Chapter 12.—In What Sense the
Wisdom of God Came to Us.
And though He is everywhere present
to the inner eye when it is sound and clear, He condescended to
make Himself manifest to the outward eye of those whose inward
sight is weak and dim. “For after that, in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe.”
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12. Not then in the sense of
traversing space, but because He appeared to mortal men in the form
of mortal flesh, He is said to have come to us. For He came to a
place where He had always been, seeing that “He was in the world,
and the world was made by Him.” But, because men, who in their
eagerness to enjoy the creature instead of the Creator had grown
into the likeness of this world, and are therefore most
appropriately named “the world,” did not recognize Him,
therefore the evangelist says, “and the world knew Him not.”
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Thus, in
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. Why then did
He come, seeing that He was already here, except that it pleased
God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe?
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1 Cor. i. 21
.
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John i. 10
.