Discourse on the Creation of the World

ZACHARIAS SCHOLASTICUS THE CHRISTIAN, AFTERWARDS BISHOP OF MITYLENE, DISPUTATION ON THE OPIFICE OF THE WORLD, against the philosophers

That the world is not coeternal with God, but is His handiwork; it exists having an initiation in time, and it will be dissolved when it seems good to the Creator to transform it. And from this the argument concerning the goodness of God receives no injury; from which it is gathered that there is not a God, but the handiwork of God.

(Translated by Gilbert Genebrard, Parisian theologian.)

ARGUMENT OF THE DISPUTATION

^{A B} [( )] ZACHARIAS. In the acts of the fifth synod according to Agapetus, the third metropolite of Mitylene is named, Act 1. TARIN. Scholasticus is no other from the beginning than one belonging to a school. Scholastic characters, on the cleverness of Demosthenes, 46. And fellow-competitors and fellow-students, fellow-disciples. Seneca, Preface, book III: "Scholastics, observing who I was, who had such thick necks." By which name also Cicero was mocked, when first home from Greece; Plutarch. There indeed scholastics, Arrian, book 1, Dissert. c. 11, 39. Scholastic and cloistered letters, Plin. ep. 9, 2, 3. Isaeus, that rushing rhetorician, Juven. S. 3, 74, had exceeded his sixtieth year, and yet he was a scholastic; Plin. lib. 11, epist. 3, 5. Scholastics Socrates, Evagrius, Severus; and innumerable other most famous men. Musaeus of Marseilles, a scholastic in language to Gennadius. To the same, Salvianus wrote in a scholastic and open style. A scholastic is skilled in ecclesiastical matters, an assessor, an advocate; finally, most learned in the Scriptures. Whence also the name of the ecclesiastical office, but born in a later age; but here for Zacharias, not of honor, but of eloquence, on account of the exquisite elegance of Platonic furnishings, in which he is wholly resplendent. TAR. This Disputation of Zacharias of Mitylene had indeed been published in Latin only in the three previous editions of the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, by the kindness of the most learned and

most famous Parisian theologian and royal professor Gilbert Genebrard, the translator; but since auxiliary materials were being sought from every side to bring it into the public domain in both languages, an apograph of the manuscript was sent from England, into which learned men had collected various readings and conjectures, by which the authority and credibility of the royal codices might be confirmed and supported by the patronage of every kind of witness. But since the slow progress of grander editions of this kind is well known, another more diligent one preceded this one of ours; and the most learned man, Jean Tarin of Angers, took care to publish the *Philocalia* of Origen, along with the *Disputation* of Zacharias from the royal books, with his own translation, and he also added his own notes. Therefore, since we thought the older interpretation should be compared with the French and English codices; ^B which, as having been worked out by his dearest friend and colleague Margarinus Bigot, it is reasonable to suppose he would willingly have embraced over all others; and since the reason for those things which have been changed or added by us must be rendered in these notes. As regards the name and authority of this ecclesiastical writer, since he is not only called a Christian scholasticus in the title, but also bishop of Mitylene, this simultaneously points a finger to the time when we may suspect him to have flourished, since in the Constantinopolitan synod held under Patriarch Mennas, in the first action, there are found, after the legates of the apostolic Roman see, Petrus of Justinianopolis, metropolis of the second province of Cappadocia, and Zacharias, metropolitan of the Mitylenians (Harduin, Vol. II, p. 188). Furthermore, that synod was convened at Constantinople from the neighboring bishops, or those who were staying in that city at that time, in the days of the Emperor Justinian, that is, in the year of Christ 534, if we follow Onuphrius Panvinius, or 536, if we follow Cardinal Baronius. But this synod was not the fifth, as is erroneously asserted by some, nor was it oecumenical, but particular, as Cardinal Bellarmine rightly warns in his book *De Conciliis*, c. 5. Moreover, it preceded the fifth oecumenical one, the date of which is relegated to the year of Christ 555 by the common consensus of chronologists, and it convened under the same emperor, Justinian, and Pope Vigilius. There is also another indication of the time, which the very series of the disputation supplies to us. For thus says Zacharias on page 83 concerning his adversary with whom he is arguing, Ammonius: "Coming from the philosopher, or rather from the non-philosopher and the unwise." In which place, by that philosopher he understands—as was written in the margin of the Genebrard and English codices—Proclus Lycius, an outstanding mathematician and philosopher, against whom Philoponus wrote on this very subject, namely the eternity of the world (*Bibl. Gr.*, Vol. X, p. 644). But Proclus flourished under the Emperor Anastasius, to whom Justin succeeded, and Justinian to Justin. But the royal book transferred the name of Proclus from the margin into the text, which the Tarin edition followed. Furthermore, Zacharias is called a Christian Scholasticus; that by this term an advocate and patron of causes in the forum is designated, is clear from Zonaras in his Commentary on canon 10 of the Synod of Sardica, p. 374: "Even if *scholasticus*, that is, one who is devoted to the study of words," although he is a *scholasticus*, that is, one bestowing labor on the study of speaking; and in can. 96 [108, p. 486] of Carthage: "To appoint *scholastici* as defenders of suits." Augustine on John, c. 1, tract. 7, 11: "Those who have a case and wish to petition the emperor, seek some *scholasticus* skilled in the law, by whom their petitions may be composed." But by this name were primarily designated rhetoricians, as Cornelius Tacitus notes in his book *De Oratoribus*, c. 15, and declaimers of fictitious cases. Then from fictitious suits it passed to ^C true ones: Pliny, lib. 11, epist. 3: "He is still merely a *scholasticus*; than which kind of men nothing is either simpler or more sincere." This is also confirmed by Jacques Cujas, citing the laws of the Theodosian code and writing on Novella 70. A *scholasticus* has also been called any eloquent man, even if he were not pleading fictitious cases, like a declaimer, nor real ones, like an advocate; and such is he called by Walafrid Strabo in *De rebus ecclesiasticis*, c. 25, as is rightly observed by the Reverend Father Heribert Rosweyde, a theologian of our order, in his *Onomasticon* to the *Vitas Patrum*, p. 1040. Thus Serapion, according to Jerome in *De viris illustribus*, c. 99: "Serapion earned the surname of *scholasticus* because of his elegance of wit." Paschasius, book of the *Lives of the Fathers*, c. 19, no. 3: "This Eulogius was a *scholasticus*, learned in secular letters." Palladius, c. 26 *Hist. Laus.*, c. 27: [Gk text omitted] "This Eulogius was a *scholasticus* from the cyclic disciplines, who, struck by divine love." As therefore philosophers were called among the gentiles and Greeks those who were trained in philosophical disciplines, so *scholastici* were those learned in the faculties of oratory and studies of the more refined letters. For which reason, just as the *Embassy* of Athenagoras is entitled 'Athenagorou Athenaiou philosophou Christianou Presbeia peri Christianon', *The Embassy of Athenagoras the Athenian, Christian philosopher, for the Christians*; so the *Disputation* of Zacharias, 'Zachariou scholastikou Christianou tou genomenou meta tauta episkopou Mitylenes ho dialogos', *Disputation of Zacharias the Christian scholasticus, who afterward became bishop of Mitylene*. In a later age, those were also called *scholastici* among the canons who were in charge of the cathedral schools and took care of the education of the youth, as may be seen in the historical records of the Alemanni. And in cathedral churches even today the name is an ecclesiastical dignity. Ducange—SCHOLASTICUS. Exercising eloquence in the schools of rhetoricians according to Roman customs, from whence, as if from shadow into light, they emerged into the forum, as patrons of causes, by which patronage access to the highest honors was constant; and eloquence embraced all political learning. The examples are obvious, and they taught not a little of the learned dissertations on Petronius, Quintilian, Cicero, and Seneca as a title of Christian doctrine, so that he who labored daily to become more learned, and yet did not seem to excel himself, would be called a *scholasticus*, still avoiding the forum and wholly devoted to salutary doctrine, which he finally established in the Church to be taught and defended. Thus, where elegant speech packs the cultivation of the mind, you will see writers or dictators described as *scholastici*. For *scholastic* doctrine is accessory to the salutary. Regarding human erudition, Blessed Paulinus to S. Severus, epist. 9, p. 115: "If he has not published the causes of the yawning history, who is rich in both *scholastic* and salutary letters in Greek as well as Latin, I fear lest we seek in vain anywhere else in these regions." Gennadius, c. 45 of the *Catalog* concerning Julian of Capua, afterward a heretic: "Julian, bishop of Capua, a man keen in wit, learned in divine Scriptures, and a *scholasticus* in the Greek and Latin tongue; therefore, before he revealed the impiety of Pelagius in himself, he was famous among the teachers of the Church." The same concerning Musaeus of Marseille, cap. 79: "Musaeus, presbyter of the Church of Marseille, a man learned in divine Scriptures, and smoothed by most subtle exercise in their meanings, also a *scholasticus* in language." And concerning Prosper, cap. 84: "Prosper, a man of the region of Aquitaine, a *scholasticus* in sermon, and vigorous in his assertions." Blessed Jerome recognizes this title of elegance of wit bestowed upon him, *Catal.* cap. 99: "Serapion, bishop of the city of Thmuis in Egypt, who for the elegance of his wit earned the surname of *scholasticus*." *Scholasticus*, a good, wise man, in constant studies, Leontius Sphæra Ara-

- ^A brought these to Zacharias the scholasticus and requested that he commit the refutations and responses to writing. (For this man had already long before, at Alexandria, held many discussions concerning these matters with Ammonius the philosopher and Gesius the iatrosophist.) The persons of this colloquy or Dialogue are these: Zacharias is indicated by the letter A. The disciple who provided the material and the subject matter for the Dialogue is represented by the letter B. The remainder is [the part] of Ammonius, and then of Gesius the iatrosophist. But when they all engage one another and argue, Zacharias designates the person of the Christian. At the end of the course of the dispute, the first persons converse, and they are defined by the aforementioned symbols. The entire arrangement is Platonic, as far as the phraseology and the style of the meadows from which they are plucked are concerned.

A. What news has occurred, most dear companion, that you ^B brought these—for he happened to be at Alexandria, having held many discussions concerning these matters with Ammonius and Gesius the iatrosophist—and asked that these be committed to writing? The persons, then, of the discourse are these: the one holding the alpha designated before it is Zacharias. That holding the beta is he who had given the subject matter to the dialogue. And finally, that of Ammonius, then that of Gesius the iatrosophist; in the discourses with them, however, the person of Zacharias is inscribed as "Christian"; and at the end of the discourse, the first persons converse again, those indicated by the aforementioned elements. Moreover, the entire structure is Platonic, as far as the diction and the meadows from which they are taken are concerned.

A. What news has happened, my dear friend, that you—regarding the office in the church canon that others dream of, it is a mere dream. For it is not an ancient thing, nor do Isidore nor Amalarius Fortunatus remember it in their Ecclesiastical Offices (not to mention the Greeks). Ba. *Christian*. Wherefore it would be childish to suspect here the name of a dignity or an ecclesiastical office. For who does not see that by this mark he is separated from the other artists of shadowy declamations, the scholastici? Tar. AMMONIUS. Ammonius, who plays the person of the celebrated philosopher, is in our opinion Ammonius Hermeas, who wrote the Life of Porphyry. For the times stand entirely against the other, Saccas, since our Zacharias cites Basil and Gregory, introducing his Ammonius as present, whereas that Saccas flourished under Verus the prince. But our man did not live far from Porphyry, as the whole writing indicates, imitating Aeneas of Gaza, as I suppose, who took this Dialogue as a model for writing his own *Theophrastus*. For I am scarcely persuaded to think that this Zacharias is the one of the fifth synod celebrated under Justinian. An error of the librarians is easy. For the sound of the letters is almost the same, Aeneas Gazæus and Zacharias, so that it is not necessary to make them one of the two. More in book cxxvi, cap. 2. Ba. *Concerning the Workmanship of the World*, that he might show it to have been made and that it is perishable. Many professors teach the opposite: Timaeus Locrus, Ocellus Lucanus, and he who is inscribed as Philo; and especially, a little before, Proclus. Against the philosophers who were swelling with the persuasion of their teaching and leading many astray from the truth. When the Christians openly refuted these with the testimonies of truth, they denied the principles, exploded the history, and cast away the witnesses. Therefore, the athletes of God attacked them with their own weapons, confounded them with arguments, and proposed them to be ridiculed with witty sayings, as was their custom—as you see in the writings especially of Julian the Apostate, and the epistles of Libanius to Basil, etc., who are nevertheless showered with equal vinegar by Nazianzen, Basil, and other initiates. In the same way, this whole Dialogue teems with ironies, as does the *Theophrastus* of Aeneas, with inflated men brought forward in their own folly, yet to a good end, that they might be converted and truly come to their senses. Ba.

[In text] ...for I happened to be working on such a sphere for Elpidius the scholasticus, a man of note and at the same time a lover of learning. Thus Isidore of Pelusium writes to many scholastici, with an honorific title such that it even befits presbyters; as in book v, ep. 205: "To Olympius the presbyter and scholasticus." And in the fifth book he writes to many who are both scholastici and presbyters at once, and in one person, though perhaps not at the same time, to bishops. But the scholasticus of great secular eminence also exists; as Synesius addresses Domitian, ep. 155 and 156, as a patron to be opposed to the powerful adversaries of his relative, if not altogether bearing the title of judge or distinguished magistrate. Hence *scholasticus*, a title of severity, to which any levity is opposed, as a mime in Lactantius, lib. vij, cap. 12: "Which opinion of a madman, since it was ridiculous and more worthy of a mime than a scholasticus, ought not even to have been refuted seriously." For so the written codices have it in that place. Properly, sometimes *scholastici* are also disputants of forensic matters; whence [it is applied to] students of the subject [in] B. Hilary, lib. 1 *De Trinitate*: "When those who are about to do military service have played well at wars, they are drawn into military service; or when the scholarly ones have tempted the subject matter of legal disputes, then they are sent to the battles of the tribunals." *Generation of the learned* above the common crowd, to whom "rustics" are opposed; and *to rusticate*, one who uses speech that is not scholastic. Arnulf the hermit in the epistles of Peter the Venerable, lib. vi, ep. 51: "One thing which I had conceived in my mind I could not compress, and, though oppressed, I expressed it with a rude, rustic style." Cogitosus, *Life of Bridget*, Canis. Lectt. t. 1, p. 416: "Not that the memory and mediocrity and rustic speech of my little wit could fulfill the duty of so great a task." Engelhardus in the *Life of Mechtildis*, Canis. Lect. Antiqq. [margin D] ...grediar to write for the blessed woman. *Rural speech* is opposed to *scholastic* in Dynamius the Patrician. *Most scholastic*, most clear in the study of speech and arts, Fortunatus, a prudent man and most scholastic, to Abbot Hilduin to Louis the Pious. Sidonius, most scholastic of all the bishops, to Wipert, or Sigebert of Gembloux in the *History of Jerusalem*. The Christian authors indeed wished to call themselves philosophers by this title, for the sake of modesty, indicating that they were perpetual disciples, even if they devoted all their labor to doctrine; a name far alien to the *scholastici* of the pagans, whose youth was devoted under that [title] to all manner of profligacy, circumscribing their teachers also with the faction entered into for the price of training, as you see in Augustine in the fifth book of the *Confessions*. It is evident, therefore, from this who our Zacharias was by the inscription of *Scholasticus*. For...

^A having left behind the stays in Egypt and the Nile, and the great city of the Macedonian, do you now reside here?

B. The study and love of laws, my friend, have led me to the mother of laws. ^B And behold, having left behind Aristotle, my delights, and those of the self-taught...

On the term *Paidika* (Delights)

^C They cite you before Socrates and Plato, having brought also your delights, divine Aristotle. — *Paidika*. Eupolis has spoken of women as lovers of men, and Aristophanes of men as lovers of men; you might speak of a boy as a beloved, and of a girl as a beloved, being loved, [and] being loved. *Paidikoi logoi*. *Paidika*: the word is used for both female and male beloveds. *Paidika*, erotic things and the beloveds themselves; [used] for intercourse with women. And concerning... what sort of passions it is the nature of to draw toward and to attach themselves to the soul and to produce dreams, just as it is necessary for the lover to seem to be with the beloveds. Just as he seems to be a lover, to be with the beloveds; *paidia*. Cf.: *Paidion* (small child), among the Attics, a little girl. And *paidiskarion* (a young slave/girl). Some take *paidika* for good love, others for shameful love. May fair *paidika* never be seen in word or truth. *Paidika*: Periander, while drinking, asked the beloved if she was pregnant by him. A man of Argyll was once his *paidika* and to him most faithful. Living in adultery without fear, madly excited about their *paidika*. For in that they had been the *paidika* of Tiberius, and that he lived following this lewdness. They had been his *paidika*, and he died in Egypt. *Paidikon*: *Paidika*... philosophy is the common *paidika*. ^D

^A ministers of initiations, ^B while sojourning in Phoenicia, if anywhere 16 I might be able to learn how the legislators of the Romans think. For I desire also to learn the justice of the law 17.

