Sermon on the Mount Continued. Its Woes in Strict Agreement with the Creator's Disposition. Many Quotations Out of the Old Testament in Proof of This (part 3 of 3)

Chapter XXVI.—From St. Luke's Eleventh Chapter Other Evidence that Christ Comes from the Creator. The Lord's Prayer and Other Words of Christ. The Dumb Spirit and Christ's Discourse on Occasion of the Expulsion. The Exclamation of the Woman in the Crowd.

When in a certain place he had been praying to that Father above,⁴⁵²⁸ looking up with insolent and audacious eyes to the heaven of the Creator, by whom in His rough and cruel nature he might have been crushed with hail and lightning—just as it was by Him contrived that he was (afterwards) attached to a cross⁴⁵²⁹ at Jerusalem—one of his disciples came to him and said, "Master, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." This he said, forsooth, because he thought that different prayers were required for different gods! Now, he who had advanced such a conjecture as this should first show that another god had been proclaimed by Christ. For nobody would have wanted to know how to pray, before he had learned whom he was to pray to. If, however, he had already learned this, prove it. If you find nowhere any proof, let me tell you⁴⁵³⁰ that it was to the Creator that he asked for instruction in prayer, to whom John's disciples also used to pray. But, inasmuch as John had introduced some new order of prayer, this disciple had not improperly presumed to think that he ought also to ask of Christ whether they too must not (according to some special rule of their Master) pray, not indeed to another god, but in another manner. Christ accordingly⁴⁵³¹ would not have taught His disciple prayer before He had given him the knowledge of God Himself. Therefore what He actually taught was prayer to Him whom the disciple had already known. In short, you may discover in the import⁴⁵³² of the prayer what God is addressed therein. To whom can I say, "Father?"⁴⁵³³ To him who had nothing to do with making me, from whom I do not derive my origin? Or to Him, who, by making and fashioning me, became my parent?⁴⁵³⁴ Of whom can I ask for His Holy Spirit? Of him who gives not even the mundane spirit;⁴⁵³⁵ or of Him "who maketh His angels spirits," and whose Spirit it was which in the beginning hovered upon the waters.⁴⁵³⁶ Whose kingdom shall I wish to come—his, of whom I never heard as the king of glory; or His, in whose hand are even the hearts of kings? Who shall give me my daily⁴⁵³⁷ bread? Shall it be he who produces for me not a grain of millet-seed;⁴⁵³⁸ or He who even from heaven gave to His people day by day the bread of angels?⁴⁵³⁹ Who shall forgive me my trespasses?⁴⁵⁴⁰ He who, by refusing to judge them, does not retain them; or He who, unless He forgives them, will retain them, even to His judgment? Who shall suffer us not to be led into temptation? He before whom the tempter will never be able to tremble; or He who from the beginning has beforehand condemned⁴⁵⁴¹ the angel tempter? If any one, with such a form,⁴⁵⁴² invokes another god and not the Creator, he does not pray; he only blasphemes.⁴⁵⁴³ In like manner, from whom must I ask that I may receive? Of whom seek, that I may find? To whom knock, that it may be opened to me?⁴⁵⁴⁴ Who has to give to him that asks, but He to whom all things belong, and whose am I also that am the asker? What, however, have I lost before that other god, that I should seek of him and find it. If it be wisdom and prudence, it is the Creator who has hidden them. Shall I resort to him, then, in quest of them? If it be health⁴⁵⁴⁵ and life, they are at the disposal of the Creator. Nor must anything be sought and found anywhere else than there, where it is kept in secret that it may come to light. So, again, at no other door will I knock than at that out of which my privilege has reached me.⁴⁵⁴⁶ In fine, if to receive, and to find, and to be admitted, is the fruit of labour and earnestness to him who has asked, and sought, and knocked, understand that these duties have been enjoined, and results promised, by the Creator. As for that most excellent god of yours, coming as he professes gratuitously to help man, who was not his (creature),⁴⁵⁴⁷ he could not have imposed upon him any labour, or (endowed him with) any earnestness. For he would by this time cease to be the most excellent god, were he not spontaneously to give to every one who does not ask, and permit every one who seeks not to find, and open to every one who does not knock. The Creator, on the contrary,⁴⁵⁴⁸ was able to proclaim these duties and rewards by Christ, in order that man, who by sinning had offended his God, might toil on (in his probation), and by his perseverance in asking might receive, and in seeking might find, and in knocking might enter. Accordingly, the preceding similitude⁴⁵⁴⁹ represents the man who went at night and begged for the loaves, in the light of a friend and not a stranger, and makes him knock at a friend's house and not at a stranger's. But even if he has offended, man is more of a friend with the Creator than with the god of Marcion. At His door, therefore, does he knock to whom he had the right of access; whose gate he had found; whom he knew to possess bread; in bed now with His children, whom He had willed to be born.