* In ligno. There are no such words in the LXX. If the words be retained, " ^/<j>' ///«• '' will mean CMirist, who is called " our Life " in Col. iii. 4. See also John i. 4, xiv. 6, xi. 25. And so, again, " Thou shalt not trust (or believe) t/iy /i/e " would mean, " Thou shalt not believe Christ."
Sufficient it is thus far, on th^se points, to have meantime traced the course of the or- dained path of Christ, by which He is proved to be such as He used to be announced, even on the ground of that agreement of Scrip- tures, which has enabled us to speak out, in opposition to the Jews, on the ground' of the prejudgment of the major part. For let them not question or deny the writings we produce; that the fact also that things which were foretold as destined to happen a/fer Christ are being recognised as fulfilled may make it impossible for them to deny (these writings) to be on a par with divine Scriptures. Else, unless He were come offer whom the things which were wont to be announced had to be accomplished, would such as have been completed be proved? * CHAP. XII. FURTHER PROOFS FROM CALLING OF THE GENTILES.
THE Look at the universal nations thenceforth emerging from the vortex of human error to the Lord God the Creator and His Christ; and if you dare to deny that this was prophe- sied, forthwith occurs to you the promise of the Father in the Psalms, which says, " My Son art Thou; to-day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee Gentiles as Thine heritage, and as Thy possession f/ie bounds of the earth." ^ For you will not be able to affirm that " son " to be David rather than Christ; or the "bounds of the earth" to have been promised rather to David, who reigned within the single (country of) Judea, than to Christ, who has already taken captive the whole orb with the faith of His gospel; as He says through Isaiah: "Behold, I have given Thee for a covenant '° of my family, for a light of Gentiles, that Thou mayst open the eyes of the blind " — of course, such as err — "to outloose from bonds the bound" — that is, to free them from sins — "and from the house of prison" — that is, of death — "such as sit in darkness"" — of ignorance, to wit. And if these blessings accrue through Christ, they will not have been prophesied of another than Him through whom we consider them to have been accomplished."
CHAP. XIII. — ARGUMENT FROM THE DESTRUC- TION OF JERUSALEM AND DESOLATION OF JUDEA.
Therefore, since the sons of Israel affirm 7 Or, " in accordance with."
8 i.e.. Would they have happened? and, iy happening, have been their own proof > '° Dispositioneni; Gr. SiaffriKriv. " Isa. xlii. 6, 7, comp. Ixi. i; Luke iv. 14-18 CHAr. XIII.]
AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
that we err in receiving the Christ, who is already come, let us put in a demurrer against them out of the Scriptures themselves, to the effect that the Christ who was the theme of prediction is come; albeit by the times of Daniel's prediction we /lave proved that the Christ is come already who was the theme of announcement. Now it behoved Him to be born in Bethlehem of Judah. For thus it is written in the prophet: "And thou, Bethle- hem, are not the least in the leaders of Judah: for out of thee shall issue a Leader, who shall feed my People Israel."' But if hitherto he has not been born, what " leader " was it who was thus announced as to proceed from the tribe of Judah, out of Bethlehem? For it behoves him to proceed from the tribe of Judah and from Bethlehem. But we per- ceive that n(mi none of the race of Israel has remained in Bethlehem; and (so it has been) ever since the interdict was issued forbidding any one of the Jews to linger in the confines of the very district, in order that this pro- phetic utterance also should be perfectly ful- filled: " Your land is desert, your cities burnt up by fire," — that is, (he is foretelling) what wi'// have happened to them in time of w^ar; "your region strangers shall eat up in your sight, and it shall be desert and subverted by alien peoples."' And in another place it is thus said through the prophet: "The King with His glory ye shall see," — that is, Christ, doing deeds of power in the glory of God the Father; 3 "and your eyes shall see the land from afar,"-* — which is what you do, being prohibited, in reward of your deserts, since the storming of Jerusalem, to enter into your land; it is permitted you merely to see it with your eyes from afar: "your soul," he says, " shall meditate terror," ^ — namely, at the time when they suffered the ruin of them- selves.* How, therefore, will a " leader " be born from Judea, and how far will he " pro- ceed from Bethlehem," as the divine volumes of the prophets do plainly announce; since none at all is left there to this day of (the house of) Israel, of whose stock Christ could be born?