A. You do well, friend. For you seem to me sufficiently initiated into the orgies of philosophy, and not to be someone unrefined or, in your soul, uninitiated in such holiness or such teachings 18, and moreover you wish also to be a statesman 9.

B. You speak well.

A. But tell me, my good sir 20, how fares the interpreter of the opinions of Plato and Aristotle; who has left Athens, and has come from Proclus 21, or rather from one who is unphilosophical and unwise 22; and now, swelling with pride, acts the wise man among ^C us, ^D (21) Proclus... [This man] was the master of Ammonius, who [as is found in Suidas in the entry for Dionysius the Areopagite, Vol. 1, p. 1014 Gaisf.], [was] a Lycian, a disciple of Syrianus and Plutarch the Nestorian, [and] a fellow disciple of the Lord. He posited eighteen arguments against the Christians [maintaining] that the world is unbegotten and incorruptible, to which John Philoponus wrote a response. [alt-version omitted]

^A of Alexandria, promising quite prolixly to make others wise as well, as many as come to him for the sake of learning and lend him their ears.

B. You seem to be inquiring about Ammonius, blessed man; for with such words you are accustomed to mock the man.

A. It is even so. Tell me, then, how his school fares, and the assembly of his listeners, and whether any young men, upright and honorable and unsullied in soul, still frequent him today. For fear possesses me, agonizing ^B me, lest he fill the young with his own prattle. For the man is clever at corrupting the souls of the young, drawing them away from God and the truth.

B. How so, tell me?

A. Do you not know—for you have associated with the man and have participated sufficiently in his company—how he opines concerning heaven and God? How he elevates heaven to the same dignity as God? He affirms that it was indeed created, but only by way of cause, [yet] that it is co-eternal with the Maker, and that this universe can never perish.

B. I both understand and [you speak] what is true; and I would gladly ask you if this is not the case. For his reasoning seems to me persuasive and not inelegantly constructed.

A. Do you wish, then, my friend, that I should recount to you my own meeting with him that took place last year? And that you should learn what words were exchanged between him and me?

B. Speak, indeed; for I would gladly hear it.

A. But lest anyone come and interrupt our discourse, come, let me take you by the hand and lead you to God’s temple ^C as I have set my tongue in motion against him, to whom John, surnamed Philoponus, wrote, meeting his arguments most wonderfully and showing that he is, even among those [Greeks] regarding whom he thought highly, ignorant and mindless. But having come from the philosopher, or rather the non-philosopher—for by preeminence it was the philosopher who was unwise—^D

^A I shall lead you to the sanctuary 35 of God. And having first guided you to a view of the temple—for you are a lover of sights, and you have prepared yourself well to examine it—I shall then recount our conversation to you, quietly and calmly 34.

B. But you grant me this 55 by doing so, O blessed one; for my ears have been extraordinarily filled with reports, so that it appears to be the most precious of all spectacles that have ever existed. For they say it is adorned precisely with materials of every kind and with wonders, and that its beauty is ^B inconceivable 56, so that no one who loves to behold such things could ever be sated by the sight of it. Such beauty did the skill and wisdom of the Creator bestow upon it, along with the munificence of that high priest Eustathius 37, whom they say has been most zealous about this artistic work 58.

A. You speak the truth. And how is it that you speak so oratorically 39?

B. I have heard that these things are so, O blessed one.

A. But do not inquire further, but rather ^C look upon these things yourself.

B. Good heavens, what wisdom of the Creator, O friend, and what a glorious account 40 this is! How the palace of God 41 possesses beauty and a harmony of proportions! And see how it supports and rests its massive weight upon ten pillars. And see how these are hewn from a single material, and how they preserve and retain a unified form and relationship among themselves! For they are all white, [smooth, and by their whiteness and smoothness they turn out to be in a certain way...] ^D

adorned. They reveal the same shape and form. I also admire the painter’s representation, and the varied and charming sights, and the all-encompassing beauties of the painting, and the pleasant and graceful quality of the materials, and the nuances of color. But we shall examine these things later ^B. Do you, however, explain to me the philosopher’s content and those very fine arguments of his; concealing nothing of what was said and proposed by him, so that our investigation of the problem may not be headless ^C. For it is not right for a man professing philosophy to do injury to truth, nor to do injury to friendship, if indeed a false opinion regarding God and divine things, when it takes root in the soul, happens to be the greatest of injuries. Furthermore, one ought not to seek from all sides a certain "Cadmean victory," as the proverbs say; just as in the law courts do the children ^D of the noble, or those who linger over contentious arguments.

^A A. You speak truly, my admirable friend, and with these words you soothe and appease me, O blessed one. For I know well that you care for the beloved truth and for sound doctrine, ^B than which nothing appears more blessed or more precious to a sensible man. Furthermore, philosophy, the mutual delight of us both, demands this, as it posits that every happiness and good life consists in this. Hear then, hear, blessed one, as truth judges these words; and if I seem to leave anything out, do not do so willingly, but bring it forward and put it in the middle. For I do not now direct this discourse to one who is ignorant of these things. B. Speak then. A. At one time, I and some others of his disciples were inside the study hall ^C listening to the physical lectures of Aristotle in the summer season, when the west wind blows quite sweetly and shrilly, and the greatest of rivers ^D gently floods Egypt with its currents, irrigating the Egyptian fields by surrounding them with water. And he himself, as those who explain the doctrines of others...

^A the philosophy of Aristotle and the principles of existing things, sat on a high platform, in a manner very sophisticated and haughty, and was expounding and clarifying them. And as some speech fell in about the heavens, whether from his own diligence or from the sequence of what was being argued and the requirement of the harmony (for I do not indeed remember this exactly), he put forward a proposition of this sort.

AMMONIUS. Does the heaven appear to be a beautiful thing, or not? CHRISTIANUS. It is beautiful, I replied. AMM. And is its Creator good? CHRIST. How could He not be? AMM. If, therefore, ^B he says, the heaven is good, and the Father and Maker of this whole universe is also good, why do the disciples of the Christians not wish the beautiful to accompany and be joined to the good for all eternity? And if this whole is beautiful, as has been conceded, how could it not be an evil thing to wish to dissolve that which is beautifully arranged and well-fitted together? A thing which it is not at all lawful to think concerning that First Being. For envy is removed from the good and the one; and from every divine company. Or does it not appear so to you? CHR. Certainly. AMM. And consider this too. CHR. What is it? AMM. Do they confess that God is good? CHR. Altogether. AMM. And that the universe is beautiful?

serm. 33: For the Egyptian ^C does not rely on the Nile alone, nor does he entrust seeds to it before he has yoked the ox to the plow, before he has cut the furrow, before he has labored long; and after this he then calls the river to his own work; this is the mixture of the river with agriculture, and of hopes with labors, and of fruits with struggle. ^D

^A CHR. Yes. AMM. How then is the beautiful not eternal? For if this universe was generated in time, and is secondary to its Maker, not indeed in dignity (for this we also concede), but in time, God appears to have been led by a certain repentance to its creation; or else, through ignorance of the beautiful, or through envy, He did not create it from the beginning; but both of these are alien to that blessed nature, since God is both always cognizant of the beautiful and is good. Consider this also. CHR. What is it that you say? AMM. Is this universe administered by Providence? CHR. Most certainly. AMM. ^B Whence then is destruction to be admitted into it? Is it by the will of God, or against His will? If it is against His will, then God is powerless to help, though He may desire to preserve it; but if it is by His will, why does He destroy what is most excellent among the things that have been generated? Or is it that He might create something more excellent? But that cannot happen. Or something worse? But that is not right. Or something similar and equal? But this is a childish toy, like those playing on the seashore, composing and decomposing houses out of sand. For what craftsman is so foolish as to alter the things of his own which have been crafted so well? It is concluded, therefore, from the premises, that it is impossible ^C

CONCERNING THE GENERATED UNIVERSE

[alt-version omitted]

^A that God should be said to be either without understanding or to be acting in a way that is not fitting. But indeed, God is neither powerless nor without understanding; rather, he is also good. Therefore, the world is imperishable. And if it is imperishable, it is ungenerated in regard to time ^B. For since the efficient cause is eternal, the creation is eternal in regard to time, as Porphyry asserts, and the truth makes manifest. CHRIST. Hearken, then, I said. For these things are often ^C brought forward by those who are unprepared among the Christians regarding the account of their true and only religion, objecting, simply— for the probable part of what occurs in dialogues draws most of us away from the truth of existing things, which indeed has happened to many of the philosophers as well, who babble about words and the examination of the nature of things. For whenever the magnitude ^D of the matters overcomes their examination, they are hidden from the truth by certain diverse methods; and so it happens that they hold contrary opinions and fight against each other's dogmas, and yet pretend to be wise.

^A And the multitude of so-called philosophers, shaping their pursuit of what is clear and true in existing things, is divided into bands and companies. They do not set forth doctrines that are in agreement, but often contrary ones, not about some one incidental matter, but about nearly everything, both small and great, on which investigations are based. ^B For how could those who introduce the idea that the whole is infinite be in accord with those who say it is finite? Or those who declare the world to be unbegotten with those who say it is begotten? Or those who, having fastened it to a mindless and spontaneous drift, are without master or governor, with those who assume that there is a providence and an admirable care for the whole and its parts, with God as the helmsman and savior steering it without fault? How could they reach the same understanding of underlying realities?

On the Companies of Philosophers

On Faith

On the Resurrection of the Dead

Theologians among us provide a reason for faith, as Origen does toward the end of the first book of *Contra Celsum* and the *Philocalia*, chapter 18, and in what follows there. See the great abundance of ancient writers who have written against the Jews and for the foundations of the Christian religion.

^A with embellished words and elegant phrases, and with the harmony and composition of Attic nomenclature, 85 and with the grace of their style, they bewitch 86 the ears of those who listen, lacking true proofs 87—just as your Plato 88 and those others who have written about your gods, or rather about your wicked demons, do, imitating the Homeric Sirens 89; by the pleasure of their music, they enchant the ears of the willing listeners and condemn those who obey them to death. Wherefore I praise and admire that soldier of Ithaca, who suffered nothing ignoble, but rather by his prudence 90 overcame their snares. Our affairs, therefore, are not of this kind. For when our Savior, and His inspired disciples, and the ancient prophets who prophesied about Him, proposed the truth, they did not do so with a variety of words, as if adorned with cosmetics, but ^B naked of every pretext 91 and every artifice and chatter. 92 And the [truth] ^{C D}

^B of nature appears, and the arguments accord with the facts; and your ephemeral things all perish. But that you may not suspect me of formulating some off-point argument, evading your premises, which are no different from spider webs, I am now responding to your dilemma, and have arrived to breakdown your [arguments], trusting in Christ as my only guide and God. It was said by you, that if God is good, and this universe is beautiful, as the handiwork of a good God, how is it not fitting that the beautiful work should accompany its maker forever? And how is it consistent with [the nature of] the good to dissolve that which is beautiful and well-fitted together? And that one of two things must necessarily follow: that the good God did not create the beautiful because of ignorance of the beautiful, or because of envy? And that both conclusions led to the same result, that they are foreign to the nature of the Good. Were these things not said by you? AMM. Most certainly. CHRIST. Therefore, fortunate man, do you judge Socrates, Plato, and individual human beings to be something beautiful, or not? It is also confessed that they are the handiwork and creations of God. AMM. How could I not? CHRIST. Why then do Socrates, Plato, and individual human beings not exist forever? For what reason do they come into being in time, and perish? Did Socrates not die, did Plato not die, and do individual human beings not depart from this life daily? AMM. They appear to. CHRIST. And with these dying and perishing, is God good? AMM. You seem to speak the truth. CHRIST. And does He possess the knowledge of the beautiful, even if these things come into being in time and cease? AMM. It is absolutely necessary. CHRIST. And therefore, do we not attribute the disease of envy to the good God

^A if, under these conditions, He is not considered good, inasmuch as He fabricates this universe, even though He may wish to create, and to dissolve and reconstruct it wherever He sees fit, and just as it may occur to Him alone? Or do you not perceive, my good man, that he who allows the parts to perish, also wishes the whole to be subject to the same affections as its own component parts? For it is necessary that, whatever the parts of the whole may be, the whole itself, of which these are the parts, must also be of the same nature.

AMM. I do not know in what way you seem to me to speak correctly; however, I am somewhat affected regarding your opinion, and I do not entirely agree with you. But, to resume the discourse, I say that God is not the creator of Socrates and Plato and each individual human being, but rather for each one, his father and the sun.

CHRIST. Be it so, I said; new creators, then, have appeared according to you: the father and the sun. Therefore, it is necessary to celebrate each one's own father as the sole creator and maker of all things.

AMM. I do not say this, but rather that each one's father ^B is the cause of each one's generation through the emission of seed.

CHRIST. But, my fortunate friend, I said, that is not what must be examined and considered at this stage of the discourse. Let it be as you say, that God uses the parents as instruments, by means of them bringing forth the first principles and casting the seed of generation; but who is it that shaped the seed which was cast, through the power of transformation, and brought it to form? And who is it that infused the proportion and harmony of the members; who, out of bones and nerves and veins and flesh, has combined the consistency, and fittingness, and symphony of each individual? ^C

conspiracy and consonance and temperance ^A coagmented and composed this animal? Who is he who bound the soul to the formed body, and constructed it so that an insignificant drop of moisture, cast into the workshop of nature, might be fashioned into a rational and mortal living being, capable of mind and knowledge—this indeed, the great thing, man ^B? For one would not say the sun; for even he himself happens to be a creature of God, if one is to be persuaded by Plato. Or does it seem to you that one who was brought into being by another, and who is not by nature God, is able to create anything? AMM. No. CHRIST. But do you think the sun is God? AMM. I think so, unless you teach otherwise. CHRIST. Come then, first let us consider if God is the sun ^B. And if this were once conceded, we shall also grant that he is the maker of bodies. We shall not, however, blame him for the conjunction of the soul with the body. For not even Plato himself would concede this, teaching in the *Phaedo* that one must not be filled with the nature of the body, but rather be purged from it, ^C that we might be able to ascend by steps, as if lowered from heaven, into the ineffable glory of God. We demonstrate the weakness of human ignorance regarding the consideration of such deep wisdom in a separate work elsewhere. But this principle of man was also proposed by other writers, both before and after this Zacharias. Those great ones, known to all, I will not produce now. Our Zacharias does so later; Aeneas of Gaza [deals with it] in his *Theophrastus*; Theophilus, in his first book *To Autolycus*: "He fashioned you from a small and most insignificant drop of moist substance, which not even it existed once, and God brought you into this life." Indeed, that same power—which is able to fashion what is considered by them to be formless, and to adorn the formless and unarranged with many and diverse shapes, and to collect the parts of the elements into one, and to divide the seed, being one and simple, into many, and to articulate the unarticulated, and to give life to that which does not live—is of the same power to unite what has been dissolved and to raise up what has fallen. We shall concede that he is the maker of bodies; but we shall surely not blame him for the bond of the soul to the body. For not even Plato himself would concede this, teaching in the *Phaedo* that one must not be filled with the nature of the body, but rather... ^D [that we must] be pure from bodily affections and cares, insofar as you are able to strive with the greatest effort. Plato's...

^A ...until God Himself releases us. He says nowhere that the sun is the one who releases us, but God Himself, clearly by the addition of the pronoun "Himself," signaling and designating God alone, or rather most clearly showing it—He who throughout the whole discourse philosophizes through Socrates ^B that one must not lead oneself out [of life].

As in the swing of a balance, if you weigh down one scale, you will necessarily make the opposite one lighter; thus, also regarding body and soul, the excess of the one makes the diminution of the other necessary.

Concerning departure

Fearing that the soul, being dragged to a consciousness of deeds done, may be tormented and dread the dungeons in Hades, and finding the only cure to be a flight into non-existence, from which there arises for him the healing of the evil through the destruction of the soul, he deems himself worthy of annihilation after death by flight from the pains of judgment. For the evil man does not wish his soul to be immortal, lest he endure being punished, and he anticipates the Judge there, condemning himself to death... Euxitheus the Pythagorean said that all souls are bound to the body and to the life here for the sake of punishment, and that God has decreed ^C that if they do not remain in these [states] until He Himself is willing to release them, they will then fall into more and greater degradations; therefore, all men, being cautious of the indignation of the masters, should fear to depart from life voluntarily. You see how great the labor is in the dissonance of life, so as to say: "May you come quickly, O Death, lest I myself even forget myself." One ought to consider not only this, that life is being consumed day by day and a lesser part of it remains, but it must also be considered that if one were to live longer, that is uncertain—whether the mind will suffice again for the understanding of matters and of the contemplation that contributes to the experience of divine and human things. For if it begins to rave, it will not lack breathing and being nourished and imagining and impelling and all such things; but it will fall short of exercising itself, of accurately counting the numbers of duty, of articulating phenomena, of pondering whether one ought already to depart, and of everything that requires a well-trained mind. One must therefore hasten, not only to become closer to death each time, but also because the comprehension of things and the [power of] tracking them ^D fade away. "O men, accept God; when He signals and releases you from this service, then depart to Him; but for the present, endure, dwelling in this land to which He has appointed you; short indeed is this time of dwelling, and easy for those so disposed; remain, do not depart irrationally."

