Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Archelaus/A Fragment of the Same Disputation/Chapter II
2. Then Manes made the following reply to him: And what manner of God now is it that blinds one? For it is Paul who uses these words: “In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the Gospel should shine in them.”[1] But Archelaus broke in and refuted this very well, saying: Read, however, a word or two of what precedes that sentence, namely, “But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid in them that are lost.” You see that it is hid in them that are lost. “For it is not meet to give the holy things to dogs.”[2] And furthermore, is it only the God of the Old Testament that has blinded the minds of them who believe not? Nay, has not Jesus Himself also said: “Therefore speak I to them in parables: that seeing, they may not see?”[3] Is it then because He hated them that He desired them not to see? Or is it not on account of their unworthiness, since they closed their own eyes? For wherever wickedness is a matter self-chosen, there too there is the absence of grace. “For unto him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have.”[4]