The Treatises of Cyprian

In Genesis: “And the Lord God said unto Abraham, Go out from your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, and go into that land which I shall show you: and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name; and you shall be blessed: and I will bless him that blesses you, and I will curse him that curses you. and in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.” On this same point in Genesis: “And Isaac blessed Jacob. Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a plentiful field which the Lord has blessed: and God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fertility of the earth, abundance of grain, and wine, and oil: and peoples shall obey you, and princes shall worship you: and you shall be lord over your brother, and the sons of your father shall worship you; and he that curses you shall be cursed, and he that blesses you shall be blessed.” On this matter too in Genesis: “But when Joseph saw that his father placed his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it seemed displeasing to him: and Joseph laid hold of his father's hand, to lift it from the head of Ephraim on to the head of Manasseh. Moreover, Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: this is my first-born; place your right hand upon his head. But he would not, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: and he also shall be a people, and he shall be exalted; but his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.” Moreover in Genesis: “Judah, your brethren shall praise you: your hand shall be upon the back of your enemies; the sons of your father shall worship you. Judah is a lion's cub: from the slender twig, my son, you have ascended: you lied down and slept as a lion, and as a lion's cub. Who shall stir him up? There shall not fail a prince from Judah, and a leader from his loins, until those things entrusted to him shall come; and he is the hope of the nations: binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the branch of the vine; he shall wash his garments in wine, and his clothing in the blood of the grape: terrible are his eyes with wine, and his teeth are whiter than milky,” Hence in Numbers it is written concerning our people: “Behold, the people shall rise up as a lion-like people.” In Deuteronomy: “You Gentiles shall be for the head; but this unbelieving people shall be for the tail.” Also in Jeremiah: “Hear the sound of the trumpet. And they said, We will not hear: for this cause the nations shall hear, and they who shall feed their cattle among them.” In the seventeenth Psalm: “You shall establish me the head of the nations: a people whom I have not known have served me: at the hearing of the ear they have obeyed me.” Concerning this very thing the Lord says in Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you; and before you went forth from the womb, I sanctified you, and established you as a prophet among the nations.” Also in Isaiah: “Behold, I have manifested him for a witness to the nations, a prince and a commander to the peoples.” Also in the same: “Nations which have not known You shall call upon You; and peoples which were ignorant of You shall flee to You.” In the same, moreover: “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall rise to rule in all the nations; in Him shall the Gentiles hope: and His rest shall be honour.” In the same again: “The land of Zebulon, and the land of Nephtalim, by the way of the sea, and you others who inhabit the maritime places, and beyond Jordan of the nations. People that walk in darkness, behold yea great light; you who dwell in the region of the shadow of death, the light shall shine upon you.” Also in the same: “Thus says the Lord God to Christ my Lord, whose right hand I hold, that the nations may hear Him; and I will break asunder the strength of kings, I will open before Him gates; and cities shall not be shut.” Also in the same: “I come to gather together all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. And I will send out over them a standard, and I will send those that are preserved among them to the nations which are afar off, which have not heard my name nor seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory to the nations.” Also in the same: “And in all these things they are not converted; therefore He shall lift up a standard to the nations which are afar, and He will draw them from the end of the earth.” Also in the same: “Those who had not been told of Him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand.” Also in the same: “I have been made manifest to those who seek me not: I have been formal of those who asked not after me. I said, Lo, here am I, to a nation that has not called upon my! name.” Of this same thing, in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul says: “It was necessary that the word of God should first be shown to you; but since you put it from you, and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles: for thus said the Lord by the Scriptures, Behold, I have set You a light among the nations, that You should be for salvation even to the ends of the earth.”