⁴⁵⁵⁰ Even though the knocking is late in the day, it is yet the Creator's time. To Him belongs the latest hour who owns an entire age⁴⁵⁵¹ and the end thereof. As for the new god, however, no one could have knocked at his door late, for he has hardly yet⁴⁵⁵² seen the light of morning. It is the Creator, who once shut the door to the Gentiles, which was then knocked at by the Jews, that both rises and gives, if not now to man as a friend, yet not as a stranger, but, as He says, "because of his importunity."⁴⁵⁵³ Importunate, however, the recent god could not have permitted any one to be in the short time (since his appearance).⁴⁵⁵⁴ Him, therefore, whom you call the Creator recognise also as "Father." It is even He who knows what His children require. For when they asked for bread, He gave them manna from heaven; and when they wanted flesh, He sent them abundance of quails—not a serpent for a fish, nor for an egg a scorpion.⁴⁵⁵⁵ It will, however, appertain to Him not to give evil instead of good, who has both one and the other in His power. Marcion's god, on the contrary, not having a scorpion, was unable to refuse to give what he did not possess; only He (could do so), who, having a scorpion, yet gives it not. In like manner, it is He who will give the Holy Spirit, at whose command⁴⁵⁵⁶ is also the unholy spirit. When He cast out the "demon which was dumb"⁴⁵⁵⁷ (and by a cure of this sort verified Isaiah),⁴⁵⁵⁸ and having been charged with casting out demons by Beelzebub, He said, "If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?"⁴⁵⁵⁹ By such a question what does He otherwise mean, than that He ejects the spirits by the same power by which their sons also did—that is, by the power of the Creator? For if you suppose the meaning to be, "If I by Beelzebub, etc., by whom your sons?"—as if He would reproach them with having the power of Beelzebub,—you are met at once by the preceding sentence, that "Satan cannot be divided against himself."⁴⁵⁶⁰ So that it was not by Beelzebub that even they were casting out demons, but (as we have said) by the power of the Creator; and that He might make this understood, He adds: "But if I with the finger of God cast out demons, is not the kingdom of God come near unto you?"⁴⁵⁶¹ For the magicians who stood before Pharaoh and resisted Moses called the power of the Creator "the finger of God."⁴⁵⁶² It was the finger of God, because it was a sign⁴⁵⁶³ that even a thing of weakness was yet abundant in strength. This Christ also showed, when, recalling to notice (and not obliterating) those ancient wonders which were really His own,⁴⁵⁶⁴ He said that the power of God must be understood to be the finger of none other God than Him, under⁴⁵⁶⁵ whom it had received this appellation. His kingdom, therefore, was come near to them, whose power was called His "finger." Well, therefore, did He connect⁴⁵⁶⁶ with the parable of "the strong man armed," whom "a stronger man still overcame,"⁴⁵⁶⁷ the prince of the demons, whom He had already called Beelzebub and Satan; signifying that it was he who was overcome by the finger of God, and not that the Creator had been subdued by another god. Besides,⁴⁵⁶⁸ how could His kingdom be still standing, with its boundaries, and laws, and functions, whom, even if the whole world were left entire to Him, Marcion's god could possibly seem to have overcome as "the stronger than He," if it were not in consequence of His law that even Marcionites were constantly dying, by returning in their dissolution⁴⁵⁶⁹ to the ground, and were so often admonished by even a scorpion, that the Creator had by no means been overcome?⁴⁵⁷⁰ "A (certain) mother of the company exclaims, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked;' but the Lord said, Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.'"⁴⁵⁷¹ Now He had in precisely similar terms rejected His mother or His brethren, whilst preferring those who heard and obeyed God.⁴⁵⁷² His mother, however, was not here present with Him. On that former occasion, therefore, He had not denied that He was her son by birth.⁴⁵⁷³ On hearing this (salutation) the second time, He the second time transferred, as He had done before,⁴⁵⁷⁴ the "blessedness" to His disciples from the womb and the paps of His mother, from whom, however, unless He had in her (a real mother) He could not have transferred it.

