reasonableness of the gospel revelation. In the first place, then, as has been partially discussed before!?’®, let us consider what is that which, by the rule of contraries, is opposed to virtue. As darkness is the opposite of light, and death of life, so vice, and nothing else besides, is plainly the opposite of virtue. For as in the many objects in creation there is nothing which is distinguished by its opposition to light or life, but only the peculiar ideas which are their exact opposites, as darkness and death—not stone, or wood, or water, or man, or anything else in the world,—so, in the instance of virtue, it cannot be said that any created thing can be conceived of as contrary to it, but only the idea of vice. If, then, our Faith preached that the Deity had been begotten under vicious circumstances, an opportunity would have been afforded the objector of running down our belief, as that of persons who propounded incon- gruous and absurd opinions with regard to the Divine nature. For, indeed, it were blasphem- ous to assert that the Deity, Which is very wisdom, goodness, incorruptibility, and every other exalted thing in thought or word, had undergone change to the contrary. If, then, God is real and essential virtue, and no mere existence!?”
of any kind is logically opposed to virtue, but only vice is so; and if the Divine birth was not into vice, but into human existence; and if only vicious weakness is unseemly and shameful—and with such weakness neither was God born, nor had it in His nature to be born,—why are they scandalized at the confes- sion that God came into touch with human nature, when in relation to virtue no contrariety whatever is observable in the organization of man? For neither Reason, nor Understanding ~~’, nor Receptivity for science, nor any other like quality proper to the essence of man, is opposed to the principle of virtue.
family of evil. But we confidently assert that He does send messengers for this very purpose: for His words ap- pealing to men’s noblest emotions are amongst them. But whereas there had been already great differences between the various ministers of the Word, the reformation of Jesus went beyond them all in greatness; for He did not mean to heal the men of one little corner only of the world, but He came to save all;” c. Cels. iv. 3, 4.
1979 gvoic.
1980 10 Siavontikov XVI Chapter XVI.
“But,” it is said, “this change in our body by birth is a weakness, and one born under such condition is born in weakness. Now the Deity is free from weakness. It is, therefore, a strange idea in connection with God,” they say, “when people declare that one who is essen- tially free from weakness thus comes into fellowship with weakness.” Now in reply to this let us adopt the same argument as before, namely that the word “weakness” is used partly in a proper, partly in an adapted sense. Whatever, that is, affects the will and perverts it from virtue to vice is really and truly a weakness; but whatever in nature is to be seen proceeding by a chain peculiar to itself of successive stages would be more fitly called a work than a weakness. As, for instance, birth, growth, the continuance of the underlying substance through the influx and efflux of the aliments, the meeting together of the component elements of the body, and, on the other hand, the dissolution of its component parts and their passing back into the kindred elements. Which “weakness,” then, does our Mystery assert that the Deity came in contact with? That which is properly called weakness, which is vice, or that which is the result of natural movements? Well, if our Faith affirmed that the Deity was born under forbidden circumstances, then it would be our duty to shun a statement which gave this profane and unsound description of the Divine Being. But if it asserts that God laid hold on this nature of ours, the production of which in the first instance and the sub- sistence afterwards had its origin in Him, in what way does this our preaching fail in the reverence that befits Him? Amongst our notions of God no disposition tending to weakness goes along with our belief in Him. We do not say that a physician is in weakness when he is employed in healing one who is so!?®!, For though he touches the infirmity he is himself unaffected by it. If birth is not regarded in itself as a weakness, no one can call life such. But the feeling of sensual pleasure does go before the human birth, and as to the impulse to vice in all living men, this is a disease of our nature. But then the Gospel mystery asserts that He Who took our nature was pure from both these feelings. If, then, His birth had no connection with sensual pleasure, and His life none with vice, what “weakness” is there left which the mystery of our religion asserts that God participated in? But should any one call the separa- 1981 So Origen (c. Cels. iv. 15) illustrates the kévwotg and ovykatdBaots of Christ: “Nor was this change one from the heights of excellence to the depths of baseness (tO novnpdtatov), for how can goodness and love be baseness? If they were, it would be high time to declare that the surgeon who inspects or touches grievous and unsightly cases in order to heal them undergoes such a change from good to bad.”
