| << | Contents | >> |
ANF Pseudo-Clementine The Clementine Homilies
Then said Simon: “You are manifestly avoiding the hearing of the charge from the Scriptures against your God.” Then Peter: “You yourself appear to me to be doing this; for he who avoids the order of inquiry, does not wish a true investigation to be made. Hence I, who proceed in an orderly manner, and wish that the writer should first be considered, am manifestly desirous to walk in a straight path.” Then Simon: “First confess that if the things written against the Creator are true, he is not above all, since, according to the Scriptures, he is subject to all evil; then afterwards we shall inquire as to the writer.” Then said Peter: “That I may not seem to speak against your want of order through unwillingness to enter upon the investigation,[985] I answer you. I say that if the things written against God are true, they do not show that God is wicked.” Then said Simon: “How can you maintain that?”
Then said Peter: “Because things are written opposite to those sayings which speak evil of him; wherefore neither the one nor the other can be confirmed.” Then Simon: “How, then, is the truth to be ascertained, of those Scriptures that say he is evil, or of those that say he is good?” Then Peter: “Whatever sayings of the Scriptures are in harmony with the creation that was made by Him are true, but whatever are contrary to it are false.”[986] Then Simon said: “How can you show that the Scriptures contradict themselves?” And Peter said: “You say that Adam was created blind, which was not so; for He would not have pointed out the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to a blind man, and commanded him not to taste of it.” Then said Simon: “He meant that his mind was blind.” Then Peter: “How could he be blind in respect of his mind, who, before tasting of the tree, in harmony with Him who made him, imposed appropriate names on all the animals?” Then Simon: “If Adam had foreknowledge, how did he not foreknow that the serpent would deceive his wife?” Then Peter: “If Adam had not foreknowledge, how did he give names to the sons of men as they were born with reference to their future doings, calling the first Cain (which is interpreted ‘envy’), who through envy killed his brother Abel (which is interpreted ‘grief’), for his parents grieved over him, the first slain?
“But if Adam, being the work of God, had foreknowledge, much more the God who created him. And that is false which is written that God reflected, as if using reasoning on account of ignorance; and that the Lord tempted Abraham, that He might know if he would endure it; and that which is written, ‘Let us go down, and see if they are doing according to the cry of them which cometh to me; and if not, that I may know.’ And, not to extend my discourse too far, whatever sayings ascribe ignorance to Him, or anything else that is evil, being upset by other sayings which affirm the contrary, are proved to be false. But because He does indeed foreknow, He says to Abraham, ‘Thou shalt assuredly know that thy seed shall be sojourners in a land that is not their own; and they shall enslave them, and shall evil entreat them, and humble them four hundred years. But the nation to which they shall be in bondage will I judge, and after that they shall come out hither with much property; but thou shalt depart to thy fathers with peace, being nourished in a good old age; and in the fourth generation they shall return hither, for the sins of the Amorites are hitherto not filled up.’[987]
“But what? Does not Moses pre-intimate the sins of the people, and predict their dispersion among the nations? But if He gave foreknowledge to Moses, how can it be that He had it not Himself? But He has it. And if He has it, as we have also shown, it is an extravagant saying that He reflected, and that He repented, and that He went down to see, and whatever else of this sort. Whatsoever things being fore-known before they come to pass as about to befall, take issue by a wise economy, without repentance.
“But that He is not pleased with sacrifices, is shown by this, that those who lusted after flesh were slain as soon as they tasted it, and were consigned to a tomb, so that it was called the grave of lusts.[988] He then who at the first was displeased with the slaughtering of animals, not wishing them to be slain, did not ordain sacrifices as desiring them; nor from the beginning did He require them. For neither are sacrifices accomplished without the slaughter of animals, nor can the first-fruits be presented. But how is it possible for Him to abide in darkness, and smoke, and storm (for this also is written), who created a pure heaven, and created the sun to give light to all, and assigned the invariable order of their revolutions to innumerable stars? Thus, O Simon, the handwriting of God—I mean the heaven—shows the counsels of Him who made it to be pure and stable.
Search Comments
This page has been visited 0002 times.
| << | Contents | >> |
10 per page