On the Incarnation of the Word.

 On the Incarnation of the Word.

 §2. Erroneous views of Creation rejected. (1) Epicurean (fortuitous generation). But diversity of bodies and parts argues a creating intellect. (2.) P

 §3. The true doctrine. Creation out of nothing, of God’s lavish bounty of being. Man created above the rest, but incapable of independent perseverance

 §4. Our creation and God’s Incarnation most intimately connected. As by the Word man was called from non-existence into being, and further received th

 §5. For God has not only made us out of nothing but He gave us freely, by the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having r

 §6. The human race then was wasting, God’s image was being effaced, and His work ruined. Either, then, God must forego His spoken word by which man ha

 §7. On the other hand there was the consistency of God’s nature, not to be sacrificed for our profit. Were men, then, to be called upon to repent? But

 §8. The Word, then, visited that earth in which He was yet always present and saw all these evils. He takes a body of our Nature, and that of a spot

 §9. The Word, since death alone could stay the plague, took a mortal body which, united with Him, should avail for all, and by partaking of His immort

 § 10. By a like simile, the reasonableness of the work of redemption is shewn. How Christ wiped away our ruin, and provided its antidote by His own te

 §11. Second reason for the Incarnation. God, knowing that man was not by nature sufficient to know Him, gave him, in order that he might have some pro

 §12. For though man was created in grace, God, foreseeing his forgetfulness, provided also the works of creation to remind man of him. Yet further, He

 § 13. Here again, was God to keep silence? to allow to false gods the worship He made us to render to Himself? A king whose subjects had revolted woul

 §14. A portrait once effaced must be restored from the original. Thus the Son of the Father came to seek, save, and regenerate. No other way was possi

 §15. Thus the Word condescended to man’s engrossment in corporeal things, by even taking a body. All man’s superstitions He met halfway whether men w

 §16. He came then to attract man’s sense-bound attention to Himself as man, and so to lead him on to know Him as God.

 §17. How the Incarnation did not limit the ubiquity of the Word, nor diminish His Purity. (Simile of the Sun.)

 § 18. How the Word and Power of God works in His human actions: by casting out devils, by Miracles, by His Birth of the Virgin.

 §19. Man, unmoved by nature, was to be taught to know God by that sacred Manhood, Whose deity all nature confessed, especially in His Death.

 §20. None, then, could bestow incorruption, but He Who had made, none restore the likeness of God, save His Own Image, none quicken, but the Life, non

 §21. Death brought to nought by the death of Christ. Why then did not Christ die privately, or in a more honourable way? He was not subject to natural

 §22. But why did He not withdraw His body from the Jews, and so guard its immortality? (1) It became Him not to inflict death on Himself, and yet not

 §23. Necessity of a public death for the doctrine of the Resurrection.

 §24. Further objections anticipated. He did not choose His manner of death for He was to prove Conqueror of death in all or any of its forms: (simile

 §25. Why the Cross, of all deaths? (1) He had to bear the curse for us. (2) On it He held out His hands to unite all, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself. (

 §26. Reasons for His rising on the Third Day. (1) Not sooner for else His real death would be denied, nor (2) later to (a) guard the identity of His

 §27. The change wrought by the Cross in the relation of Death to Man.

 §28. This exceptional fact must be tested by experience. Let those who doubt it become Christians.

 §29. Here then are wonderful effects, and a sufficient cause, the Cross, to account for them, as sunrise accounts for daylight.

 §30. The reality of the resurrection proved by facts: (1) the victory over death described above: (2) the Wonders of Grace are the work of One Living,

 §31. If Power is the sign of life, what do we learn from the impotence of idols, for good or evil, and the constraining power of Christ and of the Sig

 §32. But who is to see Him risen, so as to believe? Nay, God is ever invisible and known by His works only: and here the works cry out in proof. If yo

 §33. Unbelief of Jews and scoffing of Greeks. The former confounded by their own Scriptures. Prophecies of His coming as God and as Man.

 §34. Prophecies of His passion and death in all its circumstances.

 §35. Prophecies of the Cross. How these prophecies are satisfied in Christ alone.

 §36. Prophecies of Christ’s sovereignty, flight into Egypt, &c.

