Saint Augustine (354-430)

Against Faustus

Translated by Richard Stothert

Book XXII

Chapter 89

As regards the prophet Hosea, it is unnecessary for me to explain the meaning of the command, or of the prophet’s conduct, when God said to him, “Go and take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and produce children of whoredoms,” for the Scripture itself informs us of the origin and purpose of this direction. It proceeds thus: “For the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Judah, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name No-mercy: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. Now when she had weaned No-mercy, she conceived, and bare a son. Then said God, Call his name Not-my-people: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured for multitude; and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Then shall the children of Israel and the children of Judah be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel. Say ye unto your brethren, My people; and to your sister, She hath found mercy.” Since the typical meaning of the command and of the prophet’s conduct is thus explained in the same book by the Lord Himself, and since the writings of the apostles declare the fulfillment of this prophecy in the preaching of the New Testament, every one must accept the explanation thus given of the command and of the action of the prophet as the true explanation. Thus it is said by the Apostle Paul, “That He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. As He saith also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called the children of the living God.” Here Paul applies the prophecy to the Gentiles. So also Peter, writing to the Gentiles, without naming the prophet, borrows his expressions when he says, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye might show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” From this it is plain that the words of the prophet, “And the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured for multitude,” and the words immediately following, “And it shall be that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there they shall be called the children of the living God,” do not apply to that Israel which is after the flesh, but to that of which the apostle says to the Gentiles, “Ye therefore are the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise.” But, as many Jews who were of the Israel after the flesh have believed, and will yet believe; for of these were the apostles, and all the thousands in Jerusalem of the company of the apostles, as also the churches of which Paul speaks, when he says to the Galatians, “I was unknown by face to the churches of Judæa which were in Christ”; and again, he explains the passage in the Psalms, where the Lord is called the cornerstone, as referring to His uniting in Himself the two walls of circumcision and uncircumcision, “that He might make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and that He might come and preach peace to them that are far off, and to them that are nigh,” that is, to the Gentiles and to the Jews; “for He is our peace, who hath made of both one”; to the same purpose we find the prophet speaking of the Jews as the children of Judah, and of the Gentiles as children of Israel, where he says, “The children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and shall make to themselves one head, and shall go up from the land.” Therefore, to speak against a prophecy thus confirmed by actual events, is to speak against the writings of the apostles as well as those of the prophets; and not only to speak against writings, but to impugn in the most reckless manner the evidence clear as noonday of established facts. In the case of the narrative of Judah, it is perhaps not so easy to recognize, under the disguise of the woman called Tamar, the harlot representing the Church gathered from among the corruption of Gentile superstition; but here, where Scripture explains itself, and where the explanation is confirmed by the writings of the apostles, instead of dwelling longer on this, we may proceed at once to inquire into the meaning of the very things to which Faustus objects in Moses the servant of God.

Book XXII Chapter 88

Book XXII Chapter 90