III.—The Name Jesus and also the Name Christ were known from the Beginning, and were honored by the Inspired Prophets.
1. is now the proper place to show that the very name Jesus and also the name Christ were honored by the ancient prophets beloved of God.
2. Moses was the first to make
known the name of Christ as a name especially august and glorious. When
he delivered types and symbols of heavenly things, and mysterious
images, in accordance with the oracle which said to him, “Look
that thou make all things according to the pattern which was shown thee
in the mount,” he consecrated a man
high priest of God, in so far as that was possible, and him he called
Christ. And thus to this dignity of the high
priesthood, which in his opinion surpassed the most honorable position
among men, he attached for the sake of honor and glory the name of
Christ.
3. He knew so well that in
Christ was something divine. And the same one foreseeing, under the
influence of the divine Spirit, the name Jesus, dignified it also with
a certain distinguished privilege. For the name of Jesus, which had
never been uttered among men before the time of Moses, he applied first
and only to the one who he knew would receive after his death, again as
a type and symbol, the supreme command.
4. His successor, therefore, who
had not hitherto borne the name Jesus, but had been called by another
name, Auses, which had been given him by his
parents, he now called Jesus, bestowing the name upon him as a gift of
honor, far greater than any kingly diadem. For Jesus himself, the son
of Nave, bore a resemblance to our Saviour in the fact that he alone, after Moses and after the completion of the symbolical worship which had been transmitted by him, succeeded to the government of the true and pure religion.
5. Thus Moses bestowed the name
of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, as a mark of the highest honor, upon the
two men who in his time surpassed all the rest of the people in virtue
and glory; namely, upon the high priest and upon his own successor in
the government.
6. And the prophets that came
after also clearly foretold Christ by name, predicting at the same time
the plots which the Jewish people would form against him, and the
calling of the nations through him. Jeremiah, for instance, speaks as
follows: “The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their
destructions; of whom we said, under his shadow we shall live among the
nations.” And David, in perplexity, says, “Why did the nations rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth set themselves in array, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ”; to which he adds, in the person of Christ himself, “The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
7. And not only those who were
honored with the high priesthood, and who for the sake of the symbol
were anointed with especially prepared oil, were adorned with the name
of Christ among the Hebrews, but also the kings whom the prophets
anointed under the influence of the divine Spirit, and thus
constituted, as it were, typical Christs. For they also bore in their
own persons types of the royal and sovereign power of the true and only
Christ, the divine Word who ruleth over all.
8. And we have been told also
that certain of the prophets themselves became, by the act of
anointing, Christs in type, so that all these have reference to the
true Christ, the divinely inspired and heavenly Word, who is the only
high priest of all, and the only King of every creature, and the
Father’s only supreme prophet of prophets.
9. And a proof of this is that
no one of those who were of old symbolically anointed, whether priests, or kings, or prophets, possessed so great a power of inspired virtue as was exhibited by our Saviour and Lord Jesus, the true and only Christ.