BOOK V

INTRODUCTION

Two ways of considering our Saviour Jesus Christ have (202) been illustrated in the previous book of the Proof of the Gospel: the first takes us above nature and beyond it: on its road we defined Him to be the Only-begotten Son of (b) God, or the Word Who is of the essence of God, the secondary cause of the Universe, or a spiritual substance, and the firstborn nature of God all-perfect, His holy and perfect Power before things created, or the spiritual image of the Unbegotten nature. The second was akin and more familiar to ourselves; on its road we defined Christ as the Word of God, proclaiming in human nature the holiness of the Father, according as He appeared in human form long before to those with Abraham, that famous ruler of the men of God, and was predicted to (c) appear again among men by human birth, and with flesh like ours, and to suffer the extremest shame.

This being so, the argument will proceed in its natural order, if I proceed to display the prophetic evidence about Him, if, that is to say, we make our chief aim to discover what was essential in the promises made, and justify the Divinity ascribed to Him in the Gospels from the ancient prophetic evidence. And it will be necessary (d) first to discuss the nature of prophetic inspiration among the Hebrews, from whom we learned beforehand what they proclaimed.

Greeks and Barbarians alike testify to the existence of oracles and oracular responses in all parts of the earth, and they say that they were revealed by the foresight of the Creator for the use and profit of men, so that there need be no essential difference between Hebrew prophecy (203) - 222 - and the oracles of the other nations. For as the Supreme God gave oracles to the Hebrews through their prophets, and suggested what was to their advantage, so also He gave them to the other nations through their local oracles. For He was not only the God of the Jews, but of the rest of mankind as well; and He cared not more for these than those, but His Providence was over all alike, just as He has given the sun ungrudgingly for all, and not for the Hebrews only, and the supply of needs according to the seasons, and a like bodily constitution for all, and one (b) mode of birth, and one kind of rational soul. And, thus, they say he provided ungrudgingly for all men the science of foretelling the future, to some by prophets, to some by oracles, to some by the flight of birds, or by inspecting entrails, or by dreams, or omens contained in word or sound, or by some other sign. For these they say were bestowed on all men by the Providence of God, so that the prophets of the Hebrews should not seem to have an advantage over the rest of the world.

(c) This, then, is their contention. Mine will meet it in this manner. If any argument could prove that the gods, or divine powers, or good daemons really presided over the oracles named, or over the omens from birds, or any of those referred to, I should have to yield to what was stated, that the Supreme God had given these things as well as the Hebrew prophecy to those who used them, for their good. But if by complete demonstration, and by the - 223 - confessions of the Greeks themselves already given, that (d) they were daemons, and not good ones but the source of all harm and vice, how can they be the prophets of God? And my argument in The Preparation for the Gospel has convicted them of worthlessness, from the human sacrifices connected with their rites from ancient days in every place and city and country, from their deceiving their questioners through ignorance of the future, through the many falsehoods in which they have been convicted, sometimes directly, sometimes through the ambiguity of the oracles given, by which they have been proved over and over again to have involved their suppliants in a host of evils. And they have been before shewn to be a vile and unclean crowd from their delight in the low and lustful odes sung about them, the hymns, and recitals of myths, the improper (204 ) and harmful stories, which they were convicted of having stamped as the truth, though they knew that they told against them.

And the final proof of their weak nature is shewn by their extinction and ceasing to give responses as of old: an extinction which can only be dated from the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ. For from the time when the word of Gospel teaching began to pervade all nations, from (b) that time the oracles began to fail, and the deaths of daemons are recorded. All these reasons and many others like them were used then in that part of The Preparation of the Gospel, which is concerned in proving the wickedness of the doemons. And if they are so wicked, what possible ground can there be for thinking that the oracles of the daemons are prophecies of the Supreme God, or for comparing their position with that of God's prophets; of what sort (c) were the predictions they gave to their questioners, those even which seemed to have some foundation? Were they not about low and common men, boxers for instance, and such people, whom they ordered to be honoured with sacrifices? What was their position about human sacrifice? For this question is the touchstone of the whole matter. What evil thing could surpass in absurdity the idea that the Gods, the very Saviours of men, and the good daemons, could command their suppliants and holy inquirers to slaughter their dearest, as if they were mere animals, actually (d) thirsting for human blood more than any wild beasts, and, - 224 - could be convicted of being neither more nor less than drinkers of blood, cannibals, and friends of destruction. Or let him speak who will, if he has anything holy or worthy of the name of virtue to tell about them, any prophecies or predictions affecting mankind as a whole, any laws or enactments for the State, laying down general rules for human life, any philosophical doctrines and instruction provided by the gods for the lovers of philosophy. But it would be impossible to say that any such advantage ever accrued to human life from the famous oracles. (205) For if this had been the case, men having their laws laid down for them by the gods would not have used different and irreconcileable systems of law. For if the gods existed and were good they must surely have inspired the same enactments: they must have inspired pure and most just legal systems: and where would have been the need of Solon or Draco or any of the other Greek or barbarian legislators, if the gods were present and gave all necessary commands through the oracles? And if it should be said (b) that they alone are meant, who established laws for each separate race of men, I should ask who that god was, and what was his character, who, for instance, ordered the Scythians to devour human beings, or laid down laws to others that they should lie with their mothers and daughters, or enacted as, a good thing that they should throw their aged people to the dogs, or allowed men to marry their sisters and to defile one another. But why should I enumerate the lawless stones of Greeks and Barbarians, in order to prove that they were not gods, but (c) vicious and evil daemons, these famous oracle-mongers of theirs, driving the thrice-wretched race of men to incredible depths of unnatural crime, whereas the famous Greek gods and oracles are not proved to have brought any advantage or profit whatever for their souls' health to those who sought their aid? And if it was open to them to use their own gods for teachers, why did the Greeks ever leave what did them good at home and make for foreign lands, as if they wanted to enjoy the merchandise of learning from (d)  somewhere else? - 225 - 

