25. Manes said:
Not all receive the word of God, but only those to whom it is given to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.1655
And even now
1656
| 1656 The
text gives et jam quidem for the etiam quidem of the Cod.
Casin. |
I know who are ours; for “my
sheep,” He says, “hear my voice.”
1657
For the sake of those who
belong to
us, and to whom is given the understanding of the
truth, I shall speak
in similitudes. The
wicked one is like a
lion that sought to
steal upon the
flock of the good
shepherd; and when the
shepherd saw
this, he dug a huge
pit, and took one kid out of the
flock and cast it
into the
pit. Then the
lion, hungering to get at it, and bursting
with passion to
devour it,
ran up to the
pit and fell in, and
discovered no
strength sufficient to bring him out again. And
thereupon the
shepherd seized him and shut him up carefully in a
den,
and at the same time
secured the
safety of the kid which had been with
him in the
pit. And it is in this way that the
wicked one has
been enfeebled,—the
lion, so to speak, possessing no more
capacity for doing aught injurious; and so all the race of
souls will be
saved, and what
once
perished will yet be restored to its proper
flock.
Archelaus said: If you compare the
wicked one to the
lion,
and
God to the true
shepherd, tell us, whereunto shall we liken the
sheep and the kid?
Manes said: The
sheep and the kid
seem to me to be of one
nature: and they are taken as figures of
souls.
Archelaus said: Well, then,
God gave a
soul
over to
perdition when He set it before the
lion in the
pit.
Manes said: By no means;
far from it. But He was
moved by a particular disposition,
1658
| 1658
Apprehensus est hoc ingenio. For hoc here, Routh
suggests hic in reference to the leo so that the sense
might be = But by this plan the lion was caught, and hereafter He will
save the soul. |
and in the future He will
save that
other,
the soul.
Archelaus said: Now, surely
it would be an absurd procedure, my hearers, if a
shepherd who dreaded
the inroad of a
lion were to expose to the
beast’s devouring fury
a
lamb that he was wont to carry in his
bosom, and if it were then to
be said that he meant to
save the creature hereafter. Is not this
something supremely ridiculous? Yea, there is no
kind of sense in
this. For
on the supposition implied in your similitude
God thus handed over to
Satan a
soul that he might
seize and
ruin. But when did the
shepherd ever do anything like
that?
1659
| 1659 The
text is, “Quando enim pastor, nonne David de ore leonis,”
etc. We adopt the amended reading, “Quando enim pastor hoc
fecit? Nonne David,” etc. |
Did not
David deliver a
sheep out of the mouth of a
lion or of a bear?
And we mention this on account of the expression,
out of the mouth
of the lion; for, on your theory, this would imply that the
shepherd can bring forth out of the mouth of the
lion, or out of the
belly of the same, the very object which it has
devoured.
1660
| 1660 Routh
would put this interrogatively = Can he bring out of the mouth or the
belly of the lion what it has once devoured? |
But you will
perhaps make this answer, that it is of
God we speak, and that He is
able to do all things. Hear, however, what I have to say to
that: Why then do you not rather assert His real capacity, and
affirm simply His ability to overcome the
lion in His own might, or
with the pure
power of
God, and without the help of any sort of
cunning
devices, or by consigning a kid or a
lamb to a
pit?
1661
| 1661 This
seems to be the sense intended. The text in the Codex Casinensis
runs thus: “Cur igitur quod possit non illud potius asseris
quod poterit propria virtute vincere leonem, si et pura Dei
potentia,” etc. For si et pura we may read sive
pura, or si est pura, etc. |
Tell me this, too, if the
lion were
to be supposed to come upon the
shepherd at a time when he has no
sheep, what would the consequence be? For he who is here called
the
shepherd is supposed to be unbegotten, and he who is here the
lion
is also unbegotten. Wherefore, when man did not yet
exist—in other words, before the
shepherd had a
flock—if
the
lion had then come upon the
shepherd, what would have followed,
seeing that there could have been nothing for the
lion to eat before
the kid was in existence?
Manes said: The
lion
certainly had nothing to
devour, but yet he
exercised his
wickedness on
whatever he was able to
light upon as he coursed over the peaks of the
mountains; and if at any time
food was a matter of necessity with him,
he
seized some of the
beasts which were under his own
kingdom.
Archelaus said: Are these two objects, then, of one
substance—the
beasts which are under the
kingdom of the
wicked
one, and the kids which are in the
kingdom of the good
God?
1662
| 1662 Routh
takes it as a direct assertion = It follows, then, that these two
objects are of one substance, etc. |
Manes
said:
Far from it; not at all: they have nothing in
common either between themselves or between the properties which
pertain to them severally.
Archelaus said: There is
but one and the same use made of the
food in the
lion’s
eating. And though he sometimes got that
food from the
beasts
belonging to himself, and sometimes from those belonging to the good
God, there is still no difference between them as
far as regards the
meats furnished; and from this it is apparent that those are of but one
substance. On the other
hand, if we say that there is a great
difference between the two, we do but ascribe ignorance to the
shepherd,
1663
| 1663 The
text runs, “sed aliud alio longe differre ignorantiam pastori
ascribimus;” for which we adopt the emendation, “sed alium
ab alio longe differre si dicamus, ignorantiam pastori
ascribimus.” |
in so
far as he
did not present or set before the
lion food adapted to his use, but
rather
alien meats. Or perchance again, in your desire to
dissemble your real position, you will say to me that
lion ate
nothing. Well, supposing that to be the case, did
God then in
this way challenge that being to
devour a
soul while he knew not how to
devour aught? and was the
pit not the only thing which
God sought to
employ with the view of cheating him?—if indeed it is at all
worthy of
God to do that sort of thing, or to contrive
deceitful
schemes. And that would be to act like a king who, when
war is
made upon him, puts no
kind of
confidence in his own
strength, but gets
paralyzed with the
fears of his own
feebleness, and shuts himself up
within the walls of his city, and erects around him a rampart and other
fortifications, and gets them all equipped, and
trusts nothing to his
own
hand and prowess; whereas, if he is a brave man, the king so placed
will march a great distance from his own territories to meet the enemy
there, and will put forth every possible exertion until he conquers and
brings his adversary into his power.
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