1. 1. The blessed apostle Paul, the teacher of the gentiles in faith and truth, exhorting us to remain steadfast and firm in that same faith of which he was made a worthy minister, admonishes us by a precept and frightens us by an example. You see, he says, the goodness and the severity of God: toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness (Rom 11:22).

He said this, of course, about the Jews, who, like branches from that olive tree which bears fruit in the holy patriarchs as in a fruitful root, were broken off because of their unbelief, so that the wild olive of the gentiles might be grafted in because of faith and might become a sharer in the richness of the olive tree once the natural branches had been cut away.

But do not, he says, boast against the branches; for if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you (Rom 11:18). And because some of them are saved, he at once added: otherwise you too will be cut off. But they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again (Rom 11:22–23).

But those who continue in unbelief belong to that sentence of the Lord where he says: but the sons of this kingdom will go into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt 8:12). The gentiles, however, who continue in his goodness belong to what he said just before: many will come from east and west and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 8:11).

And so, while those patriarchs live on in the root, the unbelieving pride of the natural branches is broken off by the just severity of God, and the believing humility of the wild olive is grafted in by the grace of his divine goodness.

1. 2. But when these things are said to the Jews, they despise the Gospel and the Apostle and do not hear what we say, because they do not understand what they read. For surely, if they understood of whom the prophet whom they read foretold: I have given you as a light to the gentiles, that you may be my salvation to the ends of the earth (Isa 49:6), they would not be so blind, not so sick, as to recognize in the Lord Christ neither light nor salvation.

Likewise, if they understood what they sing fruitlessly and emptily, concerning those of whom it was foretold: their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Ps 19:5 (18:5)), they would wake up at the sound of the apostles and would perceive that their words are divine.

Therefore, the testimonies must be taken from the Holy Scriptures, which even among them are held in great authority, so that, even if they are unwilling to be healed by the benefit offered to them, they may be refuted by the open truth.

2. 3. But first that error of theirs must be refuted by which they suppose that the books of the Old Testament do not belong to us, on the grounds that we now observe not the old but the new sacraments. For they say to us, "What use among you is the reading of the Law and the Prophets, whose precepts you are unwilling to keep?

Since you do not circumcise the male flesh of the foreskin, and you eat the meats that the Law calls unclean, and you do not observe their Sabbaths and new moons and feast days in a carnal way, nor sacrifice to God with the victims of cattle, nor likewise celebrate the Passover with a lamb and unleavened bread"; and whatever other old sacraments the Apostle calls by the general name of shadows of things to come (See Col 2:17),

because they signified things to be revealed in their own time, which we have received now revealed, so that, the shadow removed, we might enjoy their naked light.

To discuss these one by one—how in putting off the old man we are circumcised, not in the stripping off of the body of flesh; and how the foods that they avoid among cattle we avoid in our conduct; and how we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, to whom we also pour out our souls intelligently in holy desires in place of blood—would be far too long.

And by the blood of Christ, as of an unspotted lamb, we are cleansed from all iniquity. He, on account of the likeness of sinful flesh (See Rom 8:3), is also figured by the goat among the old sacrifices; nor does the one who recognizes in him the greatest victim deny that he is the bull on the horns of the cross. When we find rest in him, we truly keep the Sabbath; and the observance of the new moon is the sanctification of the new life. And Christ is our Passover; and our unleavened bread is the sincerity of truth, having no leaven of the old (See 1 Cor 5:7–8); and if there are any other things, on which there is now no need to linger, that were foreshadowed by those old signs, they have their end in him, of whose kingdom there will be no end. For in him all things had to be fulfilled, who came not to abolish the Law and the prophets but to fulfill them (See Mt 5:17).

3. 4. Accordingly, he did not annul those old signs of things by reproving them, but changed them by fulfilling them, so that there might be other signs to announce that Christ had already come than those had been which foretold that he was to come. But what is the meaning of the fact that certain Psalms, which they themselves read and hold in the authority of the holy writings, are marked beforehand so that in their titles is written: For those things which will be changed,

while the text of those same Psalms proclaims Christ—except that the change to be brought about through him was foretold, through whom it appears fulfilled? So that the people of God, who are now the Christian people, are no longer compelled to observe what was observed in prophetic times—not because those things were condemned, but because they were changed; not so that the very realities that were signified should perish, but so that the signs of the realities should each suit their own times.

