An Answer to the Jews

This “wood,” again, Isaac the son of Abraham personally carried for his own sacrifice, when God had enjoined that he should be made a victim to Himself. But, because these had been mysteries which were being kept for perfect fulfilment in the times of Christ, Isaac, on the one hand, with his “wood,” was reserved, the ram being offered which was caught by the horns in the bramble; Christ, on the other hand, in His times, carried His “wood” on His own shoulders, adhering to the horns of the cross, with a thorny crown encircling His head. For Him it behooved to be made a sacrifice on behalf of all Gentiles, who “was led as a sheep for a victim, and, like a lamb voiceless before his shearer, so opened not His mouth” (for He, when Pilate interrogated Him, spoke nothing); for “in humility His judgment was taken away: His nativity, moreover, who shall declare?” Because no one at all of human beings was conscious of the nativity of Christ at His conception, when as the Virgin Mary was found pregnant by the word of God; and because “His life was to be taken from the land.” Why, accordingly, after His resurrection from the dead, which was effected on the third day, did the heavens receive Him back? It was in accordance with a prophecy of Hosea, uttered on this wise: “Before daybreak shall they arise unto Me, saying, Let us go and return unto the Lord our God, because Himself will draw us out and free us. After a space of two days, on the third day” — which is His glorious resurrection— He received back into the heavens (whence withal the Spirit Himself had come to the Virgin) Him whose nativity and passion alike the Jews have failed to acknowledge. Therefore, since the Jews still contend that the Christ is not yet come, whom we have in so many ways approved to be come, let the Jews recognise their own fate—a fate which they were constantly foretold as destined to incur after the advent of the Christ, on account of the impiety with which they despised and slew Him. For first, from the day when, according to the saying of Isaiah, “a man cast forth his abominations of gold and silver, which they made to adore with vain and hurtful (rites),” — that is, ever since we Gentiles, with our breast doubly enlightened through Christ's truth, cast forth (let the Jews see it) our idols—what follows has likewise been fulfilled. For “the Lord of Sabaoth has taken away, among the Jews from Jerusalem,” among the other things named, “the wise architect” too, who builds the church, God's temple, and the holy city, and the house of the Lord. For thenceforth God's grace desisted (from working) among them. And “the clouds were commanded not to rain a shower upon the vineyard of Sorek,” — the clouds being celestial benefits, which were commanded not to be forthcoming to the house of Israel; for it “had borne thorns”— whereof that house of Israel had wrought a crown for Christ— and not “righteousness, but a clamour,”— the clamour whereby it had extorted His surrender to the cross. And thus, the former gifts of grace being withdrawn, “the law and the prophets were until John,” and the fishpool of Bethsaida until the advent of Christ: thereafter it ceased curatively to remove from Israel infirmities of health; since, as the result of their perseverance in their frenzy, the name of the Lord was through them blasphemed, as it is written: “On your account the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles:” for it is from them that the infamy (attached to that name) began, and (was propagated during) the interval from Tiberius to Vespasian. And because they had committed these crimes, and had failed to understand that Christ “was to be found” in “the time of their visitation,” their land has been made “desert, and their cities utterly burnt with fire, while strangers devour their region in their sight: the daughter of Sion is derelict, as a watchtower in a vineyard, or as a shed in a cucumber garden,”— ever since the time, to wit, when “Israel knew not” the Lord, and “the People understood Him not;” but rather “quite forsook, and provoked unto indignation, the Holy One of Israel.” So, again, we find a conditional threat of the sword: “If you shall have been unwilling, and shall not have been obedient, the glaive shall eat you up.” Whence we prove that the sword was Christ, by not hearing whom they perished; who, again, in the Psalm, demands of the Father their dispersion, saying, “Disperse them in Your power;” who, withal, again through Isaiah prays for their utter burning. “On My account,” He says, “have these things happened to you; in anxiety shall you sleep.”

Since, therefore, the Jews were predicted as destined to suffer these calamities on Christ's account, and we find that they have suffered them, and see them sent into dispersion and abiding in it, manifest it is that it is on Christ's account that these things have befallen the Jews, the sense of the Scriptures harmonizing with the issue of events and of the order of the times. Or else, if Christ is not yet come, on whose account they were predicted as destined thus to suffer, when He shall have come it follows that they will thus suffer. And where will then be a daughter of Sion to be derelict, who now has no existence? Where the cities to be exust, which are already exust and in heaps? Where the dispersion of a race which is now in exile? Restore to Judea the condition which Christ is to find; and (then, if you will), contend that some other (Christ) is coming.