Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

Postby admin » Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:12 am

Part 2 of 2

'The best sacrifice to the gods is a pure mind and a soul free from passions; but also congenial to them is the offering of other sacrifices in moderation, not carelessly however, but with all earnestness. For their honours must be like those paid in the case of good men, such as chief seats in public assemblies, rising up at their approach, and honourable places at table, and not like grants of tribute.' 18

Hereby then it was clearly acknowledged, according to the Greeks and their philosophers, that nothing endued with life can rightly be sacrificed to the gods, for the act is unholy, and unjust, and hurtful, and not far from a pollution. He was no god then nor yet a truthful and good daemon----that oracle-monger of whom we heard just now as exacting drink-offerings of blood and burnt-offerings; nor yet all those to whom the oracle commanded animals to be sacrificed. A deceiver therefore and a cheat and an utterly wicked daemon must we call him who so lied, and called them gods who are not, and enjoined the sacrifice of animals not only to the terrestrial and infernal gods, but also to the gods of heaven and ether and the stars. What then, if not gods, we ought to suppose all those before mentioned to be, the writer himself shall explain again in what follows.

CHAPTER XV

[PORPHYRY] 'He who cares for religion knows that nothing which has life is offered to gods, but to daemons either good or evil; knows also whose interest it is to sacrifice to them, and how far they proceed who need their help.' 19

And presently he says again:

'Those who thoroughly understood the powers that are in the universe brought their bloody sacrifices not to gods but to daemons, which fact also is certified by the theologists themselves; and moreover that some of the daemons do harm, but others are good and will not molest us.' 20

Thus far the aforesaid author. But since he asserted that some of the daemons are good and others bad, how may we see that their supposed gods are all found to be not even good daemons, but bad? You may find the proof of this as follows.

What is good gives help, but the contrary does harm. If then those who have been everywhere proclaimed either as gods or as daemons----the very same, I say, who have been celebrated by them all, and are worshipped by all the heathen nations, as Kronos, and Zeus, and Hera and Athena, and the like, also the invisible powers, and the daemons who operate through graven images----if these should be found to delight not only in slaughter and sacrifices of irrational animals, but also in manslaughter and human sacrifices, thus destroying the souls of the miserable men, what worse harm could you conceive than this?

For if the offering of irrational animals was called by the philosophers execrable and sacrilegious, abominable too and unjust and unholy and not harmless to the offerers, and for all these reasons unworthy of the gods, what are we to think of the offering made by human sacrifice? Would not this be most impious, most unholy of all? How then could it reasonably be declared welcome to good daemons, and not rather to utterly abominable and destructive spirits?

Come then, let us examine and prove how widely the plague of polytheistic error held sway over the life of man before our Saviour's teaching in the gospel. For we shall prove that this error was abolished and destroyed no earlier than the times of Adrian, when Christ's teaching was already shining forth like light over every region.

And to this not our testimony, but the voices again of our adversaries themselves shall expressly bear witness, charging upon the preceding ages wickedness so great, that the superstitious pass at length beyond nature's limits, being so utterly driven frantic and possessed by the destroying spirits, as even to suppose that they propitiate the bloodthirsty powers by the blood of their dearest friends and countless other human sacrifices.

Sometimes a father sacrificed his only son to the daemon, and a mother her beloved daughter, and the dearest friends would slay their relatives as readily as any irrational and strange animals, and to the so-called gods in every city and country they used to offer their home-friends and fellow citizens, having sharpened their humane and sympathetic nature to a merciless and inhuman cruelty, and exhibiting a frantic and truly daemoniacal disposition.

So then by examining all history both Grecian and barbarian you would find how some used to dedicate sons, and others daughters, and others even themselves for sacrifice to the daemons. And for this I offer you the same witness as before, in the same work in which he forbad the sacrifice of irrational cattle as unholy and most unjust: and this is what he says word for word. 21

CHAPTER XVI

[PORPHYRY] 'And that we say this not lightly, but with the fullest testimony of history, the following instances may suffice to prove. For even in Eliodes a man used to be sacrificed to Kronos on the sixth day of the month Metageitnion. This custom prevailed for a long time before it was changed: for one of those who had been publicly condemned to death was kept in custody until the festival of Kronos, and when the festival was come, they brought the man forth outside the gates opposite the temple of Aristobule, gave him a drink of wine, and cut his throat.

