Commodian — Carmen de Duobus Populis 241–280

From when he came, prophecy fell silent for the Jews. After him they came into exile with hardened heart and do not yet discern why they have suffered such things. It had been foretold them by Isaiah the prophet and likewise by Daniel to lose the land; yet not before, unless the leader of the city in it should hang on the wood, and then it become desert. Suddenly what glory shone on a nation, that a people should become a people that was not before! Was Esau beloved by the father not stunned that the younger brother would take the first things? So neither could the synagogue know the time when and under what leader it would fall from its private right; as it was written, that birds know their times, but this people did not understand that I was present. It came that the ruler of heaven himself should come: according to the scriptures he was not counted by them. The Lord had been foreknowing this, as one who knows all things; therefore through the prophets’ mouths he foretold these things. A people too stiff-necked and always rebelling — while it claimed first place for itself, the case was cut off. Into their courses he set gentiles in charge; he had said this before: Nations will hope in him. For the stone itself was set into Zion’s foundations — whoever believed in it would have eternal life. Daniel marks this Holy of Holies to be anointed and after him the royal chrism to be wiped out. David said that: to be fixed with a nail, silent — They dug, he says, my hands and my feet themselves. Solomon too prophesies of him so openly, that the Jews would say, Let us kill the just one! Jeremiah likewise shows the cross in figure: Come, let us cast wood into his bread! saying. But their leader Moses heralds to them: Before your eyes life will hang slain. Here the Father came in the Son, one God everywhere: nor was he called Father unless the Son had been made. For he did not leave heaven to give birth on earth, but, as he arranged, majesty was seen on earth — from his own power he made himself be born in flesh. ****** Prophets fall silent when he comes. Wood, nail, stone of Zion: the Father in the Son, one God, majesty in flesh.