By Water & Blood

Book 3, Chapter 6: Against Those who think that the Christ of God was a Sorcerer.

OF course, such opponents must first of all be asked how they would reply to what has been already said. The question is about the possibility of a teacher of a noble and virtuous way of life, and of sane and reasonable doctrines, such as I have described, being a mere sorcerer in character. And supposing He was a magician and (c) enchanter, a charlatan and a sorcerer, how could He have become the source to all the nations of such teaching, as we ourselves see with our eyes, and hear even now with our ears? What sort of a person was He Who undertook to unite things which have never before been united? For a sorcerer being truly unholy and vile in his nature, dealing with things forbidden and unholy, always acts for the sake of base and sordid gain. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus, the Christ of God, was surely not open to such a charge. In (d) what sense could such a thing be said of One Who said to His disciples, according to their written record: " Provide neither gold nor silver in your girdles, nor a staff for the Matt.x.10. road, nor shoes"? How could they have heeded His sayings, and thought fit to hand them down recorded in |145 writing, if they had seen their Master bent on making money, and Himself doing the opposite of what He taught others? They would soon have ridiculed Him and His words and left their discipleship in natural disgust, if they had seen Him laying down such noble laws for them, and Himself the Lawgiver in no way following His own words. Once more, sorcerers and real charlatans devote themselves (126) to the forbidden and the unholy in order to pursue vile and unlawful pleasures, with the object of ruining women by magic, and seducing them to their own desires. But our Lord and Saviour is devoted to purity beyond the power of words to say, for His disciples record that He forbade them to look on a woman with unbridled lust, saying:

" It was said to them of old time, Thou shall not commit adultery: but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." [[Matt. v.27]] 

And on one occasion when they saw Him conversing with (b) a woman of Samaria when it was the only possible way to aid and save many, they wondered that He spoke with the woman, thinking they saw something marvellous, such as they had never before seen. And surely our Saviour's words commend a serious and severe tone of behaviour: while of His purity the great evidence is that teaching of His, in which He taught men to attain purity by cutting away from the depth of the heart the lustful desires:

"There are some eunuchs who so were born, and there are eunuchs who we're made eunuchs of men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." [[Matt, xii.19.]] 

The sorcerer again and the true charlatan courts notoriety (c) and ostentation in all his enterprises and actions, and always makes a boast of knowing more and having more than other people. But that our Lord and Saviour was not thirsty for notoriety, or a braggart or ostentatious, is shewn by His bidding those He cured to tell no one, and not to reveal Him to the crowd, so that He might escape notice, and also from His seeking periods of retirement in |146 (d) the mountains, and shunning the vicious society of the crowd in cities. If then He neither devoted Himself to teaching for glory, nor money, nor pleasure, what ground of suspicion remains for considering Him a charlatan and a sorcerer? But once more think of this point. A sorcerer, when he shares the fruits of his wickedness with others, makes men resemble himself: how can he help making sorcerers and charlatans and enchanters in all ways like himself? But who has ever so far found the whole body of Christians from His teaching given to sorcery or enchantment? (127) No one would suggest that, but rather that it has been concerned with philosophic words, as we have shewn. What, then, could you rightly call One Who was the source to others of a noble and pure life and of the highest holiness, but the prince of philosophers and the teacher of holy men? And I suppose so far as every master is better than his pupils, our Lord and Saviour must be considered, so far from being a charlatan and a sorcerer, but philosophic and truly holy (b) If, then, He was such, He could only have attempted His miracles by divine and unspeakable power and by the highest piety towards the Supreme God, Whom He is proved to have honoured and worshipped as His Father in the highest degree, from the accounts of Him. And the disciples, who were with Him from the beginning, with those who inherited their mode of life afterwards, are to such an incalculable extent removed from base and evil suspicion (of sorcery), that they will not allow their sick (c) even to do what is exceedingly common with non-Christians, to make use of charms written on leaves or amulets, or to pay attention to those promising to soothe them with songs of enchantment, or to procure ease for their pains by burning incense made of roots and herbs, or anything else of the kind. |147 

All these things at any rate are forbidden by Christian teaching, neither is it ever possible to see a Christian using an amulet, or incantations, or charms written on curious leaves, or other things which the crowd consider quite permissible. What argument, then, can rank the disciples of such a Master with the disciples of a sorcerer and charlatan?

