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.
But in fact they preached, first, that God came on an embassy in a man's body, and was actually the Word of God by nature, and had wrought the wonders He did as God. And next----a tale opposed to this, that He had undergone insult and contumely, and at last the Cross, the most shameful punishment and the one reserved for the most criminal of mankind; who would not have had ground for despising them as preaching an inconsistent message?
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).
[Footnotes up to p.145 renumbered and placed here at the end. Footnotes after that omitted as tedious to transcribe and of limited value to the general reader.]
1. Books I. and II. are the "prolegomena." The Demonstratio itself begins here. Eusebius claims by his arguments to have established the Christian use of the O.T., since Christianity is its real fulfilment. The way is now clear for the work itself, ἡ αὐτὴ ὑπόθεσις , which is an examination of the prophetic witness to Christ, and of the correspondence of Jesus Christ with that witness, as described in the Gospels, and as evident in the effects of His coming on the world of heathenism.
2. παρέλαβον = state concisely.
3. Following Gaisford, who for ἀναβλέπουσι suggests ἀμβλυώττουσι . Diodatus had evidently read---- ἀναπήροις οὖσι .
4. LXX: ἰδοὺ κύριος. κύριος μετὰ ἰσχύος ἔρχεται .
5. S.: οἱ ἄνθρωποι . Prayer Book Version: " Put them in fear."
6. S. reads for δίδωμι ("give"), ὕω ----"rain down."
7. W.H. add κατ' ἰδίαν .
8. E.: ἐν δακτύλῳ Θεου ~ . W.H.: ἐν πνεύματι Θεοῦ .
9. S. adds: "whom you yourself know to be elders of the people and their scribes, and thou shall bring them to the tabernacle of witness, and they shall stand there with thee. And I will descend and speak there with thee."
10. S. "He brought the seventy men" follows in verse 24.
11. E.: μαθητάς . W.H.: ἑτέρους .
12. E. omits αυτούς .
13. S. reads: "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shall not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness ( ψευδομαρτυρύσεις for ἐπιορκήσεις ) against thy neighbour."
14. ἡ παλαιὰ γραφη & , or "ancient records."
15. διαθέσει γνησιωτάτη .
16. See note, page 21.
17. The ancestor of the Herods was Antipater, governor of Judaea under Alexander Jannaeus (104-78 B.C.). Nicolaus of Damascus, Herod's minister, represented him as a Jew, but Josephus states that he was an Idumaean of high birth. (Jos., B.J. i. 6. 2; Ant. xiv. 8. 1.) The stories of his servile and Philistine origin, common among Jews and Christians, have no foundation: e.g. Just. Mart., Tryph. 52: Ἡρώδην Ἀσκαλωίττην : Julius Africanus ap Eus., H . E. i. 7. 11. See Schürer, History of the Jewish People , i. 314 n.
18. Cf. I. i.
19. ὀλιγοστὸς εἶ τοῦ εἶναι ; cf. Origen, contra Celsum, l . i. §51. "The cave is shewn where He was born, and the manger in which He was swaddled; and that which is widely spoken of in those places, even among aliens from the faith, viz. that Jesus . . . was born in that cave.' Earlier Apologists, e.g. Justin, do not mention the cave. Helena, A.D. 326, "left a fruit of her piety to posterity" in two churches which she built, "one at the cave of the nativity." Eus., Vita Const, cc. 42, 43; cf. Dem. p. 1.
20. E. omits: ὅτι ἀπέστραπται τό πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ .
21. E. omits: ἄνθρωπος τῇ ὁδῷ αὐτοῦ ἐπλανήθη .
22. E. omits: Ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει ἡ κρίσις αὐτοῦ ἠρθη .
23. ἀντιβλέψαι . Cf. P.E. 289 B, from Orig., Tom. iii. in Gen. ἀντιβλέπειν ἡδονῇ ---- to resist pleasure.
