Anf-03 iv.ix.x Pg 29
Perfecerunt iniquitatem ex sua secta. There seems to be a play on the word “secta” in connection with the outrage committed by Simeon and Levi, as recorded in Gen. xxxiv. 25–31; and for συνετέλεσαν ἀδικίαν ἐξαιρέσεως αὐτῶν (which is the reading of the LXX., ed. Tisch. 3, Lips. 1860), Tertullian’s Latin seems to have read, συνετέλεσαν ἀδικίαν ἐξ αἱρέσεως αὐτῶν.
—whereby, to wit, they persecuted Christ: “into their counsel come not my soul! and upon their station rest not my heart! because in their indignation they slew men”—that is, prophets—“and in their concupiscence they hamstrung a bull!”1336 1336
Anf-03 iv.ix.x Pg 26
Not strictly “the same;” for here the reference is to Gen. xlix. 5–7.
When Jacob pronounced a blessing on Simeon and Levi, he prophesies of the scribes and Pharisees; for from them1333 1333 i.e., Simeon and Levi.
is derived their1334 1334 i.e., the scribes and Pharisees.
origin. For (his blessing) interprets spiritually thus: “Simeon and Levi perfected iniquity out of their sect,”1335 1335
Anf-03 iv.ix.x Pg 30
See Gen. xlix. 5–7 in LXX.; and comp. the margin of Eng. ver. on ver. 7, and Wordsworth in loc., who incorrectly renders ταῦρον an “ox” here.
—that is, Christ, whom—after the slaughter of prophets—they slew, and exhausted their savagery by transfixing His sinews with nails. Else it is idle if, after the murder already committed by them, he upbraids others, and not them, with butchery.1337 1337 What the sense of this is it is not easy to see. It appears to have puzzled Pam. and Rig. so effectually that they both, conjecturally and without authority, adopted the reading found in adv. Marc. l. iii. c. xviii. (from which book, as usual, the present passage is borrowed), only altering illis to ipsis.