And yet the one great proof of the worth of any one who (d) promises to effect anything is found in the circle of his pupils. In the arts and sciences it is so, men always claim him who was the source of their skill to be greater than themselves; so medical students would witness to the excellence of their instructor in their own subject, geometricians will not regard any other as their master but a geometrician, and arithmeticians any but one skilled in arithmetic. In the same way, also, the best witnesses to a sorcerer are his pupils, who it may be presumed will themselves share in the character of their master. And yet through all these (128) years no disciple of Jesus has been proved a sorcerer, although rulers and kings from time to time have attempted by means of torture to extract the exactest information about our religion. No, in spite of all, none has admitted himself to be a sorcerer, though had he done so he might have gone free, and without any danger, only being compelled by them to offer sacrifice. And if not one of our own people has ever been convicted of sorcery, nor any of those ancient disciples of Jesus, it follows that their Master could not have been a sorcerer.

But that my argument may not be based solely on the (b) unwritten, hear the proofs also that I draw from the written record. The first disciples of Jesus in the Book of their own Acts, describe without doubt how the Gentiles thronging to their teaching (were so impressed), that many of those |148 with a bad reputation for sorcery, changed their ways to such an extent that they had the courage to bring the forbidden books into the midst, and commit them to the fire in the sight of all. Hear how the Scripture describes it:

"And many of those who used curious arts, brought their books, and burned them before all, and they reckoned the price of the books, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." [[Acts xix 19]]

It shews what our Saviour's disciples were, it shews the extraordinary influence of their words when they addressed their audience, that they so touched the depths of their souls, caught hold of and pierced the individual conscience, that men no longer hid anything away in concealment, but brought their forbidden things to light, and (d) themselves completed the indictment of themselves and their own former wickedness. It shews what their pupils were like, how pure and honourable in disposition, determined that nothing evil in them should lurk below the surface, and how boldly they prided themselves on their change from the worse to the better. Yes, they who gave their magic books to the flames, and voted for their complete destruction, left no one in any doubt that they would never again have anything to do with sorcery, and from that day forth were pure from the slightest suspicion of it.

If, then, our Saviour's disciples are seen to have been like this, must not their Master have been so long before them?

(129) And if in the widest sense you wish to deduce from the character of His followers the character of their Head, you have to-day a myriad disciples of the teaching of Jesus, great numbers of whom have declared war against the natural pleasures of the body, and guard their minds from the stroke of every base passion, and when they grow old in temperance provide bright evidence of the nurture of His words. And not men only live the life of wisdom in this wise for His sake, but innumerable myriads of women, too, throughout the world, like priestesses of the Supreme God, embracing the highest wisdom, enraptured with the love of (b) heavenly wisdom, have lost all joy of bodily progeny, and spending all their care on the soul, have devoted themselves entirely body and soul alike to the King of kings, the Supreme God, practising complete purity and virginity. |149 

Of one shepherd, we know, who left his own country for the sake of philosophy the sons of Greece are ever carrying the story hither and thither. This was their Democritus. And Krates is the second man who is a miracle among (b) them, because, forsooth! he resigned his property to the citizens, and boasted that "Krates himself had freed himself." But the zealots of the teaching of Jesus are myriads in number, not one or two, who have sold their goods and given them to the poor and needy, a fact to which I can witness, as I am specially concerned in such matters, and can see the results of the discipleship of Jesus not only in their words, but in their works as well.

