Isaiah

This nature itself, if no Isaiah, then God Himself through Isaiah, will proclaim:

for he detected them, namely, claiming circumcision and observing times and days and months and years of Jewish ceremonies, which they ought to have recognized as already excluded, according to the renewed dispensation of the Creator, who long ago foretold of this very thing through His prophets.

Isaiah, even then an apostle, foreseeing heretical hearts, says:

"You who thirst, go to the water," says Isaiah;

So already Isaiah the prophet has his tongue cleansed by fire, that he might be able to tell the vision;

To this man, for his holiness, near the end of his life, God grants through Isaiah to live another fifteen years, by the going-back of the sun.

" Not this only did Isaiah pronounce, but also, "All flesh shall see the salvation of God.

"You shall eat the good things of the earth" — the good things of the flesh shall be understood, which await it reformed in the kingdom of God and made angelic, and about to attain those things "which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, nor have they ascended into the heart of man.

And so Isaiah, teaching what kind of fast the Lord has chosen, when he subjoins concerning the reward of goodness, "Then," he says, "your light shall break forth in due season, and your garments shall sooner spring up" — not silk, surely, nor a cloak, but wishing the flesh to be understood, he proclaimed the springing up of the flesh that is to rise from the setting of death.

but already, through Moses the all-wise, and through Isaiah the lover of truth, and through all the choir of the prophets, he turns to the Word, in more reasonable fashion, those who have ears.

" And again, through Isaiah:

And there are many other goods, too, for the lovers of righteousness to enjoy, who pursue eternal salvation — yes, and those which God himself hints at, speaking through Isaiah:

For Isaiah says:

In accord with this another prophet also says:

For while the king sat upon his throne, and his son sat beside him, as we said, and there stood the unwise orators who had sharpened their tongues like a sword for the destruction of the truth — who, in the words of Isaiah, conceive travail and bring forth lawlessness — and countless peoples had come together to behold the contest, that they might learn which side would carry off the victory, one …

From this we understand both that the former circumcision then given would cease, and that a new law, not such as he had already given to the fathers, was announced as about to come forth — just as Isaiah foretold, saying that in the last days the mountain of the Lord and the house of God should be made manifest above the peaks of the mountains:

Thus says the Lord God to my Christ the Lord, whose right hand I have held, that the nations may obey him:

Therefore, just as the carnal sacrifices are understood to be rejected, of which Isaiah too speaks, saying:

Receive, then, other utterances of the Father concerning the Son, through Isaiah:

For the patriarchs are reported to have seen God, as Abraham and Jacob, and the prophets, as Isaiah, as Ezekiel, and yet they did not die.

"I am God, and there is no other besides me" — he who showed himself the only one, but together with the Son, with whom he alone stretched out the heaven.

" But these men are ignorant also of this — they who, according to Isaiah, dream and love to slumber in bed — that often a working of error is sent upon the sons of disobedience.

that Isaiah, the beholder of hidden things, was sawn asunder;

What has he to do with Isaiah, the Creator's prophet?

He had to be born in a new way, the dedicator of a new birth, of which the Lord, by Isaiah, was foretold as about to give a sign.

" For of him Isaiah says, "A man under stripes, and knowing how to bear weakness.

And there were not then those who fashion and carve—all vain, who do their own pleasures, which shall not profit them.

inglorious, finally, in countenance and aspect, as Isaiah too had foretold.

Meanwhile they hurl at us that Isaiah also declared, "Not such a fast has the Lord chosen"—that is, not abstinence from food, but the works of righteousness which he goes on to weave in;

For if the eternal God shall not hunger, as He testifies through Isaiah, this will be the time when man is made equal to God—when he lives without food.

For when the harshness of the enemy was announced, he rent his garment, put on sackcloth, and in the same habit bade the elders of the priests go to God through Isaiah—fasting, of course, accompanying their prayers.

"For the old things have passed away," according to Isaiah, "and the renewing is now renewed," according to Jeremiah;

and though he is patient, yet through Isaiah he threatens an end to patience:

" If you have thought this said of the heathen, surely you have already heard concerning the faithful, through Isaiah, "Go out from the midst of them, and be separated, and touch not the unclean thing.

In the first place, the prophecy of Isaiah is generally alleged, who says the time shall come, “when nations shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and turn their spears into pruning hooks.

Thus says the Lord, who made heaven, this God, who displayed the earth and made it.

But that all things consisted out of nothing, that last divine disposition will finally persuade us, which is to reduce all things into nothing.

But of darkness the Lord himself through Isaiah:

So far is this true, that Isaiah, since he says, "With drums and psalteries and pipes they drink wine," would have said also, "With crowns," if ever this usage had been in the things of God.

Isaiah too remembers that he commanded something medicinal for the ailing Hezekiah.

granting that Isaiah inveighs against no garment of purple, beats down no curled coiffure, reprobates no little crescents—yet let us not, like the heathen, so kindle these things upon ourselves, reckoning God only the Instituter, and not also the Despiser of His own institutions.

By these powers of patience Isaiah is sawn asunder, and does not keep silent about the Lord;

As Isaiah says, "See how the just man perishes, and no one takes it to heart, and just men are taken away, and no one regards it;

"But upon the topmost walls, full of confidence, she speaks" — when indeed, according to Isaiah, one here cries out, "I am of God";