XVI tion of body and soul a weakness!”®’, far more justly might he term the meeting together of these two elements such. For if the severance of things that have been connected is a weakness, then is the union of things that are asunder a weakness also. For there is a feeling of movement in the uniting of things sundered as well as in the separation of what has been welded into one. The same term, then, by which the final movement is called, it is proper to apply to the one that initiated it. If the first movement, which we call birth, is not a weakness, it follows that neither the second, which we call death, and by which the severance of the union of the soul and body is effected, is a weakness. Our position is, that God was born subject to both movements of our nature; first, that by which the soul hastens to join the body, and then again that by which the body is separated from the soul; and that when the concrete humanity was formed by the mixture of these two, I mean the sentient and the intelligent element, through that ineffable and inexpressible conjunction, this result in the Incarnation followed, that after the soul and body had been once united the union continued for ever. For when our nature, following its own proper course, had even in Him been ad- vanced to the separation of soul and body, He knitted together again the disunited elements, cementing them, as it were, together with the cement of His Divine power, and recombining what has been severed in a union never to be broken. And this is the Resurrection, namely the return, after they have been dissolved, of those elements that had been before linked together, into an indissoluble union through a mutual incorporation; in order that thus the primal grace which invested humanity might be recalled, and we restored to the everlasting life, when the vice that has been mixed up with our kind has evaporated through our dissol- ution, as happens to any liquid when the vessel that contained it is broken, and it is spilt and disappears, there being nothing to contain it. For as the principle of death took its rise in one person and passed on in succession through the whole of human kind, in like manner the principle of the Resurrection-life extends from one person to the whole of humanity. For He Who reunited to His own proper body the soul that had been assumed by Himself, by virtue of that power which had mingled with both of these component elements at their first framing, then, upon a more general scale as it were ~~”, conjoined the intellectual to 1982 There is no one word in English which would represent the full meaning of 1480c. “Sufferance” sometimes comes nearest to it, but not here, where Gregory is attempting to express that which in no way whatever attached to the Saviour, i.e. moral weakness, as opposed to physical infirmity.
1983 upona more general scale as it were. The Greek here is somewhat obscure; the best reading is Krabinger’s; Yevixwtépw trv Adyw trv voepav ovotav tf aioOntf ovyKatéuéev. Hervetus’ translation is manifestly wrong; “Is generosiorem quandam intelligentem essentiam commiscuit sensili principio.”—Soul and body have been reunited by the Resurrection, on a larger scale and to a wider extent (Adyw), than in the former instance of a single Person (in the Incarnation), the new principle of life progressing to the extremities of humanity by natural consequence: yevikwtépw will thus refer by comparison to “the first framing of these component elements.” Or else it contrasts the amount of life with that of death: and is to be explained by Rom. v. 15, “But notas the offence, XVI the sentient nature, the new principle freely progressing to the extremities by natural con- sequence. For when, in that concrete humanity which He had taken to Himself, the soul after the dissolution returned to the body, then this uniting of the several portions passes, as by a new principle, in equal force upon the whole human race. This, then, is the mystery of God’s plan with regard to His death and His resurrection from the dead; namely, instead of preventing the dissolution of His body by death and the necessary results of nature, to bring both back to each other in the resurrection; so that He might become in Himself the meeting-ground both of life and death, having re-established in Himself that nature which death had divided, and being Himself the originating principle of the uniting those separated portions.
so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” Krabinger’s translation, “generaliori quadam ratione,” therefore seems correct. The mode of the union of soul and body is described in Gregory’s Treatise on the Soul as kpeittwv Adyos, and in his Making of Man as &ppaotos Adyos, but in neither is there any comparison but with other less perfect modes of union; i.e. the reference is to quality, not to quantity, as here.
XVII Chapter XVII.
But it will be said that the objection which has been brought against us has not yet been solved, and that what unbelievers have urged has been rather strengthened by all we have said. For if, as our argument has shown, there is such power in Him that both the destruction of death and the introduction of life resides in Him, why does He not effect His purpose by the mere exercise of His will, instead of working out our salvation in such a roundabout way, by being born and nurtured as a man, and even, while he was saving man, tasting death; when it was possible for Him to have saved man without subjecting Himself to such condi- tions? Now to this, with all candid persons, it were sufficient to reply, that the sick do not dictate to their physicians the measures for their recovery, nor cavil with those who do them good as to the method of their healing; why, for instance, the medical man felt the diseased part and devised this or that particular remedy for the removal of the complaint, when they expected another; but the patient looks to the end and aim of the good work, and receives 1984 ‘that God’s abounding goodness keeps its utility concealed, and is not seen in complete clearness in this present the benefit with gratitude. Seeing, however, as says the Prophet life—otherwise, if the eyes could behold all that is hoped for, every objection of unbelievers would be removed,—but, as it is, abides the ages that are coming, when what is at present seen only by the eye of faith must be revealed, it is needful accordingly that, as far as we may, we should by the aid of arguments, the best within our reach, attempt to discover for these difficulties also a solution in harmony with what has gone before.
