said to His disciples: "Go ye to the sheep of the house of Israel,[1] which have perished." And many more Samaritans, it is said, when the Lord had tarried among them two days, "believed because of His words, and said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we ourselves have heard [Him], and know that this man is truly the Saviour of the world."[2] And Paul likewise declares, "And so all Israel shall be saved;"[3] but he has also said, that the law was our pedagogue [to bring us] to Christ Jesus.[4] Let them not therefore ascribe to the law the unbelief of certain [among them]. For the law never hindered them from believing in the Son of God; nay, but it even exhorted them[5] so to do, saying[6] that men can be saved in no other way from the old wound of the serpent than by believing in Him who, in the likeness of sinful flesh, is lifted up from the earth upon the tree of martyrdom, and draws all things to Himself,[7] and vivifies the dead.
Chap. iii.—Answer to the cavils of the Gnostics. We are not to suppose that the true God can be changed, or come to an end, because the heavens, which are His throne, and the earth, His footstool, shall pass away.
1. Again, as to their malignantly asserting that if heaven is indeed the throne of God, and earth His footstool, and if it is declared that the heaven and earth shall pass away, then when these pass away the God who sitteth above must also pass away, and therefore He cannot be the God who is over all; in the first place, they are ignorant what the expression means, that heaven is [His] throne and earth [His] footstool. For they do not know what God is, but they imagine that He sits after the fashion of a man, and is contained within bounds, but does not contain. And they are also unacquainted
