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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 99 voice which dictated to Isaiah the future conception of a virgin. The son of a virgin, generated by the ineffable operation of the Holy Spirit, was a creature without example or resemblance, superior in eveiy attribute of mind and body to the children of Adam. Since the introduction of the Greek or Chaldean philosophy, '5 the Jews" were persuaded of the pre-existence, transmigration, and immortality of souls ; and Providence was jus- tified by a supposition that they were confined in their earthly prisons to expiate the stains which they had contracted in a former state.*^ But the degrees of purity and corruption are almost immeasurable. It may be fairly presumed that the most sublime and virtuous of human spirits was infused into the offspring of Mary and the Holy Ghost ; ' that his abasement was the result of his voluntary choice ; and that the object of his mission was to purify, not his own, but the sins of the world. On his return to his native skies, he received the im- mense reward of his obedience : the everlasting kingdom of the Messiah, which had been darkly foretold by the prophets, under the carnal images of peace, of conquest, and of dominion. Omnipotence could enlarge the human faculties of Christ to the extent of his celestial office. In the language of antiquity, the title of God has not been severely confined to the first parent, and his incomparable minister, his only begotten Son, might claim, without presumption, the religious, though second- ary, worship of a subject world. II. The seeds of the faith, which had slowlv arisen in the rockv n. Apure ' •' ^ God to the Docetea •■The metaphysics of the soul are disengaged by Cicero (Tusculan. 1. i.) and Maximus of Tyre (Dissertat. xvi.) from the intricacies of dialogue, which sometimes amuse, and often perplex, the readers of the P/iaeclrt/s, the Phaedon, and the Laws of Plato. ^The disciples of Jesus were persuaded that a man might have sinned before he was born (John ix. 2), and the I'harisees held the transmigration of virtuous souls (Joseph, de Bell. Judaico, 1. ii. c. 7 [/«;^. c. 8, § 11]) ; and a modern Rabbi is modestly assured that Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, &c. derived their metaphysics from his illustrious countrymen. ^ Four different opinions have been entertained concerning the origin of human souls. I. That they are eternal and divine. 2. That they were created in a separate state of existence, before their union with the body. 3. That they have been propagated from the original stock of Adam, who contained in himself the mental as well as the corporeal seed of his posterity. 4. That each soul is occasion- ally created and embodied in tiie moment of conception. — The last of tliese senti- ments appears to have prevailed among the moderns ; and our spiritual history is grown less sublime, w ithout becoming more intelligible. ^•'Oti 'i Toil SoiT^pos l/vxh, >') ToD 'XSaixT/v — was one of the fifteen heresies imputed to Origen, and denied by his apologist (Photius, Bibliothec. cod. cxvii. p. 296). .Some of the Rabbis attribute one and the same soul to the persons of .dam, David, and the Messiah.