will you be able to say that the man (there depicted) is " the son of Jozadak," ' who was never at all clad in a sordid garment, but was always adorned with the sacerdotal garment, nor ever deprived of the sacerdotal function. But the " Jesus " ^ there alluded to is Christ, the Priest of God the most high Father; who at His FIRST ADVENT camc in humility, in human form, and passible, even up to the period of His passion; being Himself likewise made, through all (stages of suffering) a vic- tim for us all; who after His resurrection was "clad with a garment down to the foot,"^ and named the Priest of God the Father unto eternity. ■• So, again, I will make an interpre- tation of the two goats which were habitually offered on the fast-day. ^ Do not they, too, point to each successive stage in the character of the Christ who is already come? A pair, on the one hand, and consimilar (they were), because of the identity of the Lord's general appearance, inasmuch as He is not to come in some other form, seeing that He has to be recognised by those by whom He was once hurt. But the one of them, begirt with scar- let, amid cursing and universal spitting, and tearing, and piercing, was cast away by the People outside the city into perdition, marked with manifest tokens of Christ's passion; who, after being begirt with scarlet garment, and subjected to universal spitting, and afflicted with all contumelies, was crucified outside the city.* The other, however, offered for sins, and given as food fo the priests merely of the temple,^ gave signal evidences of the second appearance; in so far as, after the expiation of all sins, the priests of the spiritual temple, that is, of the church, were to enjoy ^ a spirit- ual public distribution (as it were) of the Lord's grace, while all others are fasting from salvation.
Therefore, since the vaticinations of the FIRST ADVENT obscurcd It with manifold fig- ures, and debased it with every dishonour, while the second (was foretold as) manifest and wholly worthy of God, it has resulted therefrom, that, by fixing their gaze on that one alone which they could easily understand and believe (that is, the second, which is in honour and glory), they have been (not un- deservedly) deceived as to the more obscure — at all events, the more unworthy — that is, the FIRST. And thus to the present moment ' as Tertullian here writes, and as we find in Zech. vi. II, and in the LXX.
3 See Rev. i. ij.
4 See Ps. ex. (cix. in LXX.) 4; Heb. v. 5-10.
5 See Lev. xvi.
6 Comp. Heb. xiii. 10-13. It is to be noted, however, that all this spittingj etc., formed no part of the divinely ordained ceremony.
7 This appears to be an error. See Lev. vi. 30.
8 Unless Oehler's ' fruerentur " is an error for " fruentur" = "will enjoy."
they afifirm that their Christ is not come, be- cause He is not come in majesty; while they are ignorant of ^ the fact that He was first to come in humility.
Enough it is, meantime, to have thus fai followed the stream downward of the order of Christ's course, whereby He is proved such as He was habitually announced: in order that, as a result of this harmony of the Divine Scriptures, we may understand; and that the events which used to be predicted as destined to take place after Christ may be believed to have been accomplished as che result of a divine arrangement. For unless He come after whom they had to be accomplished, by no means would the events, the future oc- currence whereof was predictively assigned to His advent, have come to pass. Therefore, if you see universal nations thenceforth emerg- ing from the profundity of human error to God the Creator and His Christ (which you dare not assert to have not been prophesied, because, albeit you were so to assert, there would forthwith — as we have already pre- mised '° — occur to you the promise of the Fa- ther saying, " My Son art Thou; I this day have begotten Thee; ask of Me, and I will give Thee Gentiles as Thine heritage, and as Thy possession the boundaries of the earth." Nor will you be able to vindicate, as the sub- ject of that prediction, rather the son of David, Solomon, than Christ, God's Son; nor "the boundaries of the earth," as promised rather to David's son, who reigned within the single land of Judea, than to Christ the Son of God, who has already illumined the whole world " with the rays of His gospel. In short, again, a throne " unto the age " '^ is more suitable to Christ, God's Son, than to Solomon, — a tem- poral king, to wit, who reigned over Israel alone. For at the present day nations are in- voking Christ which used not to know Him; and peoples at the present day are fleeing in a body to the Christ of whom in days bygone they were ignorant '-''), you cannot contend that that is future which you see taking place.'* Either deny that these events were prophe- sied, while they are seen before your eyes; or else have been fulfilled, while you hear them read: or, on the other hand, if you fail to deny each position, they will have their fulfil- ment in Him with respect to whom they were prophesied.
