§ 1.
And of Jerusalem, and of the Lord, they make bold also to say, that if it were the city of the great King, it would not be forsaken.1 But this is as if one should say,2 that if stubble were a creature of God, it would never be forsaken of the corn: and that the refuse twigs of the vineyard, if they were of God’s making, would never be bereaved of the clusters and cut away.
But even as these were made not chiefly for their own sake; but for the fruit growing in them, and when that is ripened and removed, the portions which help not in producing fruit are left to themselves and taken out of the way: so likewise it fares with Jerusalem; which had borne in herself the yoke of slavery, wherewith man was tamed, who before while death reigned, was not in subjection to God, and being tamed was made meet for liberty:—so I say, it fares with her, now that the Fruit of liberty is come, and hath grown up, and been cut down, and gathered into the garner, and there have been carried out from it such as are able to bear fruit, and they have been planted out in the whole world.
As Esaias saith,3 The children of Jacob shall bud, and Israel shall flourish, and the world shall be filled with his fruit. His fruit then being dispersed in the whole world, naturally there is a forsaking and a removal of what had once borne fruit well; (for of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ was produced, and the Apostles;) but now it is now no more meet for bearing. For all things which have a beginning in time, must needs also have an end in time.
§ 2.
Thus, since the Law began from Moses, it ended in due course in John, Christ having come to fulfil it; and therefore the Law and the Prophets were with them even until John.4 Jerusalem also accordingly beginning from David, and completing her proper times, The giving of the Law was to have an end in the revelation of the New Testament.
(For God doeth all things in measure and order,5 and nothing with Him wants measure, since nothing is unnumbered. And well spake he who said that the Immeasurable Father Himself was measured in the Son: for the measure of the Father, is the Son, since He even contains Him).
But that their economy was but for a time, Esaias saith; The daughter of Sion shall be forsaken as a cottage in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.6 Now when shall these be forsaken? Is it not when the fruit is removed, and the leaves alone are to be left, which can now bear no fruit?
§ 3.
And why speak we of Jerusalem,7 since the fashion even of the whole world must pass away, when the time of its passing arrives, for the fruit to be gathered into the garner, and the chaff to be left and burned up? For the day of the Lord burneth like an oven,8 and all sinners, who do unrighteously, shell be stubble, and the Day that cometh shall burn them up. Now, who this Lord is, Who bringeth with Him such a Day, John the Baptist signifies,9 saying of Christ, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire, having the shovel in His Hand for throughly purging His floor; and He shall gather the wheat into the garner, but shall burn up the chaff with fire unquenchable.
For the Maker of the wheat is not one, and the Maker of the chaff another; but one and the same; and He judges, i.e., parts them asunder.
But the wheat indeed and the chaff,10 being inanimate and irrational, were naturally made such: whereas man being rational, and therein like unto God, created free in will and in his own power, is the cause unto himself why he should become in one case wheat and in another chaff. Wherefore also he will be justly condemned, because being created rational he hath lost true reason, and living irrationally hath opposed the righteousness of God, giving himself over to every earthly spirit, and serving all kinds of pleasures: as saith the Prophet: Man being in honour hath no understanding: he is compared unto the senseless beasts,11 and made like unto them.