Ecce Homo., Paul of Tarsus Galatians 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. The city of God, of which the Stoics doubtfully and feebly spoke, was now set up before the eyes of men. It was no unsubstantial city, such as we fancy in the clouds; no invisible pattern, such as Plato thought might be laid up in heaven; but a visible corporation, whose members met together to eat bread and drink wine, and into which they were publicly initiated. Here the Gentile met the Jew whom he had been accustomed to regard as an enemy of the human race; the Roman met the lying Greek sophist; the Syrian slave the gladiator born beside the Danube. In brotherhood they met, the natural birth and kindred of each forgotten, the baptism alone remembered to which they had been born again to God and to each other. The edict of comprehension conferred citizenship upon every class. Under it, whatever law of mutual help and consideration had obtained between citizen and citizen obtained also between the citizen and his slaves. The words "foreign" and "barbarous" lost their meaning. All nations and tribes were gathered within the pomoerium of the City of God; and on the baptized earth the Rhine and the Thames became as Jordan, and ever sullen desert-girded settlement of German savages as sacred as Jerusalem. (Ecce Homo.)The Judaizers would have made the Jerusalem which is above, which is free, and which is the mother of us all, a mere cramped and narrow faubourg in the metropolis of Jerusalem. (Paul of Tarsus.) Parallel Verses KJV: But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.WEB: But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all. |
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