The Savior’s Living Works in Our Own Day

And now the time has come for us to consider the works of our Savior in our own age, and to look at the living works of the living God. For how could we describe these mighty works except as living proofs of the power of a living agent, one who truly has the life of God? If anyone asks what these works are, let him now pay attention. Not long ago a certain class of people, driven by a furious zeal and backed by equal power and military force, showed their hostility to God by destroying his churches and tearing down from their foundations the buildings dedicated to his worship. In short, they aimed their attacks in every way against the unseen God, and assailed him with a thousand arrows of godless words. But the one who is invisible avenged himself with an invisible hand. By the single command of his will his enemies were utterly destroyed. A little while before, they had been flourishing in great prosperity, exalted by their fellow men as worthy of divine honor, and blessed with a long run of power and glory, as long as they had kept peace and friendship with the one they afterward opposed. But as soon as they dared openly to resist his will, and to set their gods in battle array against the one we worship, immediately they all received the judgment their defiant deeds deserved, by the will and power of the very God against whom they had raised their arms. Forced to give way and flee before his power, they together acknowledged that he is divine, and hurried to reverse the measures they had earlier tried. [a]

So our Savior, without delay, set up monuments of this victory everywhere, and once more adorned the world with holy temples and consecrated houses of prayer. In every city and village, indeed throughout every country and even in barbarian wilds, he ordered churches and sacred buildings to be raised in honor of the Supreme God and Lord of all. That is why these holy buildings are counted worthy to bear his name. They take their name not from men but from the Lord himself, and for this reason they are called churches, that is, houses of the Lord. [b] Now let anyone who will come forward and tell us: who, after so complete a ruin, has restored these sacred buildings from foundation to roof? Who, when all hope seemed gone, has made them rise on a grander scale than before? And it may well make us wonder that this restoration did not come after the death of those enemies of God, but while the destroyers of these buildings were still alive, so that they took back their evil deeds in their own words and edicts. And they did this not in the sunshine of prosperity and ease (for then we might suppose that goodwill or leniency was the cause), but at the very time they were suffering under the blow of divine vengeance. [d]

Who, again, after so many storms of persecution one after another, and in the very crisis of danger, has been able to keep in obedience to his heavenly commands so many people throughout the world devoted to philosophy and the service of God, and those holy companies of virgins who had dedicated themselves to a life of perpetual chastity and purity? Who taught them to keep on cheerfully in long fasting, and to embrace a life of severe and steady self-denial? Who has persuaded multitudes of both sexes to devote themselves to the study of sacred things, and to prefer to bodily food the food of the mind, which suits the needs of a reasoning soul? Who has taught barbarians and peasants, even weak women, slaves and children, in short countless multitudes of every nation, to live in contempt of death? They are persuaded that their souls are immortal. They know that human actions are watched by the unerring eye of justice. They expect God’s award to the righteous and to the wicked, and so they hold true to a just and virtuous life. For they could not otherwise have kept on in the way of godliness. Surely these are the works that our Savior, and he alone, is doing even now. [e]

But let us leave these subjects, and try by questions like the ones that follow to convince the stubborn understanding of the objector. Come forward, then, whoever you are, and speak the words of reason. Speak not the thoughts of a senseless heart, but those of an intelligent and enlightened mind; speak, I say, after deep and serious reflection within yourself. Which of the wise men whose names have ever become famous was foreknown and proclaimed from the most distant ages, as our Savior was by the prophetic oracles given to the Hebrew nation, once favored by God? Indeed, his very birthplace, the time of his coming, the manner of his life, his miracles, his words and his mighty acts were all foretold and recorded in the sacred books of these prophets. Again, who has ever been so quick to avenge crimes against himself? As the immediate result of their godlessness, the entire Jewish people were scattered by an unseen power, their royal seat was utterly removed, and their very temple with its holy things was leveled to the ground. Who, like our Savior, has foretold things about that godless nation and, at the same time, the founding of his church throughout the world, and has proved both true by what happened? About the temple of these wicked men our Savior said, “Your house is left to you desolate,” and, “There will not be left in this place one stone on another that will not be thrown down.” And again, of his church he says, “I will build my church on a rock, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” [f]

