Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book II/Part 20
20. That the Jews would fasten Christ to the cross.
In Isaiah: “I have spread out my hands all day to a people disobedient and contradicting me, who walk in ways that are not good, but after their own sins.”[1] Also in Jeremiah: “Come, let us cast the tree into His bread, and let us blot out His life from the earth.”[2] Also in Deuteronomy: “And Thy life shall be hanging (in doubt) before Thine eyes; and Thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt not trust to Thy life.”[3] Also in the twenty-first Psalm: “They tore my hands and my feet;[4] they numbered all my bones. And they gazed upon me, and saw me, and divided my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast a lot. But Thou, O Lord, remove not Thy help far from me; attend unto my help. Deliver my soul from the sword, and my only one from the paw[5] of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare Thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the Church I will praise Thee.”[6] Also in the cxviiith Psalm: “Pierce my flesh with nails through fear of Thee.”[7] Also in the cxlth Psalm: “The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice.”[8] Of which sacrifice Sophonias said: “Fear from the presence of the Lord God, since His day is near, because the Lord hath prepared His sacrifice, He hath sanctified His elect.”[9] Also in Zechariah: “And they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced.”[10] Also in the eighty-seventh Psalm: “I have called unto Thee, O Lord, the whole day; I have stretched out my hands unto Thee.”[11] Also in Numbers: “Not as a man is God suspended, nor as the son of man does He suffer threats.”[12] Whence in the Gospel the Lord says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in the Son may have life eternal.”[13]
Footnotes
edit- ↑ Isa. lxv. 2. [So Justin, vol. i. pp. 179 and 206. But compare Isa. xxv. 11, a remarkable simile.]
- ↑ Jer. xi. 19.
- ↑ Deut. xxviii. 66.
- ↑ [This is one of the passages corrupted by the Jews since the crucifixion. See Pearson, On the Creed, p. 534. All his notes on “crucified” are most precious.]
- ↑ “Manu.”
- ↑ Ps. xxii. 16–22.
- ↑ Ps. cxix. 120.
- ↑ Ps. cxli. 2.
- ↑ Zeph. i. 7.
- ↑ Zech. xii. 10.
- ↑ Ps. lxxxviii. 9.
- ↑ Num. xxiii. 19.
- ↑ John iii. 14, 15.