Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XXV
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XXV.
Celsus then extracts from the Gospel the precept,
“To him who strikes thee once, thou shalt offer thyself to be
struck again,” although without giving any passage from the Old
Testament which he considers opposed to it. On the one hand, we
know that “it was said to them in old time, An eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth;”4732
and on the other, we have read, “I say unto you, Whoever shall
smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other
also.”4733
But as there
is reason to believe that Celsus produces the objections which he has
heard from those who wish to make a difference between the God of the
Gospel and the God of the law, we must say in reply, that this precept,
“Whosoever shall strike thee on the one cheek, turn to him the
other,” is not unknown in the older Scriptures. For thus,
in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, it is said, “It is good for a
man that he bear the yoke in his youth: he sitteth alone, and
keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He giveth his
cheek to him that smiteth him; he is filled full with
reproach.”4734
There is no
discrepancy, then, between the God of the Gospel and the God of the
law, even when we take literally the precept regarding the blow on the
face. So, then, we infer that neither “Jesus nor Moses has
taught falsely.” The Father in sending Jesus did not
“forget the commands which He had given to Moses:” He
did not “change His mind, condemn His own laws, and send by His
messenger counter instructions.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
