is brought about, being either productive of good, or a hindrance to evil. A God, therefore, since He wishes to hinder evil, establishes punishment. But He would not attempt to hinder evil, if that evil could not be hindered: yet that which is hindered cannot be by nature unbegotten. Ignorant men have fallen into error in this matter as well, imagining that punishment is contrary to the promise; for each is a recompense—the one bringing a reward to the good, the other a punishment upon those who have voluntarily transgressed the divine laws.
FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST BOOKS OF DIDYMUS
B "Constantly exercise yourself in your own mind with arguments concerning Providence and judgment," says that great teacher and instructor in spiritual knowledge, Didymus, "and endeavor to keep the subject matter of these arguments in your memory. For almost all blunder in these matters. And the arguments concerning judgment you will find in the difference of bodies and in the parts of the world; but the arguments concerning Providence you will detect in those ways by which we are led from vice and ignorance towards virtue and knowledge."
C From long study and discipline, the violence and ferocity of the passions are weakened.
From the book of Didymus, *On the Incorporeal*. The instructions and exhortations of a teacher contribute to the benefit of the hearers, not when the teacher instructs by word alone, but when he does so also by action consistent with his words, and by adhering to the things he has promised. Again, it is necessary for a true teacher to lead a life consistent with the things he himself has legislated, so that his action may be properly harmonized with his word.
Another fragment was provided by Mingarelli in his notes, p. 277.
IV. A treatise to Rufinus on why infants die, although they have taken on bodies because of their own sins. See the *Works of Jerome*, ed. Migne, vol. II, p. 478 D.