{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/007/0070095.htm","path":"chr/ecf/007/0070095.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/007/0070095.htm","text":"Therefore the Most High God, and Parent of all, when He had purposed to transfer 618 His p. 112 religion, sent from heaven a teacher of righteousness, that in Him or through Him He might give a new law to new worshippers; not as He had before done, by the instrumentality of man. Nevertheless it was His pleasure that He should be born as a man, that in all things He might be like His supreme Father. For God the Father Himself, who is the origin and source of all things, inasmuch as He is without parents, is most truly named by Trismegistus \u201cfatherless\u201d and \u201cmotherless,\u201d 619 because He was born from no one. For which reason it was befitting that the Son also should be twice born, that He also might become \u201cfatherless\u201d and \u201cmotherless.\u201d For in His first nativity, which was spiritual, He was \u201cmotherless,\u201d because He was begotten by God the Father alone, without the office of a mother. But in His second, which was in the flesh, He was born of a virgin\u2019s womb without the office of a father, that, bearing a middle substance between God and man, He might be able, as it were, to take by the hand this frail and weak nature of ours, and raise it to immortality. He became both the Son of God through the Spirit, and the Son of man through the flesh,\u2014that is, both God and man. The power of God was displayed in Him, from the works which He performed; the frailty of the man, from the passion which He endured: on what account He undertook it I will mention a little later. In the meantime, we learn from the predictions of the prophets that He was both God and man\u2014composed 620 of both natures. Isaiah testifies that He was God in these words: 621 \u201cEgypt is wearied, 622 and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sab\u00e6ans, men of stature, shall come over unto Thee, and shall be Thy servants: and they shall walk behind Thee; in chains they shall fall down unto Thee, and shall make supplication unto Thee, Since God is in Thee, and there is no other God besides Thee. For Thou art God, and we knew Thee not, the God of Israel, the Saviour. They shall all be confounded and ashamed who oppose Thee, and shall fall into confusion.\u201d In like manner the prophet Jeremiah 623 thus speaks: \u201cThis is our God, and there shall none other be compared unto Him. He hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given it unto Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterward He was seen upon earth, and dwelt among men.\u201d\nDavid also, in the forty-fourth Psalm: 624 \u201cThy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness; therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness.\u201d By which word he also shows His name, since (as I have shown above) He was called Christ from His anointing. Then, that He was also man, Jeremiah teaches, saying: 625 \u201cAnd He is a man, and who hath known Him?\u201d Also Isaiah: 626 \u201cAnd God shall send to them a man, who shall save them, shall save them by judging.\u201d But Moses also, in Numbers, 627 thus speaks: \u201cThere shall arise a star out of Jacob, and a man 628 shall spring forth from Israel.\u201d On which account the Milesian Apollo, 629 being asked whether He was God or man, replied in this manner: \u201cHe was mortal as to His body, being wise with wondrous works; but being taken with arms under Chaldean judges, with nails and the cross He endured a bitter end.\u201d In the first verse he spoke the truth, but he skilfully deceived him who asked the question, who was entirely ignorant of the mystery of the truth. For he appears to have denied that He was God. But when he acknowledges that He was mortal as to the flesh, which we also declare, it follows that as to the spirit He was God, which we affirm. For why would it have been necessary to make mention of the flesh, since it was sufficient to say that He was mortal? But being pressed by the truth, he could not deny the real state of the case; as that which he says, that He was wise.\nWhat do you reply to this, Apollo? If he is wise, then his system of instruction is wisdom, and no other; and they are wise who follow it, and no others. Why then are we commonly esteemed as foolish, and visionary, and senseless, who follow a Master who is wise even by the confession of the gods themselves? For in that he said that He wrought wonderful deeds, by which He especially claimed faith is His divinity, he now appears to assent to us, when he says the same things in which we boast. But, however, he recovers himself, and again has recourse to demoniacal frauds. For when he had been compelled to speak the truth, he now appeared to be a betrayer of the gods and of himself, unless he had, by a deceptive falsehood, concealed that which the truth had extorted from him. He says, therefore, that He did indeed perform wonderful works, p. 113 yet not by divine power, but by magic. What wonder if Apollo thus persuaded men ignorant of the truth, when the Jews also, worshippers (as they seemed to be) of the Most High God, entertained the same opinion, though they had every day before their eyes those miracles which the prophets had foretold to them as about to happen, and yet they could not be induced by the contemplation of such powers to believe that He whom they saw was God? On this account, David, whom they especially read above the other prophets, in the twenty-seventh Psalm 630 thus condemns them: \u201cRender to them their desert, because they regard not the works of the Lord.