Anf-03 v.iv.v.xxiii Pg 23
Ex. ii. 15–21.
Christ therefore shares this kindness with the Creator. As indeed for Marcion’s god, who is an enemy to marriage, how can he possibly seem to be a lover of little children, which are simply the issue of marriage? He who hates the seed must needs also detest the fruit. Yea, he ought to be deemed more ruthless than the king of Egypt.4396 4396 See a like comparison in book i. chap. xxix. p. 294.
For whereas Pharaoh forbade infants to be brought up, he will not allow them even to be born, depriving them of their ten months’ existence in the womb. And how much more credible it is, that kindness to little children should be attributed to Him who blessed matrimony for the procreation of mankind, and in such benediction included also the promise of connubial fruit itself, the first of which is that of infancy!4397 4397 Qui de infantia primus est: i.e., cujus qui de infantia, etc. [Elucidation VIII.]
The Creator, at the request of Elias, inflicts the blow4398 4398 Repræsentat plagam.
of fire from heaven in the case of that false prophet (of Baalzebub).4399 4399
Anf-03 iv.ix.iii Pg 3
See Gen. xii.–xv. compared with xvii. and Rom. iv.
nor yet did he observe the Sabbath. For he had “accepted”1163 1163
Anf-03 vi.vii.xiv Pg 4
Job. See Job i. and ii.
—whom neither the driving away of his cattle nor those riches of his in sheep, nor the sweeping away of his children in one swoop of ruin, nor, finally, the agony of his own body in (one universal) wound, estranged from the patience and the faith which he had plighted to the Lord; whom the devil smote with all his might in vain. For by all his pains he was not drawn away from his reverence for God; but he has been set up as an example and testimony to us, for the thorough accomplishment of patience as well in spirit as in flesh, as well in mind as in body; in order that we succumb neither to damages of our worldly goods, nor to losses of those who are dearest, nor even to bodily afflictions. What a bier9171 9171 “Feretrum”—for carrying trophies in a triumph, the bodies of the dead, and their effigies, etc.
for the devil did God erect in the person of that hero! What a banner did He rear over the enemy of His glory, when, at every bitter message, that man uttered nothing out of his mouth but thanks to God, while he denounced his wife, now quite wearied with ills, and urging him to resort to crooked remedies! How did God smile,9172 9172
Anf-02 ii.ii.i Pg 14.1
Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge, Chapter 2
VERSE (18) - Ex 3:1; 4:18; 18:1-12