1984 the Prophet, i.e. David; Ps. xxxi. 19: wo MOAD TO NAMG0¢ Tis XPNOtTStNTOG cov, k.t.A. Hervetus translates Gregory here “divitize benignitatis,” as if he had found mAovtog in the text, which does not appear. Jerome twice translates the yprjotdtns of LXX. by “bonitas”; Aquila and Symmachus have ti moAb 16 &yaOdv cov. This is the later sense of xpnototns, which originally meant “serviceableness” and then “uprightness” (Psalm xiii. 2, 4; XXXVvi. 3; cxix. 66), rather than “kindness.”
XVIII Chapter XVHI.
And yet it is perhaps straining too far for those who do believe that God sojourned here in life to object to the manner of His appearance!?®° , as wanting wisdom or conspicuous reasonableness. For to those who are not vehemently antagonistic to the truth there exists no slight proof of the Deity having sojourned here; I mean that which is exhibited now in this present life before the life to come begins, the testimony which is borne by actual facts. For who is there that does not know that every part of the world was overspread with de- moniacal delusion which mastered the life of man through the madness of idolatry; how this was the customary rule among all nations, to worship demons under the form of idols, with the sacrifice of living animals and the polluted offerings on their altars? But from the time when, as says the Apostle, “the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men ap- peared!°8°” and dwelt among us in His human nature, all these things passed away like smoke into nothingness, the madness of their oracles and prophesyings ceased, the annual pomps and pollutions of their bloody hecatombs came to an end, while among most nations altars entirely disappeared, together with porches, precincts, and shrines, and all the ritual besides which was followed out by the attendant priest of those demons, to the deception both of themselves and of all who came in their way. So that in many of these places no memorial exists of these things having ever been. But, instead, throughout the whole world there have arisen in the name of Jesus temples and altars and a holy and unbloody Priesthood!987 hood!987 , and a sublime philosophy, which teaches, by deed and example more than by word, a disregard of this bodily life and a contempt of death, a contempt which they whom tyrants have tried to force to apostatize from the faith have manifestly displayed, making no account of the cruelties done to their bodies or of their doom of death: and yet, plainly, it was not likely that they would have submitted to such treatment unless they had had a clear and indisputable proof of that Divine Sojourn among men. And the following fact is, 1985 appearance, mapovoiav. Casaubon in his notes to Gregory’s Ep. to Eustathia, gives a list of the various terms applied by the Greek Fathers to the Incarnation, viz. (besides napovota),—n tod Xpiotod emipavera; deorotiKy Emdnuta; 1 51d oapKds OptAta; 1 Tod Adyou EvodpKworc; 1 EvavOpwmnots; 1] EAEVOIS; 1] KEVWOIG; 1] ovyKatéPaots; 1 oikovopta (none more frequent than this); and others.
1986 Tit. ii. 11. This is the preferable rendering; not as in the A.V., “appeared to all men.”
1987 unbloody Priesthood, dvatuaxtov tepwovvny, i.e. “sacerdotium,” not “sacrificium.” This, not 8votay, is supported by the Codd. The Eucharist is often called by the Fathers “the unbloody sacrifice” (e.g. Chrysost. in Ps. xcv., citing Malachi), and the Priesthood which offers it can be called “unbloody” too. Cf. Greg. Naz. in Poem. xi. 1— °Q Ovotac néumovtes avaipdxtous igpfjec. While these terms assert the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, might they not at the same time supply an argument against the Roman view of Transubstantiation, which teaches that the actual blood of Christ is received, and makes it still a bloody sacrifice?
