Tertullian — An Answer to the Jews 10

Concerning the last step, plainly, of His passion you raise a doubt ; affirming that the passion of the cross was not predicted with reference to Christ , and urging, besides, that it is not credible that God should have exposed His own Son to that kind of death; because Himself said, Cursed is every one who shall have hung on a tree. But the reason of the case antecedently explains the sense of this malediction; for He says in Deuteronomy: If, moreover, (a man) shall have been (involved) in some sin incurring the judgment of death, and shall die, and you shall suspend him on a tree, his body shall not remain on the tree, but with burial you shall bury him on the very day; because cursed by God is every one who shall have been suspended on a tree; and you shall not defile the land which the Lord your God shall give you for (your) lot.

Therefore He did not maledictively adjudge Christ to this passion, but drew a distinction, that whoever, in any sin , had incurred the judgment of death, and died suspended on a tree, he should be cursed by God , because his own sins were the cause of his suspension on the tree.

On the other hand, Christ, who spoke not guile from His mouth, and who exhibited all righteousness and humility, not only (as we have above recorded it predicted of Him) was not exposed to that kind of death for his own deserts , but (was so exposed) in order that what was predicted by the prophets as destined to come upon Him through your means might be fulfilled; just as, in the Psalms , the Spirit Himself of Christ was already singing, saying, They were repaying me evil for good; Psalm 35:12 and What I had not seized I was then paying in full; Psalm 69:4 They exterminated my hands and feet; Psalm 22:16 and, They put into my drink gall, and in my thirst they slaked me with vinegar; Upon my vesture they did cast (the) lot; just as the other (outrages) which you were to commit on Him were foretold — all which He, actually and thoroughly suffering, suffered not for any evil action of His own, but that the Scriptures from the mouth of the prophets might be fulfilled.

And, of course, it had been meet that the mystery of the passion itself should be figuratively set forth in predictions; and the more incredible (that mystery ), the more likely to be a stumbling-stone, if it had been nakedly predicted; and the more magnificent, the more to be adumbrated , that the difficulty of its intelligence might seek (help from) the grace of God . Accordingly, to begin with, Isaac, when led by his father as a victim, and himself bearing his own wood, was even at that early period pointing to Christ's death; conceded, as He was, as a victim by the Father; carrying, as He did, the wood of His own passion.