Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Now, since along with the Jews you deny that their Christ has come, consider also the outcome they were foretold to meet after Christ, on account of the impiety by which they both despised and killed him. For from the very day when, according to Isaiah, man cast away his gold and silver abominations, which he had made for worshiping vain and harmful things—that is, from the moment when, the truth having been made clear through Christ, the human race cast away its idols—see whether what follows has been fulfilled to the letter: [2] For the Lord of Sabaoth took away from Judea and from Jerusalem, among other things, the prophet and the wise master-builder—that is, the Holy Spirit, who builds the church, which is the temple and house and city of God. For from that time on the grace of God ceased among them, and orders went out to the clouds that no shower should fall upon the vineyard of Sorech—that is, that heavenly blessings should no longer come upon the house of Israel. [3] For it had produced thorns—the very ones with which it crowned the Lord—and not justice, but the shout with which it wrung his crucifixion out of Pilate. And so, with the dew of the charisms withdrawn, the law and the prophets lasted only until John. Then, since with that same persistence of fury the Lord's name went on being blasphemed through them—as it is written, 'Because of you my name is blasphemed among the nations' (for the slander began with them)—and since through the whole span from Tiberius to Vespasian they had understood nothing of repentance, their land was made a desert, their cities burned, strangers devour their territory before their very eyes, the daughter of Zion is abandoned, left like a watchman's hut in a vineyard or a shed in a cucumber-patch—all from the moment Israel failed to recognize the Lord, and the people, lacking understanding, abandoned him and stirred the Holy One of Israel into indignation. [4] So too the conditional threat of the sword—'If you will not and will not hear me, the sword shall devour you'—proves that it was Christ whom, by not hearing, they perished for. He it is who in Psalm fifty-eight asks the Father for their dispersal: 'Scatter them in your might.' And again, pleading through Isaiah about their burning, he says: 'Because of me these things have happened to you; you shall lie down in anguish.' [5] Quite pointlessly, if they suffered these things not on account of him who had foretold they would suffer on his own account, but on account of the Christ of some other god. And yet you say, I note, that this other god's Christ was driven to the cross by the Creator's own powers and authorities, as though by rivals. But look—he is shown to be defended by the Creator: the worst men were doled out as the price for his burial, namely those who claimed his body had been stolen, and the wealthiest as the price for his death—those, that is, who bought the betrayal from Judas, and bought from the soldiers the false testimony that the corpse had been stolen. [6] So then: either none of this befell the Jews because of him—but you stand refuted, since the sense of the Scriptures agrees with the outcome of events and the order of the times—or, if they did happen on his account, the Creator could only have been avenging his own Christ, since he would rather have rewarded Judas if the Jews had really killed an enemy of their own lord. Certainly, if the Creator's Christ has not yet come—the one on whose account these sufferings are foretold—then they will suffer them when he does come. But where, then, is the daughter of Zion left to be abandoned, seeing she does not exist today at all? [7] Where are the cities left to be burned, when they already lie in ruins? Where is the nation's dispersion left to happen, when it has already been exiled? Give me back the state of Judea intact, for the Creator's Christ to find, and then argue that a different Christ came. Besides, what sense would it make for him to let in through his own heaven the very one he was going to have killed on his own earth—letting the nobler and more glorious region of his kingdom be violated, his own court and citadel trampled underfoot? Or did he actually want that? A jealous god, to be sure—yet he was beaten. Blush for shame, you who put your faith in a beaten god! What can you hope from one who could not even protect himself? Either he was overpowered through weakness by the Creator's powers and men, or through sheer malice, simply to fasten the guilt of that crime on them all the more firmly.
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