4. 5. Finally, in the forty-fourth Psalm (for it is the first of those that bear a title of this kind: For those things which will be changed, where there is also read: A song for the beloved), Christ is shown most plainly: beautiful in form beyond the sons of men (Ps 45:1, 3 (44:1, 3)). Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God (Phil 2:6). There it is said to him: gird your sword upon your thigh (Ps 45:4 (44:4))—because in the flesh he was to speak to men. For by the sword is signified the word, by the thigh the flesh, since he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:7), so that he who through his divinity was beautiful in form beyond the sons of men might through his weakness also become that of which another prophet says of him: we saw him, and he had no form or comeliness; but his face was abased, and his posture deformed (Isa 53:2). For in the same Psalm it is shown most plainly that Christ is not only man but also God, when there is added: your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the rod of equity is the rod of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows (Ps 45:7–8 (44:7–8)). For from "anointing," which in Greek is called chrisma, Christ is named: he himself is God anointed by God, who also changed that carnal anointing, along with the other sacraments, into a spiritual one.

There it is said to him concerning the Church: the queen stood at your right hand in a gilded robe, clothed about with variety (Ps 45:10 (44:10)). Here is signified the variety of tongues among all nations, whose faith, nevertheless, is one and simple within: for all the beauty of the king's daughter is within (Ps 45:14 (44:14)). The Psalm addresses her, saying: hear, O daughter, and see—hear the promise, see the fulfillment. And forget your people and your father's house. Thus the new things are fulfilled, thus the old are changed. For the king has desired your beauty (Ps 45:11 (44:11)). The beauty that he himself made through himself, he did not find in you. For how could you be beautiful in his eyes, when you were defiled by your own sins?

Yet, lest you think your hope should be placed in a man, it goes on to say: for he is the Lord, your God (Ps 45:11 (44:11)). Lest you spurn the form of a servant, lest you mock the weakness of the Mighty One and the humility of the Most High, he is your God. In what appears small, the great lies hidden; in the shadow of death is the sun of righteousness; in the disgrace of the cross is the Lord of glory. Although persecutors put him to death and unbelievers deny him, he is the Lord your God—through whose body those things are changed that were formerly figured through shadows.

5. 6. The sixty-eighth Psalm also has in its title: for those things which will be changed. And there is sung in it the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, who transfers to himself certain words even of his members, that is, of his faithful. For he himself had no sins, but bore ours, whence he says: and my sins are not hidden from you (Ps 69:1 (68:1)). There is written and foretold what we read in the Gospel as having been done (See Mt 27:34, 48): they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink (Ps 69:22 (68:22)). Through him, then, the old things were changed which the title of the Psalm had foretold were to be changed.

When the Jews read these things and do not understand them, they think they are saying something when they ask us how we accept the authority of the Law and the prophets, since we do not observe the sacraments that are commanded there. We do not observe them, because they have been changed; and they have been changed because they were foretold as things to be changed; and we believe in him by whose revelation they were changed. We do not, then, observe the sacraments that are commanded there, because we understand what is foretold there, and we hold what is promised there.

But these who raise these objections against us are still bitter from their forefathers, who gave gall to the Lord for his food, and are still sour from the vinegar that they offered him to drink; and therefore they do not understand, because in them is fulfilled what follows: let their table become before them a snare, and a recompense, and a stumbling block (Ps 69:23 (68:23)). For they themselves have become like gall and sour by serving gall-like and sour food to the Living Bread. For how should they see these things, of whom it was foretold there: let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see (Ps 69:24 (68:24))? And how should they be upright, so as to have their hearts lifted up, of whom it was foretold: and bend down their back always (Ps 69:24 (68:24))?

Nor were these things said of all of them, but rather of all to whom the things foretold pertain. For to those who either then believed in Christ from among them, or believe even now, or will hereafter believe right up to the end of the age, these things do not pertain—namely, to the true Israel, who will see the Lord face to face.

