But perhaps, being unable, even they, to fight continually against plain facts, they will, without denying what is written, maintain that they are looking for these things, and that the Word of God is not yet come. For this it is on which they are for ever harping, not blushing to brazen it out in the face of plain facts. 2. But on this one point, above all, they shall be all the more refuted, not at our hands, but at those of the most wise Daniel, who marks both the actual date, and the divine sojourn of the Saviour, saying: “Seventy ® weeks are cut short upon thy people, and upon the holy city, for a full end to be made of sin, and for sins to be sealed up, and to blot out iniquities, and to make atone- ment for iniquities, and to bring everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint a Holy of Holies; and thou shalt know and understand from the going forth of the word to restore? and to build Jerusalem unto Christ the Prince.” 3. Per- haps with regard to the other (prophecies) they may be able even to find excuses and to put off what is written to a future time. But what 5 John ix. 32, sz. 6 Dan. ix. 24, sg. 7 Lit. ‘‘ answer,” a misrendering of the Hebrew.
\ 7 can they say to this, or can they face it at all? Where not only is the Christ referred to, but He that is to be anointed is declared to be not man simply, but Holy of Holies; and Jerusalem is to stand till His coming, and thenceforth, prophet and vision cease in Israel. 4. David was anointed of old, and Solomon and Ezechias; but then, nevertheless, Jerusalem and the place stood, and prophets were pro- phesying: Gad and Asaph and Nathan; and, later, Esaias and Osee and Amos and others. And again, the actual men that were anointed were called holy, and not Holy of Holies. 5. But if they shield themselves with the cap- tivity, and say that because of it Jerusalem was not, what can they say about the prophets too? For in fact when first the people went down to Babylon, Daniel and Jeremy were there, and Ezechiel and Aggseus and Zachary were prophesying.
§ 40. Argument (1) from the withdrawal of pro- phecy and destruction of Jerusalem, (2) from the conversion of the Gentiles, and that to the God of Moses. What more remains for the Zesstah to do, that Christ has not done?
So the Jews are trifling, and the time in ques- tion, which they refer to the future, is actually come. For when did prophet and vision cease from Israel, save when Christ came, the Holy of Holies? For it is a sign, and an important proof, of the coming of the Word of God, that Jerusalem no longer stands, nor is any prophet raised up nor vision revealed to them,—and that very naturally. 2. For when He that was signified was come, what need was there any longer of any to signify Him? When the truth was there, what need any more of the shadow? For this was the reason of their prophesying at all,—namely, till the true Righteousness should come, and He that was to ransom the sins of all. And this was why Jerusalem stood till then— namely, that there they might be exercised in the types as a preparation for the reality. 3. So when the Holy of Holies was come, naturally vision and prophecy were sealed and the king- dom of Jerusalem ceased. For kings were to be anointed among them only until the Holy of Holies should have been anointed; and Jacob prophesies that the kingdom of the Jews should be established until Him, as follows:— “ The ruler ® shall not fail from Juda, nor the Prince from his loins, until that which is laid up for him shall come; and he is the expectation of the nations.” 4. Whence the Saviour also Himself cried aloud and said: ‘“'The9 law and the prophets prophesied until John.” If then there is now among the Jews 8 Gen. xlix. 10. 9 Matt. xi, 23 cf. Luc. xvi. 36.