But why need I tell how many myriads of actual barbarians, and not Greeks only, learning from the teaching of Jesus to despise every form of polytheistic error, have borne witness to their knowledge of the one God as Saviour and Creator of the Universe? Whom long ago, Plato was the only philosopher who knew, but confessed that he dare not carry His Name to all, saying in so many words: "To discover the Father and Creator of the Universe is a hard matter, and when He is found it is impossible to tell of Him to all." [[Timaeus p. 28]] Yes, to him the discovery seemed a |150 hard matter, for it is indeed the greatest thing of all, and it seemed to him impossible to speak of Him to all, because he did not possess so great a power of holiness as the (130) disciples of Jesus, to whom it has become easy by the cooperation of their Master to discover and to know the Father and Creator of all, and having discovered Him to bear forth that knowledge, to unveil it, to supply it, and to preach it to all men among all races of the world, with the result that even now at the present time owing to the instruction given by these men there are among all the nations of the earth many multitudes not only of men, but of women and children, slaves and country-folk, who are so far away from fulfilling Plato's dictum, that they know (b) the One God to be the Maker and Creator of the Universe, worship Him only, and base their whole theology on Christ. This, then, is the success of the new modern sorcerer; such are the sorcerers who spring from Him Who is reckoned a charlatan; and such are the disciples of Jesus, from whose character we may deduce that of their Master.

But once more, let us follow the argument in this direction: You say, my friend, that He was a sorcerer, and dub Him a clever enchanter and deceiver. Would . you say, then, that He was the first and only discoverer of the (c) business, or that we must not, as would be done in similar cases, look for the original source of His work directly in His own teaching? For if nobody taught Him, and He was Himself the first and only discoverer of the enterprise, if He had no benefit at all from the teaching of others, if he did not share in the feast of the ancients, we ought surely to ascribe divinity to Him, as One Who (d) without books, or education, or teachers, self-taught, self-educated, is assumed to have discovered such a new world. We know that it is impossible to acquire the knowledge of a lower-class trade, or of the art of reasoning, or indeed of the elements of knowledge without the help of a guide or teacher, unless the learner transcends the powers of ordinary people. I am sure we have not yet had a teacher of literature who was self-taught, nor an orator who had not been to school, nor a physician "born and not made," nor a carpenter, nor any other kind of craftsman; and these |151 things are relatively insignificant and human; what does it mean, then, to suggest that the Teacher of true religion to men, Who worked such miracles in the period of His earthly life, and did the extraordinary prodigies which I have lately described, was born actually endowed with (131) such power, and had not to share the feast of the ancients, nor to take advantage of the instruction of modern teachers, who had done like things before Him? What is it but to witness and confess that He was indeed divine, and that He altogether transcended humanity?

And supposing you say that He had foregathered with masters of deceit, and was acquainted with the wisdom of the Egyptians, and the secret knowledge of their ancient teachers, and that collecting His equipment from them, He appeared in the character that His story exhibits. (b) How is it, then, I reply, that no others have appeared greater than He, and no teachers antecedent to Him in time, either in Egypt, or anywhere else? Why has not their fame among all men preceded this accusation of Him, and why is not their glory even now celebrated in strains like ours? And what enchanter from the remotest age, either Greek or Barbarian, has ever been the Master of so many pupils, the prime mover of such laws and (c) teaching, as the power of our Saviour has shewn forth, or is recorded to have worked such cures, and bestowed such marvellous blessings, as our Saviour is reported to have done? Who has had friends and eye-witnesses of his deeds, ready to guarantee by the proof of fire and sword the truth of their witness, like the disciples of our Saviour, who have borne all insults, submitted to all forms of torture, and at last have sealed their witness about Him with their very blood?

Then, moreover, let him who supports the contention opposed to mine, inform me if any enchanter that ever existed has ever even taken it into his head to institute a new nation called after his own name? To go beyond the (d) mere conception, and to succeed in effecting it, is surely beyond the power of humanity.

What sorcerer has ever thought of establishing laws against idolatry in direct opposition to the decrees of kings, |152 ancient legislators, poets, philosophers, and theologians, and of giving them power, and of promulgating them so that they should last on unconquered and invincible for long ages? But our Lord and Saviour did not conceive and not dare to attempt, neither did he attempt and not succeed.

