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1. The Lord had said, "He that hateth me, hateth my Father
also." For of a certainty he that hateth the truth must also hate
Him of whom the truth is born; on which subject we have already
spoken, as we were granted ability. And then He added the words on
which we have now to discourse: "If I had not done among them the
works which none other man did, they had not had sin." To wit, that
great sin whereof He also says before, "If I had not come and
spoken unto them, they had not had sin." Their sin was that of not
believing on Him who thus spoke and wrought. For they were not
without sin before He so spoke to them and did such works among them;
but this sin of theirs, in not believing on Him, is thus specially
mentioned because really inclusive in itself of all sins besides. For
had they been clear of this one, and believed on Him, all else would
also have been forgiven.
2. But what is meant when, after saying, "If I had not done
among them works," He immediately added, "which none other man
did"? Of a certainty, among all the works of Christ, none seem to
be greater than the raising of the dead; and yet we know that the same
was done by the prophets of olden time. For Elias did so; and
Elisha also, both when alive in the flesh, and when he lay buried in
his sepulchre. For when certain men, who were carrying a dead
person, had fled thither for refuge from an onset of their enemies,
and had laid him down therein, he instantly came again. to life. And
yet there were some works that Christ did which none other man did:
as, when He fed the five thousand men with five loaves, and the four
thousand with seven; when He walked on the waters, and gave Peter
power to do the same; when He changed the water into wine; when He
opened the eyes of a man that was born blind, and many besides, which
it would take long to mention. But we are answered, that others also
have done works which even He did not, and which no other man has
done. For who else save Moses smote the Egyptians with so many and
mighty plagues, as when He led the people through the parted waters of
the sea, when he obtained manna for them from heaven in their hunger,
and water from the rock in their thirst? Who else save Joshua the son
of Nun divided the stream of the Jordan for the people to pass over,
and by the utterance of a prayer to God bridled and stopped the
revolving sun? Who save Samson ever quenched his thirst with water
flowing forth from the jawbone of a dead ass? Who save Elias was
carried aloft in a chariot of fire? Who save Elisha, as I have just
mentioned, after his own body was buried, restored the dead body of
another to life? Who else besides Daniel lived unhurt amid the jaws
of famishing lions, that were shut up with him? And who else save the
three men Ananias, Azariah, and Mishael, ever walked about
unharmed in flames that blazed and did not burn?
3. I pass by other examples, as these I consider to be sufficient
to show that some of the saints have done wonderful works, which none
other man did. But we read of no one whatever of the ancients who
cured with such power so many bodily defects, and bad states of the
health, and troubles of mortals. For, to say nothing of those
individual cases which He healed, as they occurred, by the word of
command, the Evangelist Mark says in a certain place: "And at
even, when the sun had set, they brought unto Him all that were
diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city
was gathered together at the door. And He healed many that were sick
of divers diseases, and cast out many devils." And Matthew, in
giving us the same account, has also added the prophetic testimony,
when he says: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah
the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our
sickness." In another passage also it is said by Mark: "And
whithersoever He entered, into villages, or cities, or country,
they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might
touch if it were but the border of His garment: and as many as touched
Him were made whole." None other man did such things in them. For
so are we to understand the words in them, not among them, or in their
presence; but directly in them, because He healed them. For He
wished them to understand the works as those which not only occasioned
admiration, but conferred also manifest healing, and were benefits
which they ought surely to have requited with love, and not with
hatred. He transcends, indeed, the miracles of all besides, in
being born of a virgin, and in possessing alone the power, both in
His conception and birth, to preserve inviolate the integrity of His
mother: but that was done neither before their eyes nor in them. For
the knowledge of the truth of such a miracle was reached by the
apostles, not through any onlooking that they had in common with
others, but in the course of their separate discipleship.
Moreover, the fact that on the third day He restored Himself to life
from the very tomb, in the flesh wherein He had been slain, and,
never thereafter to die, with it ascended into heaven, even surpasses
all else that He did: but just as little was this done either in the
Jews or before their eyes; nor had it yet been done, when He said,
"If I had not done among them the works which none other man did."
4. The works, then, are doubtless those miracles of healing in
connection with their bodily complaints which He exhibited to such an
extent as no one before had furnished amongst them: for these they
saw, and it is in reproaching them therewith that He proceeds to say,
"But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father: but
[this cometh to pass] that the word might be fulfilled that is written
in their law, They hated me without a cause [gratuitously]." He
calls it, their law, not as invented by them, but given to them:
just as we say, "Our daily bread;" which, nevertheless, we ask of
God in conjoining the words "Give us." But one hates gratuitously
who neither seeks advantage from the hatred nor avoids inconvenience:
so do the wicked hate the Lord; and so also is He loved by the
righteous, that is to say, gratuitously [gratis, freely,] inasmuch
as they expect no other gifts beyond Himself, for He Himself will be
all in all. But whoever would be disposed to look for something more
profound in the words of Christ, "If I had not done among them the
works which none other man did" (for although such were done by the
Father, or the Holy Spirit, yet no one else did them, for the
whole Trinity is one and the same in substance), he will find that it
was He who did it even when some man of God did something similar.
For in Himself He can do everything by Himself; but without Him no
one can do anything. For Christ with the Father and the Holy
Spirit are not three Gods, but one God, of whom it is written,
"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous
things." No one else, therefore, really himself did the works which
He did amongst them; for any one else who did any such works, did
them only through His doing. But He Himself did them without any
doing on their part.
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