46. Was He one of us, I say,
who by one act of intervention at once healed a hundred or more
afflicted with various infirmities and diseases; at whose word only the
raging and maddened seas were still, the whirlwinds and tempests were
lulled; who walked over the deepest pools with unwet foot; who trod the
ridges of the deep, the very waves being astonished, and nature coming
under bondage; who with five loaves satisfied five thousand of His
followers: and who, lest it might appear to the unbelieving and
hard of heart to be an illusion, filled twelve capacious baskets with
the fragments that remained? Was He one of us, who ordered the
breath that had departed to return to the body, persons buried to come
forth from the tomb, and after three days to be loosed from the
swathings of the undertaker? Was He one of us, who saw clearly in
the hearts of the silent what each was pondering,3329
| 3329
Cf. John ii. 25. [He often replies to
thoughts not uttered.] |
what each had in his
secret
thoughts? Was He one of us, who, when He uttered a single word,
was thought by
nations far removed from one another and of different
speech to be using well-known sounds, and the
peculiar language of
each?
3330
Was He
one of us, who, when He was teaching His followers the
duties of a
religion that could not be gainsaid, suddenly filled the whole
world,
and showed how great He was and who He was, by unveiling the
boundlessness of His
authority? Was He one of us, who, after His
body had been laid in the
tomb, manifested Himself in open day to
countless numbers of men; who spoke to them, and listened to them; who
taught them, reproved and
admonished them; who, lest they should
imagine that they were
deceived by unsubstantial fancies, showed
Himself once, a second time, aye frequently, in familiar conversation;
who appears even now to
righteous men of unpolluted
mind who
love Him,
not in airy
dreams, but in a form of pure simplicity;
3331
| 3331
The Latin is, per puræ speciem simplicitatis, which is not
easily understood, and is less easily expressed. |
whose name, when heard, puts to flight
evil spirits, imposes silence on soothsayers, prevents men from
consulting the augurs, causes the efforts of arrogant magicians to be
frustrated, not by the dread of His name, as you allege, but by the
free exercise of a greater power?
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