tm king or prophet or vision, they do well to deny the Christ that is come. But if there is neither king nor vision, but from that time forth all prophecy is sealed and the city and temple taken, why are they so irreligious and so per- verse as to see what has happened, and yet to deny Christ, Who has brought it all to pass? Or why, when they see even heathens deserting their idols, and placing their hope, through Christ, on the God of Israel, do they deny Christ, Who was born of the root of Jesse after the flesh and henceforth is King? For if the nations were worshipping some other God, and not confessing the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses, then, once more, they would be doing well in alleging that God had notcome. 5. Butif the Gentiles are honouring the same God that gave the law to Moses and made the promise to Abraham, and Whose word the Jews dishonoured,—why are they ignorant, or rather why do they choose to ignore, that the Lord foretold by the Scriptures has shone forth upon the world, and appeared to it in bodily form, as the Scripture said: “The? Lord God hath shined upon us;” and again: “ He? sent His Word and healed them;” and again: “ Not3 a messenger, not an angel, but the Lord Himself saved them?” 6. Their state may be compared to that of one out of his right mind, who sees the earth illumined by the sun, but denies the sun that illumines it. For what more is there for him whom they expect to do, when he is come? To call the heathen? But they are called already. To make prophecy, and king, and vision to cease? This too has already come to pass. To expose the godlessness of idolatry? It is already exposed and condemned. Or to destroy death? He is already destroyed. 7. What then has not come to pass, that the Christ must do? What is left unfulfilled, that the Jews should now disbelieve with impunity? For if, I say,— which is just what we actually see,—there is no longer king nor prophet nor Jerusalem nor sacrifice nor vision among them, but even the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of God, and gentiles, leaving their godlessness, are now taking refuge with the God of Abra- ham, through the Word, even our Lord Jesus Christ, then it must be plain, even to those who are exceedingly obstinate, that the Christ is come, and that He has illumined absolutely all with His light, and given them the true and divine teaching concerning His Father.
8. So one can fairly refute the Jews by these and by other arguments from the Divine Scriptures.
1 Cf, Ps. cxviii. 27, and for the literal sense, Num. vi. 25. 2 Ps, cvii. 20. _ 3 Isa. xiii. 9 (LXX.), and the note in the (Queen's Printers’) ‘ Variorum’ Bible.
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§ 41. ANSWER TO THE GREEKS. Do they re- cognise the Logos? Lf He manifests Himself in the organism of the Universe, why not in one Body? For a human body is a part of the same whole.
But one cannot but be utterly astonished at the Gentiles, who, while they laugh at what is no matter for jesting, are themselves insensible to their own disgrace, which they do not see that they have set up in the shape of stocks and stones. 2. Only, as our argument 1s not lacking in demonstrative proof, come let us put them also to shame on reasonable grounds, —mainly from what we ourselves also see. For what is there on our side that is absurd, or worthy of derision? Is it merely our saying that the Word has been made manifest in the body? But this even they will join in owning to have happened without any absurdity, if they shew themselves friends of truth. 3. If then they deny that there is a Word of God at all, they do so gratuitously 4, jesting at what they know not. 4. But if they confess that there is a Word of God, and He ruler of the universe, and that in Him the Father has produced the creation, and that by His Providence the whole receives light and life and being, and that He reigns over all, so that from the works of His providence He is known, and through Him the Father,—consider, I pray you, whether they be not unwittingly raising the jest against them- selves. 5. The philosophers of the Greeks say that the universe is a great body 5; and rightly so. For we see it and its parts as objects of our senses. If, then, the Word of God is in the Universe, which is a body, and has united Himself with the whole and with all its parts, what is there surprising or absurd if we say that He has united Himself® with man also. 6. For if it were absurd for Him to have been in a body at all, it would be absurd for Him to be united with the whole either, and to be giving light and movement to all things by His providence. For the whole also is a body. 7. But if it beseems Him to unite Himself with the universe, and to be made known in the whole, it must beseem Him also to appear in a human body, and that by Him it should be illumined and work. For mankind is part of the whole as well as the rest. And if it be un- 4 Athan. here assumes, for the purpose of his argument, the principles of the Neo-platonist schools. They were influenced, In regard to the Logos, by Philo, but even on this subject the germ of their teaching may be traced in Plato, especially in the Tzmeus, (See Drummond's Philo, i. 65—88, Bigg’s Baimp. Lect. 14, 18, 248—253, and St. Aug. Confess. in ‘Nicene Fathers,’ Series x, vol. 1, p. 107 and notes.) 5 Especially Plato, 7772. 30, &c.
