Chapter 8
About the fame and power of the Romans. Judas sends envoys to Rome for the sake of peace: the decree of the Romans to the Jews.
8:1 And Judas heard the name of the Romans, that they are strong in power, etc.
Judas sends messengers to the Romans to establish friendship and alliance with them; this signifies that our Redeemer, through His preachers, offers the Gospel of peace to the nations and calls them to His faith. They in turn wrote back on bronze tablets what had been requested, and sent them to Jerusalem, so that there would be there among them a memorial of peace and alliance: for the nations converted to belief in Christ, firm in their faith, establish a covenant which they intend to last for a long time, and they hand down in the Catholic Church a monument of true confession, so that there may be there an everlasting memorial of their fellowship. Therefore it is said through the prophet: “Behold, the Lord has made it heard, and has sent messengers to the nations” (Jer. 49:14). Likewise: “And the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them” (Isa. 63:9). And again: “It is too small a thing,” he says, “that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the remnant of Israel” (Isa. 49:6); “I have given you as a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth” (Isa. 42). And again: “I have given you as a covenant to the people, to restore the land and to possess the desolate heritages” (Isa. 49:8). And what does it mean that Judas sent two messengers to the Romans for the sake of making peace, if not that our Redeemer, to call the nations to faith and to the fellowship of peace, has sent the two Testaments into the world, or, in another sense, sends two messengers because of the sacrament of love, since there are two precepts of love, and love cannot exist with fewer than two persons. For no one is properly said to have love toward himself; rather, by love he extends himself toward another, so that love may exist. The Lord sends the disciples two by two to preach in the Gospel, so that he may silently suggest this to us: whoever does not have love toward another should by no means undertake the office of preaching. It is well said, moreover, that he sent them before his face into every city and place where he himself was about to come (Luke 10:1); for the Lord follows his preachers, because preaching goes before, and then the Lord comes to the dwelling of our mind; the words of encouragement run ahead, and through them truth is received in the mind.