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

by Arnobius

63. What are these hidden and unseen mysteries, you will say, which neither men can know, nor those even who are called gods of the world can in any wise reach by fancy and conjecture; which none can discover,^[1] except those whom Christ Himself has thought fit to bestow the blessing of so great knowledge upon, and to lead into the secret recesses of the inner treasury of wisdom? Do you then see that if He had determined that none should do Him violence, He should have striven to the utmost to keep off from Him His enemies, even by directing His power against them?^[2] Could not He, then, who had restored their sight to the blind, make His enemies blind if it were necessary? Was it hard or troublesome for Him to make them weak, who had given strength to the feeble? Did He who bade^[3] the lame walk, not know how to take from them all power to move their limbs,^[4] by making their sinews stiff?^[5] Would it have been difficult for Him who drew the dead from their tombs to inflict death on whom He would? But because reason required that those things which had been resolved on should be done here also in the world itself, and in no other fashion than was done, He, with gentleness passing understanding and belief, regarding as but childish trifles the wrongs which men did Him, submitted to the violence of savage and most hardened robbers;^[6] nor did He think it worth while to take account of what their daring had aimed at, if He only showed to His disciples what they were in duty bound to look for from Him. For when many things about the perils of souls, many evils about their…; on the other hand, the Introducer,^[7] the Master and Teacher directed His laws and ordinances, that they might find their end in fitting duties;^[8] did He not destroy the arrogance of the proud? Did He not quench the fires of lust? Did He not check the craving of greed? Did He not wrest the weapons from their hands, and rend from them all the sources^[9] of every form of corruption? To conclude, was He not Himself gentle, peaceful, easily approached, friendly when addressed?^[10] Did He not, grieving at men’s miseries, pitying with His unexampled benevolence all in any wise afflicted with troubles and bodily ills,^[11] bring them back and restore them to soundness?

Footnotes

1. The construction is a little involved, quæ nulli nec homines scire nec ipsi qui appellantur dii mundi queunt—“which none, neither men can know, nor those…of the world can reach, except those whom,” etc.
2. In the Latin, vel potestate inversa, which according to Oehler is the ms. reading, while Orelli speaks of it as an emendation of LB. (where it is certainty found, but without any indication of its source), and with most edd. reads universa—“by His universal power.”
3. So the ms. according to Hildebrand, reading præcipi=bat. Most edd., however, following Gelenius, read faciebat—“made them lame.”
4. Lit., “to bind fast the motions of the members,” adopting the reading of most edd., motus alligare membrorum (ms. c-al-igare).
5. The ms. reads nervorum duritia-m, for which Ursinus, with most edd., reads as above, merely dropping m; Hildebrand and Oehler insert in, and read, from a conjecture of Ursinus adopted by Elmenhorst, c-ol-ligare—“to bind into stiffness.”
6. Ursinus suggested di-, “most terrible,” for the ms. durissimis.
7. So the ms. reading, multa mala de illarum contra insinuator (mala is perhaps in the abl., agreeing with a lost word), which has been regarded by Heraldus and Stewechius, followed by Orelli, as mutilated, and is so read in the first ed., and by Ursinus and LB. The passage is in all cases left obscure and doubtful, and we may therefore be excused discussing its meaning here.
8. Lit., “to the ends of fitting duties.”
9. In the original, seminaria abscidit,—the former word used of nurseries for plants, while the latter may be either as above (from abscindo), or may mean “cut off ” (from abscido); but in both cases the general meaning is the same, and the metaphor is in either slightly confused.
10. Lit., “familiar to be accosted,”—the supine, as in the preceding clause.
11. So the edd., reading corporalibus affectos malis, but the ms. inserts after malis the word morbis (“with evil bodily diseases”); but according to Hildebrand this word is marked as spurious.