9 Or, " ignore."
"° See cc. xi. xii. above.
" Orbem.
'2 Or, " unto eternity." Comp. 2 Sam. (2 Kings in LXX.) va. 13; I Chron. xvii. 12; Ps. Ixxxix. 3, 4, 29, 35, 36, 37 (in LXX. Ps.
'3 See Isa. Iv. 5 (especially in the LXX).
>* Oehler's pointing is discarded. The whole passage, from " which you dare not assert " down to " ignorant, appears to be parenthetical; and I have therefore marked it as such.
VIII.
[BY THE REV S. THELWALL.J CHAP. I.
If, with the object of convicting the rivals and persecutors of Christian truth, from their own authorities, of the crime of at once being untrue to themselves and doing injustice to us, one is bent on gathering testimonies in its favour from the writings of the philosophers, or the poets, or other masters of this world's learning and wisdom, he has need of a most in- quisitive spirit, and a still greater memory to carry out the research. Indeed, some of our people, who still continued their inquisitive labours in ancient literature, and still occupied memory with it, have published works we have in our hands of this very sort; works in which they relate and attest the nature and origin of their traditions, and the grounds on which opinions rest, and from which it may be seen at once that we have embraced nothing new or monstrous — nothing for which we cannot claim the support of ordinary and well-known writ- ings, whether in ejecting error from our creed, or admitting truth into it. But the unbeliev- ing hardness of the human heart leads them to slight even their own teachers, otherwise approved and in high renown, whenever they touch upon arguments which are used in de- fence of Christianity, Then the poets are fools, when they describe the gods with human passions and stories; then the philosophers are without reason, when they knock at the gates of truth. He will thus far be reckoned a wise and sagacious man who has gone the length of uttering sentiments that are almost Christian; while if, in a mere affectation of judgment and wisdom, he sets himself to reject their cere- monies, or to convicting the world of its sin, he is sure to be branded as a Christian. We [The tract De Testitnonio A Jiivice is cast into an apoloeetic torm and very properly comes into place here. It was written in tJrthodo.xy and forms a valuable preface to the De Aniina of which we cannot say that it is quite free from errors. As it refers to the Apologj', we cannot place it before that work, and perhaps we | shall not greatly err it we consider it a sequel to the Apology If ' It proves to others the source of as much enjoyment as it affords ' to me, It will be treasured by them as one of the most precious testimonies to the Gospel, introducing Man to himself ] ' will have nothing, then, to do with the liter- ature and the teaching, perverted in its best results, which is believed in its errors rather than its truth. We shall lay no stress on it, if some of their authors have declared that there is one God, and one God only. Nay, let it be granted that there is nothing in heathen writers which a Christian approves, that it may be put out of his power to utter a single word of reproach. For all are not familiar with their teachings; and those who are, have no assur- ance in regard to their truth. Far less do men assent to our writings, to which no one comes for guidance unless he is already a Christian. I call in a new testimony, yea, one which is better known than all literature, more discussed than all doctrine, more public than all publica- tions, greater than the whole man — I mean all which is man's. Stand forth, O soul, whether thou art a divine and eternal substance, as most philosophers believe — if it be so, thou wilt be the less likely to lie, — or whether thou art the very opposite of divine, because indeed a mortal thing, as Epicurus alone thinks — in that case there will be the less temptation for thee to speak falsely in this case: whether thou art received from heaven, or sprung from earth; whether thou art formed of numbers, or of atoms; whether thine existence begins with that of the body, or thou art put into it at a later stage; from whatever source, and in what- ever way, thou makest man a rational being, in the highest degree capable of thought and knowledge, — stand forth and give thy witness. But I call thee not as when, fashioned in schools, trained in libraries, fed in Attic acad- emies and porticoes, thou belchest wisdom. I address thee simple, rude, uncultured and — untaught, such as they have thee who have thee only; that very thing of the road, the street, the work-shop, wholly. I want thine inexperience, since in thy small experience no one feels any confidence. I demand of thee the things thou bringest with thee into man, which thou knowest either from THE SOUL'S TESTIMONY.
