Thus the unerring Word of God defines the matter.
This definition of the Word of God is fulfilled both in particular over men and over whole peoples. It was fulfilled with particular clarity over the people of Israel. At first they were chosen as God's people, but afterward they became the rejected people above all others.
In the womb of the people of Israel, the God-man became incarnate and accomplished the salvation of mankind. He addressed His divine preaching to no other people. He poured out all His benefactions exclusively upon the chosen people. Yet the chosen people rejected the God-man.
In vain, fifteen centuries earlier, the God-inspired lawgiver of Israel had announced terrible punishments to them if they disobeyed God. In vain, a full millennium earlier, the royal prophet of Israel addressed to Israel an exhortation to receive the Redeemer granted by God to mankind: 'Receive instruction; receive the Son, lest the Lord be angry, and you perish from the righteous way, when His wrath is kindled quickly' (Ps 2:12).
In vain Moses was read every Sabbath. In vain the Psalms of David were sung at every divine service. In vain the threat of the holy lawgiver and the exhortation of the holy king were repeated. The Jews rejected the Savior and stretched out murderous hands against the incarnate God.
They numbered the all-perfect God among criminals and handed Him over to a shameful execution as a criminal offender, as the criminal of criminals.
After the dreadful crime, to which there is nothing like among all human crimes, the wrath of God was not slow to be kindled. It was kindled quickly, as the Holy Spirit had foretold. Usually punishments for men arise from their very violation of God's Law, and from their very error. So it happened with the Jews.
They were wholly occupied with their earthly significance, which had been given only for a time. They dreamed of extraordinary earthly prosperity. For the sake of this significance and prosperity, and for the sake of one vain dream about them, they rejected the Messiah.
It is evident that the opinion about temporal significance and the dream of vast civil development constituted the grossest and most absurd error. What had been promised in a spiritual sense, the Jews expected for themselves in a material, temporal sense. This was degrading to God and barren for man.
They, the chosen people, had been appointed as an object of attention and contemplation for all the other peoples, who had strayed into foolish, ridiculous, and pitiable idolatry. The blessing of God was expressed in the Israelites' wondrous victories, such as no other nations had won. It was expressed in their earthly prosperity, such as no other nation enjoyed.
This was an irresistible testimony before the nations of the world, which were sunk in sensuality and capable of submitting only to the influence of sensory proofs. It testified that the God worshiped by the Jews is the one true God. As experience showed, those nations that looked at the Jews reasonably and perceptively were subject precisely to the impression indicated here (Jdt 5:5-24).
The very time when God chose the Israelites as the people of God coincides with the time of the universal turning of the nations toward idolatry. Through contemplation of the special providence and omnipotence of God, clearly and tangibly manifested over the chosen people, all the nations of the earth were being prepared for the undisputed reception of the Redeemer.
This Redeemer was the God-man, who was to be born among the chosen people. He was to be its Head and King, and at the same time the Head, King, and Savior of all fallen mankind.
As the all-perfect and all-powerful God, the God-man brought with Himself into the suffering world an all-abundant blessing. This was a gift of incalculable worth and measure, a gift worthy of the infinite and all-perfect God. Temporal and material goods could no longer be the fruit of such a divine blessing.
Such goods, once given and received, are inevitably taken away by death. Often they are taken away even before death by various reversals of earthly life. The fruit of the divine blessing brought to mankind by the God-man was the reconciliation of men with God (Lk 2:14).
It was the assimilation of the divine nature to human nature (2 Pet 1:4), through the assimilation of human nature to the divine nature, and of the creature's nature to the Creator's nature. The fruit of this blessing is the adoption of men by God. The Son of God received humanity and became the Son of Man. He makes His brethren, the sons of men, sons of God.
The fruit of this blessing is the inalienable and eternal blessedness of men, surpassing comprehension and surpassing every desire. Men, conceived in iniquities and born in sins, no longer descend into the subterranean prisons of Hades for eternal torment. Instead, they ascend to heaven, into paradise. Together with the cherubim and seraphim, they surround the throne of God.
Upon that throne sits that Man who, being God, willed by His incomprehensible love for mankind to be also man. Before these eternal, heavenly, and divine gifts, what do short-lived, earthly, and corruptible goods mean? Less than nothing. Their meaning is negative.
If a man gives them positive significance, then for their sake he must be deprived of eternal goods. He must undergo the calamity that befell the Jews. Temporal goods had been given to the Jews as a shadow, as a foreshadowing of true and eternal goods. They wished to remain with the shadow, and they rejected the substantial good that cast the coarse shadow from heaven upon coarse mankind, in order to draw mankind to heaven.
For this reason the God-man commands mankind to renounce temporal goods. This is not enough. He requires mankind to acknowledge itself fallen and lost. He requires it to acknowledge the earth as the place of its temporary exile and punishment, as the forecourt of the prisons of Hades and of eternal torment.