24. LXX: καὶ τῶν αὐλαίων σου .
25. E.: καὶ τὰς δέρρεις τῶν αὐλαίων .
26. Unbelievers in the prophecies must be approached by another method. To them E. must speak of Christ, ὡς περὶ ἀνδρὸς κοινοῦ καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς παραπλησίου . The uniqueness of His Humanity will point the way to the revelation of His Divinity, as foretold by the prophets. Of what nature then was His power? Was it wizardry?
27. ἐπιεικείας .
28. Or "reassembled."
29. Reading ἀνθρώπους αὐτοὺς καθ (Paris ed.), and supplying, "are following the way of": "Plura mihi videnter emendationis egere" (Gaisford).
30. ἐπὶ σπείρας· σπεῖρα , equivalent of Roman "manipulus" (Polyb. xi. 23. 1). In Acts x. 1 a larger body, probably "a cohort."
31. τραχηλισθέντα . Cp. Heb. iv. 13. The spirit of Heathenism was the true deceiver which had deluded an originally monotheistic world into polytheism.
32. i.e. followers of Porphyry.
33. Cf. Sib. Or. iii. 218 seq. for an eulogy of the Jews: "There is on earth a city, Ur of the Chaldees, from which springs a race of upright men, ever given to wise counsel and good works." See Bate, The Sibylline Oracles , S.P.C.K., pp. 31-36, for an account of the Sibyl in early Christian literature.
34. Porphyry (Malchus, Vit. Plot. vii. 107) "the soberest of the Neoplatonic philosophers" (Cheetham), succeeded Plotinus. He was born A. D. 232 at Batanea, probably of a Tyrian family, Vit. Plot . 8; Jerome, Praef. in Gal.; Chrysost. Hom. on 1 Cor. vi. p. 58. He met Origen (Vincent Lerin. Commonit. i. 23) and afterwards ridiculed his method (Eus., HE. vi . 19). He was a pupil of Longinus at Athens (Eus., P. E. x. 3. 1). He joined Plotinus at Rome, and earlier in Eusebius' life lived in Sicily. He died about 305. His philosophy was intensely ethical, and emphasized personal access to God, in faith, truth, love, and hope. He was hostile to Christianity, though he reverenced Christ as a man, and wrote a work called To the Christians, His chief remaining works are De Abstinentia, Lives of Plotinus and Pythagoras, Letters to Marcellus, Anebo and Sententiae. See also note p. 155.
35. ἀγωγήν .
36. Philostratus' Life of Apollonius. See Praep. Evan. p. 150, where G. quotes from Ritter and Preller "a brief summary of Suidas of the life of this notorious philosopher and imposter." He flourished in the reigns of Caius, Claudius, and Nero, and until the time of Nerva, in whose reign he died. After the example of Pythagoras he kept silence five years: then he sailed away to Egypt, afterwards to Babylon to visit the Magi, and thence to the Arabians: and from all those he collected the innumerable juggleries ascribed to him. He composed Rites, or concerning Sacrifice, A Testament, Oracles, Epistles, Life of Pythagoras. The life by Philostratus, written at the request of the wife of the Emperor Septimius Severus, is accessible in Phillimore's edition and in the Loeb Series. (See Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, pp. 40, 399, 472, 518.) "As against unmodified Judaism the Christians could find support for some of their own positions in the appeal to religious reformers like Apollonius of Tyana; who condemning blood-offerings as he did on more radical grounds than themselves was yet put forward by the apologists of paganism as a half-divine personage."----T. W HITTAKER , The Neo-Platonists, p. 138.
37. Gifford's translation.
38. γενητὸς ὁ κόσμος , cf. note by Gifford in P. E. 18 c. 3 on distinction between ἀγένητος (uncreated) and ἀγέννητος (unbegotten).
39. E. quotes Phaedo, 96 A. (P. E. 26) on the research into the natural laws of growth and decay; cf. Republ. viii. 546.
40. τας ὀφρῦς ἀνασπακότων , cf. P. E. 135 d of theosophical philosophers, 224 a from Oenomaus ---- to draw up the eyebrows, and so put on a grave important air. Ar. Ach. 1069, Dem. 442, 11, etc. (L. and S.) This satirical account echoes the irony of Plato.
