But, moreover, taking the history, contained in the Gospel according to
Matthew, of our Lord’s descent into Egypt, he refuses to believe the
miraculous circumstances attending it, viz. either that the angel gave
the divine intimation, or that our Lord’s quitting Judea and residing in
Egypt was an event of any significance; but he invents something
altogether different, admitting somehow the miraculous works done by
Jesus, by means of which He induced the multitude to follow Him as the
Christ. And yet he desires to throw discredit on them, as being done by
help of magic and not by divine power; for he asserts “that he (Jesus),
having been brought up as an illegitimate child, and having served for
hire in Egypt, and then coming to the knowledge of certain miraculous
powers, returned from thence to his own country, and by means of those
powers proclaimed himself a God.” Now I do not understand how a magician
should exert himself to teach a doctrine which persuades us always to
act as if God were to judge every man for his deeds; and should have
trained his disciples, whom he was to employ as the ministers of his
doctrine, in the same belief. For did the latter make an impression upon
their hearers, after they had been so taught to work miracles; or was it
without the aid of these? The assertion, therefore, that they did no
miracles at all, but that, after yielding their belief to arguments
which were not at all convincing, like the wisdom of Grecian
dialectics,[1188] they gave themselves up to the task of teaching the
new doctrine to those persons among whom they happened to take up their
abode, is altogether absurd. For in what did they place their confidence
when they taught the doctrine and disseminated the new opinions? But if
they indeed wrought miracles, then how can it be believed that magicians
exposed themselves to such hazards to introduce a doctrine which forbade
the practice of magic?
Footnote 1188:
This difficult passage is rendered in the Latin translation: “but
that, after they had believed [in Christ], they with no adequate
supply of arguments, such as is furnished by the Greek dialectics,
gave themselves up,” etc.