Letter 1013: Although you ought to have consulted more learned bishops about this prophetic reading — among whom I dare not count...

Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to the lord King Gundobad. Although about a prophetic reading you ought rather to have consulted bishops more learned than I — among whose number I myself do not dare to profess to belong — I nevertheless wish to satisfy your command at least by obedience, even if I cannot answer with learning. And so, what you order to be set forth for you is, even in its text — not to say its exposition — long, and demands a greater leisure for discussion than the succinct haste of a written reply permits. For that reason I answer with as much brevity as I can. What you appended at the foot of the page you directed to me, taken from the prophet Isaiah, was already fulfilled long ago — that is, at the time of the Lord's incarnation. For when he says, 'Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem' [Isaiah 2:3], consider more carefully whether there yet remains any authority for a law to be promulgated which still ought to be awaited. Surely, after the Word of God, which was made flesh so that through the birth of a body it might dwell among us, if some other word is still to be hoped for out of Jerusalem, then that one of which we spoke above is not the only one. Therefore, without hesitation, in the very passage you have set forth, the Word of the Father, Christ, and the Christian law are proclaimed. For since there are two laws — that is, the Jewish, which came before, and ours, which follows — and since that older one was already spoken of even in the times of the prophets, you see that by Isaiah only this one is announced, which arose by the calling of the gentiles through the teaching of Christ who instructs. Hence there follows: 'and he shall judge in the midst of the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples' [Isaiah 2:4]. These, out of all the kindreds of the earth, our Lord by judging has established within one church, and by reproving has converted. But as for what he says, 'they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks' [Isaiah 2:4] — although it can to some extent be understood of the bodily age of the Lord, in which throughout a quiet world an unshaken peace flourished — yet this is more evidently fitted to faithful Christians, for whom, since among the greater number the use of iron is and has been lacking — the iron which the malice of the first birth had armed for the destruction of man — the second birth converts it to the uses of salvation and to a life-giving cultivation. For when in the Gospel it is foretold concerning the end of the age: 'Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom' [Matthew 24:7], and when from these very signs of evils we gather that the end of the world is now almost at hand, then — unless what I said above be taken figuratively concerning catholic Christians — I do not know to what end, after the end of the age, the blunted edge of weapons would be changed into hoes and plowshares. But as for that which you ordered to be appended at the very bottom of the reading — namely, 'each one shall rest under his own vine and under his fig tree' [Micah 4:4] — I suggest that it is neither in the same reading nor pertains to the matter about which you consulted me. Yet in ancient times it was, with the differing alternation of merit, frequently either granted to the people of the Jews for the amendment of sin, or again taken away for the chastisement of succeeding faults.

Avitus Viennensis episcopus domno Gundobado regi. Licet de lectione prophetica scitos magis, inter quos ipse profiteri non audeo, debueritis consulere sacerdotes, opto tamen iussioni vestrae satisfacere vel oboedientia, etsi nequeo respondere doctrina. Ita, quod indicari vobis iubetis, etiam textu, ne dicam expositione, prolixum est et maiorem disputationis vacationem postulat, quam succincta celeritas rescripti epistularis admittat. Et idcirco quanta possum brevitate respondeo, quod ex propheta Isaia directae ad me termino paginae subdidistis, iam dudum, id est tempore dominicae incarnationis, impletum. Nam cum dicat: Ex Sion egredie- tur lex et verbum domini ex Hierusalem, tractate diligentius, an, quae adhuc expectari debeat, promulgandae legis restet auctoritas. Certe post verbum dei, quod caro factum est, ut per nativitatem corporis habitaret in nobis, si adhuc ex Hierusalem aliud verbum sperandum est, istud, quod supra diximus, unicum non est, Vnde incunctanter in eo, quem proposuistis, loco sermo patris Christus et lex Christiana praedicata est. Quia cum duae leges sint, id est Iudaica, quae praecessit, et nostra, quae sequitur, et illa vetusta iam etiam prophetarum temporibus diceretur, videtis ab Isaia istam tantummodo nuntiari, quae vocatione gentium magisterio Christi docentis exorta est. Vnde sequitur: et iudicabit inter medium gentium et increpa- bit populos multos. Quos ex cunctis cognationibus terrae intra unam ecclesiam dominus noster iudicando instituit et arguendo convertit. Quod vero ait: concident gladios suos in aratra et lanceas suas in falces, licet possit de corporea aetate domini, in qua per orbem quietum inconcussa pax floruit, aliquantisper intellegi: evidentius hoc tamen Christianis fidelibus coaptatur, quorum cum maiori numero desit ac defuerit ferri usus, quem in perniciem hominis malitia primae nativitatis armaverat, ad usus salutis vitalemque culturam nativitas secunda convertat. Nam cum in evangelio de fine saeculi praedicetur: Exurgent gens contra gentem et regnum contra regnum, et ex ipsis malorum indiciis imminere iam paene mundi terminum colli- gamus, nisi quod supra dixi de catholicis figuraliter accipiatur, nescio, ut quid post saeculi finem obtunsa telorum acies in ligones et vomeres commutetur. Illud vero, quod imo lectionis iussistis adiungi, id est: requiescet unus quisque sub vite sua et sub ficu, nec esse in eadem lectione nec ad causam de qua consuluistis suggero pertinere. Quod tamen temporibus priscis Iudaeorum populo, meriti alternante distantia, frequenter aut pro peccati emendatione concessum, aut rursum pro succeden- tium culparum castigatione sublatum est.