You have heard the prophecy of His death, and now, perhaps, you want to know what indications there are about the cross. Even this is not passed over in silence: on the contrary, the sacred writers proclaim it with the utmost plainness.
Moses foretells it first, and that right loudly, when he says, "You shall see your Life hanging before your eyes, and shall not believe."
After him the prophets also give their witness, saying, "But I as an innocent lamb brought to be offered was yet ignorant of it. They plotted evil against Me, saying, 'Come, let us cast wood into His bread, and wipe Him out from the land of the living."
And, again, "They pierced My hands and My feet, they counted all My bones, they divided My garments for themselves and cast lots for My clothing."
Now a death lifted up and that takes place on wood can be none other than the death of the cross; moreover, it is only in that death that the hands and feet are pierced.
Since, through the Savior’s coming among human beings, all nations everywhere began to know God, the prophets did not leave this without mention either. The holy writings also speak of it: "There shall be the root of Jesse, and the One Who rises to rule the nations; in Him the nations shall hope." These few testimonies are sufficient as evidence of what has taken place.
Indeed, all Scripture is filled with refutations of Jewish unbelief. Which of the righteous people, holy prophets, or patriarchs recorded in the divine Scriptures ever received his bodily birth from a virgin alone? What woman, without a man, was sufficient for the generation of a human being? Was not Abel born from Adam, Enoch from Jared, Noah from Lamech, Abraham from Terah, Isaac from Abraham, and Jacob from Isaac? Were not Judah born from Jacob, and Moses and Aaron from Amram? Was not Samuel born from Elkanah, David from Jesse, Solomon from David, Hezekiah from Ahaz, Josiah from Amon, Isaiah from Amoz, Jeremiah from Hilkiah, and Ezekiel from Buzi? Did not each have a father as the source of his birth? Who, then, is the One born from a virgin alone? The prophet took great care to mark this sign.
Again, which of all those people had his birth announced to the world by a star in the heavens? When Moses was born his parents hid him. David was unknown even in his own neighborhood, so that mighty Samuel himself was ignorant of his existence and asked whether Jesse had yet another son. Abraham again became known to his neighbors as a great man only after his birth. But with Christ it was otherwise. The witness to His birth was not man, but a star shining in the heavens whence He was coming down.