Apodeixis, Antichristianismi

Peter, in a way not at all dissimilar, sets before our eyes the destruction of the ancient world (as he calls it himself) and the restoration of the new through Noah and his family, as a matter to be remembered and meditated upon in all ages (2 Epist. chap. 2, verse 5). And a little later, he most appropriately transfers the liberation of the just Lot from the Sodomite fire to his own purpose. And finally, the whole passage which is recited in Moses in Numbers about that hypocrite and false prophet Balaam, he twists—briefly, indeed, but most appositely—to refute and check the blasphemies full of impiety of profane men, which Jude also followed in his Epistle. Why is it necessary to touch upon the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which consists entirely of narratives of pious antiquity and contains a cloud of witnesses (to use the Apostle's words), and proposes them to all the pious for imitation? From these, it sufficiently appears how diligent and attentive the Apostles were as readers and observers, and at the same time how circumspect and religious in translating and accommodating them to the occasions of their own times. And that their successors, who are deservedly called Apostolic, imitated both this diligence and the prudent religion of such great men, we learn from the reading of Ecclesiastical histories and learned antiquity. It will be enough for me to note one or two places at present, lest I be long-winded. One is that of Basil, whom they not without reason call the Great, in his first epistle to Gregory the Theologian: The greatest, he says,