^A And the prisoner, neither to flee the jailer nor the prison, but to await Him who is the author of this binding, so that He may also loose it; nowhere does he mention the sun. Come then, let us demonstrate that the sun is neither God nor the creator of individual men. AMM. Do so. CHRIST. Do you consider God to be an intellectual [(20)] and incorporeal being? AMM. I do. CHRIST. And further, one not subject to destruction, immortal, always remaining the same, and free from all circumscription [(21)]? AMM. Most certainly. CHRIST. And furthermore, simple and devoid of composition, not participating in the mixture of bodies, alien to every bond as being blessed, exempt from injury and harm, self-sufficient, perfect, uncreated, and differing from all things [(23)] that are subject to generation and decay? AMM. You seem to me to speak what is true. CHRIST. And invisible, and without shape ^B, and intangible, and indivisible, and separated from all bulk and qualities and quantity, as being incorporeal? AMM. Certainly. CHRIST. But what do you say of the sun? Is it not perceptible to the senses, as a body, and created, because it is a body? And further, subject to decay as being created, and not exempt from circumscription; for the heaven contains it; nor is it free from composition and...

^A from being day-by-day a servant to change and eclipse, and as it were never in a state of being? AMM. It would seem so. CHRIST. But that which is in such a state is neither self-sufficient nor perfect, as having come to be from another, and being dependent upon His providence, and needing Him for its existence and consistency. AMM. You speak correctly. CHRIST. And one must by no means imagine such a one to be an artificer or God. AMM. It seems so. CHRIST. Come, then, let us summarize our propositions. For they say that it is "twice and thrice beautiful" to speak of and to contemplate beautiful things. We have agreed that God is an intelligible reality and incorporeal. AMM. Yes. CHRIST. Furthermore, that He is ^B imperishable, immortal, and always the same, as being simple, incomposite, and one, and free from every bond, circumscription, and relation. AMM. We said so. CHRIST. And moreover, perfect, self-sufficient, and unbegotten. AMM. We agreed. CHRIST. But the sun is perceived by the senses as a body and as created; from which it follows that it is capable of perishing and being dissolved, as being composite. Furthermore, it is circumscribed and endowed with a figure, as having come to be from another, and as needing Him. AMM. This also was stated. CHRIST. And it was agreed that that which is in such a ^C state is not in the least perfect or self-sufficient. AMM. You are likely to speak the truth. CHRIST. And that, too, was agreed upon. AMM. What is that, pray? CHRIST. That one should not suppose such a one to be an artificer or God, as falling short of perfection. For it is outside of those things that are truly being, and as it were never in a state of being ^D that is at once and constantly truly existing; but it is a servant to changes and eclipses, and as it were never truly existent, dependent upon His providence, and needing Him for its existence and consistency.

^B AMM. You speak well.

CHRIST. If, then, I said, the argument has demonstrated that these things are so, how is the sun the maker of individual men? But if even this were granted, according to the free opinion—erroneous and full of great insanity—of those who think such things, that the sun is the maker of bodies and is altogether God, how will the same question not arise again? For it is necessary that those who imagine the sun to be God, and like the giants are insane, make him God, and yet confess him to be good and the creator and maker of every good thing. How then will you be able to escape your wonderful and noble objection? Even if you improvise the sun for us as God and introduce him, just as those on the stage often make the common man a king; for here too will follow envy, and ignorance of what is good, and ^C creation resulting from repentance, and the dissolution of that which is well-arranged and properly knit together, and other foolish and fatuous questions and doubts of your opinions. But who will be the one who joins souls to bodies? For this, at any rate, is not to be attributed to the sun; even if those who revolve all things and are frenzied drive things up and down, [like those] who look upon the tragic actors, who on the stage are each of them Agamemnon or Creon or Heracles himself, but outside are Polus or Aristodemus; having put off their masks, they become paid actors of tragedy, being hissed off and expelled, and sometimes even beaten, as it may seem good to the theater. BA. And creation from repentance. BA. But souls [are] not only from him, but [are] also [sown] into the earth by the other gods; and for what purpose [they] themselves show in the lives which they choose. BA. Corybanting: of one who is raving. He Corybantizes: he raves, he dances. You Corybantize: you rave; because these demons are the causes of madness and possession. Corybantisms: purifications.

Up and down things are turned, by ignorance and error ^A concerning the one and only Creator, being dragged and falling into a multitude of gods, and fashioning for ourselves chains of creators—strange and alien to the [mere] act of creation and making; just as they have also taken up certain wicked and erring demons into the series of gods, never turning to the Homeric wisdom which decrees: "A multitude of masters is not good; let there be one master, one king." But they—accusing the divine things—[speak instead] of democracy, that unruly and most shameful of governments, always confused and seditious. Being unable to gaze upon the beauty of monarchy, nor desiring its immaterial and blessed light. For, experiencing vertigo regarding ^B divine things, they arrogate to themselves splendors.

Regarding the one God, and the Monad beyond the One, and the King of all things, around whom all things exist

God is one, and beyond the One, and above the Monad itself, the King of all things, around whom all things exist. This [Being], therefore—whether it be permissible to call Him "beyond intellect," or the "Idea of existing things" (which I term the intelligible whole), or "the One," since the One appears as the most ancient of all—this very monad-like Cause of all things, [is whom I mean].

^B Relating to the three things set before us, and all that I call the best things—that is, the best democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy—I say this [monarchy] far excels.

"Vertigo": ^C an inconstancy and rotation ^D of the mind through so many opinions; he says this wisely. For this evil happens to one not when standing, but when turning round. Why? Cassius the iatrosophist [says in his] *Quaestiones*: "These things happen to those who are 'stultividi'—the sophists—who bring on the evil of vertigo. For, amidst thick darkness, those suffering from vertigo seem to themselves to see wonderful splendors, so that they scarcely notice what is before their feet." ^D

^A Regarding the truth of opinions, they indeed confess the good and the Creator in word alone, but in reality they plunder Him of the creation of this universe, attributing it entirely or in parts to whomsoever they wish. And they do not wish to understand what is the Creator and Maker, and what are God’s creations and works. And as the sun, set by God like a lamp in this great hall, illumines this universe, being able to do or work nothing whatever except what has been ordained ^B by the commander and sole Creator—I mean to give light to living creatures and to warm plants, and to consume and dry up the prevailing moisture and the places and parts subject to decay. For the Creator has implanted in it only these and suchlike operations, and has gifted it with this nature. Whence, obeying His law, it revolves ^C like a wheel, having a uniform and involuntary motion, as a slave, and soulless, and by no means happening to be a rational living being.

...as they wish those to seem who edited that author. But such a highly consulted man of Christian doctrine speaks in such a way that he might gradually lead the ignorant Gentiles, not overwhelm them with testimonies produced from an unknown code, in the manner by which not a few of others contended to persuade his enemies of the truth by some force. And thus the same author frequently; but p. 225: Of this kind is that ethereal [nature], which the Hebrews call holy angels; this is Sacred Scripture. Page 305. The Hebrews also seem to opine according to this regarding the principal soul, when they say: *The blood of thy brother crieth unto me*: since this is the word of God Himself (to Cain in Genesis IV, 10). Page 351, c. To this Platonic dogma Jewish philosophy agrees; for they call it variously a dream, and likewise a vision, then... a revelation. Which are likewise words of Scripture. BA. ^D They (the Gentiles) deny this. See the oration of Julian, the argument of which urges this, so that under a cloaked name he ascribes all divinity to the sun. The heart, indeed, and the mind of the world. See Macrobius, lib. I, in *Somnium Scipionis*, c 20. The rest [is] from Plato, Proclus, Chalcidius, Homer, Orpheus, Capella, Manilius, and an uncertain poet who wrote a hymn to Apollo according to the order of the letters, lib. I, *Anthol. epigram.*, under the title *in obvia*. Concerning the stars endowed with mind, our Platonists thus reason, with Chalcidius as interpreter. It is absurd that men indeed, inhabiting one region of the world, with a fragile body, with a mind lacking sanity and without sincerity, full of repentance on account of the inconstancy of their commotions, [with] some things pleasing to some and others to others, should be considered rational living beings; but that the stars, of a prudent nature on account of the eternal nature of their acts, subject to no repentance, with a pure and in no way dissoluble body, inasmuch as they inhabit the outermost regions of the ambient fire, should be without a soul, and even lack life, etc. Macrobius lib. I, cap. 14, from the words of Cicero: Therefore, from these sayings, it is clear that man alone of all terrestrial things has a fellowship of mind, that is, of soul, with heaven and the stars; and this is what he says: *and to them a soul was given from those everlasting fires which you call stars and planets*. Yet he does not say that we are animated from those very celestial and everlasting fires: for that fire, although divine, is nevertheless a body, and we could not be animated from a body, however divine; but [from that] from which those very bodies, which both are and are seen to be divine, are animated: that is, from that part of the mundane soul which we said consists of a pure mind. And therefore after he said: *and to those a soul was given*

^A as those who theologize about this surmise, or yawning at the wretched opinions of those people, while making the motion steady and harmonious, and not exceeding the boundaries set by the Creator, and the order he obtained, but proclaiming together with this whole universe, in friendship, concord, and harmony, the Creator—just as a house well-constructed and fashioned for beauty reveals the builder, often absent and unseen, and the admirable wisdom of the artisan. Hence the divine Apostle—and this was Paul—has philosophized well concerning God and the world. For he said thus: *For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made* (Rom. 1, 20). Nay, even with the wise Solomon, who explained the same thought in other words, saying thus: *For by the greatness and beauty of the creatures, proportionally the maker of them is seen* (Sap. XIII, 5). Having held such a discussion on that day, I and the philosopher dissolved our meeting. For the exposition of the theorems of Aristotle which had been proposed by him also had its end. Many, ^B however, of that assembly who and from those eternal fires, which you call stars and constellations; presently he adds: *Which are animated by divine minds*: so that by eternal fires he signifies the body of the stars, and by divine minds their souls, in clear distinction, and shows the power of the mind coming into our souls from them. Read by all means the fourth book of the fourth Ennead of Plotinus, which is *On the perplexities of the soul* [the second]. I speak of the great sun, the living, animate, and intelligent statue, and the benefactor of the intelligible Father. BA.

^C I say, if one is everywhere, as in a city, in the world. Stop sometime; but you are also vexed with those who are assigned from the totality; having renewed the disjunction—whether it is providence or atom, or from those things from which it was demonstrated that the world is as a city. If the intellectual part is common to us, and the reason by which we are rational is common; if this is true, then the command of things to be done, or not, is a common reason; if this is so, then the law is common; if this is so, we are citizens; if this is so, we share in some polity; if this is so, the world is as a city. Since no one could rightly find fault with the governance of the whole; first, it reveals the magnitude of the intelligible nature; for if it has entered into life in such a way as not to possess an unrectified life—such as the smaller things in it ^D are in the great life that is always being generated in it by night and by day—but it is a continuous and manifest and great life, everywhere showing forth an unimaginable wisdom, how would one not call it a manifest and beautiful statue of the intelligible gods? [alt-version omitted]

^A They themselves were also experienced in demonstrative methods and in the labyrinths of various syllogisms, and constantly breathed, as it were, of Aristotle—your delight—and Plato [(53)], and were moved [(54)] by them; yet they adhered to our words and gave their assent, or rather to the truth of the holy and beloved Christians. And they departed for home, marveling at the Christian demonstrations and significantly yearning [(55)] to hear the words of truth more often. On the following day, the most eminent of the students, Gessius [(56)]—who now prides himself on the wisdom of Hippocrates of Cos and Galen of Pergamum, and sits as a teacher [(57)] for those who philosophize on medicine by the Nile—requested that the same meeting and discussion be repeated, as if he himself could say more than his teacher. And as for my [account of him], just as Photius once read it—and although it may have been interpolated with certain locutions of later times, nonetheless it seems to us genuine to Justin, as the very genius of the composition and the manner of arguing provides assurance. Moreover, these philosophers made much of Aristotle in physical matters, already from the age of Plotinus. Porphyry in his *Life* [p. 5] records that this man was both a physician and an administrator of great dignities at the same time, according to the custom then among such men. For the same author remembers in the same book that Zethus the Arab was such a man: ^B "He also had Zethus as a companion... he too was a physician, and was greatly loved by Plotinus; but Plotinus tried to restrain him, as he was a man of political affairs and had political inclinations." Which is almost contrary to the custom of our own and other centuries. [Ba]

CONCERNING THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA

^A holding his right hand, he leads him away to the temple of the Muses: where poets, rhetoricians, and grammarians, frequenting it, offer words that one should not permit even to the delicacies of the Alexandrians, which we receive with laughter and a kiss. The city’s chief ornament is the temple of Serapis, which, when other ecclesiastical historians such as Rufinus saw it demolished, they praised and described. The same is praised by the barbarian-Roman geographer: "And the gods there are worshiped eminently, and the temple of Serapis is there; it is the one and only spectacle, new in the whole world. For nowhere on earth is an edifice, or a disposition of a temple, or of religion found like it. And the Museum seems to return to it from every side. I think it should be cleared; for the astonishing stupidity of the librarians has strangely wounded the barbarian: 'And the gods to you are worshiped, and eminently the temple of Serapis.' This is the one and only spectacle, new in the whole world. For nowhere on earth is there an edifice or disposition of a temple or religion found like it. And the Museum seems to return to it from every side." On the Museum, the most learned editor, our friend. Alexandria was commended by that noble Pharos, and by the Nile flowing under the whole city in an innocent stream. Both are celebrated by the Arab geographer, recently rendered into Latin: "The Nile," he says, "running from its western part, passes under the arches of all its houses, the foundations of which are mutually connected. And the city is nonetheless not only bright and luminous, but also firmly built." Regarding the Pharos, the same author writes more copiously, as one may read, as does Benjamin of Tudela, who speaks fearlessly of the mirror of Alexander... Beyond these, the paper also enriched and celebrated this city; yet rather the papyrus, whose abundance the aforementioned barbarian geographer praises: "It possesses," he says, "together with all the goods it has, one thing which is done nowhere except in Alexandria and its region, without which neither judgments nor private business can be managed, but almost the whole nature of men seems to stand by that one thing." And what is this that is so praised by us? Paper; which, itself doing and sending out to the whole world, shows to everyone a useful appearance. Holding this alone above all cities and provinces, yet granting it without envy of its own goods. In his time, how the trade of spices and merchandise was frequented, so much so that many peoples had their own ordinary merchants there, ^B and their own peculiar storehouses and courts, which even now for the most part flourish, transmits many things, whom I just named, Benjamin of Tudela, also commemorating a house outside the city dedicated to the studies of literature, which he imagines Aristotle once frequented; yet it is certain that it has served those uses since the Roman age. "Outside the city," he says, "a large and beautiful building is seen, which is said to have been the gymnasium of Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander, in which there are twenty schools themselves, formerly frequented by men of the whole world, who gathered there for the sake of learning the philosophy of Aristotle, and between each one were marble columns." Furthermore, the greatest name of this city was when Egypt was flourishing, so much so that the Alexandrian kings are held to be princes of such a great kingdom. Cicero, *Pro domo sua*: "Who, when by an unlawful law you had publicly sold the king of Cyprus, Ptolemy, the brother of the Alexandrian king, for an unknown cause, you put M. Cato in charge of waging the war." Curius Fortunatianus, lib. 1, *Rhetor schol.*: "In the hypophora, what things must be avoided? That they not be placed fully and copiously, which however we sometimes do for two reasons, either for the sake of ridiculing the adversary, if this increases it—about which there is no question, as in the case of Cornelius regarding majesty—or if something inconsistent is shown, as regarding the Alexandrian king." Aristeas writes in his time that it was the most opulent and greatest of all cities, adding that the civilization of the inhabitants was such that they neglected agriculture for the cultivation of hospitality; that the kings were forced to decree by edict that no foreigner should remain within the city for more than twenty days, ^C as if the matter were almost inserted into all the alleys of Alexandria, where many little butcher-shops of surgical butchery... are numbered. Who also, as he speaks, makes that city dense with the tinctures of all dogmas. The princes of physicians, who are praised by the teachers of that city. And thus Julian the Apostate praises his Zeno, epist. 45: "Many other things bear witness to you and that you belong to the first rank of the medical art, and that your character and moderation and life of temperance are in harmony with the art; but now the climax of the testimony has arrived: although absent, you turn the city of the Alexandrians toward yourself; so great a center have you left behind for it." And, moreover, the Egyptians are celebrated for the praises of medicine. Vopiscus in *Saturninus*: "The Egyptians are free, ever desirous of new things, versifiers, epigrammatists, mathematicians, soothsayers, physicians. So that almost all were physicians." Diogenes Laertius, lib. 3, on Euripides: "Whence also he says: 'The sea washes away all the evils of men.' But also, according to Homer, to say that all men are physicians; Egypt ^D being." Therefore they were held, when sick little boys were carried through each of the houses. Rufinus, *Hist. eccles.* lib. 1, cap. 10: "It is said to be the custom among the Egyptians that, if a little boy is sick, he is carried around by his mother through each of the houses, so that if anyone knows of an experienced remedy, he might pass it on to the sufferer." That the ancient Egyptians had individual physicians for individual human limbs is testified to by Herodotus, lib. 2, who says more about these, as does Diodorus Siculus. The most advantageous site of the city of Alexandria is celebrated by Philo in *Legatio ad Caium*, §43, about it: "For a certain desire for Alexandria took possession of them, to which he longed with all haste to arrive, thinking it had become a model of reverence for others, and being the greatest and in a beautiful location of the inhabited world." Of exceeding salubrity, Strabo in book 5, where he speaks of Ravenna, to which perpetual marshes do not take away the same. Because of its size, I said it was constructed like Rome. It was held to be next to it before Constantinople was founded. Aristides in *Encomium of Rome*: "And he left behind not only a work and monument worthy of his own nature near Egypt, the city bearing his name, but doing well for you, he founded this one, so that you might have and rule the greatest after your own." Nor is he joined to it with any other mind. To Nemesius: "For place is the limit of that which contains, by which it contains that which is contained; but if anyone says, 'Therefore, in Alexandria and in Rome and everywhere is my soul,' he is mistaken, again calling it a place." I said it was called "the city" *par excellence*. The same is handed down by Eustathius in his commentary on Dionysius, where also not a few other things worth reading about it are said: "It is said also to have been called 'the city' *par excellence* once, as Constantinople is now, and as Athens was once 'the city'." The bishop once held the honor of the second see after Rome. Leo the Great, epistola 53: "As if the time offered itself opportunely, in which the Alexandrian see lost the privilege of the second honor and the Church of Antioch lost the property of the third dignity." Which words Facundus Hermianensis repeats, *Pro concilio Chalcedonico*, lib. 5, cap. 4. The same, from canonical ordination, is handed down by Petrus Damianus in book 2, epist. 16. The Alexandrians were rarely using the specific words, as can be seen in Hesychius under the word *Baion*, and elsewhere; so that the Attics refined their speech for their sake. Phrynichus: *Teathelēkenai*. "The name would be Alexandrian; therefore it should be abandoned by the Alexandrians and Egyptians; but we must say *ēthelēkenai*." The same, *epicheiriazeis seauton* (you attempt yourself). Menander says it for "to cause grief," and the Alexandrians likewise; but one must be persuaded by the approved ones, who do not even know the name. The speech was delicate, so that it even gave place to a proverb. Quintilian, lib. 1, cap. 2: "We are glad if they say anything too freely (children)."