Now, if (according to the Jews) He is hith- erto not come, when He begins to come whence will He be anointed? ' For the Law enjoined that, in captivity, it was not lawful ' Mic. V. 2 • Matt. ii. 3-6. TertuUian's Latin agrees ratherwith the Greek of St. Matthew than with the LXX.
< Isa. xxxiii. 17.
5 Isa. xxxiii. 18.
*Coinp. the ^^ /ailing eyes^^ in the passage from Deuteronomy given in c. xi., if " eyes " is to be taken as the subject here. If nut, we have another instance of the slipshod writing in which this treatise abounds.
7 As His name " Christ " or " Messiah " implies.
for the unction of the royal chrism to be com- pounded.^ But, if there is no longer " unc- tion " there"* as Daniel prophesied (for he says, "Unction shall be exterminated"), it follows that they '° no longer have it, because neither have they a temple where was the " horn " " from which kings were wont to be anointed. If, then, there is no unction, whence shall be anointed the " leader" who shall be born in Bethlehem? or how shall he proceed "from Bethlehem," seeing that of the seed of Israel none at all exists in Beth- lehem.
A second time, in fact, let us show that Christ is already come, (as foretold) through the prophets, and has suffered, and is already received back in the heavens, and thence is to come accordingly as the predictions prophe- sied. For, after His advent, we read, ac- cording to Daniel, that the city itself had to be exterminated; and we recognise that so it has befallen. For the Scripture says thus, that " the city and the holy place are simul- taneously exterminated together with the leader,'"'''' — undoubtedly (that Leader) who was to proceed " from Bethlehem," and from the tribe of "Judah." Whence, again, it is manifest that "the city must simultaneously be exterminated " at the time when its " Leader " had to suffer in it, (as foretold) through the Scriptures of the prophets, who say: " I have outstretched my hands the whole day unto a People contumacious and gainsaying Me, who walketh in a way not good, but after their own sins." '^ And in the Psalms, £)avidszys: " They exterminated my hands and feet: they counted all my bones; they themselves, more- over, contemplated and saw me, and in my thirst slaked me with vinegar."'* These things David did not suffer, so as to seem justly to have spoken of himself; but the Christ.who was crucified. Moreover, the " hands and feet," are not " exterminated," '^ except His who is suspended on a "tree." Whence, again, David said that "the Lord would xe\gx\ frovi the tree:" ^^ for elsewhere, too, the prophet predicts the fruit of this "tree," saying "The earth hath given her blessings," ''' — of course that virgin-earth, not yet irrigated with rains, nor fertilized by 9 i.e., in Jerusalem or Judea. 'o The Jews.
" Comp. I Kings (3 Kings in LXX.) i. 39, where the Eng. ver. has " an horn;" the LXX. to Kipas, " the horn;" which at that time, of course, was in David's tabernacle (2 Sam. — 2 Kings in LXX. — vi. 17,) for " temple " there was yet none.
