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| Chapter IV
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Chapter IV.
The Jew, then, continues his address to converts
from his own nation thus: “Yesterday and the day before,
when we visited with punishment the man who deluded you, ye became
apostates from the law of your fathers;” showing by such
statements (as we have just demonstrated) anything but an exact
knowledge of the truth. But what he advances afterwards seems to
have some force, when he says: “How is it that you take the
beginning of your system from our worship, and when you have made some
progress you treat it with disrespect, although you have no other
foundation to show for your doctrines than our law?” Now,
certainly the introduction to Christianity is through the Mosaic
worship and the prophetic writings; and after the introduction, it is
in the interpretation and explanation of these that progress takes
place, while those who are introduced prosecute their investigations
into “the mystery according to revelation, which was kept secret
since the world began, but now is made manifest in the Scriptures of
the prophets,”3219
and by the
appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. But they who advance in the
knowledge of Christianity do not, as ye allege, treat the things
written in the law with disrespect. On the contrary, they bestow
upon them greater honour, showing what a depth of wise and mysterious
reasons is contained in these writings, which are not fully
comprehended by the Jews, who treat them superficially, and as if they
were in some degree even fabulous.3220
| 3220 τῶν
ἐπιπολαιότερον
καὶ
μυθικώτερον
αὐτοῖς
ἐντυγχανόντων. | And what
absurdity should there be in our system—that is, the
Gospel—having the law for its foundation, when even the Lord
Jesus Himself said to those who would not believe upon Him:
“If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he
wrote of Me. But if ye do not believe his writings, how shall ye
believe My words?”3221
Nay, even one
of the evangelists—Mark—says: “The beginning of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way
before Thee,”3222
which shows that
the beginning of the Gospel is connected with the Jewish
writings. What force, then, is there in the objection of the Jew
of Celsus, that “if any one predicted to us that the Son of God
was to visit mankind, he was one of our prophets, and the prophet of
our God?” Or how is it a charge against Christianity, that
John, who baptized Jesus, was a Jew? For although He was a Jew,
it does not follow that every believer, whether a convert from
heathenism or from Judaism, must yield a literal obedience to the law
of Moses.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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