Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily II/Chapter 51

by Anonymous

Chapter LI.—Weigh in the Balance.

Then Peter said:  “If, therefore, some of the Scriptures are true and some false, with good reason said our Master, ‘Be ye good money-changers,’^[1] inasmuch as in the Scriptures there are some true sayings and some spurious.  And to those who err by reason of the false scriptures He fitly showed the cause of their error, saying, ‘Ye do therefore err, not knowing the true things of the Scriptures;^[2] for this reason ye are ignorant also of the power of God.’”  Then said I:  “You have spoken very excellently.”

Footnotes

1. This is quoted three times in the Homilies as a saying of our Lord, viz., here and in Homily III. chap. 50, and Homily XVIII. chap. 20.  It is probably taken from one of the apocryphal Gospels.  In Homily XVIII. chap. 20 the meaning is shown to be, that as it is the part of a money-changer to distinguish spurious coins from genuine, so it is part of a Christian to distinguish false statements from true.
2. A corruption of the texts, Matt. xxii. 29; Mark xii. 24.