Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XLVI
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
XLVI.
And if you come to the books written after the time of
Jesus, you will find that those multitudes of believers who hear the
parables are, as it were, “without,” and worthy only of
exoteric doctrines, while the disciples learn in private the
explanation of the parables. For, privately, to His own disciples did Jesus open up all
things, esteeming above the multitudes those who desired to know His
wisdom. And He promises to those who believe upon Him to send
them wise men and scribes, saying, “Behold, I will send unto you
wise men and scribes, and some of them they shall kill and
crucify.”3580
And Paul
also, in the catalogue of “charismata” bestowed by God,
placed first “the word of wisdom,” and second, as being
inferior to it, “the word of knowledge,” but third, and
lower down, “faith.”3581
And
because he regarded “the word” as higher than miraculous
powers, he for that reason places “workings of miracles”
and “gifts of healings” in a lower place than the gifts of
the word. And in the Acts of the Apostles Stephen bears witness
to the great learning of Moses, which he had obtained wholly from
ancient writings not accessible to the multitude. For he
says: “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians.”3582
And
therefore, with respect to his miracles, it was suspected that he
wrought them perhaps, not in virtue of his professing to come from God,
but by means of his Egyptian knowledge, in which he was well
versed. For the king, entertaining such a suspicion, summoned the
Egyptian magicians, and wise men, and enchanters, who were found to be
of no avail as against the wisdom of Moses, which proved superior to
all the wisdom of the Egyptians.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
