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It is one and the same God Whom both the Old and the New Testament
proclaim, Who is praised and glorified in the Trinity: I am come,
saith the Lord, not to destroy life law but to fulfil it. For He
Himself worked out our salvation for which all Scripture and all
mystery exists. And again, Search the Scriptures for they are they
that testify of Me. And the Apostle says, God, Who at sundry
times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets, hath in these last days
spoken unto us by His Son. Through the Holy Spirit, therefore,
both the law and the prophets, the evangelists and apostles and pastors
and teachers, spake.
All Scripture, then, is given by inspiration of God and is also
assuredly profitable. Wherefore to search the Scriptures is a work
most fair and most profitable for souls. For just as the tree planted
by the channels of waters, so also the soul watered by the divine
Scripture is enriched and gives fruit in its season, viz. orthodox
belief, and is adorned with evergreen leafage, I mean, actions
pleasing to God. For through the Holy Scriptures we are trained to
action that is pleasing to God, and untroubled contemplation. For in
these we find both exhortation to every virtue and dissuasion from every
vice. If, therefore, we are lovers of learning, we shall also be
learned in many things. For by care and toil and the grace of God the
Giver, all things are accomplished. For every one that asketh
receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to hint that knocketh it
shall be opened. Wherefore let us knock at that very fair garden of
the Scriptures, so fragrant and sweet and blooming, with its varied
sounds of spiritual and divinely-inspired birds ringing all round our
ears, laying hold of our hearts, comforting the mourner, pacifying
the angry and filling him with joy everlasting: which sets our mind on
the gold-gleaming, brilliant back of the divine dove, whose bright
pinions bear up to the only-begotten Son and Heir of the Husbandman
of that spiritual Vineyard and bring us through Him to the Father of
Lights. But let us not knock carelessly but rather zealously and
constantly: lest knocking we grow weary. For thus it will be opened
to us. If we read once or twice and do not understand what we read,
let us not grow weary, but let us persist, let us talk much, let us
enquire. For ask thy Father, he saith, and He will shew thee: thy
elders and they will tell thee. For there is not in every man that
knowledge. Let us draw of the fountain of the garden perennial and
purest waters springing into life eternal. Here let us luxuriate, let
us revel insatiate: for the Scriptures possess inexhaustible grace.
But if we are able to pluck anything profitable from outside sources,
there is nothing to forbid that. Let us become tried money-dealers,
heaping up the true and pure gold and discarding the spurious. Let us
keep the fairest sayings but let us throw to the dogs absurd gods and
strange myths: for we might prevail most mightily against them through
themselves.
Observe, further, that there are two and twenty books of the Old
Testament, one for each letter of the Hebrew tongue. For there are
twenty-two letters of which five are double, and so they come to be
twenty-seven. For the letters Caph, Mere, Nun, Pe, Sade are
double. And thus the number of the books in this way is twenty-two,
but is found to be twenty-seven because of the double character of
five. For Ruth is joined on to Judges, and the Hebrews count them
one book: the first and second books of Kings are counted one: and so
are the third and fourth books of Kings: and also the first and second
of Paraleipomena: and the first and second of Esdra. In this way,
then, the books are collected together in four Pentateuchs and two
others remain over, to form thus the canonical books. Five of them
are of the Law, viz. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy. This which is the code of the Law, constitutes the
first Pentateuch. Then comes another Pentateuch, the so-called
Grapheia, or as they are called by some, the Hagiographa, which are
the following: Jesus the Son of Nave, Judges along with Ruth,
first and second Kings, which are one book, third and fourth Kings,
which are one book, and the two books of the Paraleipomena which are
one book. This is the second Pentateuch. The third Pentateuch is
the books in verse, viz. Job, Psalms, Proverbs of Solomon,
Ecclesiastes of Solomon and the Song of Songs of Solomon. The
fourth Pentateuch is the Prophetical books, viz the twelve prophets
constituting one book, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. Then
come the two books of Esdra made into one, and Esther. There are
also the Panaretus, that is the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom
of Jesus, which was published in Hebrew by the father of Sirach,
and afterwards translated into Greek by his grandson, Jesus, the
Son of Sirach. These are virtuous and noble, but are not counted
nor were they placed in the ark.
The New Testament contains four gospels, that according to
Matthew, that according to Mark, that according to Luke, that
according to John: the Acts of the Holy Apostles by Luke the
Evangelist: seven catholic epistles, viz. one of James, two of
Peter, three of John, one of Jude: fourteen letters of the
Apostle Paul: the Revelation of John the Evangelist: the Canons
of the holy apostles, by Clement.
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