^{A B C D} and leads them away to the precinct of the Muses, (58) where poets, rhetoricians, and the sons of grammarians go to give their displays. The account begins here.

...might be settled litigiously within six days. It has happened that for cities that have size and the attendant prosperity, it is their fate to abound in men, while the countryside is neglected, as everyone leans toward finding pleasure in the soul, and because of the physical layout, all men are easily inclined toward pleasures. This occurred in the case of Alexandria, which surpassed all cities in size and prosperity; for those from the countryside residing in it as guests, staying for a sufficient time, brought about a reduction in the work. Whence the king, so that they might not stay, ordered that they should not dwell there for more than twenty days, and to those in charge of the needs he similarly gave written instructions, if it be necessary to call them, to finish the matter in five days. Hence it was called the "Great City," even when both Romes were flourishing—the other, at least.

The author of the Catena on blessed John: "And I did not do this on my own authority, but following our most holy Father, the archbishop of the Christ-loving great city of Alexander, Cyril, saying in his letter to Eulogius, etc." Josephus, in book 5 of the *Jewish War*, cap. 11, ascribes a magnitude next to Rome [to Alexandria]: "And when Vespasian had arrived at Alexandria, the good tidings from Rome came, and ambassadors from the whole of his own inhabited world gathered; and although the city was the greatest after Rome, it was proved to be narrower than the multitude." The same author, in book 2, cap. 16 of the same work, reports that it was made 30 stadia in length and 10 in breadth: "Egypt does not lack renown for the Roman empire, even though it possesses Alexandria as a center of distance, yet because of the multitude of men and wealth, and also because of its size, its length is indeed thirty stadia, and its width no less than ten." There, he adds a memorable fact, that it brings into the Romans as much in tax revenues in a month as Judaea could scarcely provide in a whole year, and furthermore, the grain supply of Rome for four months: "For the annual tribute from you provides to the Romans more in one month, and, beyond the money, [it provides] for Rome for four months."

On the dimensions, Pliny is slightly different, lib. 5, cap. 10. Concerning the healthiness of the Alexandrian air, the twin harbors, the goods imported as well as exported, the shape of its site approaching that of a chlamys, the streets which are each two jugera in width, the temples and basilicas which occupy a third part of the city, the Museion enriched by wealthy revenues, the Antirrhodus, the theater, and other memorable things, one must read the eyewitness Strabo, a witness of the highest faith and learning, lib. 17.

Also memorable is the Necropolis, a peculiar dwelling-place for the dead; the memorable Panium, the Sarapium, the city of Augustus' victory, Nicopolis; also the greatest emporium of the inhabited world, which the same Strabo celebrates. "Now," says the same, "great fleets are even sent as far as India and the extremities of the Aethiopians, from which the most precious cargo is brought to Egypt, and from there it is sent out again to other places, etc." Whence it appears that the commerce was even more flourishing in this city during the prosperous Roman empire than it is now—which is described most diligently as it is in our age by Joannes Helfricus Lipsiensis, in a booklet in the German language not unworthy of being carried into other tongues.

It was noted above concerning the flourishing studies of medicine: Agathias is a witness to the Roman laws being a model for his own, in book 2, where he mentions an earthquake, which was otherwise discovered in Egypt: "All the natives, and especially those who were very elderly, considered the event to be a great marvel, as something that had never happened before, and there was no one who remained at home; but the multitudes flocked into the highways, struck by the unexpected and, indeed, paradoxical nature of the moderation. As for me, I myself (for I happened to be spending time there for the sake of an education prior to the laws) was seized with fear, even though I reflected upon the movement being very slight—[realizing] that their buildings are not strong, nor do they happen to be broad, nor are they believed to be such as to withstand even a little, but are very thin and weak; for they are woven upon a single stone." These final words a learned interpreter of other things translated quite ignorantly as "of simple brick," whereas the meaning of Agathias is that the Alexandrian buildings rested upon one single stone—that is to say, they had a stone foundation, but one that was by no means deep, with the underlying layer of only one stone, upon which the remaining habitations had been built of lowly material, which are said to be "woven" rather than "compacted."

Aphthonius, in his *Progymnasmata*, describes the Alexandrian Citadel as a work of such stupendous nature that he almost proposes it for contemplation, although he did not touch upon its interior cultivation. The vices of the Alexandrians are branded by writers: inconstancy and sedition. Ausonius, *On Famous Cities and Disciplines of Letters*.

This is, no doubt, what Strabo mentions, lib. 17: "A part of the royal palaces of Alexandria is the Museion, having a promenade and an exedra and a great hall, in which is the common dining-hall for the scholars who are participants in the Museion; this society also has common funds and a priest appointed over the Museion, at that time by the kings, now by Caesar." He indicates in few words that the priest of the Muses was indeed the prefect of that college; the teachers there were fed by revenues destined by the princes, and they had the common use of facilities; the whole thing was also remarkably adorned with porticos and ambulatories, and it was rightfully numbered among the royal buildings, a magnificent example of a dwelling for the Muses. Add what was noted by the most excellent Casaubon at the end of the fifth book of Suetonius. For by the prince Claudius, who was most learned in letters, a new Museion of his own name was added to the old one. He seems to have done away with others, but it was restored later; the emperor Caracalla, that "Ausonian beast," by a curse of the oracle.

[Regarding] the Epitome of Dio, concerning that beast, where the capital slaughter of the Alexandrians is recorded: "And from this he suppressed the spectacles and the common dining-halls of the Alexandrians, and ordered the city to be walled off and seized by garrisons, so that they might no longer visit one another without fear." Unless, however, the honor of this college of the Muses, or even its location, spared it from destruction—even in that cruel heart. For he records that it was outside the city, which Benjamin of Tudela—who, while squandering everything on most ignorant fables, knows no one else from so many philosophers and philologists of antiquity but the name of Aristotle—understands as nothing other than "outside the city... of columns." And just as he erred regarding the philosopher, so too, in the city itself, did P. Bellonius, who, through an ignorance of ancient reading, wished to transport this academy of the Romans, if it pleases the gods, taken from the Nile, to the Simoeis or the Scamander; yet he was a man such that it is of great importance that his writings still exist: see him in lib. 2 of the *Observations*, cap. 19. The passage of Seneca, which he explains ineptly and brings forth corruptly, is sufficiently explained by the notes of Nic. Faber thereon.

Furthermore, so that these matters may finally be concluded with some end, regarding the site, preeminence, and customs of the Alexandrians, read the 32nd oration of Dio Chrysostom; where he commemorates such levity of that populace among other things, so that a proverb was bandied about, "Give them bread and a horse for the spectacle, and they will be indifferent to everything else." Julian the Emperor, epist. 51, ascribes to them "ears in need of impious words and itching."

OF RENOWNED CITIES II: THE THIRD HOUSE OF THE PHOEBIAN LAUREL, ANTIOCH.

By nature they were schooled in adulation, as in every levity. Philo, Legatione ad Caium: "But Gaius blinded himself, not only saying, but also thinking himself to be a god, and then he found no one, either of the Greeks or of the Barbarians, more suitable than the Alexandrians for the confirmation of his boundless and superhuman desire; for they are clever at flatteries and sorceries and hypocrisies, prepared with fawning words, and pouring forth everything with loose and unbridled mouths." The Alexandrians were the most bitter avengers of insults offered to them: Gregory Naz. orat. 2.

^B This city possessed other excellent gifts of nature and place: as the Alexandrian loaves, seasoned with royal cumin, are celebrated by Pliny, lib. xx, cap. 45; the laurel, lib. xv, cap. 30; the vine, lib. xiv, cap. 3; pears, lib. xv, cap. 15; the fig, lib. same, cap. 18. Alexandrian marbles: Seneca, epist. 86. Inventions are also celebrated: a multi-colored garment, to the same Pliny, lib. viii, cap. 48. Bluer temperaments of colors, Vitruvius, lib. vii, cap. 11. Ammianus, lib. xxii, praises the healthfulness and permanent serenity of the sky: "Alexandria is," he says, "the vertex of all cities, which many things ennoble, both the magnificence of the highest founder and the architectural skill of Dinocrates." There, breezes blow healthfully, and the air is tranquil and mild; and, as danger has taught, gathered through various tolls, those who live in this city see a serene sun almost no day. The place is air-worthy and perflable with a salutary temperament, so that anyone residing in those tracts might think he was staying outside our world, when he often hears the winds murmuring with a sunny spirit. Alexander's skill constructed it such that the Etesian winds would blow through the city street by street: Diodorus Siculus writes, lib. xvii; adding this: that at the time he himself was there, he estimates there were over three hundred thousand free heads. Among him, there is no lack of error regarding the space and the other royal law, a portion of which is flawed. Arrian also writes at the beginning of book 3 that Alexander himself prescribed the city's locations and buildings as better future sites. Nevertheless, Cornelius Celsus notes that the sky is denser there than in Italy, lib. iii, cap. 22: "There is a need, if [one's] strength allows, for a long navigation, for a change of sky, so that the patient is moved to one denser than that from which he departs; and therefore it is best to go from Italy to Alexandria." Snow does not fall there. Seneca, Quæst. Nat. lib. iv, cap. 4. In Alexandria also, which is placed far from such regions, snows do not fall. It is called the more excellent city, that is, the most noble, by Martianus Capella, lib. vi; who, in his ninth book [p. 314], from older authors ^C hands down that there is a pool in Alexandria in which fish are kept with a clatter. Isidorus, in his Origines, lib. xx, c. 10, writes that there is a treacherous approach there from others; and Cicero, in Pro rege Deiotaro, a difficult exit. Philo, in Legatione ad Caium, hands down that the city was honored by all the Augusti. It had five better regions, of which two, with their affairs flourishing, were inhabited by Jews. The same [author] in In Flaccum: "There are five sectors of the city, named after the first letters of the alphabet; two of these are called Judaean because the most Jews dwell in these." ^D The fifth part of the palace had already been dedicated from the time of the founder. Pliny, lib. v, c. 10. Dinocrates meted out Alexandria in the image of a Macedonian chlamys, rounded in a circle, with angular projections on the right and left; yet even then the fifth part of the site was dedicated to the palace. The situation was such that it could be ascribed half to Africa, half to Asia. Oppius [or Hirtius], lib. De bello Alexandrino, cap. 14: "There were shallows with a narrow passage between two classes, which pertain to the region of Africa: for thus they proclaim half of Alexandria to be a part of Africa." Cyril, lib. i Contra Julianum, notes it was founded in the seventh year of Alexander, in the 112th Olympiad. It was so studious of circus games that men were often crushed in the hippodrome: Philostratus writes, lib. v of the Vitæ Apollonii. It flourished with delights and wit, while Rome ruled, as is known. But Polybius and Strabo noted in their own age that there was a barbarism of morals in it. Finally, George Elmacenus indicates in his time what it was like, lib. i Hist. Sarac., in the words of Amri Alasida, who extorted it from the Romans. "I have captured," he says, "the city of the west. Nor can I recount what is in it, unless that it contains 4000 baths, 12000 vegetable sellers selling green vegetables, 4000 Jews paying tribute, and 400 mimes." But those final numbers are corrupt in that writer. From what was stated above about Agathias, that the earthquake was an unheard-of misfortune for the Alexandrians, he refers faith in this to the authors. We know that under Gratian the same city was so shaken that many thousands of mortals perished. George Cedrenus: "Under Gratian, an earthquake occurred in Alexandria to such an extent that the sea retreated for a long distance and the ships stood on dry land; and as a great multitude had gathered at the paradoxical sight, the waters suddenly rushed back, and five tens of thousands of men were drowned." George Pachymeres later describes another, lib. ii, which leveled earthquakes in Rhodes, Alexandria, Peloponnesus, and many distinguished places of Crete. Concerning authority, it should be known that the Alexandrian city brought leadership not only to all of Egypt, but also to a good part of Libya and the Thebaid. Theodoretus, at the beginning of Historia ecclesiastica, cap. 2: "Alexandria is a very great and populous city, entrusted with the leadership not only of the Egyptians, but also of the Thebans and of the Libyans who are towards Egypt." I noted above that the Alexandrian Church had great authority after the Roman one in the previous age. This fact is confirmed by the fact that the Church of the West made great account of its communion and preserved its customs. For thus it is written in the acts of the council of Aquileia, held under Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, by an author who was their contemporary, commonly inscribed as Ambrose: "We ask you, most clement and Christian princes, that all councils of the Catholic priests of Alexandria be held, so that they may deliberate and define among themselves more fully to whom communion should be given and to whom it should be denied; for unless we have always held to the disposition and order of the Alexandrian Church, and according to custom..."

^A CHRIST. I replied, Since God perpetually holds within Himself the seminal reasons for working, He is always the Creator. Just as the physician, holding the medical reasons within himself, is and is called a physician. Furthermore, this is also true of the artisan, the builder, and the orator. Does this not seem so to you?

MEDICUS DOCTOR. Certainly. But would we call or name someone a physician if he were not healing? Or an artisan or builder if he did not exercise the art of building or crafting in act? Just as we would not call a musician one who does not demonstrate music with his plucking, nor soothe the souls of the hearers with the harmony of his notes, nor enchant their ears. But clearly, we do not call a rhetorician one who does not perform ^B at an assembly, nor persuade in speech before judges in a court, or before senators in a council, or before the assembly in a church. Therefore, one would not be a creator who does not create by activity, and who does not bring forth into the open the reasons he possesses; and who does not refashion and adapt formless matter into shape and species.

CHRIST. Right, I said. But listen, my philosopher, to how most correctly we conceive and think of God. For we say that God is always Creator, as one having the creative reasons within Himself, and bringing them forth whenever He wills. For we do not accuse God of inertia in any way, nor do we strip Him of the name of Creator when He is not creating; but knowing Him as Creator from things that have been made, we surmise that He is free from all affection, and necessity, and tyranny, as He is God and is one. For the blessed and untroubled nature does not act by necessity, nor, when it is not acting, is it to be placed outside the nature of a Creator because it does not act, or does not act disorderly, or does not do all things at once. Or does it not appear quite absurd to you, my friend, to acknowledge and confess that man to be a physician who has grasped the medical art, and has come to possess it as a habit, and carries it about within himself, yet there is ^C somewhere or other a body suffering or in danger, lest the frame of the elements be dissolved, whom he helps by the benefit of his medical art...

