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But why are we so long dealing with your wild blasphemy, with arguments
that are plain indeed but still slight? Let us hear God Himself speaking to
His disciples: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out
devils." And again: "In My name," He says, "ye shall cast out devils."
Had He any need of Another s name for the exercise of His power, who
made His own name to be a power? But what is still added? "Behold," He
says, "I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon
all the power of the enemy." He Himself says that He was gentle, as
indeed He was, and humble in heart. And how was it that as regards the
greatest possible power, He commanded others to work in His own name, if He
Himself worked in Another's name? Or did He give to others, as if it were
His own, what He Himself, according to you, did not possess, unless He
received it from Another? But tell me, which of the saints receiving power
from God, so worked? Or would not Peter have been thought a lunatic, or
John a madman, or Paul out of his mind, if they had said to any sick folk:
"In our name arise;" or to the lame: "In our name walk;" or to the dead:
"In our name live;" or this to some: "We give you power to tread upon
serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy"? You see then
from this your madness: for just as these words are mad if they spring from
man's assurance, so are you utterly mad if you do not see that they come
from Divine power. For you must admit one of two alternatives; either that
man could possess and give Divine power, or at any rate if no man can do
this, that He who could do it, was God. For no one can grant of His
liberality Divine power, except Him who possesses it by nature.
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