Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VIII: Pseudo-Clementine Literature.: Chapter IV

Chapter IV.—It is Asserted that Christ’s Teaching is Different from Peter’s.

“‘And that he does not really believe even the doctrines proclaimed by his teacher is evident, for he proclaims doctrines opposite to his. 1318   For he said to some one, as I learn, 1319 “Call me not good, for the good is one.”  Now in speaking of the good one, he no longer speaks of that just one, 1320 whom the Scriptures proclaim, who kills and makes alive,—kills those who sin, and makes alive those who live according to His will.  But that he did not really call Him who is the framer of the world good, is plain to any one who can reflect.  For the framer of the world was known to Adam whom He had made, and to Enoch who pleased Him, and to Noah who was seen to be just by Him; likewise to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; also to Moses, and the people, and the whole world.  But Jesus, the teacher of Peter himself, came and said, 1321 “No one knew the Father except the Son, as no one knoweth 1322 even the Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son may wish to reveal Him.”  If, then, it was the Son himself who was present, it was from the time of his appearance that he began to reveal to those to whom he wished, Him who was unknown to all.  And thus the Father was unknown to all who lived before him, and could not thus be He who was known to all.

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Footnotes

318:1318

[These chapters are peculiar to the Homilies.—R.]

318:1319

Matt. xix. 17.

318:1320

The Gnostic distinction between the God who is just and the God who is good, is here insisted on.

319:1321

Matt. 11:27, Luke 10:22.  Comp. Recognitions, ii. 47.—R.]

319:1322

One ms. reads, “saw.”