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ventor of the vine , and introduce an ass into his mysteries , and give out that , after he was torn in pieces , he ascended into heaven ; and because it is not expressly determined in this prophecy , whether he who was to come was the son of God or man , they proclaimed Bellerophon , a mere man , to have ascended up
to heaven on his horse Pegasus . ' He goes on to add , that Perseus was * forged ' to mimic Christ , as the son of a virgin , and the giant Hercules to fulfil the prophecy of him , in which he is described as rejoicing as a giant to run his course ; and Esculapius f they palmed upon the world to ape him' in his power of healing diseases . In this ridiculous strain is the larger part of his defence of Christianity , presented to the Roman emperor and senate ,
penned . The resurrection , he undertakes to prove to them , from the alleged fact of the magicians evoking souls from the regions of the dead- —from necromancy—the inspection of the entrails of children—from the possessions of the demoniacal—from the visit of remarkable men to the infernal regions . Do we wish to know his principles of belief and disbelief ? The statement is clear . * We have justly presumed it the most natural to believe what may seem inconsistent with the nature of things , and to men impossible , rather than stand out and imitate others in a foolish infidelity / What were his views of scripture ? He considered the words of scripture as full of mystical meanings , which were concealed from the view of those who regarded only the literal sense . Though not so much addicted to the allegorical mode of interpretation as Origen , he is by no means free from the practice . Types he discovered in abundance in the Old Testament . The cross he sees every where , as he did the divinity of Christ . Moses , with his hands extended ,, was a type of the cross-= —the tree of life in the garden of Eden was a type of the cross . In Plato he finds the cross ; and where not ? * Without this trophy of ours , you cannot / he says to the heathen , * go to sea . There is neither ploughing nor digging , nor any handicraft work performed without instruments of this figure . Nay , a man is distinguished from a beast by the uprightness of his body and the extension of his ^ trms and the prominency of the nose he breathes th rough , which are all representations of the cross ; in allusion to which , the prophet thus speaks— «* The breath of our nostrils , Christ the X , ord" (!!) Moreover , your banners declare the power of this figure ; and the trophies you use as symbols of power and dominion ; though , in your practice , you have no respect to the reason of the figure ; and the images of your departed emperors you consecrate upon cross-like engines , and inscribe them gods . Since , therefore , we invite you , by reason and the ceremony of the cross , we shall be blameless in future , whether you embrace the faith or not , for we have done our best to make you Christians / After the same manner , Justin is at no loss for types of Christ jli the Old Testament . The Paschal Jamb—the scape-goat—i
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262 Bise and Progress of the Doctrine of the Trinity .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1832, page 262, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1810/page/46/
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