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| Use Made of Water by the Heathen. Type of the Angel at the Pool of Bethsaida.
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Chapter V.—Use Made
of Water by the Heathen. Type of the Angel at the Pool of
Bethsaida.8568
“Well, but the nations, who are strangers to
all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their idols the
imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy.” (So they do) but
they cheat themselves with waters which are widowed.8569
| 8569 i.e., as Oehler
rightly explains, “lacking the Holy Spirit’s presence and
virtue.” | For washing is the channel through which
they are initiated into some sacred rites—of some notorious Isis
or Mithras. The gods themselves likewise they honour by washings.
Moreover, by carrying water around, and sprinkling it, they everywhere
expiate8570
country-seats,
houses, temples, and whole cities: at all events, at the Apollinarian
and Eleusinian games they are baptized; and they presume that the
effect of their doing that is their regeneration and the remission of
the penalties due to their perjuries. Among the ancients, again,
whoever had defiled himself with murder, was wont to go in quest of
purifying waters. Therefore, if the mere nature of water, in that it is
the appropriate material for washing away, leads men to flatter
themselves with a belief in omens of purification, how much more truly
will waters render that service through the authority of God, by whom
all their nature has been constituted! If men think that water is
endued with a medicinal virtue by religion, what religion is more
effectual than that of the living God? Which fact being
acknowledged, we recognise here also the zeal of the devil rivalling
the things of God,8571
| 8571 [Diabolus Dei
Simius.] | while we find him,
too, practising baptism in his subjects. What similarity is
there? The unclean cleanses! the ruiner sets free! the damned absolves!
He will, forsooth, destroy his own work, by washing away the sins which
himself inspires! These (remarks) have been set down by way of
testimony against such as reject the faith; if they put no trust in the
things of God, the spurious imitations of which, in the case of
God’s rival, they do trust in. Are there not other cases too, in
which, without any sacrament, unclean spirits brood on waters, in
spurious imitation of that brooding8572
of the Divine
Spirit in the very beginning? Witness all shady founts, and all
unfrequented brooks, and the ponds in the baths, and the
conduits8573
in private
houses, or the cisterns and wells which are said to have the property
of “spiriting away,”8574
through the
power, that is, of a hurtful spirit. Men whom waters have
drowned8575
or affected with
madness or with fear, they call nymph-caught,8576
| 8576
“Nympholeptos,” restored by Oehler, = νυμφολήπτους. | or
“lymphatic,” or “hydro-phobic.” Why have we
adduced these instances? Lest any think it too hard for belief
that a holy angel of God should grant his presence to waters, to temper
them to man’s salvation; while the evil angel holds frequent
profane commerce with the selfsame element to man’s ruin. If it
seems a novelty for an angel to be present in waters, an example of
what was to come to pass has forerun. An angel, by his intervention,
was wont to stir the pool at Bethsaida.8577
| 8577 So Tertullian reads,
and some copies, but not the best, of the New Testament in the place
referred to, John v.
1–9. [And note
Tertullian’s textual testimony as to this Scripture.] |
They who were complaining of ill-health used to watch for him; for
whoever had been the first to descend into them, after his washing,
ceased to complain. This figure of corporeal healing sang of a
spiritual healing, according
to the rule by which things carnal are always antecedent8578
as figurative of things spiritual. And thus,
when the grace of God advanced to higher degrees among men,8579
an accession of efficacy was granted
to the waters and to the angel. They who8580
| 8580 Qui: i.e. probably
“angeli qui.” |
were wont to remedy bodily defects,8581
now heal the
spirit; they who used to work temporal salvation8582
now renew eternal; they who did set free but
once in the year, now save peoples in a body8583
daily, death being done away through ablution of sins. The guilt being
removed, of course the penalty is removed too. Thus man will be
restored for God to His “likeness,” who in days bygone had
been conformed to “the image” of God; (the
“image” is counted (to be) in his form: the
“likeness” in his eternity:) for he receives again
that Spirit of God which he had then first received from His
afflatus, but had afterward lost through sin.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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