It is scarcely necessary to add that the author of the Homilies has no idea whatever of any canonical writings but those of the Old Testament, though even with regard to these some of our quotations have shown that he held peculiar views, and believed that they contained spurious elements. There is no reference in the
Homilies to any of the Epistles of the New Testament.(1)
One of the most striking points in this work, on the other hand, is its determined animosity against the Apostle Paul. We have seen that a strong anti-Pauline tendency was exhibited by many of the Fathers, who, like the author of the Homilies, made use of Judeo-Christian Gospels different from ours. In this work, however, the antagonism against the "Apostle of the Gentiles" assumes a tone of peculiar virulence. There cannot be a doubt that the Apostle Paul is attacked in it, as the great enemy of the true faith, under the hated name of Simon the Magician,(2) whom Peter follows everywhere for the purpose of unmasking and confuting him. He is robbed of his title of "Apostle of the Gentiles," which, together with the honour of founding the Church of Antioch, of Laodicaæ, and of Rome, is ascribed to Peter. All that opposition to Paul which is implied in the Epistle to the Galatians and elsewhere(3) is here realized and exaggerated, and
the personal difference with Peter to which Paul refers(1) is widened into the most bitter animosity. In the Epistle of Peter to James which is prefixed to the Homilies, Peter says, in allusion to Paul: "For some among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful preaching and accepted certain lawless and foolish teaching of the hostile man."(2) First expounding a doctrine of duality, as heaven and earth, day and night, life and death,(3) Peter asserts that in nature the greater things come first, but amongst men the opposite is the case, and the first is worse and the second better.(4) He then says to Clement that it is easy according to this order to discern to what class Simon (Paul) belongs, "who came before me to the Gentiles, and to which I belong who have come after him, and have followed him as light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as health upon disease."(5) He continues: "If he had been known he would not have been believed, but now, not being known, he is wrongly believed; and though by his acts he is a hater, he has been loved; and although an enemy, he has been welcomed as a friend; and though he is death, he has been desired as a saviour; and though fire, esteemed as light; and though a deceiver, he is listened to as speaking the truth."(6) There is much more of this acrimonious abuse put into the mouth of Peter.(7) The indications that it is Paul who is really attacked under the name of Simon are much too clear to admit of doubt. In Hom. xi. 35, Peter, warning the Church against false