Prophetic Extracts

Contents

1. 1.1The three young men in the furnace call on the heavens and the angels to bless the Lord.
2. 1.2Scripture counts the heavens and the waters among the pure powers, as Genesis also shows.
3. 1.3Since “power” has many senses, the song calls on every power, then the sun and moon, to bless the Lord.
4. 1.4The song calls on the stars and all who worship God to bless him.
5. 1.5A note that these words are in Daniel.
6. 2.1The song's God who looks on the depths agrees with Enoch's vision of all matter.
7. 2.2The abyss is boundless in itself but limited by
8. 2.3God's power; the “depths” are the material substances from which all kinds of things arise.
9. 3.1Heaven and earth in Gen 1:1 mean heavenly and earthly things.
10. 3.2Hosea's “the land will commit prostitution” shows that “earth” can mean people.
11. 3.3“Earth” there means earthly-minded people.
12. 4.1Hosea's prophecy that Judah and Israel will appoint “one head” shows that the Son is the Beginning.
13. 4.2Believers choose the Son as their head; the Lord who saves Judah is the Savior, the Son, who is the Beginning.
14. 5.1Through Hosea the Spirit calls himself our instructor and calls for the trumpet.
15. 5.2Baptism, the sign of regeneration, is an escape from the rushing stream of matter through Christ's teaching.
16. 5.3The Lord leads us out of disorder into shadowless light.
17. 6.1Two prophets divided the sea and the river of matter by God's power.
18. 6.2They were pure leaders through whose signs the righteous passed through matter and out of it.
19. 6.3One of them, Joshua, bore the name of Jesus.
20. 7.1Rebirth is by water and spirit, as was the first creation.
21. 7.2The Savior was baptized, though he needed no cleansing, to sanctify all water for those reborn, so that body and soul are cleansed.
22. 7.3Baptism sanctifies the invisible soul too, as the driving out of unclean spirits shows.
23. 8.1Since baptism by water and Spirit protects against a twofold fire, there must be both intelligible and sensible water.
24. 8.2Earthly water washes the body; heavenly water, the Holy Spirit, cleanses the invisible soul.
25. 9.1God mixes fear with his goodness for our benefit, like a physician or a father.
26. 9.2Scripture approves the rod; the Lord and apostles lived in fear and toil.
27. 9.3A believer's illness may be God's correction for past sin, protection from future sin, or a permitted attack for his good or as an example to others.
28. 10.1Those in frail bodies, like sailors in an old ship, pray constantly.
29. 11.1The elders were distressed when they did not suffer bodily, fearing that unpunished sins would be punished all at once hereafter.
30. 11.2Fear not bodily illness but sin, the sickness of the soul, since the body is grass and outward goods pass away.
31. 12.1We already have a pledge of eternal goods and hope for the rest; the beatitudes are our provisions for the journey.
32. 12.2Seek God's kingdom and all else will be added.
33. 12.3Christ limits both our busyness and our anxiety: worry adds nothing to our life.
34. 12.4God knows what we need; he wants us emptied of worldly cares and filled with care for him.
35. 12.5We groan to be clothed with incorruption.
36. 12.6As faith enters, unbelief leaves; so the soul must not only be emptied,
37. 12.7but filled with God; an emptied soul is neither good nor evil, which is nothing.
38. 12.8An emptied soul left empty invites the unclean spirit back,
39. 12.9with seven others; so the soul emptied of evil must be filled with God, and then the seal of baptism guards it for God.
40. 13.1The two or three witnesses are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who witness and help us keep the commandments.
41. 14.1Food does not make us righteous; fasting symbolizes dying to the world so as to live to God on divine food.
42. 14.2Fasting empties the soul of matter and makes body and soul ready for God's word.
43. 14.3Worldly food is the old life of sin; divine food is faith, hope, patience, knowledge, peace,
44. 14.4and self-control; blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, a hunger of the soul.