14 Ps. xxii. 16, 17 (xxi. 17, 18, in LXX.), and Ixix. 21 (Ixviii. 22 in LXX.).
17 See Ps. Ixvii. 6 (Ixvi. 7 in LXX.), Ixxxv. 12 (Ixxxiv. 13 in LXX.).
I/O AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
[chap. xni.
showers, out of which man was of yore first formed, out of which now Christ through the flesh has been born of a virgin; ""zxid. the tree,'" ' he says, " hath brought his fruit," ^ — not that " tree ' ' in paradise which yielded death to the protoplasts, but the " tree " of the passion of Christ, whence life, hanging, was by you not believed! ^ For this " tree " in a mystery," it was of yore wherewith Moses sweetened the bitter water; whence the People, which was perishing of thirst in the desert, drank and revived;s just as we do, who, drawn out from the calamities of the heathendom^ in which we were tarrying perishing with thirst (that is, deprived of the divine word), drinking, "by the faith which is on Him,"' the baptismal water of the " tree " of the passion of Christ, have revived, — a faith from which Israel has fallen away, (as foretold) through Jeremiah, who says, Send, and ask exceedingly whether such things have been done, whether nations will change their gods (and these are not gods!). But My People hath changed their glory: whence no profit shall accrue to them: the heaven turned pale thereat" (and when did it turn pale? undoubtedly when Christ suffered), "and shuddered," he says, "most exceedingly;"^ and "the sun grew dark at mid-day: " ' (and when did it " shud- der exceedingly" except at the passion of Christ, when the earth also trembled to her centre, and the veil of the temple was rent, and the tombs were burst asunder?'") "be- cause these two evils hath My People done; Me," He says, "they have quite forsaken, the fount of water of life," and they have digged for themselves worn-out tanks, which will not be able to contain water." Undoubt- edly, by not receiving Christ, the "fount of water of life," they have begun to have "worn-out tanks," that is, synagogues for the use of the " dispersions of the Gentiles," "= in which the Holy Spirit no longer lingers, as for the time past He was wont to tarry in the temple before the advent of Christ, who is the true temple of God. For, that they should withal suffer this thirst of the Divine Spirit, the prophet Isaiah had said, saying: ' " Lignum, " as before.
2 See Joel ii. 22.
3 See c. xi. above, and the note there.
4 Sacramento.
*Sa:culi.
7 See Acts xxvi. 18, ad fin.
9 See Amos viii. 9, as before, in c. x.
" vSaTOf ^01^? in the LXX. here (ed. Tischendorf, who quotes the Cod. Alex, as reading, however, viaro? {,utvro<i). Comp. Rev. xxii. I, 17, and xxi. 6; John vii. 37-39. (The reference, it will be seen, is still to Jer. ii. 10-13; but the writer has mixed up words of Amos therewith.)
" Comp. the tiji' ftoo'iropai' ti>v 'EAA^vwv of John vii. 35; and see 1 Pet. i. i.
"Behold, they who serve Me shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; they who serve Me shall drink, but ye shall thirst, and from general tribulation of spirit shall howl: for ye shall transmit your name for a satiety to Mine elect, but you the Lord shall slay; but for them who serve Me shall be named a new name, which shall be blessed in the lands." '^ Again, the mystery of this " tree " '■• we read as being celebrated even in the Books of the Reigns. For when the sons of the prophets were cutting " wood " 's with axes on the bank of the river Jordan, the iron flew off and sank in the stream; and so, on Elisha '* the prophet's coming up, the sons of the prophets beg of him to extract from the stream the iron which had sunk. And ac- cordingly Elisha, having taken " wood," and cast it into that place where the iron had been submerged^ forthwith it rose and swam on the surf ace, '7 and the " wood " sank, which the sons of the prophets recovered.'* Whence they understood that Elijah's spirit was pres- ently conferred upon him.'^ What is more manifest than the mystery^" of this "wood," — that the obduracy of this world ^' had been sunk in the profundity of error, and is freed in baptism by the "wood " of Christ, that is, of His passion; in order that what had for- merly perished through the " tree " in Adam, should be restored through the "tree" in Christ? "" while we, of course, who have suc- ceeded to, and occupy, the room of the prophets, at the present day sustain in the world ^3 that treatment which the prophets always suffered on account of divine religion: for some they stoned, some they banished; more, however, they delivered to mortal slaughter,^'* — a fact which they cannot deny. =5 This "wood," again, Isaac the son ' of Abraham personally carried for his own sac- rifice, when God had enjoined that he should be made a victim to Himself. But, because these had been mysteries ^ which were being kept for perfect fulfilment in the times of Christ, Isaac, on the one hand, with his "wood," was reserved, the ram being of- 14 Hujus ligni sacramentum.
