Testimonia

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Manicheans481 again, seest thou, how all the things they have the boldness to utter, are from their own reasonings? “It was impossible,” say they, “for God to create the world without matter.” Whence is this so evident? These things they say, groveling, and from the earth, and from what happens amongst ourselves; because man, they say, cannot create otherwise. Marcion again, look what he says. “God, if He took upon Him flesh, could not remain pure.” Whence is this evident? “Because,” says he, “neither can men.” But men are able to do this. Valentinus again, with his reasonings all trailing along the ground, speaks the things of the earth; and in like manner Paul of Samosata. And Arius, what does he say? “It was impossible for God when He begat, to beget without passion.”482 Whence, Arius, hast thou the boldness to allege this; merely from the things which take place amongst ourselves? Seest thou how the reasonings of all these trail along on the ground? All are, as it were, let loose and uncon- fined, and savoring of the earth? And so much then for doctrines. With regard to life and conduct, again, whoremongers, lovers of money, and of glory, and of everything else, trail on the ground. They have not their loins themselves standing firm, so that when they are weary they may rest upon them; but when they are weary, they do not put their hands upon them and stand upright, but flag. He, however, who “is girt about with the truth,” first, never is weary; and secondly, if he should be weary, he will rest himself upon the truth itself. What? Will poverty, tell me, render him weary? No, in nowise; for he will repose on the true riches, and by this poverty will understand what is true poverty. Or again, will slavery make him weary? No, in nowise, for he will know what is the true slavery. Or shall disease? No, nor even that. “Let your loins,” saith Christ, “be girded about, and your lamps burning” (Luke xii. 35.), with that light which shall never be put out. This is what the Israelites also, 165 when they were departing out of Egypt (Ex. xii. 11.), were charged to do. For why did they eat the passover with their loins girded? Art thou desirous to hear the ground of it? According to the historical fact, or according to its mystical sense,483 shall I state it? But I will state 481 The Manichees considered matter to be uncreate; vid. Note on St. Augustine’s Confessions, i. b. The Marcionites considered matter intrinsically evil; vid. Theod. Hær. i. 24. Valentinus denied that our Lord was born of the substance of Mary; vid. St. Cyril, Lect. iv. 9. Paul of Samosata and Arius both denied His Godhead. 482 ἀπαθῶς. 483 The word ἀναγωγὴ, when used of Scripture exposition, has various senses, but always implies an inter- pretation not literal, grammatical, or historical. Sometimes it stands for a “moral” interpretation, i.e. one con- veying a moral lesson; e.g. Chrys. in Psalm cxix. (120) init.; Basil. in Esai. v. § 152. Sometimes for an interpretation with reference simply to heavenly persons and things; vid. Mosheim, de Reb. ante Const. p. 644; Dionys. Hierarch Cæl. i. 2. Origen enumerates three senses of Scripture, literal, moral, and mystical, the last being either allegor- ical or anagogical; Clement four, literal, moral, mystical, and prophetical; but the more common division has been into literal, tropological, allegorical, and anagogical. [Cassian, a pupil of Chrysostom, defines ἀναγωγή: Anagoge vero de spiritalibus mysteriis ad sublimiora quaedam et sacratiora coelorum secreta conscendens, “leading 304 Ephesians 6:14

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