{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/008/0080223.htm","path":"chr/ecf/008/0080223.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/008/0080223.htm","text":"Chapter XXIII.\u2014Origin of Evil.\nThen said Peter: \u201cI shall speak, not as under compulsion from you, but at the request of the hearers. The power of choice is the sense of the soul, possessing a quality by which it can be inclined towards what acts it wills.\u201d Then Simon, applauding Peter for what he had spoken, said: \u201cTruly you have expounded it magnificently and incomparably, for it is my duty to bear testimony to your speaking well. Now if you will explain to me this which I now ask you, in all things else I shall submit to you. What I wish to learn, then, is this: if what God wishes to be, is; and what He does not wish to be, is not. Answer me this.\u201d Then Peter: \u201cIf you do not know that you are asking an absurd and incompetent question, I shall pardon you and explain; but if you are aware that you are asking inconsequently, you do not well.\u201d Then Simon said: \u201cI swear by the Supreme Divinity, whatsoever that may be, which judges and punishes those who sin, that I know not what I have said inconsequently, or what absurdity there is in my words, that is, in those that I have just uttered.\u201d","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VIII: Pseudo-Clementine Literature.: Chapter XXIII","type":"page"}