cated the same thing when he said, "The fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge the floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable."[1] By this declaration He set forth the faculty of Horos. For that fan they explain to be the cross (Stauros), which consumes, no doubt, all material[2] objects, as fire does chaff, but it purifies all them that are saved, as a fan does wheat. Moreover, they affirm that the Apostle Paul himself made mention of this cross in the following words: "The doctrine of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us who are saved it is the power of God."[3] And again: "God forbid that I should glory in anything[4] save in the cross of Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world."
6. Such, then, is the account which they all give of their Pleroma, and of the formation[5] of the universe, striving, as they do, to adapt the good words of revelation to their own wicked inventions. And it is not only from the writings of the evangelists and the apostles that they endeavour to derive proofs for their opinions by means of perverse interpretations and deceitful expositions: they deal in the same way with the law and the prophets, which contain many parables and allegories that can frequently be drawn into various senses, according to the kind of exegesis to which they are subjected. And others[6] of them, with great craftiness, adapting such parts of Scripture to their own figments, lead away captive from the truth those who do not retain a stedfast faith in one God, the Father Almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
- ↑ Luke iii. 17.
- ↑ Hence Stauros was called by the agricultural name Carpistes, as separating what was gross and material from the spiritual and heavenly.
- ↑ 1 Cor. i. 18.
- ↑ Gal. vi. 14. The words ἐν μηδενὶ do not occur in the Greek text.
- ↑ Bilhus renders, "of their opinion."
- ↑ The punctuation and rendering are here slightly doubtful.
