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-01 viii.iv.lix Pg 3
Ex. ii. 23.
and so on until, ‘Go and gather the elders of Israel, and thou shalt say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to me, saying, I am surely beholding you, and the things which have befallen you in Egypt.’ ”2163 2163
Anf-02 vi.iv.ix Pg 126.1
Anf-02 vi.iv.ix Pg 126.1
Anf-03 vi.vii.xv Pg 6
i.e., as Rigaltius (referred to by Oehler), explains, after the two visions of angels who appeared to him and said, “Arise and eat.” See 1 Kings xix. 4–13. [It was the fourth, but our author having mentioned two, inadvertently calls it the third, referring to the “still small voice,” in which Elijah saw His manifestation.]
For where God is, there too is His foster-child, namely Patience. When God’s Spirit descends, then Patience accompanies Him indivisibly. If we do not give admission to her together with the Spirit, will (He) always tarry with us? Nay, I know not whether He would remain any longer. Without His companion and handmaid, He must of necessity be straitened in every place and at every time. Whatever blow His enemy may inflict He will be unable to endure alone, being without the instrumental means of enduring.
