Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily III/Chapter 41

Chapter XLI.&#8212;&#8220;Status Qu&#230;stionis.&#8221;

Then said Simon:&#160; &#8220;You are manifestly avoiding the hearing of the charge from the Scriptures against your God.&#8221;&#160; Then Peter:&#160; &#8220;You yourself appear to me to be doing this; for he who avoids the order of inquiry, does not wish a true investigation to be made.&#160; Hence I, who proceed in an orderly manner, and wish that the writer should first be considered, am manifestly desirous to walk in a straight path.&#8221;&#160; Then Simon:&#160; &#8220;First confess that if the things written against the Creator are true, he is not above all, since, according to the Scriptures, he is subject to all evil; then afterwards we shall inquire as to the writer.&#8221;&#160; Then said Peter:&#160; &#8220;That I may not seem to speak against your want of order through unwillingness to enter upon the investigation, I answer you.&#160; I say that if the things written against God are true, they do not show that God is wicked.&#8221;&#160; Then said Simon:&#160; &#8220;How can you maintain that?&#8221;