The Present and Future Worlds are Enemies to Each Other. - ANF09. The Gospel of Peter, The Diatessaron of Tatian, The Apocalypse of Peter, the Vision of Paul, The Apocalypse of the Virgin and Sedrach, The Testament of Abraham, The Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena, The Narrative of Zosimus, The Apology of Aristides, The Epistles of Clement (complete text), Origen’s Commentary on John, Books 1–10, and Commentary on Matthew, Books 1, 2, and 10

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The Present and Future Worlds are Enemies to Each Other.
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Chapter VI.—The Present and Future Worlds are Enemies to Each Other.

Now the Lord declares, “No servant can serve two masters.”⁴³⁶⁰

⁴³⁶⁰ Matt. vi. 24; Luke xvi. 13.
If we desire, then, to serve both God and mammon, it will be unprofitable for us. “For what will it profit if a man gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”⁴³⁶¹

⁴³⁶¹ Matt. xvi. 26. I. omits ὅλον (whole).
This world and the next are two enemies. The one urges⁴³⁶²

⁴³⁶² Literally, “speaks of.”
to adultery and corruption, avarice and deceit; the other bids farewell to these things. We cannot, therefore, be the friends of both; and it behoves us, by renouncing the one, to make sure⁴³⁶³

⁴³⁶³ Or, “enjoy. ”
of the other. Let us reckon⁴³⁶⁴

⁴³⁶⁴ The ms. has, “we reckon.”
that it is better to hate the things present, since they are trifling, and transient, and corruptible; and to love those [which are to come,] as being good and incorruptible. For if we do the will of Christ, we shall find rest; otherwise, nothing shall deliver us from eternal punishment, if we disobey His commandments. For thus also saith the Scripture in Ezekiel, “If Noah, Job, and Daniel should rise up, they should not deliver their children in captivity.”⁴³⁶⁵

⁴³⁶⁵ Ezek. xiv. 14; 20.
Now, if men so eminently righteous are not able by their righteousness to deliver their children, how⁴³⁶⁶

⁴³⁶⁶ Literally, “with what confidence shall we.”
can we hope to enter into the royal residence⁴³⁶⁷

⁴³⁶⁷ Wake translates “kingdom,” as if the reading had been βασιλείαν ; but the ms. has βασίλειον, “palace.”
of God unless we keep our baptism holy and undefiled? Or who shall be our advocate, unless we be found possessed of works of holiness and righteousness?
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