© emBeBynkevar, cf. above, 20. 4, 6. The Union of God and Man in Christ is of course ‘hypostatic’ or personal, and thus (supra 17. 1), different in kind from the union of the Word with Creation. His argument is ad homines. It was not for thinkers who identi- fied the Universe with God to take exception to the idea of Incarnation.
‘ INCARNATION OF THE WORD.
ao seemly for a part to have been adopted as His instrument to teach men of His Godhead, it must be most absurd that He should be made known even by the whole universe.
§ 42. His union with the body ts based upon His relation to Creation as a whole. He used a human body, since to man tt was that He wished to reveal Himself.
For just as, while the whole body is quick- ened and illumined by man, supposing one said it were absurd that man’s power should also be in the toe, he would be thought foolish; because, while granting that he pervades and works in the whole, he demurs to his being in the part also; thus he who grants and believes that the Word of God is in the whole Universe, and that the whole is illumined and moved by Him, should not think it absurd that a single human body also should receive movement and light from Him. 2. But if it is because the human race is a thing created and has been made out of nothing, that they regard that manifestation of the Saviour in man, which we speak of, as not seemly, it is high time for them to eject Him from creation also; for it too has been brought into existence by the Word out of nothing. 3. But if, even though crea- tion be a thing made, it is not absurd that the Word should be in it, then neither is it absurd that He should be in man. For whatever idea they form of the whole, they must necessarily apply the like idea to the part. For man also, as I said before, isa part of the whole. 4. Thus it is not at all unseemly that the Word should be in man, while all things are deriving from Him their light and movement and light, as also their authors say, “In? him we live and move and have our being.” 5. So, then, what is there to scoff at in what we say, if the Word has used that, wherein He is, as an instrument to manifest Himself? For were He not in it, neither could He have used it; but if we have previously allowed that He is in the whole and in its parts, what is there incredible in His manifesting Himself in that wherein He is? 6. For by His own power He is united ® wholly with each and all, and orders all things without stint, so that no one could have called it out of place for Him to speak, and make known Him- self and His Father, by means of sun, if He so willed, or moon, or heaven, or earth, or waters, or fire9; inasmuch as He holds in one all things at once, and is in fact not only in all, but also in the part in question, and there invisibly manifests Himself. In lke manner, 7 See Acts. xvii. 28. 8 émiBaivwy, see supra, note 3. 9 The superfluous memorjkérae is ignored, being untranslateable as the text stands. For a less simple conjecture, see the Bened.
note, it cannot be absurd if, ordering as He does the whole, and giving life to all things, and having willed to make Himself known through men, He has used as His instrument a human body to manifest the truth and knowledge of the Father. For humanity, too, is an actual part of the whole. 7. And as Mind, pervading man all through, is interpreted by a part of the body, I mean the tongue, without any one saying, I suppose, that the essence of the mind is on that account lowered, so if the Word, pervading all things, has used a human instrument, this cannot appear unseemly. For, as I have said previously, if it be unseemly to have used a body as an instrument, it is unseemly also for Him to be in the Whole.
§ 43. He came tn human rather than in any nobler forn, because (1) He came to save, not to impress; (2) Man alone of creatures had sinned. As men would not recognise Hts works tn the Universe, He came and worked among them as Man; in the sphere to which they had limited themselves.
