Grateful Night, Loves 😊

I Pray All Is Well With Everyone…And Your Hearts And Minds Are Full Of Love, Joy, And Compassion…For Yourselves And Everyone Else…All Over The World. And If There Ever Comes A Time When We Are Present In A Place Where There Is A Lack Of Love For Any Of God’s Children – Without Forcing It – Let Us Be That Presence Of Love…In The Void! Let Us Call First To The Spirit Of The Living God On The Inside Of Us – Our “Mighty I AM Presence”…To Express And Radiate Our Divine Love And Light; Then To The Angels Of The Sacred Fire…Wherever Or Whenever It Is Required. And That Should Be A Continuous Call On Each And Everyone’s Part…Cuz The Utmost Necessity In the World At This Time…And In The Hearts And Minds Of Mankind…Is An Influx Of Genuine Love And Divine Protection! Amen…

Give Thanks And Praises For Love And Life…

And Y’all Be Love…

“Now, with the view of branding the apostles with some mark of ignorance, they put forth the case of Peter and them that were with him having been rebuked by Paul. “Something, therefore,” they say, “was wanting in them.” This they allege, in order that they may from this construct that other position of theirs, that a fuller knowledge may possibly have afterwards come over the apostles, such as fell to the share of Paul, when he rebuked those who preceded him.

…The fact is, having been converted from a persecutor to a preacher, he is introduced as one of the brethren to brethren, by brethren – to them indeed, by men who had put on faith from the apostles’ hands. As he himself narrates, he “went up to Jerusalem for the purpose of seeing Peter,” because of his office, no doubt, and by right of a common belief and preaching.

…They accordingly even gave him “the right hand of fellowship” as a sign of their agreement with him, and arranged amongst themselves a distribution of office, not a diversity of gospel, so that they should severally preach not a different gospel, but the same, to different persons, Peter to the circumcision, Paul to the Gentiles.

…It does not appear from this, that any other God than the Creator, or any other Christ than the son of Mary, or any other hope than the resurrection, was, by him, announced.

…Never mind those who pass sentence on apostles! It is a happy fact that Peter is on the same level with Paul in the very glory of martyrdom.

Now, although Paul was carried away even to the third heaven, and was caught up to paradise, and heard certain revelations there, yet these cannot possibly seem to have qualified him for teaching another doctrine, seeing that their very nature was such as to render them communicable to no human being. If, however, that unspeakable mystery did leak out, and become known to any man, and if any heresy affirms that it does itself follow the same, then either Paul must be charged with having betrayed the secret, or some other man must actually be shown to have been afterwards, “caught up into paradise,” who had permission to speak out plainly what Paul was not allowed even to mutter.

But here is, as we have said, the same madness in their allowing indeed that the apostles were ignorant of nothing, and preached not any doctrines which contradicted one another, but at the same time insisting that they did not reveal all to all men, for that they proclaimed some openly and to all the world, whilst they disclosed others only in secret and to a few, because Paul addressed even this expression to Timothy: “O Timothy, guard that which is entrusted to thee;” and again: “That good thing which was committed unto thee keep.”

What is this deposit? Is it so secret as to be supposed to characterize a new doctrine? Or is it a part of that charge of which he says, “This charge I commit unto thee son Timothy?” And also, of that precept of which he says, “I charge thee in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Jesus Christ who witnessed a good confession under Pontius Pilate, that thou keep this commandment?” Now, what is this commandment, and what is this charge?

From the preceding and the succeeding contexts, it will be manifest that there is no mysterious hint darkly suggested in this expression about some far-fetched doctrine, but that a warning is rather given against receiving any other doctrine than that which Timothy had heard from himself, as I take it publicly: “Before many witnesses”, is his phrase.

Now, if they refuse to allow that the church is meant by these “many witnesses,” it matters nothing, since nothing could have been secret which was produced “before many witnesses.” Nor, again, must the circumstance of his having wished him to “commit these things to faithful men, who should be able to teach others also”, be construed into a proof of there being some occult gospel.

For when he says, “these things,” he refers to the things of which he is writing at the moment. In reference, however, to occult subjects, he would have called them, as being absent, those things, not these things, to one who had a joint knowledge of them with himself.

Besides which, it must have followed that, for the man to whom he committed the ministration of the gospel, he would add the injunction that it be not ministered in all places, and without respect to persons, in accordance with the Lord’s saying, “Not to cast one’s pearls before swine, nor that which is holy unto dogs.” Openly did the Lord speak without any intimation of a hidden mystery. He had Himself commanded that, “whatsoever they had heard in darkness and in secret”, they should “declare in the light and on the house-tops.”

He had Himself foreshown, by means of a parable, that they should not keep back in secret, fruitless of interest, a single pound, that is, one word of His. He used Himself to tell them that a candle was not usually “pushed away under a bushel, but placed on a candlestick,” in order to “give light to all who are in the house.” These things the apostles either neglected, or failed to understand, if they fulfilled them not, by concealing any portion of the light, that is, of the word of God and the mystery of Christ.

…Although, even supposing that among intimate friends, so to speak, they did hold certain discussions, yet it is incredible that these could have been such as to bring in some other rule of faith, differing from and contrary to that which they were proclaiming through the Catholic churches – as if they spoke of one God in the Church, and another at home, and described one substance of Christ publicly, and another secretly, and announced one hope of the resurrection before all men, and another before the few; although they themselves, in their epistles, besought men that they would all speak one and the same thing, and that there should be no divisions and dissensions in the church, seeing that they, whether Paul or others preached the same things.

Moreover, they remembered the words: “Let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil;” so that they were not to handle the gospel in a diversity of treatment.”

ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, VOLUME 3: The Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325