[chap. III.
thyself, or from thine author, whoever he may be. Thou art not, as I well know, Christian; for a man becomes a Christian, he is not born one. Yet Christians earnestly press thee for a testimony; they press thee, though an alien, to bear witness against thy friends, that they may be put to shame before thee, for hating and mocking us on account of things which convict thee as an accessory.
CHAP. II.
We give offence by proclaiming that there is one God, to whom the name of God alone belongs, from whom all things come, and who is Lord of the whole universe.' Bear thy tes- timony, if thou knowest this to be the truth; for openly and with a perfect liberty, such as we do not possess, we hear thee both in private and in public exclaim, "Which may God grant," and, "If God so will." By expres- sions such as these thou declarest that there is one who is distinctively God, and thou con- fessest that all power belongs to him to whose will, as Sovereign, thou dost look. At the same time, too, thou deniest any others to be truly gods, in calling them by their own names of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Minerva; for thou affirmest Him to be God alone to whom thou givest no other name than God; and though thou sometimes callest these others gods, thou plainly usest the designation as one which does not really belong to them, but is, so to speak, a borrowed one. Nor is the nature of the God we declare unknown to thee: "God is good, God does good," thou art wont to say; plainly suggesting further, "But man is evil." In as- serting an antithetic proposition, thou, in a sort of indirect and figurative way, reproachest man with his wickedness in departing from a God so good. So, again, as among us, as be- longing to the God of benignity and goodness, " Blessing " is a most sacred act in our relig- ion and our life, thou too sayest as readily as a Christian needs, " God bless thee;" and when thou turnest the blessing of God into a curse, in like manner thy very words con- fess with us that His power over us is abso- lute and entire. There are some who, though they do not deny the existence of God, hold withal that He is neither Searcher, nor Ruler, nor Judge; treating with especial disdain those of us who go over to Christ out of fear of a coming judgment, as they think, honour- ing God in freeing Him from the cares of keeping watch, and the trouble of taking note, — not even regarding Him as capable of » [The student of Plato will recall such evidences, readily. See The Laws, in Jowett's Translation, vol. jv. p. 416. Also Eluci- dation I.]
anger. For if God, they say, gets angry, then He is susceptible of corruption and passion; but that of which passion and corruption can be affirmed may also perish, which God can- not do. But these very persons elsewhere, confessing that the soul is divine, and be- stowed on us by God, stumble against a tes- timony of the soul itself, which affords an answer to these views. For if either divine or God-given, it doubtless knows its giver; and if it knows Him, it undoubtedly fears Him too, and especially as having been by Him endowed so amply. Has it no fear of Him whose favour it is so desirous to possess, and whose anger it is so anxious to avoid? Whence, then, the soul's natural fear of God, if God cannot be angry? How is there any dread of Him whom nothing offends? What is feared but anger? Whence comes anger, but from observing what is done? What leads to watch- ful oversight, but judgment in prospect? Whence is judgment, but from power? To whom does supreme authority and power be- long, but to God alone? So thou art always ready, O soul, from thine ovv'n knowledge, nobody casting scorn upon thee, and no one preventing, to exclaim, "God sees all," and " I commend thee to God," and " May God ^ repay," and "God shall judge between us." '' How happens this, since thou art not Chris- tian? How is it that, even with the garland of Ceres on the brow, wrapped in the purple cloak of Saturn, wearing the white robe of the god- dess Isis, thou invokest God as judge? Standing under the statue of -^sculapius, adorning the brazen image of Juno, arraying the helmet of Minerv^a with dusky figures, thou never thinkest of appealing to any of these deities. In thine own forum thou appealest to a God who is elsewhere; thou permittest honour to be rendered in thy temples to a foreign god. Oh, striking testimony to truth, which in the very midst of demons obtains a witness for us Christians!