XVIII 1988 of Him in further, a sufficient mark, as against the Jews, of the presence among them Whom they disbelieve; up to the time of the manifestation of Christ the royal palaces in Jerusalem were in all their splendour: there was their far-famed Temple; there was the cus- tomary round of their sacrifices throughout the year: all the things, which had been expressed by the Law in symbols to those who knew how to read its secrets, were up to that point of time unbroken in their observance, in accordance with that form of worship which had been established from the beginning. But when at length they saw Him Whom they were looking for, and of Whom by their Prophets and the Law they had before been told, and when they held in more estimation than faith in Him Who had so manifested Himself that which for the future became but a degraded superstition, because they took it in a wrong sense!?®?, and clung to the mere phrases of the Law in obedience to the dictates of custom rather than of intelligence, and when they had thus refused the grace which had appeared,—then even)???
those holy monuments of their religion were left standing, as they do, in history alone; for no traces even of their Temple can be recognized, and their splendid city has been left in ruins, so that there remains to the Jews nothing of the ancient institutions; while by the command of those who rule over them the very ground of Jerusalem which they so venerated is forbidden to them.
1988 of the presence among them, &c. Cf. a striking passage in Origen; “One amongst the convincing proofs that Jesus was something Divine and holy is this; that the Jews after what they did to Him have suffered so many terrible afflictions for so long. And we shall be bold to say that they never will be restored again. They have committed the most impious of crimes. They plotted against the Saviour of mankind in that city where the ce- remonies they continually performed for God enshrined great mysteries. It was right that that city where Jesus suffered should be utterly destroyed, and the Jewish nation expelled, and that God’s call to blessedness should be made to others, I mean the Christians, to whom have passed the doctrines of a religion of stainless purity, and who have received new laws fitted for any form of government that exists” (c. Celsum, iv. 22). The Jews, he says, will even “suffer more than others in the judgment which they anticipate, in addition to what they have suffered already,” ii. 8. But he says, v. 43, “Would that they had not committed the error of having broken their own law; first killing their prophets, and at last taking Jesus by stealth; for then we should still have amongst us the model of that heavenly city which Plato attempted to sketch, though I cannot say that his powers came up to those of Moses and his successors.”
1989 _ they took it (i.e. the religion, which for the future, &c.) in a wrong sense: kak@c exAaBdovtes (Hasius, ad Leon. Diacon., shows how Aaubavew and petadaupbdvev also have this meaning “interpret,” “accipere”). This is a better reading than éxBaAdvtec, and is supported by two mss. 1990 then even. The apodosis begins here, and ote must be understood after UroAgAeintan, to govern pEival, “were left standing, &c...so that there remains.”
Chapter XIX Chapter XIX.
Nevertheless, since neither those who take the Greek view, nor yet the leaders of Jewish opinions, are willing to make such things the proofs of that Divine manifestation, it may be as well, as regards these demurrers to our statement, to treat more particularly the reason by virtue of which the Divine nature is combined with ours, saving, as it does, humanity by means of itself, and not working out its proposed design by means of a mere command. With what, then, must we begin, so as to conduct our thinking by a logical sequence to the proposed conclusion? What but this, viz. with a succinct detail of the notions that can reli- giously be entertained of God’??!?
1991 The Greek Fathers and the English divines for the most part confine themselves to showing this moral fitness and consonance with God’s nature in the Incarnation, and do not attempt to prove its absolute necessity.
Cf. Athanasius, De Incarn. Verb. c. 6; Hooker, Eccles. Pol. V. li. 3; Butler’s Analogy, pt. ii. c. 5.
Chapter XX Chapter XX.
It is, then, universally acknowledged that we must believe the Deity to be not only almighty, but just, and good, and wise, and everything else that suggests excellence. It follows, therefore, in the present dispensation of things, that it is not the case that some particular one!?”” of these Divine attributes freely displays itself in creation, while there is another that is not present there; for, speaking once for all, no one of those exalted terms, when disjoined from the rest, is by itself alone a virtue, nor is the good really good unless allied with what is just, and wise, and mighty (for what is unjust, or unwise, or powerless, is not good, neither is power, when disjoined from the principle of justice and of wisdom, to be considered in the light of virtue; such species of power is brutal and tyrannous; and so, as to the rest, if what is wise be carried beyond the limits of what is just, or if what is just be not contemplated along with might and goodness, cases of that sort one would more properly call vice; for how can what comes short of perfection be reckoned among things that are good?). If, then, it is fitting that all excellences should be combined in the views we have of God, let us see whether this Dispensation as regards man fails in any of those conceptions which we should entertain of Him. The object of our inquiry in the case of God is before all things the indications of His goodness. And what testimony to His goodness could there be more palpable than this, viz. His regaining to Himself the allegiance of one who had re- volted to the opposite side, instead of allowing the fixed goodness of His nature to be affected by the variableness of the human will? For, as David says, He had not come to save us had not “goodness” created in Him sucha purpose!???; and yet His goodness had not advanced His purpose had not wisdom given efficacy to His love for man. For, as in the case of persons who are in a sickly condition, there are probably many who wish that a man were not in such evil plight, but it is only they in whom there is some technical ability operating in behalf of the sick, who bring their good-will on their behalf to a practical issue, so it is absolutely needful that wisdom should be conjoined with goodness. In what way, then, is wisdom contemplated in combination with goodness; in the actual events, that is, which have taken place? because one cannot observe a good purpose in the abstract; a purpose cannot possibly be revealed unless it has the light of some events upon it. Well, the things accomplished, progressing as they did in orderly series and sequence, reveal the wisdom and the skill of 1992 to pv t1 (for tot). There is the same variety of reading in c. i. and xxi., where Krabinger has preserved the t1: he well quotes Synesius, de Prov. ii. 2; ‘O vév tig dnoOvrjoKel WAnyeic, 0 5é K.t.A. (and refers to his note there).