For not all who are of Israel are Israel; nor are all sons because they are the seed of Abraham; but in Isaac, he says, shall your seed be named: that is, it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise who are reckoned as the seed (Rom 9:6–8). But these belong to the spiritual Zion and the cities of Judah, that is, the churches, of which the Apostle says: I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which are in Christ (Gal 1:22). For, as is set down a little later in the same Psalm: God will save Zion, and the cities of Judah will be built up. And they will dwell in it, and acquire it by inheritance. And the seed of his servants will possess it, and those who love his name will dwell in it (Ps 69:36–37 (68:36–37)). But when the Jews hear these things, they take them in a carnal way and think of the earthly Jerusalem, which is in slavery with her children—not our eternal mother in heaven (Gal 4:25–26).

6. 7. Likewise, the seventy-ninth Psalm is marked beforehand with a similar title: for those things which will be changed. In which Psalm, among other things, is written: look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vineyard; and perfect it which your right hand has planted; and upon the son of man, whom you have confirmed for yourself (Ps 80:15–16 (79:15–16)). For this is the vineyard of which it is said: you brought a vineyard out of Egypt (Ps 80:9 (79:9)).

For Christ did not plant another vineyard, but by coming changed this very one for the better. So too in the Gospel it is read: he will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard to other tenants (Mt 21:41).

For he does not say, he will uproot it and plant another, but, this very same one he will let out to other tenants. For one and the same, by the fellowship of the saints, is the city of God and the congregation of the children of the promise, to be filled up by the passing away and the succession of mortals, and at the end of the age to receive, all together in all its members, the immortality that is owed.

This is signified in another way in another psalm by the fruitful olive tree, and it says: but I, like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God, have hoped in the mercy of God for ever, and for ever and ever (Ps 52:10 (51:10)). Nor, because the unbelieving and proud—and on this account fruitless—branches were broken off, so that the wild olive of the gentiles might be grafted in, could the root of the patriarchs and prophets on that account perish.

For even if, Isaiah says, the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved (Isa 10:22)—but through him of whom it is said: and upon the son of man, whom you have confirmed for yourself; and of whom it is repeated: let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, and upon the son of man, whom you have confirmed for yourself.

And we do not depart from you (Ps 80:18–19 (79:18–19)). Through this son of man, that is, Christ Jesus, and through his remnant, that is, the apostles and many others who from among the Israelites believed in Christ as God, with the fullness of the gentiles coming in, the holy vineyard is perfected; and in the removal of the old sacraments and the institution of the new, the title of that Psalm—for those things which will be changed (Ps 80:1 (79:1))—is fulfilled.

6. 8. And so we must deal with them by clearer testimonies, which, whether they agree or disagree, they may nonetheless perceive.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will establish over the house of Jacob a new covenant, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt (Jer 31:31–32). This change, certainly foretold, is not signified through the titles of the Psalms to a few who understand, but is expressed by the manifest proclamation of the prophetic voice.

A New Covenant was openly promised, not according to the covenant that was made with the people when they were led out of Egypt. Since, then, in that Old Testament these things were commanded which we who belong to the New are not compelled to observe, why do the Jews not rather recognize that it is they who have remained in a superfluous antiquity, than reproach us, who hold to the new things promised, with not observing the old? Since, therefore, as it is written in the Song of Songs: the day has breathed, let the shadows be removed (Song 2:17)—let the spiritual signification now grow bright, let the carnal celebration now rest. The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting (Ps 50:1 (49:1))—the whole earth, surely, to the New Covenant, to which it is said in another Psalm: sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth (Ps 96:1 (95:1)).

Therefore the God of gods did not speak, as before, from Mount Sinai to one people, whom he called out of Egypt; but he spoke in such a way as to call the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. And if a Jew were willing to understand this utterance, he would hear this calling, and would be among those to whom it is said in the same Psalm: hear, my people, and I will speak to you, O Israel, and I will testify to you: I am God, your God. I will not reprove you for your sacrifices; but your burnt offerings are always in my sight. I will not take calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks; for all the beasts of the forest are mine, the cattle on the mountains and the oxen; I know all the birds of the air, and the beauty of the field is with me. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is mine and its fullness. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your prayers to the Most High. And call upon me in the day of tribulation, and I will deliver you, and you will glorify me (Ps 50:7–15 (49:7–15)).

Surely here too is an open change of the old sacrifices. For God foretold that he would not accept those, and enjoined upon his worshipers a sacrifice of praise. And this, not because he seeks praise from us as though in need, but so that in it he may take counsel for our salvation.

