all nations be blessed”? That prediction we see now in its fulfilment in Christ. For it was of
this line that the Virgin was born, concerning whom a prophet of the people of Israel and
of the God of Israel sang in these terms: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son;
and they shall call617 His name Emmanuel.” For by interpretation, Emmanuel means, “God
with us.”618 This God of Israel, therefore, who has interdicted the worship of other gods,
who has interdicted the making of idols, who has commanded their destruction, who by
His prophet has predicted that the Gentiles from the ends of the earth would say, “Surely
our fathers have worshipped mendacious idols, in which there is no profit;” this same God
is He who, by the name of Christ and by the faith of Christians, has ordered, promised, and
exhibited the overthrow of all these superstitions. In vain, therefore, do these unhappy men,
knowing that they have been prohibited from blaspheming the name of Christ, even by their
own gods, that is to say, by the demons who fear the name of Christ, seek to make it out,
that this kind of doctrine is something strange to Him, in the power of which the Christians
dispute against idols, and root out all those false religions, wherever they have the opportun-
ity.
617 Vocabunt.
618 Isa. vii. 14; Matt. i. 23.
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Of the Fact that Idolatry Has Been Subverted by the Name of Christ, and…