Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily IV/Chapter 20

by Anonymous

Chapter XX.—False Theories of Philosophers.

“And some of those amongst them who even profess to be philosophers, assert that such sins are indifferent, and say that those who are indignant at such practices are senseless.^[1]  For they say that such things are not sins by nature, but have been proscribed by laws made by wise men in early times, through their knowing that men, through the instability of their minds, being greatly agitated on these accounts, wage war with one another; for which reason, wise men have made laws to proscribe such things as sins.  But this is a ridiculous supposition.  For how can they be other than sins, which are the cause of tumults, and murders, and every confusion?  For do not shortcomings of life^[2] and many more evils proceed from adultery?

Footnotes

1. [Compare the argument against the philosophers, as put in the mouth of the Apostle, in Recognitions, x. 48–50.—R.]
2. The Vatican ms. inserts here, “upturning of houses, magic practices, deceptions, perplexities.”