{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/103/1030701.htm","path":"chr/ecf/103/1030701.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/103/1030701.htm","text":"12. \u201cBut,\u201d thou wilt say, \u201cwe more easily penetrate their concealment if we pretend to be ourselves what they are.\u201d If this were lawful or expedient, Christ might have instructed his sheep that they should come clad in wolves\u2019 clothing to the wolves, and by the cheat of this artifice discover them: which He hath not said, no, not when He foretold that He would send them forth in the midst of wolves. 2396 But thou wilt say: \u201cThey needed not at that time to have inquisition made for them, being most manifest wolves; but their bite and savageness were to be endured.\u201d What, when foretelling later times, He said that ravening wolves would come in sheep\u2019s clothing? Was there not room there to give this advice and say, And do ye, that ye may find them out, assume wolves\u2019 clothing, but within be ye sheep still? Not this saith He: but when he had said, \u201cMany will come to you in sheep\u2019s clothing, but within are ravening wolves;\u201d 2397 He went on to say, not, By your lies, but, \u201cBy their fruits ye shall know them.\u201d By truth must we beware of, by truth must we take, by truth must we kill, lies. Be it far from us, that the blasphemies of the ignorant we by wittingly blaspheming should overcome: far from us, that the evils of deceitful men we by imitating should guard against. For how shall we guard against them if in order to guard against them we shall have them? For if in order that he may be caught who blasphemes unwittingly, I shall blaspheme wittingly, worse is the thing I do than that which I catch. If in order that he may be found who denies Christ unwittingly, I shall deny Him wittingly, to his undoing will he follow me whom I shall so find, since in order that I may find him out, I first am undone.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III: Moral Treatises...","type":"page"}