...continued (regarding) the custom of our ancestors, whose communion we preserve to these present times in an indissoluble society, this we beseech. Among its singular cults was held the frequency of the abundance of virgins dedicated to God, which was so great each year that it far exceeded the number of other locations. The author of the three books *On Virgins*, ascribed to the same Ambrose, lib. 3: "If anyone thinks that the human race is diminished by the preservation of virgins, let him consider that where there are few virgins, there are also fewer men; where the studies of virginity are more frequent, there the number of men is also greater." Learn how many the Alexandrian, and the whole Oriental and African Church, were accustomed to consecrate each year: fewer men grow up here than virgins are consecrated there. Indeed, the Alexandrian Church used to join itself to the Roman Church even to the point of boasting. Blessed Jerome, *Epist.* [57]: "Know for us nothing is more ancient than to keep the laws of Christ, nor to transfer the boundaries of the fathers, but always to remember the Roman faith praised by the Apostolic mouth, of which the Alexandrian Church boasts itself to be a participant." The peculiar customs of the same Church, ^D as that the bishop sitting was accustomed to listen to the Gospels being read and he alone was accustomed to preach, Nicephorus Callistus notes, lib. xi, c. 34. This bishop, after the third Ephesian council, both received the miter and claimed for himself the appellation of Pope, and was held as the judge of the whole world, if reliance is to be placed on the traditions of the same Nicephorus, lib. xiv, c. 34, p. 180. BA.

(60) *Mē panēgyrizonta*. In assemblies of the people throughout the cities, rhetoricians used to exercise their art, with questions being raised by anyone concerning various matters. Thus Artemidorus writes in his Proem that Greece explored and afterwards committed to books the doctrine and judgments of dreams through assemblies: many passages pertain here, and from here they receive light, especially those of the Greek orators under the Roman empire, especially Lucian. Moreover, the meaning of the word is various; for the most learned Hesychius notes that *panēgyris* rightly comprises both festivals and spectacles and the praises themselves. BA.

^A is careful, nor in the meantime is he perpetually occupied with medicine: but are we to deny that God is the artificer, because He operates only when He wills? MED. Certainly. CHRIST. And indeed, as for the carpenter, the architect, the musician, and the rhetorician, it would do no harm if they were to desist for some time from the things about which their art is engaged. MED. Not at all. CHRIST. Well then, I said, we decorate all these with liberty, and we hold them to be free and autonomous, and outside of all necessity as far as the exercise of their own arts is concerned; yet are we to subject the King of all, who alone is free and provides and distributes true liberty to others, to the necessity that dominates all things falling under birth and decay, ^B and to suppose that He himself is enslaved to it? So that He might not be acknowledged by us as an artificer honored with liberty, and not forced to create? Nor even by himself. For there is neither sedition nor battle concerning the divine nature, which is exempt from all contradiction and dissension, and is quiet and peaceful, or rather, which is Peace Itself. Since all simplicity and the One Itself are there, and composition is nowhere, nor does it come from anyone. For there is nothing that transcends the King of all; or if we suppose Him to be an artificer, we shall be deeming Him to create bound by the chains of necessity. MED. You speak well. CHRIST. Or do you not know, my dear friend, that it was not necessity, but only goodness, that led and commanded and presided over the creation and making of this universe? And if you wish, hear also your Plato, who says that this is the sole cause of the constitution of all things; for in composing the Timaeus, he speaks thus: Let us state the cause for which the Founder composed this universe: He was good; and in the good, envy is never to be found in any way regarding anything. Furthermore, look at this too. MED. What is that?

CHRIST. If God is not an artificer because He did not create from that moment of time from which He existed—and He has existed from eternity—is He then not also a benefactor and good, since He does not always create? What, therefore, does He create now? For you will not say that there are other worlds, since, according to Plato, this world is monogenous. ^B

MED. He is fabricating this world even now.

CHRIST. Listen then, I said, to how much this position and agreement is incompatible with your doctrines.

MED. Speak.

CHRIST. Did He make existing things perfect from the beginning, or did He leave some things imperfect? If they were perfect, then it would be a surplus of effort and action to be concerned with things that are already perfect and harmonized. But if they were imperfect, either He did not make them perfect in the beginning due to envy, or through ignorance of the perfect. Yet both are alien to God and unworthy of that nature which alone flourishes in knowledge and goodness. And how will the dexterity of your intellect avoid the noble—and indeed blessed—oppositions and difficulties of your wise men? Or is it not entirely absurd to think such things about God?

MED. Absolutely.

CHRIST. Therefore, it is not necessary for the good to be creating perpetually, nor is the good and wise and knowing One—who understands what is noble and perfect—lacking in beneficence or wisdom because He acts in time. But in what way is He currently fabricating this world? Although, as you are wont to say, He does not create souls now, nor bodies. For you do not say that souls are being created now, since your discourse declares that God created them as finite from the beginning; ^C and that they lived a life before bodies, and then in turn donned many bodies, both of irrational animals and of humans. Pythagoras and Plato, those famous in your circle for wisdom, dream this myth of the transmigration of bodies, having received it from the wise Egyptians and raving along with them. But you do not even concede that God is the artificer of those humans who are born one by one. For you blame parents and the sun. ^D

^A

MED. How absurd, he said, my good man, that you set out to destroy and overturn the opinions of the ancients! Does no shame or regard for the glory and dignity of those blessed men, who are wise among all who love learning, enter into you?

CHRIST. Not at all, I said. Since it is right to honor ancient things when they contain truth that flourishes through time. But when a myth is vainly painted with names and delights the hearing ^B with the elegance of speech, then indeed, then we place on our ears the Homeric wax; thus we escape the destructive song of the deadly Sirens, recognizing the cup of poison that has been seasoned and smeared with honey. Or shall we in this way embrace and receive the Homeric myths about the gods, which even Plato himself banishes from the republic he composed, anointing their poet with ointment just as women do to swallows? ^C

[Disputation on the Creation of the World]

Are not these things given to the whole world by the manifest gods, not to a few humans, nor to one race, nor to one city—are these not things which you do not know? Are you the only ones who are insensate to the rays streaming from the sun? Are you the only ones who do not know the summer and winter that come from him? The only ones who do not know that all living and growing things come from him? And do you not perceive the moon, which is the creator of the whole from him and by him, the cause of how many good things it becomes for the city? And you do not dare to worship any of these gods, but you think that Jesus, whom neither you nor your fathers have seen, is God the Word? ^D Yet the whole race of men from of old has seen, and does see, and worships that which in worshiping it performs good service—I mean the great Sun, the living and ensouled and intellectual statue that does good to the intelligible. You will not err from the right path by obeying him who walked that path for up to twenty years, and here is its twelfth year of walking with the gods.

And it seems good to Plato also to obey his own [directives], until some more divine man appears and teaches him the truth, whom it is fitting for all to follow. Beginning my exhortation to you, O you Greeks, I pray to God that I may have the ability to speak to you what is necessary; and that you, setting aside your former contentiousness and having been freed from the wandering of your ancestors, may choose what is beneficial now, thinking nothing blameworthy will happen to your ancestors from your side, if the things of today, contrary to what did not seem good to them before, appear useful to us; for the precise examination of matters often shows those things that seemed to be good to be quite otherwise, after a more accurate trial has tested the truth. [alt-version omitted]

[LATIN COLUMN] nullam habens rationem temporis et antiquitatis, neque eloquentia ipsius, magnificentissime poetam e sua civitate exterminat quasi juvenes corrumpentem, si quidem eas illis communicet. Nulla igitur apud nos erit ratio temporis, si mendacium nobis negotium facessat: neque nobis erunt pulchre ullae deliciae, si quando ratio et veritas appareat.

[GREEK COLUMN] ^A ποιητὴν ἀλείψας μύρῳ, καθάπερ αἱ γυναῖκες τὰς χελιδόνας (79), ἀγασθέντες παραδεξόμεθα. Καίτοι γε αὐτὸς ὁ Πλάτων μηδεμίαν φροντίδα θέμενος τοῦ χρόνου καὶ τῆς ἀρχαιότητος, μήτε τῆς εὐεπείας αὐτῆς, μάλα σεμνῶς τὸν ποιητὴν ἔξω τῆς αὑτοῦ πολιτείας (80) τίθησιν, ὡς διαφθεροῦντά γε τοὺς νέους (81), εἰ ταύτας αὐτοῖς μεταδοθείη. Οὐ τοίνυν καὶ ἡμῖν μελήσει τοῦ χρόνου ἕως ἂν τὸ ψεῦδος παρενοχλῇ καὶ μηδαμοῦ τὰ καλὰ παιδικά, ὅτε λόγος καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια φαίνεται (82).

[GREEK COLUMN] ΙΑΤ. Ἀλλὰ τί ταῦτα δημηγορεῖς, ἦ δ᾽ ὅς, ὡς ἡμῶν λόγου καὶ τῆς συντρόφου ἀποδείξεως ἀπορούντων, καὶ τοῦτο περὶ τὰ κυριώτατα τῶν δοξασμάτων;

ΧΡΙΣΤ. Οὐκοῦν, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, τῷ λόγῳ ἀνάγκῃ, ^B ᾗπερ ἂν ἑπώμεθα (83)· ὡς εὖ ἴσθι, μηδέν μοι τῶν καλῶν ἁπάντων τιμαλφέστερον καὶ ἁγιώτερον καὶ σεμνότερον καταφαίνεται τοῦτό γε.

ΙΑΤ. Φάθι τοίνυν πῶς νῦν δημιουργὸς ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ τί δημιουργεῖ;

ΧΡΙΣΤ. Τῷ συνέχειν, ἦ δ᾽ ἥς, τὰ ὄντα καὶ προνοεῖσθαι δημιουργεῖ. Ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τοῦτο, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ἂν εἴη τὸ δημιουργεῖν. Εἴπερ δημιουργός ἐστι καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς μὲν ὁ τὴν οὐσίαν αὐτὴν ἐκ μηδαμοῦ μηδαμῶς ὄντος (84) παραγαγών, καὶ τῷ εἴδει τὴν ἁρμότωσαν

[LATIN COLUMN] verat Plotinus ut desertam quamdam in Campania civitatem restituere liceret, Platonicis institutis regendam. Sed amici, ut dictum, imperatoris rem impediverunt, bono, ut ego existimo, exemplo, ne cum auctoritate aliqua in vulgum irent noxia illa nugæ. Porphyrius rem tradit in Vita Plotini, invidiam tamen purpuratorum falso incessens, meo quidem animo: Egregia sane intura erat harum legum cum Romanis concordia. ^C

(79). Vetus et mathem dictum. Plutarch. TAR. Mos fuit talis Graecarum mulierum hirundines instar loquacium, inutilium de caetero, avium domibus ejicere, unguento tamen perfusas, ne loquacitas scilicet irata maledictis sese ulcisceretur. Quo pacto cavendum, ne poetam aliquem quis inimicum habeat, suadet Socrates apud Platonem extremo Minoe: De Homero et avicula pariter ejectis Theodoretus Therapeut.: Sane et aliam causam muliebris hujus perunctionis licet adjicere: ne videlicet redirent, sic deungi solitas hirundines. Cujus nos rei efficax apud nobilem Argentinam olim experimentum fecimus. Meminerunt multi eliminationis hujus Homericae; pauci contra divini ejus honoris, quem a Ptolemæo Philopatore habuit, templo instar numinis cultus. ^D Aelianus Var. lib. xii, c. 22: Ptolemaeus Philopator construens Homero templum, ipsum quidem bene collocavit: in circuitu autem statuas circumposuit, quotquot Homerum sibi vindicant. Manu Homerum demonstrans: scitis utique eum qui a dextris templi Ptolemaeorum comam demissis habet. BA. Dicendum est juveni audienti quod, si injurias extremas faciat, nihil mirandum agat, neque rursus injuriam facientem patri puniens totis modis, sed faciat quod deorum primores et maximi; siquidem sequamur (83). Ergo, inquam, quocumque ratio traxerit, sequamur.

^A And so, together with the generation of matter. For we say that God is the maker of substances, and not merely of forms; whereas, according to your account, the creator is one who refashions matter—which is formless and shapeless—into shape and form, and delivers it from its former deformity, disturbance, and the confusion inherent within it. This, then, is the definition and account of the creator according to both views. But to sustain and to provide—this would be something other than creating. For to sustain is to encompass and preserve those things that exist and have been generated; while to provide is to bestow a certain care upon the things that exist and have been generated.

IATR. You speak well. But what follows for you, said he, from the fact that God is creating now, I would gladly learn from you.

CHRIST. I shall speak.

IATR. Say on.

CHRIST. If He is not creating now, said I—and yet you say He is a creator because He has already created—there is no necessity for Him to be creating always. By the same logic, He would be a creator from Himself, even if He had not yet created the things that exist (86), as He is in need of nothing. For He has the creative reasons within Himself, and is both about to create and creating in act. For it is not necessary that the creator should always be creating, as the argument has demonstrated. But consider this, also.

IATR. What is that (87)?

CHRIST. If we shall say that the world is co-eternal with God, it will surely be in this respect also equal in honor (88) to Him. What could be more impious than if we should raise the circumscribed, visible, and tangible, and that which possesses a material body, to the same glory and honor as that nature which is uncircumscribed, invisible, and higher than all others?

IATR. Matters are not so, said he; and if you wish, I will guide you (89) to the question at hand with a familiar example. For they say that, just as the body is the cause of the shadow of each thing (90), and yet the shadow is contemporaneous (91) with the body, though not equal in honor; so too is this world a consequence of God, inasmuch as He provides the cause for it to exist. And so it is co-eternal with God, yet no longer equal in honor.

CHRIST. Then do you not see at all, said I, the absurdity of what is said? In the first place, indeed, it is devoid of choice

^A and involuntary in the constitution of things; they fabricate myths about God, supposing the world to be a consequence of Him, just as the shadow is a consequence of the body. For the shadow does not follow us because we wish it. Therefore, even if God did not wish it, the world would follow Him, and would subsist absolutely of itself. And thus they erroneously say that God is the cause. Furthermore, they do not even consider this.

MED. What then?

CHRIST. That there is yet some other cause for a shadow. For it is not the body alone that produces it, but also the light; for if that were not present, a shadow would not be shaped or follow. Indeed, there must be light and a body in the middle, which create the shadow. ^B What then is the co-cause that they will attach to God—those who say that God is a cause of the world that is involuntary and devoid of choice—just as the body is to the shadow? When He Himself is intellectual light, and there is no body in the middle to which a shadow is accustomed to follow. For someone of your wise men says that the body stands against the sun, not allowing the brilliance to pass behind it, and this is the shadow. Whence it is outlined just as the body is. But that these things are absurd and fill the soul with defilement ^C when thought of and spoken about concerning God, is most evident to anyone possessing even a mediocre mind. And who would not marvel, or rather laugh, at the example? For they say that the shadow is not equal in honor to the body, and they do not observe that for a different reason these things would not be equal in honor. For a body is and is called three-dimensionally extended. And if someone were to call it the idol of the body, he would not be wrong. Yet, in that they are contemporaneous, there is no difference between them. ^D

^A PHYSICIAN: You speak well; but, blessed sir, said he, if everything that comes to be, comes to be in time; and time is together with the heaven, and the heaven shall be together with time, and time is generated together with the heaven. For this is the measure of the revolution and circumgyration of the world; and it is necessary that the thing measured be together with the measure; since they are relatives, and relatives are naturally simultaneous. But if time has been generated—and everything that is generated, is in time—then time has been generated in time, and there was time, in order that it might exist. Therefore, time existed even before the world was; which is impossible. But if this is absurd, then time is ungenerated, and this world, too; since everything that comes to be, comes to be in time.

CHRISTIAN: Well, my friend, I said, you have learned to subvert the opinions of the wise Plato, even though you profess that you will follow his discipline, and you desire to be called Platonists by men. Or are these things not his? «Time was generated together with the heaven, so that, having been generated together, they might also be dissolved together; if indeed their dissolution is to occur.» So, in order that we might bring aid to truth and to this statement, we shall thus concisely and simply dissolve your building of ^B fallacies, which is made of sand. For we say that the first premise is not true, namely, that everything which comes to be, comes to be in time.

PHYSICIAN: In what, then, said he, will time be generated, and the heaven, if not in time?

CHRISTIAN: In eternity, blessed one; for time is an image of this. Thus, there is no necessity for time to be generated in time, or else one would be ridiculously and captiously seeking a timeless time in order for time to exist.

PHYSICIAN: You speak well; but tell me this, said he: since you confess that God is good, and you say that He has made this whole by His goodness, and you state that this is the cause of the arrangement of existing things, how do you say that this world is corrupted, seeing ^C that it has been generated by the Good and is beautiful? For since the Good is all-sufficient, it confirms that it creates308 good things. Will the Good, then, turn—and the truly Good, for remaining is immutability—

and that which is wrong to say come to pass, so that it might desire that things which have been beautifully fashioned and harmoniously assembled should be destroyed ^A CHRIST. Far from it, said I; let us not receive this into our mind, not even for a moment, concerning the Good; for He is the one, the sole, and ever-existing, having no origin, and ever persisting firmly and unshakably, and never admitting change. For remaining ^B is immutability, and that which remains is firm, and that which truly is, is itself also one, and it is all-encompassing freedom, and stability, and highest blessedness, and the abundant and eternal goodness, toward which every appetite hastens—the Good, and the very nature of the Good.

