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| Chapter XXIV
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Chapter
XXIV.
After this, wishing to prove that the occurrences
which befell Him were painful and distressing, and that it was
impossible for Him, had He wished, to render them otherwise, he
proceeds: “Why does he mourn, and lament, and pray to
escape the fear of death, expressing himself in terms like these:
‘O Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
Me?’”3280
Now in these
words observe the malignity of Celsus, how not accepting the love of
truth which actuates the writers of the Gospels (who might have passed
over in silence those points which, as Celsus thinks, are censurable,
but who did not omit them for many reasons, which any one, in
expounding the Gospel, can give in their proper place), he brings an
accusation against the Gospel statement, grossly exaggerating the
facts, and quoting what is not written in the Gospels, seeing it is
nowhere found that Jesus lamented. And he changes the words in
the expression, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from Me,” and does not give what follows immediately after, which
manifests at once the ready obedience of Jesus to His Father, and His
greatness of mind, and
which runs thus: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou
wilt.”3281
Nay, even the
cheerful obedience of Jesus to the will of His Father in those things
which He was condemned to suffer, exhibited in the declaration,
“If this cup cannot pass from Me except I drink it, Thy will be
done,” he pretends not to have observed, acting here like those
wicked individuals who listen to the Holy Scriptures in a malignant
spirit, and “who talk wickedness with lofty head.”
For they appear to have heard the declaration, “I
kill,”3282
and they often make
it to us a subject of reproach; but the words, “I will make
alive,” they do not remember,—the whole sentence showing
that those who live amid public wickedness, and who work wickedly, are
put to death by God, and that a better life is infused into them
instead, even one which God will give to those who have died to
sin. And so also these men have heard the words, “I will
smite;” but they do not see these, “and I will heal,”
which are like the words of a physician, who cuts bodies asunder, and
inflicts severe wounds, in order to extract from them substances that
are injurious and prejudicial to health, and who does not terminate his
work with pains and lacerations, but by his treatment restores the body
to that state of soundness which he has in view. Moreover, they
have not heard the whole of the announcement, “For He maketh
sore, and again bindeth up;” but only this part, “He maketh
sore.” So in like manner acts this Jew of Celsus who quotes
the words, “O Father, would that this cup might pass from
Me;” but who does not add what follows, and which exhibits the
firmness of Jesus, and His preparedness for suffering. But these
matters, which afford great room for explanation from the wisdom of
God, and which may reasonably be pondered over3283
| 3283 καὶ ταῦτα δὲ
πολλὴν
ἔχοντα
διήγησιν ἀπὸ
σοφίας Θεοῦ
οἷς ὁ Παῦλος
ὠνόμασε
τελείοις
εὐλόγως
παραδοθησέμένην. | by
those whom Paul calls “perfect” when he said, “We
speak wisdom among them who are perfect,”3284
we
pass by for the present, and shall speak for a little of those matters
which are useful for our present purpose.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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