'And in what is now called Salamis, but formerly Coronia, in the month Aphrodisius according to the Cyprians, a man used to be sacrificed to Agraulos, the daughter of Cecrops and a nymph of Agraule. This custom continued until the times of Diomedes; then it changed, so that the man was sacrificed to Diomedes; and the shrine of Athena, and that of Agraulos and Diomedes are under one enclosure. The man to be sacrificed ran thrice round the altar, led by the youths: then the priest struck him in the throat with a spear, and so they offered him as a burnt-sacrifice upon the pyre that was heaped up.

22 'But this ordinance was abolished by Diphilus, king of Cyprus, who lived in the times of Seleucus the theologian, and changed the custom into a sacrifice of an ox: and the daemon accepted the ox instead of a man; so little is the difference in value of the performance.

'Also at Heliopolis in Egypt Amosis abolished the law of human sacrifice, as Manetho bears witness in his book Concerning Antiquity and Religion. The men were sacrificed to Hera, and were examined just as the pure calves that were sought after and sealed. Three men were sacrificed in the day: but instead of them Amosis ordered the same number of waxen images to be supplied.

'Also in Chios they used to sacrifice a man to Dionysus Omadius, tearing him limb from limb; in Tenedos also, as Euelpis of Carystus states. For even the Lacedaemonians, Apollodorus says, used to sacrifice a man to Ares.

'The Phoenicians, too, in the great calamities of war, or pestilence, or drought, used to dedicate one of their dearest friends and sacrifice him to Kronos: and of those who thus sacrificed the Phoenician history is full, which Sanchuniathon wrote in the Phoenician language, and Philo Byblius translated into Greek in eight books.

'And Ister, in his Collection of Cretan Sacrifices, says that the Curetes in old times used to sacrifice boys to Kronos. But that the human sacrifices in almost all nations had been abolished, is stated by Pallas, who made an excellent collection concerning the mysteries of Mithras in the time of the Emperor Adrian. Also at Laodicea in Syria a virgin used to be offered to Athena every year, but now a hind.

'Moreover the Carthaginians in Libya used to perform this kind of sacrifice, which was stopped by Iphicrates. The Dumateni also, in Arabia, used every year to sacrifice a boy, and bury him under the altar, which they treated as an image.

'Phylarchus states in his history that all the Greeks in common offered human sacrifices before going out against their enemies. I say nothing of the Thracians and Scythians, and how the Athenians slew the daughter of Erechtheus and Praxithea. Nay, even at the present time, who knows not that in the Great City a man is sacrificed at the festival of Jupiter Latiaris?

And again he says: 23

'From which time until now not only in Arcadia at the Lycaea, nor only in Carthage to Kronos do the whole people offer human sacrifice, but periodically for the sake of keeping the custom in remembrance they always sprinkle kindred blood upon the altars.'

So then from the aforesaid writing let these passages suffice: but from the first book of Philo's Phoenician History I will quote the following: 24

[PHILO BYBLIUS] 'It was a custom of the ancients in the great crises of danger for the rulers of a city or nation, in order to avert the general destruction, to give up the most beloved of their children for sacrifice as a ransom to the avenging daemons: and those who were so given up were slain with mystic rites. Kronos, therefore, whom the Phoenicians call El, who was king of the country, and subsequently, after his decease, was deified and changed into the star Saturn, had by a nymph of the same country called Anobret an only-begotten son (whom on this account they called Jeiid, the only-begotten being still so called among the Phoenicians); and when extreme dangers from war had befallen the country, he arrayed his son in royal apparel, and prepared an altar and sacrificed him.'

Such, was the manner of these doings.

