Read Ebook: Born of the Spirit; or Gems from the Book of Life by Osborne Zenas

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Ebook has 57 lines and 5550 words, and 2 pages

"Is it not also absurd in the extreme, that so many should believe in the doctrines of Christ now he is dead, though he was not able to persuade any one while he was living?

"But the Christians will say, We believe Jesus to be the son of God, because he cured the lame and the blind, and, as you assert, raised the dead.

"O light and truth, which clearly proclaims in its own words, as you write, that other men, and these depraved and enchanters, will come among you, possessing similar miraculous powers! Christ also feigns that a certain being, whom he denominates Satan, will be the source of these nefarious characters: so that Christ himself does not deny that these arts possess nothing divine, and acknowledges that they are the works of depraved men. At the same time likewise, being compelled by truth, he discloses both the arts of others and his own. Is it not, therefore, a miserable thing, to consider, from the performance of the same deeds, this man to be a God, but others to be nothing more than enchanters? For why, employing his testimony, should we rather think those other workers of miracles to be more depraved than himself? Indeed Christ confesses that these arts are not indications of a divine nature, but of certain impostors, and perfectly wicked characters."

After this, the Jew in Celsus says to his fellow-citizens who believed in Jesus, as follows: "Let us grant you that Jesus predicted his resurrection: but how many others have employed such-like prodigies, in order by a fabulous narration to effect what they wished; persuading stupid auditors to believe in these miracles? Zamolxis among the

Scythians, who was a slave of Pythagoras, used this artifice; Pythagoras also himself, in Italy; and in Egypt, Rhampsinitus. For it is related of the latter that he played at dice with Ceres in Hades, and that he brought back with him as a gift from her a golden towel. Similar artifices were likewise employed by Orpheus among the Odryssians; by Protesilaus among the Thessalians; and by Hercules and Theseus in Taenarus. This, however, is to be considered,--whether any one who in reality died, ever rose again in the same body: unless you think that the narrations of others are fables,but that your catastrophe of the drama will be found to be either elegant or probable, respecting what was said by him who expired on the cross, and the earthquake, and the darkness, which then according to you ensued. To which may be added, that he who when living could not help himself, arose, as you say, after he was dead, and exhibited the marks of his punishment, and his hands which had been perforated on the cross. But who was it that saw this? A furious woman, as you acknowledge, or some other of the same magical sect; or one who was under the delusion of dreams, and who voluntarily subjected himself to fallacious phantasms,--a thing which happens to myriads of the human race. Or, which is more probable, those who pretended to see this were such as wished to astonish others by

this prodigy, and, through a false narration of this kind, to give assistance to the frauds of other impostors.

"Is it to be believed that Christ, when he was alive, openl

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