(132) With one word and voice He said to His disciples: "Go, and make disciples of all the nations in My Name, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you," [[Matt. xxviii. 19.]] and He joined the effect to His Word; and in a little while every race of the Greeks and Barbarians was being brought into discipleship, and laws were spread among all nations opposed to the superstition of the ancients, laws inimical to daemons, and to all the deceits of polytheism, laws that have made Scythians, Persians, and the other barbarians temperate, and revolutionized every lawless and uncivilized custom, laws that have overturned the immemorial habits of the Greeks themselves, (b) and heralded a new and real religion. What similar daring has been shewn by the ancient sorcerers before the time of Jesus, or even after Him, which would make it plausible that He was assisted in His sorcery by others? And if the only answer to this is that no one has ever been like Him, for no one was the source of His virtue, surely it is time to confess that a strange and divine Being has sojourned in our humanity, by Whom alone, and for the first time in (c) man's history, things unrecorded before in human annals have been effected.

In such wise I will conclude this part of the subject. But I must again attack my opposer, and inquire if he has ever seen or heard of sorcerers and enchanters doing their sorcery without libations, incense, and the invocation and presence of daemons. But no one surely could venture to cast this aspersion on our Saviour, or on His teaching, or on those even now imitating His life. It must be clear even to the blind that we who follow Jesus arc totally opposed to such agencies, and would sooner dare to sacrifice our (d) soul to death than an offering to the dremons, yea, would |153 sooner depart from life than remain alive under the tyranny of evil daemons. Who does not know how we love by the mere Name of Jesus and the purest prayers to drive away all the work of the daemons? The mere word of Jesus and His teaching has made us all far stronger than this invisible Power, and has trained us to be enemies and foes of daemons, not their friends or associates, and certainly not their slaves and tributaries. And how could He Who (133) has led us on to this, Himself be the slave of the daemons? How could He sacrifice to evil spirits? Or how could He have invoked the daemons to aid Him in His Miracles, when even to-day every daemon and unclean spirit shudders  at the Name of Jesus as at something that is likely to punish and torment its own nature, and so departs and yields to the power of His Name alone? So was it of old in the days when He sojourned in this life: they could not bear His Presence, but cried, one from, one side and one from another: "Come, what have we to do with thee, Jesus, (b) Son of God? Art thou come to torment us before the time?" [[Matt. viii.29.]]

And a man whose mind was wholly devoted to sorcery, and in every way involved in the quest of the forbidden, would surely be (would he not?) unholy in his ways; scandalous, base, atheistic, unjust, irreligious. And if He were such, from what source, or by what means, could He teach others about religion, or temperance, or the knowledge of God, or about the tribunal and judgment of Almighty God? Would He not rather commend the (c) opposites of these, and act according to His own wickedness, deny God and God's Providence, and God's Judgment, and revile teaching about virtue and the immortality of the soul? And if one could see such a character in our Lord and Saviour, there would be no more to say. But (d) if instead we see Him calling on God the Father, the Creator of all things, in every act and word, and training His pupils to resemble Him, if He being pure Himself teaches purity, if He is a maker and herald of justice, truth, philanthropy, and every virtue, and the introducer of the worship of God the King of kings, surely it follows from this that He cannot be suspected of working His |154 miracles by sorcery, and that we must admit that they were the result of unspeakable and truly inspired power. (134) 

But if you are so far gone in folly as not to pay any heed to temperate argument and logical consistency of thought, and are not impressed by probable proofs, because you suspect me perhaps to be a special pleader----at least you will hear your own daemons, the gods I mean who give the oracles, hear them bearing witness to our Saviour, not like you of His sorcery, but of His holiness, His wisdom, and His Ascension into Heaven. What could be a more persuasive testimony than that written by our enemy ^[80] in the third chapter of his book, Concerning Philosophy from Oracles, where he thus speaks in so many words.