For he so concluded the same Psalm: a sacrifice of praise will glorify me; and there is the way by which I will show him the salvation of God (Ps 50:23 (49:23)). But what is the salvation of God, if not the Son of God, the savior of the world—day the Son from day the Father, that is, light from light, whose coming has revealed the New Covenant?

Hence too, where it is said: sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name, at once he himself is shown as the one to be proclaimed in the Gospel, and there is added: proclaim well his salvation from day to day (Ps 96:1–2 (95:1–2)). He himself, then, both priest and victim, fulfilled the sacrifice of praise, granting pardon for evil works and bestowing the grace of working well. For to this end is a sacrifice of praise offered to the Lord by his worshipers, that he who boasts may boast in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31).

7. 9. But when the Jews hear this, they answer with neck held high: "It is we; this was said about us, this was said to us. For we are Israel, the people of God; we recognize ourselves in the words of the one who says: hear, my people, and I will speak to you, O Israel, and I will testify to you (Ps 50:7 (49:7))." What shall we say to this? We know indeed the spiritual Israel, of which the Apostle says: and whoever follow this rule, peace be upon them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God (Gal 6:16); but this Israel we know to be carnal, of which the same Apostle says: look at Israel according to the flesh (1 Cor 10:18). But these men do not grasp these things, and by that very fact they prove themselves to be carnal.

I would like to address them for a little while as if they were present: Do you, then, belong to that people whom the God of gods called from the rising of the sun to its setting (Ps 50:1 (49:1))? Were you not carried over from Egypt into the land of Canaan? You were not called there from the rising of the sun to its setting, but scattered from there to the rising and the setting of the sun. Do you not rather belong to his enemies, of whom he says in the Psalm: my God has shown me concerning my enemies: do not slay them, lest at some time they forget your Law; scatter them by your power (Ps 59:11–12 (58:11–12))?

Hence, not forgetting the Law of God but carrying that same Law about, you minister it, without knowing it, to the nations as a testimony and to yourselves as a reproach, to a people that has been called from the rising of the sun to its setting. Or will you deny it? And do you, by a greater blindness, fail to behold the things that were foretold with such authority and fulfilled with such manifest clarity, or by an astonishing shamelessness refuse to confess them?

What, then, will you answer to that which the prophet Isaiah proclaims: in the last times the mountain of the house of the Lord will be made manifest, prepared on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills;

and all the nations will come to it, and will say: 'come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will announce to us the way of salvation, and we will enter upon it; for the law will go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem (Isa 2:2–3)'? Or here too will you say, "It is we," because you have heard the house of Jacob and Zion and Jerusalem?

As if we denied that Christ the Lord is of the seed of Jacob according to the flesh—he who was signified by the term mountain prepared above the top of the mountains, because his loftiness transcends all heights; or as if we denied that the apostles and those churches of Judea, which immediately after Christ's Resurrection believed in him, belong to the house of Jacob; or as if some other Jacob were to be understood spiritually than the Christian people itself, which, though younger in birth than the people of the Jews, nevertheless surpasses and subjects it by growing, so that what was foretold figuratively of those two brothers might be fulfilled: and the elder will serve the younger (Gen 25:23).

But although Zion and Jerusalem may be understood spiritually as the Church, this is still all the more a fitting testimony against these men, because from this very place where they crucified Christ both the Law and the Word of the Lord went forth to the nations. For the Law that was given to them through Moses, of which they are too proudly puffed up, and by which they are the more fully refuted, is not understood to have gone forth from Zion and Jerusalem, but from Mount Sinai. For they came to the land of promise, where Zion is, which is also called Jerusalem, only after forty years, bringing the Law itself with them; they did not receive it there or from there.

But the Gospel of Christ and the Law of faith, this is certain, went forth from there. So too the Lord himself, after he rose, speaking to his disciples and showing that the things foretold in the divine sayings had been fulfilled in him, says: so it is written, and so it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Lk 24:46–47).

