744

Those who have a difficulty in believing seek a reason in the fact that the Jews do not believe.  “Were this so clear,” say they, “why did the Jews not believe?” And they almost wish that they had believed, so as not to be kept back by the example of their refusal.  But it is their very refusal that is the foundation of our faith.  We should be much less disposed to the faith, if they were on our side.  We should then have a more ample pretext.  The wonderful thing is to have made the Jews great lovers of the things foretold, and great enemies of their fulfilment.

745

The Jews were accustomed to great and striking miracles, and so, having had the great miracles of the Red Sea and of the land of Canaan as an epitome of the great deeds of their Messiah, they therefore looked for more striking miracles, of which those of Moses were only the patterns.

746

The carnal Jews and the heathen have their calamities, and Christians also.  There is no Redeemer for the heathen, for they do not so much as hope for one.  There is no Redeemer for the Jews; they hope for Him in vain.  There is a Redeemer only for Christians. (See Perpetuity.)

747

In the time of the Messiah the people divided themselves.  The spiritual embraced the Messiah, and the coarser-minded remained to serve as witnesses of Him.

748

“If this was clearly foretold to the Jews, how did they not believe it, or why were they not destroyed for resisting a fact so clear?”

I reply:  in the first place, it was foretold both that they would not believe a thing so clear, and that they would not be destroyed.  And nothing is more to the glory of the Messiah; for it was not enough that there should be prophets; their prophets must be kept above suspicion.  Now, etc.

749

If the Jews had all been converted by Jesus Christ, we should have none but questionable witnesses.  And if they had been entirely destroyed, we should have no witnesses at all.

750

What do the prophets say of Jesus Christ?  That He will be clearly God?  No; but that He is a God truly hidden; that He will be slighted; that none will think that it is He; that He will be a stone of stumbling, upon which many will stumble, etc.  Let people then reproach us no longer for want of clearness, since we make profession of it.

But, it is said, there are obscurities.—­And without that, no one would have stumbled over Jesus Christ, and this is one of the formal pronouncements of the prophets:  Excaeca[280] ...

751

Moses first teaches the Trinity, original sin, the Messiah.

David:  a great witness; a king, good, merciful, a beautiful soul, a sound mind, powerful.  He prophesies, and his wonder comes to pass.  This is infinite.

He had only to say that he was the Messiah, if he had been vain; for the prophecies are clearer about him than about Jesus Christ.  And the same with Saint John.