CHAP. III.
But when we say that there are demons — as though, in the simple fact that we alone expel them from the men's bodies,^ we did not also prove their existence — some disciple of Chry- sippus begins to curl the lip. Yet thy curses sufficiently attest that there are such beings, and that they are objects of thy strong dislike. ^ As what comes to thee as a fit expression of thy strong hatred of him, thou callest the man a daemon who annoys thee with his filthiness, » [The existence of demoniacal possessions in heathen coun- tries is said to be probable, even in our days. The Fathers unani- mously assert the effectual exorcisms of their days.]
3[f.^. Horace, EpodcSy Ode \'.]
CHAP. IV.]
THE SOUL'S TESTIMONY ^n or malice, or insolence, or any other vice which we ascribe to evil spirits. In express- ing vexation, contempt, or abhorrence, thou hast Satan constantly upon thy lips; ' the very same we hold to be the angel of evil, the source of error, the corrupter" of the whole world, by whom in the beginning man was entrapped into breaking the commandment of God. And (the man) being given over to death on account of his sin, the entire human race, tainted in their descent from him, were made a channel for transmitting his condem- nation. Thou seest, then, thy destroyer; and though he is fully known only to Christians, or to whatever sect'' confesses the Lord, yet, even thou hast some acquaintance with him while yet thou abhorrest him!
CHAP. IV.
Even now, as the matter refers to thy opin- ion on a point the more closely belonging to thee, in so far as it bears on thy personal well- being, we maintain that after life has passed away thou still remainest in existence, and lookest forward to a day of judgment, and according to thy deserts art assigned to misery or bliss, in either way of it for ever; that, to be capable of this, thy former substance must needs return to thee, the matter and the memory of the very same human being: for neither good nor evil couldst thou feel if thou wert not endowed again with that sensitive bodily organization, and there would be no grounds for judgment without the presenta- tion of the very person to whom the suffer- ings of judgment were due. That Christian view, though much nobler than the Pythago- ' rean, as it does not tranfser thee into beasts; though more complete than the Platonic, since it endows thee again with a body; though more worthy of honour than the Epicurean, as it preserves thee from annihilation, — yet, because of the name connected with it, it is held to be nothing hut vanity and folly, and, as it is called, a mere presumption. But we are not ashamed of ourselves if our pre- sumption is found to have thy support. Well, in the first place, when thou speakest of one who is dead, thou sayest of him, " Poor man " — poor, surely, not because he has been taken from the good of life, but because he has been given over to punishment and con- demnation. But at another time thou speak- est of the dead as free from trouble; thou professest to think life a burden, and death a ^\_Satanan^ in omni vexatione...pronuntias. Does he mean that they used this word? Rather, he means the demon is none other than Satan.]
2 [I have been obliged, somewhat, to simplify the translation here.]
