Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] It is enough for the present to have run through the course of Christ on these points thus far, so that one so attested in the manner in which he was announced need be taken as none other than the one who was so announced — so that now, from this consonance between his facts and the Creator's scriptures, faith may be restored even to those matters which the prejudice of the greater part twists into different meanings, or calls into doubt, or denies outright. I now build further, adding also those parallel texts from the Creator's scriptures which foretold things to come after Christ. [2] For the arrangement would not be found erased, if the one after whom it was due to happen had not come. Look at all the nations emerging from the whirlpool of human error to the God the Creator, to the God Christ — and, if you dare, deny that this was prophesied. [3] But at once the Father's promise in the Psalms confronts you: 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you; ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.' You cannot claim these 'ends of the earth' for David's son any more than for Christ — nor can you claim they were pledged instead to David, sovereign merely over the one nation of the Jews, rather than to Christ, who has already seized the whole world by the faith of his gospel. [4] So too through Isaiah: 'Behold, I have given you for the covenant of the race, for a light of the nations, to open the eyes of those without sight' — that is, of those in error — 'to loose the bound from their chains' — that is, to free them from their sins — 'and from the prison-house' — that is, from death — 'those sitting in darkness,' namely of ignorance. [5] If these things come to pass through Christ, they cannot have been prophesied of anyone but the one through whom they come to pass. Again elsewhere: 'Behold, I have appointed him as a witness to the nations, a leader and commander of nations; nations that do not know you shall call upon you, and peoples shall flee to you.' You cannot interpret this of David, since it goes on to say, 'And I will ordain for you an everlasting covenant, the sure mercies of David.' [6] But rather you ought to understand Christ here — reckoned from David by fleshly descent, on account of the census of the Virgin Mary. For it is of this promise that the psalm swears to David: 'Of the fruit of your womb I will set one upon your throne.' Whose womb is this? David's own? Certainly not — David was not about to give birth. [7] Nor his wife's either. For it would not have said, 'of the fruit of your womb,' but rather 'of the fruit of your wife's womb.' By naming the womb as his own, it remains that it points to someone of his line whose flesh — the flesh of Christ, which blossomed from Mary's womb — was to be the fruit of that womb. And so it named only the fruit of the womb, as belonging to the womb properly, as it were of the womb alone, not also of the man, and referred that very womb back to David, as the founding father of the line and household. [8] For since it could not reckon a virgin's womb to a husband, it reckoned it to the father instead. So then, the new order found in Christ today is the very one which the Creator was then promising, calling it the sure mercies of David — things that belonged to Christ, because Christ is of David: indeed, that flesh itself will be his sure and faithful mercy toward David, now made holy by religion and faithful through the resurrection. For the prophet Nathan too, in the first Book of Kings, makes the promise to David concerning his seed, which, he says, shall be 'from his own belly.' If you were to explain this plainly of Solomon, you would provoke me to laughter — for it would seem that David gave birth to Solomon! Or is Christ signified here too, the seed of David from that womb which was of David — that is, of Mary? [9] For it is Christ, rather, who was to build the house of God — a holy man, that is, in whom the Spirit of God should dwell as in a better temple — and it is Christ, rather, who ought to be reckoned Son of God, more than Solomon the son of David. Finally, the throne forever and the kingdom forever fit Christ better than Solomon, who was after all only a temporal king. And God's mercy never departed from Christ, whereas upon Solomon God's wrath came, after his luxury and idolatry. [10] For God raised up against him an Edomite enemy. Since, then, none of these things fits Solomon but rather Christ, our interpretations stand on sure ground — confirmed even by the very outcome of the events which appear to have been foretold of Christ. And so in him will be fulfilled the 'holy and faithful mercies of David.' God set this one as a testimony to the nations, not David; a leader and commander of nations, not David, who commanded Israel alone. It is Christ whom the nations invoke today, who did not know him before; it is to Christ that the peoples flee today, whom formerly they did not know. What you see happening cannot still be called something yet to come.
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