498 to you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.’ 3877 What now? what dost thou say to me? Am I not clean? There was I baptized, am I not clean?” “No, even thou art not.” “Why?” “Because I was not there.” “But He who is everywhere was there. He who is every- where was there, in whose Name I believed. Thou coming I know not whence, yea, rather not coming, but wishing that I should come to thee, fixed in this place, sayest to me, ‘Thou wast not baptized duly, seeing I was not there.’ Consider who was there. What was said to John? ‘Upon whom thou shall see the Spirit descending like a dove, this is He which baptiz- eth.’3878 Him hast thou seeking for thee; nay, for that thou hast grudged me who was baptized by Him, thou hast lost Him rather.” 8. Understand then, my Brethren, our language and theirs, and look which ye would choose. This is what we say; “Be we holy, God knoweth it; be we unrighteous, this again He knoweth better; place not your hope in us, whatsoever we be. If we be good, do as is written, ‘Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.’3879 But if we be bad, not even thus are ye abandoned, not even thus have ye remained without counsel: give ear to Him, saying, ‘Do what they say; but do not what they do.’”3880 Whereas they on the contrary say, “If we were not good, ye were lost.” Lo, here is “another that shall come in his own name.” Shall my life then depend on thee, and my salvation be tied up in thee? Have I so forgotten my foundation? Was not Christ the Rock?3881 Is it not that he that buildeth upon the rock, neither the wind nor the floods overthrow him?3882 Come then, if thou wilt, with me upon the Rock, and do not wish to be to me for the rock. 9. Let the Church then say those last words also, “If ye had believed Moses, ye would believe me also; for he wrote of me;”3883 for that I am His body of whom he wrote. And of the Church did Moses write. For I have quoted the words of Moses “In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed.”3884 Moses wrote this in the first book. If ye believed Moses, ye would also believe Christ. Because ye despise Moses’ words, it must needs be that ye despise the words of Christ. “They have” there, saith He, “Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them. Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead,” him they will hear. “And He said, If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead.” 3885 This was said of the Jews: was it therefore not said of 3877 Gal. i. 9. 3878 John i. 33. 3879 1 Cor. iv. 16, xi. 1. 3880 Matt. xxiii. 3. 3881 1 Cor. x. 4. 3882 Matt. vii. 25. 3883 John v. 46. 3884 Gen. xxii. 18. 3885 Luke xvi. 29–31. 1031 On the words of the Gospel, John v. 39, ‘Ye search the Scriptures, because…