Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XVII/Chapter 5

Chapter V.&#8212;Jesus Inconsistent in His Teaching.

&#8220;&#8216;In saying this, Jesus is consistent not even with himself.&#160; For sometimes by other utterances, taken from the Scriptures, he presents God as being terrible and just, saying, &#8220;Fear not him who killeth the body, but can do nothing to the soul; but fear Him who is able to cast both body and soul into the Gehenna of fire.&#160; Yea, I say unto you, fear Him.&#8221;&#160; But that he asserted that He is really to be feared as being a just God, to whom he says those who receive injustice cry, is shown in a parable of which he gives the interpretation, saying: &#160; &#8220;If, then, the unjust judge did so, because he was continually entreated, how much more will the Father avenge those who cry to Him day and night?&#160; Or do you think that, because He bears long with them, He will not do it?&#160; Yea, I say to you, He will do it, and that speedily.&#8221;&#160; Now he who speaks of God as an avenging and rewarding God, presents Him as naturally just, and not as good.&#160; Moreover he gives thanks to the Lord of heaven and earth. &#160; But if He is Lord of heaven and earth, He is acknowledged to be the framer of the world, and if framer, then He is just.&#160; When, therefore, he sometimes calls Him good and sometimes just, he is not consistent with himself in this point. &#160; But his wise disciple maintained yesterday a third point, that real sight is more satisfactory than vision, not knowing that real sight can be human, but that vision confessedly proceeds from divinity.