It therefore behoves us, who inquire much concerning events at hand, 1468
to search diligently into those things which are able to save us. Let us then utterly flee from all the works of iniquity, lest these should take hold of us; and let us hate the error of the present time, that we may set our love on the world to come: let us not give loose reins to our soul, that it should have power to run with sinners and the wicked, lest we become like them. The final stumbling-block (or source of danger) approaches, concerning which it is written, as Enoch 1469
says, “For for this end the Lord has cut short the times and the days, that His Beloved may hasten; and He will come to the inheritance.” And the prophet also speaks thus: “Ten kingdoms shall reign upon the earth, and a little king shall rise up after them, who shall subdue under one three of the kings.” 1470
In like manner Daniel says concerning the same, “And I beheld the fourth beast, wicked and powerful, and more savage than all the beasts of the earth, and how from it sprang up ten horns, and out of them a little budding horn, and how it subdued under one three of the great horns.” 1471
Ye ought therefore to understand. And this also I further beg of you, as being one of you, and loving you both individually and collectively more than my own soul, to take heed now to yourselves, and not to be like some, adding largely to your sins, and saying, “The covenant is both theirs and ours.” 1472
But they thus finally lost it, after Moses had already received it. For the Scripture saith, “And Moses was fasting in
Or it might be rendered, “things present.” Cotelerius reads, “de his instantibus.”
138:1469The Latin reads, “Daniel” instead of “Enoch;” comp. Dan. ix. 24-27.
138:1470Dan. vii. 24, very loosely quoted.
138:1471Dan. 7:7, 8, also very inaccurately cited.
138:1472We here follow the Latin text in preference to the Greek, which reads merely, “the covenant is ours.” What follows seems to show the correctness of the Latin, as the author proceeds to deny that the Jews had any further interest in the promises.
139:1473 139:1474 139:1475Literally, “in hope of His faith.”
139:1476The Greek is here incorrect and unintelligible; and as the Latin omits the clause, our translation is merely conjectural. Hilgenfeld’s text, if we give a somewhat peculiar meaning to ἐλλιπεῖν, may be translated: “but as it is becoming in one who loves you not to fail in giving you what we have, I, though the very offscouring of you, have been eager to write to you.”
139:1477So the Cod. Sin. Hilgenfeld reads, with the Latin, “let us take.”
139:1478The Latin here departs entirely from the Greek text, and quotes as a saying of “the Son of God” the following precept, nowhere to be found in the New Testament: “Let us resist all iniquity, and hold it in hatred.” Hilgenfeld joins this clause to the former sentence.
139:1479 139:1480An exact quotation from Matt. xx. 16or Matt. xxii. 14. It is worthy of notice that this is the first example in the writings of the Fathers of a citation from any book of the New Testament, preceded by the authoritative formula, “it is written.”
