Chapter XIX.

That it was not only the Spirit, but Christ Himself also who made Him to be feared.

You say too that the Spirit made Him to be feared by the devils. To reject and refute which, even though the horrible character of the utterance is enough, we will still add some instances. Tell me, I pray, you who say that the fact that the devils feared Him was not His own doing but another’s, and who will have it that this was not His own power but a gift, how was it that even His name had that power, of which He Himself was, according to you, void? How was it that in His name devils were cast out, sick persons were cured, dead men were raised? For the Apostle Peter says to that lame man who was sitting at the beautiful gate of the Temple: “In the name of Jesus Christ arise and walk.” 2641 And again in the city of Joppa to the man who had been lying on his bed paralysed for eight years he says, “Æneas, may the Lord Jesus Christ heal thee: arise and make thy bed for thyself.” 2642 Paul too says to the pythonical spirit: “I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ come out of her,” and the devil came out of her. 2643 But understand from this how utterly alien this weakness was from our Lord: for I do not call even those weak, whom He by His name made strong, since we never heard of any devil or infirmity able to resist any of the apostles since the Lord’s resurrection. How then did the Spirit make Him to be feared, who made others to be feared? Or was He in Himself weak, whose faith even through the instrumentality of others reigned over all things? Finally those men who received power from God, never used that power as if it were their own: but referred the power to Him from whom they received it: for the power itself could never have any force except through the name of Him who gave it. And so both the apostles and all the servants of God never did any thing in their own name, but in the name and invocation of Christ: for the power itself derived its force from the same source as its origin, and could not be given through the instrumentality of the ministers, unless it had come from the Author. You then—who say that the Lord was the same as one of His servants (for as the apostles had nothing but what they received from their Lord, so you make out that the Lord Himself had nothing p. 615 but what He received from the Spirit; and thus you make out that everything that He had, He had not as Lord, but had received it as a servant), do you tell me then, how it was that He used this power as His own and not as something which He had received? For what do we read of Him? He says to the paralytic: “Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine house.” 2644 And again to a father who pleads on behalf of his child, He says: “Go thy way: thy son liveth.” 2645 And where an only son of his mother was being carried forth for burial, “Young man,” He says, “I say unto thee Arise.” 2646 Did He then like those who received power from God, ask that power might be given to Him for performing these things by the invocation of the Divine Name? Why did He not Himself work by the name of the Spirit, just as the apostles wrought by His Name? Finally, what does the gospel itself state about Him? It says: “He was teaching them as one that had authority, and not like the Scribes and Pharisees.” 2647 Or do you make out that He was so proud and haughty as to put to the credit of His own might the power which (according to you) He had received from God? But what do we make of the fact that the power never submitted to His servants, except through the name of its author, and could have no efficacy if the actor claimed any of it as his own?

Footnotes

Acts iii. 6.

Acts ix. 34.

Acts xvi. 18.

S. Matt. ix. 6.

S. John iv. 50.

S. Luke vii. 14.

S. Matt. vii. 29.