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Chapter LVI.
But since the Jew says that these histories of the
alleged descent of heroes to Hades, and of their return thence, are
juggling impositions,3344 maintaining that
these heroes disappeared for a certain time, and secretly withdrew
themselves from the sight of all men, and gave themselves out
afterwards as having returned from Hades,—for such is the meaning
which his words seem to convey respecting the Odrysian Orpheus, and the
Thessalian Protesilaus, and the Tænarian Hercules, and Theseus
also,—let us endeavour to show that the account of Jesus being
raised from the dead cannot possibly be compared to these. For
each one of the heroes respectively mentioned might, had he wished,
have secretly withdrawn himself from the sight of men, and returned
again, if so determined, to those whom he had left; but seeing that
Jesus was crucified before all the Jews, and His body slain in the
presence of His nation, how can they bring themselves to say that He
practised a similar deception3345
3345 πῶς οἴονται
τὸ
παραπλήσιον
πλάσασθαι
λέγειν αὐτὸν
τοῖς
ἱστορουμένοις,
etc. | with those heroes
who are related to have gone down to Hades, and to have returned
thence? But we say that the following consideration might be
adduced, perhaps, as a defence of the public crucifixion of Jesus,
especially in connection with the existence of those stories of heroes
who are supposed to have been compelled3346
3346 καταβεβηκέναι
βιᾷ. Bohereau proposes the omission of
βιᾷ. | to
descend to Hades: that if we were to suppose Jesus to have died
an obscure death, so that the fact of His decease was not patent to the
whole nation of the Jews, and afterwards to have actually risen from
the dead, there would, in such a case, have been ground for the same
suspicion entertained regarding the heroes being also entertained
regarding Himself. Probably, then, in addition to other causes
for the crucifixion of Jesus, this also may have contributed to His
dying a conspicuous death upon the cross, that no one might have it in
his power to say that He voluntarily withdrew from the sight of men,
and seemed only to die, without really doing so; but, appearing again,
made a juggler’s trick3347 of the resurrection
from the dead. But a clear and unmistakeable proof of the fact I
hold to be the undertaking of His disciples, who devoted themselves to
the teaching of a doctrine which was attended with danger to human
life,—a doctrine which they would not have taught with such
courage had they invented the resurrection of Jesus from the dead; and
who also, at the same time, not only prepared others to despise death,
but were themselves the first to manifest their disregard for its
terrors.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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