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| Chapter XXXIV
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Chapter
XXXIV.
But it was, as the prophets also predicted, from a
virgin that there was to be born, according to the promised sign, one
who was to give His name to the fact, showing that at His birth
God was to be with man.
Now it seems to me appropriate to the character of a Jew to have quoted
the prophecy of Isaiah, which says that Immanuel was to be born of a
virgin. This, however, Celsus, who professes to know everything,
has not done, either from ignorance or from an unwillingness (if he had
read it and voluntarily passed it by in silence) to furnish an argument
which might defeat his purpose. And the prediction runs
thus: “And the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee
a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in
the depth or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask,
neither will I tempt the Lord. And he
said, Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a small thing for you to
weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord
Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive,
and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel, which is, being
interpreted, God with us.”3125
And that
it was from intentional malice that Celsus did not quote this prophecy,
is clear to me from this, that although he makes numerous quotations
from the Gospel according to Matthew, as of the star that appeared at
the birth of Christ, and other miraculous occurrences, he has made no
mention at all of this. Now, if a Jew should split words, and say
that the words are not, “Lo, a virgin,” but, “Lo, a
young woman,”3126
we reply that the
word “Olmah”—which the Septuagint have rendered by
“a virgin,” and others by “a young
woman”—occurs, as they say, in Deuteronomy, as applied to a
“virgin,” in the following connection: “If a
damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find
her in the city, and lie with her; then ye shall bring them both out
unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that
they die; the damsel,3127
because she cried
not, being in the city; and the man, because he humbled his
neighbour’s wife.”3128
And
again: “But if a man find a betrothed damsel in a field,
and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that
lay with her shall die: but unto the damsel3129
ye shall do nothing; there is in her no sin
worthy of death.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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