Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

35.

The children that mocked Elisha by calling out Baldhead, are devoured by wild beasts, as those who in childish folly scoff at Christ crucified on Calvary are destroyed by devils. Elisha sends his servants to lay his staff on the dead body, but it does not revive; he comes himself, and lays himself exactly upon the dead body, and it revives: as the Word of God sent the law by His servant, without any profit to mankind dead in sins; and yet it was not sent without purpose by Him who knew the necessity of its being first sent. Then He Himself came, conformed Himself to us by participation in our death, and we were revived. When they were cutting down wood with axes, the iron, flying off the wood, sank to the bottom of the river, and came up again when the wood was thrown in by Elisha. So, when Christ's bodily presence was cutting down the unfruitful trees among the unbelieving Jews, according to the saying of John, "Behold, the axe is laid to the roots of the tree," ¹ by the death they inflicted, Christ was separated from His body, and descended to the depths of the infernal world; and then, when His body was laid in the tomb, like the wood on the water, His spirit returned, like the iron to the handle, and He rose. The reader will observe how many things of this kind are omitted for the sake of brevity.

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

35.

Heliseo pueros insultantes et clamantes: Calve, calve! bestiae comedunt: puerili stultitia deridentes Christum in loco Calvariae crucifixum invasi a daemonibus pereunt. Mittit Heliseus per servum baculum super mortuum et non revivescit; venit ipse, coniungit et coaptat se morti eius et revivescit: misit sermo dei legem per servum suum nec profuit in peccatis mortuo generi humano; quae tamen non sine causa missa est; ille enim misit, qui sciret eam prius esse mittendam, venit ipse, conformavit se nobis factus particeps mortis nostrae, et vivificati sumus. p. 362,7 Cum securibus ligna caederentur, de ligno ferrum exsiliens in profundum fluminis mersum est atque in lignum desuper ab Heliseo proiectum reversum est: ita cum impios Iudaeos per corpus operata praesentia Christi tamquam infructuosas arbores caederet – quia de illo Iohannes dixerat: Ecce securis ad radices arboris posita est – ab eis interveniente passione corpus ipsum deseruit, in inferni profunda descendens, quo in sepultura desuper posito tamquam ad manubrium suum spiritu redeunte surrexit. Quam multa praeteream brevitatis necessitate constrictus, norunt qui legunt.