MED. By what reasoning, then, said he, do you say that this universe perishes—or that it was not made from eternity—and that God remains in His goodness?

CHRIST. I shall tell you, said I, what I also told the philosopher yesterday when he asked me the same things.

MED. Speak; for I would gladly hear.

CHRIST. I say so, indeed.

MED. Say it.

CHRIST. Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, and Plato, the son of Ariston, and Alcibiades, the son of Clinias, and the leader of the Peripatetics—I mean Aristotle—and all men individually; do you say that they are something beautiful, or not?

MED. Certainly.

CHRIST. And creations of the Good?

MED. I suppose so.

CHRIST. ^C How then did Socrates perish, and Plato perish, and also the beautiful Alcibiades, and the leader of the venerable Peripatetic sect, Aristotle, and individuals as they perish—when God is good, who also created these beautiful things in time (for not from eternity; for eternity is the possession of God alone, nor would the world attribute this to itself), and decreed that these too should perish? For thus it had to be; for the blessed and jealousy-free Nature moves toward the benefit of created things, and toward what is advantageous for them.

MED. I shall wipe away this error for you, said he, by some familiar example.

CHRIST. Do this, then, if you would, O blessed one. For you well know that nothing could be more gratifying to me, as your friend, than were you to deliver my soul from error and from opinions that are not true. Whichever of us does this for the other, will he not be conferring the greatest of favors? Or does it not seem so to you? MED. Certainly. CHRIST. Say, then, whatever you wish. MED. Just as a commander, said he, who has under him thirty or a hundred soldiers, ^C trains them for war and instructs them in tactics; and if any of them should die, he adds another to the register, and in this way the work of the thirty or the hundred—indeed, the entire operation—suffers no injury or suspension, for by the commander’s foresight another is substituted in the place of the one who has perished, and the number remains complete; so, too, does God, by creating others in place of those who die on an individual basis, suffer no injury to the harmony and constitution of the whole. Thus He remains in His goodness, even if those who are produced in time die and decay one by one.

CHRIST. Good heavens, I said, what keenness there is in this example, and what extraordinary and divine wisdom! For you do not perceive the things that are being said because of your own folly and obtuseness, nor do you wish to purge away, as if it were some rheum ^D of the eyes of the mind, even a hair’s breadth of those wicked and godless opinions and the ingrained error which you carry around in your soul. For that commander of yours, O blessed one, would have wished that those first soldiers not die; but, having lost them against his will and contrary to his intent (for he had no power to make them immortal), he undertakes a “second voyage,” as the saying goes; that is, he introduces others in place of the dead, and by means of others, he makes up the number of those who were missing, and thus keeps it whole, preserving the utility of the ranks by the addition of those who replace the ones who have departed. But to say this of God, who is able to create immortal things—is this not nonsense and a manifest blasphemy? Your example, therefore, is utterly inept and inconsistent.

^A I shall, however, turn this argument back against you and present your own Sun-god against you. For just as you say that no injury is done by the general to the work, so too God will not be harmed or suffer loss in being creator and good, while transforming, rearranging, and destroying this world; for He will not transform it forever. Nor, again, is it the case that He was not its creator from eternity; for He was creating the intelligible world. Thus God did not remain in idleness before the ordering of sensible things, but He creates with order. For what is disordered comes not from God, but from chance; and while destroying this sensible and visible world, He is good and remains in goodness. For He does not utterly annihilate it, ^B nor does He condemn this whole universe to total destruction, but He brings about a change and alteration toward the better; and He makes a better transformation. For the divine oracles speak of "new heavens and a new earth." That it is necessary for this whole universe to perish, and for its parts to do so, as they perish every day, is easy to understand. For where the parts perish, it is necessary that the whole also should one day undergo the same experiences as its constituent parts, as the renowned and inspired Basil says ^C. The Stoics also agree with this argument. And this is the argument regarding the ^D destruction of the world—one that is necessary and unavoidable; and you are caught, as the proverb says, by geometric necessities and bonds, since you cannot escape the firmness and force of the demonstrations and the reasoning.

^A But so that we do not constrain you by reasoning alone, we shall also run to your preferred authorities. For behold, I shall set forth for you the opinion of the wise Plato, who, in composing the *Timaeus*, speaks thus concerning God and this universe: "What is that which always exists, but has no generation; and what is that which comes to be, yet never truly exists? The former is apprehended by intelligence with reasoning, always being the same; the latter, on the other hand, is opined by irrational sense, coming to be and passing away, but never truly existing." Again, concerning the Creator, he says: ^B "To find the Father and Maker of this universe is a task, and having found Him, to declare Him to all is impossible." And again concerning the heavens: "Whether it always existed, having no beginning of generation, or whether it came into being, having started from some beginning? It came into being. For it is visible and tangible and possesses a body; and all such things have proved to be generated." And again: "Time came into being along with the heavens, so that having been generated together, they might also be dissolved together, if ever a dissolution of them should come to pass." And again, addressing the king of all in relation to the others whom you suspect to be gods, he speaks thus: ^C "O gods of gods, of whom I am the maker, you are indissoluble, provided I so will it."

^A And again: "But since you have come into being, you are not immortal, nor entirely indissoluble; yet you shall not be dissolved, nor shall you meet with the fate of death, having obtained my will as a bond even greater and more sovereign than those by which you were bound when you were brought into existence." Are we treating you with medicine, my friend, by these words, and finally persuading you to rinse out your salty hearing with a potable discourse? Or is it necessary to chant further things over you? For observe how Plato himself knows that the heavens have come into being, and if they have come into being, that they are subject to dissolution and decay, since dissolution necessarily follows upon composition. For everything that is composite is also naturally liable to be dissolved. Let it not terrify you that Plato adds, "If indeed any dissolution of them should occur," and again, "You shall not meet the fate of death," seeing that he has specifically said, ^B "And certainly, everything bound can be loosed," and again, "You are not entirely indissoluble." Moreover, in his *Timaeus*, while disputing, he teaches that the heaven is nourished by its own decay, and he acknowledges that all things of this sort are subject to destruction and are participants in dissolution, inasmuch as they have been brought into existence. But if he asserts that these things are immortal by the will of the Creator, he says these things having been moved by inconsistency, speaking things contrary to himself, and as if fighting with himself in a night-battle. For human wisdom is of little value, or rather of no value, while it has just before testified to their nature being able to perish, because it has also come into existence. Or does it not?

PHYS. It appears so.

CHRIST. If then these things are by nature subject to destruction, one must by no means suspect those who by nature can perish to be gods. Or does it seem to you that this world is God, being brought into existence and by nature subject to destruction, just as reason has demonstrated and as ^C Plato posits?

PHYS. I do not know what I should say.

CHRIST. Therefore, come, let us advance more logically in our discourse. But strive to follow this, for I am eager that you should do so, being as you are a learned man and a philosopher. Do you confess, then, that God is incorporeal and unbegotten, incorruptible and imperishable, and free from composition, or do not you?

^A MED. I confess it. CHRIST. But this sensible world is seen to be created and generated, and composed—according to the judgment of Plato—of matter, form, and the four elements, and is therefore by its nature inclined toward dissolution. MED. It is seen to be so. CHRIST. If, then, O blessed man, God is not thus, while the world is thus, it follows that this world is not God. And if it is not God, neither is any of its parts. Therefore, the sun is not God, nor the moon, nor any of those things that move in the heavens; for these are parts of the universe and are the handiwork of God. MED. You speak correctly. CHRIST. If, then, these are parts of the universe, and the whole has been demonstrated to be generated and by nature inclined to dissolution, as it is complex and generated, and since it ^B has appeared just that what is so constituted should be placed somewhere outside the blessed nature of God; then the sun is not to be worshiped as a god, nor the moon, nor any of the other planets. MED. Certainly not. CHRIST. It has therefore also been demonstrated simultaneously that the sun is not the creator of anything, if it is not confessed to be God, but rather the handiwork of God. For God alone is the creator, inasmuch as He was not created by another. MED. You speak well; but resolve this difficulty for me. CHRIST. Which one? MED. If the world did not exist at some time, how was God in His own proper dwelling? How could He exist apart from the universe? How could He be beneficent, when there were no things ^C towards which He might exercise beneficence? And, moreover, whose God would He be? CHRIST. You seem to me, O blessed man, as if awakened from sleep, to have forgotten those things we were saying just before, and you mistakenly believe yourself to be putting forward the conclusion of our inquiries in a distinguished manner. You do not consider that God, in being beneficent, does not do good by necessity, just as He is not compelled to create, as we were saying. For the divine nature alone is free from necessity. But you ^D suppose God to be self-sufficient and wanting in nothing.

^A and in no way impoverished by any of the things that have come to be through Him. For if He cannot exist apart from this universe, does this universe bestow upon His own existence a very great part, or perhaps the whole, and even the very fact of His existing? And by this reasoning, the universe is the cause, and He Himself is not the cause of the universe. For that which needs something else for its constitution would be the effect of that thing, and not the cause. ^B How then did He Himself constitute this universe? For if He constituted it, as Plato says, before it was constituted, it did not exist. He does not perceive that he destroys the goodness of God by saying that it was for His own sake and for the sake of His own need that He constituted it. This is what your argument keeps building up and churning ^C back and forth, if indeed it were impossible for Him to exist apart from this universe. But if, being good, He willed for things to exist, not having need of them in order to exist (for He surpassed them as perfect and needing nothing), and being Himself all-sufficiency, it is surely not necessary for the effect to be coeval with the effector. For the effector must be older than the effect, and the maker older than the things made, if the thing made is second to the maker in cause and in time, provided it is not to be an involuntary and unreasoned cause; just as the body is to the shadow, and that which glows is to the splendor. ^D For how could the Creator be a creator if He were not a creator by will, having created? Or if it were that this universe followed the Creator by chance, as the shadow follows the body, simply and by spontaneity? Yet God would be a benefactor even when the things to be benefited do not yet exist, as He has within Himself the things that are to be benefited, even before they come into existence and reach the state where it is appropriate for them to be benefited. For example, we call things "prolific" that are born to generate, even if the things generated do not yet exist. For thus we were saying that God is a Creator even if no works of creation were yet existing, because He had within Himself the creative patterns and was ready to create in act. For with the blessed and perfect God, who alone eternally exists and is good, those things which do not yet exist and have not been made are reckoned as existing and made because they are to be; and by His power, He brings all things forth in an instant of time and a fleeting moment.

^A He possessed the will concerning those who were to be benefited and those who were to be created as co-eternal and co-existent with His blessed nature. He brought them forth precisely when He willed that it would be beneficial for those who were to come into being, and when both reason and order so required. Thus, the will and benevolence of God concerning existing things is not in time, as their nature is. And none of the things that have come to be will ever appear to snatch for itself and usurp what belongs solely and exclusively to the Creator. This is what it means to be always. For how could both be existing and always, I mean God and the world, if the one is Creator and the other, creature? Or what is the distinction whereby the one acts and the other suffers? What is the reason, too, for not suspecting the contrary, which it is unlawful to even think of? If both are co-eternal, and it is not the case that God is always and without beginning, while the world had a beginning and did not always exist? For this is the order of creator and creature, so that we ourselves, and any other rational nature with us, might know what a creator and maker is, and what creations and works are. And what is the most perfect, self-sufficient nature, excelling all things, and the lordship; and what are the things that come to be, which are suspended from the power and will of the Creator, and are held together by Him, and depend solely upon Him, and are His servants. For if all things are always with the Creator, where is the superiority of the Creator, since all things are with Him at the same time and always? ^B And how could He be the creator of things that are always existing and connatural with Him? Where, then, would there be room for distinctness in the midst of things of equal honor, and for always? And the lordship and the servitude, and that which in all things is the pre-eminence and the more precious of God. Thus, then, God is always Creator and Benefactor, but the creations are not always. Thus, God was the God of things not yet brought into being, as they existed in Him even before their birth. For He comprehended all things by His foreknowing power, which were to be brought into being. And each thing He puts forth at the time He wills, and when it is fitting, and as it might best have existence, by a certain wisdom and art and creative power; and He is a Creator, not from the things that come to be individually, ^C but from Himself. Or do you not call the benefactor and preserver of the sick person a physician, when he contemplates and deliberates on bringing aid to the sick person, even if he has not yet brought his will into action, being about to add the work to his thought a little later? PHYS. It is entirely necessary. CHRIST. So therefore—but as far as it is religious—

if God is not in a worse condition among you than Pythagoras and other men, God would be and is both Creator and benefactor, even if he does not at some time produce into act, because he is able to create always, and because he possesses from eternity the will and inclination toward the things which are benefited and created. ^B Indeed, you seem to me, while wishing to escape a small inconvenience by your opinion, to become entangled in a great evil. For indeed, by asserting that God was never in idleness, but has been doing good from eternity, you make him a cause of things void of will and not prudent, and you make the creation rise up as a fellow-servant against the Creator, and you imagine the works to be co-eternal with him who made them, raising these up into gods, and distributing the great name and reality among whatever things you wish, just as if it were one of other common things, not granting to the only God the very thing itself—the One and the Good—to carry off the first prizes in all things and through all things, and to be one, and alone, and in a singular manner. ^C For if this world is co-eternal with God, in what respect is God better than this world? This would be it: being from eternity. And how shall we say that he excels all things in all? And if there is God at the same time, and the world at the same time, but God is always, and the works must have been born together with the maker; where is the unity of the blessed God itself, ^D and its freedom from every relationship, and its being outside of bodily nature? For things that are at the same time are related things; and things that are related are joined to bodily nature.

^A God, however, is a certain incorporeal and intellectual existence. Therefore, God and the world are not at the same time, since God is not a body, to which related things adhere. Only God is unbegotten and sempiternal, as one. ^B Furthermore, I do not see how you frequently turn about toward contrary opinions, like drunken men. For if, as you are pleased to call the matter—receptacle and nurse—devoid of form and shape, and again quite mixed and moving in disorder, the Creator happened to take it and brought it into order, and instilled quiet in place of disturbance, and fashioned it, and gave it form, and delivered it from its prior deformity—as Plato says in his *Timaeus*, and you believe—then there was once a deformity in the universe according to Plato, and this world, and the arrangement that exists now, did not exist. But if this is the case, the matter will be co-eternal with God according to Plato, but the world will not be. If that is so, then you also admit that existing things have been created in time, and you in no way say that God has been doing good from eternity; which you nevertheless spread up and down among the public, and carry about, frightening the more simple-minded. And the disorder of matter, and its extreme deformity, will be equal in its beginning to God, and co-eternal and of equal honor with Him; being entitled to the same distinctions and the same dignity as God, the wise and most beautiful, as if it were unbegotten. But the shape, and the form, and the world, will appear as having been added to matter at some later time; ^C to which it will follow that at some point it will cease, and the shape and form will be separated, and the matter will return to its prior disorder and deformity. For things that have a beginning in time are by nature accustomed to end in time. You see how much nonsense and how much stupidity is fixed to your opinions—not wishing God to be the Maker of substances, but only of shapes, like carpenters, and painters, and builders; to whom, if the matter were not already present, they would not demonstrate their own art. ^D Thus, therefore, if matter had not existed for God, He would not have fashioned this world, nor would He have anywhere—according to you—to insert His most beautiful principles of the form-giving power. Perhaps even by a lack of matter, He would be less than He wished to create this world; or if the matter sufficed for His will...

He displayed all His knowledge and the formative principles. Again, you make that which is moved in an unordered and faulty manner equal to and advance it against the great and immeasurable power of God, which was able to receive all His principles, and to be as great as He Himself wished. ^A Thus, from every side, the consequence of the argument has detected that matter is equal in honor to God; and what could be a greater impiety than to make the formless, shapeless, and unfigured [matter] equal to God, not only in its existing always, but also, so to speak, in its very power? ^B

MED. They say that it can be comprehended by reason alone, and for the sake of teaching, simply, as if Plato had set these things forth as a hypothesis.

CHRIST. Therefore, I said, if we grasp it by reason alone, just as we imagine a goat-stag in our mind, it will certainly be such that it neither exists nor subsists. But if this is true, then God did not fashion this universe from pre-existing matter, but from that which was nothing at all. For it has been demonstrated and confessed that this world was made and has order and a fitting structure, which are produced by some orderer. For they do not exist by chance or spontaneously. But this fable of matter and the absurdity of the opinion have long since been refuted by many of our own not ignoble writers. Whence, for the present, we cease our discourse. ^C

MED. Your speech, friend, has well demonstrated what you were seeking. Also, note those who try to persuade us that the world is without beginning or end.

CHRIST. Tell me.

MED. Geometry teaches that the spherical is the most perfect of figures, such that it has neither beginning nor end. And observation shows that this world partake of this. For it was necessary that the most excellent and most perfect of figures be attributed to the most excellent and perfect of created things. See, then, how through this figure the eternity of this world is demonstrated at both extremes. Since a spherical figure has neither beginning nor end. ^D

CHRIST. But, O fortunate one, I said, to me and to you the beginning of this figure is incomprehensible. Yet every circle has a beginning and an end. But let the geometer come forward, and let him trace this figure

^A on a plane. Does it not start from some beginning, just as that wise Basil says, circumscribing it with a center and a radius?

