III. That to Make Constitutions About the Offices to Be Performed in the Churches is of Great Consequence.
We have now finished the first part of this discourse concerning gifts, whatever they be, which God has bestowed upon men according to His own will; and how He rebuked the ways of those who either attempted to speak lies, or were moved by the spirit of the adversary; and that God often employed the wicked1 for prophecy and the performance of wonders. But now our discourse hastens as to the principal part, that is, the constitution of ecclesiastical affairs, that so, when ye have learned this constitution from us, ye who are ordained bishops by us at the command of Christ, may perform all things according to the commands delivered you, knowing that he that heareth us heareth Christ, and he that heareth Christ heareth His God and Father,2 to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
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We have adopted the reading of one V. ms., apecharesato. It means more than is in the text--that God used the wicked in a way in which they would not be naturally used; lit., "abused," or "misused." The other mss. and the Coptic read apecharisato, "gave His gifts to the wicked for prophecy." Whiston has tried to make sense by giving a new meaning to apecharisato, "taking away His grace from the wicked." ↩
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Luke x. 16. ↩
