Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/318

310 you given over to surfeit and drunkenness, and to the thoughts and cares of this present world; and so your hearts should be closed against the sight of him, and he should not be able to reveal himself unto you. For if, when Jesus died, ye had given yourselves over to despair and recklessness, then though Jesus himself had stood before you, coming from his grave, yet would ye none the more have seen him."

Against these words of Quartus there standeth, as it were, in opposition, a certain prophecy of Jesus, wherein he was wont to declare to us that he should be raised from the dead in three days, limiting the time exactly. And true it is that Jesus made often mention of certain words of the prophet Hosea which speak thus about being revived in three days: "Come and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight." Now because of this prophecy, which was very often in the mouth of Jesus, it hath been supposed by many that Jesus knew for certain that he should die on the day of the Passover, and that he should lie in the grave two days, and be raised up on the third day.

But to this Quartus yieldeth not. For he saith that the words "two days" and "three days" were used by the prophet Hosea to signify only "a short time," even as the Romans also, and men of other nations, speak of "the day after the morrow," or "in a day or two," when they mean "a short time hence;" or even as the Hebrew tongue, speaking of past time, useth "the third day" to signify "some time ago." Moreover Quartus urgeth that, if Jesus had known of the day and hour, he would assuredly not have harrowed our souls with a needless