Raising People from the Dead

If you proclaim
that raising people from the dead
reveals the raiser as divine,
then logically
it is the case
that you must also say
unless you are a hypocrite,
Elijah, and Elisha, too
Aesclepius and the Tyana man,
are of this kind
that is, they must be seen
as gods;
for they, just as the Nazarene
was said to do,
brought back from death
some men (and women, too)
who’d breathed their last
and traveled to the land
where no light shines.

So what you fain imply:
that having power over death
means one
is the creator of the world,
involves you inextricably
in claiming that
some other entities besides your lord
do stand
behind creation’s sway.