{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030191.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030191.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030191.htm","text":"Chapter X.\u2014Concerning the Passion of Christ, and Its Old Testament Predictions and Adumbrations.\nConcerning 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, \u201cCursed is every one who shall have hung on a tree.\u201d 1313 But the reason of the case antecedently explains the sense of this malediction; for He says in Deuteronomy: \u201cIf, moreover, (a man) shall have been (involved) 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 every 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.\u201d 1314 Therefore He did not maledictively adjudge Christ to this passion, but drew a distinction, that whoever, in any sin, had incurred the judgment of death, and died suspended on a p. 165 tree, he should be \u201ccursed by God,\u201d because his own sins were the cause of his suspension on the tree. On the other hand, Christ, who spoke not guile from His mouth, 1315 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 own deserts, but (was so exposed) in order that what was predicted by the prophets as destined to come upon Him through your means 1316 might be fulfilled; just as, in the Psalms, the Spirit Himself of Christ was already singing, saying, \u201cThey were repaying me evil for good;\u201d 1317 and, \u201cWhat I had not seized I was then paying in full;\u201d 1318 \u201cThey exterminated my hands and feet;\u201d 1319 and, \u201cThey put into my drink gall, and in my thirst they slaked me with vinegar;\u201d 1320 \u201cUpon my vesture they did cast (the) lot;\u201d 1321 just as the other (outrages) which you were to commit on Him were foretold,\u2014all which He, actually and thoroughly suffering, suffered not for any evil action of His own, but \u201cthat the Scriptures from the mouth of the prophets might be fulfilled.\u201d 1322\nAnd, of course, it had been meet that the mystery 1323 of the passion itself should be figuratively set forth in predictions; and the more incredible (that mystery), the more likely to be \u201ca stumbling-stone,\u201d 1324 if it had been nakedly predicted; and the more magnificent, the more to be adumbrated, that the difficulty of its intelligence might seek (help from) the grace of God.\nAccordingly, to begin with, Isaac, when led by his father as a victim, and himself bearing his own \u201cwood,\u201d 1325 was even at that early period pointing to Christ\u2019s death; conceded, as He was, as a victim by the Father; carrying, as He did, the \u201cwood\u201d of His own passion. 1326\nJoseph, again, himself was made a figure of Christ 1327 in this point alone (to name no more, not to delay my own course), that he suffered persecution at the hands of his brethren, and was sold into Egypt, on account of the favour of God; 1328 just as Christ was sold by Israel\u2014(and therefore,) \u201caccording to the flesh,\u201d by His \u201cbrethren\u201d 1329 \u2014when He is betrayed by Judas. 1330 For Joseph is withal blest by his father 1331 after this form: \u201cHis 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.\u201d Of course no one-horned rhinoceros was there pointed to, nor any two-horned minotaur. But Christ was therein signified: \u201cbull,\u201d by reason of each of His two characters,\u2014to some fierce, as Judge; to others gentle, as Saviour; whose \u201chorns\u201d were to be the extremities of the cross. For even in a ship\u2019s yard\u2014which is part of a cross\u2014this is the name by which the extremities are called; while the central pole of the mast is a \u201cunicorn.\u201d By this power, in fact, of the cross, and in this manner horned, He does now, on the one hand, \u201ctoss\u201d universal nations through faith, wafting them away from earth to heaven; and will one day, on the other, \u201ctoss\u201d them through judgment, casting them down from heaven to earth.\nHe, again, will be the \u201cbull\u201d elsewhere too in the same scripture. 1332 When Jacob pronounced a blessing on Simeon and Levi, he prophesies of the scribes and Pharisees; for from them 1333 is derived their 1334 origin. For (his blessing) interprets spiritually thus: \u201cSimeon and Levi perfected iniquity out of their sect,\u201d 1335 \u2014whereby, to wit, they persecuted Christ: \u201cinto their counsel come not my soul! and upon their station rest not my heart! because in their indignation they slew men\u201d\u2014that is, prophets\u2014\u201cand in their concupiscence they hamstrung a bull!\u201d 1336 \u2014that is, Christ, whom\u2014after the slaughter of prophets\u2014they 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. 