'5 Lignum.
>6 Helisaeo. Comp. Luke iv. 27.
17 The careless construction of leaving the nominative " Elisha " with no verb to follow it is due to the original, not to the trans- lator.
'8 See 2 Kings vi. 1-7 (4 Kings vi. 1-7 in L3IX). It is not said, however, that the wood sank.
'9 This conclusion they had drawn before, and are not said to have drawn, consequently, upon this occasion. See 2 Kings (4 Kings in LXX.) ii. 16.
=0 Sacramento.
=» " Saeculi," or perhaps here " heathendom."
22 For a similar argument, see Anselm's Cur Deui Homo? 1. i. c. iii. sub fin.
=3 Sa;culo.
24 Mortis necem.
25 Comp. Acts vii. 51, 52; Heb. xi. 32-38 26 Sacramenta.
CHAP. XIII.]
AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
fered which was caught by the horns in the bramble;' Christ, on the other hand, in His times, carried His "wood" on His own shoulders, adhering to the horns of the cross, with a thorny crown encircling His head. For Him it behoved to be made a sacrifice on behalf of all Gentiles, who "was led as a sheep for a victim, and, like a lamb voice- less before his shearer, so opened not His mouth" (for He, when Pilate interrogated Him, spake nothing '^); for "in humility His judgment was taken away: His nativity, more- over, who shall declare? " Because no one at all of human beings was conscious of the na- tivity of Christ at His conception, when as the Virgin Mary was found pregnant by the word of God; and because " His life was to be taken from the land."^ Why, accordingly, after His resurrection from the dead, which was effected on the third day, did the heavens receive Him back? It was in accordance with a prophecy of Hosea, uttered on this wise: " Before daybreak shall they arise unto Me, saying. Let us go and return unto the Lord our God, because Himself will draw ns out and free us. After a space of two days, on the third day " -^ — which is His glorious resurrection — He received back into the heavens (whence withal the Spirit Himself had come to the Virgin s) Him whose nativity and passion alike the Jews have failed to acknowledge. Therefore, since the Jews still contend that the Christ is not yet come, whom we have in so many ways approved * to be come, let the Jews recognise their own fate, — a fate which they were constantly foretold as destined to incur after the advent of the Christ, on account of the impiety with which they despised and slew Him. For first, from the day when, according to the saying of Isaiah, " a man cast forth his abominations, of gold and silver, which they made to adore with vain and hurtful (rites)," "> — that is, ever since we Gentiles, with our breast doubly en- lightened through Christ's truth, cast forth (let the Jews see it) our idols, — what follows has likewise been fulfilled. For " the Lord of Sabaoth hath taken away, among the Jews from Jerusalem," among the other things named, "the wise architect " too,^who builds the church, God's temple, and the holy city, and the house of the Lord. For thenceforth God's grace desisted (from working) among 'See Gen. xxii. 1-14.
2 See Matt, xxvii. 11-14; Mark xv. 1-5; John xix. 8-12.
4 0ehler refers to Hos. vi. i; add 2 {ad init.).
