An Answer to the Jews

Tertullian

1. Occasion of Writing. Relative Position of Jews and Gentiles Illustrated.
2. The Law Anterior to Moses.
3. Of Circumcision and the Supercession of the Old Law.
4. Of the Observance of the Sabbath.
5. Of Sacrifices.
6. Of the Abolition and the Abolisher of the Old Law.
7. The Question Whether Christ Be Come Taken Up.
8. Of the Times of Christ's Birth and Passion, and of Jerusalem's Destruction.
9. Of the Prophecies of the Birth and Achievements of Christ.
10. Concerning the Passion of Christ, and Its Old Testament Predictions and Adumbrations.
11. Further Proofs, from Ezekiel. Summary of the Prophetic Argument Thus Far.
12. Further Proofs from the Calling of the Gentiles.
13. Argument from the Destruction of Jerusalem and Desolation of Judea.
14. Conclusion. Clue to the Error of the Jews.

It happened very recently a dispute was held between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte. Alternately with contentious cable they each spun out the day until evening. By the opposing din, moreover, of some partisans of the individuals, truth began to be overcast by a sort of cloud. It was therefore our pleasure that that which, owing to the confused noise of disputation, could be less fully elucidated point by point, should be more carefully looked into, and that the pen should determine, for reading purposes, the questions handled.

For the occasion, indeed, of claiming Divine grace even for the Gentiles derived a pre-eminent fitness from this fact, that the man who set up to vindicate God's Law as his own was of the Gentiles, and not a Jew of the stock of the Israelites. [[Philippians 3.5]] For this fact — that Gentiles are admissible to God's Law — is enough to prevent Israel from priding himself on the notion that the Gentiles are accounted as a little drop of a bucket, or else as dust out of a threshing-floor: although we have God Himself as an adequate engager and faithful promiser, in that He promised to Abraham that in his seed should be blessed all nations of the earth; and that out of the womb of Rebecca two peoples and two nations were about to proceed, — of course those of the Jews, that is, of Israel; and of the Gentiles, that is ours. Each, then, was called a people and a nation; lest, from the nuncupative appellation, any should dare to claim for himself the privilege of grace. For God ordained two peoples and two nations as about to proceed out of the womb of one woman: nor did grace make distinction in the nuncupative appellation, but in the order of birth; to the effect that, which ever was to be prior in proceeding from the womb, should be subjected to the less, that is, the posterior. For thus unto Rebecca did God speak: Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be divided from your bowels; and people shall overcome people, and the greater shall serve the less. Accordingly, since the people or nation of the Jews is anterior in time, and greater through the grace of primary favour in the Law, whereas ours is understood to be less in the age of times, as having in the last era of the world attained the knowledge of divine mercy: beyond doubt, through the edict of the divine utterance, the prior and greater people — that is, the Jewish — must necessarily serve the less; and the less people — that is, the Christian— overcome the greater. For, withal, according to the memorial records of the divine Scriptures, the people of the Jews— that is, the more ancient — quite forsook God, and did degrading service to idols, and, abandoning the Divinity, was surrendered to images; while the people said to Aaron, Make us gods to go before us. And when the gold out of the necklaces of the women and the rings of the men had been wholly smelted by fire, and there had come forth a calf-like head, to this figment Israel with one consent (