1337\nBut, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have comp. 166 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\u2014destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil\u2014the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? 1338 Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any \u201clikeness of anything,\u201d 1339 set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a \u201ctree,\u201d in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, 1340 they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord\u2019s cross on which the \u201cserpent\u201d the devil was \u201cmade a show of,\u201d 1341 and, for every one hurt by such snakes\u2014that is, his angels 1342 \u2014on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ\u2019s cross, salvation was outwrought? For he who then gazed upon that (cross) was freed from the bite of the serpents. 1343\nCome, now, if you have read in the utterance of the prophet in the Psalms, \u201cGod hath reigned from the tree,\u201d 1344 I wait to hear what you understand thereby; for fear you may perhaps think some carpenter-king 1345 is signified, and not Christ, who has reigned from that time onward when he overcame the death which ensued from His passion of \u201cthe tree.\u201d\nSimilarly, again, Isaiah says: \u201cFor a child is born to us, and to us is given a son.\u201d 1346 What novelty is that, unless he is speaking of the \u201cSon\u201d of God?\u2014and one is born to us the beginning of whose government has been made \u201con His shoulder.\u201d 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 \u201cKing of ages,\u201d Christ Jesus, alone reared \u201con His shoulder\u201d His own novel glory, and power, and sublimity,\u2014the cross, to wit; that, according to the former prophecy, the Lord thenceforth \u201cmight reign from the tree.\u201d For of this tree likewise it is that God hints, through Jeremiah, that you would say, \u201cCome, let us put wood 1347 into his bread, and let us wear him away out of the land of the living; and his name shall no more be remembered.\u201d 1348 Of course on His body that \u201cwood\u201d was put; 1349 for so Christ has revealed, calling His body \u201cbread,\u201d 1350 whose body the prophet in bygone days announced under the term \u201cbread.\u201d If you shall still seek for predictions of the Lord\u2019s 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. 1351 \u201cThey dug,\u201d He says, \u201cmy hands and feet\u201d 1352 \u2014which is the peculiar atrocity of the cross; and again when He implores the aid of the Father, \u201cSave me,\u201d He says, \u201cout of the mouth of the lion\u201d\u2014of course, of death\u2014\u201cand from the horn of the unicorns my humility,\u201d 1353 \u2014from 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.\nNow, if the hardness of your heart shall persist in rejecting and deriding all these interpretations, we will prove that it may suffice that the death of the Christ had been prophesied, in order that, from the fact that the nature of the death had not been specified, it may be understood to have been affected by means of the cross 1354 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 passion, and sepulture. \u201cBy the crimes,\u201d he says, \u201cof my people was He led unto death; and I will give the evil for His sepulture, and the rich for His death, because He did not wickedness, nor was guile found in his mouth; and God willed to redeem His soul from death,\u201d 1355 and so forth. He says again, moreover: \u201cHis sepulture hath been taken away from the midst.\u201d 1356 For neither was He buried except He were dead, nor was His sepulture removed from the midst except through His resurrection. Finally, he subjoins: \u201cTherefore He shall have many for an heritage, and of many shall He divide spoils:\u201d 1357 who else (shall so do) but He who p. 167 \u201cwas born,\u201d as we have above shown?\u2014\u201cin return for the fact that His soul was delivered unto death?\u201d For, the cause of the favour accorded Him being shown,\u2014in return, to wit, for the injury of a death which had to be recompensed,\u2014it is likewise shown that He, destined to attain these rewards because of death, was to attain them after death\u2014of course after resurrection. For that which happened at His passion, that mid-day grew dark, the prophet Amos announces, saying, \u201cAnd it shall be,\u201d he says, \u201cin 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 mourning.\u201d 1358 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 1359 to immolate at eventide a lamb, and were to eat 1360 this solemn sacrifice of this day (that is, of the passover of unleavened bread) with bitterness;\u201d and added that \u201cit was the passover of the Lord,\u201d 1361 that is, the passion of Christ. Which prediction was thus also fulfilled, that \u201con the first day of unleavened bread\u201d 1362 you slew Christ; 1363 and (that the prophecies might be fulfilled) the day hasted to make an \u201ceventide,\u201d\u2014that is, to cause darkness, which was made at mid-day; and thus \u201cyour festive days God converted into grief, and your canticles into lamentation.