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| Chapter LXXIII
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Chapter
LXXIII.
He proceeds to repeat himself, and after saying a
great deal which he had said before, and ridiculing the birth of God
from a virgin,—to which we have already replied as we best
could,—he adds the following: “If God had wished to
send down His Spirit from Himself, what need was there to breathe it
into the womb of a woman? For as one who knew already how to form
men, He could also have fashioned a body for this person, without
casting His own Spirit into so much pollution;4655
| 4655 εἰς
τοσοῦτον
μίασμα. |
and in this way He would not have been received with incredulity, if He
had derived His existence immediately from above.” He had
made these remarks, because he knows not the pure and virgin birth,
unaccompanied by any corruption, of that body which was to minister to
the salvation of men. For, quoting the sayings of the
Stoics,4656
| 4656 Cf. book iv. capp.
xiv. and lxviii. | and affecting not
to know the doctrine about “things indifferent,” he thinks
that the divine nature was cast amid pollution, and was stained either
by being in the body of a woman, until a body was formed around it, or
by assuming a body. And in this he acts like those who imagine
that the sun’s rays are polluted by dung and by foul-smelling
bodies, and do not remain pure amid such things. If, however,
according to the view of Celsus, the body of Jesus had been fashioned
without generation, those who beheld the body would at once have
believed that it had not been formed by generation; and yet an object,
when seen, does not at the same time indicate the nature of that from
which it has derived its origin. For example, suppose that there were some honey
(placed before one) which had not been manufactured by bees, no one
could tell from the taste or sight that it was not their workmanship,
because the honey which comes from bees does not make known its origin
by the senses,4657
| 4657 τῇ αἰσθήσει
τὴν ἀρχὴν. | but experience
alone can tell that it does not proceed from them. In the same
way, too, experience teaches that wine comes from the vine, for taste
does not enable us to distinguish (the wine) which comes from the
vine. In the same manner, therefore, the visible4658
body does not make known the manner of its
existence. And you will be induced to accept this view,4659
| 4659 προσαχθήσῃ
δὲ τῷ
λεγομένῳ. | by (regarding) the heavenly bodies, whose
existence and splendour we perceive as we gaze at them; and yet, I
presume, their appearance does not suggest to us whether they are
created or uncreated; and accordingly different opinions have existed
on these points. And yet those who say that they are created are
not agreed as to the manner of their creation, for their appearance
does not suggest it, although the force of reason4660
| 4660 κἃν
βιασάμενος ὁ
λόγος εὕρῃ. | may have discovered that they are created,
and how their creation was effected.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
