That many have not(48) received the Law given by Moses, my dear sister Flora, without recognizing either its fundamental ideas or its precepts, will be perfectly clear to you, I believe, if you become acquainted with the different views regarding the same. For some [_i.e._, the Church] say that it was commanded by God and the Father; but others [_i.e._, the Marcionites], taking the opposite direction, affirm that it was commanded by an opposing and injurious devil, and they attribute to him the creation of the world, and say that he is the Father and Creator. But such as teach such doctrine are altogether deceived, and each of them strays from the truth of what lies before him. For it appears not to have been given by the perfect God and Father, because it is itself imperfect, and it needs to be completed [_cf._ Matt. 5:17], and it has precepts not consonant with the nature and mind of God; neither is the Law to be attributed to the wickedness of the adversary, whose characteristic is to do wrong. Such do not know what was spoken by the Saviour, that a city or a house divided against itself cannot stand, as our Saviour has shown us. And besides, the Apostle says that the creation of the world was His work (all things were made by Him and without Him nothing was made), refuting the unsubstantial wisdom of lying men, the work not of a god working ruin, but a just one who hates wickedness. This is the opinion of rash men who do not understand the cause of the providence of the Creator [Demiurge] and have lost the eyes not only of their soul, but of their body. How far, therefore, such wander from the way of truth is evident to you from what has been said. But each of these is induced by something peculiar to himself to think thus, some by ignorance of the God of righteousness: others by ignorance of the Father of all, whom the Only One who knew Him alone revealed when He came. To us it has been reserved to be deemed worthy of making manifest to you the ideas of both of these, and to investigate carefully this Law, whence anything is, and the law-giver by whom it was commanded, bringing proofs of what shall be said from the words of our Saviour, by which alone one can be led without error to the knowledge of things.