Chapter VIII.—Antiquity, inspiration, and harmony of Christian teachers.
Since therefore it is impossible to learn anything true concerning religion from your
teachers, who by their mutual disagreement have furnished you with sufficient proof of
their own ignorance, I consider it reasonable to recur to our progenitors, who both in point
of time have by a great way the precedence of your teachers, and who have taught us nothing
from their own private fancy, nor differed with one another, nor attempted to overturn one
another’s positions, but without wrangling and contention received from God the knowledge
which also they taught to us. For neither by nature nor by human conception is it possible
for men to know things so great and divine, but by the gift which then descended from
above upon the holy men, who had no need of rhetorical art,767 nor of uttering anything
in a contentious or quarrelsome manner, but to present themselves pure768 to the energy
of the Divine Spirit, in order that the divine plectrum itself, descending from heaven, and
using righteous men as an instrument like a harp or lyre, might reveal to us the knowledge
of things divine and heavenly. Wherefore, as if with one mouth and one tongue, they have
in succession, and in harmony with one another, taught us both concerning God, and the
creation of the world, and the formation of man, and concerning the immortality of the
human soul, and the judgment which is to be after this life, and concerning all things which
it is needful for us to know, and thus in divers times and places have afforded us the divine
instruction.769
767 Literally, “the art of words.”
768 Literally, “clean,” free from other influences.
769 [The diversities of Christian theology are to be regretted; but Justin here shows the harmony and order
of truths, such as are everywhere received by Christians, to be an inestimable advantage.]
Chapter VIII.—Antiquity, inspiration, and harmony of Christian teachers.
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Chapter VIII.—Antiquity, inspiration, and harmony of Christian teachers