Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Archelaus/Acts of Disputation/Chapter XXI

by Archelaus

21. But now, what it is necessary for me to say on the subject of the inner and the outer man, may be expressed in the words of the Saviour to those who swallow a camel, and wear the outward garb of the hypocrite, begirt with blandishments and flatteries. It is to them that Jesus addresses Himself when He says: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of uncleanness. Or know you not, that He that made that which is without, made that which is within also?”^[1] Now why did He speak of the cup and of the platter? Was He who uttered these words a glassworker, or a potter who made vessels of clay? Did He not speak most manifestly of the body and the soul? For the Pharisees truly looked to the “tithing of anise and cummin, and left undone the weightier matters of the law;”^[2] and while devoting great care to the things which were external, they overlooked those which bore upon the salvation of the soul. For they also had respect to “greetings in the market-place,”^[3] and “to the uppermost seats at feasts:”^[4] and to them the Lord Jesus, knowing their perdition, made this declaration, that they attended to those things only which were without, and despised as strange things those which were within, and understood not that He who made the body made also the soul. And who is so unimpressible and stolid in intellect, as not to see that those sayings of our Lord may suffice him for all cases? Moreover, it is in perfect harmony with these sayings that Paul speaks, when he interprets to the following intent certain things written in the law: “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith He it altogether for our sakes?”^[5] But why should we waste further time upon this subject? Nevertheless I shall add a few things out of many that might be offered. Suppose now that there are two unbegotten principles, and that we determine fixed localities for these: it follows then that God is separated,^[6] if He is supposed to be within a certain location, and not diffused everywhere; and He will consequently be represented as much inferior to the locality in which He is understood to be for the object which contains is always greater^[7]than the object which is contained in it: and thus God is made to be of that magnitude which corresponds with the magnitude of the locality in which He is contained, just as is the case with a man in a house.^[8] Then, further, reason asks who it is that has divided between them, or who has appointed for them their determinate limits; and thus both would be made out to be the decided inferiors of man’s own power.^[9] For Lysimachus and Alexander held the empire of the whole world, and were able to subdue all foreign nations, and the whole race of men; so that throughout that period there was no other in possession of empire besides themselves under heaven. And how will any one be rash enough to say that God, who is the true light that never suffers eclipse, and whose is also the kingdom that is holy and everlasting, is not everywhere present, as^[10] is the way with this most depraved man, who, in his impiety, refuses to ascribe to the Omnipotent God even equal power with men?^[11]

Footnotes

1. Matt. xxiii. 25; Luke xi. 39.
2. Luke xi. 42.
3. Matt. xxiii. 6; Mark xii. 38; Luke xx. 46.
4. The Codex Casinensis gives a strangely corrupt reading here: “primos discipulos subitos in cœnis, quod scientes Dominus.” It is restored thus: “primos discubitus in cœnis, quos sciens Dominus,” etc.
5. 1 Cor. ix. 9.
6. Dividitur.
7. Reading majus for the inept malus of the Codex Casinensis.
8. Routh refers us here to Maximus, De Natura, § 2. See Reliquiæ Sacræ, ii. 89–91.
9. The text is “multo inferior virtutis humanæ,” which is probably a Græcism.
10. Reading ceu for the eu of the Codex Casinensis.
11. The Codex Casinensis gives “nec quæ vellem quidem,” for which “nec æqualem quidem,” etc., is suggested, as in the translation.