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| Examples of a Similar Kind from the New.
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Chapter VIII.—Examples of
a Similar Kind from the New.
We produce, too, our remaining (evidences).
For we now hasten to modern proofs. On the threshold of the
Gospel,1058
Anna the
prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, “who both recognised the infant
Lord, and preached many things about Him to such as were expecting the
redemption of Israel,” after the pre-eminent distinction of
long-continued and single-husbanded widowhood, is additionally graced
with the testimony of “fastings” also; pointing out, as she
does, what the duties are which should characterize attendants of the
Church, and (pointing out, too, the fact) that Christ is understood by
none more than by the once married and often fasting.
By and by the Lord Himself consecrated His own
baptism (and, in His own, that of all) by fasts;1059
having (the power) to make “loaves out
of stones,”1060
say, to make Jordan
flow with wine perchance, if He had been such a “glutton and
toper.”1061
Nay, rather,
by the virtue of contemning food He was initiating “the new
man” into “a severe handling” of “the
old,”1062
| 1062 Comp. Eph. iv. 22, 23; and, for the meaning of
sugillationem (“severe handling”), comp.
1 Cor. ix. 27, where St. Paul’s word ὑπωπιάζω (="I smite
under the eye,” Eng. ver. “I keep under”) is perhaps
exactly equivalent in meaning. | that He might show
that (new man) to the devil, again seeking to tempt him by means of
food, (to be) too strong for the whole power of
hunger.
Thereafter He prescribed to fasts a law—that
they are to be performed “without sadness:”1063
for why should what is salutary be
sad? He taught likewise that fasts are to be the weapons for
battling with the more direful demons:1064
for what wonder if the same operation
is the instrument of the iniquitous spirit’s egress as of the
Holy Spirit’s ingress? Finally, granting that upon the
centurion Cornelius, even before baptism, the honourable gift of
the Holy Spirit, together with the gift of prophecy besides, had
hastened to descend, we see that his fasts had been
heard,1065
| 1065 See Acts x. 44–46, 1–4,
30. | I think, moreover,
that the apostle too, in the Second of Corinthians, among his labours,
and perils, and hardships, after “hunger and thirst,”
enumerates “fasts” also “very many.”1066
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