How wonderful, too, we must count that power which called obscure and unlettered men from their trade as fishermen, and made them the lawgivers and teachers of the human race! And how clear a proof of his divinity we find in the promise so well kept, that he would make them fishers of men. We find it in the power and energy he gave them, so that they wrote and published writings of such authority that these were translated into every language, civilized and barbarian, were read and pondered by every nation, and the teachings in them were received as the oracles of God! [g] How marvelous are his predictions of the future, and the warning by which his disciples were told beforehand that they would be brought before kings and rulers and would endure the severest punishments, not as criminals, but simply for confessing his name! Or who could fully describe the power with which he prepared them to suffer this willingly, and enabled them, strong in the armor of godliness, to keep an unconquerable steadiness of spirit in the midst of the conflict? [i] Or how can we admire enough that steadfast firmness of soul which strengthened not only his immediate followers but their successors too, right down to our own age, to bear joyfully every punishment and every form of torture as proof of their devotion to the Supreme God? Again, what king has ever kept his rule through so vast a series of ages? Who else has the power to make war after death, to triumph over every enemy, to bring under his rule every nation and city, civilized and barbarian, and to subdue his enemies with an invisible and secret hand?

Last, and greatest of all, what slanderous lips will dare to question that universal peace we have already spoken of, established by his power throughout the world? For the agreement and harmony of all the nations came at the very same time as the spread of our Savior’s teaching and preaching through all the world, a coming together of events foretold long ages before by the prophets of God. The day itself would fail me, gracious emperor, if I tried to set out in a single view the powerful proofs of our Savior’s divine power that are visible even now in their effects. For no human being, among civilized or barbarian nations, has ever yet shown such power of divine virtue as our Savior. [j] But why do I speak of men, when among the beings that all nations have counted divine, none has appeared on earth with power like his? If one has, let it be proved now. Come forward, you philosophers, and tell us: what god or hero has ever been known to fame who has handed down the teaching of eternal life and a heavenly kingdom, as he has who is our Savior? Who, like him, has persuaded multitudes throughout the world to follow the principles of divine wisdom, to fix their hope on heaven itself, and to look forward to the rooms kept there for those who love God? What god or hero in human form has ever held his course from the rising to the setting of the sun, a course as wide, as it were, as the sun’s own light, and lit up humankind with the bright and glorious rays of his teaching, causing every nation of the earth to give united worship to the one true God? What god or hero has ever done as he has done? He has set aside all the gods and heroes of civilized and barbarian nations alike. He has ordered that divine honors be given to none of them, and has demanded obedience to that command. And then, though fighting alone against the power of them all, he has utterly destroyed the hosts arrayed against him, conquering the gods and heroes of every age, and causing himself alone, in every region of the inhabited world, to be acknowledged by all peoples as the only Son of God. [k]

Who else has commanded the nations living on the continents and islands of this great globe to gather every week on the Lord’s day and to keep it as a festival, not for pampering the body, but for strengthening the soul by teaching in divine truth? What god or hero, faced as our Savior was with so hard a conflict, has raised a monument of victory over every enemy? For they attacked his teaching and his people without ceasing, from first to last. But he who is invisible, by using a secret power, has raised his servants and the sacred houses of their worship to the height of glory. But why should we still try in vain to list those divine proofs of our Savior’s power that no language can worthily express? They need no words of ours; they themselves speak in the loudest tones to those whose minds have ears open to the truth. Surely it is a strange and wonderful fact, without parallel in the record of human life, that the blessings we have described should be granted to our mortal race, and that the one who is truly the only and eternal Son of God should in this way be seen on earth. [l]