1993 Ps. cvi. (cv.) 4, 5; cxix. (cxviii.) 65, 66, 68. In the first passage the LXX. has tod ideiv Ev ti} xpnototnti TOV EKAEKTOV Cov (Heb. “the felicity of Thy chosen”): evidently referring to God’s evdoxia in them; He, good Himself (xpnotog, v. 1), will save them, “in order to approve their goodness.” The second passage mentions four times this xpnotétns (bonitas).
Chapter XX the Divine economy. And since, as has been before remarked, wisdom, when combined with justice, then absolutely becomes a virtue, but, if it be disjoined from it, cannot in itself alone be good, it were well moreover in this discussion of the Dispensation in regard to man, to consider attentively in the light of each other these two qualities; I mean, its wisdom and its justice.
Chapter XXI Chapter XXI.
What, then, is justice? We distinctly remember what in the course of our argument we said in the commencement of this treatise; namely, that man was fashioned in imitation of the Divine nature, preserving his resemblance to the Deity as well in other excellences as in possession of freedom of the will, yet being of necessity of a nature subject to change. For it was not possible that a being who derived his origin from an alteration should be altogether free from this liability. For the passing from a state of non-existence into that of existence is a kind of alteration; when being, that is, by the exercise of Divine power takes the place of nonentity. In the following special respect, too, alteration is necessarily observable in man, namely, because man was an imitation of the Divine nature, and unless some distinctive difference had been occasioned, the imitating subject would be entirely the same as that which it resembles; but in this instance, it is to be observed, there is a difference between that which “was made in the image” and its pattern; namely this, that the one is not subject to change, while the other is (for, as has been described, it has come into existence through an alteration), and being thus subject to alteration does not always continue in its existing state. For alteration is a kind of movement ever advancing from the present state to another; and there are two forms of this movement; the one being ever towards what is good, and in this the advance has no check, because no goal of the course to be traversed!?*4 can be reached, while the other is in the direction of the contrary, and of it this is the essence, that it has no subsistence; for, as has been before stated, the contrary state to goodness conveys some such notion of opposition, as when we say, for instance, that that which is is logically opposed to that which is not, and that existence is so opposed to non-existence. Since, then, by reason of this impulse and movement of changeful alteration it is not possible that the nature of the subject of this change should remain self-centred and unmoved, but there is always something towards which the will is tending, the appetency for moral beauty naturally drawing it on to movement, this beauty is in one instance really such in its nature, in another it is not so, only blossoming with an illusive appearance of beauty; and the criterion of these two kinds is the mind that dwells within us. Under these circumstances it is a matter of risk whether we happen to choose the real beauty, or whether we are diverted from its choice by some deception arising from appearance, and thus drift away to the opposite; as happened, we are told in the heathen fable, to the dog which looked askance at the reflection in the water of what it carried in its mouth, but let go the real food, and, opening its mouth wide to swallow the image of it, still hungered. Since, then, the mind has been disappointed in its craving for the real good, and diverted to that which is not such, being persuaded, through 1994 of the course to be traversed: tot d1e§odevouevov. Glauber remarks that the Latin translation here, “ejus qui transit,” gives no sense, and rightly takes the word as a passive. Krabinger also translates, “ejus quod evolvitur.” Here again there is unconscious Platonism: avt0 10 KaAdv is eternal.