Chapter XXVII.—Christ's Reprehension of the Pharisees Seeking a Sign. His Censure of Their Love of Outward Show Rather Than Inward Holiness. Scripture Abounds with Admonitions of a Similar Purport. Proofs of His Mission from the Creator.

I prefer elsewhere refuting⁴⁵⁷⁵ the faults which the Marcionites find in the Creator. It is here enough that they are also found in Christ.⁴⁵⁷⁶ Behold how unequal, inconsistent, and capricious he is! Teaching one thing and doing another, he enjoins "giving to every one that seeks;" and yet he himself refuses to give to those "who seek a sign."⁴⁵⁷⁷ For a vast age he hides his own light from men, and yet says that a candle must not be hidden, but affirms that it ought to be set upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all.⁴⁵⁷⁸ He forbids cursing again, and cursing much more of course; and yet he heaps his woe upon the Pharisees and doctors of the law.⁴⁵⁷⁹ Who so closely resembles my God as His own Christ? We have often already laid it down for certain,⁴⁵⁸⁰ that He could not have been branded⁴⁵⁸¹ as the destroyer of the law if He had promulged another god. Therefore even the Pharisee, who invited Him to dinner in the passage before us,⁴⁵⁸² expressed some surprise⁴⁵⁸³ in His presence that He had not washed before He sat down to meat, in accordance with the law, since it was the God of the law that He was proclaiming.⁴⁵⁸⁴ Jesus also interpreted the law to him when He told him that they "made clean the outside of the cup and the platter, whereas their inward part was full of ravening and wickedness." This He said, to signify that by the cleansing of vessels was to be understood before God the purification of men, inasmuch as it was about a man, and not about an unwashed vessel, that even this Pharisee had been treating in His presence. He therefore said: "You wash the outside of the cup," that is, the flesh, "but you do not cleanse your inside part,"⁴⁵⁸⁵ that is, the soul; adding: "Did not He that made the outside," that is, the flesh, "also make the inward part," that is to say, the soul?—by which assertion He expressly declared that to the same God belongs the cleansing of a man's external and internal nature, both alike being in the power of Him who prefers mercy not only to man's washing,⁴⁵⁸⁶ but even to sacrifice.⁴⁵⁸⁷ For He subjoins the command: "Give what ye possess as alms, and all things shall be clean unto you."⁴⁵⁸⁸ Even if another god could have enjoined mercy, he could not have done so previous to his becoming known. Furthermore, it is in this passage evident that they⁴⁵⁸⁹ were not reproved concerning their God, but concerning a point of His instruction to them, when He prescribed to them figuratively the cleansing of their vessels, but really the works of merciful dispositions. In like manner, He upbraids them for tithing paltry herbs,⁴⁵⁹⁰ but at the same time "passing over hospitality⁴⁵⁹¹ and the love of God."⁴⁵⁹² The vocation and the love of what God, but Him by whose law of tithes they used to offer their rue and mint? For the whole point of the rebuke lay in this, that they cared about small matters in His service of course, to whom they failed to exhibit their weightier duties when He commanded them: "Thou shalt love with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, the Lord thy God, who hath called thee out of Egypt."