Irenaeus, who came about forty years
after him, notices the same evasion in the adversaries of Christianity,
and replies to it by the same argument: "But if they shall say, that the
Lord performed these things by an illusory appearance (phantasiodos),
leading these objectors to the prophecies, we will show from them, that
all things were thus predicted concerning him, and Strictly came to
pass." (Iren. I. ii. c. 57.) Lactantius, who lived a century lower,
delivers the same sentiment upon the same occasion: "He performed
miracles;--we might have supposed him to have been a magician, as ye
say, and as the Jews then supposed, if all the prophets had not with one
spirit foretold that Christ should perform these very things." (Lactant.
v. 3.)
But to return to the Christian apologists in their order.
Tertullian:--"That person whom the Jews had vainly imagined, from the
meanness of his appearance, to be a mere man, they afterwards, in
consequence of the power he exerted, considered as a magician, when he,
with one word, ejected devils out of the bodies of men, gave sight to
the blind, cleansed the leprous, strengthened the nerves of those that
had the palsy, and lastly, with one command, restored the dead to life;
when he, I say, made the very elements obey him, assuaged the storms,
walked upon the seas, demonstrating himself to be the Word of God.
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