Behold what Isaiah prophesied when he said: for the law will go forth out of Zion, and the Word of the Lord out of Jerusalem (Isa 2:3). For there the Holy Spirit, coming down from above according to the Lord's promise, filled those whom one house then contained, and made them speak in the tongues of all nations (Acts 2:1–6); and from there they went out to preach the Gospel to the knowledge of all nations. For just as that law, which went forth from Mount Sinai, was written by the finger of God on the fiftieth day after the celebration of the Passover—by which finger the Holy Spirit is signified—so this Law, which went forth from Zion and Jerusalem, was written not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of the heart of the holy evangelists through the Holy Spirit, on the fiftieth day after the true Passover of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ the Lord, on which day the Holy Spirit was sent, who had before been promised.

7. 10. Go now, O Israelites according to the flesh, not according to the spirit; go now, and still contradict the most evident truth:

and when you hear: come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob (Isa 2:3), say, "It is we," so that, being blind, you may strike against the mountain and, your face dashed against it, lose your forehead even worse.

If you truly want to say, "It is we," say it there, where you hear: for the iniquities of my people he was led to death (Isa 53:8). For this was said of Christ, whom you, in your forefathers, led to death; who, like a sheep, was led to the slaughter (See Acts 8:32), so that the Passover, which you celebrate without knowing it, you might fulfill, without knowing it, by your raging. If you truly want to say, "It is we," then say it when you hear: make the heart of this people fat, and stop their ears, and weigh down their eyes (Isa 6:10). Then say, "It is we," when you hear: all day long I stretched out my hands to a people that does not believe and that contradicts me (Isa 65:2). Then say, "It is we," when you hear: let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bend down their backs always (Ps 69:24 (68:24)). In these and similar prophetic words say, "It is we," where, without any doubt, it is you; but you are so blind that you say you are where you are not, and you do not recognize yourselves where you are.

8. 11. But attend for a little while to these more manifest things that I am about to say. Surely, when you hear something good said of Israel, you say, "It is we"; and when you hear something good of Jacob, you say, "It is we." And when the reason is asked of you, you answer, "Because Jacob himself is also Israel, from whom as patriarch we are descended, so that we are deservedly reckoned by the name of our father." We do not, then, rouse you, sleeping in a deep and heavy sleep, to the spiritual things you do not grasp; nor do we now try to persuade you—deaf and blind in spiritual hearing and sight—how these names are to be taken spiritually. For surely, as you yourselves confess, and as the reading of the book of Genesis plainly declares, Jacob and Israel were one man (See Gen 32:28); and the very thing in which you glory is the house of Jacob, which is the house of Israel.

What, then, is the meaning of the fact that this same prophet, after he had foretold that there would be a mountain prepared on the top of the mountains, to which all the nations would come—because it was not from Mount Sinai to one nation, but from Zion and Jerusalem, that the Law and the word of the Lord would go forth to all nations, which we see most plainly fulfilled in Christ and in Christians—

a little later says: and now you, house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord (Isa 2:5)? Here, no doubt, you will say, as you are wont, "It is we"; but attend for a little while to what follows, so that, when you have said what you want, you may also hear what you do not want. For the prophet joins on and says: for he has dismissed his people, the house of Israel (Isa 2:6). Here say, "It is we"; here recognize yourselves, and forgive us for having recalled these things. For if you hear them willingly, they are said for your encouragement; but if you hear them indignantly, they are said for your reproach. Yet they must be said, whether you are willing or unwilling.

Behold, it is not I, but the prophet whom you read—through whom you cannot deny that God spoke, whom you cannot remove from the authority of the divine Scriptures—who, as the Lord commanded him, cries out vehemently and, like a trumpet, lifts up his voice (See Isa 58:1), and rebukes you, saying: and now you, house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord (Isa 2:5).

You killed Christ in your forefathers. So long have you not believed, and have contradicted (See Rom 10:21; Isa 65:2); but you have not yet perished, because you are not yet out of the body; and now you have time for repentance, and now come. Long ago, indeed, you ought to have come, but come even now: the days are not yet ended for him whose last day has not yet come.

Or if you, as the house of Jacob who have followed the prophet, believe that you already walk in the light of the Lord, show us the house of Israel that he dismissed. For we point out both: those whom by calling he distinguished from that house, and those whom, as they remained there, he dismissed. For from there he called not only the apostles, but also, after Christ's Resurrection, a great people;

whence we have already said above: "He dismissed those whom you too imitate by not believing"; and you yourselves, who by imitating them linger in the same ruin. Or if you are those whom he called from there, where are those whom he dismissed? For you cannot say that he dismissed some other nation, I know not which, when the prophet cries out: for he has dismissed his people, the house of Israel (Isa 2:6).