⁴⁵⁹³ Besides, time enough had not yet passed to admit of Christ's requiring so premature—nay, as yet so distasteful⁴⁵⁹⁴—a love towards a new and recent, not to say a hardly yet developed,⁴⁵⁹⁵ deity. When, again, He upbraids those who caught at the uppermost places and the honour of public salutations, He only follows out the Creator's course,⁴⁵⁹⁶ who calls ambitious persons of this character "rulers of Sodom,"⁴⁵⁹⁷ who forbids us "to put confidence even in princes,"⁴⁵⁹⁸ and pronounces him to be altogether wretched who places his confidence in man. But whoever⁴⁵⁹⁹ aims at high position, because he would glory in the officious attentions⁴⁶⁰⁰ of other people, (in every such case,) inasmuch as He forbade such attentions (in the shape) of placing hope and confidence in man, He at the same time⁴⁶⁰¹ censured all who were ambitious of high positions. He also inveighs against the doctors of the law themselves, because they were "lading men with burdens grievous to be borne, which they did not venture to touch with even a finger of their own;"⁴⁶⁰² but not as if He made a mock of⁴⁶⁰³ the burdens of the law with any feeling of detestation towards it. For how could He have felt aversion to the law, who used with so much earnestness to upbraid them for passing over its weightier matters, alms—giving, hospitality,⁴⁶⁰⁴ and the love of God? Nor, indeed, was it only these great things (which He recognized), but even⁴⁶⁰⁵ the tithes of rue and the cleansing of cups. But, in truth, He would rather have deemed them excusable for being unable to carry burdens which could not be borne. What, then, are the burdens which He censures?⁴⁶⁰⁶ None but those which they were accumulating of their own accord, when they taught for commandments the doctrines of men; for the sake of private advantage joining house to house, so as to deprive their neighbour of his own; cajoling⁴⁶⁰⁷ the people, loving gifts, pursuing rewards, robbing the poor of the rights of judgment, that they might have the widow for a prey and the fatherless for a spoil.⁴⁶⁰⁸ Of these Isaiah also says, "Woe unto them that are strong in Jerusalem!"⁴⁶⁰⁹ and again, "They that demand you shall rule over you."⁴⁶¹⁰ And who did this more than the lawyers?⁴⁶¹¹ Now, if these offended Christ, it was as belonging to Him that they offended Him. He would have aimed no blow at the teachers of an alien law. But why is a "woe" pronounced against them for "building the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers had killed?"⁴⁶¹² They rather deserved praise, because by such an act of piety they seemed to show that they did not allow the deeds of their fathers. Was it not because (Christ) was jealous⁴⁶¹³ of such a disposition as the Marcionites denounce,⁴⁶¹⁴ visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the fourth generation? What "key," indeed, was it which these lawyers had,⁴⁶¹⁵ but the interpretation of the law? Into the perception of this they neither entered themselves, even because they did not believe (for "unless ye believe, ye shall not understand"); nor did they permit others to enter, because they preferred to teach them for commandments even the doctrines of men. When, therefore, He reproached those who did not themselves enter in, and also shut the door against others, must He be regarded as a disparager of the law, or as a supporter of it? If a disparager, those who were hindering the law ought to have been pleased; if a supporter, He is no longer an enemy of the law.⁴⁶¹⁶ But all these imprecations He uttered in order to tarnish the Creator as a cruel Being,⁴⁶¹⁷ against whom such as offended were destined to have a "woe." And who would not rather have feared to provoke a cruel Being,⁴⁶¹⁸ by withdrawing allegiance⁴⁶¹⁹ from Him? Therefore the more He represented the Creator to be an object of fear, the more earnestly would He teach that He ought to be served. Thus would it behove the Creator's Christ to act.