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| The Question Whether Christ Be Come Taken Up.
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Chapter VII.—The Question Whether Christ Be Come Taken
Up.
Therefore upon this issue plant we foot to foot,
whether the Christ who was constantly announced as to come be already
come, or whether His coming be yet a subject of hope. For proof of
which question itself, the times likewise must be examined by us when
the prophets announced that the Christ would come; that, if we succeed
in recognising that He has come within the limits of those times, we
may without doubt believe Him to be the very one whose future coming
was ever the theme of prophetic song, upon whom we—the
nations, to wit—were ever announced as destined to believe; and
that, when it shall have been agreed that He is come, we may
undoubtedly likewise believe that the new law has by Him been given,
and not disavow the new testament in Him and through Him drawn up for
us. For that Christ was to come we know that even the Jews do not
attempt to disprove, inasmuch as it is to His advent that they are
directing their hope. Nor need we inquire at more length
concerning that matter, since in days bygone all the prophets
have prophesied of it; as Isaiah: “Thus saith the Lord God to my
Christ (the) Lord,1218
| 1218 The reference is to
Isa. xlv. 1. A glance at the LXX. will at once
explain the difference between the reading of our author and the
genuine reading. One letter—an “ι”—makes all the difference. For
Κύρῳ has been
read Κυρίῳ. In the Eng. ver.
we read “His Anointed.” | whose right hand I
have holden, that the nations may hear Him: the powers of kings will I
burst asunder; I will open before Him the gates, and the cities shall
not be closed to Him.” Which very thing we see fulfilled. For
whose right hand does God the Father hold but Christ’s, His
Son?—whom all nations have heard, that is, whom all nations have
believed,—whose preachers, withal, the apostles, are pointed to
in the Psalms of David: “Into the universal earth,” says
he, “is gone out their sound, and unto the ends of the earth
their words.”1219
| 1219 Ps.
xix. 4 (xviii. 5. in LXX.) and Rom. x. 18. | For upon whom else
have the universal nations believed, but upon the Christ who is already
come? For whom have the nations believed,—Parthians, Medes,
Elamites, and they who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia,
Cappadocia, and they who dwell in Pontus, and Asia, and Pamphylia,
tarriers in Egypt, and inhabiters of the region of Africa which is
beyond Cyrene, Romans and sojourners, yes, and in Jerusalem
Jews,1220
and all other nations; as, for instance, by
this time, the varied races of the Gætulians, and manifold
confines of the Moors, all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse
nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons—inaccessible
to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ, and of the Sarmatians, and
Dacians, and Germans, and Scythians, and of many remote nations, and of
provinces and islands many, to us unknown, and which we can scarce
enumerate? In all which places the name of the Christ who is already
come reigns, as of Him before whom the gates of all cities have been
opened, and to whom none are closed, before whom iron bars have been
crumbled, and brazen gates1221
opened. Although
there be withal a spiritual sense to be affixed to these
expressions,—that the hearts of individuals, blockaded in various
ways by the devil, are unbarred by the faith of Christ,—still
they have been evidently fulfilled, inasmuch as in all these places
dwells the “people” of the Name of Christ. For who
could have reigned over all nations but Christ,
God’s Son, who was ever announced as destined to reign over all
to eternity? For if Solomon “reigned,” why, it was within
the confines of Judea merely: “from Beersheba unto
Dan” the boundaries of his kingdom are marked.1222
| 1222 See 1 Kings iv. 25. (In the LXX. it is 3 Kings iv. 25; but
the verse is omitted in Tischendorf’s text, ed. Lips. 1860,
though given in his footnotes there.) The statement in the text differs
slightly from Oehler’s reading; where I suspect there is a
transposition of a syllable, and that for “in finibus
Judæ tantum, a Bersabeæ,” we ought
to read “in finibus Judææ tantum, a
Bersabe.” See de Jej. c. ix. | If, moreover, Darius “reigned”
over the Babylonians and Parthians, he had not power over all
nations; if Pharaoh, or whoever succeeded him in his hereditary
kingdom, over the Egyptians, in that country merely did he possess his
kingdom’s dominion; if Nebuchadnezzar with his petty kings,
“from India unto Ethiopia” he had his kingdom’s
boundaries;1223
if Alexander the
Macedonian he did not hold more than universal Asia, and other regions,
after he had quite conquered them; if the Germans, to this day they are
not suffered to cross their own limits; the Britons are shut within the
circuit of their own ocean; the nations of the Moors, and the barbarism
of the Gætulians, are blockaded by the Romans, lest they exceed
the confines of their own regions. What shall I say of the Romans
themselves,1224
| 1224 [Dr. Allix thinks
these statements define the Empire after Severus, and hence accepts the
date we have mentioned, for this treatise.] | who fortify their
own empire with garrisons of their own legions, nor can extend the
might of their kingdom beyond these nations? But Christ’s Name is
extending everywhere, believed everywhere, worshipped by all the
above-enumerated nations, reigning everywhere, adored everywhere,
conferred equally everywhere upon all. No king, with Him, finds greater
favour, no barbarian lesser joy; no dignities or pedigrees enjoy
distinctions of merit; to all He is equal, to all King, to all Judge,
to all “God and Lord.”1225
Nor would you
hesitate to believe what we asseverate, since you see it taking
place.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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