Letter G

G.

GAD the Prophet, in Hebrew גד הנביא חזה דוד Gad ha-navi, choze David, that is, Gad the Prophet, the Seer of David ^{1 2} (whom the Lord sent to king David, that he might offer him one of three punishments to be chosen, on account of the crime of the numbered people — that is, either seven years’ famine, or a three-months’ persecution by enemies, or a three-days’ pestilence), composed a most copious universal history of the life of king David, ³ and of the deeds done everywhere on earth in his time; which is reviewed at the end of the former book of Paralipomenon in these words: ⁴ NOW THE DEEDS of king David, the first and the last, are written in the volume of Samuel the Seer, and in the book of Nathan the Prophet, and of Gad the Seer, and [the deeds] of all his kingdom and might, and of the times which passed under him, whether in Israel or in all the kingdoms of the lands:

GAIUS, the beloved host of the Apostles (concerning whom Paul, writing to the Romans, says: GAIUS my host SALUTETH you) ⁵ was — as Dorotheus of Tyre testifies in the Synopsis — bishop of the church of Ephesus after Titus, a disciple of Paul. ⁶ Athanasius, in the Synopsis, hands down that he wrote at Ephesus, from the mouth of John the Apostle, a Gospel, which is now inscribed According to John. But Simon Metaphrastes, in the life of John the Evangelist, has committed to memory that Prochorus, the apostolic deacon, put this same Gospel into writing on the island of Patmos, John dictating. ⁷

THE ENDLESS GENEALOGIES. Concerning these Paul, in the former epistle to Timothy, says: ⁸ ATTEND not to endless Genealogies, which afford questions rather than edification. And in the epistle to Titus he says: ⁹ Avoid Genealogies and contentions. ¹⁰ Jerome, in the commentaries on the epistle to Titus, and in the third commentary on Isaiah, says that these are certain constitutions of the Jews, called by the Greeks δευτερώσεις [deuteroses], which the Hebrews Akiba, Meir, Johanan, and Eliezer first committed to writing. Augustine, in the second book against the adversary of the law, chapter one, reports that these deuteroses were not written among the Jews, but held by memory, and transfused from one to another by speaking; ¹¹ in which the Jews hand down that God created for the first man two women, out of whom afterward they weave infinite genealogies.

THE GREAT BOOK, in Hebrew גליון גדול Ghilaion gadol, which the Seventy interpreters rendered ¹² Τόμον καινὸν μέγαν, that is, a New great volume, ¹³ is a paper, or large page, rollable upon itself in the manner of a coil — commonly called by the notaries a Roll [Rotulus] — on which God commanded Isaiah to write, in larger letters, these four Hebrew words: מהר שלל חש בז Maher shalal, chash baz, ¹⁴ that is, Hasten to the prey, make speed to the spoil. For which our Vulgate edition reads, Swiftly take away the spoils, speedily plunder. But the Seventy interpreters have Τοῦ ἐξέως προνομὴν ποιῆσαι σκύλων, that is, That he may swiftly make plundering of spoils. But some have, Call his name SWIFT-SPOILING, SPEEDY-PREY; and others, A swift plunderer, a hasty spoiler. ¹⁵ Now this writing showed forth the name which Isaiah, by divine command, was to impose on his son — whom, as Chrysostom says, he was soon to have by his wife the prophetess. For God willed by this name to portend the imminent plundering of the Israelite kingdom, whereby, a little after — before that lately-born infant should begin to prattle — the king of the Assyrians plundered Damascus and Samaria, the metropolis of Israel; as Isaiah testifies in these words: ¹⁶ AND THE LORD SAID to me, Take thee a great book, and write in it with a man’s pen: SWIFTLY TAKE AWAY THE SPOILS, SPEEDILY PLUNDER. And I took to me faithful witnesses, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Barachiah: and I went to the prophetess; and she conceived, and bore a son. And the Lord said to me, Call his name, HASTEN, TAKE AWAY THE SPOILS, MAKE SPEED TO PLUNDER; for before he shall know to call his father and his mother, the strength of Damascus shall be taken away, and the spoils of Samaria, before the king of the Assyrians, &c.

