A Source Book for Ancient Church HistoryAyer, Joseph Cullen
History
A Source Book for Ancient Church History
Ayer, Joseph Cullen
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 -- Sources
Accordingly, I think that it has been sufficiently shown you, so far as it
is possible to discuss the matter briefly, that there are laws of men
which have slipped in, and there is the very Law of God which is divided
into three parts. There remains, therefore, for us to show, who, then, is
that God who gave the Law. But I think that this has been shown you in
what has already been said, if you have listened attentively. For if the
Law was not given by the perfect God, as we have shown, nor by the devil,
which idea merely to mention is unlawful, there is another beside these,
one who gave the Law. This one is, therefore, the Demiurge and maker of
this whole world and of all things in it, different from the nature of the
other two, and placed between them, and who therefore rightly bears the
name of the Midst. And if the perfect God is good according to His own
nature, as also He is (for that there is only One who is good, namely, God
and His Father, the Saviour asserted, the God whom He manifested), there
is also one who is of the nature of the adversary, bad and wicked and
characterized by unrighteousness. Standing, therefore, between these, and
being neither good nor bad nor unjust, he can be called righteous in a
sense proper to him, as the judge of the righteousness that corresponds to
him, and that god will be lower than the perfect God, and his
righteousness lower than His, because he is begotten and not unbegotten.
For there is one unbegotten One, the Father, from whom are all things, for
all things have been prepared by Him. But He is greater and superior to
the adversary, and is of a different essence or nature from the essence of
the other. For the essence of the adversary is corruption and darkness,
for he is hylic and composite,(49) but the essence of the unbegotten
Father of all is incorruptibility, and He is light itself, simple and
uniform. But the essence of these(50) brings forth a certain twofold
power, and he is the image of the better. Do not let these things disturb
you, who wish to learn how from one principle of all things, whom we
acknowledge and in whom be believe, namely, the unbegotten and the
incorruptible and the good, there exist two other natures, namely, that of
corruption and that of the Midst, which are not of the same essence
[ἀνομοοῦσιοι], though the good by nature begets and brings forth what is
like itself, and of the same essence [ὁμοοῦσιος]. For you will learn by
God’s permission, in due order, both the beginning of this and its
generation, since you are deemed worthy of the apostolic tradition, which
by a succession we have received, and in due season to test all things by
the teaching of the Saviour. The things which in a few words I have said
to you, my sister Flora, I have not exhausted, and I have written briefly.
At the same time I have sufficiently explained to you the subject
proposed, and what I have said will be constantly of use to you, if as a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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