Chuck, here's the fifth one for you to deny and pretend
you didn't see it, or respond to it, snipping and pretending
the words don't exist, both of which you did the last time
I posted the info from the "church fathers" that you claim
didn't exist, no matter how many times I posted it and
pretended that none of them said that Christ returned
already, so you could keep lying, claiming that my belief
is some new thing!
And btw Chucky Chuckles, we all know that you saw
all of these, so ignoring them won't help you! <chuckle>
Quintus Florens Tertullian: 145-220 A.D.
From his works, including: "Against Marcion",
"Exclusion of Heretics" and "An Answer to the Jews".
ON THE FULFILLMENT OF ZECHARIAH 14:4:
But at night He went out to the Mount of Olives.
For thus had Zechariah pointed out: 'And His feet
shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives'
[Zech. xiv. 4]. - Against Marcion, Book 4,
Chapter XL, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 3:417.
ON THE SEVENTY WEEKS OF DANIEL:
Let us see what is the meaning of the seven and
a half weeks... Vespasian vanquished the Jews
in the first year of his reign, bringing the number
of years to a total of fifty-two, plus six months.
For he ruled for eleven years, and so by the date
of their storming in Jerusalem, the Jews had
completed the seventy weeks predicted in Daniel.
- Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews
ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 70 A.D.:
Accordingly the times must be inquired into of the predicted
....nativity of the Christ, and of His passion, and of the
extermination of the city of Jerusalem, that is, its
devastation. For Daniel says, that 'both the holy city and
the holy place are exterminated together with the coming
Leader and that the pinnacle is destroyed unto ruin'.
And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader, must
be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and,
after computing them, SHALL PROVE HIM TO BE COME,
even on the ground of the times prescribed, and of
competent signs and operations of His. Which matters
we prove, again, on the ground of the consequences
which were ever announced as to follow His advent;
in order that we may believe all to have been as
WELL FULFILLED as foreseen.
Therefore, these times were also completed and the Jews
subdued, there afterwards ceased in that place "libations
and sacrifices", which thenceforward have not been able
to be in that place celebrated; for "the unction", too, was
exterminated in that place after the passion of the Christ.
For it had been predicted that "the unction" should be
exterminated in that place; as in the Psalms it is
prophesied; 'They pierced my hands and my feet'.
And this was perfected within the time of the seventy weeks.
ON THE TIMING OF JOHN'S BANISHMENT:
But if thou art near to Italy, thou hast Rome, where we
also have an authority close at hand. What an happy
Church is that, on which the Apostles poured out all their
doctrine, with their blood: where Peter had a like Passion
with the Lord; where Paul bath for his crown the same death
WITH JOHN; where the Apostle John was plunged into boiling
oil, and suffered nothing, and was afterwards banished to
an island. - Exclusion of Heretics 36
ON THE FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY:
Who is He that shall bestow 'the power of treading on
serpents and scorpions'? Shall it be He who is the Lord
of all living creatures or he who is not god over a single
lizard? Happily the Creator has promised by Isaiah to
give this power even to little children, of putting their
hand in the cockatrice den and on the hole of the young
asps without at all receiving hurt. And, indeed, we are
aware (without doing violence to the literal sense of the
passage, since even these noxious animals have actually
been unable to do hurt where there has been faith) that
under the figure of scorpions and serpents are ****tended
evil spirits, whose very prince is described by the name of
serpent, dragon, and every other most conspicuous beast
in the power of the Creator. This power the Creator
conferred first of all upon His Christ, even as the
ninetieth Psalm says to Him: 'Upon the asp and the basilisk
shall Thou tread; the lion and the dragon shall Thou trample
under foot'. So also Isaiah: 'In that day the Lord God
shall draw His sacred, great, and strong sword' (even
His Christ) 'against that dragon, that great and tortuous
serpent; and He shall slay him in that day'. But when
the same prophet says, 'The way shall be called a clean
and holy way; over it the unclean thing shall not pass,
nor shall be there any unclean way; but the dispersed
shall pass over it, and they shall not err therein; no lion
shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon;
it shall not be found there', he points out the way of
faith, by which we shall reach to God; and then to this
way of faith he promises this utter crippling and
subjugation of all noxious animals. Lastly, you may
discover the suitable times of the promise, if you read
what precedes the passage: 'Be strong, ye weak hands
and ye feeble knees: then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall
the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the
dumb shall be articulate'. When, therefore, He proclaimed
the benefits of His cures, then also did He put the
scorpions and the serpents under the feet of His saints,
even He who had first received this power from the Father,
in order to bestow it upon others and then manifested
it forth conformably to the order of prophecy.
