An Answer to the Jews — Chapter 3

1

See Gen. xii.–xv. compared with xvii. and Rom. iv.

2

Acceperat. So Tertullian renders, as it appears to me, the ἔλαβε of St. Paul in Rom. iv. 11. q. v.

3

There is, if the text be genuine, some confusion here. Melchizedek does not appear to have been, in any sense, “subsequent” to Abraham, for he probably was senior to him; and, moreover, Abraham does not appear to have been “already circumcised” carnally when Melchizedek met him. Comp. Gen. xiv. with Gen. xvii.

4

Tertullian writes Seffora; the LXX. in loco, Σεπφώρα Ex. iv. 24–26, where the Eng. ver. says, “the Lord met him,” etc.; the LXX ἄγγελος Κυρίου.

5

Isa. i. 7, 8. See c. xiii. sub fin.

6

Again an error; for these words precede the others. These are found in Isa. i. 2.

7

Isa. i. 15.

8

Isa. i. 4.

9

Jer. iv. 3, 4. In Eng. ver., “break up your fallow ground;” but comp. de Pu. c. vi. ad init.

10

So Tertullian. In Jer. ibid. “Israel and…Judah.”

11

Jer. xxxi. 31, 32 (in LXX. ibid. xxxviii. 31, 32); comp. Heb. viii. 8–13.

12

Isa. ii. 2, 3.

13

Perhaps an allusion to Phil. iii. 1, 2.

14

See Dan. ii. 34, 35, 44, 45. See c. xiv. below.

15

Isa. ii. 3, 4.

16

i.e., of beating swords into ploughs, etc.

17

Comp. Ex. xxi. 24, 25; Lev. xxiv. 17–22; Deut. xix. 11–21; Matt. v. 38.

18

Especially spiritually. Comp. 1 Cor. iii. 6–9; ix. 9, 10, and similar passages.

19

Obsequia. See de Pa. c. iv. note 1.

20

See Ps. xviii. 43, 44 (xvii. 44, 45 in LXX.), where the Eng. ver. has the future; the LXX., like Tertullian, the past. Comp. 2 Sam. (in LXX. 2 Kings) xxii. 44, 45, and Rom. x. 14–17.

21

Comp. Isa. i. 2 as above, and Acts xiii. 17.

22

Sæculi.

23

Or, perhaps, “not affected, as a body, with human sufferings;” in allusion to such passages as Deut. viii. 4; xxix. 5; Neh. ix. 21.

24

Ps. lxxviii. (lxxvii. in LXX.) 25; comp. John vi. 31, 32.

25

See Hos. i. 10; 1 Pet. ii. 10.

Chapter 3

Chapter III.—Of Circumcision and the Supercession of the Old Law.

Notes