Now, if they ask, Why then did He not appear by means of other and nobler parts of creation, and use some nobler instrument, as the sun, or moon, or stars, or fire, or air, instead of man merely? let them know that the Lord came not to make a display, but to heal and teach those who were suffering. 2. For the way for one aiming at display would be, just to appear, and to dazzle the beholders; but for one seeking to heal and teach the way is, not simply to sojourn here, but to give himself to the aid of those in want, and to appear as they who need him can bear it; that he may not, by exceeding the requirements of the sutterers, trouble the very persons that need him, render- ing God’s appearance useless to them. 3. Now, nothing in creation had gone astray with regard to their notions of God, save man only. Why, neither sun, nor moon, nor heaven, nor the stars, nor water, nor air had swerved from their order; but knowing their Artificer and Sovereign, the Word, they remain as they were made*. But men alone, having rejected what was good, then devised things of nought instead of the truth, and have ascribed the honour due to God, and their knowledge of Him, to demons and men in the shape of stones. 4. With reason, then, since it were unworthy of the Divine Goodness to overlook so grave a matter, while yet men were not able to recognise Him 1 This thought is beautifully expressed by Keble:— ‘ All true, all faultless, all in tune, Creation’s wondrous choir Opened in mystic unison, to last till time expire. And still it lasts: by day and night with one consenting voice All hymn Thy glory, Lord, aright, all worship and rejoice: Man only mars the sweet accord’...(‘Christian Year,’ Fourth Sunday after Trinity.)
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as ordering and guiding the whole, He takes to Himself as an instrument a part of the whole, His human body, and unites? Himself with that, in order that since men could not recog- nise Him in the whole, they should not fail to know Him in the part; and since they could not look up to His invisible power, might be able, at any rate, from what resembled them- selves to reason to Him and to contemplate Him. 5. For, men as they are, they will be able to know His Father more quickly and directly by a body of like nature and by the divine works wrought through it, judging by comparison that they are not human, but the works of God, which are done by Him. 6. And if it were absurd, as they say, for the Word to be known through the works of the body, it would likewise be absurd for Him to be known through the works of the universe. For just as He is in creation, and yet does not partake of its nature in the least degree, but rather all things partake 3 of His power; so while He used the body as His instrument He partook of no corporeal property, but, on the contrary, Himself sancti- fied even the body. 7. For if even Plato, who is in such repute among the Greeks, says + that its author, beholding the universe tempest- tossed, and in peril of going down to the place of chaos, takes his seat at the helm of the soul and comes to the rescue and corrects all its calamities; what is there incredible in what we say, that, mankind being in error, the Word lighted down 5 upon it and appeared as man, that He might save it in its tempest by His guidance and goodness?
§ 44. As God made man by a word, why not restore him by a word? But (1) creation out of nothing ts different from reparation of what already exists. (2) Man was there with a definite need, calling for a definite remedy. Death was ingrained in man’s nature: He then must wind cife closely to human nature. Therefore the Word became Incarnate that He might meet and conquer death in His usurped territory. (Stmile of straw and asbestos.)
But perhaps, shamed into agreeing with this, they will choose to say that God, if He wished to reform and to save mankind, ought to have done so by a mere fiat ®, without His word taking a body, in just the same way as He did formerly, when He produced them out of nothing. 2. To this objection of theirs a reasonable answer would be: that formerly, 3 Cf. Orig. c. Ces. vi. 64, where there is the same contrast between meréxey and petéxyeo@ar.
