discipline), but through Joshua (that is, through the new law's grace), after our cir- cumcision with " a knife of rock " " (that is, with Christ's precepts, for Christ is in many- ways and figures predicted as a rock "); there- fore the man who was being prepared to act as images of this sacrament was inaugurated under the figure of the Lord's name, even so as to be named Jesus. '^ For He who ever spake to Moses was the Son of God Himself; who, too, was always seen.^* For God the Father none ever saw, and lived. '= And ac- cordingly it is agreed that the Son of God Himself spake to Moses, and said to the people, " Behold, I send mine angel before thy" — that is, the people's — "face, to guard thee on the march, and to introduce thee into the land which I have prepared thee: attend to him, and be not disobedient to him; for he hath not escaped '^ thy notice, since my name is upon him." '^ For Joshua was to in- troduce the people into the land of promise, not Moses. Now He called him an " angel," on account of the magnitude of the mighty deeds which he was to achieve (which mighty deeds Joshua the son of Nun did, and you yourselves read), and on account of his office of prophet announcing (to wit) the divine will; just as withal the Spirit, speaking in the person of the Father, calls the forerunner of Christ, John, a future "angel," through the prophet: "Behold, I send mine angel before Thy" — that is, Christ's — "face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee." '* Nor is it a novel practice to the Holy Spirit to call those "angels " whom God has appointed as ministers of His power. For the same John is called not merely an "angel" of Christ, but withal a "lamp" shining before Christ: for David predicts, " I have prepared the lamp for my Christ; " '^ and him Christ Him- self, coming " to fulfil the prophets," ^ called so to the Jews. "He was," He says, "the burning and shining lamp;"" as being he who not merely "prepared His ways in the desert," "== but withal, by pointing out " the Lamb of God," ^^ illumined the minds of men by his heralding, so that they understood Him " See Josh. v. 2-9, especially in LXX. Comp. the margin in the Eng. ver. on ver. 2, " flint knives," and Wordsworth in ioc, who refers to Ex. iv. 25, for which see ch. iii. above.
13 Or, "Joshua."
"5 Oehler and others read "celar'/^,- but the correction of Fr. Junius and Rig., " cela/5/V," is certainly more agreeable to the LXX. and the Eng. ver.
i8 Mai. iii. 1: comp. Matt. -xi. 10; Mark i. 2; Luke vii. 27.
'9 See Ps. cxxxii. 17 (cxxi. 17 in LXX.).
20 Matt. V. 17, briefly; a verv favourite reference with TertuW lian.
AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
[chap. X.
to be that Lamb whom Moses was wont to announce as destined to suffer. Thus, too, (was the son of Nun called) Joshua, on ac- count of the future m.ystery ' of his name: for that name (He who spake with Moses) con- firmed as His own which Himself had con- ferred on him, because He had bidden him thenceforth be called, not "angel" nor "Oshea,"but "Joshua." Thus, therefore, each name is appropriate to the Christ of God — that H-^- should be called Jesus as well (as Christ).
And that ttie virgin of whom it behoved Christ to be born (as we have above men- tioned) must derive her lineage of the seed of David, the prophet in subsequent passages evidently asserts. " And there shall be born," he says, "a rod from the root of Jesse" — which rod is Mary — " and a flower shall as- cend from his root: and there shall rest upon him the Spirit of God, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of discernment and piety, the spirit of counsel and truth; the spirit of God's fear shall fill Him." ^ For to none of men was the universal aggregation of spiritual credentials appropriate, except to Christ; paralleled as He is to a " flower " by reason of glory, by reason of grace; but ac- counted " of the root of Jesse," whence His origin is to be deduced, ^ — to wit, through Mary. 3 For He was from the native soil of Bethlehem, and from the house of David; as, among the Romans, Mary is described in the census, of whom is born Christ.* I demand, again — granting that He who was ever predicted by prophets as destined to come out of Jesse's race, was withal to exhibit all humility, patience, and tranquillity — whether He be come? Equally so (in this case as in the former), the man who is shown to bear that character will be the very Christ who is come. For of Him the prophet says, " A man set in a plague, and knowing how to bear infirmity; " who " was led as a sheep for a victim; and, as a lamb before him who sheareth him, opened not His mouth." s If He " neither did contend nor shout, nor was His voice heard abroad," who "crushed not the bruised reed" — Israel's faith, who " quenched not the burning flax " * — that is, the momentary glow of the Gentiles — but made it shine more by the rising of His own light, — He can be none other than He who was predicted. The action, therefore, of the Christ who is come must be examined by » Sacramentum.