\u201d For after the passion of Christ there overtook you even captivity and dispersion, predicted before through the Holy Spirit.\nComp. Deut. xxi. 23 with Gal. iii. 13, with Prof. Lightfoot on the latter passage.\n164:1314\nDeut. 21:22, 23 (especially in the LXX.).\n165:1315\nSee 1 Pet. ii. 22 with Isa. liii. 9.\n165:1316\nOehler\u2019s pointing is disregarded.\n165:1317 165:1318\nPs. lxix. 4 (lxviii. 5 in LXX.).\n165:1319\nPs. xxii. 16 (xxi. 17 in LXX.).\n165:1320\nPs. lxix. 21 (lxviii. 5 in LXX.).\n165:1321\nPs. xxii. 18 (xxi. 19 in LXX.).\n165:1322\nSee Matt. 26:56, Matt. 27:34, 35, John 19:23, 24, 28, 32.\n165:1323 165:1324\nSee Rom. 9:32, 33, with Isa. 28:16, 1 Cor. 1:23, Gal. 5:11.\n165:1325\nLignum = \u03be\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd; constantly used for \u201ctree.\u201d\n165:1326\nComp. Gen. xxii. 1-10 with John xix. 17.\n165:1327\n\u201cChristum figuratus\u201d is Oehler\u2019s reading, after the two mss. and the Pamelian ed. of 1579; the rest read \u201cfigurans\u201d or \u201cfiguravit.\u201d\n165:1328\nManifested e.g., in his two dreams. See Gen. xxxvii.\n165:1329\nComp. Rom. ix. 5.\n165:1330 165:1331\nThis is an error. It is not \u201chis father,\u201d Jacob, but Moses, who thus blesses him. See Deut. xxxiii. 17. The same error occurs in adv. Marc. 1. iii. c. xxiii.\n165:1332\nNot strictly \u201cthe same;\u201d for here the reference is to Gen. xlix. 5-7.\n165:1333 165:1334\ni.e., the scribes and Pharisees.\n165:1335\nPerfecerunt iniquitatem ex sua secta. There seems to be a play on the word \u201csecta\u201d in connection with the outrage committed by Simeon and Levi, as recorded in Gen. xxxiv. 25-31; and for \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u1f10\u03be\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd (which is the reading of the LXX., ed. Tisch. 3, Lips. 1860), Tertullian\u2019s Latin seems to have read, \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u1f10\u03be \u03b1\u1f31\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd.\n165:1336\nSee Gen. xlix. 5-7 in LXX.; and comp. the margin of Eng. ver. on ver. 7, and Wordsworth in loc., who incorrectly renders \u03c4\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd an \u201cox\u201d here.\n165:1337\nWhat the sense of this is it is not easy to see. It appears to have puzzled Pam. and Rig. so effectually that they both, conjecturally and without authority, adopted the reading found in adv. Marc. l. iii. c. xviii. (from which book, as usual, the present passage is borrowed), only altering illis to ipsis.\n166:1338\nSee Ex. xvii. 8-16; and comp. Col. 2:14, 15.\n166:1339 166:1340\nTheir sin was \u201cspeaking against God and against Moses\u201d (Num. xxi. 4-9).\n166:1341\nComp. Col. 2:14, 15, as before; also Gen. iii. 1, etc.; 2 Cor. 11:3, Rev. 12:9.\n166:1342\nComp. 2 Cor. 11:14, 15, Matt. 25:41, Rev. 12:9.\n166:1343\nComp. de Idol. c. v.; adv. Marc. l. iii. c. xviii.\n166:1344\nA ligno. Oehler refers us to Ps. xcvi. 10 (xcv. 10 in LXX.); but the special words \u201ca ligno\u201d are wanting there, though the text is often quoted by the Fathers.\n166:1345\nLignarium aliquem regem. It is remarkable, in connection herewith, that our Lord is not only called by the Jews \u201cthe carpenter\u2019s son\u201d (Matt. 13:55, Luke 4:22), but \u201cthe carpenter\u201d (Mark vi. 3).\n166:1346\nSee Isa. ix. 6.\n166:1347 166:1348\nSee Jer. xi. 19 (in LXX.).\n166:1349\ni.e., when they laid on Him the crossbeam to carry. See John xix. 17.\n166:1350\nSee John vi. passim, and the various accounts of the institution of the Holy Supper.\n166:1351\nIt is Ps. xxii. in our Bibles, xxi. in LXX.\n166:1352\nPsa. 22.16 (17 in LXX.).\n166:1353\nPs. xxii. 21 (xxi. 22 in LXX., who render it as Tertullian does).\n166:1354\ni.e., perhaps, because of the extreme ignominy attaching to that death, which prevented its being expressly named.\n166:1355 166:1356\nIsa. lvii. 2 (in LXX.).\n166:1357\nIsa. liii. 12 (in LXX.). Comp., too, Bp. Lowth. Oehler\u2019s pointing again appears to be faulty.\n167:1358\nSee Amos 8:9, 10 (especially in the LXX.).\n167:1359\nOehler\u2019s \u201cesset\u201d appears to be a mistake for \u201cesse.\u201d\n167:1360\nThe change from singular to plural is due to the Latin, not to the translator.\n167:1361\nSee Ex. xii. 1-11.\n167:1362\nSee Matt. 26:17, Mark 14:12, Luke 22:7, John 18:28.\n167:1363\nComp. 1 Cor. v. 7.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part I: Concern...","type":"page"}