4 Ath, paraphrases loosely Plat. Politic. 273 D. See Jowett’s 5 Lit. ‘‘sate down,” as four lines above.
© With this discussion compare that upon ‘repentance’ above nothing being in existence at all, what was needed to make everything was a fiat and the bare will to do so. But when man had once been made, and necessity demanded a cure, not for things that were not, but for things that had come to be, it was naturally consequent that the Physician and Saviour should appear in what had come to be, in order also to cure the things that were. For this cause, then, He has become man, and used His body as a human instrument. 3. For if this were not the right way, how was the Word, choosing to use an instrument, to appear? or whence was He to take it, save from those already in being, and in need of His Godhead by means of one like themselves? For it was not things without being that needed salvation, so that a bare command should suffice, but man, already in existence, was going to corruption and ruin’, It was then natural and right that the Word should use a human instrument and reveal Himself everywhither. 4. Secondly, you must know this also, that the corruption which had set in was not external to the body, but had become attached to it; and it was required that, instead of corruption, life should cleave to it; so that, just as death has been engen- dered in the body, so life may be engendered in it also. 5. Now if death were external to the body, it would be proper for life also to have been engendered externally to it. But if death was wound closely to the body and was ruling over it as though united to it, it was required that life also should be wound closely to the body, that so the body, by putting on life in its stead, should cast off corruption. Besides, even supposing that the Word had come outside the body, and not in it, death would indeed have been defeated by Him, in perfect accordance with nature, inasmuch as death has no power against the Life; but the corruption attached to the body would have remained in it none the less®& 6. For this cause the Saviour reasonably put on Him a body, in order that the body, becoming wound closely to the Life, should no longer, as mortal, abide in death, but, as having put on immortality, should thenceforth rise again and remain immortal. For, once it had put on corruption, it could not have risen again unless it had put on life. And death likewise could not, from its very nature, appear, save in the body. Therefore He put on a body, that He might find death in the body, and blot it out. For how could the Lord have been proved at all to be the Life, had He not quickened what 7 Restoration by a mere fiat would have shewn God’s Power, the Incarnation shews His Love. See Ovat. i. 52, note 1, ii. 68, note 1.
INCARNATION OF THE WORD.
61 was mortal? 7. And just as, whereas stubble is naturally destructible by fire, supposing (firstly) a man keeps fire away from the stubble, though it is not burned, yet the stubble remains, for all that, merely stubble, fearing the threat of the fire—for fire has the natural property of consuming it; while if a man (secondly) encloses it with a quantity of asbestos, the substance said 9 to be an antidote to fire, the stubble no longer dreads the fire, being secured by its enclosure in incombustible matter; 8. in this very way one may say, with regard to the body and death, that if death had been kept from the body by a mere com- mand on His part, it would none the less have been mortal and corruptible, according to the nature of bodies; but, that this should not be, it put on the incorporeal Word of God, and thus no longer fears either death or corruption, for it has life as a garment, and corruption is done away in it.
§ 45. Thus once again every part of creation ma- nifests the glory of God. Nature, the witness to her Creator, yields (by miracles) a second testimony to God Incarnate. The witness of Nature, perverted by man’s sin, was thus Jorced back to truth. If these reasons suffice not, let the Greeks look at facts.
Consistently, therefore, the Word of God took a body and has made use of a human in- strument, in order to quicken the body also, and as He is known in creation by His works so to work in man as well, and to shew Himself everywhere, leaving nothing void of His own divinity, and of the knowledge of Him. 2. For I resume, and repeat what I said before, that the Saviour did this in order that, as He fills all things on all sides by His presence, so also He might fill all things with the knowledge of Him, as the divine Scripture also says*: “The whole earth was filled with the knowledge of the Lord.” 3. For if a man will but look up to heaven, he sees its Order, or if he cannot raise his face to heaven, but only to man, he sees His power, beyond comparison with that of men, shewn by His works, and learns that He alone among men is God the Word. Or if a man is gone astray among demons, and is in fear of them, he may see this man drive them out, and make up his mind that He is their Master. Or if a man has sunk to the waters 2, and thinks that they are God,— as the Egyptians, for instance, reverence the water,—he may see its nature changed by Him, and learn that the Lord is Creator of the 9 See above 28. 3. He appears not to have seen the substance. t Isa. xi. 9. For the argument, compare % 11-14. 2 See Dillinger, Gentile and Jew, 1. 449.
waters. 4. But if a man is gone down even to Hades, and stands in awe of the heroes who have descended thither, regarding them as gods, yet he may see the fact of Christ’s Resurrection and victory over death, and infer that among them also Christ alone is true God and Lord. 5. For the Lord touched all parts of creation, and freed and undeceived all of them from every illusion; as Paul says: ‘“ Having 3 put off from Himself the principalities and the powers, He triumphed on the Cross:” that no one might by any possibility be any longer deceived, but everywhere might find the true Word of God. 6. For thus man, shut in on every side4, and beholding the divinity of the Word un- folded everywhere, that is, in heaven, in Hades, in man, upon earth, is no longer exposed to deceit concerning God, but is to worship Christ alone, and through Him come rightly to know the Father. 7. By these arguments, then, on grounds of reason, the Gentiles in their turn will fairly be put to shame by us. But if they deem the arguments insufficient to shame them, let them be assured of what we are saying at any rate by facts obvious to the sight of all.
