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| Chapter LV
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Chapter LV.
The Jew continues his address to those of his
countrymen who are converts, as follows: “Come now, let us
grant to you that the prediction was actually uttered. Yet how
many others are there who practise such juggling tricks, in order to
deceive their simple hearers, and who make gain by their
deception?—as was the case, they say, with Zamolxis3335
| 3335 Cf. Herodot., iv.
95. | in Scythia, the slave of Pythagoras; and
with Pythagoras himself in Italy; and with Rhampsinitus3336
| 3336 Cf. Herodot., ii.
122. | in Egypt (the latter of whom, they say,
played at dice with Demeter in Hades, and returned to the upper world
with a golden napkin which he had received from her as a gift); and
also with Orpheus3337
| 3337 Cf. Herodot., ii.
122. | among the
Odrysians, and Protesilaus in Thessaly, and Hercules3338
| 3338 Cf. Diodor.,
iv., Bibl. Hist. | at Cape Tænarus, and Theseus. But
the question is, whether any one who was really dead ever rose with a
veritable body.3339
| 3339 αὐτῷ
σώματι. [See
Mozley’s Bampton Lectures On Miracles, 3d ed., p.
297: “That a man should rise from the dead, was treated by
them (the heathen) as an absolutely incredible fact.”
S.] | Or do you
imagine the statements of others not only to be myths, but to have the
appearance of such, while you have discovered a becoming and credible
termination to your drama in the voice from the cross, when he breathed
his last, and in the earthquake and the darkness? That while
alive he was of no assistance to himself, but that when dead he rose
again, and showed the marks of his punishment, and how his hands were
pierced with nails: who beheld this? A
half-frantic3340
woman, as you
state, and some other one, perhaps, of those who were engaged in the
same system of delusion, who had either dreamed so, owing to a peculiar
state of mind,3341
| 3341 κατά τινα
διάθεσιν
ὀνειρώξας. | or under the
influence of a wandering imagination had formed to himself an
appearance according to his own wishes,3342
| 3342 ἢ κατά τὴν
αὐτοῦ
βούλησιν
δόξῃ
πεπλανημένῃ
φαντασιωθείς. |
which has been the case with numberless individuals; or, which is most
probable, one who desired to impress others with this portent, and by
such a falsehood to furnish an occasion to impostors like
himself.”
Now, since it is a Jew who makes these statements, we
shall conduct the defence of our Jesus as if we were replying to a Jew,
still continuing the comparison derived from the accounts regarding
Moses, and saying to him: “How many others are there who
practise similar juggling tricks to those of Moses, in order to deceive
their silly hearers, and who make gain by their deception?”
Now this objection would be more appropriate in the mouth of one who
did not believe in Moses (as we might quote the instances of Zamolxis
and Pythagoras, who were engaged in such juggling tricks) than in
that of a Jew, who is not very learned in the histories of the
Greeks. An Egyptian, moreover, who did not believe the miracles
of Moses, might credibly adduce the instance of Rhampsinitus, saying
that it was far more credible that he had descended to Hades, and had
played at dice with Demeter, and that after stealing from her a golden
napkin he exhibited it as a sign of his having been in Hades, and of
his having returned thence, than that Moses should have recorded that
he entered into the darkness, where God was, and that he alone, above
all others, drew near to God. For the following is his
statement: “Moses alone shall come near the Lord; but the rest shall not come nigh.”3343
We, then, who are the disciples of
Jesus, say to the Jew who urges these objections: “While
assailing our belief in Jesus, defend yourself, and answer the Egyptian
and the Greek objectors: what will you say to those charges which
you brought against our Jesus, but which also might be brought against
Moses first? And if you should make a vigorous effort to defend
Moses, as indeed his history does admit of a clear and powerful
defence, you will unconsciously, in your support of Moses, be an
unwilling assistant in establishing the greater divinity of
Jesus.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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