Apodeixis, Antichristianismi

toward that care which God had demonstrated in such marvelous ways that He held for his ancestors, just as he also expressly commemorates in Psalm 104, verses 12, 13, and 14? But these are truly few if they are compared with those things that occur in the writings of the New Testament. For these are most full of both the testimonies and examples of the ancients. And to begin from the examples that Christ Himself exhibited to us of this pious diligence and industry, how appropriately, I ask, did He use the histories of the widow who was under Elijah and of Naaman, just as Luke writes in the fourth chapter of his Gospel narrative? Similarly, Matthew in the 12th chapter narrates that what had happened to Jonah, and the fact of the Queen of Sheba, was most beautifully used and accommodated by Him; and what Isaiah had said against the hypocrites of his time, He adapts as a prophecy about the Pharisees of His own time, because of the similarity of the former to the latter. And He did not hesitate to declare that the prophecy which had been pronounced against the former also applied to the latter, as Matthew relates in chapter 15. Also, how skillfully He transferred the history of the serpent exalted in the desert to the business of His own cross, John is a witness in chapter 3. But Paul, indeed, not only abounds in examples but also in precepts, by which he hands down the art of using them correctly. In Romans 4, having discussed the example of the faith of Abraham, he concludes the whole matter with these words: Now it was not written for his sake alone that this was imputed to him, but also for us to whom it shall be imputed. Again, in chapter 15, having proposed the example of Christ, and confirmed it through the testimony of David, he adds: We are taught by those things written before for patience and