27. We may give
yet another illustration, if it seems good to you. A certain man,
the head of a household, and possessed of great riches, was minded to
journey abroad for a time, and promised to his sons that he would send
them some one who would take his place, and divide among them equally
the substance falling to them. And, in truth, not long after
that, he did despatch to them a certain trustworthy and righteous and
true man. And on his arrival, this man took charge of the whole
substance, and first of all exerted himself to arrange it and
administer it, giving himself great labour in journeying, and
even1676
| 1676 The
text has, “sedens ipse per se,” etc.; for which we adopt
“sed et ipse,” etc. |
working
diligently with his own
hands, and toiling like a
servant for the good
of the
estate. Afterwards feeling that his end was at
hand,
1677
| 1677 The
Codex Casinensis gives, “deinde die moriturus,” which may
be either a mistake for “deinde moriturus,” or a
contraction for “deinde die qua moriturus”—then on
the day that he was about to die, etc. |
the man wrote
out a will, demitting the inheritance to the relations and all the next
of
kin; and he gave them his seals, and called them together one by one
by name, and charged them to
preserve the inheritance, and to take care
of the substance, and to
administer it rightly, even as they had
received it, and to take their use of its goods and fruits, as they
were themselves left its owners and heirs. If, moreover, any
person were to ask to be allowed to benefit by the fruits of this
field, they were to show themselves
indulgent to such. But if, on
the other
hand, any one were to declare himself partner in the heirship
with them, and were to make his demands on that ground,
1678
| 1678
The codex has, “Sin autem conderem se dicens, exposceret,
devitarent persequi,” etc.; which is corrected to, “Sin
autem cohæredem se dicens exposceret, devitarent atque,”
etc., which emendation is followed in the translation. |
they were to
keep aloof from him, and pronounce him an
alien; and further,
they
were to hold that the individual who desired to be received among
them ought all the more on that account to do
work.
1679
| 1679
Opus autem magis facere debere. |
Well, then, granting that all
these things have been well and rightly disposed of and settled, and
that they have continued in that condition for a very long time, how
shall we deal with one who presents himself well-nigh three
hundred
years after, and sets up his claim to the heirship? Shall we not
cast him off from us? Shall we not justly pronounce such a one an
alien—one who cannot
prove himself to have belonged to those
related
to our Master, who never was with our departed
Lord in
the hour of His sickness, who never walked in the funeral procession of
the Crucified, who never stood by the
sepulchre, who has no
knowledge
whatsoever of the manner or the character of His departure, and who, in
fine, is now desirous of getting access to the storehouse of corn
without presenting any token from him who placed it under lock and
seal? Shall we not cast him off from us like a robber and a
thief, and thrust him out of our number by all possible means?
Yet this man is now in our presence, and
fails to produce any of the
credentials which we have summarized in what we have already said, and
declares that he is the Paraclete whose mission was presignified by
Jesus. And by this assertion, in his ignorance perchance, he will
make out
Jesus Himself to be a
liar;
1680
| 1680 The
same sort of argument is employed against the Montanists by Theodorus
of Heracleia on John’s Gospel, ch. xiv. 17. |
for thus He who once said that He would
send the Paraclete no long time after, will be
proved only to have sent
this person, if we accept the
testimony which he bears to himself,
after an interval of three
hundred years and more.
1681
| 1681 It
is remarked in Migne, that it is only in the heat of his contention
that this statement is made by Archelaus as to the date of the
appearance of Manes; for from the death of Christ on to the time of
this discussion there are only some 249 years. [Is it not
probable that here is a token of the spurious character of not a little
of this work?] |
In the day of
judgment, then, what
will those say to
Jesus who have departed this
life from that time on
to the present period? Will they not meet Him with words like
these: “Do not
punish us rigorously if we have
failed to do
Thy works. For why, when Thou didst
promise to send the Paraclete
under
Tiberius Cæsar, to convince us of
sin and of
righteousness,
1682
didst Thou
send Him only under Probus the
Roman emperor, and didst leave us
orphaned, not withstanding that Thou didst say, ‘I will not leave
you comfortless (orphaned),’
1683
and after Thou hadst also assured us
that Thou wouldest send the Paraclete presently after Thy
departure? What could we orphans do, having no
guardian? We
have
committed no fault; it is Thou that hast
deceived us.”
But away with such a supposition in the case of our
Lord Jesus Christ,
the Saviour of every
soul.
1684
| 1684
Reading “sed absit hoc a Domino nostro Jesu Christo Salvatore
omnis animæ,” instead of the codex’s “sed absit
hanc a Domino Jesu Christo Salvatore omne animæ.” |
For He did not confine Himself to
mere
promises;
1685
| 1685 If
the reference, however, is to 2 Pet. iii. 9, as Routh suggests, it may rather be =
He was not slack concerning His promises. The text is, “non
enim moratus est in promissionibus suis.” [A noteworthy
reference to the second Epistle of St. Peter. For, if this work
be a mere romance, yet its undoubted antiquity makes it useful, not
only in this, but in many other critical matters.] |
but when He
had once said, “I go to my
Father, and I send the Paraclete to
you,”
1686
straightway He
sent (that gift of the Paraclete), dividing and imparting the same to
His disciples,—bestowing it, however, in greater fulness upon
Paul.
1687
| 1687
Reading “abundantius vero conferens Paulo,” instead of the
corrupt text in the Codex Casinensis, “abundantibus vero
confitens Paulo.” |
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