And if it had been the gods or the good daemons, who gave the answers, sometimes shewing their own power by foreknowledge or in some other unexpected way, sometimes teaching true wisdom by the infallible truth of their instruction, what could have prevented the sons of the philosophers being instructed by them, and why did various schools of philosophy arise from the deep oppositions of those who procured conceptions of teaching, one from one source, one from another? And even if the multitude had given them no heed, yet surely religious and godly men would have procured infallible truth from the gift of the gods. Who, then, were they? Whoever (206) you say they were, those who take the other view will expose them as deceivers.

But it seems probable that the oracles were given by daemons, and were genuine up to the point of discovering a thief, or the loss of property, and things of that kind, which it was not unlikely that beings who passed their time in the air should have knowledge of: but they were never responsible for a good and wise philosophic saying, or for a state, or for a law laid down by right reason; nay, more, (b) if I may speak quite frankly, one ought to consider them all instigators of evil; for when they listened either to the odes and hymns and recitals of men, or to the secret rites of the mysteries, retailing their own Adulteries and unnatural crimes, their marriage of mothers and lawless union with sisters, and the many contests of the gods, enmities and wars of gods against gods, not one of them has ever, so far (c) as I know, been angry at what was said, as if it were only suitable for lustful, and not for pure, minds to think and say such things. And why need I enlarge, when from one most significant example I can crowd into one view their cruelty, inhumanity and real viciousness? I refer to the human sacrifices. Surely to delight not only in the slaughter of irrational beasts, but also in the destruction of men, overshot the highest limit of cruelty. - 226 - 

For, as I said in the Preparation, my evidence is drawn (d) from the Greek philosophers and writers themselves, who conclusively prove that the evil daemons perverted the human race by their involved intrigues, now by oracles, now by omens from birds, or signs or sacrifices or things of the kind. Wherefore it is altogether to be denied that the oracles came from the Supreme God. And so it is not allowable to class them with the Hebrew Prophets, whose first Hierophant and divine teacher was Moses. See, what (207) a wealth of good he brought to human life. First he produced a sacred writing of evangelical and true doctrines about God the Maker and Creator of all things, and about the secondary Cause of the rational and spiritual essences after Him, and about the creation of the world and of man; and then he moved the obedient spirits of good men to ambition, by outlining like figures of virtue the stories of (b) the holy and godly Hebrews of long ago; he began the teaching of a legislation divine and suitable to the light they then had, and introduced a godly worship, and revealed predictions of all that was to take place in after years, as I hope presently to shew. Such was Moses. And following his steps the prophets who succeeded him foretold some things incidentally to inquirers if anything was asked relating to their daily life; but their prophecy in its main purpose (c) was concerned with great issues.

For they did not reckon it worthy of their divine duty to deal with those who sought oracles about daily matters or that actual time, or about slight and trivial things, but the illumination of the Holy Spirit in them including in its vast scope the whole race of mankind, promised no prediction about any particular man who was sick, nor about this present life so open to accidents and sufferings, nor about any one dead, nor, in a word, about ordinary and common (d) things, which when present make the soul no better, and when absent cause it no harm or loss. And, as I said, when their predictions referred to such things, it was not in the line of their main meaning, but as accompanying a greater conception. And the causes which were at the root of their prophetic inspiration involved a greater scheme than the things instanced. - 227 - 

If, then, one were to explore carefully the whole circuit of the writings of Moses and his successors, one would find it included exhortation and teaching of duty to the God of the Universe, Who is the Creator of all things, and the knowledge and divine teaching relating to the highest secondary Cause, and prohibition of all polytheistic error, (208) and then the memorial of the godly men of old days who began the said religion, and predictions and proclamations of those who would live in after days, as they themselves had lived, through the appearance and presence of God among men, I mean of the secondary Lord and God after the Supreme Father, Who Himself would become the Teacher of the same religion, and be revealed as Saviour (b) of the life of men, through Whom they foretold that the ideals of the ancient godly Hebrews would be handed on to all nations. This was the Gospel that Moses foretold, as well as the sons of the other prophets, who all spake as with one mouth. And this was the reason of the descent of the Holy Spirit to men, to teach men the knowledge of God, and the loftiest theology of the Father and the Son, to train them in every form of true religion, to give a record of those who lived well long ago, and those who afterwards fell away from the religion of their forefathers, and to exhibit the case against them at great length: and then (c) to prophesy the coming of the Saviour and Teacher of the whole race of mankind, and to herald the sharing of the religion of the ancient Hebrews by all nations.

