▾
Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews
⎗←→⎘
▾
Chapter II.—The Law Anterior to Moses.
Chapter III.—Of Circumcision and the Supercession of the Old Law.
Chapter IV.—Of the Observance of the Sabbath.
Chapter VI.—Of the Abolition and the Abolisher of the Old Law.
Chapter VII.—The Question Whether Christ Be Come Taken Up.
Chapter VIII.—Of the Times of Christ’s Birth and Passion, and of Jerusalem’s Destruction.
Chapter IX.—Of the Prophecies of the Birth and Achievements of Christ.
Chapter X.—Concerning the Passion of Christ, and Its Old Testament Predictions and Adumbrations.
Chapter XI.—Further Proofs, from Ezekiel. Summary of the Prophetic Argument Thus Far.
Chapter XII.—Further Proofs from the Calling of the Gentiles.
Chapter XIII.—Argument from the Destruction of Jerusalem and Desolation of Judea.
Chapter XII.—Further Proofs from the Calling of the Gentiles.
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 prophesied, 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 the bounds of the earth.”254 Ps. ii. 7, 8. 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 covenant255 Dispositionem; Gr. διαθήκην. 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”256 Isa. xlii. 6, 7, comp. lxi. 1; Luke iv. 14–18.—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.257 Comp. Luke ii. 25–33.
CAPUT XII.
Adspice universas nationes, de voragine erroris humani exinde emergentes ad Dominum Deum creatorem 0633A et ad Deum Christum ejus; et si audes, nega prophetam. Statim tibi promissio patris occurrit in Psalmis dicens: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te. Pete a me, et dabo tibi gentes haereditatem tuam, et possessionem tuam terminos terrae (Psal. II, 7, 8). Nec poteris eum magis David filium dicere, quam Christum; aut terminos terrae David potius promissos, qui intra unicam Judaeam regnavit, quam Christo, qui totum jam orbem Evangelii sui fide cepit, sicut per Esaiam dicit: Ecce dedi te in dispositionem generis mei in lucem gentium, aperire oculos caecorum, utique errantium, exsolvere de vinculis vinctos, id est de delictis liberare: et de domo carceris, id est mortis, sedentes in tenebris (Is., XLII, 6, 7), ignorantiae scilicet. Quae si per Christum 0633B eveniunt, non in alium erunt prophetata, quam per quem expuncta consideramus.