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| Chapter XXXII
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Chapter
XXXII.
But as Celsus next mentions the case of the
Clazomenian, subjoining to the story about him this remark, “Do
they not report that his soul frequently quitted his body, and flitted
about in an incorporeal form? and yet men did not regard him as a
god,” we have to answer that probably certain wicked demons
contrived that such statements should be committed to writing (for I do
not believe that they contrived that such a thing should actually
take place), in order that the predictions regarding Jesus, and
the discourses uttered
by Him, might either be evil spoken of, as inventions like these, or
might excite no surprise, as not being more remarkable than other
occurrences. But my Jesus said regarding His own soul (which was
separated from the body, not by virtue of any human necessity, but by
the miraculous power which was given Him also for this purpose):
“No one taketh my life from Me, but I lay it down of
Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it
again.”3536
For as He had
power to lay it down, He laid it down when He said, “Father, why
hast Thou forsaken Me? And when He had cried with a loud voice,
He gave up the ghost,”3537
anticipating the
public executioners of the crucified, who break the legs of the
victims, and who do so in order that their punishment may not be
further prolonged. And He “took His life,” when He
manifested Himself to His disciples, having in their presence foretold
to the unbelieving Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days
I will raise it up again,”3538
and “He
spake this of the temple of His body;” the prophets, moreover,
having predicted such a result in many other passages of their
writings, and in this, “My flesh also shall rest in hope:
for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine
Holy One to see corruption.”3539
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