CHAPTER 7 

Oracles about Christ.

"WHAT I am about to say may seem surprising to some. It is that the gods have pronounced Christ to have been most holy and immortal, and they speak of Him reverently."

And lower down he adds:

"To those asking the question, 'Is Christ a God?' the oracle replied:

That the soul goes forth immortal after (its severance from) the body.
Thou knowest, severed from wisdom it ever roams. 
That soul is the soul of a man signal in holiness." |155 

He certainly says here that He was most holy, and that His soul, which the Christians ignorantly worship, like the souls of others, was made immortal after death. And when asked, "Why did He suffer?" the oracle replied:

The body of the weak has ever been exposed to torments,
But the soul of holy men takes its place in heaven."

And he adds after the oracle:

"Christ, then, was holy, and like the holy, went to the (d) heaven. Wherefore you will say no evil about Him, but pity the folly of men."

So says Porphyry even now. Was He then a charlatan, my friend? Perhaps the friendly words of one of your kidney may put you out of countenance. For you have our Saviour Jesus, the Christ of God, admitted by your own teachers to be, not an enchanter or a sorcerer, but holy, wise, the justest of the just, and dwelling in the vaults of heaven. He, then, being such, could only have done |156 His miracles by a divine power, which also the holy writings bear witness that He had, saying that the Word of God and the highest Power of God dwelt in man's shape and form, nay, even in actual flesh and body therein, and performed all the functions of human nature. (135) And you yourself may realize the divine elements of this power, if you reflect on the nature and grandeur of a Being who could associate with Himself poor men of the lowly fisherman's class, and use them as agents in carrying through a work that transcends all reason. For having conceived the intention, which no one ever before had done, of spreading His own laws and a new teaching among all nations, and of revealing Himself as the teacher of the religion of One Almighty God to all the races of men, He (b) thought good to use the most rustic and common men as ministers of His own design, because maybe He had in mind to do the most unlikely things. For how could men unable even to open their mouths be able to teach, even if they were appointed teachers to only one person, far less to a multitude of men? How should they instruct the people, who were themselves without any education?

But this was surely the manifestation of the divine will and of the divine power working in them. For when He called them, the first thing He said to them was: " Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." [[Mark i. 17.]] And (c) when He had thus acquired them as His followers, He breathed into them His divine power, He filled them with strength and bravery, and like a true Word of God and as God Himself, the doer of such great wonders, He made them hunters of rational and thinking souls, adding power to His words: "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men," and sent them forth fitted already to be workers and teachers of holiness to all the nations, declaring (d) them heralds of His own teaching. And who would not be amazed and naturally inclined to disbelieve a thing so extraordinary, for none of those who have ever won fame among men----no king, no legislator, no philosopher, no Greek, no barbarian----are recorded to have ever conceived such a design, or dreamed of anything at all resembling it? For each one of them has been satisfied, if he could establish his own system over his own land only, and if he were able to enforce desirable laws within the limits of his own race. |157 Whereas He, who conceived nothing human or mortal, see (136) how truly He speaks with the voice of God, saying in these very words to those disciples of His, the poorest of the poor: "Go forth, and make disciples of all the nations." [[Matt.xxviii. 19.]] "But how," the disciples might reasonably have answered the Master, "can we do it? How, pray, can we preach to Romans? How can we argue with Egyptians? We are men bred up to use the Syrian tongue only, what language shall we speak to Greeks? How shall we persuade Persians, Armenians, Chaldrearis, Scythians, Indians, and other (b) barbarous nations to give up their ancestral gods, and worship the Creator of all? What sufficiency of speech have we to trust to in attempting such work as this? And what hope of success can we have if we dare to proclaim laws directly opposed to the laws about their own gods that have been established for ages among all nations? By what power shall we ever survive our daring attempt?"

