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Chapter
XXXIV.
For we inquire of all those who employ such
invocations of God, saying: Tell us, friends, who was Abraham,
and what sort of person was Isaac, and what power did Jacob possess,
that the appellation “God,” when joined with their name,
could effect such wonders? And from whom have you learned, or can
you learn, the facts relating to these individuals? And who has
occupied himself with writing a history about them, either directly
magnifying these men by ascribing to them mysterious powers, or hinting
obscurely at their possession of certain great and marvellous
qualities, patent to those who are qualified to see them?3830
3830 εἴτε καὶ
αὐτόθεν
σεμνύνουσαν
ἐν
ἀποῤῥήτοις
τοὺς ἄνδρας,
εἴτε καὶ δι᾽
ὑπονοιῶν
αἰνισσμένην
τινὰ μεγάλα
καὶ θαυμάσια
τοῖς
θεωρῆσαι
αὐτὰ
δυναμένοις
; | And when, in answer to our inquiry, no
one can show from what history—whether Greek or
Barbarian—or, if not a history, yet at least from what mystical
narrative,3831 the accounts of
these men are derived, we shall bring forward the book entitled
“Genesis,” which contains the acts of these men, and the
divine oracles addressed to them, and will say, Does not the use by you
of the names of these three ancestors of the race, establishing in the
clearest manner that effects not to be lightly regarded are produced by
the invocation of them, evidence the divinity of the men?3832
3832 ἐροῦμέν τε·
ὅτι μήποτε τὸ
καὶ ὑφ᾽ ὑμῶν
παραλαμβάνεσθαι
τὰ ὀνόματα
τῶν τριῶν
τούτων
γεναρχῶν τοῦ
ἔθνους, τῇ
ἐναργείᾳ
καταλαμβανόντων,
οὐκ
εὐκαταφρόνητα
ἀνύεσθαι ἐκ
τῆς
κατεπικλήσεως
αὐτῶν,
παρίστησι τὸ
θεῖον τῶν
ἀνδρῶν. Guietus would
expunge the words τῇ
ἐναργείᾳ
καταλαμβανόντων. | And yet we know them from no other
source than the sacred books of the Jews! Moreover, the phrases,
“the God of Israel,” and “the God of the
Hebrews,” and “the God who drowned in the Red Sea the king
of Egypt and the Egyptians,” are formulæ3833
3833 [See p. 511,
supra, on the formula of benediction and exorcism,
and compare Num. vi.
24.] | frequently employed against demons and
certain wicked powers. And we learn the history of the names and
their interpretation from those Hebrews, who in their national
literature and national tongue dwell with pride upon these things, and
explain their meaning. How, then, should the Jews attempt to
derive their origin from the first race of those whom Celsus supposed
to be jugglers and deceivers, and shamelessly endeavour to trace
themselves and their beginning back to these?—whose names, being
Hebrew, are an evidence to the Hebrews, who have their sacred books
written in the Hebrew language and letters, that their nation is akin
to these men. For up to the present time, the Jewish names
belonging to the Hebrew language were either taken from their writings,
or generally from words the meaning of which was made known by the
Hebrew language.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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