Commodian — Carmen de Duobus Populis 401–440

So that they recognize nothing until they are healed by my word. God was foretold to be born in flesh for us, so that their torment should become the greater by desert: Behold, God himself will give you a sign from on high: A virgin will conceive and the earth will bear the heavenly one; and he will be called Emmanuel, he had commanded them — which the Latin tongue unfolds as ‘God with us.’ Hear that he himself would be nursed with honey and butter, and the word: he would take Samaria before he spoke. But this is a closed history, which the learned unroll, that a nursing child without battle would enter on spoils; whose passion was foretold beforehand in such a way that God should become passible with blood poured out. Isaiah says: Like a sheep led to the altar, and he did not cry with a voice; he bore all things patiently. He is fixed with nails, which David had once foretold; and they gave him vinegar to drink according to the scriptures. And: for my garments, he said, they cast a lot — which was done, and we read all things carried out in him. Darkness too was made for three hours from the sixth, and the day hurried to bring on night’s stars. This had been foretold to happen through the prophet Amos, that it should suddenly cover itself through the holy solemnities. O evil offspring, O people with a sly face! I begot children, said God, who would deny me. And he said: Hear the trumpet’s voice. We will not, they say. This Ezekiel says: Therefore the nations will hear from afar. In one heading I want to touch the book Deuteronomy: You will be at the head, nations; for the unbelieving behind. If the rebels surely spit back all the things said above — know what they oppose, when the matter is spoken so openly? See already therefore, you doubtful who have floated until now, that the nations were prior in the Lord in scripture. Now therefore it is right to believe the one the books mark, not empty idols who are cultivated in vain for life, nor to be joined to those pleasure-led and without rein, who love luxuries more than the Highest’s precepts. One fault is not enough for those who refuse to believe — they even smear: We cast him into a pit. Wherefore the Lord too, indignant, disputes them: ****** Emmanuel, nails, vinegar, lots, noon-dark: the books mark him. Nations were already prior in the Lord — leave the pit-smear and the idols.