But in no instance did the heathen … imitate the act of being crucified because they did not understand it, since all that was said about it in Scripture was in the form of symbols. And crucifixion, as the prophet foretold, is the greatest symbol of Christ’s power and role, as is also proven by the things that fall under our own observation. For consider all the things in the world that use this form or are associated with it. No one travels on the sea unless that trophy that is called a sail remains sound on the ship. No one ploughs the earth without it: diggers and mechanics cannot do their work unless they use tools that have this shape. And the human form differs from that of the irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the hands extended and having on the face extending from the forehead what is called the nose through which the living creature breathes. And this takes no other form than that of the cross. And so it was said by the prophet, “The breath before our face is the Lord Christ.” And the power of this form is further shown by your own symbols on what are called vexilla [banners] and trophies, with which all your state possessions are made, using these as the insignia of your power and government, even though you do so unwittingly. And with this form you consecrate the images of your emperors when they die, and you name them gods by inscriptions.
Jeremiah says, “The Spirit of our face is Christ the Lord; and how was he taken into their nets of whom we said, under his shadow we shall live among the nations.” The Scripture announces that, being Spirit of God, Christ was going to become a passible man, also, as if astonished and amazed at his passion, that he was going to endure the passion in this way, under whose shadow it was said we would live. And it calls his body a “shadow,” for just as a shadow derives from a body, so the body of Christ derives from his Spirit. But by “shadow” it also signifies the abasement and contemptibleness of his body. Just as the shadow from straight and upright bodies is on the ground and trodden under foot, so also was the body of Christ thrown to the ground and trampled under foot at his passion. Perhaps he also named the body of Christ a “shadow” as having become a shade for the glory of the Spirit and covering it. And also, many times, when the Lord passed by, they placed those in the grip of different diseases beside the way, and those on whom his shadow fell were delivered.
We indeed, who know for certain that Christ always spoke in the prophets, as the Spirit of the Creator (for so says the prophet, “The person of our Spirit, Christ the Lord,” who from the beginning was both heard and seen as the Father’s vicegerent in the name of God). We are well aware that his words, when upbraiding Israel, were the same as those that it was foretold that he should denounce against him: “You have forsaken the Lord and have provoked the holy One of Israel to anger.” If, however, you would rather refer to God the whole imputation of Jewish ignorance from the first, instead of to Christ, through an unwillingness on their part to allow that even in ancient times the Creator’s word and Spirit—that is to say, his Christ—was despised and not acknowledged by them, you will even in this subterfuge be defeated. For when you do not deny that the Creator’s Son and Spirit and Substance is also his Christ, you must allow that those who have not acknowledged the Father have failed likewise to acknowledge the Son through the identity of their natural substance; for if in Its fullness It has baffled human understanding, much more has a portion of It, especially when partaking of the fullness. Now, when these things are carefully considered, it becomes evident how the Jews rejected Christ and killed him; not because they regarded him as a strange Christ but because they did not acknowledge him, as though he were their own. For how could they have understood the strange One, concerning whom nothing had ever been announced, when they failed to understand him about whom there had been a perpetual course of prophecy? That admits of being understood or being not understood, which, by possessing a substantial basis for prophecy, will also have a subject matter for either knowledge or error; while that which lacks such matter admits not the issue of wisdom. So that it was not as if he belonged to another god that they conceived an aversion for Christ and persecuted him, but simply as a man whom they regarded as a wonder-working juggler and an enemy in his doctrines. They brought him therefore to trial as a mere man and one of themselves too—that is, a Jew (only a renegade and a destroyer of Judaism)—and punished him according to their law. If he had been a stranger, indeed, they would not have sat in judgment over him. So far are they from appearing to have understood him to be a strange Christ, that they did not even judge him to be a stranger to their own human nature.
As to the mention of that shadow under which the church says that it desired to sit, … Jeremiah says, “Under his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles.” You see, then, how the prophet, moved by the Holy Spirit, says that life is afforded to the Gentiles by the shadow of Christ; and indeed how should his shadow not afford us life, seeing that even at the conception of his very body it is said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit shall come on you, and the power of the most High shall overshadow you”?
Just as in his coming now he fulfilled that law that has a shadow of good things to come, so also by that future glorious advent will be fulfilled and brought to perfection the shadows of the present advent. For thus spoke the prophet regarding it: “The breath of our countenance, Christ the Lord, to whom we said, that under your shadow we shall live among the nations,” at the time, that is, when he will more worthily transfer all the saints from a temporal to an everlasting gospel, according to the designation, employed by John in the Apocalypse, of “an everlasting gospel.”