45. 15.1When the apostles could not cast out a demon, Christ showed that prayer is stronger than faith,
46. 15.2saying such cases need prayer. The believer is forgiven by the Lord; the one who has attained knowledge no longer sins and so forgives himself the rest.
47. 16.1God works through human beings in teaching as in healings and prophecies.
48. 16.2God sends prophets and apostles as saviors of people.
49. 16.3God is all-powerful, yet he chooses to beget and teach us through human beings.
50. 17.1Against the preexistence of souls: we did not exist before God made us, or we would remember it.
51. 17.2God, who made us from nothing, saves us by grace if we are fit; otherwise he lets us go to our end.
52. 18.1God's power creates, gives growth, saves each believer suitably, and governs seasons and elements.
53. 18.2The one God measures the beginning and end of all things.
54. 19.1One who advances from faith and fear to knowledge calls God “Our Father,” not as a slave.
55. 19.2Freed from the spirit of slavery and adopted through love, he keeps the commandments out of love and cries “Abba, Father.”
56. 20.1The Lord bought us with his blood from the old masters, our sins, through which evil powers ruled us.
57. 20.2He leads us to the Father's freedom as sons, heirs, and friends.
58. 20.3Those who do the Father's will are Christ's brothers; call no one on earth father, for the true Father is in heaven.
59. 20.4Love rules the willing, fear the unwilling; but the fear that instructs leads to Christ and saves.
60. 21.1No thought of God is worthy of him, but we may think of him as unapproachable light, all-good, compassionate, impassible, and all-knowing.
61. 22.1The soul moves itself, so God's grace asks for its willingness as its contribution to salvation.
62. 22.2To have is to receive; to receive, one must desire; to keep it, one must practice.
63. 22.3God gave the soul free choice: he shows the good, and the soul chooses and keeps it.
64. 23.1As Christ spoke and healed through his body, he did so through the prophets, and now through the apostles and teachers;
65. 23.2the church serves Christ's work, as the humanity he assumed served the Father's will.
66. 23.3God always clothes himself in human beings to save humanity, once in the prophets, now in the church.
67. 24.1Caesar stands for the temporary ruler of this world, whose image is the old, earthy man.
68. 24.2We render to Caesar the earthy image we bore, and to God what is God's; each passion is like a stamp on us.
69. 24.3Now the Lord stamps us with faith and other virtues, so that we bear the heavenly image.
70. 25.1John's baptism “with Spirit and fire” was not literal fire, though Heracleon reports that some branded the ears of the baptized; the winnowing image explains it.
71. 25.2As wind separates wheat from chaff, the Spirit separates the soul from what is material.
72. 25.3The seeds of life are gathered like wheat; the material perishes when separated; the Spirit separates and the fire consumes.
73. 25.4The Spirit corresponds to the bodiless soul, fire to what is material; this fire is not evil but a good power that cleanses, which is why the prophets call it wise.
74. 26.1When God is called a consuming fire,
75. 26.2it signifies his power, not evil: as fire is the strongest element, God is almighty over all.
76. 26.3Fire has two powers, life-giving like the sun and destructive like earthly fire.
77. 26.4God as consuming fire means a strong, irresistible power that can destroy.
78. 26.5Christ's fire cleanses the holy; the heretics say it destroys the material, but Clement says it disciplines.
79. 27.1The earlier elders did not write, so as not to divert their care for teaching the tradition.
80. 27.2They thought composing and teaching different gifts and left writing to others.
81. 27.3Speech flows quickly; writing is tested by readers and preserves teaching for later generations.
82. 27.4The elders' deposit speaks through the writer for the readers' salvation.
83. 27.5Like a magnet drawing only iron, books draw only readers who can understand them.
84. 27.6The word of truth is folly or offense to many, but wisdom and power to a few.
85. 27.7The mature Christian is not jealous of knowledge; out of love he may even share it with an unworthy but persistent inquirer.