2 See Isa. xi. i, 2, especially in LXX.
SSee Isa. liii. 3, 7, in LXX.; and comp. Ps. xxxviii. 17 (xxxvii. 18 in LXX.) in the '' Great Bible" of 1539. * See Isa. xlii. 2, 3, and Matt. xii. 19, 20.
being placed side by side with the rule of the Scriptures. For, if I mistake not, we find Him distinguished by a twofold operation, — that of preaching and that of pmver. Now, let each count be disposed of summarily. Ac- cordingly, let us work out the order we have set down, teaching that Christ was announced ■A.'i,2i preacher; as, through Isaiah: "Cry out," he says, " in vigour, and spare not; lift up, as with a trumpet, thy voice, and announce to my commonalty their crimes, and to the house of Jacob their sins. Me from day to day they seek, and to learn my ways they covet, as a people which hath done righteous- ness, and hath not forsaken the judgment of God," and so forth:'' that, moreover, He was to do acts of power from the Father: " Be- hold, our God will deal retributive judgment; Himself will come and save us: then shall the infirm be healed, and the eyes of the blind shall see, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, and the mutes' tongues shall be loosed, and the lame shall leap as an hart," * and so on; which works not even you deny that Christ did, inasmuch as you were wont to say that, "on account of the works ye stoned Him not, but because He did them on the Sabbaths." 5 CHAP. X. — CONCERNING THE PASSION OF CHRIST, AND ITS OLD TESTAMENT PREDIC- TIONS AND ADUMBRATIONS.
Concerning the last step, plainly, of His passion you raise a doubt; affirming that the passion of the cross was not predicted with reference to Christ, and urging, besides, that it is not credible that God should have exposed His own Son to that kind of death; because Himself said, " Cursed is every one who shall have hung on a tree." '° But the reason of the case antecedently explains the sense of this malediction; for He says in Deuteronomy: "If, moreover, (a man) shall have been (in- volved) in some sin incurring the judgment of death, and shall die, and ye shall suspend him on a tree, his body shall not remain on the tree, but with burial ye shall bury him on the very day; because cursed by God is ever}' one who shall have been suspended on a tree; and ye shall not defile the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee for (thy) lot."" Therefore He did not maledictively adjudge Christ to this passion, but drew a d'stinction, tliat whoever, in any sin, had incurred the judgment of death, and died suspended on a 7 See Isa. Iviii. i, 2, especially in LXX.
'oComp. Dcut. xxi. 23 with Gal. iii. 13, with Prof. Lightfoot on the latter passage.
" Deut. xxi. 22, 2} (especially in the LXX.).
CHAP AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
tree, he should be "cursed by God," because his own sins were the cause of his suspension on the tree. On the other hand, Christ, who spake not guile from His mouth,' and who exhibited all righteousness and humility, not only (as we have above recorded it predicted of Him) was not exposed to that kind of death for his <nv7i deserts, but (was so exposed) in order that what was predicted by the prophets as destined to come upon Him through your means' might be fulfilled; just as, in the Psalms, the Spirit Himself of Christ was already singing, saying, " They were repaying me evil for good; " ^ and, " What I had not seized I was then paying in full;-* " They ex- terminated my hands and feet;" s and, " They put into my drink gall, and in my thirst they slaked me with vinegar;" ^ " Upon my vesture they did cast (the) lot;"^ just as the other (outrages) which you were to commit on Him were foretold, — all which He, actually and thoroughly suffering, suffered not for any evil action of His own, but " that the Scriptures from the mouth of the prophets might be fulfilled. "« And, of course, it had been meet that the mystery' of the passion itself should be figuratively set forth in predictions; and the more incredible (that mystery), the more likely to be "a stumbling-stone," '° if it had been nakedly predicted; and the more magnificent, the more to be adu?nbratcd, that the difificulty of its intelligence might seek (help from) the grace of God.
