Frauds and Follies of the Fathers: A Review of the Worth of Their Testimony to the Four GospelsWheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Religion
Frauds and Follies of the Fathers: A Review of the Worth of Their Testimony to the Four Gospels
Wheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Christianity -- Controversial literature; Fathers of the church
Speaking of the Polygamy of the patriarchs (Dial., chap, cxxxiv.,
p. 269) he tells us "certain dispensations of weighty mysteries were
accomplished in each act of this sort." "The marriages of Jacob were
types of that which Christ was about to accomplish." The bloodthirsty
General Joshua was a type of Christ, and the sun standing still by his
order shows "how great the power was of the name of Jesus in the Old
Testament" He tells us the two advents were prefigured by the two goats,
and continually finds clear prophecies of Christianity in passages which
have not the remotest allusion to it. To give one instance, he says:
'And that it was foreknown that these infamous things should be uttered
against those who confessed Christ, and that those who slandered
him, and said it was well to preserve the ancient customs, should be
miserable, hear what was briefly said by Isaiah, it is this: 'Woe unto
them that call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet.' Such interpretations
are innumerable in Justin.
In his 1st Apology, chap, lv., "On Symbols of the Cross," he says the
seas cannot be sailed without cross-shaped masts, nor the earth tilled
save with cross-shaped instruments. "And the human form differs from
animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the hands
extended, and having on the face, extending from the forehead, what
is called the nose, through which there is respiration for the living
creature, and this shows no other form than that of the cross. And so
it was said by the prophet, 'The breath before our face is the Lord
Christ,' which is a perversion of Lam. iv., 20: 'The breath of our
nostrils, the anointed of the Lord.'"
He put into the mouth of his antagonist Trypho, the following words
which possibly represent the usual position taken up by the Jews: "But
Christ--if he has indeed been born and exists anywhere--is unknown, and
does not even know himself, and has no power until Elias come to anoint
him, and make him manifest to all. And you having accepted a
groundless report, invent a Christ for yourselves, and for his sake are
inconsiderately perishing" (chap, viii., p. 97). In answer to this home
thrust, Justin promises "I shall prove to you as you stand here that we
have not believed empty fables." Justin was acquainted with the works of
Josephus, and if the passage had been then in existence concerning Jesus
being the Christ, who was punished on the Cross, and who appeared again
the third day, the divine prophets having spoken these and many other
wonders about him; here was the opportunity to bring it forward. Instead
of doing so, or stating who testified to the existence of Christ and his
wonderful works, he rambles off to his favorite argument from prophecy
and piles up a heap of interminable nonsense, which if put forward as a
serious defence of Christianity at the present time, would either excite
suspicion of covert infidelity or be greeted with derision.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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