I think, indeed, that Jeremiah the prophet, also, understanding what was the nature of the wisdom of God in him, which was the same also that he had assumed for the salvation of the world, said, “The breath of our countenance is Christ the Lord, to whom we said, that under his shadow we shall live among the nations.” And inasmuch as the shadow of our body is inseparable from the body and unavoidably performs and repeats its movements and gestures, I think that he, wishing to point out the work of Christ’s soul, and the movements inseparably belonging to it and which accomplished everything according to his movements and will, called this the shadow of Christ the Lord, under which shadow we were to live among the nations. For in the mystery of this assumption the nations live, who, imitating it through faith, come to salvation. David also, when saying, “Be mindful of my reproach, O Lord, with which they reproached me in exchange for your Christ,” seems to me to indicate the same. And what else does Paul mean when he says, “Your life is hidden with Christ in God,” and again in another passage, “Do you seek a proof of Christ, who speaks in me?” And now he says that Christ was hidden in God. The meaning of this expression, unless it is shown to be something such as we have pointed out above as intended by the prophet in the words “shadow of Christ,” exceeds, perhaps, the apprehension of the human mind. But we see also very many other statements in Holy Scripture respecting the meaning of the word shadow, as that well-known one in the Gospel according to Luke, where Gabriel says to Mary, “The Spirit of the Lord shall come on you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you.” And the apostle says with reference to the law that they who have circumcision in the flesh “serve for the similitude and shadow of heavenly things.” And elsewhere, “Is not our life on the earth a shadow?” If, then, not only the law that is on the earth is a shadow, but also all our life that is on the earth is the same, and we live among the nations under the shadow of Christ, we must see whether the truth of all these shadows may not come to be known in that revelation, when no longer through a glass and darkly, but face to face, all the saints shall deserve to behold the glory of God and the causes and truth of things. And the pledge of this truth being already received through the Holy Spirit, the apostle said, “Yes, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet from now on, we know him no more.”
He who sits on the white horse is called Faithful, not because of the faith he cherishes but of that which he inspires, because he is worthy of faith. Now the Lord Jehovah, according to Moses, is faithful and true. He is true also in respect of his relation to shadow, type and image; for such is the Word who is in the opened heaven, for he is not on earth as he is in heaven; on earth he is made flesh and speaks through shadow, type and image. The multitude, therefore, of those who are reputed to believe are disciples of the shadow of the Word, not of the true Word of God who is in the opened heaven. Therefore Jeremiah says, “The Spirit of our face is Christ the Lord, of whom we said, In his shadow shall we live among the nations.” Thus the Word of God who is called faithful is also called true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war, since he has received from God the faculty of judging in very righteousness and very judgment and of apportioning its due to every existing creature. For none of those who have some portion of righteousness and of the faculty of judgment can receive on his soul such copies and impressions of righteousness and judgment as to come short in no point of absolute righteousness and absolute justice, just as no painter of a picture can communicate to the representation all the qualities of the original. This, I conceive, is the reason why David says, “Before you shall no living being be justified.” He does not say, no human, or no angel, but no living being, since even if any being partakes of life and has altogether put off mortality, not even then can it be justified in comparison with you who are, as it were, life itself. Nor is it possible that one who partakes of life and is therefore called living should become life itself, or that one who partakes of righteousness and, therefore, is called righteous should become equal to righteousness itself.Now it is the function of the Word of God, not only to judge in righteousness but also to make war in righteousness, that by making war on his enemies by reason and righteousness, so that what is irrational and wicked is destroyed, he may dwell in the soul of one who, for his salvation, so to speak, has become captive to Christ and may justify that soul and cast out from it all adversaries. We shall, however, obtain a better view of this war that the Word carries on if we remember that he is an ambassador for the truth, while there is another who pretends to be the Word and is not, and one who calls itself the truth and is not, but a lie. Then the Word, arming himself against the lie, slays it with the breath of his mouth and brings it to naught by the manifestation of his coming.
