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| The Woe Pronounced on the Traitor a Judicial Act, Which Disproves Christ to Be Such as Marcion Would Have Him to Be. Christ's Conduct Before the Council Explained. Christ Even Then Directs the Minds of His Judges to the Prophetic Evidences of His Own Mission. The Moral Responsibility of These Men Asserted.
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Chapter
XLI.—The Woe Pronounced on the Traitor a Judicial Act, Which
Disproves Christ to Be Such as Marcion Would Have Him to Be.
Christ’s Conduct Before the Council Explained. Christ Even Then
Directs the Minds of His Judges to the Prophetic Evidences of His Own
Mission. The Moral Responsibility of These Men Asserted.
“Woe,” says He, “to that man by
whom the Son of man is betrayed!”5094
Now it is certain that in this woe must be understood the
imprecation and threat of an angry and incensed Master, unless Judas
was to escape with impunity after so vast a sin. If he were meant to
escape with impunity, the “woe” was an idle word; if
not, he was of course to be punished by Him against whom he had
committed the sin of treachery. Now, if He knowingly permitted
the man, whom He5095
deliberately
elected to be one of His companions, to plunge into so great a crime,
you must no longer use an argument against the Creator in Adam’s
case, which may now recoil on your own God:5096
| 5096 This is an
argumentum ad hominem against Marcion for his cavil, which was
considered above in book ii. chap. v.–viii. p. 300. |
either that he was ignorant, and had no foresight to hinder the
future sinner;5097
or that he was
unable to hinder him, even if he was ignorant;5098
| 5098 Si ignorabat. One
would have expected “si non ignorabat,”
like the “si sciebat” of the next step in the argument. | or else that he was unwilling, even
if he had the foreknowledge and the ability; and so deserved the stigma
of maliciousness, in having permitted the man of his own choice to
perish in his sin. I advise you therefore (willingly) to acknowledge
the Creator in that god of yours, rather than against your will to be
assimilating your excellent god to Him. For in the case of
Peter,5099
| 5099 The original of this
not very clear sentence is: “Nam et Petrum præsumptorie
aliquid elocutum negationi potius destinando zeloten deum tibi
ostendit.” | too, he gives you
proof that he is a jealous God, when he destined the apostle, after his
presumptuous protestations of zeal, to a flat denial of him, rather
than prevent his fall.5100
The Christ of the
prophets was destined, moreover, to be betrayed with a kiss,5101
for He was the Son indeed of Him who was
“honoured with the lips” by the people.5102
When led before the council, He is asked
whether He is the Christ.5103
Of what Christ
could the Jews have inquired5104
| 5104 Oehler’s
admirable edition is also carefully printed for the most part,
but surely his quæsisset must here be
quæsissent. | but their own? Why,
therefore, did He not, even at that moment, declare to them the rival
(Christ)? You reply, In order that He might be able to suffer. In other
words, that this most excellent god might plunge men into crime, whom
he was still keeping in ignorance. But even if he had told them, he
would yet have to suffer. For he said, “If I tell you, ye will
not believe.”5105
And refusing to
believe, they would have continued to insist on his death. And would he
not even more probably still have had to suffer, if had announced
himself as sent by the rival god, and as being, therefore, the enemy of
the Creator? It was not, then, in order that He might suffer, that He
at that critical moment refrained from proclaiming5106
| 5106 Supersedit
ostendere. | Himself the other Christ, but because
they wanted to extort a confession from His mouth, which they did not
mean to believe even if He had given it to them, whereas it was their
bounden duty to have acknowledged Him in consequence of His works,
which were fulfilling their Scriptures. It was thus plainly His course
to keep Himself at that moment unrevealed,5107
| 5107 i.e., not to answer
that question of theirs. This seems to be the force of the perfect
tense, “occultasse se.” |
because a spontaneous recognition was due to Him. But yet for all this,
He with a solemn gesture5108
| 5108 He makes Jesus stretch
forth His hand, porrigens manum inquit. | says,
“Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the
power of God.”5109
For it was on the
authority of the prophecy of Daniel that He intimated to them that He
was “the Son of man,”5110
and of
David’s Psalm, that He would “sit at the right hand of
God.”5111
Accordingly, after
He had said this, and so suggested a comparison of the Scripture, a ray
of light did seem to show them whom He would have them understand Him
to be; for they say: “Art thou then the Son of
God?”5112
Of what God, but of
Him whom alone they knew? Of what God but of Him whom they remembered
in the Psalm as having said to His Son, “Sit Thou on my right
hand?” Then He answered, “Ye say that I am;”5113
as if He meant: It is ye who say
this—not I. But at the same time He allowed Himself to be all
that they had said, in this their second question.5114
| 5114 Or does he
suppose that they repeated this same question twice? His words
are, “dum rursus interrogant.” | By what means, however, are you going to
prove to us that they pronounced the sentence “Ergo tu
filius Dei es” interrogatively, and not
affirmatively?5115
| 5115 Either, “Art
thou,” or, “Thou art, then, the Son of God.” | Just as, (on the
one hand,) because He had shown them in an indirect manner,5116
by passages of Scripture, that they ought to
regard Him as the Son of God, they therefore meant their own words,
“Thou art then the Son of God,” to be taken in a like
(indirect) sense,5117
| 5117 Ut, quia…sic
senserunt. | as much as to say,
“You do not wish to say this of yourself plainly,”5118
so, (on the other hand,) He likewise
answered them, “Ye say that I am,” in a sense equally free
from doubt, even affirmatively;5119
| 5119 Æque ita et ille
confirmative respondit. | and so
completely was His statement to this effect, that they insisted on
accepting that sense which His statement indicated.5120
| 5120 Ut perseveraverint in
eo quod pronuntiatio sapiebat.…See Luke xxii. 71. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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