Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XI/Chapter 22

Chapter XXII.&#8212;&#8220;The Gods that Have Not Made the Heavens.&#8221;

&#8220;For are not they graven with iron?&#160; And has not the graying iron been softened by fire?&#160; And is not the fire itself extinguished with water?&#160; And has not the water its motion from the spirit?&#160; And has not the spirit the beginning of its course from the God who hath made all things?&#160; For thus said the prophet Moses:&#160; &#8216;In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.&#160; And the earth was unsightly, and unadorned; and darkness was over the deep:&#160; and the Spirit of God was borne above the waters.&#8217;&#160; Which Spirit, at the bidding of God, as it were His hand, makes all things, dividing light from darkness, and after the invisible heaven spreading out the visible, that the places above might be inhabited by the angels of light, and those below by man, and all the creatures that were made for his use.