With good reason therefore does the excellent Clement himself also, in his Exhortation to the Greeks, when finding fault with these very customs, lament as follows over the delusion of mankind and say: 25

[CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA] 'Come then, let us further observe, what inhuman daemons and haters of mankind your gods were, not only delighting in driving men mad, but also gloating over human slaughter, making for themselves occasions of pleasure now in the armed conflicts of the arena, and now in the endless contests for glory in war, that so they might have the fullest opportunities of freely glutting themselves with human slaughter. And at length, falling like pestilences upon cities and nations, they demanded merciless libations of blood. For instance, Aristomenes the Messenian slew three hundred men in honour of Zeus of Ithome, supposing that hecatombs so many and also of such quality would give good omens; for among them was Theopompus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, a noble victim. The Tauri, the nation who dwell about the Tauric Chersonese, sacrifice forthwith to the Tauric Artemis whatever strangers they take on their coasts, those I mean who have been wrecked at sea. These are the sacrifices which Euripides dramatizes on the stage. Monimus, too, in his Collection of Marvels, relates that at Pella in Thessaly a man of Achaia was offered in sacrifice to Peleus and Cheirou. And that the Lyctians, who are a race of Cretans, sacrificed men to Zeus, is declared by Anticleides in his Returns of the Greeks: and Dosidas says that the Lesbians offered the like sacrifice to Dionysus. The Phocaeans also, for I must not omit them, are said by Pythocles in the third book On Concord to offer a man as a burnt-sacrifice to Artemis Tauropolos. Erechtheus of Attica, and Marius of Rome, sacrificed their own daughters, the one to Pherephatta, as Demaratus states in his first book of Subjects of Tragedy, and Marius to the "Averters of Evil," as Dorotheus relates in the fourth book of the Italica. Friends truly of mankind the daemons are clearly proved by these examples!

'Must not then the piety of the daemon-worshippers be of the like kind, the former receiving the flattering title of Saviours, and the latter asking safety of those who plot against safety? At least, while imagining that they offer to them a sacrifice of good omen, they forget that they are cutting men's throats themselves. For of course the murder does not become a sacrifice because of the place. Nor, if one should slay a man in honour of Artemis and Zeus in a so-called sacred place (would it become a sacrifice) any more than if, from anger or covetousness, he should slay the man in honour of like daemons on altars rather than on highways, and call it a holy sacrifice. But such a sacrifice is murder and manslaughter.

'Why then, O men, ye wisest of all living creatures, why do we flee from savage wild beasts, and, if we fall in anywhere with a bear or a lion, turn out of the way----

"As when some traveller spies,
Coiled in his path upon the mountain side,
A deadly snake, back he recoils in haste,
His limbs all trembling, and his cheek all pale"---- 26
but though you have perceived and understand that daemons are destructive and pernicious, treacherous, enemies of mankind, and destroyers, you do not turn aside nor shrink back from them?'

Thus far Clement. But I have also to present to you another witness of the blood-thirstiness of the impious and inhuman daemons, namely, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a man who published a complete and accurate work on the History of Rome. Now he too writes that Zeus and Apollo once demanded human sacrifices, but those of whom they were demanded offered to the gods their portion of all crops and cattle, but were beset by all kinds of misfortune, because they did not also sacrifice men. There is nothing, however, like hearing the writer himself, who tells the story as follows: 27

[DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS] 'But a small part (of the Pelasgians) remained in Italy, through the prudence of the Aborigines. The first beginning of ruin to the inhabitants of the cities seeme'd to be the damage of the land by drought, when neither did any fruit remain to ripen upon the trees, but all fell off unripe, nor did any of the seeds, which put forth shoots and blossomed, complete the normal periods for the ripening of the ear; nor did grass grow sufficient for cattle; and of the springs some were no longer good to drink, and some were failing from heat, and some completely drying up. And disasters akin to these occurred in regard to offspring of cattle and women: for the fruit of the womb either miscarried, or perished at the time of birth, in some cases causing death to the mothers also. And whatever escaped the danger of parturition was crippled, or imperfect, or injured through some other mischance, and was not fit to be reared. Then, too, the rest of the population which was in the prime of life began to be ravaged by diseases and deaths of more than ordinary frequency. And when they inquired of oracles, which of the gods or daemons they had offended that they suffered thus, and what they could do with a hope of alleviating their troubles, the god made answer, that, after obtaining what they wished, they had not paid what they vowed, but still owed the most precious part. For when a general dearth had fallen upon their land, the Pelasgi made a vow to Zeus and to Apollo and to the Cabeiri that they would offer in sacrifice tithes of all future produce: but when their prayer was fulfilled, they chose out the portion of all crops and cattle, and offered these in sacrifice to the gods, as though they had vowed these only. This story is told by Myrsilus the Lesbian, who writes in almost the same words as I have now used, except only that he does not call the people Pelasgians but Tyrrhenians; and the reason of this I will state a little later.

