Chapter Three
Objection based on the saying: "If ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me" (John v. 46, 47).
Again the following saying appears to be full of stupidity : "If ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote concerning me." He said it, but all the same nothing which Moses wrote has been preserved. For all his writings are said to have been burnt along with the temple. All that bears the name of Moses was written 1180 years afterwards, by Ezra and those of his time. And even if one were to concede that the writing is that of Moses, it cannot be shown that Christ was anywhere called God, or God the Word, or Creator. And pray who has spoken of Christ as crucified?
Chapter Ten
Answer to the objection based on S. John v. 46, 47.
I must now answer you on a third point, as to why Christ said to the Jews, "If ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote concerning me." That Moses did write concerning Christ the whole world openly recognised, when he said a prophet should rise up in his stead, and spoke of Him as forming man along with the Father, and related His Passion in a mystical way in the bush, and wrote of His cross and revealed it by his rod, and of the golden pot (even His pure body which had the heavenly Word within as the food which cannot moulder), and thousands of things which are akin to these and follow from them.
But when you say that Moses' writings perished in the Captivity and were written pgain incorrectly by Ezra, you will find that they were written a second time with all accuracy. For it was not one who spoke to Ezra and another to Moses, but the same Spirit taught them both, and clearly revealed the same things to each of them. The Mosaic law was like a house that is pulled down by enemies, for the same Builder brought together each part and fitted them harmoniously together by the rule of His wisdom.
[So far from the Crucified not being called God in the Old Testament, prophecy is full of it. Look, for example, at such words as "The Lord's Christ" (Ps. xix. 7); "The Lord's Word shall go out from Jerusalem" (Isa. ii. 3); and "Therefore the Lord hath anointed thee " (Ps. xliv. 8).1
Christ spoke the words of the text in question, because, though Moses had written so much about Him, the Jews would not accept the fact.]
Footnotes:
1It is curious that Macarius offers examples from the prophets and Psalms, but not from the law.