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Chapter
LXIII.
After this, not understanding how it has been said
that “every one who exalted himself shall be
abased;”3626 nor (although
taught even by Plato) that “the good and virtuous man walketh
humbly and orderly;” and ignorant, moreover, that we give the
injunction, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand
of God, that He may exalt you in due time;”3627 he says that “those persons who
preside properly over a trial make those individuals who bewail before
them their evil deeds to cease from their piteous wailings, lest their
decisions should be determined rather by compassion than by a regard to
truth; whereas God does not decide in accordance with truth, but in
accordance with flattery.”3628 Now,
what words of flattery and piteous wailing are contained in the Holy
Scriptures when the sinner says in his prayers to God, “I have
acknowledged my sin, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I
will confess my transgression to the Lord,” etc., etc.? For
is he able to show that a procedure of this kind is not adapted to the
conversion of sinners, who humble themselves in their prayers under the
hand of God? And, becoming confused by his efforts to accuse us,
he contradicts himself; appearing at one time to know a man
“without sin,” and “a righteous man, who can look up
to God (adorned) with virtue from the beginning;” and at another
time accepting our statement that there is no man altogether righteous,
or without sin;3629
3629 In the text it is put
interrogatively: τίς
ἄνθρωπος
τελέως
δίκαιος; ἢ τίς
ἀναμάρτητος;
The allusion seems to be to Job xv. 14 (Sept.): τίς γὰρ ὢν
βροτὸς, ὅτι
ἔσται
ἄμεμπτος; ἢ ὡς
ἐσόμενος
δίκαιος
γεννητὸς
γυναικός; | for, as if he
admitted its truth, he remarks, “This is indeed apparently true,
that somehow the human race is naturally inclined to sin.”
In the next place, as if all men were not invited by the word, he says,
“All men, then, without distinction, ought to be invited, since
all indeed are sinners.” And yet, in the preceding pages,
we have pointed out the words of Jesus: “Come unto Me,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest.”3630 All
men, therefore, labouring and being heavy laden on account of the
nature of sin, are invited to the rest spoken of in the word of God,
“for God sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from
their destructions.”3631
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