Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XVI/Chapter 8

by Anonymous

Chapter VIII.—Simon and Peter Continue the Discussion.

And Simon said:  “My original stipulation with you was that I should prove from the Scriptures that you were wrong in maintaining that we ought not to speak of many gods.”  Accordingly I adduced many written passages to show that the divine Scriptures themselves speak of many gods.”  And Peter said:  “Those very Scriptures which speak of many gods, also exhorted us, saying, ‘The names of other gods shall not ascend upon thy lips.’^[1]  Thus, Simon, I did not speak contrary to what was written.”  And Simon said:  “Do you, Peter, listen to what I have to say.  You seem to me to sin in speaking against them,^[2] when the Scripture says,^[3] ‘Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the rulers of thy people.’”  And Peter said:  “I am not sinning, Simon, in pointing out their destruction according to the Scriptures; for thus it is written:^[4]  ‘Let the gods who did not make the heavens and the earth perish.’  And He said thus, not as though some had made the heavens and were not to perish, as you interpreted the passage.  For it is plainly declared that He who made them is one in the very first part of Scripture:^[5]  ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And it did not say, ‘the gods.’  And somewhere else it says,^[6] ‘And the firmament showeth His handiwork.’  And in another place it is written,^[7] ‘The heavens themselves shall perish, but Thou shalt remain for ever.’”

Footnotes

1. Josh. xxiii. 7, LXX.
2. Namely, the gods.
3. Ex. xxii. 28.  The mss. omit θεούς, though they insert it in the passage as quoted a little before this.  One ms. reads “the ruler” with our version.
4. Jer. x. 11.
5. Gen. i. 1.
6. Ps. xix. 1.
7. Ps. cii. 26, 27.