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| On the Coming of our Lord in the Flesh; its Nature and Cause.
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Chapter XI.—On the Coming
of our Lord in the Flesh; its Nature and Cause.3415
| 3415 One ms. adds, “and concerning those
who did not know this mystery.” In another the chapter is
divided, and this is the heading of the second part. |
Whoever, then, has pursued a course unworthy of a life of virtue, and is
conscious of having lived an irregular and disorderly life, let him
repent, and turn with enlightened spiritual vision to God; and let him
abandon his past career of wickedness, content if he attain to wisdom
even in his declining years. We, however, have received no aid from
human instruction; nay, whatever graces of character are esteemed of
good report by those who have understanding, are entirely the gift of
God. And I am able to oppose no feeble buckler against the deadly
weapons of Satan’s armory; I mean the knowledge I possess of
those things which are pleasing to him: and of these I will select such
as are appropriate to my present design, while I proceed to sing the
praises of the Father of all. But do thou, O Christ, Saviour of
mankind, be present to aid me in my hallowed task! Direct the words
which celebrate thy virtues,3416
and instruct me
worthily to sound thy praises. And now, let no one expect to listen to
the graces of elegant language: for well I know that the nerveless
eloquence of those who speak to charm the ear, and whose aim is rather
applause than sound argument, is distasteful to hearers of sound
judgment. It is asserted, then, by some profane and senseless persons,
that Christ, whom we worship, was justly condemned to death, and that
he who is the author of life to all, was himself deprived of life. That
such an assertion should be made by those who have once dared to enter
the paths of impiety, who have cast aside all fear, and all thought of
concealing their own depravity, is not surprising. But it is beyond the
bounds of folly itself that they should be able, as it seems, really to
persuade themselves that the incorruptible God yielded to the violence
of men, and not rather to that love alone which he bore to the human
race: that they should fail to perceive that divine magnanimity and
forbearance is changed by no insult, is moved from its intrinsic
steadfastness by no revilings; but is ever the same, breaking down and
repelling, by the spirit of wisdom and greatness of soul, the savage
fierceness of those who assail it. The gracious kindness of God had
determined to abolish iniquity, and to exalt order and justice.
Accordingly, he gathered a company of the wisest among men,3417
| 3417 [Alluding to the apostles, who are called in the beginning of ch.
15, “the best men of their age.” Were it our province to
criticise, we might notice the contrariety of such expressions as these
to the account which Scripture gives us of those “unlearned and
ignorant men,” the feeble, and, in themselves, fallible
instruments, whom God selected to further his wondrous designs of mercy
to a ruined world.—Bag.] Were it in our province to
criticise the critic, we might notice that the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom, and refer to the whole Book of Proverbs. Any just
conception of wisdom or true learning says the same thing. The man who
knows that God and not φύσις or
τύχη manages the universe, is more learned than the wisest of
those learned in things which are not so. | and ordained that most noble and useful
doctrine, which is calculated to lead the good and blessed of mankind
to an imitation of his own providential care. And what higher blessing
can we speak of than this, that God should prescribe the way of
righteousness, and make those who are counted worthy of his instruction
like himself; that goodness might be communicated to all classes of
mankind, and eternal felicity be the result? This is the glorious
victory: this the true power: this the mighty work, worthy of its
author, the restoration of all people to soundness of mind: and the
glory of this triumph we joyfully ascribe to thee, thou Saviour of all!
But thou, vile and wretched blasphemy, whose glory is in lies and
rumors and calumny; thy power is to deceive and prevail with the
inexperience of youth, and with men who still retain the folly of
youth. These thou seducest from the service of the true God, and
settest up false idols as the objects of their worship and their
prayers; and thus the reward of their folly awaits thy deluded victims:
for they calumniate Christ, the author of every blessing, who is God,
and the Son of God. Is not the worship of the best and wisest of the
nations of this world worthily directed to that God, who, while
possessing boundless power, remains immovably true to his own purpose,
and retains undiminished his characteristic kindness and love to man?