He requires mankind to hasten toward God and eternity, leaving the earth without attention, as a short-lived inn or a prison condemned to destruction. He requires men to submit zealously to all the sorrows of temporal life. By this submission they must actively confess their fall and their need for the Redeemer. They must render glory to the divine justice that chastises them, and become worthy of the mercy of God.
This teaching did not please the Jews. The word of the Cross seemed a scandal to those who sought and honored earthly prosperity. They considered their earthly position a precious possession, their only possession, worthy of every sacrifice. In justification of their conduct toward the divine Messenger, they cited the desire to preserve this position intact (Jn 11:49-50).
Eternity and spiritual goods were forgotten by them. In their blindness and error, they pursued the idea of earthly prosperity and worldwide dominion, supposedly promised by the Word of God to the people of Israel. The Jews rebelled against the mighty Romans, the lords of the world at that time. The consequence of the rebellion was war.
The war ended in the defeat of the rebels, the capture and destruction of Jerusalem, the death of an innumerable multitude of Jews, and the captivity and scattering over the face of the earth of those who survived the sword.
Fifteen centuries earlier, as we said above, Moses, the beholder of God and lawgiver of the Israelites, had foretold a terrible punishment for them because they would destroy their covenant with God. Fifteen centuries before the event, the beholder of God depicts the event in a vivid and terrible picture, with extraordinary exactness and detail.
He depicts the event so clearly that it is as though it were already happening before his eyes. When the Israelites were preparing to enter the borders of the Promised Land and form themselves into a people and a state, then, in view of that Promised Land, the inspired lawgiver pronounced to Israel a fearful prophecy about the fate that would finally overtake them in the Promised Land.
'The Lord will bring upon thee,' Moses says, 'a nation from afar, from the end of the earth, like the rush of an eagle. A nation whose speech thou shalt not understand, a nation shameless of face, which shall not respect the face of the old, nor pity the young' (Deut 28:49-50).
Moses accurately depicted the Romans, who did not yet exist, but already existed in the predetermination of God. He accurately depicted their military character, likened to the swiftness, rapacity, and strength of the eagle. The Romans themselves recognized this, crowning their standards with eagles.
'A nation shameless of face,' this unborn nation, Moses continues to foretell to Israel, 'shall eat the fruit of thy cattle and the fruit of thy land, so that it shall leave thee neither grain, nor wine, nor oil, nor the herds of thy oxen, nor the flocks of thy sheep, until it destroys thee. It shall crush thee in all thy cities, until thy high and strong walls, in which thou trustest, are broken down throughout all thy land. It shall afflict thee in all thy cities, which the Lord thy God has given thee' (Deut 28:51-52).
The prophecy was fulfilled exactly. The Romans took and destroyed the Jewish fortresses, one after another, and devastated the country. Then they approached Jerusalem. Jerusalem was surrounded for a great distance by ancient olive groves. The Romans cut down the groves to make battering engines and to supply other needs of the camp. In this way they turned a magnificent place into a bare wilderness.
After a prolonged siege they took the city, burned the famous temple, destroyed the buildings and walls, and did not leave one stone upon another. Moses depicts the dreadful distress of the besieged during the siege in this way: 'Thou shalt eat the children of thy womb, the flesh of thy sons and thy daughters, whom the Lord thy God has given thee, in thy distress and in thy anguish with which thine enemy shall afflict thee' (Deut 28:53).
All this came upon Israel, which had filled up the measure of its iniquities by deicide. 'The young woman among you,' Moses does not cease to utter terrible predictions, 'very delicate and tender, whose foot did not dare to step upon the ground because of her delicacy and tenderness. Shall look with envy upon the husband of her bosom, and upon her son and her daughter, and upon the afterbirth that comes from between her feet, and upon the child whom she bears. For she shall eat them secretly, because of the want of all things in her distress and anguish, with which thine enemy shall afflict thee in all thy cities' (Deut 28:56-57).
Josephus, a Jewish priest who described the war and took part in it, relates that a certain young and wealthy woman named Mary came from beyond the Jordan to Jerusalem for the feast of Pascha. She could no longer leave the city, because the Romans suddenly surrounded it on every side. The rebels who filled the city robbed her, taking even her food supplies.
Driven to extremity and despair, Mary killed her infant son, prepared the dreadful food, and ate. The rebels, attracted by the smell of food, broke into her dwelling. With swords drawn, they demanded that Mary give them the food she had prepared. 'I have kept a portion of my dish for you also,' Mary said to them, presenting what remained uneaten by her.
The criminals were horrified by the unexpected sight. They ran out of Mary's dwelling and spread through the city what they had seen. Famine raged in the besieged city. Contagious diseases were added to famine. More than a million Jews perished by violent death during the siege. About a hundred thousand were taken captive.
The captives were put on ships and carried to Egypt. There, in the markets of populous Alexandria, they were sold into slavery for the lowest price. By this action also the Romans fulfilled the prophecy of Moses.
THEOSIS