86. 28.1As the sea and earth serve different people differently, so Scripture helps readers in different ways.
87. 28.2The spiritual athlete trains in the teaching and defeats the opponents of true knowledge.
88. 28.3Knowledge is needed for the soul's training and character; as there is no faith without instruction, there is no understanding without knowledge.
89. 29.1Knowledge of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the soul is necessary for salvation.
90. 29.2Those who teach others need broad learning.
91. 29.3Studying heretical teaching trains the inquiring mind and protects the learner from being deceived.
92. 30.1The life of the true knower is free of every evil deed, word, and thought, as Crete is free of dangerous beasts.
93. 31.1The mature Christian is blessed not for long life but for a good life worthy of eternal life; he has grieved no one
94. 31.2except to correct the wounded by the word, sweet and stinging like honey.
95. 31.3With all passion cut away, he lives by the best part of the soul, freed for adoption as God's son.
96. 32.1Pythagoras honored the first name-giver as the wisest of men.
97. 32.2Scripture must be searched carefully, since the Holy Spirit has impressed his meaning on its words, so that hidden senses can be uncovered.
98. 32.3Knowledge brings out the brightness of things like white lead from black, the divine wisdom that enlightens the pure.
99. 33.1Kindled by that light and striving to become like it, we become true Israelites of light.
100. 33.2Christ calls friends and brothers those who seek to become like God.
101. 34.1Holy places receive visions and voices, but the purified person is worthy of all divine teaching and power.
102. 35.1The mysteries of knowledge are mocked by the many, but the few, first dazzled, grow used to them and rejoice.
103. 35.2As pleasure is release from pain, knowledge is the removal of ignorance.
104. 35.3The most ignorant think they know most, as the soundest sleepers think they are awake.
105. 35.4Blessed are those who wake from this sleep to the light and truth.
106. 36.1Whoever would have an obedient disciple must combine faith with desire, training and testing the truth of doctrines for himself;
107. 36.2only when prepared should he engage others' questions, as fledglings first exercise in the nest.
108. 37.1The virtue of the mature Christian is gentle, blessed, contemplative and practical, making him a divine image through love.
109. 37.2The beautiful, contemplated above by wisdom, is practiced here through self-control and righteousness, as angelic service in the body.
110. 38.1Against Tatian, who read “Let there be light” as the Creator praying to a higher God: the Creator says there is no other God.
111. 39.1An elder taught that there are punishments for evil words, and that women who adorn their hair for immorality are punished by the power set over hair, which gave Samson his strength.
112. 40.1God's judgment is good: it separates believers from unbelievers, prevents worse judgment, and disciplines.
113. 41.1Scripture says exposed infants are given to a guardian angel to be raised, and will be like the long-faithful.
114. 41.2The Apocalypse of Peter says fire leaps from those infants to strike the eyes of the women who exposed them,
115. 41.3since the righteous will shine like sparks through stubble and judge nations.
116. 42.1“With the holy you will be holy” means God is glorified through our knowledge of him.
117. 43.1“A people I did not know served me” means the Gentiles, not known through the covenant.
118. 43.2“Foreign sons” are those who follow what belongs to another.
119. 44.1All believers are called kings, called to the kingdom by knowledge and inheritance.
120. 45.1Patience is sweet for its fruit; the self-controlled struggle with passion, but when virtue becomes settled one is united with the Holy Spirit beyond mere self-control.
121. 46.1Passions are called “spirits” by their tendency, not their substance.
122. 46.2The soul that takes on various vices is said to take on spirits.
123. 47.1Christ commands not giving up possessions but managing them without attachment; and God's providence extends beyond those living in the flesh.
124. 48.1The Apocalypse of Peter says aborted infants are given to a guardian angel, to receive knowledge and a better dwelling.
125. 48.2Others will receive salvation alone, pitied as wronged, without punishment.