These were the unanimous proclamations of the prophets of old clays inscribed on table's and in sacred books: yea, these very things, which we see even now after long ages in process of fulfilment; they all in the power of the Holy (d) Spirit with one voice foretold would come to all men a light of true religion, purity of mind and body, a complete purging of the heart, which having first gained themselves by discipline, they urged upon the obedient, prohibiting their converts from every lustful action, and teaching them not to imitate the lawless ways of polytheistic error, and to avoid with one consent all intercourse with daemons, the popular human sacrifices of days gone by, and the base and secret tales about the gods. Against these they warned - 228 - them and counselled them to set their hearts only on God (209) the Creator of all things, Who is as it were the Overseer and Judge of all human doings, and to remember the future Coming among men of the Christ of God, the Saviour of the whole human race, established to be the Teacher of the true religion to Greeks and Barbarians alike. This was the vast difference between those who were possessed by the Holy Spirit and those who pretended to prophesy under the influence of daemons.

Then, too, the evil daemon, being akin to darkness, (b) involved the soul in darkness and mist by its visitation, and stretched out him who was under its power like a corpse, divorced from his natural faculties of reason, not following his own words or actions, completely insensible and demented, in accordance with which perhaps they, may have called such a condition "Manteia," as being a form of "Mania," whereas the truly divine Spirit, Which is of the nature of light, or rather light itself, brings at once a new and bright daylight to every soul on whom It comes, (c) revealing it as far more clear and thoughtful than ever it was before, so that it is sober and wide awake, and above all can understand and interpret prophecies. Wherefore we seem rightly and truly to call such men prophets, because the Holy Spirit gives them a sure knowledge and light on the present, as well as a true and accurate knowledge of the future. See, then, if it is not a far better and truer argument, which says that the Holy Spirit visits souls purified and prepared with rational and clear minds to (d) receive the divine, than that of those who shut up the - 229 - divine in lifeless matter and dusky caves, and in the impure souls of men and women; yea, and rest it on crows and hawks and other birds, on goats and other beasts, ay, even on the movements of water, the inspection of entrails, the blood of hateful and ugly monsters, and in the bodies of poisonous creeping things, like snakes and weasels, and such things, by the help of which these strange people understood that the Supreme God revealed a knowledge of (210) future events. But this was the way of men who had no conception of the nature of God, and no idea of the power of the Holy Spirit, Who does not delight in lurking in lifeless things, or irrational beasts, nor even in rational beings, except ... in such virtuous souls, as my argument just now described the Hebrew prophets as possessing, whom we reckon worthy of the Holy Spirit, because of their great contribution to the progress of humanity throughout the world.

And if sometimes the knowledge of contemporaneous (b) events, unimportant and of no moment, followed them like a shadow, and the foretelling of the unknown opportunely to inquirers, it was because they were obliged to give such help to their neighbours of old time, to prevent those who were hungry for predictions having an excuse for turning to the oracles of foreign races through a lack of prophets at home.

But I will close here my vindication of the divine power of the Hebrew Prophets. For it is right for us to obey (c) them, if they teach us, as men inspired and wise, not according to humanity but by the breath of the Holy Spirit, and to submit to the discipline of their doctrine, and holy and infallible theology, which no longer involves any suspicion, that they include any elements alien to virtue and truth.

So, then, it now remains for me to take up the thread of my argument from the beginning, and rest the theology of our Saviour Jesus Christ on the prophetic evidence.

The Gospel evidence gives this theology of Christ: "In (d) the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, - 230 - and without him was not anything made." It calls Him also "Rational Light," and it calls Him Lord, as if He were also God. And the prophetic Paul, as a disciple and apostle of Christ, agrees with this theology when he says this about Him: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, because in him were created all things, things in heaven and things in earth, whether thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist."

He is also called "Power of God" and "Wisdom of God." It is our present task, therefore, to collect these same expressions from the prophetic writings of the Hebrews, so that by their agreement in each separate part the demonstration of the truth may be established. And we must recognize that the sacred oracles include in the Hebrew much that is obscure both in expression and in meaning, and are capable of various interpretations in Greek because of their difficulty. The Seventy Hebrews in concert have translated them together, and I shall pay the greatest attention to them, because it is the custom of the Christian Church to use their work. But wherever necessary, I shall call in the help of the editions of the later translators, which the Jews are accustomed to use to-day, so that my proof may have stronger support from all sources. With this introduction, it now remains for me to treat of the inspired words.