Away, then, ye impious, for still ye may while vengeance on your
transgressions is yet withheld; begone to your sacrifices, your feasts,
your scenes of revelry and drunkenness, wherein, under the semblance of
religion, your hearts are devoted to profligate enjoyment, and
pretending to perform sacrifices, yourselves are the willing slaves of
your own pleasures. No knowledge have ye of any good, nor even of the
first commandment of the mighty God, who both declares his will to man,
and gives commission to his Son to direct the course of human life,
that they who have passed a career of virtue and self-control may
obtain, according to the judgment of that Son, a second, yea, a blessed
and happy existence.3418
| 3418 Christophorson extends ch. 10 to this point, and here introduces
ch. 11, with the heading “On the coming of Our Lord in the flesh;
its nature and cause.” | I have now
declared the decree of God respecting the life which he prescribes to
man, neither ignorantly, as many have done, nor resting on the ground of
opinion or conjecture. But it may be that some will ask, Whence this
title of Son? Whence this generation of which we speak, if God be
indeed only One, and incapable of union with another? We are, however,
to consider generation as of two kinds; one in the way of natural
birth, which is known to all; the other, that which is the effect of an
eternal cause, the mode of which is seen by the prescience of God, and
by those among men whom he loves. For he who is wise will recognize the
cause which regulates the harmony of creation. Since, then, nothing
exists without a cause, of necessity the cause of existing substances
preceded their existence. But since the world and all things that it
contains exist, and are preserved,3419
| 3419 Preserved, preserver, and preservation = saved, saviour, and
salvation. This represents the N.T. idea better than the popular
conception which confuses Christ our Saviour with Christ our Redeemer.
Redemption was a necessary part of his effort for our salvation, but
the salvation itself was a saving, in literal English preserving. We
have been redeemed; we are being saved. | their
preserver must have had a prior existence; so that Christ is the cause
of preservation, and the preservation of things is an effect:3420
| 3420 Bag.follows here Valesius’
translation and note where he makes the word “preservation”
a conjectural emendation of Scaliger, inconsistent with the meaning of
the passage, and omits translating “the cause of all things that
exist.” But Hein. does not even hint such reading, and his
text (followed also by Molz.), so far from tending to disturb
the whole meaning, gives much the more intelligent conception. Christ
is the preserver (saviour) of things. Preservation of things is the
effect of that cause, just as the Father is the cause of the Son, and
the Son the effect of that cause. Therefore the preserver precedes
created things as a cause precedes its effect. | even as the Father is the cause of the
Son, and the Son the effect of that cause. Enough, then, has been said
to prove his priority of existence. But how do we explain his descent
to this earth, and to men? His motive in this,3421
| 3421 Valesius expresses a preference for the reading καθόδου
(advent) here instead of καθόλου (universal), but the latter is the reading of Heinichen, and
undoubtedly correct. Bag. has followed Valesius. | as the prophets had foretold, originated
in his watchful care for the interests of all: for it needs must be
that the Creator should care for his own works. But when the time came
for him to assume a terrestrial body, and to sojourn on this earth, the
need requiring, he devised for himself a new mode3422
| 3422 “New mode” is a paraphrase supported by only one ms. The real meaning of νόθην is
well expressed by Chr., “alienam quandam a communi hominum
natura nascendi rationem sibi excogitavit.” Its usual meaning is
“illegitimate.” | of birth. Conception was there, yet
apart from marriage: childbirth, yet pure virginity: and a maiden
became the mother of God! An eternal nature received a beginning of
temporal existence: a sensible form of a spiritual essence, a material
manifestation of incorporeal brightness,3423
| 3423 This is supposed to refer to Heb. i. 3, although a
different Greek word is used. | appeared. Alike wondrous were the
circumstances which attended this great event. A radiant dove, like
that which flew from the ark of Noah,3424
| 3424 Various suggestions have been made regarding the dove which
according to the literal rendering “flew from the ark of
Noah.” Christophorson (according to Valesius) supposes it to be
that dove which Noah formerly sent out of the ark, this dove being a
figure of the Holy Spirit which was afterward to come in the Virgin.
Jerome, Ep. ad Oc., also regards the Noachic dove as a symbol of
the Holy Spirit. Vales., followed by 1711 and Bag.,
prefer to translate as if it were “like that,” &c. This
form of the story, according to which the Holy Spirit descends in the
form of a dove, is according to Valesius from the Apocrypha; perhaps,
he suggests, from the “Gospel to the Hebrews.” In later art
the dove is the constant symbol of the Holy Spirit, and is often found
in pictures of the annunciation, e.g. in pictures by Simeone Memmi,
Dürer, Andrea del Sarto, and many others. It is found in six of
the pictures of the annunciation given by Mrs. Jameson (Legends of
the Madonna, p. 165 sq.). | alighted on the Virgin’s bosom:
and accordant with this impalpable union, purer than chastity, more
guileless than innocence itself, were the results which followed. From
infancy possessing the wisdom of God, received with reverential awe by
the Jordan, in whose waters he was baptized, gifted with that royal
unction, the spirit of universal intelligence; with knowledge and power
to perform miracles, and to heal diseases beyond the reach of human
art; he yielded a swift and unhindered assent to the prayers of men, to
whose welfare, indeed, his whole life was devoted without reserve. His
doctrines instilled, not prudence only,3425
| 3425 The author seems to have here a reference to the Aristotelian
distinction between prudence and wisdom (cf. Ethics, 6. 3; 7. 8,
&c.). It reminds of that passage (vi. 7, ed. Grant ad. ii.
