Chapter XI.—In Opposition to Those Who Foolishly Imagine that Christ Converted the People to Himself by Magical Arts.

17. Moreover, let those who madly fancy that it was by the use of magical arts that He was able to do the great things which He did, and that it was by the practice of such rites that He made His name a sacred thing to the peoples who were to be converted to Him, give their attention to this question,—namely, whether by the exercise of magical arts, and before He was born on this earth, He could also have filled with the Holy Spirit those mighty prophets who aforetime declared those very things concerning Him as things destined to come to pass, which we can now read in their accomplishment in the gospel, and which we can see in their present realization in the world. For surely, even if it was by magical arts that He secured worship for Himself, and that, too, after His death, it is not the case that He was a magician before He was born. Nay, for the office of prophesying on the subject of His coming, one nation had been most specially deputed; and the entire administration of that commonwealth was ordained to be a prophecy of this King who was to come, and who was to found a heavenly state57    Civitatem. drawn out of all nations.

CAPUT XI. In eos qui somniant Christum magico arte populos ad se convertisse.

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17. Illud quoque attendant qui magicis artibus tanta eum potuisse, et nomen suum ad populos in se convertendos arte ipsa consecrasse delirant, utrum potuerit magicis artibus tantos Prophetas divino Spiritu, antequam in terra nasceretur, implere, qui de illo talia futura praelocuti sunt, qualia jam praeterita in Evangelio legimus, et qualia in orbe terrarum praesentia nunc videmus. Neque enim, si magicis artibus fecit ut coleretur et mortuus, magus erat antequam natus: cui prophetando venturo gens una deputata est, cujus reipublicae tota administratio prophetia esset illius regis venturi, et civitatem coelestem ex omnibus gentibus condituri.