|
I might collect these and many similar arguments, if that year had not
already passed by which lying divination has promised, and deceived
vanity has believed. But as a few years ago three hundred and
sixty-five years were completed since the time when the worship of the
name of Christ was established by His presence in the flesh, and by
the apostles, what other proof need we seek to refute that falsehood?
For, not to place the beginning of this period at the nativity of
Christ, because as an infant and boy He had no disciples, yet, when
He began to have them, beyond doubt the Christian doctrine and
religion then became known through His bodily presence, that is,
after He was baptized in the river Jordan by the ministry of John.
For on this account that prophecy went before concerning Him: "He
shall reign from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends
of the earth." But since, before He suffered and rose from the
dead, the faith had not yet been defined to all, but was defined in
the resurrection of Christ (for so the Apostle Paul speaks to the
Athenians, saying, "But now He announces to men that all
everywhere should repent, because He hath appointed a day in which to
judge the world in equity, by the Man in whom He hath defined the
faith to all men, raising Him from the dead"), it is better that,
in settling this question, we should start from that point, especially
because the Holy Spirit was then given, just as He behoved to be
given after the resurrection of Christ in that city from which the
second law, that is, the new testament, ought to begin. For the
first, which is called the old testament was given from Mount Sinai
through Moses. But concerning this which was to be given by Christ
it was predicted, "Out of Sion shall go forth the law and the word
of the Lord out of Jerusalem;" whence He Himself said that
repentance in His name behoved to be preached among all nations, but
yet beginning at Jerusalem. There, therefore, the worship of this
name took its rise, that Jesus should be believed in, who died and
rose again. There this faith blazed up with such noble beginnings,
that several thousand men, being converted to the name of Christ with
wonderful alacrity, sold their goods for distribution among the needy,
thus, by a holy resolution and most ardent charity, coming to
voluntary poverty, and prepared themselves, amid the Jews who raged
and thirsted for their blood, to contend for the truth even to death,
not with armed power, but with more powerful patience. If this was
accomplished by no magic arts, why do they hesitate to believe that the
other could be done throughout the whole world by the same divine power
by which this was done? But supposing Peter wrought that enchantment
so that so great a multitude of men at Jerusalem was thus kindled to
worship the name of Christ, who had either seized and fastened Him to
the cross, or reviled Him when fastened there, we must still inquire
when the three hundred and sixty-five years must be completed,
counting from that year. Now Christ died when the Gemini were
consuls, on the eighth day before the kalends of April. He rose the
third day, as the apostles have proved by the evidence of their own
senses. Then forty days after, He ascended into heaven. Ten days
after, that is, on the fiftieth after his resurrection, He sent the
Holy Spirit; then three thousand men believed when the apostles
preached Him. Then, therefore, arose the worship of that name, as
we believe, and according to the real truth, by the efficacy of the
Holy Spirit, but, as impious vanity has reigned or thought, by the
magic arts of Peter. A little afterward, too, on a wonderful sign
being wrought, when at Peter's own word a certain beggar, so lame
from his mother's womb that he was carried by others and laid down at
the gate of the temple, where he begged alms, was made whole in the
name of Jesus Christ, and leaped up, five thousand men believed,
and thenceforth the Church grew by sundry accessions of believers.
Thus we gather the very day with which that year began, namely, that
on which the Holy Spirit was sent, that is, during the ides of
May. And, on counting the consuls, the three hundred and
sixty-five years are found completed on the same ides in the consulate
of Honorius and Eutychianus. Now, in the following year, in the
consulate of Mallius Theodorus, when, according to that oracle of
the demons or figment of men, there ought already to have been no
Christian religion, it was not necessary to inquire, what perchance
was done in other parts of the earth. But, as we know, in the most
noted and eminent city, Carthage, in Africa, Gaudentius and
Jovius, officers of the Emperor Honorius, on the fourteenth day
before the kalends of April, overthrew the temples and broke the
images of the false gods. And from that time to the present, during
almost thirty years, who does not see how much the worship of the name
of Christ has increased, especially after many of those became
Christians who had been kept back from the faith by thinking that
divination true, but saw when that same number of years was completed
that it was empty and ridiculous? We, therefore, who are called and
are Christians, do not believe in Peter, but in Him whom Peter
believed, being edified by Peter's sermons about Christ, not
poisoned by his incantations; and not deceived by his enchantments,
but aided by his good deeds. Christ Himself, who was Peter's
Master in the doctrine which leads to eternal life, is our Master
too.
But let us now at last finish this book, after thus far treating of,
and showing as far as seemed sufficient, what is the mortal course of
the two cities, the heavenly and the earthly, which are mingled
together from the beginning down to the end. Of these, the earthly
one has made to herself of whom she would, either from any other
quarter, or even from among men, false gods whom she might serve by
sacrifice; but she which is heavenly and is a pilgrim on the earth does
not make false gods, but is herself made by the true God of, whom she
herself must be the true sacrifice. Yet both alike either enjoy
temporal good things, or are afflicted with temporal evils, but with
diverse faith, diverse hope, and diverse love, until they must be
separated by the last judgment, and each must receive her own end, of
which there is no end. About these ends of both we must next treat.
|
|