'When they learned the answer of the oracle that had been brought back, they could not conjecture the meaning. But in their perplexity, one of the older men who had guessed the oracle said, that they had mistaken the whole matter if they supposed that the gods were accusing them unjustly: for though all the first-fruits of property had been rightly and justly paid by them, yet the portion of human offspring, a thing most precious above all to the gods, was still due. But if the gods were to receive their just share of this also, they would then have fully satisfied the oracle. Some thought then that this was good advice, but others that the speech was concocted as part of a plot: and when some one brought forward the proposal that they should ask the god again whether it was his pleasure to receive tenths of men, they sent ambassadors a second time, and the god made answer that they should do so. Hereupon a quarrel arose among them as to the method of choosing the tenths: and the chief men of their cities then first fell into dissension among themselves, and afterwards the rest of the multitude became suspicious of the magistrates; and their emigrations were not made with any order, but as was to be expected when men were driven away by frenzy and infatuation. So when a portion of them migrated, many households were utterly destroyed; for the relatives of those who went forth did not approve of being left behind by their dearest friends and remaining among their worst enemies. These then were the first who removed from Italy, and wandered into Greece and many barbarous lands; and after the first emigrants, others had the same feeling, and this went on continuously for years. For those who were in power in the cities did not cease to choose out the victims from the youth who at the time were growing into manhood, both as deeming thus to pay due service to the gods, and because they feared seditious movements from those who had escaped. There were many also who from enmity were driven away by their opponents under a specious pretext; so that the migrations became numerous, and the Pelasgic race was scattered abroad over a very great part of the earth.'

Also a little later he says: 28

'Now it is said that the ancients offer these sacrifices to Kronos, as was done in Carthage while the city remained, and is done among the Celts unto this day, and in certain other of the Western nations who offer human sacrifices; but that Hercules, wishing to put a stop to the custom of this sacrifice, set up the altar on the hill of Saturn, and dedicated holy offerings hallowed by pure fire. And in order that the people might have no timorous scruple, as having neglected their ancestral sacrifices, he taught the inhabitants to appease the wrath of the god, by substituting for the men whom they used to cast into the stream of the Tiber bound hand and foot, images made like men and arrayed in the same manner as the former, and to throw them into the river in order that the foreboding, whatever there was of it remaining in the souls of all, might be removed as the likenesses of their old suffering were still preserved. And this the Romans continued to do even to my time, a little after the spring equinox, on the so-called Ides in the month of May, meaning this day to be the division of the month: on which day, after sacrificing the customary victims, the so-called Pontifices, the most distinguished of the priests, and with them the Virgins who guard the undying fire, and the Praetors, and those of the other citizens who have the right to be present at the sacred services, throw from the sacred bridge into the stream of the Tiber images fashioned in human forms, which they call Argëi.'

Such are these statements. And Diodorus also narrates similar facts in the twentieth book of his Bibliotheca Historica, after the death of Alexander of Macedon, in the time of the first Ptolemy, concerning the Carthaginians when besieged by Agathocles the tyrant of Sicily, writing word for word thus: 29

[DIODORUS] 'They alleged also that Kronos was set against them, inasmuch as they used in earlier times to sacrifice the best of their sons to this god, but afterwards bought children secretly, and reared them and sent them for the sacrifice; and when an inquiry was held, some of those who had been sacrificed were found to have been supposititious. So when they had taken thought of this, and saw the enemy encamping close to their walls, they had a superstitious fear of having abolished the honours which their fathers had paid to the gods: and, being eager to amend their errors, they chose out two hundred of their most distinguished sons and offered them as a public sacrifice; and others who were under suspicion gave themselves up of their own accord, in number not less than three hundred. Now they had a brazen statue of Kronos, stretching forth his upturned hands inclined towards the ground, in such a way that the boy placed thereon rolled off and fell into a pit full of fire.'