41. See chiefly, P. E., Books iv. v. and vi.
42. Βασιλικὸς ἀνὴρ .
43. Or "choked by a cord."
44. τὸ τρόπαιον : the other reading is τὸν τρόπον which hardly yields sense.
45. Or "buried in the fitting way."
46. l. c. The Lord's miracles have been tested both by their agreement with what the Christian recognizes as miraculous in a minor degree still, and also by a logical method that should appeal to the unbeliever. (There seems to be something corrupt in the text.) For the continuance of miraculous powers in the third century, cf. Origen c. Cels. i. 13, also i. 9 (pp. 411, 405).
47. W.H. add μηδὲ χαλκόν .
48. ἐφαντάσθησαν , cf: P.E. 17 c, of learning God's greatness from His works: here it has the Aristotelian sense of something imagined.
49. Καλινδουμένοι ; cf. ἐκαλινδοῦντο , P. E. 511, a, 1. Lit.: "rolling about," so in common idiom "busied.'' So Dem. 403, 9; Xen. Cyr. I. 4, 5; Isoc. 295 B.
50. ἐφ' ἡσυχίας . Cf. Arist. Vesp. 1517.
51. Cf. H.E. iii. i, which gives the tradition that the apostles evangelized the whole world: Thomas receiving Parthia, Andrew Scythia, John Asia, Peter the Jews of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia and Asia; Paul, preaching from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and ii. 16 makes Mark the apostle of Egypt, and v. 10 tells how Pantaenus ( circa 160) went to India, and found a Church that had been founded by Bartholomew.
Harnack regards all traditions of apostolic missions as legendary, except those of Paul, Peter, and "perhaps John of Ephesus," but accepts the Mission of Pantaenus ( Expansion of Christianity, I. pp. 439-441). For earlier statements of the diffusion of Christianity cf. Justin, Trypho , c. cxvii.; Tertullian Apol. xxxvii., adv. Jud. 7: "The haunts of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans subjugated to Christ." About A.D. 150 the Church of Edessa counted the king among its members (see F. C. Burkitt, Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire, p. 11, Cambridge, 1899) and Persia, Media, Parthia and Bactria were evangelized. Origen (185-254) visited the Arabian Churches more than once. In Africa, Egypt, Cyrene, and Carthage were evangelized before 200. In Gaul there were strong Churches, e. g. Lyons and Vienne. (G. P. Fisher, History of the Church, pp. 46, 47. London, 1892.)
52. οἷα μύσται τῶν ἀπορρήτων αὐτοῦ γεγενημένοι .
53. ἐκθειαζόμενον ; cf. P. E. 41 a, 780 b.
54. ὥσπέρ τι φόβητρον .
55. σταυρωθέντα supplied by Gaisford.
56. ὑπ' αὐτοῦ (P.). Amended to ὑπέρ by Gaisford.
57. See Eus., H.E. ii. 23.
58. Ibid. ii. 25.
59. Ibid . iii. 23.
60. περίδος . Cf. HE. 72b.
61. S. (Deut. xix. 15): ἐπὶ στόματος δύο μαρτύρων, καὶ ἐπὶ στόματος τριῶν μαρτύρων στήσεται πᾶν ῥῆμα . W.H. (2 Cor. xiii. 1): ἐπι στόματος δύο μαρτύρων καὶ τριῶν σταθήσεται πᾶν ῥῆμα . E.: ἐπὶ στόματος δ̕ οὖν δύο καὶ τριῶν μαρτύρων συνίσταται πᾶν ῥῆμα .
62. W.H. add τοῦ Ναζωραίου .
63. Cf. Tertull., Apol. c. 2: "Illud solum expectatur quod odio publico necessarium est, confessio nominis, non examinatio criminis."