Behold what you are, not what you boast yourselves to be. For he also dismissed the vineyard, from which he waited for it to bear grapes, but it bore thorns; and he commanded his clouds not to rain rain upon it. But from there too he called those to whom he says: judge between me and my vineyard (Isa 5:2–6). Of whom the Lord also says: if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they themselves will be your judges (Mt 12:27). Promising this to them, he says: you will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28). And so the house of Jacob, which, being called, walked in the light of the Lord, will sit to judge the house of Israel, that is, his own people whom he dismissed.

For how, according to the same prophet, has the stone which the builders rejected become the head of the corner (Isa 28:16; Ps 118:22 (117:22)), except that the peoples from the circumcision and from the uncircumcision, like walls coming from different directions, are joined together in the corner as in a kiss of peace? Whence the Apostle says: for he himself is our peace, who has made the two one (Eph 2:14). Those, then, from the house of Jacob or Israel who followed the one who calls are those who cling to the cornerstone and walk in the light of the Lord; but those whom he dismissed there are those who build a ruin and reject the cornerstone.

9. 12. Finally, if you try to twist these prophetic words, according to your own heart, into another sense, O Jews, resisting the Son of God against your own salvation—if, I say, you want to take these words in such a way that the people and house of Jacob, or of Israel, are one and the same, both called and dismissed: not called in some and dismissed in others, but all of them called precisely so that it might walk in the light of the Lord, since it was dismissed precisely because it did not walk in the light of the Lord;

or else called in some and dismissed in others in such a way that, no separation having been made of the Lord's table, which pertains to the sacrifice of Christ, both kinds were under the same old sacraments—namely, both those who, walking in the light of the Lord, kept his precepts, and those who, spurning righteousness, deserved to be forsaken by him—

if, then, you want to understand these things in this way, what will you say, and how will you understand another prophet who cuts off this plea from you altogether, crying out with such manifest clarity: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord almighty, and I will not accept a sacrifice from your hands. For from the rising of the sun even to its setting my name has been made glorious among the nations; and in every place a sacrifice is offered to my name, a clean sacrifice: for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord almighty (Mal 1:10–11)?

With what voice, after all, do you cry out against such evidence of the facts? Why do you exalt yourselves any further, far too shamelessly, only to perish the more miserably in a heavier ruin? I have no pleasure in you, says—not just anyone, but—the Lord almighty.

Why do you boast so much of the seed of Abraham—you who, wherever you hear Jacob or Israel, or the house of Jacob or the house of Israel, said with any praise, contend that this could not have been said except of you—when the Lord almighty says: I have no pleasure in you, and I will not accept a sacrifice from your hands?

Surely here you cannot deny that not only does he not accept a sacrifice from your hands, but that you do not even offer one to him with your hands. For there is one place appointed by the Law of the Lord, where he commanded sacrifices to be offered by your hands, and apart from that place he wholly forbade it. Since, then, you have lost this place for your deserts, you do not dare to offer in other places even the sacrifice that was permitted to be offered there alone. Behold, what the prophet said is wholly fulfilled: and I will not accept a sacrifice from your hands.

For if the Temple and altar remained for you in the earthly Jerusalem, you might say that this was fulfilled in those wicked men among you whose sacrifices the Lord does not accept, while he does accept the sacrifices of others among you and within you, who keep the precepts of God. There is no way this can be said, where there is none at all among you who could, according to the law that went forth from Mount Sinai, offer a sacrifice with his own hands. Nor was this foretold and fulfilled in such a way as to allow you to answer to the prophetic sentence that we do not offer flesh with our hands, but offer praise with heart and mouth, according to that saying in the Psalm: offer to God a sacrifice of praise (Ps 50:14 (49:14)). Here too he contradicts you, who says: I have no pleasure in you.

9. 13. Then, lest you suppose that, since you do not offer and he does not accept from your hands, no sacrifice is offered to God—of which indeed he has no need, who needs none of our goods—yet because it is not without a sacrifice that is useful not to him but to us, he adds and says: for from the rising of the sun even to its setting my name has been made glorious among the nations; and in every place a sacrifice is offered to my name, a clean sacrifice: for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord almighty (Mal 1:11). What do you answer to this? Open your eyes at last, and see that from the rising of the sun even to its setting, not in one place, as had been appointed for you, but in every place, the sacrifice of Christians is offered—not to just any god, but to him who foretold these things, the God of Israel.

