Book V - Snyder Bible

310
therefore, because you order me, not by way of teaching you,
but of making public what foolish opinions the Gentiles entertain
of the false elohim.
Chapter XVI: Would that All Elohims People Were Prophets
But when I was about to speak, Niceta, biting his lip, beckoned
to me to be silent. And when Kefa saw him, he said: Why
would you repress his liberal disposition and noble nature,
that you would have him be silent for my honor, which is
nothing? Or do you not know, that if all nations, after they
have heard from me the preaching of the truth, and have believed,
would betake themselves to teaching, they would gain
the greater glory for me, if indeed you think me desirous of
glory? For what so glorious as to prepare talmidim for Moshiach,
not who shall be silent, and shall be saved alone, but
who shall speak what they have learned, and shall do good to
others? I wish indeed that both you, Niceta, and you, beloved
Aquila, would aid me in preaching the word of Elohim, and the
rather because those things in which the Gentiles err are well
known to you; and not you only, but all who hear me, I wish,
as I have said, so to hear and to learn, that they may be able
also to teach: for the world needs many helpers, by whom men
may be recalled from error. When he had spoken thus, he
said to me: Go on then, Clement, with what you have begun.
Chapter XVII: Gentile Cosmogony
And I immediately rejoined: Seeing that when you were
disputing at Tripolis, as I said, you discoursed much concerning
the Elohim of the Gentiles profitably and convincingly, I
desire to set forth in your presence the ridiculous legends
concerning their origin, both that you may not be unacquainted
with the falsehood of this vain superstition, and that
the hearers who are present may know the disgraceful character
of their error. The wise men, then, who are among the Gentiles,
say that first of all things was chaos, and that this,
through a long time solidifying its outer parts, made bounds to
itself and a sort of foundation being gathered, as it were, into