165–166), where the two are distinguished and defined, wisdom
being “concerned with the immutable, and prudence with the
variable”; and a little farther along wisdom is distinguished
from “statesmanship,” i.e. the “social” of
Bag., which is a form of “prudence” (tr. Williams,
p. 160), and indeed (vi. 8. 1) generically identical with prudence. So
again (1, 2) “political art” is identified with
ethics. | but real wisdom: his hearers were
instructed, not in the mere social virtues,3426
| 3426 Social virtues or “political” virtues. Cf. the
“political art” or “statesmanship” of
Aristotle. | but in the ways which conduct to the
spiritual world; and devoted themselves to the contemplation of
immutable and eternal things, and the knowledge of the Supreme Father.
The benefits which he bestowed were no common blessings: for blindness,
the gift of sight; for helpless weakness, the vigor of health; in the
place of death, restoration to life again. I dwell not on that abundant
provision in the wilderness, whereby a scanty measure of food became a
complete and enduring supply3427
| 3427 [Πολλοῦ
χρόνου,
“for a considerable time.” This seems to be a rhetorical
addition to the circumstances of the miracle, scarcely to be justified
by the terms of the inspired narrative.—Bag.] | for the wants
of a mighty multitude.3428
| 3428 At this point Christophorson begins his chapter xii., “of
those who did not know the mystery,” &c. | Thus do we
render thanks to thee, our God and Saviour, according to our feeble
power; unto thee, O Christ, supreme Providence of the mighty Father,
who both savest us from evil, and impartest to us thy most blessed
doctrine: for I say these things, not to praise, but to give thanks.
For what mortal is he who shall worthily declare thy praise, of whom we
learn that thou didst from nothing call creation into being, and
illumine it with thy light; that thou didst regulate the confusion of
the elements by the laws of harmony and order? But chiefly we mark thy
loving-kindness,3429
| 3429 The translator takes most extraordinary liberties with the word
“philanthropy”; now it is “loving-kindness,”
now “love of their fellow-men,” and so on in picturesque
variety, and yet as appropriate as it is lacking in
uniformity. | in that thou
hast caused those whose hearts inclined to thee to desire earnestly a divine
and blessed life, and hast provided that, like merchants of true
blessings, they might impart to many others the wisdom and good fortune
they had received; themselves, meanwhile, reaping the everlasting fruit
of virtue. Freed from the trammels of vice, and imbued with the love of
their fellow-men, they keep mercy ever before their eyes, and hoping
for the promises of faith;3430
devoted to
modesty, and all those virtues which the past career of human life had
thrown aside [but which were now restored by him whose providence is
over all].3431
| 3431 [The text, in the last clause of this passage, is undoubtedly
corrupt. The above is an attempt to supply a probable
sense.—Bag.] This is omitted by Hein. from his
text. | No other power could be found to
devise a remedy for such evils, and for that spirit of injustice which
had heretofore asserted its dominion over the race of men. Providence,
however, could reach the circumstances even here, and with ease
restored whatever had been disordered by violence and the
licentiousness of human passion. And this restoring power he exercised
without concealment. For he knew that, though there were some whose
thoughts were able to recognize and understand his power, others there
were whose brutish and senseless nature led them to rely exclusively on
the testimony of their own senses. In open day, therefore, that no one,
whether good or evil, might find room for doubt, he manifested his
blessed and wondrous healing power; restoring the dead to life again,
and renewing with a word the powers of those who had been bereft of
bodily sense.3432
| 3432 i.e. healing the paralytics. This paraphrased passage reads more
literally, “bidding those bereft of sense [i.e. sensation,
feeling] to feel again.” Still it may be that Molz. is
right in thinking it refers to the senses—seeing, hearing,
&c.—as well as feeling, though his translation will hardly
stand; “and to such as lacked any of the senses he granted the
full use of all their senses again.” | Can we, in
short, suppose, that to render the sea firm as the solid ground, to
still the raging of the storm, and finally to ascend to heaven, after
turning the unbelief of men to steadfast faith by the performance of
these wondrous acts, demanded less than almighty power, was less than
the work of God? Nor was the time of his passion unaccompanied by like
wonders: when the sun was darkened, and the shades of night obscured
the light of day. Then terror everywhere laid hold upon the people, and
the thought that the end of all things was already come, and that
chaos, such as had been ere the order of creation began, would once
more prevail. Then, too, the cause was sought of so terrible an evil,
and in what respect the trespasses of men had provoked the wrath of
Heaven; until God himself, who surveyed with calm dignity the arrogance
of the ungodly, renewed the face of heaven, and adorned it with the
host of stars. Thus the beclouded face of Nature was again restored to
her pristine beauty.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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