Whence elsewhere he says to his Church: and he who has rescued you, he, the God of Israel, will be called the God of the whole earth (Isa 54:5). Search the Scriptures, in which you think you have eternal life (See Jn 5:39). And you certainly would have it, if you understood Christ in them and held to him. But search them through: they themselves bear witness to this clean sacrifice, which is offered to the God of Israel—not by your one nation, from whose hands he foretold that he would not accept it, but by all the nations, who say: come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord (Isa 2:3). And not in one place, as had been commanded for you in the earthly Jerusalem, but in every place, even into Jerusalem itself. And not according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchizedek.

For it was said to Christ, and foretold of Christ so long beforehand: the Lord has sworn, and he will not repent: you are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps 110:4 (109:4)). What is the Lord has sworn, except, he confirmed it with unshakable truth? And what is he will not repent, except, he will by no means whatever change this priesthood? For God does not repent as a man does; rather, God's repentance is said to be the change, even of a thing he himself established, that was believed to be going to remain.

Accordingly, when he says: he will not repent: you are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek, he sufficiently shows that he had repented, that is, that he had willed to change the priesthood that he had established according to the order of Aaron—as we see fulfilled in both cases. For the priesthood of Aaron now no longer exists in any temple, and the priesthood of Christ endures for ever in heaven.

9. 14. To this light of the Lord, then, the prophet calls you, when he says: and now you, house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. You, house of Jacob, whom he called and chose; not you, whom he dismissed. For he has dismissed his people, the house of Israel (Isa 2:5–6). Whoever among you want to come from there will belong to that house which he called; you will be free of that which he dismissed.

For the light of the Lord, in which the nations walk, is that of which the same prophet says: I have given you as a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the ends of the earth (Isa 49:6). To whom was this said, if not to Christ? Of whom was it fulfilled, if not of Christ? This light is not in you, of whom it was said again and again: God gave them a spirit of stupor; eyes, that they should not see; and ears, that they should not hear, down to this present day (Rom 11:8). This light, I say, is not in you: therefore, in your excessive blindness, you reject the stone that has become the head of the corner.

Therefore: draw near to him, and be enlightened (Ps 34:6 (33:6)). What is draw near, except "believe"? For where are you to go in order to draw near to him, when he is the stone of which the prophet Daniel says that by growing it became so great a mountain that it filled the whole face of the earth (See Dan 2:35)? For so too the nations that say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, do not strive to go and arrive anywhere on earth.

Where they are, there they go up: because in every place a sacrifice is offered according to the order of Melchizedek. And as another prophet says: God will destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and they will adore him, each one from his own place (Zeph 2:11). When, therefore, it is said to you, draw near to him, it is not said to you, "Prepare ships or beasts of burden, and load them with your victims, and travel from so far away to a place where God may accept the sacrifices of your devotion"; but, "Draw near to him who is preached in your ears, draw near to him who is glorified before your eyes. You will not grow weary by walking: for you arrive there where you believe."

10. 15. These things, dearly beloved, whether the Jews hear them gladly or indignantly, let us nonetheless preach, where we can, with love for them. And let us not proudly boast against the broken branches; but let us rather consider by whose grace, and with how great a mercy, and into what root we have been grafted (See Rom 11:17–18), so that, not being haughty in our thoughts but consenting to the lowly (See Rom 12:16), not insulting them with presumption but rejoicing with trembling (See Ps 2:11), we may say: come, let us walk in the light of the Lord (Isa 2:5), for his name is great among the nations (Mal 1:11). For if they hear and heed, they will be among those to whom it was said: draw near to him, and be enlightened; and your faces will not blush (Ps 34:6 (33:6)). But if they hear and do not heed, see and look on with envy, they are among those of whom it was said: the sinner will see, and will be angry; he will gnash with his teeth, and will waste away (Ps 112:10 (111:10)). But I, says the Church to Christ, like a fruitful olive tree in the house of the Lord, have hoped in the mercy of God for ever, and for ever and ever (Ps 52:10 (51:10)).