CHAPTER 4
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
P.k. III.
And that they are to be shunned even more because of their warfare and enmity against God, according to the proofs I have given at great length in the Praeparatio} Whatever teaching of this kind is found in the doctrine of our Saviour is exactly the same religious instruction as the godly men and prophets of the Hebrews gave.
If, then, these doctrines are holy, useful, philosophic and full of virtue, on what fair ground can the name of deceiver (c) be fastened on their teaclier?
But the above inquiry has had to do with Christ as if He only possessed ordinary human nature, and has shewn forth
His teaching as weighty and useful—let us proceed and examine its diviner side.
CHAPTER
Of the Diviner Works of Christ.
Wf, must now proceed to review the number and character of the marvellous works He performed while living among men : how He cleansed by His divine power those leprous (tl) in body, how He drove dxmons out of men by His word of command, and how again He cured ungrudgingly those who were sick and labouring under all kinds of infirmity.
As, for instance, one day He said to a paralytic, " Arise, take Man iv. up thy bed, and walk," and he did what he was told.
Or lo; Mark r^^ again He bestowed on the blind the boon of seeing the " " light ; and once, too, a woman witli an issue of blood, worn down for many long years by suffering, when she saw great crowds surrounding Him, wliich altogether prevented her a[)proaching Him in order to kneel and beg from Him the cure of her suffering, taking it into her head that if she could (io8)only toucli the hem of His garment she would recover, she stole thr(High, and taking hold of His garment, at the same moment took hold of tlie cure of her illness.
She became whole that instant, and exhibited the greatest example of our Saviour's power.
.\nd another, a man -of courtly '
.Sec cliiftly.
I'. I'!., l{m>K> iv. v. ami vi.
Ch. 4.
MIRACLES
rank, who had a sick son, besought Jesus, and at once J<>lin v.
S. received him safe and well.
Another, again, had a sick daughter, and he was a chief ruler of a Synagogue of the Jews, and He (restored her) though she was even now dead.
ANliy need I tell how (i.) a man four days dead was raised up by the power of Jesus ?
Or how He took His way upon the sea, as upon the earth we tread, while His disciples were sailing ?—and how when they were overtaken by the storm He rebuked the sea, and the waves, and the winds, and they all were still at once, as fearing their Masters voice ?
^\'henHe filled to satisfaction five thousand men in addition to another great crowd of women and children, with loaves five in number, and had so much over that there was enough to (c) fill twelve baskets to take away, whom would He not astonish, and whom would He not impel to an incjuiry of the true source of His unheard-of power ?
IJut in order not to extend my present argument to too great length, to sum all up
I will consider Ilis Heath, which was not the common death of all men.
For He was not destroyed by disease, nor by the cord,^ nor by fire, nor even on the trophy ^ of the Cross were His legs cut with steel like those of the others who were evil-doers ; neither, in a word, did He reach His end by suffering from any man any of the usual forms of violence which destroy life.
Uut as if He were only handing His (d) life over willingly to those who plotted against His body, as soon as He was raised from the earth He gave a cry upon the tree, and commended His S{)irit to His I'ather, saying these wcjrds :
" lather, into thy hands I commend my spirit": thus uncompellcd and of His own free will He departed from the body.
And His body having then been taken by His friends, and laid in the fitting tomb,' on the third day He again took back again the body which He had willingly resigned before when He departed.
And He shewed Himself again in flesh and blood, the very self He was before, to His own disciples, after staying a brief while with whom, and completing a short time, He returned where He was before, beginning His way to the (109) * Or " choked by a cord."
* TO Tp6naiov : the olhei" reading is tIv Tp6ir}v which hardly yields sense.
^ Or "buried in the fitting way."