13 blessing. Thou art wont, too, to speak of the dead as in repose,^ when, returning to their graves beyond the city gates * with food and dainties, thou art wont to present offer- ings to thyself rather than to them; or when, coming from the graves again, thou art stag- gering under the effects of wine. But I want thy sober opinion. Thou callest the dead poor when thou speakest thine own thoughts, when thou art at a distance from them. For at their feast, where in a sense they are pres- ent and recline along with thee, it would never do to cast reproach upon their lot. Thou canst not but adulate those for whose sake thou art feasting it so sumptuously. Dost thou then speak of him ixspoor who feels not? How happens it that thou cursest, as one capable of suffering from thy curse, the man whose memory comes back on thee with the sting in it of some old injury? It is thine imprecation that " the earth may lie heavy on him," and that there may be trouble " to his ashes in the realm of the dead. " In like man- ner, in thy kindly feeling to him to whom thou art indebted for favours, thou entreatest " re- pose to his bones and ashes," and thy desire is that among the dead he may " have pleasant rest. ' ' If thou hast no power of suffering after death, if no feeling remains, — if, in a word, severance from the body is the annihilation of thee, what makes thee lie against thyself, as if thou couldst suffer in another state? Nay, why dost thou fear death at all? There is nothing after death to be feared, if there is nothing to be felt. For though it may be said that death is dreadful not for anything it threatens afterwards, but because it deprives us of the good of life; yet, on the other hand, as it puts an end to life's discomforts, which are far more numerous, death's terrors are mitigated by a gain that more than outweighs the loss. And there is no occasion to be troubled about a loss of good things, which is amply made up for by so great a blessing as relief from every trouble. There is nothing dreadful in that which delivers from all that is to be dreaded. If thou shrinkest from giving up life because thy experience of it has been sweet, at any rate there is no need to be in any alarm about death if thou hast no knowledge that it is evil. Thy dread of it is the proof that thou art aware of its evil.
3 [This whole passage is useful as a commentary on classic authors who use these poetical expressions. Calo Musa beat (Hor. Ode viii. B. 4.) but the real feeling comes out in such ex- pressions as one finds in Horace's odes to Sextius, (B. i. Ode 4.), or to Postumus, B. ii. Od. 14.]
4 [The tombs, by the roadside, of which the traveller still sees specimens, used to be scenes of debauchery when the dead were honoured in this way. Now, the funeral honours (.See De Corona, cap. iii.) which Christians substituted for these were Kucharistic alms and oblations: thanking God for their holy lives and perpet- uating relations with them in the Communion of Saints.]
THE SOUL'S TESTIMONY.
[chap. v.
Thou wouldst never think it evil — thou wouldst have no fear of it at all — if thou wert not sure that after it there is something to make it evil, and so a thing of terror.' Let us leave unnoted at this time that natural way of fearing death. It is a poor thing for any one to fear what is inevitable. I take up the other side, and argue on the ground of a joy- ful hope beyond our term of earthly life; for desire of posthumous fame is with almost every class an inborn thing. = I have not time to speak of the Curtii, and the Reguli, or the brave men of Greece, who afford us innumer- able cases of death despised for after renown. Who at this day is without the desire that he may be often remembered when he is dead? Who does not give all endeavour to preserve his name by works of literature, or by the simple glory of his virtues, or by the splen- dour even of his tomb? How is it the nature of the soul to have these posthumous ambi- tions and with such amazing effort to prepare the things it can only use after decease? It would care nothing about the future, if the future were quite unknown to it. But per- haps thou thinkest thyself surer, after thy exit from the body, of continuing still to feel, than of any future resurrection, which is a doctrine laid at our door as one of our presumptuous suppositions. But it is also the doctrine of the soul; for if any one inquires about a per- son lately dead as though he were alive, it occurs at once to say, " He has gone." He is expected to return, then.
CHAP. V.
These testimonies of the soul are simple as true, commonplace as simple, universal as commonplace, natural as universal, divine as natural. I don't think they can appear frivolous or feeble to any one, if he reflect on the majesty of nature, from which the soul derives its authority. ^ If you acknowledge the authority of the mistress, you will own it also in the disciple. Well, nature is the mis- tress here, and her disciple is the soul. But everything the one has taught or the other learned, has come from God — the Teacher of the teacher. And what the soul may know from the teachings of its chief instructor, thou canst judge from that which is within thee. Think of that which enables thee to think; reflect on that which in forebodings is the prophet, the augur in omens, the foreseer ' f Butler, Analogy, Part I. chap, i,] 2 [Horace, Book III. Ode 30.]
3 [This appeal to the univetsal conscience and consciousness of mankind is unanswerable, and assures us that counter-theories will never prevail. See Bossuet, Dc la Connoisance de Dieu et de Soi-mcme. (Kuvres, Tom. V. pp. 86 et. seqq. Ed, Paris, 1846.]