By a certain mystic word in Holy Scriptures, this first coming in the flesh is called his shadow, just as the prophet Jeremiah declares, saying, “The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord, of whom we said to ourselves, ‘In his shadow we shall live among the nations.’ ”
For even now, on the tenth day of the month Gorpiaeus, when they assemble together, they read the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in which it is said, “The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their destructions,” and they read Baruch, in whom it is written, “This is our God; no other shall be esteemed with him. He found out every way of knowledge and showed it to Jacob his son and Israel his beloved. Afterwards he was seen on earth and conversed with people.” And when they read them, they lament and bewail—as they themselves suppose—that desolation that happened through Nebuchadnezzar. However, as the truth shows, they unwillingly make a prelude to that lamentation that will overtake them. But after ten days from the ascension, which from the first Lord’s day is the fiftieth day, you are to keep a great festival, for on that day, at the third hour, the Lord Jesus sent on us the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we were filled with his energy, and we “spoke with new tongues, as that Spirit did suggest to us”; and we preached both to Jews and Gentiles that he is the Christ of God, who is “determined by him to be the judge of living and dead.” …Concerning him Jeremiah also did prophesy, saying, “The Spirit before his face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their snares, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles.” Ezekiel also, and the following prophets, affirm everywhere that he is the Christ, the Lord, the King, the Judge, the Lawgiver, the Angel of the Father, the only-begotten God. He is the one therefore who we also preach to you and declare to be God the Word, who ministered to his God and Father for the creation of the universe. By believing in him, you shall live, but by disbelieving you shall be punished. For “he that is disobedient to the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Therefore, after you have kept the festival of Pentecost, keep one week more festival, and after that fast; for it is reasonable to rejoice for the gift of God and to fast after that relaxation.… Therefore fast, and ask your petitions of God. We enjoin you to fast every fourth day of the week and every day of the preparation, and whatever you have left over because of your fast bestow on the needy. Every sabbath day excepting one, and every Lord’s day, hold your solemn assemblies, and rejoice, for he will be guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord’s day, being the day of the resurrection, or during the time of Pentecost, or, in general, who is sad on a festival day to the Lord. For on them we ought to rejoice and not to mourn.
Read the Lamentations. In those Lamentations, Jeremiah, lamenting you, wrote what is worthy of lamentations. He saw your destruction, he beheld your downfall, he bewailed Jerusalem that then was; for that which exists now shall not be bewailed; for that Jerusalem crucified the Christ, but that which exists now worships him. Lamenting then, he says, “The breath of our countenance, Christ the Lord, was taken in our corruptions.” Am I then stating views of my own? Behold he testifies of the Lord Christ seized by men. And what is to follow from this? Tell me, O prophet. He says, “Of whom we said, ‘Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.’ ” For he signifies that the grace of life is no longer to dwell in Israel but among the Gentiles.
Hold more steadfastly the faith in “One God the Father almighty; and in our Lord Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son; and in the Holy Spirit the Comforter.” Though the word itself and title of Spirit is applied to them in common in the sacred Scriptures, it is said of the Father, God is a Spirit, as it is written in the Gospel according to John; and of the Son, a Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, as Jeremiah the prophet says; and of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, as was said. Yet the arrangement of articles in the faith, if religiously understood, disproves the error of Sabellius also.
But what wonder, since both the Father and the Son are said to be Spirit. Of this we shall speak more fully when we begin to speak of the unity of the name. Yet since the most suitable place occurs here, that we may not seem to have passed on without a conclusion, let them read that both the Father is called Spirit, as the Lord said in the Gospel, “for God is Spirit,” and Christ is called Spirit, for Jeremiah said, “The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord.”So, then, the Father is Spirit and Christ is Spirit, for that which is not a created body is spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not commingled with the Father and the Son but is distinct from the Father and from the Son. For the Holy Spirit did not die. He could not die because he had not taken flesh on himself, and the eternal Godhead was incapable of dying, but Christ died according to the flesh.
The body of God is a spiritual body; the body of Christ is the body of the divine Spirit, for the Spirit is Christ, as we read: “The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord.”
Those who boast about their knowledge of the law will, perhaps, say to us, “You blaspheme in saying that the Lord was subjected to the corruption of death and to the suffering of the cross.” Read, therefore, what you find written in the Lamentations of Jeremiah: “The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord, was taken in our corruptions, of whom we said, we shall live under his shadow among the nations.” You hear how the prophet says that Christ the Lord was taken, and for us, that is, for our sins, delivered to corruption. Under whose shadow, since the people of the Jews have continued in unbelief, he says the Gentiles lie, because we live not in Israel but among the Gentiles.
Jeremiah, in prophesying of Christ, says, “The breath of our mouth, the Lord Christ, was taken in our sins,” thus briefly showing both that Christ is our Lord and that he suffered for us.
Fourthly, is excluded a protection from kings. As said: "The breath of our nostrils, the Lord's anointed That is, by which we were breathed through narrow places; as: "the Lord's anointed". Like Josiah (16th King of Judah, son of Amon and Jedidah: 2 Kings 22:1): "was taken in their pits." That is, was killed by the Egptians (cf. 2 Kings, Chapter 24,"Nebuchhadnezzar Conquers Judah"), Namely, while that king Josiah was a just king.
Such also can be exposed as to King Zedekiah (of Judah), as to the consequence of his reign. Or it even can be referred to Christ. As the prophet Isaiah foretold: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities." (Is: 53:5).
Then, as Verse 20 concluded: "he of whom was said, "Under his shadow we shall live among the nations." Namely, under the Lord's protection. As the Song of Solomon 2:3 expresses it: "With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste."
[AD 165] Justin Martyr on Lamentations 4:20