Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book I/Chapter LIII

by Arnobius

53. Cease in your ignorance to receive such great deeds with abusive language, which will in no wise injure him who did them, but which will bring danger to yourselves—danger, I say, by no means small, but one dealing with matters of great,^[1] aye, even the greatest importance, since beyond a doubt the soul is a precious thing, and nothing can be found dearer to a man than himself. There was nothing magical, as you suppose, nothing human, delusive, or crafty in Christ; no deceit lurked in Him,^[2] although you smile in derision, as your wont is, and though you split with roars of laughter. He was God on high, God in His inmost nature, God from unknown realms, and was sent by the Ruler of all as a Saviour God; whom neither the sun himself, nor any stars, if they have powers of perception, not the rulers and princes of the world, nor, in fine, the great gods, or those who, feigning themselves so, terrify the whole human race, were able to know or to guess whence and who He was—and naturally so. But^[3] when, freed from the body, which He carried about as but a very small part of Himself, He allowed Himself to be seen, and let it be known how great He was, all the elements of the universe bewildered by the strange events were thrown into confusion. An earthquake shook the world, the sea was heaved up from its depths, the heaven was shrouded in darkness, the sun’s fiery blaze was checked, and his heat became moderate;^[4] for what else could occur when He was discovered to be God who heretofore was reckoned one of us?

Footnotes

1. So the edd., reading in rebus eximiis for the ms. exi-gu-is, which would, of course, give an opposite and wholly unsuitable meaning.
2. So generally, Heraldus having restored delitu-it in Christo from the ms., which had omitted -it, for the reading of Gelenius, Canterus, and Ursinus, delicti—“no deceit, no sin was,” etc.
3. So emended by Salmasius, followed by most later edd. In the earlier edd. the reading is et merito exutus a corpore (Salm. reading at instead of a, and inserting a period after mer.)—“and when rightly freed from the body,” etc.
4. It may be instructive to notice how the simpler narrative of the Gospels is amplified. Matthew (xxvii. 51) says that the earth trembled, and Luke (xxiii. 45) that the sun was darkened; but they go no further. [See p. 301, note 4, supra.]