Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book II/Part 20

by Cyprian

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

1. Isa. lxv. 2. [So Justin, vol. i. pp. 179 and 206. But compare Isa. xxv. 11, a remarkable simile.]
2. Jer. xi. 19.
3. Deut. xxviii. 66.
4. [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.]
5. “Manu.”
6. Ps. xxii. 16–22.
7. Ps. cxix. 120.
8. Ps. cxli. 2.
9. Zeph. i. 7.
10. Zech. xii. 10.
11. Ps. lxxxviii. 9.
12. Num. xxiii. 19.
13. John iii. 14, 15.