6 For this sense of the word "approve," comp. Acts ii. 22, Greek and English, and Phil. i. lo, Greek and English.
8 See Isa. iii. i, 3; and comp. 1 Cor. iii. lo, Eph. ii. 20, 21, I Pet. ii. 4-8, and many similar passages.
them. And "the clouds were commanded not to rain a shower upon the vineyard of Sorek,"' — the clouds being celestial benefits, which were commanded not to be forthcoming to the house of Israel; for it "had borne thorns'' — whereof that house of Israel had wrought a crown for Christ — and not " right- eousness, hwX. Viciamoiir," — the clamour where- by it had extorted His surrender to the cross. '^ And thus, the former gifts of grace being withdrawn, "the law and the prophets were until John," " and the fishpool of Bethsaida'* until the advent of Christ: thereafter it ceased curatively to remove from Israel infirmities of health; since, as the result of their perse- verance in their frenzy, the name of the Lord was through them blasphemed, as it is writ- ten: "On your account the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles:" '^ for it is from them that the infamy (attached to that name) began, and (was propagated during) the interval from Tiberius to Vespasian. And because they had committed these crimes, and had failed to understand that Christ "was to be found " '" in " the time of their visitation," '= their land has been made " des- ert, and their cities utterly burnt with fire, while strangers devour their region in their sight: the daughter of Sion is derelict, as a watch-tower in a vineyard, or as a shed in a cucumber garden," — ever since the time, to wit, when " Israel knew not" the Lord, and " the People understood Him not;" but rather "quite forsook, and provoked unto indigna- tion, the Holy One of Israel.""* So, again, we find a conditional threat of the srvord: " If ye shall have been unwilling, and shall not have been obedient, the glaive shall eat you up." '7 Whence we prove that the sword was Christ, by not hearing whom they perished; who, again, in the Psalm, demands of the Father their dispersion, saying, " Disperse them in Thy power; " "» vvho, withal, again through Isaiah prays for their utter durning. "On My account," He says, "have these things happened to you; in anxiety shall ye sleep." '9 Since, therefore, the Jews were predicted as destined to suffer these calamities on Christ's account, and we find that they have suffered them, and see them sent into dispersion and 9 Comp. Isa. V. 2 in LXX. and Lowth.
«o Comp. Isa V. 6, 7, with Matt, xxvii. 20-25, Mark xv. 8-15 Luke xxiii. 13-25, John xix. 12-16. ' '2 See John v. 1-9; and comp. de Bapt. c. v., and the note there.
13 See Isa. Iii. 5; Ezek. xxx\a. 20, 23: Rom. ii. 24. (The pass- age in Isaiah in the LXX. agrees with Rom. ii. 24.)
•8 See Ps. lix. 11 (Iviii. 12 in LXX.)
i9See Isa. 1. n in LXX AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
[CHAI>. XIV.
abiding in it, manifest it is that it is on Christ's account that these things have be- fallen the Jews, the sense of the Scriptures harmonizing with the issue of events and of the order of the times. Or else, if Christ is not yet come, on whose account they were predicted as destined thus to suffer, when He shall have come it follows that they will thus suffer. And where will then be a daughter of Sion to be derelict, who nmv has no exist- ence? where the cities to be exust, which are already exust and in heaps? where the dis- persion of a race which is now in exile? Re- store to Judea the condition which Christ is to find; and (then, if you will), contend that some other (Christ) is coming.
CHAP. XIV. — CONCLUSION. CLUE TO THE ERROR OF THE JEWS.
Learn now (over and above the immediate question) the clue to your error. We affirm hvo characters of the Christ demonstrated by the prophets, and as many advents of His forenoted: one, in humility (of course the first), when He has to be led " as a sheep for a victim; and, as a lamb voiceless before the shearer, so He opened not His mouth," not even in His aspect comely. For " we have announced," says the prophet, " concern- ing Him, (He is) as a little child, as a root in a thirsty land; and there was not in Him attrac- tiveness or glory. And we saw Him, and He had not attractiveness or grace; but His mien was unhonoured, deficient in comparison of the sons of men, ' ' ' " a man set in the plague,'' and knowing how to bear infirmity: " to wit, as having been set by the Father " for a stone of offence," 3 and "made a little lower" by Him "than angels," " He pronounces Him- self " a worm, and not a man, an ignominy of man, and the refuse of the People." s Which evidences of ignobility suit the First Advent, just as those of sublimity do the Second; when He shall be made no longer "a stone of offence nor a rock of scandal," but " the highest corner-stone," * after repro- l)ation (on earth) taken up (into heaven) and raised sublime for tlie purpose of consummation,^ and that " rock " — so we must admit — which is read of in Daniel as forecut from a mount, whicti shall crush and crumble the image of secular kingdoms.^ Of which sec- • See Isa. liii. a in LXX.
