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,
3347
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,
3348
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
3349
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;
3350
for what else could occur when He was discovered to be God who
heretofore was reckoned one of us?
3347
So the edd., reading
in rebus eximiis
for the
ms.
exi
-gu-
is
, which would, of course,
give an opposite and wholly unsuitable meaning.
3348
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.
3349
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.
3350
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
.]