Chapter VII.
Heretics usually cover their doctrines with a cloak of
holy Scripture.
“
For
as,” you
say, “by man came death, so by man came also the resurrection of
the dead.” Do you actually try to prove your wrong and impious
notion by the witness of the Apostle? And do you bring the
“chosen vessel” into disgrace by mixing him up with your
wicked ideas? I mean, that, as you cannot understand the author of your
Salvation, therefore the Apostle must be made out to have denied God.
And yet, if you wanted to make use of Apostolic witnesses, why did you
rest contented with one, and pass over all the others in silence? and
why did you not at once add this: “Paul, an Apostle not of men
neither by man, but by Jesus Christ:”
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or this: “We speak wisdom among the perfect:” and
presently: “Whom none,” says he, “of the princes of
this world knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the
Lord of glory.”
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Or this:
“For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily.”
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And: “One
Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things.”
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Or do you partly agree, and partly
disagree with the Apostle, and only receive him so far as in
consequence of the Incarnation
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he names Christ
man, and repudiate him where he speaks of Him as God? For Paul does not
deny that Jesus is man, but still he confesses that man is God: and
declares that to mankind the resurrection came by man in such a way
that he shows that in that man God arose. For see whether he declares
that He who rose was God, as he bears his witness that He who was
crucified was the Lord of glory.
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Gal. i. 1
.
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1 Cor. ii. 6, 8
.
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Col. ii. 9
.
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1 Cor. viii. 6
.
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Dispensatio
.