- Against Marcion, 388, 389
ON THE DISPERSION OF THE JEWS AND THEIR
DESOLATE CONDITION FOR REJECTING CHRIST,
BEING FORETOLD:
Now, since you join the Jews in denying that their Christ
has come, recollect also what is that end which they were
predicted as about to bring on themselves after the time
of Christ, for the impiety wherewith they both rejected
and slew Him. For it began to come to pass from that day,
when, according to Isaiah, 'a man threw away his idols of
gold and of silver, which they made into useless and hurtful
objects of wor****p'. In other words, from the time when
he threw away his idols after the truth had been made clear
by Christ. Consider whether what follows in the prophet
has not received its fulfilment: 'The Lord of hosts hath
taken away from Judah and from Jerusalem, amongst
other things, both the prophet and the wise artificer';
that is, His Holy Spirit, who BUILDS THE CHURCH, WHICH
IS INDEED THE TEMPLE AND THE HOUSEHOLD AND CITY
OF GOD. For thenceforth God's grace failed amongst them
[the Jews]; and 'the clouds were commanded to rain no
rain upon the vineyard' of Sorech; to withhold, that is,
the graces of heaven, that they shed no blessing upon
'the house of [national] Israel', which had but produced
'the thorns' wherewith it had crowned the Lord, and
'instead of righteousness, the cry' wherewith it had hurried
Him away to the cross. And so in this manner the law and
the prophets were until John, but the clews of divine grace
were withdrawn from the nation [Israel]. After his time
their madness still continued, and the name of the Lord
was blasphemed by them, as saith the Scripture: 'Because
of you [the Jews] my name is continually blasphemed
amongst the nations' (for from them did the blasphemy
originate); neither in the interval from Tiberius to
Vespasian did they [the Jews] learn repentance.
Therefore 'has their land become desolate, their cities
are burnt with fire, their country strangers are devouring
before their own eyes; the daughter of Sion has been
deserted like a cottage in a vineyard, or a lodge in
a garden of cu***bers', ever since the time when
'[national] Israel acknowledged not the Lord, and
the people understood Him not, but forsook Him,
and provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger'.
So likewise that conditional threat of the sword,
'If ye refuse and hear me not, the sword shall
devour you', has proved that it was Christ, for rebellion
against whom they have perished. In the fifty-eighth
Psalm He demands of the Father their dispersion:
'Scatter them in Thy power'. By Isaiah He also says,
as He finishes a prophecy of their consumption by fire:
'Because of me has this happened to you; ye shall lie
down in sorrow'. But all this would be unmeaning enough,
if they suffered this retribution not on account of Him,
who had in prophecy assigned their suffering to His own
cause, but for the sake of the Christ of the other god.
Well, then, although you affirm that it is the Christ of the
other god who was driven to the cross by the powers and
authorities of the Creator, as it were by hostile beings,
still I have to say, See how manifestly He was defended
by the Creator: there were given to Him both "the wicked
for His burial," even those who had strenuously maintained
that (342)
His corpse had been stolen, 'and the rich for His death',
even those who had redeemed Him from the treachery
of Judas, as well as from the lying re****t of the soldiers
that His body had been taken away. Therefore these things
either did not happen to the Jews on His account, in which
case you will be refuted by the sense of the Scriptures
tallying with the issue of the facts and the order of the
times, or else they did happen on His account, and then
the Creator could not have inflicted the vengeance except
for His own Christ; nay, He must have rather had a reward
for Judas, if it had been his master's enemy whom they
put to death. At all events, if the Creator's Christ has
not come yet, on whose account the prophecy dooms them
to such sufferings, they will have to endure the sufferings
when He shall have come. Then where will there be a
daughter of Sion to be reduced to desolation, for there
is none now to be found? Where will there be cities to
be burnt with fire, for they are now in heaps? Where a
nation to be dispersed, which is already in banishment?
Restore to Judaea its former state, that the Creator's
Christ may find it, and then you may contend that another
Christ has come. But then, again, how is it that He can
have permitted to range through His own heaven one
whom He was some day to put to death on His own earth,
after the more noble and glorious region of His kingdom
had been violated, and His own very palace and sublimest
height had been trodden by him? Or was it only in
appearance rather that he did this? God is no doubt
a jealous God! Yet he gained the victory. You should
blush with shame, who put your faith in a vanquished god!
What have you to hope for from him, who was not strong
enough to protect himself? For it was either through his
infirmity that he was crushed by the powers and human
agents of the Creator, or else through maliciousness,
in order that he might fasten so great a stigma on them by
his endurance of their wickedness. - Against Marcion, Ch. 23
--
The Last Days were in the first century:
Matthew 3:7,10,12
7) But when He saw many of the Pharisees and
Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto
THEM, O GENERATION of vipers, who hath
warned YOU to flee from the wrath to come?
10) And NOW also the axe is laid unto the root
of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into
the fire.
12) Whose fan is in his hand, and he will
throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat
into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff
with unquenchable fire.
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