MED. Why should it not?

CHRIST. Thus, indeed, this world, even if it were thought to have a spherical shape, began from a certain temporal beginning; and before it was created, it did not exist. And it will have an end when it seems fitting to the Creator to impose a limit upon its nature. Thus, your long-winded and excessive ^B stupidity will be seen to be nothing, once it has been detected and refuted by reason and demonstration. For that this world is created and corruptible, strive to follow this reasoning, and this opinion of the truth will become clearer to you.

MED. I am listening.

CHRIST. Come now, what is uncreated is incorruptible, is it not?

MED. It appears so.

CHRIST. And what is incorruptible, is it uncreated?

MED. Necessarily.

CHRIST. And, on the contrary, if anything is created, that is also corruptible; and if anything is corruptible, is that not created?

MED. Well said.

CHRIST. But the world is corruptible, as its parts demonstrate; therefore, it was shown to be created as well. Furthermore, if we said that what is incorruptible is uncreated, and what is uncreated is incorruptible, and this world is created—since every body is created—the world is therefore corruptible. ^C And again, if the scriptures say nothing about the incorruptible, and they say that a vessel was first built in Libya, and it is no labor to recount and enumerate by lineage the time from when each of these appeared. If, therefore, the hollows of the earth have not yet been filled, nor has the saltiness of the sea been overcome, nor is that incorruptible whose parts are corruptible, nor is that without cessation, beginningless, and infinite which has a defined nature, nor is that eternal in which the arts and men have been established from the beginning of time, nor is there providence for that which does not have its being from itself: therefore the world has come into being. And if this is so, it will also be destroyed; having both qualities allotted to its nature, to be created and to perish.

Such was the discussion with the man who performed medicine, who, for all his wisdom, ^D swells with pride and is celebrated above all those who dwell by the Nile.

^A But in order that I may send you away fully feasted and leave out nothing which contributes to the inquiry, I shall recount to you another meeting of myself and the philosopher. For on another day, when a frequent gathering of students was present with him, he happened to be expounding to us another work of Aristotle, which he had written concerning moral virtues. And as I was questioning him according to my habit, and listening readily to the things that were being said, the discourse regarding Ideas unexpectedly slipped in. I was saying that Aristotle does not agree with him in his discourse, but that he even fights against Plato concerning this, just as he does concerning many other doctrines. For the two men do not agree on those very things which are the most important and the most comprehensive of the doctrines; and that phrase, "Away with the Ideas; for they are mere trifles," which I remembered, was said by the Stagirite. But he attempted to conceal the conflict. ^B And from there—I know not how—we were revolved and brought back around to the same discourse regarding the universe. The philosopher was, therefore, asserting, as if no dispute had been raised about it the day before, that the world is co-eternal with God. I, however, looking upon him more vehemently and keenly, and by now more sharply, and having stumbled upon the discourse as if upon an unexpected stroke of luck, was opposing him more boldly, and I was already formulating a proposition of this kind.

CHRIST. Do you say, said I, that God, being the first cause and alone, excels all things, and that He is ^C in every way better beyond all comparison?

AMM. I do. For who would contradict these things?

CHRIST. And you say that the eternity of all things is one.

AMM. Why, of course.

CHRIST. If, therefore, you willingly profess these things regarding this confession, and you yourself also confess that God, being the first cause, excels all things simply, and, furthermore, that there is one eternity of all things; then it is necessary that, by this very reason, God also excels and is more excellent than this universe.

^A AMM. Most certainly, he said. For God is the eternal efficient cause, while the world is the eternally generated effect. There will be, therefore, as great a difference between the two as there is between the doer and the thing done, the creator and the thing created.

CHRIST. But we did not say, I replied, that God differs from the universe solely in that He acts and it is acted upon; nor has my argument endeavored to establish this. For this is something acknowledged by all. But to attempt to demolish the common opinion of all, would that not be sheer madness, and unbecoming a man of learning and a philosopher? It is not, therefore, on the basis of acting and being acted upon that we now propose to investigate and hunt out the difference between God and the world, and the incomparable pre-eminence of God; but ^B rather, whether He alone is eternal, and shares no communion with the world in the matter of existing always. If this is so, I ask again: do you affirm that that which always is, is eternal?

AMM. Yes. CHRIST. And God, being eternal, always is? AMM. So I say. CHRIST. And the world, being eternal, according to you, is likewise something that always is? AMM. Most certainly.

CHRIST. If, therefore, you say that that which always is, is eternal, and according to your opinion this belongs not to God alone, but also to the world, where then is the pre-eminence of God? Where is His ^C superiority, by which He transcends the universe without any comparison in the matter of eternity, if He does not possess this alone, but the world also shares with Him the dignity of being eternal, and is held worthy of the same prerogatives according to you? Do you not also consider that one who lays claim to philosophy ought not to engage in such captious and contentious disputations, nor covet a Cadmean victory?

These things I said, but he remained silent, having become more speechless than stones and fish. ^D For he saw those who were standing around admiring our position and marveling at the demonstrations of the Christians, and whispering to one another that they were indeed very spirited and powerful. He then commanded certain men, whom he had formerly filled with his own drivel and foolishness, to depart and not listen to what was being said, fearing, as I suppose, that they might be affected in some way by the argument and the demonstration, and be persuaded to adopt the Christian faith. [alt-version omitted]

And I, keeping to the argument, said to him: ^A "And answer me this as well, O blessed one."

AMM. "What is that?"

CHRIST. "Do you maintain that each individual thing that exists has its own characteristic property, which belongs to it alone and always; for instance, in man, the capacity for laughter, and in a horse, the capacity for whinnying?"

AMM. "How could I not?"

CHRIST. "Is it not necessary, then, to inquire what might be the most proper characteristic of God, which belongs to Him alone, and exclusively to Him, and always? And what would be more worthy of admiration and more fitting for the blessed nature, than to believe that it exists from eternity, and is alone immutable, lacking nothing of those things which have been created, because ^B it is itself perfect and self-efficient, and exists eternally in the same way, simply and uniformly; and has neither any beginning nor any end, but creates—if it creates—out of goodness alone; while all other things are created and mutable, having a beginning in time? So that the eternity belongs to God alone, and it is joined to Him to be always and alone and immutably. Therefore, O Philosophy (for I am moved to address you as if you were animate), do not suppose that any of the things of the Greeks, which are by nature subject to mutations and varieties, and to all movement and change, are co-eternal with God. For in this way, we shall not take away that which is His sole, singular, and eternal ^C property, which is the summit of His attributes, by imagining that He shares with anything that is of a mutable nature, and does not truly exist. But in order that I may provide for you, O admirable one, arguments from your own familiar and friendly sources, I shall ask this as well, if you will answer what is asked of me."

AMM. "I shall certainly do so," he said.

CHRIST. "Does it seem to you that things which exist simultaneously can have a creative causal relation to one another?"

AMM. "Not at all."

CHRIST. "But do you say that things which are simultaneous are co-eternal?"

AMM. "Necessarily."

CHRIST. "And that the world is co-eternal with God?"

AMM. "Certainly."

CHRIST. "And that God is the Creator of the world?"

AMM. "How could He not be?"

CHRIST. "Consider then, in sum, what is being concluded. ^D For if the world is co-eternal with God, and things that are co-eternal are simultaneous, and things that exist simultaneously cannot have a creative causal relation to one another, it follows that the world cannot have from God the cause...

^A If the thing being produced is to exist, it must not be a mere shadow, nor should the produced be taken along with the cause as if it were a component of the essence—as is the case with the sun and its radiance, or as being consubstantial with it, as in the case of the Father and the Son. Rather, the cause must be creative, possessed of intellect and choice, and the producer of an essence distinct from itself. Where, then, noble sir, will there be room to affirm that God is the creative and hypostatic cause of the world that is co-eternal with you, since the essence of the world is different from Him? Or how can we say that God and the world have existed together from eternity, if we rightly call things that are simultaneous "co-eternal," and things that are simultaneous cannot have a creative causal relation to one another? For of the two, one or the other must necessarily be the case, as common principles and the dialectical affirmation and negation have shown: either, in calling God the maker of the world's essence, one must say that the sensible essence is not co-eternal with God, or, if one admits the latter, one must deny that He is the creative cause of the universe. Or is this not evident?

AMM. You seem to speak the truth.

CHRIST. Let us then exercise the same argument again, ^B imitating, so far as possible, the Spartan brevity; for what is good is by its nature accustomed to become more solid for those who seek it through continuous practice and training. We confess God to be the maker and cause of the world.

AMM. Yes.

CHRIST. You suppose the world to be co-eternal with God.

AMM. Most certainly.

CHRIST. Things that are co-eternal are of the category of things that are simultaneous.

AMM. Why, of course.

CHRIST. Things that are simultaneous cannot have from one another a creative cause.

AMM. No.

CHRIST. Therefore, the world, being co-eternal with God, according to you, cannot have a creative cause from God; yet we maintain that God is the maker of the world.

AMM. Yes.

CHRIST. The world, then, will not be co-eternal with God. ^C For every product is later than its maker in cause and in time.

AMM. But if we say this, he said, observe into what an absurdity we shall fall.

CHRIST. Tell me; for I would gladly hear it.

^A AMM. If we shall not say that existing things are co-eternal with God, then God, it follows, did not will for existing things to come into being; and there was a time when He did not have the will concerning existing things; but having deliberated in time, of necessity He shall also at some time change His mind. But if this be so, then the proper conception concerning God will no longer be preserved for us. For to deliberate in time and to change one’s mind introduces as mutable him who is subject to such affections. CHRIST. Most certainly, my good sir, I said, it is not necessary to say that God deliberated in time concerning the constitution of things that have come into being. For even if the nature of these things should be called co-incipient with God and co-eternal, yet He had the will concerning them without beginning, as He is good and God; but He gave them substance when it was to be beneficial to the things coming into being. ^B Furthermore, "to deliberate," when used of men, leads one to think of change and changing one’s mind; but in the case of God, "to deliberate" is not to be understood as in men, since God is not man; therefore, one must understand "to deliberate" in a way appropriate to the natures subject to Him. AMM. You speak well. CHRIST. There was a time for us, my friend, when there was also discourse concerning the primal and blessed Trinity; and the philosopher requested to learn how we say that the same is both Trinity and Unity; for he said these were in some way incompatible. But I said to him: We say, my Christian friend, that Trinity is in Unity, and Unity is in Trinity, because the hypostases indeed are three, but the essence is one. ^C For the beginning of existing things is the most fruitful nature, the goodness free from envy, the fountain of life, the intellectual light, the very Good itself and One, the first cause, He who is, and that which truly is, and which always has itself in the same way; as, for instance, mind, and the Father begetting the Word, not as spoken, nor again as internal, but as substantial and subsisting in itself, and of the same substance with Himself; from eternity and co-eternal, inasmuch as it is of the same divinity with Him, not by hypostasis, but by substance; and bringing forth from eternity another hypostasis for Himself, ^D and consubstantial with the Word; whom the divine oracles truly call the Holy Spirit, together with the generation of the Word and Son and Wisdom, without any flowing, and cutting, and emptying. For these are affections of bodies. Beyond age, and time, and every interval that can be conceived by the mind, He is one with the Word and Creator and Wisdom and the divine Spirit, as those things are referred to Him as to a cause; the one in a generative manner, and the other in a procession-like manner, or rather, as a procession.

Since Wisdom and the Word preside over the constitution and workmanship and procreation of things, the divine Spirit inspires all essences that are participants in reason and intelligence, and perfects their subsistence. Therefore, we call the Father of the Word and of Wisdom—He from whom the holy Spirit proceeds—the first cause and the principle of the Godhead, a principle lacking time, which Godhead is beheld in the Son and the Spirit, just as our Theologian Gregory says. Thus, the blessed and most principal Trinity is both a trinity and a unity: not scattered into a chaotic and Hellenic multitude; for it is a monad. Neither is it restricted by a single hypostasis in a jealous and Judaic fashion; for it is a trinity ^A.

AMM. Therefore, he said, these things are three in hypostases and in number, but one in substance.

CHRIST. The gatherers and listeners exclaimed and lauded this, with a certain pleasure and grace. For this was the very thing my discourse strove to demonstrate, which the philosopher gathered and concluded. But he, smiling very sarcastically ^B, with a certain blush, was silent and kept to another subject. These, then, have been the three gatherings I had with him: two concerning heaven and God, that this world is not coeval with God; and one concerning the blessed and principal Trinity—that is to say, the threefold monad and unity. I have also had many other gatherings with him concerning other matters, both our own and Hellenic; but as they contribute nothing to the present study and contemplation, it seemed good to me to be silent for the time being. Do you wish, then, my friend, being content for now with what has been said, and having understood the discourses we had with the philosopher, that we should turn our feet toward home?

B. By no means, my happy one; for I desire that you yourself wipe away from my soul the very crown of my doubt; for you are sharp-witted and a wise orator.

A. But let those discourses go; for we have not gone through these things for the sake of praise and display, but out of concern for your well-being and health. As for me, I have no regard for praises, but for the dear truth and for ecclesiastical dogmas and teachings. Having left behind praises, therefore, to those who are ambitious and hungry for glory, say what you will, and what is it that troubles and disturbs your soul concerning the confessions of the dogmas of the truth? You said, my good fellow, that this world was fashioned by God after the intelligences, when it was proper ^C for it...

to be brought into the nature of things: for God creates by freedom and goodness, and not by necessity. Thus, you said that God did not remain in idleness ^A before the creation of the sensible world; as though He were fashioning the intelligible things and extending His benefits first to the intellectual natures, and filling them with His own graces—since He was in no way needy of the things that were made by Him. For He is a Creator from Himself, and not from the things that have been made; for God is self-sufficient and perfect. Or did you not affirm these things B. Certainly.

A. You are acute and keen-minded and possess a good memory, and nothing of what was investigated has escaped your discourse.

B. You are jesting, my blessed friend, in returning these praises, and though you yourself do not wish to be praised, you do wish to praise, even though you honor ^B equality and justice throughout your life.

A. But, my good fellow, letting these things pass for now, let us stick to the proposed inquiry. Remind me, therefore, of what the discourse had begun to clarify.

B. You were saying that I said that after the intelligible world, this sensible world was brought into being; and you explained that it also must be corruptible, insofar as it is a product. And your discourse excellently and stoutly demonstrated and argued that God remains in His own goodness, without any injury or detriment to Himself, even if the world should perish. Furthermore, it was said by you that it is necessary that ^C the world be transformed and become immortal, undergoing a certain alteration and change for the better, and a transformation of its present state, and receiving a more sublime, more holy, and more divine condition. Were these not the things that were being said?

A. Indeed.

B. Proceed, therefore, and answer me what I ask.

A. What is that, I ask?

B. If God is to make this world immortal, and is to transform it and reform it for the better, what is the reason why He did not make it such from the beginning, but will at some point clothe it with immortality? For either through ignorance of what is beautiful He did not make it such as He will make it at some time, as if through negligence; or because He could not; or—which is a sin to speak—He will not escape the stain of envy. But ignorance, ^D and imbecility, and envy, and negligence are far from the blessed nature: what have you to say to these things?

A. It was not through ignorance of the true beauty that He did not make it incorruptible, nor because He was not able, nor again through envy.

^A For from the only good and self-good being, all envy is far removed, as is weakness from power, and ignorance from the wise and self-wise being, and repentance from the immutable. But, O blessed one, it was necessary for the place to be commensurate with those who were to dwell in the place ^B (63); and for the dwelling-place not to differ greatly from those who have their habitation in it. It is therefore necessary, since we have been born mortal and flow away daily, that the things surrounding us should also be of such a nature. And again, as we pass into immortality, these things also follow; or does it not seem to you that like rejoices in like (65), and is a friend and companion? For you have heard this from the proverb, and poetic discourse has taught it.

B. I understand what you say.

A. In this way, then, this world also—adorned and distinguished by a variety of plants and of every kind of species, and by the differences of animals and countless forms, and shining in all these by the benefit of God, and furthermore containing within it rational natures, human beings, for whose sake it was indeed especially created by God—if one were to state this as the sole cause of its creation, he would not be wrong; it becomes like itself and embraces harmony with its parts. For it was necessary that it should not be joined together in a way that was entirely discordant, but should have some manner of affinity with those who dwell within it. And what sort of affinity would there be if, while some things were coming into being and passing away and obtaining their entry into existence with time, and perishing not long after (for such are those things that fall under birth and decay), it was itself destined to be made immortal ^C by God? And how could mortal eyes have received the divine [vision], and been capable of the other senses, if the heaven and the things that move according to the heaven were ^D immortal, incorruptible, and deathless? For both reason, and the wisdom of men of old, and experience itself show and teach that like approaches like. But since, by the providence and benefaction of the Creator, we shall again revive, having received immortal bodies (67) and being superior to every change, with which we also lived and passed into this life (for He did not condemn the creatures He fashioned to total and perpetual destruction), [index: entries preserved]

it was necessary that the things surrounding us should once again be such as our bodies are, full of glory and immortality, and free from every mutation and alteration, so that like might approach and adhere to like. This is the reason, blessed man, why this universe was not created by God indestructible and immortal from the origin.