'See Ps. xxxviii. 17 in the "Great Bible" (xxxvii. 18 in LXX.). Also Isa. liii. 3 in LXX.
3 See Isa. viii. 14 (where, however, the LXX. rendering is widely different) with Rom. ix. 32, 33; Ps. cxviii 22 (cxvii. 22 in ♦ See Ps. \Hii. 5 (viii. 6 in LXX.) with Heb. ii. 5-9.
5 See Ps. xxii. 6 (xxi. 7 in LXX., the Alex. ms. of which here agrees well with Tertu'.lian).
*See reference 3 above, with Isa. xxviii. 16.
ond advent of the same (Christ) Daniel has said: " And, behold, as it were a Son of man, coming with the clouds of the heaven, came unto the Ancient of days, and was present in His sight; and they who were standing by led (Him) unto Him. And there was given Him royal power; and all nations of the earth, according to their race, and all glory, shall serve Him: and His power is eternal, which shall not be taken away, and His kingdom one \\\\\c\\ shall not be corrupted." » Then, assuredly, is He to have an honourable mien, and a grace not "deficient more than the sons of men; " for (He will then be) " bloom- ing in beauty in comparison with the sons of men." " " Grace," says the Psalmist, " hath been outpoured in Thy lips: wherefore God hath blessed Thee unto eternity. Gird Thee Thy sword around Thy thigh, most potent in Thy bloom and beauty!" '° while the Father withal afterwards, after making Him some- what lower than angels, "crowned Him with glory and honour, and subjected all things be- neath His feet."" And then shall they " learn to know Him whom they pierced, and shall beat their breasts tribe by tribe; " " of course because in days bygone they did 7iot know Him when conditioned in the humility of human estate. Jeremiah says: " He is a human being, and who will learn to know Him? " '^ because, "His nativity," says Isa- iah, " who shall declare? " So, too, in Zech- ariah, in His own person, nay, in the very mystery '* of His name withal, the most true Priest of the Father, His own'^ Christ, is de- lineated in a twofold garb with reference to the TWO ADVENTS."^ First, He was clad in "sordid attire," that is, in the indignity of passible and mortal flesh, when the devil, withal, was opposing himself to Him — the in- stigator, to wit, of Judas the traitor'' — who even after His baptism had tempted Him. In the next place, He was stripped of His former sordid raiment, and adorned with a garment down to the foot, and with a turban and a clean mitre, that is, (with the garb) of the SECOND ADVENT; since He is demonstrated as having attained " glory and honour." Nor "^ Sec c. ix. nied, '2 See Zech. xii. 10, 12 (where the LXX., as we have it, differs widely from our Eng. ver. in ver, 10); Rev. i. 7.
>3 Sec Jer. xvii. 9 in LXX.
■4 Sacramento.
'5 The reading which Oehler follows, and which seems to hav« the best authority, is " verissirnus sacerdos Patris, Christus Ip- sius," as in the text. But Rig., whose judgment is generally very s<iund, prefers, with some others, to read, " verus summus sacerdos Patris Christus [csus;" which agrees better with the previous allusion to " the mystery of His name withal;" comp. c. ix. above, towards the end.
'6 See Zech. iii. " The mystery of His name" refers to the meaning of " Jeshua,' for which see c. ix. above.
'7 Comp. John vi. 70 and xiii. 2 (especially in Greek, where the word SiaSoAo? is used in each case).
[chap. XIV.
AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.