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Eusebius Pamphilii of Caesarea On the Theophania IntraText CT - Text |
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15. Come17 then, let us again try the matter thus, -- You say of Him that He was a magician; and not (only so,) but, that He was a maker of magicians. You style Him cunning, and a deceiver. How then was it, that He was the first, and the only one, who has arisen capable of this matter? Or, Is it (not) right we should, according to custom, ascribe the cause to the Teachers ? If then He was the first and only one capable of this; -- no one having taught Him, and He having never learned any thing from others, nor yet derived it from the ancients; -- How is it not then incumbent on us to confess of Him, that His nature was Divine? He (I say), who without book, without precepts, and without teachers, (so) learned of Himself, and was seen to know from Himself, the Maker of all these things? when, observe, it is impossible for any one to acquire a knowledge of the art of the goldsmith, of logic, or of the primitive elements (of the world), without some one to instruct and teach him. But, if He was out of nature; -- and no one ever, (so) taught of himself, came out a teacher of grammar, or of rhetoric; not having previously been taught; nor, has there been a physician, or builder, or practitioner of any other art: these things being but small, and belonging to men; but this, one might say, is of the Teacher of the whole habitable world; (viz.) that He performed the miracles recorded in the Scriptures, (and) whose Disciples (taught) by Himself were such; having received nothing from the ancients, neither having had any help from those moderns who performed things not unlike what others had done, who had preceded Him; -- What other thing can we testify or confess, but that the matter is in truth Divine, and such as exceeds all human nature18?
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17. 2 Ib. p. 130. B.C., &c. 18. 5 The Mohammedans urge an argument of this sort in favour of their Prophet, from a fancied inimitability in the elegance of the Koran; which, it is not impossible, they might originally have taken from this, or some similar Christian, work. |
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