that it keeps my gold . . . and only consumes the evil I have done?"
Minucius Felix, Octavius, (viii.) 35. 3: "There a wise fire burns the members and refreshes them, consumes and nourishes."
Testament of Isaac (Coptic, p. 41, Guidi): "The river of fire did not hurt the righteous, but the sinners, since the fire was knowing them."
Id. Arabic (Barnes, ap. Test, of Abraham, p. 147): "And the river (of fire) had intelligence in the fire thereof, that it should not hurt the righteous, but the sinners only, burning them." The Test, of Jacob (ibid.): "The river of fire which is prepared to separate the transgressors from the polluted (?)."
The Apocalypse of Peter had the conception of a river of fire which at the last day all souls were to pass, and which should spare the righteous and burn the sinners. But I am inclined to think that it must have appeared in a Jewish apocalypse before that, with the definite description "intelligent fire."
Pæd. III. xii. 89: "Good works," saith he, "are a prayer acceptable to the Lord." Cf. Prov. xv. 8. It is not unlike the quotation from the Apocalypse of Adam in Barnabas (p. 1). Here also it occurs in conjunction with passages from Isa. i.
Stromateis, II. vi. 28, 29. After quoting Isa. liv. i, he continues with words which are not in our texts of the Hebrew or LXX: "Thou livedst in the enclosure of the people, thy children were blessed in the tabernacles of the fathers. . . ." And he adds more plainly: "Thou didst inherit the covenant of Israel." This hardly ranks as apocryphal.
Str. III. xviii. 106: "Makers of war, strikers with their tails, according to the prophet."
Str. VII. xii. 74: "The voice that says: 'Whomsoever I smite, do thou pity.'"
Excerpt. ex Theodoto, 10. In this and other sections there is mention of the first-created angels (seven in number, as we learn from Hermas and from the Stromateis). They are higher than the archangels (12,