But while the disciples of Jesus were most likely either saying thus, or thinking thus, the Master solved their difficulties, by the addition of one phrase, saying they should (c) triumph "In MY NAME." For He did not bid them simply and indefinitely make disciples of all nations, but with the necessary addition of " In my Name." And the power of His Name being so great, that the apostle says: "God has given him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth," [[Phil. ii. 9.]] He shewed the virtue of the power in His Name concealed (d) from the crowd when He said to His disciples: "Go, and make disciples of all nations in my Name." He also most accurately forecasts the future when He says: "For this gospel must first be preached to all the world, for a witness to all nations." [[Matt.xxiv.14.]]

These words were said in a corner of the earth then, and only those present heard it. How, I ask, did they credit them, unless from other divine works that He had done they had experienced the truth in His words? Not one of them disobeyed His command: but in obedience to (137) His Will according to their orders they began to make disciples of every race of men, going from their own country to all races, and in a short time it was possible to see His words realized. |158 

The Gospel, then, in a short time was preached in the whole world, for a witness to the heathen, and Barbarians and Greeks alike possessed the writings about Jesus in their ancestral script and language. And yet who would not quite reasonably be at a loss to explain how the disciples of Jesus gave this teaching? Did they go into the (b) middle of the city, and stand there in the Agora, and call on the passers-by with a loud voice, and then address the populace? And what were the arguments in their address, which would have any chance of persuading such an audience? How could untrained speakers, quite deficient in education, give addresses at all?

Perhaps you suggest they did not speak in public, but in private to those they met. If so, with what arguments could they have persuaded their hearers?----for they had (c) a most difficult task, unless they were ready to deny the shameful death of Him they preached. And suppose they concealed it, and passing over the nature and number of His sufferings at the hands of the Jews, retailed simply the noble and the glorious incidents (I mean His miracles and mighty works, and His philosophic teaching), they had even so no light problem to solve in gaining easily the adherence of listeners, who spoke strange tongues, and then for the first time heard novelties talked of by men who brought with them nothing sufficient to authenticate |159 what they said. Yet such a Gospel would, perhaps, have (d) seemed more plausible.

And who could be so simple, as to believe them easily when they said that they had seen Him after His death risen to life from the dead, One Who was unable to defend Himself when alive? Who would have believed common and uneducated men who told them they must (138) despise their fathers' gods, condemn the folly of all who lived in the ages past, and put their sole belief in them and the commands of the Crucified----because He was the only-beloved and only-begotten Son of the One Supreme God? I myself, when I frankly turn the account over in my own mind, have to confess that I find in it no power to persuade, no dignity, no credibility, not even enough plausibility, to convince iust one of the most simple, (b) But when I turn my eyes away to the evidence of the power of the Word, what multitudes it has won, and what enormous churches have been founded by those unlettered and mean disciples of Jesus, not in obscure and unknown places, but in the most noble cities----I mean in Royal Rome, in Alexandria, and Antioch, throughout the whole of Egypt and Libya, Europe and Asia, and in villages and (c) country places and among the nations----I am irresistibly forced to retrace my steps, and search for their cause, and to confess that they could only have succeeded in their daring venture, by a power more divine, and more strong than man's, and by the co-operation of Him Who said to them: "Make disciples of all the nations in my Name."

And when He said this He appended a promise, that would ensure their courage and readiness to devote themselves to carrying out His commands. For He said to |160 them: "And lo! I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world." Moreover, He is said to have breathed into them a holy Spirit, yea to have given them divine and miraculous power----first saying: "Receive ye Holy Spirit," [[John xx.22]] and then: "Heal the sick, cleanse lepers, cast out demons; freely ye have received, freely give.'' [[Matt. x. 8.]]

You yourself will recognize what power their word has had, for the Book of the Acts agrees with their having these powers, and gives consistent evidence, where these men are reported by their power of working miracles by (139) the Name of Jesus to have astonished the spectators present.

