Psalms 21:16

8. Inasmuch, then, as the Spirit of God pointed out by the prophets things to come, forming and adapting us beforehand for the purpose of our being made subject to God, but it was still a future thing that man, through the good pleasure of the Holy Spirit, should see [God], it necessarily behoved those through whose instrumentality future things were announced, to see God, whom they intimated as to be seen by men; in order that God, and the Son of God, and the Son, and the Father, should not only be prophetically announced, but that He should also be seen by all His members who are sanctified and instructed in the things of God, that man might be disciplined beforehand and previously exercised for a reception into that glory which shall afterwards be revealed in those who love God. …

12. Some of them, moreover, [when they predicted that] as a weak and inglorious man, and as one who knew what it was to bear infirmity, and sitting upon the foal of an ass, He should come to Jerusalem; and that He should give His back to stripes, and His cheeks to palms [which struck Him]; and that He should be led as a sheep to the slaughter; and that He should have vinegar and gall given Him to drink; and that He should be forsaken by His friends and those nearest to Him; and that He should stretch forth His hands the whole day long; and that He should be mocked and maligned by those who looked upon Him; and that His garments should be parted, and lots cast upon His raiment; and that He should be brought down to the dust of death with all [the other] things of a like nature, prophesied His coming in the character of a man as He entered Jerusalem, in which by His passion and crucifixion …

For when He was brought before Pilate, they proceeded to urge Him with the serious charge, of declaring Himself to be Christ the King ; that is, undoubtedly, as the Son of God, who was to sit at God’s right hand. They would, however, have burdened Him with some other title, if they had been uncertain whether He had called Himself the Son of God, if He had not pronounced the words, “Ye say that I am,” so as (to admit) that He was that which they said He was. Likewise, when Pirate asked Him, “Art thou Christ (the King)?” He answered, as He had before (to the Jewish council) “Thou sayest that I am” in order that He might not seem to have been driven by a fear of his power to give him a fuller answer. “And so the Lord hath stood on His trial.” And he placed His people on their trial. The Lord Himself comes to a trial with “the elders and rulers of the people,” as Isaiah predicted. …

Celsus has not explained how error accompanies the “becoming,” or product of generation; nor has he expressed himself with sufficient clearness to enable us to compare his ideas with ours, and to pass judgment on them. But the prophets, who have given some wise suggestions on the subject of things produced by generation, tell us that a sacrifice for sin was offered even for new-born infants, as not being free from sin. They say, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;” also, “They are estranged from the womb;” which is followed by the singular expression, “They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” Besides, our wise men have such a contempt for all sensible objects, that sometimes they speak of all material things as vanity: thus, “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that subjected the same in hope;” at o …

In Isaiah: “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed? We have declared in His presence as children, as a root in a thirsty ground. There is no form nor glory in Him; and we saw Him, and He had no form nor beauty; but His form was without honour, and lacking beyond other men. He was a man set in a plague, and knowing how to bear weakness; because His face was turned away, He was dishonoured, and was not accounted of. He bears our sins, and grieves for us; and we thought that He was in grief, and in wounding, and in affliction; but He was wounded for our transgressions, and He was weakened for our sins. The discipline of our peace was upon Him, and with His bruise we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray; man has gone out of his way. …

IX. Consider, he says, whether too the blessed John, when he says, “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it: and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them,” does not mean the parts which are given up by the elements for the reconstruction of each one? By the sea is meant the moist element; by hell, the air, derived from ἀειδές , because it is invisible, as was said by Origen; and by death, the earth, because those who die are laid in it; whence also it is called in the Psalms the “dust of death,” Christ saying that He is brought “into the dust of death.”

16. “My strength dried up as a potsherd” ( ver. 15 ). My strength dried up by My Passion; not as hay, but a potsherd, which is made stronger by fire. “And My tongue cleaved to My jaws.” And they, through whom I was soon to speak, kept My precepts in their hearts. “And Thou broughtest Me down to the dust of death.” And to the ungodly appointed to death, whom the wind casteth forth as dust from the face of the earth, Thou broughtest Me down.

5. What followeth? “Let them be turned away forthwith blushing, that say to me, Well, well” ( ver. 3 ). Two are the kinds of persecutors, revilers and flatterers. The tongue of the flatterer doth more persecute than the hand of the slayer: for this also the Scripture hath called a furnace. Truly when the Scripture was speaking of persecution, it said, “Like gold in a furnace it hath proved them” (speaking of Martyrs being slain), “and as the holocaust’s victim it hath received them.” Hear how even the tongue of flatterers is of such sort: “The proving,” he saith, “of silver and of gold is fire; but a man is proved by the tongue of men praising him.” That is fire, this also is fire: out of both thou oughtest to go forth safe. The censurer hath broken thee, thou hast been broken in the furnace like an earthen vessel. …

10. “Make me to hear in the morning Thy mercy, for in Thee have I hoped” ( ver. 8 ). Behold, I am in the night, yet “in Thee have I hoped,” until the iniquity of the night pass away. “For we have,” as Peter saith, “a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts.” “Morning” then he calleth the time after the end of the world, when we shall see what in this world we believe. But what here, until the morning come? For it is not enough to hope for the morning; we must do somewhat. Why do somewhat? God is to be sought with the hands in the night. What is, “with the hands”? By good works. …

28. That He descended into hell is also evidently foretold in the Psalms, where it is said, “Thou hast brought Me also into the dust of the death.” And again, “What profit is there in my blood, when I shall have descended into corruption?” And again, “I descended into the deep mire, where there is no bottom.” Moreover, John says, “Art Thou He that shall come (into hell, without doubt), or do we look for another?” Whence also Peter says that “Christ being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit which dwells in Him, descended to the spirits who were shut up in prison, who in the days of Noah believed not, to preach unto them;” where also what He did in hell is declared. …

3. That the Saviour then was buried, ye have heard distinctly in the preceding discourse, as Isaiah saith, His burial shall be in peace: for in His burial He made peace between heaven and earth, bringing sinners unto God: and, that the righteous is taken out of the way of unrighteousness : and, His burial shall be in peace : and, I will give the wicked for His burial . There is also the prophecy of Jacob saying in the Scriptures, He lay down and couched as a lion, and as a lion’s whelp : who shall rouse Him up? And the similar passage in Numbers, He couched, He lay down as a lion, and as a lion’s whelp. The Psalm also ye have often heard, which says, And Thou hast brought me down into the dust of death . Moreover we took note of the spot, when we quoted the words, Look unto the rock, which ye have hewn . …