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| Insincerity of this charge.
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2. Insincerity of this charge.
But forasmuch as they pretend to charge me with
cowardice, it is necessary that I should write somewhat concerning
this, whereby it shall be proved that they are men of wicked minds, who
have not read the sacred Scriptures: or if they have read them, that
they do not believe the divine inspiration of the oracles they contain.
For had they believed this, they would not dare to act contrary to
them, nor imitate the malice of the Jews who slew the Lord. For God
having given them a commandment, ‘Honour thy father and thy
mother,’ and, ‘He that curseth father or mother, let him
die the death1393
;’ that people
established a contrary law, changing the honour into dishonour, and
alienating to other uses the money which was due from the children to
their parents. And though they had read what David did, they acted in
contradiction to his example, and accused the guiltless for plucking
the ears of corn, and rubbing them in their hands on the Sabbath day1394
. Not that they cared either for the laws, or
for the Sabbath, for they were guilty of greater transgressions of the
law on that day: but being wicked-minded, they grudged the disciples
the way of salvation, and desired that their own private notions should
have the sole pre-eminence. They however have received the reward of
their iniquity, having ceased to be an holy nation, and being counted
henceforth as the rulers of Sodom, and as the people of Gomorrah1395
. And these men likewise, not less than they,
seem to me to have received their punishment already in their ignorance
of their own folly. For they understand not what they say, but think
that they know things of which they are ignorant; while the only
knowledge that is in them is to do evil, and to frame devices more and
more wicked day by day. Thus they reproach us with our present flight,
not for the sake of virtue, as wishing us to shew manliness by coming
forward (how is it possible that such a wish can be entertained by
enemies in behalf of those who run not with them in the same career of
madness?); but being full of malice, they pretend this, and buzz1396
| 1396 περιβομβεῖν, Nic. Def. 14, note 1; Greg. Naz. Orat. 27.
n. 2. | all around that such is the case, thinking,
foolish as indeed they are, that through fear of their revilings, we
shall yet be induced to give ourselves up to them. For this is what
they desire: to accomplish this they have recourse to all kinds of
schemes: they pretend themselves to be friends, while they search as
enemies, to the end that they may glut themselves with our blood, and
put us also out of the way, because we have always opposed and do still
oppose their impiety, and confute and brand their heresy.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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