\u201d Both David himself and other prophets announced that of the house of this very David, Christ should be born according to the flesh. Thus it is written in Isaiah: 631 \u201cAnd in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, and He who shall arise to rule over the nations, in Him shall the Gentiles trust; and His rest shall be glorious.\u201d And in another place: 632 \u201cThere shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a blossom 633 shall grow out of his root; and the Spirit of God shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and of piety; and He shall be filled 634 with the spirit of fear of the Lord.\u201d Now Jesse was the father of David, from whose root he foretold that a blossom would arise; namely him of whom the Sibyl speaks, \u201cA pure blossom shall spring forth.\u201d\nAlso in the second book of Kings, the prophet Nathan was sent to David, who wished to build a temple for God; and this was the word of the Lord to Nathan, saying: 635 \u201cGo and tell my servant David, Thus saith the Lord Almighty, Thou shall not build me a house for me to dwell in; but when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee, and I will establish His kingdom. He shall build me a house for my name, and I will set up His throne for ever; and I will be to Him for a father, and He shall be to me for a son; and His house shall be established, 636 and His kingdom for ever.\u201d But the reason why the Jews did not understand these things was this, because Solomon the son of David built a temple for God, and the city which he called from his own name, Jerusalem. 637 Therefore they referred the predictions of the prophets to him. Now Solomon received the government of the kingdom from his father himself. But the prophets spoke of Him who was then born after that David had slept with his fathers. Besides, the reign of Solomon was not everlasting; for he reigned forty years. In the next place, Solomon was never called the son of God, but the son of David; and the house which he built was not firmly established, 638 as the Church, which is the true temple of God, which does not consist of walls, but of the heart 639 and faith of the men who believe on Him, and are called faithful. But that temple of Solomon, inasmuch as it was built by the hand, fell by the hand. Lastly, his father, in the cxxvith Psalm, prophesied in this manner respecting the works of his son: 640 \u201cExcept the Lord build the house, they have laboured in vain that built it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman hath waked but in vain.\u201d\nFrom the Israelites, to whom He first revealed Himself, to the Gentile world at large.\n112:619\n\u1f00\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1 and \u1f00\u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1. See Heb. vii. 3, where Melchisedec is a type of Christ.\n112:620\nEx utroque genere permistum. Though the Godhead and the manhood are joined together in one person in our Lord Jesus Christ, there is no confounding of the two natures: each is whole and perfect. While Nestorius held that there were two persons in Christ, Eutyches fell into the opposite error, and taught that the two natures were so blended together as to form one mixed nature. The expression in the text is not very clear.\n112:621 112:622\nFatigata est \u00c6gyptus. This is taken from the Septuagint.\n112:623\nThis quotation is from the apocryphal book of Baruch iii. 35-37, which is sometimes spoken of as the book of Jeremiah Baruch.\n112:624 112:625\nJer. xvii. 9. The passage is quoted from the Septuagint.\n112:626\nIsa. xix. 20, quoted from the Septuagint.\n112:627\nNum. xxiv. 17. The well-known prophecy of Balaam is here spoken of as though given by Moses, who only records it. [In an elucidation touching the Sibyls, I shall recur to the case of Balaam.]\n112:628\nExsurget homo ex Israel This is taken from the Septuagint, instead of the ordinary reading, \u201cA sceptre shall rise out of Israel.\u201d\n112:629\n[The oracle of Apollo Didym\u00e6us; from the Milesian temple burnt by Xerxes. Readers will remember the humour of Arnobius about these divers names, vol. vi. p. 419, this series.]\n113:630 113:631 113:632 113:633\nFlos. Quoted from the Septuagint, \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2.\n113:634\nImplebit eum spiritus timoris Dei.\n113:635\n2 Sam. 7:4, 5, 12\u201314, 16.\n113:636\nFidem consequetur, following the Septuagint \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03c9\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\n113:637\nHierosolyma. As though derived from \u1f30\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd and \u03a3\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03bc\u03c9\u0311\u03bd. But Solomon was not the founder of the city. The name is probably derived from Salem, of which city Melchisedec was king. Some derive it from Jebus (the ancient name of the city) and Salem. [See vol. ii. p. 107, note 3, this series.]\n113:638\nNon est fidem consecuta, as above.\n113:639\nThus Peter speaks, 1 Ep. ii. 5, \u201cYe are built up a spiritual house.\u201d\n113:640","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VII: Lactantius: Chap. XIII.R...","type":"page"}