Accordingly, to begin with, Isaac, when led by his father as a victim, and himself bearing his own "wood," " was even at that early period pointing to Christ's death; conceded, as He was, as a victim by the Father; carrying, as He did, the " wood " of His own passion. ''' Joseph, again, himself was made a figure of Christ '3 in this point alone (to name no more, not to delay my own course), that he suffered persecution at the hands of his breth- ren, and was sold into Egypt, on account of the favour of God; '* just as Christ was sold by Israel — (and therefore,) " according to the flesh," by His " brethren " '^ — when He is be- ' See 1 Pet. ii. 22 with Isa. liii. 9.
2 Oehler's pointing is disregarded.
3 Ps. XXXV. (xxxiv. in LXX.) 12. 4Ps. Ixi.x. 4 flxviii. 5 in LXX.). 6Ps. Ixix. 21 (Ixviii. 22 in LXX.).
9 Sacramentum.
" Lignum = ^vKov; constantly used for the " tree.
•^Comp. Gen. xxii. i-io with John xix. 17.
•3"Chris/«w figuTatus" is Oehler's reading, after the two MSB. and the Pamelian ed. of 1579; 'he rest read "figurawi" or " figure z/j'/."
»* Manifested e.g., in his (wo dreams. See Gen. xxx^•ii.
trayed by Judas.'* For Joseph is withal blest by his father '' after this form: " His glory (is that) of a bull; his horns, the horns of an unicorn; on them shall he toss nations alike unto the very extremity of the earth." Of course no one-horned rhinoceros was there pointed to, nor any two-horned minotaur. But Christ was therein signified: "bull, " by reason of each of His two characters, — to some fierce, as Judge; to others gentle, as Saviour; whose " horns " were to be the ex- tremities of the cross. For even in a ship's yard — which is part of a cross — this is the name by which the extremities are called; while the central pole of the mast is a " uni- corn. " By this power, in fact, of the cross, and in this manner horned. He does now, on the one hand, " toss " universal nations through faith, wafting them away from earth to heaven; and will one day, on the other, " toss " them through Judgment, casting them down from heaven to earth.
He, again, will be the " bull " elsewhere too in the same scripture.'* When Jacob pro- nounced a blessing on Simeon and Levi, he prophesies of the scribes and Pharisees; for from them '^ is derived their ^ origin. For (his blessing) interprets spiritually thus: "Simeon and Levi perfected iniquity out of their sect, "^' — whereby, to wit, they persecuted Christ: " into their counsel come not my soul! and upon their station rest not my heart! because in their indignation they slew men " — that is, prophets — "and in their concupiscence they hamstrung a bull!" -^ — that is, Christ, whom — after the slaughter of prophets — they slew, and exhausted their savagery by transfixing His sinews with nails. Else it is idle if, after the murder already committed by them, he upbraids others, and not them, with butchery. *3 But, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sittitig with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical," he ought rather, surely, to have corn- 's or, "judah."
'7 This is an error. It is not " bis father," Jacob, but Moses, who thus blesses him. See Deut. xxxiii. 17. The same error oc- curs in adz'. Marc. 1. iii. c. xxiii.
18 Not strictly " the same;" for here the reference is to Geo.
'9 i.e., Simeon and Levi.
20 i.e., the scribes and Pharisees.
21 Perfecerunt iniquitatem ex sua secta. There seems to be a play on the word "secta" in connection with the outrage com- mitted by Simeon and Levi, as recorded in Gen. xxxiv. 25-31;and for avviiikitjav a.hi.Kiav e^aipiixfuji avTuf (which is the reading of the LXX., ed. Tisch. 3, _ Lips, i860), TertuUian's Latin seems to have read, (TvveTe\e<rav aSixiav ef ai.p€<T€ui avruf.
22 See Gen. xlix. 5-7 in LXX.; and comp. the margin of Eng. ver. on ver. 7, and Wordsworth in loc, who incorrectly renders TaOpof an " ox " here.
