Quintus *Septimius* Florens Tertullianus
(160-220)
From His Works, Including Against Marcion,
Exclusion of Heretics,
An Answer to the Jews
(On the Significance of A.D. 70)
CHAP. VIII.--OF THE TIMES OF CHRIST'S BIRTH AND
PASSION,
AND OF JERUSALEM'S DESTRUCTION.
"Accordingly the times must be inquired into of
the predicted and future nativity of the Christ, and of His passion, and
of the extermination of the city of Jerusalem, that is, its devastation.
For Daniel says, that "both the holy city and the holy place are
exterminated together with the coming Leader, and that the pinnacle is
destroyed unto ruin."(7) And so the times of the coming Christ, the
Leader,(8) must be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and,
after computing them, shall prove Him to be come, even on the ground of
the times prescribed, and of competent signs and operations of His.
Which matters we prove, again, on the ground of
the consequences which were ever announced as to follow His advent; in
order that we may believe all to have been as well fulfilled as foreseen.
"Therefore, when these times also were completed,
and the Jews subdued, there afterwards ceased in that place "libations and
sacrifices," which thenceforward have not been able to be in that place
celebrated; for "the unction," too,(6) was "exterminated" in that place
after the passion of Christ.
For it had been predicted that the unction should
be exterminated in that place; as in the Psalms it is prophesied, "They
exterminated my hands and feet."(7) And the suffering of this
"extermination" was perfected within the times of the lxx (70 Weeks),
under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulate of Rubellius Geminus and Fufius
Geminus, in the month of March, at the times of the passover, on the
eighth day before the calends of April,(8) on the first day of unleavened
bread, on which they slew the lamb at even, just as had been enjoined by
Moses.(9) Accordingly, all the synagogue of Israel did slay Him, saying to
Pilate, when he was desirous to dismiss Him, "His blood be upon us, and
upon our children;"(10) and, "If thou dismiss him, thou art not a friend
of Caesar;"(11) in order that all things might be fulfilled which had been
written of Him.(12)" (Against the Jews, Ch.8)
On the timing of John's banishment "But if
thou art near to Italy, thou hast Rome, where we also have an authority
close at hand. What an happy Church is that! on which the Apostles poured
out all their doctrine, with their blood: where Peter had a like Passion
with the Lord; where Paul bath for his crown the same death with John;
where the Apostle John was plunged into boiling oil, and suffered nothing,
and was afterwards banished to an island." (Exclusion of Heretics
36.)
CHAP. XXIII.--THE DISPERSION OF THE JEWS, AND
THEIR DESOLATE CONDITION FOR REJECTING CHRIST, FORETOLD. "Now, since
you join the Jews in denying that their Christ has come, recollect also
what is that end which they were predicted as about to bring on themselves
after the time of Christ, for the impiety wherewith they both rejected and
slew Him.
For it began to come to pass from that day, when,
according to Isaiah, "a man threw away his idols of gold and of silver,
which they made into useless and hurtful objects of worship;" in other
words, from the time when he threw away his idols after the truth had been
made clear by Christ. Consider whether what follows in the prophet has not
received its fulfilment: "The Lord of hosts hath taken away from Judah and
from Jerusalem, amongst other things, both the prophet and the wise
artificer;" that is, His Holy Spirit, who builds the church, which is
indeed the temple, and household and city of God.
For thenceforth God's grace failed amongst them;
and "the clouds were commanded to rain no rain upon the vineyard" of
Sorech; to withhold, that is, the graces of heaven, that they shed no
blessing upon "the house of Israel," which had but produced "the thorns"
wherewith it had crowned the Lord, and "instead of righteousness, the cry"
wherewith it had hurried Him away to the cross. And so in this manner the
law and the prophets were until John, but the clews of divine grace were
withdrawn from the nation.
After his time their madness still continued, and
the name of the Lord was blasphemed by them, as saith the Scripture:
"Because of you my name is continually blasphemed amongst the nations"
(for from them did the blasphemy originate); neither in the interval from
Tiberius to Vespasian did they learn repentance.
Therefore "has their land become desolate, their
cities are burnt with fire, their country strangers are devouring before
their own eyes; the daughter of Sion has been deserted like a cottage in a
vineyard, or a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," ever since the time when
"Israel acknowledged not the Lord, and the people understood Him not, but
forsook Him, and provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger."
So likewise that conditional threat of the sword,
"If ye refuse and hear me not, the sword shall devour you," has proved
that it was Christ, for rebellion against whom they have perished. In the
fifty-eighth Psalm He demands of the Father their dispersion: "Scatter
them in Thy power." By Isaiah He also says, as He finishes a prophecy of
their consumption by fire:
"Because of me has this happened to you; ye shall
lie down in sorrow." But all this would be unmeaning enough, if they
suffered this retribution not on account of Him, who had in prophecy
assigned their suffering to His own cause, but for the sake of the Christ
of the other god.
Well, then, although you affirm that it is the
Christ of the other god who was driven to the cross by the powers and
authorities of the Creator, as it were by hostile beings, still I have to
say, See how manifestly He was defended by the Creator: there were given
to Him both "the wicked for His burial," even those who had strenuously
maintained that 342
His corpse had been stolen, "and the rich for His
death," even those who had redeemed Him from the treachery of Judas, as
well as from the lying report of the soldiers that His body had been taken
away. Therefore these things either did not happen to the Jews on His
account, in which case you will be refuted by the sense of the Scriptures
tallying with the issue of the facts and the order of the times, or else
they did happen on His account, and then the Creator could not have
inflicted the vengeance except for His own Christ; nay, He must have
rather had a reward for Judas, if it had been his master's enemy whom they
put to death.
At all events, if the Creator's Christ has not
come yet, on whose account the prophecy dooms them to such sufferings,
they will have to endure the sufferings when He shall have come. Then
where will there be a daughter of Sion to be reduced to desolation, for
there is none now to be found? Where will there be cities to be burnt with
fire, for they are now in heaps? Where a nation to be dispersed, which is
already in banishment? Restore to Judaea its former state, that the
Creator's Christ may find it, and then you may contend that another Christ
has come.
But then, again, how is it that He can have
permitted to range through His own heaven one whom He was some day to put
to death on His own earth, after the more noble and glorious region of His
kingdom had been violated, and His own very palace and sublimest height
had been trodden by him?
Or was it only in appearance rather that he did
this? God is no doubt a jealous God! Yet he gained the victory. You should
blush with shame, who put your faith in a vanquished god! What have you to
hope for from him, who was not strong enough to protect himself? For it
was either through his infirmity that he was crushed by the powers and
human agents of the Creator, or else through maliciousness, in order that
he might fasten so great a stigma on them by his endurance of their
wickedness. (Against Marcion, Ch. 23)
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