A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

116 A Source Book for Ancient Church Historyas we have already said, they show by the passover and theunleavened bread that they are for our sake, but in regard to thelaw which is tainted with unrighteousness, they call it the law ofcommandments and ordinances, that is done away; but as to thelaw which is untainted with evil, he says that the law is holy andthe commandment holy and just and good.[101]Accordingly, I think that it has been sufficiently shown you,so far as it is possible to discuss the matter briefly, that there arelaws of men which have slipped in, and there is the very Law ofGod which is divided into three parts. There remains, therefore,for us to show, who, then, is that God who gave the Law. But Ithink that this has been shown you in what has already been said,if you have listened attentively. For if the Law was not givenby the perfect God, as we have shown, nor by the devil, whichidea merely to mention is unlawful, there is another beside these,one who gave the Law. This one is, therefore, the Demiurgeand maker of this whole world and of all things in it, differentfrom the nature of the other two, and placed between them, andwho therefore rightly bears the name of the Midst. And if theperfect God is good according to His own nature, as also Heis (for that there is only One who is good, namely, God andHis Father, the Saviour asserted, the God whom He manifested),there is also one who is of the nature of the adversary, bad andwicked and characterized by unrighteousness. Standing, therefore,between these, and being neither good nor bad nor unjust,he can be called righteous in a sense proper to him, as the judgeof the righteousness that corresponds to him, and that god willbe lower than the perfect God, and his righteousness lower thanHis, because he is begotten and not unbegotten. For there isone unbegotten One, the Father, from whom are all things, forall things have been prepared by Him. But He is greater andsuperior to the adversary, and is of a different essence or naturefrom the essence of the other. For the essence of the adversary is