray, gives up hope that he can resist such powerful evidence in the prophetic passage, which he would prefer be interpreted in some other manner, he will fail. Of whom, other than Christ, can these words, which are so specific, so solemn, be understood to apply? Of which of the prophets other than Christ, of which of the kings other than Christ can this passage be understood: “until he come that is to be sent.”4 Other than Christ, of whom can it be understood that “he shall be the expectation of nations”?5 Although all the prophets were sent by God, of whom, other than Christ, was it said specifically: “until he come that is to be sent”?6 Surely the holy patriarch knew that this title of one that is sent was shared by all the prophets. Therefore, what he knew was common to all, he indicated applies to this one in a particular way. He would not have indicated that sending (missio) as specifically unique unless it was greater than that of the prophets, who were sent. Because he indicated it specifically, he showed that the one he said had to be sent was greater than all those already sent or 1. Jerome, Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum, ed. P. de Lagarde, CC SL 72 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1959), pp. 13, 21; 63, 22; 74, 15; 76, 20; idem, Liber quaestionum Hebraicarum in Genesim 32.28, ed. P. de Lagarde, CC SL 72 (Turnholt : Brepols, 1959), p. 52. 2. Gn 49.10. 3. Cf. B...

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