23 What the sense of this is it is not easy to see. It appears to have puzzled Pam. and Rig. so effectually that they both.conject- urally and without authority, adopted the reading found in adz>. ■ Marc. 1. iii. c. xviii. (from which book, as usual, the present pass- age is borrowed), only altering I'Uis to ipsis.
AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
[chap. X, mended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech — destined as He was to enter the Hsts one day singly against the devil — the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? ' Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any "likeness of anything," - set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a " tree, ' ' in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idola- try,3 they were suffering extermination by ser- pents, except that in this case he was exhibit- ing the Lord's cross on which the " serpent " the devil was "made a show of,"* and, for every one hurt by such snakes — that is, his angels 5 — on turning intently from the pec- cancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ's cross, salvation was outwrought? For he who then gazed upon that [cross) was freed from the bite of the serpents.'^ Come, now, if you have read in the utter- ance of the prophet in the Psalms, " God hath reigned frotn the tree,'' ^ I wait to hear what you understand thereby; for fear you may perhaps think some carpenter-king* is sig- nified, and not Christ, who has reigned from that time onward when he overcame the death which ensued from His passion of " the tree."
Similarly, again, Isaiah says: " For a child is born to us, and to us is given a son.''^ What novelty is that, unless he is speaking of the " Son " of God? — and one is born to us, the beginning of whose government has been made " on His shoulder." What king in the world wears the ensign of his power on his shoulder, and does not bear either diadem on his head, or else sceptre in his hand, or else some mark of distinctive vesture? But the novel "King of ages," Christ Jesus, alone reared "on His shoulder" His own novel glory, and power, and sublimity, — the cross, to wit; that, according to the former prophecy, the Lord thenceforth " might re'ign from the tree." For of this tree likewise it is that God hints, through Jeremiah, that you would say, " Come, let us ^\itwood^° into his bread, and let ' See Ex. xvii. 8-16; and comp. Col. ii. 14, 15.
3 Their sin was " speaking against God and against Moses " * Comp. Col. ii. 14, 15, as before; also Gen. iii. i, etc.; 2 Cor.
sComp. 2 Cor. xi. 14, 15; Matt. xxv. 41; Rev. xii. g.
*Comp. de Idol. c. v.; adv. Marc. 1. iii. c. xviii.
7 A ligno. Oehler refers us to Ps. xcvi. 10 (xcv. 10 in LXX.); but the special words " a ligno'' are wanting there, though the text is often quoted by the Fathers.
*Lignarium aliquem regem. It is remarkable, in connection herewith, that our Lord is not only called by the Jews " the car- penter^ s son " (Matt. xiii. 55; Luke iv. 22), but " tAr carpenter " (Mark vi. 3).
'" Lignum.
'" Lignum.
us wear him away out of the land of the living; and his name shall no more be remembered. "" Of course on His /^^^ that " wood " was put;" for so Christ has revealed, calling His body " bread," '^ whose body the prophet in bygone days announced under the term " bread. ' * If you shall still seek for predictions of the Lord's cross, the twenty-first Psalm will at length be able to satisfy you, containing as it does the whole passion of Christ; singing, as He does, even at so early a date, His own glory.''* " They dug," He says, " my hands and feet " 's — which is the peculiar atrocity of the cross; and again when He implores the aid of the Father, "Save me," He says, out of the mouth of the lion " — of course, of death — "and from the horn of the unicorns my humility," '* — from the ends, to wit, of the cross, as we have above shown; which cross neither David himself suffered, nor any of the kings of the Jews: that you may not think the passion of some other particular man is here prophesied than His who alone was so signally crucified by the People.
