Learn, therefore, if you have any sense, that Christ was not believed by us to be God on this account, because He did wonderful things, but because we saw that all things were done in His case which were announced to us by the prediction of the prophets. He performed wonderful deeds: we might have supposed Him to be a magician, as you now suppose Him to be, and the Jews then supposed Him, if all the prophets did not with one accord proclaim that Christ would do those very things. Therefore we believe Him to be God, not more from His wonderful deeds and works, than from that very cross which you as dogs lick, since that also was predicted at the same time. It was not therefore on His own testimony (for who can be believed when he speaks concerning himself?), but on the testimony of the prophets who long before foretold all things which He did and suffered, that He gained a belief in His divinity, which could have happened neither to Apollonius, nor to Apuleius, nor to any of the magicians
Lactantius. 1886. “The Divine Institutes.” In Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Homily, and Liturgies, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, translated by William Fletcher, 7:139. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.
Translated into Genz:
Learn this, frfr: we don’t believe Jesus is God just because He did wild miracles. It’s because everything He did lined up perfectly with what the prophets had already said would happen. Yeah, He did amazing stuff—so much so that, if the prophets hadn’t called it ahead of time, we might’ve thought He was just some magician, the same way you’re calling Him one now, and the same way the Jews did back then.But all the prophets were on the same page: the Messiah would do exactly the things Jesus did. That’s why we believe He’s God—not mainly because of the miracles, but even because of the cross you mock, since that was prophesied too.So His divinity isn’t based on Him hyping Himself up (because let’s be real, anyone can claim things about themselves). It’s based on the prophets who predicted everything He would do and everything He would suffer long before it happened. That’s why people believed in His divinity—something that never happened for Apollonius, Apuleius, or any of the magicians.
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