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The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah Vol 1 - Predestination

The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah Vol 1 - Predestination

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ought it as a present, <strong>and</strong> at <strong>the</strong> feast given <strong>Jesus</strong><br />

<strong>the</strong> appropriate hint when to have it set on. <strong>The</strong><br />

gloss <strong>of</strong> Return seems to me even more untenable<br />

<strong>and</strong> repulsive*<br />

THE MIRACLE *A SIGN.'<br />

36d<br />

for which <strong>the</strong>re assuredly exists no legendary<br />

basis, ei<strong>the</strong>r in Old Testament history, or in<br />

contemporary Jewish expectation;' which cannot<br />

be sublimated into nineteenth-century ideiJism;'<br />

least <strong>of</strong> all can be conceived as an after-thought <strong>of</strong><br />

His disciples, invented by an Ephesian writer <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>the</strong> second century.* But even <strong>the</strong> allegorical<br />

illustration <strong>of</strong> St. Augustine, who reminds us that in<br />

<strong>the</strong> grape <strong>the</strong> water <strong>of</strong> rain is ever changed into<br />

wine, is scarcely true, save as a bare illustration,<br />

<strong>and</strong> only lowers our view <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> miracle. For<br />

miracle it is,* <strong>and</strong> will ever remain ; not, indeed,<br />

magic,* nor arbitrary power, but power with a<br />

moral purpose, <strong>and</strong> that <strong>the</strong> highest.® And we

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