64. W.H.: λεγόμενον . E.: ὀνόματι .
65. That Matthew "wrote in Hebrew the Gospel that hears his name'' is stated by Eus., H.E. iii. 24. And the words of Papias that "Matthew compiled the Logia in Hebrew, while they were interpreted by each man according to his ability," are quoted, H.E. iii. 39. It is agreed that E. was wrong in thinking our Matthew a translation of the Hebrew Logia. But there is no doubt a strong Matthaean element in the non-Marcan, and even in some of the Marcan, constituents of our Matthew. See J. V. Bartlet (Hastings' D.B. vol. iii. p. 296 sq. ), who postulates Palestinian catechetical Matthaean Logia, earlier than the matter used by Mark in its Petrine form, taking written form as the main constituent in our Gospel, which was composed either before or after A.D. 70, as the basis of them and the Marcan memoirs of Peter ( ib. p. 304). If this be so, the argument of E. as to Matthew's modesty would to a slight extent hold good.
66. εὐλάβεια : cf. Hebrews xii. 29, μετὰ εὐλαβείας καὶ δέους .
67. W.H.: ὅ ἐάν and singular participles. E.: ὅσα ἄν and pl.
68. E. changes order of words: Verses 67 and 69 read εἰς τὴν ἔξω πρόαυλιν , for ἔξω εἰς τὸ προαύλιον (68). W.H. add κάτω (66).
69. Paris Text adds οὔτε οἶδα .
70. It is certainly true that modern Criticism has judged the Gospels by canons that would be considered unduly rigorous in other fields of history. But the enormous importance of the issues has made this inevitable, and the Church has not shrunk from the minutest examination of her documents. I do not know the author of the saying: " One must .... at all."
71. The χλαμύς was the short military cloak. It is used by Plutarch (Peric 35, Lysander 13) for the "paludamentum," or general's cloak, and also for the royal cloak. The χιτών was the soldier's frock worn under the outer garment. E. says the "frock" was used in mockery for a (royal) cloak.
72. ἐπικομίζοντα . usually "carry to " There seems no force here in the ἐπί .
73. Possibly E. is condemning by implication some absurd tales in the Apocryphal Gospels.
74. As the Docetists taught.
75. Παραχαράξαντες cf. P.E. 495 a. A word used both literally and metaphorically of "marking with a false stamp," "falsifying."
76. Josephus, Ant. XVIII. iii. 3. The passage is also quoted, H.E. I. 11. 6, 7. It is found in all MSS. of Josephus, none being earlier than the eleventh century. But it is not quoted by Origen ( contra Celsum, i. 47, and the extant part of Comm. in Matt. Tom. x. 17), and his use of Ant. xx. 9, for Josephus' evidence to Christ seems to count against his knowledge of this passage. W. E. Barnes' recent reexamination of the question makes out a strong case for its authenticity. (See H. St. J. Thackeray in Hastings' D.B. extra vol., p. 471, and, on the other side, W. E. Barnes, The Testimony of Josephus to Christ, 1920, S.P.C. K.)
77. E. has e0kei=non for τοῦτον. σεβομένων for δεχομένων. τοῦ Ἰουδαίκοι for Ἰουδαίους. τῶν παρ' ἡμῖν ἀρχόντων for τῶν πρώτων ἀνδρῶν παρ' ἡμῖν . δ'θεν εἰς ἔτι for εἰσἐτι δε ----and ἀπὸ τοῦδε τῶν χρ : οὐκ ἐπίλιπε for τῶν χρ : ἀπὸ τοῦδε ώνομασμένον οὐκ ἐπέλιπε .
78. A.D. 130. Cf. H.E. iv. 6, "eighteenth year of Hadrian." In his Chronicon Eusebius puts the rebellion in Hadrian's sixteenth year. Hadrian reigned from A.D. 117 to A.D. 138.
79. See Eus., H.E. iv. 5.
[Note to the online text: From p.145 onwards I have omitted all but one of the footnotes as having very little value to the vast majority of the readers]
80. Porphyry: see notes, pp. 120 and 155. "The Neoplatonists praised Christ while they disparaged Christianity" (Aug., De Consensu Evang. i. 15), D.C.B. iv. 442. ... Augustine ( De Civ. Dei, XIX. c. 23, 2).
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