§ 46. Discredit, from the date of the Incarnation, of idol-cultus, oracles, mythologies, demoniacai energy, magic, and Gentile philosophy. And whereas the old cults were strictly local and independent, the worship of Christ is catholic and uniform.
When did men begin to desert the worship- ping of idols, save since God, the true Word of God, has come among men? Or when have the oracles among the Greeks, and everywhere, ceased and become empty, save when the Saviour has manifested Himself upon earth? 2. Or when did those who are called gods and heroes in the poets begin to be convicted of being merely mortal men 5, save since the Lord effected His conquest of death, and preserved incorruptible the body he had taken, raising it from the dead? 3. Or when did the deceitful- ness and madness of demons fall into con- tempt, save when the power of God, the Word, the Master of all these as well, condescending because of man’s weakness, appeared on earth? Or when © did the art and the schools of magic begin to be trodden down, save when the divine manifestation of the Word took place among men? 4. And, in a word, at what time has the wisdom of the Greeks become foolish, save when the true Wisdom of God manifested itself on earth? For formerly the whole world 4 The Incarnation completes the circle of God’s self-witness and of man’s responsibility.
5 Cf. notes onc. Gent. 10, and 12.2. is 6 On the following argument see Dillinger il. 210 sgg., and Bigg, Bampt. Lect. 248, note tr.
62 DE INGCARNATIONE VERB? (DEL and every place was led astray by the worship- ping of idols, and men regarded nothing else but the idols as gods. But now, all the world over, men are deserting the superstition of the idols, and taking refuge with Christ; and, wor- shipping Him as God, are by His means com- ing to know that Father also Whom they knew not. 5. And, marvellous fact, whereas the objects of worship were various and of vast number, and each place,had its own idol, and he who was accounted a god among them had no power to pass over to the neighbouring place, so as to persuade those of neighbouring peoples to worship him, but was barely served even among his own people; for no one else worshipped his neighbour’s god—on the con- trary, each man kept to his own idol 7, thinking it to be lord of all;—Christ alone is worshipped as one and the same among all peoples; and what the weakness of the idols could not do— to persuade, namely, even those dwelling close at hand,—this Christ has done, persuading not only those close at hand, but simply the entire world, to worship one and the same Lord, and through Him God, even His Father.
€47. The numerous oracles,—fancied apparitions in sacred places, &c., dispelled by the sign of the Cross. The old gods prove to have been mere men. Magic ts exposed. And whereas Phi- losophy could only persuade select and local cligues of Immortality and goodness,—men of “ittle intellect have infused into the multitudes of the churches the principle of a supernatural life.
And whereas formerly every place was full of the deceit of the oracles 8, and the oracles at Delphi and Dodona, and in Beeotia? and Lycia? and Libya? and Egypt and those of the Cabiri 3, and the Pythoness, were held in repute by men’s imagination, now, since Christ has begun to be preached everywhere, their madness also has ceased and there is none among them to divine any more. 2. And whereas formerly demons used to deceive # men’s fancy, occupy- ing springs or rivers, trees or stones, and thus imposed upon the simple by their juggleries; now, after the divine visitation of the Word, their deception has ceased. For by the Sign of the Cross, though a man but use it, he drives out their deceits. 3. And while for- 7 On the local character of ancient religions, see Dallinger i. ro9, &c., and Coulanges, La Cité Antique, Book ILI. ch. vi., and V. iii. (the substance in Barker’s Aryan Civilisation).
8 On these, see Dillinger, i. 216, &c., and Milton’s Ode on the Nativity, stanza xix, 9 1.e. that of Trophonius, t Patara. 2 Ammon.
