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| Peter's Explanation of the Apparent Contradictions of Scripture.
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Chapter
X.—Peter’s Explanation of the Apparent Contradictions of
Scripture.
And Peter said: “They do not lead astray,
but convict and bring to light the evil disposition against God which
lurks like a serpent in each one. For the Scriptures lie before
each one like many divers types. Each one, then, has his own
disposition like wax, and examining the Scriptures and finding
everything in them, he moulds his idea of God according to his wish,
laying upon them, as I said, his own disposition, which is like
wax.1283
| 1283 [This statement
of the subjective method of interpretation is in curious harmony with
the prevalent theory of this work respecting the mixture of error and
truth in the Scriptures.—R.] | Since, then, each one finds in
the Scriptures whatever opinion he wishes to have in regard to God, for
this reason he, Simon, moulds from them the forms1284
of many gods, while we moulded the form
of Him who truly exists, coming to the knowledge of the true type from
our own shape.1285
For
assuredly the soul within us is clothed with His image for
immortality. If I abandon the parent of this soul, it also will abandon me to
just judgment, making known the injustice by the very act of
daring;1286
| 1286 Probably
τολμήματι
should be changed into ὁρμήματι, or some
such word: making known that an act of injustice has been
committed by taking its departure. | and as coming
from one who is just, it will justly abandon me; and so, as far as the
soul is concerned, I shall, after punishment, be destroyed, having
abandoned the help that comes from it. But if there is another
god, first let him put on another form, another shape, in order that by
the new shape of the body I may recognise the new god. But if he
should change the shape, does he thereby change the substance of the
soul? But if he should change it also, then I am no longer
myself, having become another both in shape and in substance. Let
him, therefore, create others, if there is another. But there is
not. For if there had been, he would have created. But
since he has not created, then let him, as nonexistent, leave him who
is really existent.1287
| 1287 This might
possibly be translated, “let him leave him who exists to him who
exists;” i.e., let him leave the real God to man, who really
exists. | For he
is nobody,1288
| 1288 Wieseler
proposes, “for he exists to no one.” | except only
in the opinion of Simon. I do not accept of any other god but Him
alone who created me.”
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