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| Chapter XLVII
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Chapter
XLVII.
Celsus, after what has been said, goes on as
follows: “I can tell how the very thing occurred, viz.,
that they should call him ‘Son of God.’ Men of
ancient times termed this world, as being born of God, both his child
and his son.4519
| 4519 παῖδά τε
αὐτοῦ καὶ
ἡίθεον. | Both the one
and other ‘Son of God,’ then, greatly resembled each
other.” He is therefore of opinion that we employed the
expression “Son of God,” having perverted4520
what is said of the world, as being born of
God, and being His “Son,” and “a God.”
For he was unable so to consider the times of Moses and the prophets,
as to see that the Jewish prophets predicted generally that there was a
“Son of God” long before the Greeks and those men of
ancient time of whom Celsus speaks. Nay, he would not even quote
the passage in the letters of Plato, to which we referred in the
preceding pages, concerning Him who so beautifully arranged this world,
as being the Son of God; lest he too should be compelled by Plato, whom
he often mentions with respect, to admit that the architect of this
world is the Son of God, and that His Father is the first God and
Sovereign Ruler over all things.4521
| 4521 [See Dr.
Burton’s learned discussion as to the Logos of Plato, and the connection of Plato’s
doctrines with the Gospel of the Son of God: Bampton
Lectures, pp. 211–223, 537–547. See also
Fisher’s Beginnings of Christianity, p. 147 (1877).
S.] | Nor is
it at all wonderful if we maintain that the soul of Jesus is made one
with so great a Son of God through the highest union with Him, being no
longer in a state of separation from Him. For the sacred language
of holy Scripture knows of other things also, which, although
“dual” in their own nature, are considered to be, and
really are, “one” in respect to one another. It is
said of husband and wife, “They are no longer twain, but one
flesh;”4522
and of the perfect
man, and of him who is joined to the true Lord, Word, and Wisdom, and
Truth, that “he who is joined to the Lord is one
spirit.”4523
And if he who
“is joined to the Lord is one spirit,” who has been joined
to the Lord, the Very Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and Righteousness,
in a more intimate union, or even in a manner at all approaching to it
than the soul of Jesus? And if this be so, then the soul of Jesus
and God the Word—the first-born of every creature—are no
longer two, (but one).E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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