Chapter XXI the deception of the great advocate and inventor of vice, that that was beauty which was just the opposite (for this deception would never have succeeded, had not the glamour of beauty been spread over the hook of vice like a bait),—the man, I say, on the one hand, who had enslaved himself by indulgence to the enemy of his life, being of his own accord in this unfortunate condition,—I ask you to investigate, on the other hand, those qualities which suit and go along with our conception of the Deity, such as goodness, wisdom, power, im- mortality, and all else that has the stamp of superiority. As good, then, the Deity entertains pity for fallen man; as wise He is not ignorant of the means for his recovery; while a just decision must also form part of that wisdom; for no one would ascribe that genuine justice to the absence of wisdom.
Chapter XXII Chapter XXII.
What, then, under these circumstances is justice? It is the not exercising any arbitrary 1995 ‘nor, by tearing us away by a violent exercise of sway over him who has us in his power force from his hold, thus leaving some colour for a just complaint to him who enslaved man through sensual pleasure. For as they who have bartered away their freedom for money are the slaves of those who have purchased them (for they have constituted themselves their own sellers, and it is not allowable either for themselves or any one else in their behalf to call freedom to their aid, not even though those who have thus reduced themselves to this sad state are of noble birth; and, if any one out of regard for the person who has so sold himself should use violence against him who has bought him, he will clearly be acting un justly in thus arbitrarily rescuing one who has been legally purchased as a slave, whereas, if he wishes to pay a price to get such a one away, there is no law to prevent that), on the same principle, now that we had voluntarily bartered away our freedom, it was requisite that no arbitrary method of recovery, but the one consonant with justice!?”° should be devised by Him Who in His goodness had undertaken our rescue. Now this method is in a measure this; to make over to the master of the slave whatever ransom he may agree to accept for the person in his possession.
1995 Compare a passage in Dionysius Areop. (De eccles. hierarch. c. iii. p. 297). “The boundless love of the Supreme Goodness did not refuse a personal providing for us, but perfectly participating in all that belongs to us, and united to our lowliness, along with an undiluted and unimpaired possession of its own qualities, has gifted us for ever with a communion of kinship with itself, and exhibited us as partners in Its glories: undoing the adverse power of the Rebel throng, as the secret Tradition says, “not by might, as if it was domineering, but, according to the oracle secretly delivered to us, by right and justice” (quoted by Krabinger). To the words “not by might,” S. Maximus has added the note, “This is what Gregory of Nyssa says in the Catechetic.” See next note.
1996 one consonant with justice. This view of Redemption, as a coming to terms with Satan and making him a party or defender in the case, is rather remarkable. The Prologue to the Book of Job furnishes a basis for it, where Satan enters into terms with God. It appears to be the Miltonic view: as also that Envy was the first sin of Satan.
Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIII.
What, then, was it likely that the master of the slave would choose to receive in his stead? It is possible in the way of inference to make a guess as to his wishes in the matter, if, that is, the manifest indications of what we are seeking for should come into our hands. He then, who, as we before stated in the beginning of this treatise, shut his eyes to the good in his envy of man in his happy condition, he who generated in himself the murky cloud of wickedness, he who suffered from the disease of the love of rule, that primary and funda- mental cause of propension to the bad and the mother, so to speak, of all the wickedness that follows,—what would he accept in exchange for the thing which he held, but something, to be sure, higher and better, in the way of ransom, that thus, by receiving a gain in the ex- change, he might foster the more his own special passion of pride? Now unquestionably in not one of those who had lived in history from the beginning of the world had he been conscious of any such circumstance as he observed to surround Him Who then manifested Himself, i.e. conception without carnal connection, birth without impurity, motherhood with virginity, voices of the unseen testifying from above to a transcendent worth, the healing of natural disease, without the use of means and of an extraordinary character, proceeding from Him by the mere utterance of a word and exercise of His will, the restoration of the dead to life, the absolution of the damned!?””, the fear with which He inspired devils, His power over tempests, His walking through the sea, not by the waters separating on either side, and, as in the case of Moses’ miraculous power, making bare its depths for those who passed through, but by the surface of the water presenting solid ground for His feet, and by a firm and hard resistance supporting His steps; then, His disregard for food as long as it pleased Him to abstain, His abundant banquets in the wilderness wherewith many thousands were fully fed (though neither did the heavens pour down manna on them, nor was their need supplied by the earth producing corn for them in its natural way, but that instance of