Chapter 15

¹ “He had a garden adjoining his house. And it came to pass, when the people departed at midday, that Susanna would go in and walk about in her husband’s garden; and the two elders used to watch her day by day, and they conceived a desire for her.”

² Now these things the rulers of the Jews wish nowadays to cut out of the book, asserting that they did not take place in Babylon, being ashamed of what was done by the elders at that time, and being ignorant of the dispensation of the Spirit.

³ How impartially and with what boldness the divine Scriptures display all things—not only the righteous deeds of men, by which in doing them they were justified, but also the dreadful things done by certain people, deeds in which these men […] becoming entangled, meet their end—so that those who have the fear of God may imitate the righteous, walking thus in righteousness, while those who do the contrary may have before their eyes the judgment that is to come upon them from God.

⁴ For the things that were done there by the elders against Susanna, these same things now likewise are carried out by the rulers in the present Babylon.

⁵ For Susanna was prefigured as a type of the Church, and Jehoiakim her husband as a type of Christ. And the garden was the calling of the saints, like fruit-bearing trees planted in the Church. And Babylon is the world.

⁶ And the two elders are shown as a type of the two peoples who plot against the Church—the one from the circumcision and the one from the Gentiles. For the saying that they were appointed rulers and judges of the people signifies that in this present age they wield power and rule, judging the righteous unjustly.