Chapter 23

§ 1.

Therefore the Lord said to the disciples, Behold, 1 say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and see the countries, that they are white unto the harvest.¹ For the reaper receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. For herein is the true saying, One soweth and another reapeth. For I sent you on to reap that on which ye laboured not: others laboured, and ye entered into their labour.

Who then are those that laboured,² who ministered to the providences of God? Clearly, the Patriarchs and Prophets; who also prefigured our faith, and spread abroad in the earth the coming of the Son of God, Who and of what sort He shall be: that the men who were to come afterwards, having the fear of God, might easily receive the coming of Christ, instructed as they were by the Prophets.

And therefore when Joseph had come to know that Mary was with child,³ and was minded to put her away privily, an Angel in sleep said unto him,⁴ Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which she hath in the womb is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a Son and thou shalt call His Name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins. And he added, to persuade him,⁵ Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the Prophet, saying, Behold a Virgin shall conceive in the womb, and bring forth a Son, and His Name shall be called Emmanuel:—by the words of the Prophet reasoning with him,⁶ and pleading for Mary: pointing out her as the very person who had been foretold by Isaiah, the Virgin who should bring forth Emmanuel. Whereby Joseph being moved, did both take unto him Mary without hesitation, and joyfully shew himself obedient in all the subsequent bringing up of Christ: undertaking the journey into Egypt, and the return thence, and the removal to Nazareth. We may add that such as knew not the Scriptures, and the promise of God, and the method of Christ’s proceeding⁷, used to call him the father of the boy.

For this cause again, the Lord also Himself in Capernaum read the prophecies of Isaiah;⁸ The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, wherefore He hath anointed Me, He sent Me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance⁹ to captives, and sight to the blind. Declaring also Himself to be foretold by the prophecy of Isaiah,¹⁰ He said unto them, To day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.

§ 2.

On this account also Philip,¹¹ having found the Eunuch of the Queen of the Ethiopians reading that which is written,¹² He was led as a sheep for a victim, and as a lamb without voice before the shearer, so He opened not His mouth: in humility His judgment was taken away;—and whatever else the Prophet hath gone over concerning His Passion, and His coming in the flesh, and how He was dishonoured by those who believed Him not:—readily prevailed on him to believe this is that Christ Jesus who under Pontius Pilate was crucified, and suffered, and whatever the Prophet foretold: and that He is the Son of God, who gives eternal life unto men. And as soon as he had baptized him, he departed from him. For nothing else was wanting to him, who had been previously instructed by the Prophets. He was not ignorant of God the Father, nor of the right preparation of life, but only of the coming of the Son of God; which being made known to him in short space of time,¹³ he went on his way rejoicing, to be herald of Christ’s coming in Ethiopia. And therefore Philip had no great trouble with him, he having been made ready to his hand in the fear of God by the Prophets.

And on this account again the Apostles, in gathering the lost sheep of the house of Israel,¹⁴ addressed them out of the Scriptures, to prove that this crucified Jesus is Christ the Son of the living God, and wrought on a great multitude—of such,¹⁵ that is, as had fear towards God—and in one day were baptized 3, and 4, and 5, 000.