Now, if the hardness of your heart shall persist in rejecting and deriding all these in- terpretations, we will prove that it may suffice that the death of the Christ had been prophe- sied, in order that, from the fact that the natzire of the death had not been specified, it may be understood to have been effected by means of the cross^'' and that the passion of the cross is not to be ascribed to any but Him whose death was constantly being predicted. For I desire to show, in one utterance of Isaiah, His death, and passiofi, and sepulture. " By the crimes," he says, " of my people was He led unto death; and I will give the evil for His sepulture, and the rich for His death, be- cause He did not wickedness, nor was guile found in his mouth; and God willed to re- deem His soul from death,"'* and so forth. He says again, moreover: " His sepulture hath been taken away from the midst. " '' For neither was He buried except He were dead, nor was His sepulture removed from the midst except through His resurrection. Finally, he subjoins: " Therefore He shall have many for an heritage, and of many shall He divide spoils: '°" who else (shall so do) but He who '2 i.e., when they laid on Him the crossbeam to c?rry. See John '3 See John vi. tassim, and the various accounts of the institu- tion of the Holy Supper.
'4 It is Ps. xxii. in our Bibles, xxi. in LXX.
>6 Ps. xxii. 21 (xxi. 22 in LXX., who render it as TertuUian does).
>7i.e., perhaps, because of the extreme ignominy attaching to that death, which prevented its being expressly named.
>9lsa. Ivii. 2 (in LXX.).
-■o Isa. liii. 12 (in LXX.). Comp., too, Bp. Lowth. Oehler's pointing again appears to be faulty.
CHAP. XI.]
AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
" was born," as we have above shown? — " in return for the fact that His soul was delivered unto death?" For, the cause of the favour accorded Him being shown, — in return, to wit, for the injury of a death which had to be recompensed, — it is likewise shown that He, destined to attain these rewards because <y death, was to attain them «//^/- death — of course after resurrection. For that which happened at His passion, that mid-day grew dark, the prophet Amos announces, saying, "And it shall be," he says, "in that day, saith the Lord, the sun shall set at mid-day, and the day of light shall grow dark over the land: and I will convert your festive days into grief, and all your canticles into lamentation; and I will lay upon your loins sackcloth, and upon every head baldness; and I will make the grief like that for a beloved (son), and them that are with him like a day of mourn- ing."' For that you would do thus at the beginning of the first month of your new (years) even Moses prophesied, when he was foretelling that all the community of the sons of Israel was '^ to immolate at eventide a lamb, and were to eat^ this solemn sacrifice of this day (that is, of the passover of unleavened bread) with bitterness;" and added that " it was the passover of the Lord," * that is, the passion of Christ. Which prediction was thus also fulfilled, that "on the first day of un- leavened bread " s you slew Christ;'^ and (that the prophecies might be fulfilled) the day hasted to make an "eventide," — that is, to cause darkness, which was made at mid-day; and thus "your festive days God converted into grief, and your canticles into lamenta- tion." For after the passion of Christ there overtook you even captivity and dispersion, predicted before through the Holy Spirit.
CHAP. XI. FURTHER PROOFS, FROM EZEKIEL.
SUMMARY OF THE PROPHETIC ARGUMENT THUS FAR.
For, again, it is for these deserts of yours that Ezekiel announces your ruin as about to come: and not only in this age'' — a ruin which has already befallen — but in the "day of retribution,"* which will be subsequent. From which ruin none will be freed but he who shall have been frontally sealed ^ with the • See Amos viii. 9, 10 (especially in the LXX.)- ^Oehler's " esset appears to be a mistake for " esse."
3 The change from singular to plural is due to the Latin, not to the translator.
•4 See Ex. xii. i-ji.
5 See Matt. xxvi. 17; Mark xiv. 12; Luke xxii. 7; John'xviii.
7 Saeculo.
^Comp. Isa. Ixi. 2.
