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| Chapter III.—Answer to the cavils of the Gnostics. We are not to suppose that the true God can be changed, or come to an end because the heavens, which are His throne and the earth, His footstool, shall pass away.
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Chapter III.—Answer to the cavils of
the Gnostics. We are not to suppose that the true God can be changed, or come
to an end because the heavens, which are His throne and the earth, His
footstool, shall pass away.
1. Again, as to their malignantly
asserting that if heaven is indeed the throne of God, and earth His
footstool, and if it is declared that the heaven and earth shall pass
away, then when these pass away the God who sitteth above must also pass
away, and therefore He cannot be the God who is over all; in the first
place, they are ignorant what the expression means, that heaven is [His]
throne and earth [His] footstool. For they do not know what God is, but
they imagine that He sits after the fashion of a man, and is contained
within bounds, but does not contain. And they are also unacquainted with
[the meaning of] the passing away of the heaven and earth; but Paul was
not ignorant of it when he declared, “For the figure of this world
passeth away.”3830
In the next place, David
explains their question, for he says that when the fashion of this world
passes away, not only shall God remain, but His servants also, expressing
himself thus in the 101st Psalm: “In the beginning, Thou, O Lord, hast founded the earth, and
the heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt
endure, and all shall wax old as a garment; and as a vesture Thou shalt
change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy
years shall not fail. The children of Thy servants shall continue, and
their seed shall be established for ever;”3831
| 3831 Ps. cii. 25–28.
The cause of the difference in the numbering of the Psalms is that the
Septuagint embraces in one psalm—the ninth—the two which
form the ninth and tenth in the Hebrew text. | pointing out
plainly what things they are that pass away, and who it is that doth
endure for ever—God, together with His servants. And in like
manner Esaias says: “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look
upon the earth beneath; for the heaven has been set together as smoke,
and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they who dwell therein
shall die in like manner. But my salvation shall be for ever, and my
righteousness shall not pass away.”3832
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