126. 49.1The Apocalypse of Peter says that the congealed milk of mothers who killed their children breeds beasts that devour them, teaching that punishments arise from sins.
127. 49.2Punishments are born from sins, as Israel was bitten by snakes for unbelief.
128. 50.1An elder taught that the unborn is a living being: an angel of birth brings the soul into the womb at conception.
129. 50.2When angels announce births to barren women they introduce the souls in advance; John leaped in the womb as a living being.
130. 50.3Barrenness occurs when no soul is introduced to make the seed conceive.
131. 51.1“The heavens” in Ps 19 has several senses, including the first-created angels through whom the covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were given.
132. 51.2The first-created angels, moved by the Lord, declared God's covenants through the angels near the prophets.
133. 52.1The “heavens” are properly the Lord, then the highest angels, then the patriarchs, Moses, the prophets, and the apostles.
134. 52.2The firmament is God himself, unchangeable, as Ps 18 calls the Lord his firmament.
135. 52.3The firmament reveals the angels God made; “day to day pours forth speech” is read like “heavens,” in many senses.
136. 53.1The “speech” is the Lord, who is also called “day.”
137. 53.2“Night to night proclaims knowledge”: the devil knew the Lord would come but not whether Jesus was he, so he tempted him and waited until the resurrection.
138. 53.3The demons suspected Solomon was the Lord until he sinned.
139. 53.4After the resurrection all the demons knew Jesus was the Lord; Enoch says the fallen angels taught astronomy and divination.
140. 54.1The voices of the heavens are heard through all the earth.
141. 54.2The psalm refers to the saints, called heavens and days.
142. 55.1The stars, governed by angels, do not cause events but signify past, present, and future.
143. 55.2The stars signify but do not cause.
144. 56.1“In the sun he set his tent” should be read after the verses about the bridegroom's coming, as referring to the second coming.
145. 56.2Hermogenes said Christ laid aside his body in the sun; Clement's teacher Pantaenus taught that prophecy often uses one tense for another, as here.
146. 56.3“He set” refers to the future: at the end Christ will come to the faithful, who form one body with many members,
147. 56.4and they will be set in the sun, shining like the sun, since a ruling angel is in the sun;
148. 56.5the sun rules the day, as the moon the night.
149. 56.6The saved will be ranked with the sun's angels and in time rule the days, as each angel advances to a higher office, rising to the first abode.
150. 56.7In the past sense, God set the highest angels in rest and contemplation, and the others advance in rank.
151. 57.1The first-created angels are the “thrones,” because God rests in them, as he does in believers.
152. 57.2God rests on each one's knowledge of him, and knowledge makes the knower eternal.
153. 57.3Perhaps “in the sun” (ἡλίῳ) conceals the Hebrew El, “God,” as in Christ's cry “Eli, Eli.”
154. 57.4Those far above every power are the perfected, raised into the nature of the highest angels.
155. 57.5Those who become angels are taught for a thousand years, then teach others, rising by periods to higher rank.
156. 58.1The law that converts souls is Christ, called “law and word” in the Preaching of Peter and in Isaiah.
157. 59.1The Lord's testimony makes the simple wise: the apostles and us.
158. 59.2Christ's own testimony, his suffering and resurrection, confirmed the church's faith.
159. 60.1Those turned by fear to faith and righteousness endure forever.
160. 60.2God's judgments are firm and just, restoring the righteous to the unity of faith.
161. 60.3“Justified together” means that unity; such things are more desirable than gold.
162. 61.1“Your servant” means every saved person, God's servant by obedience.
163. 62.1Hidden faults are thoughts contrary to right reason, alien to the righteous.
164. 63.1The psalm is read as: unless persecuted like the Lord, one cannot be proved blameless; no one becomes a martyr without persecution.
165. 64.1“Save the king” means the people anointed for the kingdom, as the plural “hear us” shows.
166. 65.1“Coming up into the heart” means the good purpose wins out.