9 Or possibly, simply, " sealed " — obsignatus.
passion of the Christ whom you have re- jected. For thus it is written: "And the Lord said unto me, Son of man, thou hast seen what the elders of Israel do, each one of them in darkness, each in a hidden bed-cham- ber: because they have said. The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath derelinquished the earth. And He said unto me. Turn thee again, and thou shalt see greater enormities which these do. And He introduced me unto the thresh- olds of the gate of the house of the Lord which looketh unto the north; and, behold, there, women sitting and bewailing Thammuz. And the Lord said unto me. Son of man, hast thou seen? Is the house of Judah ?noderate, to do the enormities which they have done? And yet thou art about to see greater affections of theirs. And He intro- duced me into the inner shrine of the house of the Lord; and, behold, on the thresholds of the house of the Lord, between the midst of the porch and between the midst of the altar,'" as it were twenty and five men have turned their backs unto the temple of the Lord, and their faces over against the east; these were adoring the sun. And He said unto me, Seest thou, son of man? Are such deeds trifles to the house of Judah, that they should do the enormities which these have done? because they have filled up (the meas- ure of) their impieties, and, behold, are them- selves, as it were, grimacing; I will deal with mine indignation," mine eye shall not spare, neither will I pity; they shall cry out unto mine ears with a loud voice, and I will not hear them, nay, I will not pity. And He cried into mine ears with a loud voice, say- ing. The vengeance of this city is at hand; and each one had vessels of extermination in his hand. And, behold, six men were com- ing toward the way of the high gate which was looking toward the north, and each one's double-axe of dispersion was in his hand: and one man in the midst of them, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet," and a girdle of sapphire about his loins: and they entered, and took their stand close to the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel, which was over the house, in the open court of it, '3 ascended from the cherubim: and the Lord called the man who was clothed with the garment reaching to the feet, who had upon his loins the girdle; and said unto him, 'o Inter mediam elam et inter medium altaris: i.e., probabIy = " between the porch and the altar," as the Eng. ver. has.
" So Oehler points, and Tischendorf in his edition of the LXX. points not very differently. I incline to read: " Because they have filled up the measure of their impieties, and, behold (are) themselves, as it were, grimacing, I will," etc.
'=Comp. Rev. i. i3.
'3 " (luse fuit super eam " (i.e. super domum) " in subdivali domus ' is Oehler's reading; but it differs from the LXX.
AN ANSWER TO TKE JEWS.
[chap. XII.
Pass through the midst of Jerusalem, and write the sign Tau ' on the foreheads of the men who groan and grieve over all the enor- mities which are done in their midst. And while these things were doing, He said unto an hearer,^ Go ye after him into the city, and cut short; and spare not with your eyes, and pity not elder or youth or virgin; and little ones and women slay ye all, that they may be thoroughly wiped away; but all upon whom is the sign Tau approach ye not; and begin with my saints." ^ Now the mystery of this "sign" was in various ways predicted; (a " sign ") in which the foundation of life was forelaid for mankind; (a " sign ") in which the Jews were not to believe: just as Moses be- foretime kept on announcing in Exodus,'' saying, " Ye shall be ejected from the land into which ye shall enter; and in those na- tions ye shall not be able to rest; and there shall be instability of the prints of thy foot: and God shall give thee a wearying heart, and a pining soul, and failing eyes, that they see not: and thy life shall hang on the tree * before thine eyes; and thou shalt not trust thy life." And so, since prophecy has been fulfilled through His advent — that is, through the na- tivity, which we have above commemorated, and the passion, which we have evidently ex- plained— that is the reason withal why Daniel said, ** Vision and prophet toe re sealed; " because Christ is the signet of all prophets, fulfilling all that had in days bygone been announced concerning Him: for, since His advent and personal passion, there is no longer "vision" or "prophet;" whence most emphatically he says that His advent "j-^a/^ vision and prophecy." And thus, by showing "the number of the years, and the time of the Ixii and an half fulfilled hebdo- mads," we have proved that at that specified time Christ came, that is, was born; and, (by showing the time) of the " seven and an half hebdomads," which are subdivided so as to be cut off from the former hebdomads, within which times we have shown Christ to have suffered, and by the consequent conclusion of the " Ixx hebdomads," and the extermina- tion of the city, (we have proved) that " sacri- fice and unction " thenceforth cease.
' The MS. which Oehler usually follows omits " Tau;" so do the LXX.
"Et in his dixit ad audientem. But the LXX. reading agrees almost verbatim with the Kng. ver.
3 Ezek. yiii. 12-ix. 6 (especially in the LXX.). Comp. a<i7'. Marc. 1. iii. c. xxii. 15ut our author differs considerably even from the LXX.
* Or rather in Deuteronomy. See xxviii. 65 sqq.