V.
On
Psalm lix.
11
. Concerning the Jews.
For this reason, even up to our day, though they see the
boundaries (of their country), and go round about them, they stand afar
off. And therefore have they no longer king or high priest or
prophet, nor even scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees among them.
He does not, however, say that they are to be cut off; wherefore their
race still subsists, and the succession of their children is
continued. For they have not been cut off nor consumed from among
men—but they are and exist still—yet only as those who have
been rejected and cast down from the honour of which of old they were
deemed worthy by God. But again, “Scatter them,” he
says, “by Thy power;” which word has also come to
pass. For they are scattered throughout the whole earth, in
servitude everywhere, and engaging in the lowest and most servile
occupations, and doing any unseemly work for hunger’s sake.
For if they were destroyed from among men, and remained
nowhere among the living, they could not see my people, he means, nor
know my Church in its prosperity. Therefore “scatter”
them everywhere on earth, where my Church is to be established, in
order that when they see the Church founded by me, they may be roused
to emulate it in piety. And these things did the Saviour also ask
on their behalf.