of another prophet, Zephaniah,[1] to the effect that He was foretold expressly as to sit upon the foal of an ass and to enter Jerusalem. The words are these: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass."[2]
Chap. xxxvi.—Different modes of prophecy.
But when you hear the utterances of the prophets spoken as it were personally, you must not suppose that they are spoken by the inspired themselves, but by the Divine Word who moves them. For sometimes He declares things that are to come to pass, in the manner of one who foretells the future; sometimes He speaks as from the person of God the Lord and Father of all; sometimes as from the person of Christ; sometimes as from the person of the people answering the Lord or His Father, just as you can see even in your own writers, one man being the writer of the whole, but introducing the persons who converse. And this the Jews who possessed the books of the prophets did not understand, and therefore did not recognise Christ even when He came, but even hate us who say that He has come, and who prove that, as was predicted, He was crucified by them.
Chap. xxxvii.—Utterances of the Father.
And that this too may be clear to you, there were spoken from the person of the Father, through Isaiah the prophet, the following words: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, and my people hath not understood. Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, a wicked seed, children that are transgressors, ye
- ↑ The reader will notice that these are not the words of Zephaniah, but of Zechariah (ix. 9), to whom also Justin himself refers them in the Dial. Tryph. c. 53.
- ↑ Zech. ix. 9.
able appeals which the Christians constantly made to them. There exists a forgery in imitation of these Acts. See Trollope.