They amazed the spectators first most probably by the miracles themselves; they then found men bent on inquiring Who He was, Whose power and Name had caused the wonder; then they taught them and found that their faith had preceded the teaching. For without persuasion by words, being first convinced by works, they were easily brought into the state that the words required. For some are said to have been about to offer sacrifices and libations to the disciples of Jesus, as if they had been gods. [[Acts xiv. 12.]] And the exhibition of their miracles so struck their minds, that they called one (b) Hermes and the other Zeus. And, of course, whatever they told about Jesus to men in such a state, was naturally after that considered the truth, and thus their evidence for His Resurrection after death was not given by simple or unproven words, but came with the persuasion of the very working, since they could shew forth the works of One living still.

And if they preached that He was God, and the Son of God, being with the Father before He came to earth, to this truth they were equally open, and would certainly have (c) thought anything opposed to it incredible and impossible, reckoning it impossible to think that what was done was the work of a human being, but ascribing it to God without any one telling them.

Here, then, in this and nothing else is the answer to our question, by what power the disciples of Jesus convinced |161 their first hearers, and how they persuaded Greeks as well as barbarians to think of Him as of the Word of God, and how in the midst of cities, as well as in the country, they (d) instituted places of instruction in the religion of the One Supreme God.

And yet all must wonder, if they consider and reflect, that it was not by mere human accident, that the greater part of the nations of the world were never before under the one empire of Rome, but only from the times of Jesus. For His wonderful sojourn among men synchronized with Rome's attainment of the acme of power, Augustus then first being supreme ruler over most of the nations, in whose time, Cleopatra being captured, the succession of the Ptolemies was dissolved in Egypt. And from that day (140) to this, the kingdom of Egypt has been destroyed, which had lasted from immemorial time, and so to say from the very beginnings of humanity. Since that day the Jewish people have become subject to the Romans, the Syrians likewise, the Cappadocians and Macedonians, the Bithynians and Greeks, and in a word all the other nations who are under Roman rule. And no one could deny that the synchronizing of this with the beginning of the teaching about our Saviour is of God's arrangement, if he considered the difficulty of the disciples taking their journey, had the (b) nations been at variance one with another, and not mixing together because of varieties of government. But when these were abolished, they could accomplish their projects quite fearlessly and safely, since the Supreme God had smoothed the way before them, and subdued the spirit of the more superstitious citizens under the fear of a strong central government.

For consider, how if there had been no force available to hinder those who in the power of polytheistic error were contending with Christian education, that you would have long ago seen civil revolutions, and extraordinarily bitter persecutions and wars, if the superstitious had had (c) the power to do as they willed with them.

Now this must have been the work of God Almighty, this subordination of the enemies of His own Word to a |162 greater fear of a supreme ruler. For He wills it daily to advance, and to spread among all men. And, moreover, that it might not be thought to prosper through the leniency of rulers, if some of them under the sway of evil designed (d) to oppose the Word of Christ, He allowed them to do what was in their hearts, both that his athletes might display their holiness, and also that it might be made evident to all that the triumph of the Word was not of the counsel of men, but of the power of God. Who would not wonder at what ordinarily happened in times like those? For the athletes of holiness of old shone forth clear and glorious to the eyes of all, and were thought worthy of the prizes of God; while the enemies of holiness paid their meet penalty, driven mad with divine scourges, afflicted with (141) terrible and vile diseases in their whole body, so that at last they were forced to confess their impiety against Christ. And all the rest who were worthy of the Divine Name, and gloried in their Christian profession, passing through a short discipline of trial, exhibited the nobility and sincerity of their hearts, received back again once more their own liberty, while through them the word of salvation shone out daily more brightly, and ruled even in the midst of foes.

And not only did they struggle against visible enemies, (b) but against the invisible, such evil daemons and their rulers as haunt the nebulous air around the earth, whom also Christ's true disciples by purity of life and prayer to God and by His Divine Name drove off, giving proofs of the miraculous signs, which of old were said to have been done by Him, and also, to eyes that could see, of His divine power still active.

And now that these preliminary topics are concluded, in their right order, I must proceed to handle the more mystical theology about Him, and consider Who He was that performed miracles through the visible humanity (of Jesus).