Tertullian, Against Marcion 13

You let the sound of names push you around just the same. You treat the virtue of Damascus, the spoils of Samaria, and the king of the Assyrians as if they marked Christ the Creator as a warrior, without noticing what Scripture says up front: before the child knows enough to call father and mother, he will take the virtue of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians (Isaiah 7:14). You have to check the age first, to see whether he can even present Christ as a man, let alone as an emperor. The infant is not going to be summoned to arms by a cry; the signals of war come from a trumpet, not a rattle; and he does not pick out the enemy from the neck or back of his nurse or carrier, but from a horse, a chariot, or a wall — and so he would subdue Damascus and Samaria for his milk. It would be different if, among the Pontic barbarians, infants charged into battle — anointed with oil first, then armed with swaddling bands and paid in butter — who know how to thrust a lance before they know how to tear meat. Since nature nowhere allows anyone to wage war before becoming a man, or to take the virtue of Damascus before knowing the words father and mother, the prophetic statement must be figurative. But a virgin, he says, does not give birth by nature, and yet the prophet is believed — and rightly so. He has grounded faith by supplying a reason for the incredible thing that was to be a sign: therefore, he says, the Lord will give you a sign: behold, a virgin will conceive in her womb and bear a son (Isaiah 7:14). A sign from God, unless it is some new and monstrous thing, would not be a sign at all. Finally, when the Jews dare to lie to us, claiming Scripture speaks of a young woman, not a virgin, conceiving and bearing, they are refuted by this: nothing of a sign can be seen in an ordinary thing, namely a young woman's pregnancy and childbirth. So a virgin mother, arranged as a sign, is rightly believed; an infant warrior is not equally so, for there is no sign-reason here. But with the sign of a new birth recorded, the infant's career is announced next: he will eat butter and honey — not as a sign, since that belongs to infancy anyway — but he will take the virtue of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians. Keep the measure of age and seek the sense of the prophecy; rather, restore to the gospel of truth what you stole from the later text, and the prophecy is understood exactly as it is announced and repeated (Isaiah 7:14). The eastern magi remain, honoring Christ's recent infancy with gold and frankincense (Matthew 2:11); and the infant took the virtue of Damascus without battle or arms. For besides what everyone knows — that the virtue of the East, that is, its power and strength, is accustomed to abound in gold and fragrances — it is certainly the Creator's virtue to constitute the gold of other nations as well, just as through Zechariah: Judah will offer at Jerusalem and gather all the wealth of the surrounding peoples, gold and silver (Zechariah 14:14). And concerning that gift of gold, David says: it will be given to him from the gold of Arabia, and again: the kings of Arabia and Sheba will offer gifts to him (Psalm 72:15). The East and Damascus were practically reckoned as part of Arabia before it was transferred to Syrophoenicia, distinguished from the Syrians, whose virtue Christ took by taking their insignia, namely gold and fragrances. But the spoils of Samaria are the magi themselves, who, having recognized him and honored him with gifts and worshiped him as God and king under the testimony of the star and its leader, became the spoils of Samaria — that is, of idolatry — believing in Christ. He has branded idolatry with the name Samaria, because it was ignominious for idolatry, by which it had departed from God under King Jeroboam. Nor is it new for the Creator to use figurative language by translating names from a comparison of crimes. He also calls the rulers of Sodom the rulers of Judah and the people themselves the people of Gomorrah; and elsewhere: your father is an Amorite and your mother a Hittite, because of similar impiety, though he had once called them his own sons: I have begotten and exalted sons. So Egypt is sometimes understood as the whole world, in the record of superstition and curse. And Babylon in our John is a figure of the Roman city — great, proud in its kingdom, and a persecutor of God's saints. Therefore the magi are also titled by the name Samaritans, despoiled of what they shared with the Samaritans, as we said, idolatry. But against the king of the Assyrians, understand Herod, whom the magi certainly opposed at that time by not renouncing Christ, whom he was seeking to intercept.