Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Confessions/Book XII/Chapter 14

by Philip Schaff et al.

Chapter XIV.—Of the Depth of the Sacred Scripture, and Its Enemies.

17. Wonderful is the depth of Thy oracles, whose surface is before us, inviting the little ones; and yet wonderful is the depth, O my God, wonderful is the depth.^[1] It is awe to look into it; and awe of honour, and a tremor of love. The enemies thereof I hate vehemently.^[2] Oh, if Thou wouldest slay them with Thy two-edged sword,^[3] that they be not its enemies! For thus do I love, that they should be slain unto themselves that they may live unto Thee. But behold others not reprovers, but praisers of the book of Genesis,—“The Spirit of God,” say they, “Who by His servant Moses wrote these things, willed not that these words should be thus understood. He willed not that it should be understood as Thou sayest, but as we say.” Unto whom, O God of us all, Thyself being Judge, do I thus answer.

Footnotes

1. See p. 112, note 2, and p. 178, note 2, above. See also Trench, Hulsean Lectures (1845), lect. 6, “The Inexhaustibility of Scripture.”
2. Ps. cxxxix. 21.
3. Ps. cxlix. 6. He refers to the Manichæans (see p. 71, note l). In his comment on this place, he interprets the “two-edged sword” to mean the Old and New Testament, called two-edged, he says, because it speaks of things temporal and eternal.