_3 See Dillinger, i. 73, 164-70: the Cabiri were pre-Hellenic deities, worshipped in many ancient sanctuaries, but principally in Samothrace and Lemnos.
4 Cf. Vit. Ant. xvi.—xliii., also Ddllinger, ii. 212, and a curious catena of extracts from early Fathers, collected by Hurter in « Opuscula SS. Patrum Selecta,’ vol. 1, appendix.
merly men held to be gods the Zeus and Cronos and Apollo and the heroes mentioned in the poets, and went astray in honouring them; now that the Saviour has appeared among men, those others have been exposed as mortal men5, and Christ alone has been recognised among men as the true God, the Word of God. 4. And what is one to say of the magic® esteemed among them? that before the Word sojourned among us this was strong and active among Egyptians, and Chal- dees, and Indians, and inspired awe in those who saw it; but that by the presence of the Truth, and the Appearing of the Word, it also has been thoroughly confuted, and brought wholly to nought. 5. But as to Gentile wisdom, and the sounding pretensions of the philosophers, I think none can need our argument, since the wonder is before the eyes of all, that while the wise among the Greeks had written so much, and were unable to persuade even a few? from their own neighbourhood, concerning immor- tality and a virtuous life, Christ alone, by ordinary language, and by men not clever with the tongue, has throughout all the world per- suaded whole churches full of men to despise death, and to mind the things of immortality; to overlook what is temporal and to turn their eyes to what is eternal; to think nothing of earthly glory and to strive only for the hea- venly.
§ 48. Further facts. Christian continence of vir- gins and ascetics. Martyrs. The power of the Cross against demons and magic. Christ by fis Power shews Himself more than a man, more than a magician, more than a spirit. For all these are totally subject to Him. Therefore Fle ts the Word of God.
Now these arguments of ours do not amount merely to words, but have in actual experience a witness to their truth. 2. For let him that will, go up and behold the proof of virtue in the virgins of Christ and in the young men that practise holy chastity 8, and the assurance of immortality in so great a band of His martyrs. 3. And let him come.who would test by experience what we have now said, and in the very presence of the deceit of demons and the imposture of oracles and the marvels of magic, let him use the Sign of that Cross which is laughed at among them, and he shall see how by its means demons fly, oracles cease, all magic and witchcraft is brought to nought. 4. Who, then, and how great is this Christ, 5 For this opinion, see note x on c. Gent. 12.
© See Dillinger, ii. 210, and (on Julian) 215.
7 In_Plato’s ideal Republic, the notion of any direct influence of the highest ideals upon the masses is quite absent. Their hap- Ppiness is to be in passive obedience to the few whom those ideals inspire. (Contrast Isa. liv. 13, Jer. xxxi. 34.)
8 Cf. Hist. Avian. 25, Abol. Const. 33- INCARNATION OF THE WORD.
63 Who by His own Name and Presence casts into the shade and brings to nought all things on every side, and is alone strong against all, and has filled the whole world with His teaching? Let the Greeks tell us, who are pleased to laugh, and blush not. 5. For if He is a man, how then has one man exceeded the power of all whom even themselves hold to be gods, and convicted them by His own power of being nothing? But if they call Him a ma- gician, how can it be that by a magician all magic is destroyed, instead of being confirmed? For if He conquered particular magicians, or prevailed over one only, it would be proper for them to hold that He excelled the rest by superior skill; 6. but if His Cross has won the victory over absolutely all magic, and over the very name of it, it must be plain that the Saviour is not a magician, seeing that even those demons who are invoked by the other magicians fly from Him as their Master. 7. Who He is, then, let the Greeks tell us, whose only serious pursuit is jesting. Perhaps they might say that He, too, was a demon, and hence His strength. But say this as they will, they will have the laugh against them, for they can once more be put to shame by our former proofs. For how is it possible that He should be a demon who drives the demons out? 8. For if He simply drove out particular demons, it might properly be held that by the chief of demons He prevailed against the lesser, just as the Jews said to Him when they wished to