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Chapter V.—Jesus Inconsistent in His Teaching.
“‘In saying this, Jesus is consistent not even with himself. For sometimes by other utterances, taken from the Scriptures, he presents God as being terrible and just, saying, 1323 “Fear not him who killeth the body, but can do nothing to the soul; but fear Him who is able to cast both body and soul into the Gehenna of fire. Yea, I say unto you, fear Him.” But that he asserted that He is really to be feared as being a just God, to whom he says those who receive injustice cry, is shown in a parable of which he gives the interpretation, saying: 1324 “If, then, the unjust judge did so, because he was continually entreated, how much more will the Father avenge those who cry to Him day and night? Or do you think that, because He bears long with them, He will not do it? Yea, I say to you, He will do it, and that speedily.” Now he who speaks of God as an avenging and rewarding God, presents Him as naturally just, and not as good. Moreover he gives thanks to the Lord of heaven and earth. 1325 But if He is Lord of heaven and earth, He is acknowledged to be the framer of the world, and if framer, then He is just. When, therefore, he sometimes calls Him good and sometimes just, he is not consistent with himself in this point. 1326 But his wise disciple maintained yesterday a third point, that real sight 1327 is more satisfactory than vision, not knowing that real sight can be human, but that vision confessedly proceeds from divinity.
[Comp. xviii. 1, etc.; also Recognitions, iii. 37, 38.—R.]
319:1327The mss. read ἐνέργειαν, “activity.” Clericus amended it into ἐνάργειαν, which means, vision or sight in plain open day with one’s own eyes, in opposition to the other word οπτασία, vision in sleep, or ecstasy, or some similar unusual state.