THERE ARE THOSE who think that these words are not to be understood of the son of Isaiah the Prophet; because it is not likely that the prophet, endowed with the highest modesty and honesty, would have brought in witnesses to observe him uniting with his wife — and those especially [as] witnesses whereof the one, namely Zechariah, son of Barachiah, was not yet born; but the other, namely Uriah the priest, was altogether unworthy in the authority and name of a witness, especially in divine mysteries, since he was unfaithful; and, as the fourth book of Kings reports, ¹⁷ had built an altar like to the altar of the city of Damascus, on which he offered victims and holocausts, together with the impious king Ahaz, to the gods of the gentiles. Whom Uriah, even if the prophet had brought him in with him, he would nevertheless not have called a faithful witness, saying, I TOOK TO ME FAITHFUL WITNESSES. Then, neither does the age of the infant seem to agree with the time of the Samaritan plundering, which the prophet had foretold as future before the boy should begin to speak. For that [plundering], as the fourth book of Kings is witness, ¹⁸ happened in the sixth year of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and the ninth year of Hosea, king of Israel; at which time the boy had already reached the eighteenth year of his age. For so many years flowed from the fourth year of Ahaz, in which the boy was born and the book was written, even to the sixth year of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and the ninth year of Hosea, reigning over Israel in Samaria — when Shalmaneser, king of the Assyrians, devastated Samaria, and carried the Israelites into the Assyrians, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor by the river Gozan, in the cities of the Medes, as is narrated in the fourth book of Kings. ¹⁹ But we easily meet these [objections], saying that Isaiah brought those witnesses with him, not for the spectacle of a carnal coition, but for the beholding and hearing of the writing of the book. And he took with him Zechariah, son of Barachiah — not that one indeed who was not yet brought forth among the living, but another Zechariah, of the same name and surname, living at the same time. He summoned also Uriah the priest as a faithful witness; and he called him faithful, not by worship and religion toward God, whom [Uriah] himself worshipped not, but by fidelity and obsequiousness toward king Ahaz, with whom Uriah was held most faithful. And this [man] especially Isaiah willed to be present, that — an idolatrous man, and hostile to the prophets of God — having inspected the writing of the prophecy, he might straightway, in hatred of the prophecy, carry the whole matter to the idolatrous business [i.e., report it to Ahaz]. But the depopulation whereof the prophecy is here written is not that in which Shalmaneser carried Israel into Media, in the sixth year of Hezekiah and the ninth of Hosea; but another, which was made nearly fifteen years before, about the sixth, seventh, and eighth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, when Pekah, son of Remaliah, [and] Rezin, king of Syria, and Tiglath-pileser, king of the Assyrians, laid waste Israel and Judah, and carried off an immense prey, together with all the vessels and ornaments of the temple; which king Ahaz delivered to Tiglath-pileser, king of the Assyrians, as is written in the second [book] of Paralipomenon.

There are likewise those who both acutely and piously interpret this place mystically, ²⁰ asserting that this matter is narrated by the prophet as done not corporeally, but spiritually; and that accordingly the introduction of the witnesses, the coition of the prophet, and the nativity of the infant, are thus to be expounded according to allegory: so that by the prophetess [is meant] the Virgin, mother of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Uriah let us understand — not that impious priest of king Ahaz, but Uriah the prophet, son of Shemaiah, a contemporary of Jeremiah the prophet, whom Jeremiah writes to have prophesied in the name of the Lord; ²¹ and by Zechariah, that one who is numbered eleventh among the twelve prophets. Finally, in the infant, whose name is HASTEN TO THE PREY, MAKE SPEED TO THE SPOIL, let us recognize that Lion of the tribe of Judah, to whom, many ages before, Jacob had said, ²² THOU ART GONE UP TO THE PREY, my son; thy hands [shall be] on the necks of thine enemies — that is, Christ Jesus our Savior, of the tribe of Judah according to the flesh; who, the world being overcome, the kingdom of sin destroyed, Satan cast down, hell despoiled, death slain, and all his enemies vanquished, routed, and prostrated, ascended into heaven, victor and triumphant, laden with the spoils of his enemies, leading captivity captive — bringing with him from the lower regions the ranks of the redeemed captive fathers, exulting before him, as victors exult when, the prey being taken, they divide the spoils. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, in the first book against the heresies, tome 2, teaches that this ²³ Great Book is the womb of the Virgin Mary, ²⁴ deservedly called great, because it comprehended the incomprehensible [one], whom heaven and earth cannot contain. Basil, in the commentaries on Isaiah, ²⁵ writes thus of this book according to allegory: PERHAPS this Tome, or volume, or new and great book, is a certain adumbration and figure of the new and great testament, described with a man’s pen — because the words of the gospel are set down in human speech, or character, that they may easily be heard by anyone. In which indeed it is written, that there should be a swift plundering of spoils. For the doctrine of the gospel, swifter than any lightning, reaches even to the utmost limits of the habitable earth, spoiling the prince of this world, and leading over to the rendering of obedience to Christ those whom that robber held captive.