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| The Sacred Name Jesus Most Suited to the Christ of the Creator. Joshua a Type of Him.
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Chapter XVI.—The
Sacred Name Jesus Most Suited to the Christ of the Creator.
Joshua a Type of Him.
Now if he caught at the name Christ, just
as the pickpocket clutches the dole-basket, why did he wish to be
called Jesus too, by a name which was not so much looked for by
the Jews? For although we, who have by God’s grace attained to
the understanding of His mysteries, acknowledge that this name
also was destined for Christ, yet, for all that, the fact was not known
to the Jews, from whom wisdom was taken away. To this day, in short, it
is Christ that they are looking for, not Jesus; and they interpret
Elias to be Christ rather than Jesus. He, therefore, who came also in a
name in which Christ was not expected, might have come only in that
name which was solely anticipated for Him.3313
But since he has mixed up the two,3314
| 3314 Surely it is
Duo, not Deo. | the expected
one and the unexpected, his twofold project is defeated. For if he be
Christ for the very purpose of insinuating himself as the
Creator’s, then Jesus opposes him, because Jesus was not
looked for in the Christ of the Creator; or if he be Jesus, in
order that he might pass as belonging to the other (God), then
Christ hinders him, because Christ was not expected to belong to
any other than the Creator. I know not which one of these names may be
able to hold its ground.3315
In the Christ of
the Creator, however, both will keep their place, for in Him a
Jesus too is found. Do you ask, how? Learn it then here, with the Jews
also who are partakers of your heresy. When Oshea the son of Nun
was destined to be the successor of Moses, is not his old name then
changed, and for the first time he is called3316
Joshua? It is true, you say. This, then, we first observe, was a figure
of Him who was to come. For inasmuch as Jesus Christ was to introduce a
new generation3317
(because we are
born in the wilderness of this world) into the promised land which flows with milk
and honey, that is, into the possession of eternal life, than which
nothing can be sweeter; inasmuch, too, as this was to be brought about
not by Moses, that is to say, not by the discipline of the law, but by
Joshua, by the grace of the gospel, our circumcision being effected by
a knife of stone, that is, (by the circumcision) of Christ, for Christ
is a rock (or stone), therefore that great man,3318
who was ordained as a type of this mystery, was actually consecrated
with the figure of the Lord’s own name, being called Joshua. This
name Christ Himself even then testified to be His own, when He talked
with Moses. For who was it that talked with him, but the Spirit
of the Creator, which is Christ? When He therefore spake this
commandment to the people, “Behold, I send my angel before thy
face, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the land which I
have prepared for thee; attend to him, and obey his voice and do not
provoke him; for he has not shunned you,3319
| 3319 Non celavit te,
“not concealed Himself from you.” |
since my name is upon him,”3320
He called him
an angel indeed, because of the greatness of the powers which he
was to exercise, and because of his prophetic office,3321
while announcing the will of God; but
Joshua also (Jesus), because it was a type3322
of His own future name. Often3323
did He confirm that name of His which He had
thus conferred upon (His servant); because it was not the name of
angel, nor Oshea, but Joshua (Jesus), which He had
commanded him to bear as his usual appellation for the time to come.
Since, therefore, both these names are suitable to the Christ of the
Creator, they are proportionately unsuitable to the
non-Creator’s Christ; and so indeed is all the rest of
(our Christ’s) destined course.3324
In
short, there must now for the future be made between us that certain
and equitable rule, necessary to both sides, which shall determine that
there ought to be absolutely nothing at all in common between the
Christ of the other god and the Creator’s Christ. For you will
have as great a necessity to maintain their diversity as we have to
resist it, inasmuch as you will be as unable to show that the
Christ of the other god has come, until you have proved him to be a far
different being from the Creator’s Christ, as we, to claim
Him (who has come) as the Creator’s, until we have shown Him to
be such a one as the Creator has appointed. Now respecting their names,
such is our conclusion against (Marcion).3325
I
claim for myself Christ; I maintain for myself
Jesus.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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