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Chapter
XXVIII.
For with what purpose in view did Providence
accomplish the marvels related of Aristeas? And to confer what
benefit upon the human race did such remarkable events, as you regard
them, take place? You cannot answer. But we, when we relate
the events of the history of Jesus, have no ordinary defence to offer
for their occurrence;—this, viz., that God desired to commend the
doctrine of Jesus as a doctrine which was to save mankind, and which
was based, indeed, upon the apostles as foundations of the
rising3516
3516 τῆς
καταβαλλομένης
οἰκοδομῆς. | edifice of
Christianity, but which increased in magnitude also in the succeeding
ages, in which not a few cures are wrought in the name of Jesus, and
certain other manifestations of no small moment have taken place.
Now what sort of person is Apollo, who enjoined the Metapontines to
treat Aristeas as a god? And with what object does he do
this? And what advantage was he procuring to the Metapontines
from this divine worship, if they were to regard him as a god, who a
little ago was a mortal? And yet the recommendations of Apollo
(viewed by us as a demon who has obtained the honour of libation and
sacrificial odours3517
3517 τοῦ καθ᾽
ἡμᾶς
δαίμονος,
λαχόντος
γέρας λοιβῆς
τε κνίσσης
τε. | ) regarding this
Aristeas appear to you to be worthy of consideration; while those of
the God of all things, and of His holy angels, made known beforehand
through the prophets—not after the birth of Jesus, but
before He appeared among men—do not stir you up to
admiration, not merely of the prophets who received the Divine Spirit,
but of Him also who was the object of their predictions, whose entrance
into life was so clearly predicted many years beforehand by numerous
prophets, that the whole Jewish people who were hanging in expectation
of the coming of Him who was looked for, did, after the advent of
Jesus, fall into a keen dispute with each other; and that a great
multitude of them acknowledged Christ, and believed Him to be the
object of prophecy, while others did not believe in Him, but, despising
the meekness of those who, on account of the teaching of Jesus, were
unwilling to cause even the most trifling sedition, dared to inflict on
Jesus those cruelties which His disciples have so truthfully and
candidly recorded, without secretly omitting from their marvellous
history of Him what seems to the multitude to bring disgrace upon the
doctrine of Christianity. But both Jesus Himself and His
disciples desired that His followers should believe not merely in His
Godhead and miracles, as if He had not also been a partaker of human
nature, and had assumed the human flesh which “lusteth against
the Spirit;”3518
3518 ὡς οὐ
κοινωνήσαντος
τῇ ἀνθρωπίνῃ
φύσει, οὐδ᾽
ἀναλαβόντος
τὴν ἐν
ἀνθρώποις
σάρκα
ἐπιθυμοῦσαν
κατὰ τοῦ
πνεύματος. | but they saw also
that the power which had descended into human nature, and into the
midst of human miseries, and which had assumed a human soul and body,
contributed through faith, along with its divine elements, to the
salvation of believers,3519
3519 ᾽Αλλὰ γὰρ καὶ
τὴν
καταβᾶσαν
εἰς
ἀνθρωπίνην
φύσιν καὶ εἰς
ἀνθρωπίνας
περιστάσεις
δύναμιν, καὶ
ἀναλαβοῦσαν
ψυχὴν καὶ
σῶμα
ἀνθρώπινον,
ὲώρων ἐκ τοῦ
πιστευεσθαι
μετὰ τῶν
θειοτέρων
συμβαλλομένην
εἰς σωτηρίαν
τοῖς
πιοτεύουσιν. | when they see that
from Him there began the union of the divine with the human nature, in
order that the human, by communion with the divine, might rise to be
divine, not in Jesus alone, but in all those who not only believe,
but3520
3520 μετὰ τοῦ
πιστεύειν.
Others read, μετὰ
το
πιστεύειν. | enter upon the life which Jesus taught, and
which elevates to friendship with God and communion with Him every one
who lives according to the precepts of Jesus.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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