{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030380.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030380.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030380.htm","text":"Chapter VI.\u2014Community in Certain Points of Marcionite and Jewish Error. Prophecies of Christ\u2019s Rejection Examined.\nSince, therefore, there clearly exist these two characteristics in the Jewish prophetic literature, let the reader remember, 3157 whenever we adduce any evidence therefrom, that, by mutual consent, 3158 the point of discussion is not the form of the scripture, but the subject it is called in to prove. When, therefore, our heretics in their phrenzy presumed to say that that Christ was come who had never been fore-announced, it followed that, on their assumption, that Christ had not yet appeared who p. 325 had always been predicted; and thus they are obliged to make common cause with 3159 Jewish error, and construct their arguments with its assistance, on the pretence that the Jews were themselves quite certain that it was some other who came: so they not only rejected Him as a stranger, but slew Him as an enemy, although they would without doubt have acknowledged Him, and with all religious devotion followed Him, if He had only been one of themselves. Our shipmaster 3160 of course got his craft-wisdom not from the Rhodian law, 3161 but from the Pontic, 3162 which cautioned him against believing that the Jews had no right to sin against their Christ; whereas (even if nothing like their conduct had been predicted against them) human nature alone, liable to error as it is, might well have induced him to suppose that it was quite possible for the Jews to have committed such a sin, considered as men, without assuming any unfair prejudice regarding their feelings, whose sin was antecedently so credible. Since, however, it was actually foretold that they would not acknowledge Christ, and therefore would even put Him to death, it will therefore follow that He was both ignored 3163 and slain by them, who were beforehand pointed out as being about to commit such offences against Him. If you require a proof of this, instead of turning out those passages of Scripture which, while they declare Christ to be capable of suffering death, do thereby also affirm the possibility of His being rejected (for if He had not been rejected, He could not really suffer anything), but rather reserving them for the subject of His sufferings, I shall content myself at the present moment with adducing those which simply show that there was a probability of Christ\u2019s rejection. This is quickly done, since the passages indicate that the entire power of understanding was by the Creator taken from the people. \u201cI will take away,\u201d says He, \u201cthe wisdom of their wise men; and the understanding of their prudent men will I hide;\u201d 3164 and again: \u201cWith your ear ye shall hear, and not understand; and with your eyes ye shall see, but not perceive: for the heart of this people hath growth fat, and with their ears they hear heavily, and their eyes have they shut; lest they hear with their ears, and see with their eyes, and understand with the heart, and be converted, and I heal them.\u201d 3165 Now this blunting of their sound senses they had brought on themselves, loving God with their lips, but keeping far away from Him in their heart. Since, then, Christ was announced by the Creator, \u201cwho formeth the lightning, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man His Christ,\u201d as the prophet Joel says, 3166 since the entire hope of the Jews, not to say of the Gentiles too, was fixed on the manifestation of Christ,\u2014it was demonstrated that they, by their being deprived of those powers of knowledge and understanding\u2014wisdom and prudence, would fail to know and understand that which was predicted, even Christ; when the chief of their wise men should be in error respecting Him\u2014that is to say, their scribes and prudent ones, or Pharisees; and when the people, like them, should hear with their ears and not understand Christ while teaching them, and see with their eyes and not perceive Christ, although giving them signs. Similarly it is said elsewhere: \u201cWho is blind, but my servant? or deaf, but he who ruleth over them?\u201d 3167 Also when He upbraids them by the same Isaiah: \u201cI have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master\u2019s crib: but Israel doth not know; my people doth not consider.\u201d 3168 We indeed, who know for certain that Christ always spoke in the prophets, as the Spirit of the Creator (for so says the prophet: \u201cThe person of our Spirit, Christ the Lord,\u201d 3169 who from the beginning was both heard and seen as the Father\u2019s vicegerent in the name of God), are well aware that His words, when actually upbraiding Israel, were the same as those which it was foretold that He should denounce against him: \u201cYe have forsaken the Lord, and have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger.\u201d 3170 If, however, you would rather refer to God Himself, instead of to Christ, the whole imputation of Jewish ignorance from the first, through an unwillingness to allow that even anciently 3171 the Creator\u2019s word and Spirit\u2014that is to say, His Christ\u2014was despised and not acknowledged by them, you will even in this subterfuge be defeated. p. 326 For when you do not deny that the Creator\u2019s Son and Spirit and Substance is also His Christ, you must needs allow that those who have not acknowledged the Father have failed likewise to acknowledge the Son through the identity of their natural substance; 3172 for if in Its fulness It has baffled man\u2019s understanding, much more has a portion of It, especially when partaking of the fulness. 3173 Now, when these things are carefully considered, it becomes evident how the Jews both rejected Christ and slew Him; not because they regarded Him as a strange Christ, but because they did not acknowledge Him, although their own. For how could they have understood the strange One, concerning whom nothing had ever been announced, when they failed to understand Him about whom there had been a perpetual course of prophecy? That admits of being understood or being not understood, which, by possessing a substantial basis for prophecy, 3174 will also have a subject-matter 3175 for either knowledge or error; whilst that which lacks such matter admits not the issue of wisdom. So that it was not as if He belonged to another 3176 god that they conceived an aversion for Christ, and persecuted Him, but simply as a man whom they regarded as a wonder-working juggler, 3177 and an enemy 3178 in His doctrines. They brought Him therefore to trial as a mere man, and one of themselves too\u2014that is, a Jew (only a renegade and a destroyer of Judaism)\u2014and punished Him according to their law. If He had been a stranger, indeed, they would not have sat in judgment over Him. So far are they from appearing to have understood Him to be a strange Christ, that they did not even judge Him to be a stranger to their own human nature. 3179\nThe model of wise naval legislation, much of which found its way into the Roman pandects.\n325:3162\nSymbol of barbarism and ignorance\u2014a heavy joke against the once seafaring heretic.\n325:3163 325:3164 325:3165\nIsa. 6:9, 10. Quoted with some verbal differences.\n325:3166\nA supposed quotation of Amos iv. 13. See Oehler\u2019s marginal reference. If so, the reference to Joel is either a slip of Tertullian or a corruption of his text; more likely the former, for the best mss. insert Joel\u2019s name. Amos iv. 13, according to the LXX., runs, \u1fbd\u0391\u03c0\u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03ad\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6, which exactly suits Tertullian\u2019s quotation. Junius supports the reference to Joel, supposing that Tertullian has his ch. ii. 31 in view, as compared with Acts ii. 16-33. This is too harsh an interpretation. It is simpler and better to suppose that Tertullian really meant to quote the LXX. of the passage in Amos, but in mistake named Joel as his prophet.\n325:3167\nIsa. xlii. 19, altered.\n325:3168 325:3169\nThis seems to be a translation with a slight alteration of the LXX. version of Lam. iv. 20, \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u1fe6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u039a\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 .\n325:3170 325:3171 326:3172\nPer ejusdem substanti\u00e6 conditionem.\n326:3173\nHe seems here to allude to such statements of God\u2019s being as Col. ii. 9.\n326:3174 326:3175 326:3176\nAlterius, \u201cthe other,\u201d i.e., Marcion\u2019s rival God.\n326:3177\nPlanum in signis, cf. the Magnum in potestate of Apolog. 21.\n326:3178\n\u00c6mulum, \u201ca rival,\u201d i.e., to Moses.\n326:3179\nNec hominem ejus ut alienum judicaverunt, \u201cHis manhood they judged not to be different.\u201d","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: Commun...","type":"page"}