Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XVIII/Chapter 20

Chapter XX.&#8212;Some Parts of the Old Testament Written to Try Us.

&#8220;But one might with good reason maintain that it was with reference to those who thought Him to be such that the statement was made, &#8216;No one knoweth the Father but the Son, as no one knoweth even the Son, but the Father.&#8217;&#160; And reasonably.&#160; For if they had known, they would not have sinned, by trusting to the books written against God, really for the purpose of trying.&#160; But somewhere also He says, wishing to exhibit the cause of their error more distinctly to them, &#8216;On this account ye do err, not knowing the true things of the Scriptures, on which account ye are ignorant also of the power of God.&#8217; &#160; Wherefore every man who wishes to be saved must become, as the Teacher said, a judge of the books written to try us.&#160; For thus He spake:&#160; &#8216;Become experienced bankers.&#8217;&#160; Now the need of bankers arises from the circumstance that the spurious is mixed up with the genuine.&#8221;