B. You have resolved one doubt for me with another, my friend. For if He was indeed going to make even human beings immortal, why does He delay the benefit? And why did He not make all things immortal from the very moment of their birth?

A. Hear, then, they say, a very noble discourse ^A (69), which Moses the inspired prophet and lawgiver wrote down, and which reason also discerns to be true. For the Creator and Maker of this universe, after the creation of heaven and earth and sea, and of the sun and moon and stars, and of those dwelling in heaven, on earth, in the air, and in the sea, when creating man (for it was necessary that the royal dwelling and the banquet and the preparations for the feast be prepared beforehand for him, as if for a king and guest, by the King and Host of all ^B (71, 72); and then, in this manner, for him who was to be appointed and proclaimed king and guest of the good things ^C (75) to be set upon the earth, things which the great Host had provided), that good Maker, I say, when creating man, joined and bound a rational soul (which reason recognizes as His own image) to a sensible body, and from the very beginning sowed the seeds of immortality into their bodies by means of the immortal soul, so that even the insensible parts might perceive the benefit of the Good One and His contemplation, and that through the mixture and tempering of the rational substance, he might be a participant of this, and He made him self-determined, free from necessity, unfettered, and autonomous. For this is the mark and token of a nature primarily rational, and an image and imitation ^D (74) of the kingdom above: and He provided this as a prize of immortality, and as a law, so that he might recognize the Lord, and know that he was not without a king and without a master, even if he had been constituted king of the things upon the earth (75)—that advancement being from the beneficence of God who made him king. For the recognition of one's own servile condition is a noble thing (76), which eradicates arrogance and audacity and pride and vanity,

^A and altogether represses the stirrings of the soul, and recalls to mind the Delphic inscription, "Know thyself." But man, scorning the law and caring less for the legislator, fell from that immortality which, had he been a guardian of the law, he would have attained, and he is punished with dissolution. For it was fitting that evil should not be immortal, and this was out of the beneficence of the supreme King, Legislator, and Maker. Now, evil would be the contempt and disregard of royal commands, and the negligence toward one's benefactor—a disdain which does not in the least escape the charge of ingratitude. Man made this the beginning of another swarm of vices and gathering of pleasures, of rashness and intemperance. ^B This is the rationale of dissolution, and this is the cause of reformation and immortality—nothing other than the goodness of God and His pity for him who had fallen, and an excess of philanthropy. For the Maker, having had pity on His creature and not enduring that it should be overcome by evil, indeed dissolves the vessel that had received the evil, but He refashions it again, and remolds it, having stripped away the base habits and forms, so that we might not suffer eternally, nor again might the creature be condemned to perpetual corruption and endless destruction, having been created from the beginning for immortality. ^C But since wickedness and the disdain of the law preceded the dissolution, it followed that virtue and the observance of the law and sinlessness must precede the reformation and the immortality. Therefore, O blessed one, God Himself, the Legislator and King, becomes man—and remains God—and He, the Maker of nature, heals the infirmities of nature, showing the nature within Himself to be pure and free, and uninjured and unharmed, and furthermore, entirely unclouded and sinless. He becomes the way of immortality for His creature, and the guide, and, to speak simply, the beginning and the foundation, having raised up and immortalized the body, which the Word Himself—the Creator—united to Himself from our nature and substance with a human, intellectual soul, ^D clearly, so that He might remold the whole of nature. For by the same reasoning as when the first man, having through his own negligence rendered himself subject to dissolution and destruction for a time, caused the whole race to be punished with the same things: by that same reasoning, through the Maker Himself, who remained God and yet became man—in whom no species or motion of evil was found (for He was the source of all virtues and of holiness, and the very immunity from change and sin)—the cause of immortality and the signs of incorruptibility are transmitted to the whole race.

^A You have, my dear friend, the reason why we were not made immortal at the very instant of our birth. Now, using opposition and comparison, examine and learn for yourself the difference between these opinions. They suppose this world to be coeternal with the Creator, not allowing God to surpass and excel all things in all ways and in all respects; but they elevate a bounded entity, one possessing material body, to the same glory as the boundless and incorporeal nature. And, as Basil the Great, the teacher of truth, says, they make that which is by nature corruptible and altogether destined for dissolution—as its parts and composition demonstrate, since whatever is composed is necessarily also dissolved—equal to Him who is incorruptible, beyond harm, truly existing, and forever the same. ^B They attribute divinity to this world and its parts, and, being ignorant and uncouth, they do not concede that God is the Creator by providence and will; rather, they suppose Him to be a non-volitional cause of the world, through that common and trite example. Again, according to the proverb, they are caught in their own wings. For they say that what has been brought into being by a Good One, and has been excellently framed, ought not to be destroyed; yet, when questioned about individual human beings—for whose sake especially this whole universe was created—so that they come into being and are destroyed, though they were made by a good God and excellently framed as the handiworks of a good God, they become ^C more mute than fish or stones. Furthermore, while confessing that this world does not possess immortality from itself—for, as I heard one of Plato’s students boasting, if the Creator were withdrawn from the universe in thought, or if He did not contain and fix what has been created, and hold together the things produced by Him, all things would perish in vain, and the destruction and corruption of the whole would follow—by thus confessing this, they proclaim the sun, the moon, and, briefly put, the seven so-called planets, and heaven itself, to be gods. And those that are by nature corruptible, they assert to be the causes of the things that occur individually; and by fashioning these for us as gods, they insult the great and much-contended-for name and reality of Godhead, and drag down the undefiled and ^D impassible nature into corruption. Such, then, are their opinions; or rather, these are their frenzied tales about the universe, and their fabrications and license of error. Our own opinion regarding these things, and the discourse of truth, is as follows: God is...

^A confessed as alone unbegotten, by nature immortal, without beginning, and eternal. But this world, which falls under the senses and is visible, we profess to have come into being after the creation of the things that exist. For the Creator creates with order and sequence, so that nothing among the things that are might be disordered. For disorder is not of God, but of randomness. Thus, we say that God is Creator from Himself, and not from things already created; he does not remain in idleness before the creation of the sensible world, inasmuch as he is always working on the intelligible things. Nor did he come to the creation of what exists out of necessity. Neither again do we say that the world has stood beside him from eternity, ^B or followed after him, lest we introduce it as an involuntary cause of the whole—as if we were implying it were a natural appendage or a tow-boat—but we confess he is the Creator of things that exist by the superabundance of his goodness and by his will. We understand the world to be by nature corruptible, for it has come into being; yet we say it is not to be destroyed entirely or into eternity because of the goodness of the One who made it, but rather that it is transformed toward something better, and together with our own bodies, it is to be immortalized after the universal consummation. For nothing of those things that were created by the Good for their own sake shall be consigned to perpetual corruption. And the short-lived corruption ^C was introduced by the Good for the benefit of rational beings, so that we might not think ourselves immortal. And at the same time, through this brief corruption of these things, and their transformation, the intelligent natures learn that they are not by the necessity of their own nature, but by the will of the Good, who brought them out of non-existence into existence, that they might understand that they depend on him.

^A For they were created immortal, ^B not because they were placed in the first rank out of a lack of a second; but so that, looking toward the first principle and the one and only true Good, they might never be sated with the contemplation of their Benefactor, loving to be ruled and to enjoy the divine illumination of the Good, hating anarchy. Moreover, the exceeding power and wisdom of God is manifested, seeing that He makes mortal things immortal, and neither allows us to be ignorant of our mortality, nor to remain in it, as someone among our wise men has said. Therefore, the dissolution of sensible things does not bring about a perpetual perishing for the universe; for if it did, what came to be would be alien to God, and not from the Good. ^B But the great and manifold wisdom of God devised, through the dissolution of human bodies, a way to destroy the corruption which evil had introduced, and to communicate immortality to mortals, so that men, after the experience of death and dissolution, might hate the cause of the dissolution—and the cause of this, we said, is evil. Furthermore, we might also learn through the dissolution and reformation of this universe, and through its more frequent change, that He is the very One who in the beginning created the magnitudes and beauties of the things that are seen; and that through the contemplation of them, one ought to admire and wonder at the master craftsman, and not attribute divinity to the things made by Him on account of their beauty and their rhythmic concord and harmony. And so He will most justly punish those who deify his works and deny His sole dominion, and who fabulously claim that the world is co-eternal with Him to whom alone eternity belongs, and who set the created thing ^C against the Creator, as the great teacher of the truth, Gregory, says.

B. You speak rightly, and by summarizing everything through comparison, you have shown the difference between opinions; and just as light differs from darkness, so you have taught how much your doctrines differ from the Greek myths. But I long and beg, O fortunate man, that this too may be clarified for me. ^D One God: but matter and forms are a frail myth,

[understood by the wise of the Greeks as co-eternal, of which those who fashion gods and holy forms, were not, but came to be, by the will of the great God.]

^A A. You will do me a most pleasing favor, good sir, if you inquire about whatever pleases your inclination. B. You said that God had made man endowed with free will? A. Yes. B. And that he had received a law from the Creator; but that he had thought little of the law and had despised the Lawgiver? A. Certainly. B. And you said that this was the cause of the dissolution? A. It is indeed so. B. What, then, good sir, was the necessity of gracing nature with liberty and bestowing free will, through which it was destined to be dragged down to destruction, and to drag down this whole universe along with it? Or how, with the neglect of the law—which you said was the cause of the dissolution—already foreseen by Him, did God make the world corruptible, the creation of the universe coming second to that?

A. The Creator knew, good sir, by His foreknowing power, that man would despise the law and that he would be mortal; and so, anticipating this, He prepared for him the world as a fitting habitation. But I shall answer you regarding the reason why man was made with free will. If you have anything else, inquire.

B. Explain as quickly as possible that which has been proposed.

A. I will. The Creator, my friend, being good—or rather, being Goodness itself and the supreme Good—wills, first, that our nature should not be subject to necessities like brute animals, to be dragged wherever it might be pushed; and, furthermore, He wills that our good should not be derived from the bondage of nature, so that, when we perform works of virtue and noble deeds willingly, we may be deemed worthy of praise and rewards. For that which is compelled is not dear to Him, but that which is cultivated by counsel and choice. Or would you praise your own servant, ^B if he were a scourged wretch and a prisoner, if he happens to perform some of those things which are commanded; or [would you praise him] when, with no necessity imposed and no whip [hanging over him], he leaves nothing undone of those things which he ought to perform by reason of his servile condition?

^B

B. Clearly, my good man, I embrace and accept the latter.

A. Why, then, does the Creator not insist upon the latter and embrace it, seeking only our method of acting well, and deriving from us this pleasure alone, that we may be saved, as the famous and divine Clement says? Therefore, those who do away with free will, and accuse the Creator because He did not make us devoid of counsel and choice, prefer nothing other than irrational impulse and nature to that which partakes of reason, preferring involuntary motion to voluntary motion and to virtue endowed with and instructed by reason and counsel; and they are almost angry that they were not born as cattle, apes, camels, and donkeys.

B. Hey there, blessed one, you have certainly made me an ass, an ape, and a camel, and assigned to me the marks of irrational nature because of a question of this sort!

A. You are joking, good man. I, for my part, did not think that it belonged to a prudent and intelligent man to joke about such great matters.

B. I was saying that while affecting urbanity, not joking. For I understand what is being said, and I give thanks to the Creator that He made me a partaker of reason and of my own free will. But I shall not accuse Him Himself—for what would a man accuse the wise, all-beautiful, ^C and good God? Rather, I accuse the thoughtlessness of men, because they prefer pleasure to virtue, being enticed and ignorant, just as if someone were to delight in being scratched, and, deceived by pleasure, should lacerate his whole body with his nails, not thinking of or considering the sores that follow.

A. You speak well, and the image is very fitting. If you have anything else, ask it.

B. This alone remains to me as a doubt. How can we say that the bodies of men, divided into a thousand parts and sections, if it happens, and often devoured by wild beasts, whether on land or in the sea, and often even completely consumed and perished, will live again and attain to resurrection?

A. When I have resolved this much-discussed question for you, I shall put an end to the dialogue, unless some other doubt disturbs your soul.

B. This one alone lies in wait and remains fixed in my mind. For, believe me, you have purged my soul of a great importunity of questions and of error. ^D

^A A. Thanks be to the Creator himself, O good man, who has granted us to say these things. Endeavor, therefore, to inquire also into what is possible and what is reasonable regarding the resurrection of bodies. B. Speak; for I would gladly hear it.

A. From what shall we say that the bodies of men are composed—for it is necessary to philosophize a little, O good man? B. Our discourse on physics and the truth show us that it is from the four elements.

A. And when these are dissolved, into what do we say they pass? Is it not into those same things from which they were composed? B. It is absolutely necessary.

A. What then appears wonderful or strange, if the Creator, being both wise and powerful, and knowing the accounts of all things, gathers back to harmony the bodies of men, which have been fragmented into a thousand segments and parts from the four elements? For ^B he who first gathered and joined them together, and who—by his will alone—fitted together a certain admirable and sightly mixture from opposites, the same one, once the harmony has been dissolved back into those things from which it was composed, will again call them to an indissoluble symphony. And he will do these things by his great will. Or does not the divine nature embrace and contain all things—the things above, the things below, and the things in the midst—and is it not outside the universe, and in the universe, and above the universe? And is there nothing empty of the divine power and of the super-essential essence which alone is infinite and does not endure limitation? For the Godhead has no quantity and no magnitude, as it is incorporeal.

B. Certainly.

A. If, therefore, he fills all things, and "the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world," as the divine oracles say, "and in his hand are the ends of the earth," what difficulty or what labor is it for the blessed deity to know the things that are in his hand? Or are you ignorant of what you hold in your hand?

B. Not at all.

A. Therefore, the Creator, who is both wise and who knows the accounts of bodies, is not ignorant of the portion taken from each element and resolved back into it again. Nor, indeed, is the universe God. ^C

all-powerful ^A will not be able to gather the dissolved human bodies. Furthermore, consider this for me.

B. What is that, then? A. This human seed which is sown in the womb of a woman, do you not say it is a drop of some humor? B. Certainly. A. Who, therefore, makes the body of a man out of that small part of humor and genital seed, and gathers it with a soul, and makes it a rational animal, mortal and capable of discipline? Is it not the supreme Creator? B. Indeed. A. What, therefore, seems wonderful to you: if even here ^B the Creator, knowing the reasons for bodies after dissolution, and the return into the four elements, and their very seeds, being instructed by wisdom and power, commands them to revive again? And thus it is clear that the resurrection falls under His power. Hear furthermore what is also consistent. First, indeed, the Creator wishes all things to be, and to be well and always, so that nothing of those things which have been produced by Him may be overcome by death and eternal destruction. Next, does it not seem just to you that souls should obtain rewards, which have completed this excellent struggle of life, and have run the course well in this stadium with the bodies with which they also lived, and endured a thousand sweats of virtue? B. It seems just and consistent indeed. A. But again, that those which have passed this life wickedly, and have indeed loosened their wings from virtue, and have been overcome by a multitude of intemperance and pleasures, and have obeyed the weight of the burden, and have been pushed downward by the horse of malice, and by the trifles which are in us ^C, having forgotten their immortality and ^D

^A of their own immortality and of their kinship from above, and of that first and undefiled image, they go with their bodies into the sacred prison-house of retribution, with which bodies they were also wickedly corrupted, and cross the rivers burning with fire which Plato mentions, and the Cocytus; things which the divine oracles call a river of fire, an unsleeping worm, Gehenna, eternal shame, a prison, punishment, and the like?

B. This also seems reasonable.

A. Very well, O blessed one; our discussion is complete. Now it is time to turn our minds to prayer, ^B and to hymn the Maker and Creator of this universe.

O Master and Creator of this universe, O Father, and Word, and Holy Spirit, O divine Trinity, and triple and holy Unity; Father, without beginning and unbegotten; Son, begotten without beginning; divine Spirit, proceeding without beginning from the Father; Trinity ineffably recalled into unity, Unity inenarrably adored and not comprehended in Trinity; uncreated, eternal, and consubstantial Trinity, the first and blessed nature and principle of all things, the goodness most devoid of envy, and the truly Existing One: grant us to cleanse ^C the mind and to make it worthy of Thy illumination and contemplation, that we may, as purely as possible, reach out to Thee, the Most Pure—if indeed it be lawful—and to expel the evil characters and impressions of the soul, and to manifest the first, undefiled image, and that Thy great advent—O Triad, one God and Word—and manifestation, and those saving and supernatural sufferings through which we have been released from sin, may not have been in vain for us. Grant also that our souls ^D may not have a negligent disposition toward virtue, but may meditate on dissolution before our bodies are dissolved, so that we may not be troubled when our bonds and chains are loosened, nor frequently turn toward these fleeting things, bearing the separation with distress. Grant, further, that we may escape the catalog of punishments, and not experience a bitter departure from life, but rather join and enroll us in the mansions above, whenever it is pleasing to Thee, and may we be well through this meditation, and of that...