 §37. Psalm xxii. 16 , &c. Majesty of His birth and death. Confusion of oracles and demons in Egypt.

 §38. Other clear prophecies of the coming of God in the flesh. Christ’s miracles unprecedented.

 §39. Do you look for another? But Daniel foretells the exact time. Objections to this removed.

 §40. Argument (1) from the withdrawal of prophecy and destruction of Jerusalem, (2) from the conversion of the Gentiles, and that to the God of Moses.

 §41. Answer to the Greeks. Do they recognise the Logos? If He manifests Himself in the organism of the Universe, why not in one Body? for a human body

 §42. His union with the body is based upon His relation to Creation as a whole. He used a human body, since to man it was that He wished to reveal Him

 §43. He came in human rather than in any nobler form, because (I) He came to save, not to impress (2) man alone of creatures had sinned. As men woul

 §44. As God made man by a word, why not restore him by a word? But (1) creation out of nothing is different from reparation of what already exists. (2

 §45. Thus once again every part of creation manifests the glory of God. Nature, the witness to her Creator, yields (by miracles) a second testimony to

 §46. Discredit, from the date of the Incarnation, of idol-cultus, oracles, mythologies, demoniacal energy, magic, and Gentile philosophy. And whereas

 §47. The numerous oracles,—fancied apparitions in sacred places, &c., dispelled by the sign of the Cross. The old gods prove to have been mere men. Ma

 §48. Further facts. Christian continence of virgins and ascetics. Martyrs. The power of the Cross against demons and magic. Christ by His Power shews

 §49. His Birth and Miracles. You call Asclepius, Heracles, and Dionysus gods for their works. Contrast their works with His, and the wonders at His de

 §50. Impotence and rivalries of the Sophists put to shame by the Death of Christ. His Resurrection unparalleled even in Greek legend.

 §51. The new virtue of continence. Revolution of Society, purified and pacified by Christianity.

 §52. Wars, &c., roused by demons, lulled by Christianity.

 §53. The whole fabric of Gentilism levelled at a blow by Christ secretly addressing the conscience of Man.

 §54. The Word Incarnate, as is the case with the Invisible God, is known to us by His works. By them we recognise His deifying mission. Let us be cont

 §55. Summary of foregoing. Cessation of pagan oracles, &c.: propagation of the faith. The true King has come forth and silenced all usurpers.

 §56. Search then, the Scriptures, if you can, and so fill up this sketch. Learn to look for the Second Advent and Judgment.

 §57. Above all, so live that you may have the right to eat of this tree of knowledge and life, and so come to eternal joys. Doxology.

§33. Unbelief of Jews and scoffing of Greeks. The former confounded by their own Scriptures. Prophecies of His coming as God and as Man.

These things being so, and the Resurrection of His body and the victory gained over death by the Saviour being clearly proved, come now let us put to rebuke both the disbelief of the Jews and the scoffing of the Gentiles. 2. For these, perhaps, are the points where Jews express incredulity, while Gentiles laugh, finding fault with the unseemliness of the Cross, and of the Word of God becoming man. But our argument shall not delay to grapple with both especially as the proofs at our command against them are clear as day. 3. For Jews in their incredulity may be refuted from the Scriptures, which even themselves read; for this text and that, and, in a word, the whole inspired Scripture, cries aloud concerning these things, as even its express words abundantly shew. For prophets proclaimed beforehand concerning the wonder of the Virgin and the birth from her, saying: “Lo, the91    Matt. i. 23; Isa. vii. 14. Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us.” 4. But Moses, the truly great, and whom they believe to speak truth, with reference to the Saviour’s becoming man, having estimated what was said as important, and assured of its truth, set it down in these words: “There92    Num. xxiv. 5–17. shall rise a star out of Jacob, and a man out of Israel, and he shall break in pieces the captains of Moab.” And again: “How lovely are thy habitations O Jacob, thy tabernacles O Israel, as shadowing gardens, and as parks by the rivers, and as tabernacles which the Lord hath fixed, as cedars by the waters. A man shall come forth out of his seed, and shall be Lord over many peoples.” And again, Esaias: “Before93    Isa. viii. 4. the Child know how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of Assyria.” 5. That a man, then, shall appear is foretold in those words. But that He that is to come is Lord of all, they predict once more as follows: “Behold94    Isa. xix. 1. the Lord sitteth upon a light cloud, and shall come into Egypt, and the graven images of Egypt shall be shaken.” For from thence also it is that the Father calls Him back, saying: “I called95    Hos. xi. 1. My Son out of Egypt.”

Τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων καὶ φανερᾶς οὔσης τῆς ἀποδείξεως περὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τοῦ σώματος καὶ τῆς κατὰ τοῦ θανάτου γενομένης ὑπὸ τοῦ Σωτῆρος νίκης, φέρε, καὶ τὴν ἀπιστίαν τῶν Ἰουδαίων καὶ τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων χλεύην διελέγξωμεν. Ἐπὶ τούτοις γὰρ ἴσως Ἰουδαῖοι μὲν ἀπιστοῦσιν, Ἕλληνες δὲ γελῶσι, τὸ ἀπρεπὲς τοῦ σταυροῦ καὶ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου διασύροντες· ἀλλὰ κατ' ἀμφοτέρων ὁ λόγος οὐκ ὀκνήσει χωρῆσαι, μάλιστα κατ' αὐτῶν τὰς ἀποδείξεις ἐναργεῖς ἔχων. Ἰουδαῖοι μὲν ἀπιστοῦντες ἔχουσιν ἀφ' ὧν ἀναγινώσκουσι καὶ αὐτοὶ γραφῶν τὸν ἔλεγχον· ἄνω καὶ κάτω, καὶ πάσης ἁπλῶς θεοπνεύστου βίβλου περὶ τούτων βοώσης, ὡς καὶ αὐτὰ τὰ ῥήματα πρόδηλα. Προφῆται μὲν γὰρ ἄνωθεν περὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν παρθένον θαύματος καὶ τῆς ἐξ αὐτῆς γενομένης γεννήσεως προεμήνυον, λέγοντες· “Ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσουσι τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἐμμανουήλ, ὅ ἐστι μεθερμηνευόμενον, μεθ' ἡμῶν ὁ Θεός.” Μωσῆς δὲ ὁ τῷ ὄντι μέγας, καὶ παρ' αὐτοῖς πιστευόμενος ἀληθής, περὶ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἀντὶ μεγάλου τὸ ῥητὸν δοκιμάσας καὶ ἀληθὲς ἐπιγνοὺς ἔθηκε λέγων· “Ἀνατελεῖ ἄστρον ἐξ Ἰακώβ, καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἐξ Ἰσραήλ, καὶ θραύσει τοὺς ἀρχηγοὺς Μωάβ.” Καὶ πάλιν· “Ὡς καλοί σου οἱ οἶκοι, Ἰακώβ, αἱ σκηναί σου,Ἰσραήλ, ὡσεὶ νάπαι σκιάζουσαι, καὶ ὡσεὶ παράδεισοι ἐπὶ ποταμῶν, καὶ ὡσεὶ σκηναὶ ἃς ἔπηξεν ὁ Κύριος, ὡσεὶ κέδροι παρ' ὕδατα. Ἐξελεύσεται ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτοῦ, καὶ κυριεύσει ἐθνῶν πολλῶν.” Καὶ πάλιν Ἡσαΐας· “Πρὶν ἢ γνῶναι τὸ παιδίον καλεῖν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα, λήψεται δύναμιν ∆αμασκοῦ καὶ τὰ σκύλα Σαμαρείας ἔναντι βασιλέως Ἀσσυρίων.” Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἄνθρωπος φανήσεται, διὰ τούτων προκαταγγέλλεται. Ὅτι δὲ Κύριος πάντων ἐστὶν ὁ ἐρχόμενος, πάλιν προμηνύουσι λέγοντες· “Ἰδοὺ Κύριος κάθηται ἐπὶ νεφέλης κούφης, καὶ ἥξει εἰς Αἴγυπτον, καὶ σεισθήσεται τὰ χειροποίητα Αἰγύπτου.” Καὶ γὰρ κἀκεῖθεν αὐτὸν ὁ Πατὴρ ἀνακαλεῖ λέγων· “Ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου.”