Ethiopic Sinodos

Ethiopic Sinodos — Horner 1904 English translation of the Statutes — sourcepage 265

2l8 STATUTES OF THE APOSTLES Do not those created things which have no soul keep the commandment which was given to them, day and night, sun and moon and stars and winds and changes of moons and weeks and hours and days ? and they perform 5 the work which was ordained to them : as it was spoken at the beginning. And he said : He gave them command- ment and they do not transgp-ess. And concerning the sea he said : I have placed for it an ordinance, and I have placed against it a bar and a gate, and I said : Thus far lo come, and thou shalt not pass beyond. How much more ought ye not to be moved at all in that which is ordained to you according to the will of God. And there are some who make this as nothing, and confuse ordina- tions, and (yet) offices which have been assigned to each IS shall not be confused, and ye shall not seize for your own selves an ordination which was not given to you, and ye shall not pass beyond by force to possess that which is not yours, but belongs to others, over which ye have no authority. «> Because of this (offence) ye provoke God like the children of Kore and king 'Ozyan who grasped the priestly work without the will of God : the former indeed were burnt with fire, and of the latter his face was changed by leprosy. For they provoked God, Jesus 35 Christ, who commanded that it should be thus, and they caused to be pained the heart of the Holy Spirit, and they rejected his testimony, and despised him, and they fear not his judgpnent which is prepared for them who do this thing, and the carelessness which they commit with regard 30 to the Oblation, and the bread of the Blessing, whenever they are offered by those who are not worthy, who