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Translated by Frederick Crombie.
128 Pages
Page 86
Further, do not those admirable principles which He lays down respecting oaths, saying that we ought not to "swear either by heaven, because it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, because it is His footstool," [2102] harmonize most clearly with the words of the prophet, "Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool?" [2103] And also when casting out of the temple those who sold sheep, and oxen, and doves, and pouring out the tables of the money-changers, and saying, "Take these things, hence, and do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise," [2104] He undoubtedly called Him His Father, to whose name Solomon had raised a magnificent temple. The words, moreover, "Have you not read what was spoken by God to Moses: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; He is not a God of the dead, but of the living," [2105] most clearly teach us, that He called the God of the patriarchs (because they were holy, and were alive) the God of the living, the same, viz., who had said in the prophets, "I am God, and besides Me there is no God." [2106] For if the Saviour, knowing that He who is written in the law is the God of Abraham, and that it is the same who says, "I am God, and besides Me there is no God, acknowledges that very one to be His Father who is ignorant of the existence of any other God above Himself, as the heretics suppose, He absurdly declares Him to be His Father who does not know of a greater God. But if it is not from ignorance, but from deceit, that He says there is no other God than Himself, then it is a much greater absurdity to confess that His Father is guilty of falsehood. From all which this conclusion is arrived at, that He knows of no other Father than God, the Founder and Creator of all things.
[2102] Matt. v. 34, 35.
[2103] Isa. lxvi. 1.
[2104] John ii. 16.
[2105] Matt. xxii. 31, 32; cf. Ex. iii. 6.
[2106] Isa. xlv. 6.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/principia.asp?pg=86