Such are the stories handed down by this author also in his own history. With good reason then does the scripture of the Hebrews lay blame upon those of the circumcision who emulated such practices, saying: 'They offered their sons and their daughters to the daemons, and the land was defiled with their blood, and was polluted with their works.' 30 But in fact I believe it to be hereby clearly proved that the most ancient and primitive erection of carved images and all the idolatrous creation of gods among the heathen was the work of daemons, and of daemons who were not even good, but utterly wicked and worthless: so that the oracle speaks truth which says in the prophecies, 'All the gods of the heathen are daemons'; 31 as also the passage of the Apostle where he says, 'That the things which they sacrifice, they sacrifice to daemons and not to God.' 32

Or if there was any good one among them, on whose account they might share in the title of the good, he would be a benefactor and saviour of all, a friend of justice, and a guardian of mankind. But if he were such, how could he delight in human slaughter? And why did he not forbid mankind by oracles to follow such practices? Surely he was worse and more wicked than men, since they by legal punishments brought the blood-guilty to a better mind. For it was no god, but a man, who abolished the long-continued and wide-spread plague of human sacrifice.

But that these were the works of worthless and wicked daemons would be still more manifest to you, were you to consider their practices of infamous and unbridled fornication still observed in the City of the Sun in Phoenicia, and among many other people. For they say that men ought to practise adulteries, and seductions, and other unlawful kinds of intercourse, in honour of the gods, as a sort of debt due to them, and to consecrate to the gods the first-fruits of adultery and fornication, dedicating to them the gains of this ignoble and unseemly commerce, just as if it were some worthy kind of thank-offering: for these practices are similar to their human sacrifices.

If therefore it is not the part even of a decent man to delight in murders, and obscene language, and illicit intercourse with women who sell away their beauty for hire, far be it from us to say that it is the part of gods or good daemons to accept such offerings. But if any one should say that, though these are confessedly the acts of evil daemons, there are nevertheless others, namely the good daemons, whom they especially worship as saviours; where then, we should ask, were their good saviours, if they worshipped them, that they did not hinder the wicked daemons from so treating their suppliants? And where were the good daemons that they did not drive away the mischievous, and bring aid to their worshippers? And why did they neglect and overlook the rational and religious race of mankind when oppressed by the cruelty of the evil daemons, instead of plainly warning them all to flee straight away, and shun every so-called god as being no god but a wicked daemon, to whom things cruel and inhuman and unlawful and disgraceful are dear? And if either in Rhodes there was long ago a supposed god who rejoiced in human sacrifices, the true god, if indeed there was one, would have repressed the practice and warned them all to regard such an one not as a god but as an evil daemon. Or if in Salamis, which also was formerly called Coronea, a man was sacrificed in the month Aphrodisius according to the Cyprians, their true god would have shown them that this too was a wicked daemon, and so would have stopped the proceeding as impious and unholy.

If also at Heliopolis in Egypt Amosis abolished the law of human sacrifice, the true god would have taught them that the man was far better than the god: for there again he who was the author of the human sacrifice was no god but a daemon. Nor would the true god have ordained that men must not consider Hera's daemon impure, since the history showed that three men were sacrificed to her every day.

And what could be more truly daemoniacal than the so-called Dionysus Omadius, to whom, it is said, they sacrifice a man in Chios, tearing him limb from limb, or the other in Tenedos, whom also in like manner they used to propitiate by human sacrifice? Their true god would also have forbidden to sacrifice a man to Ares, the daemon who is the bane of mortals and lover of war, and would have made a law against sacrificing to him the dearest either of their kindred or of strangers.

If also, as they say, a virgin was sacrificed every year to Athena at Laodicea in Syria, their true god would not have shunned to call her too a wicked daemon; as also him in Libya who delighted in the like sacrifices, and him in Arabia, to whom they sacrificed a boy every year; and buried him under the altar.

CHAPTER XVII

All these, and those who delighted in obscenities of language and illicit seductions of women and all the madness which has been before mentioned, the true and good god, or daemon, would have forewarned them, not by any means to regard as gods. But none of them ever yet is recorded to have done this, except only the God who is honoured among the Hebrews, as being the Only and true God.

For He alone forewarned all men by Moses the Prophet and Theologian, not to reverence the wicked daemons as good, but on the contrary to shun and repel them, as being evil spirits; and moreover He made a law to destroy their shrines and their unholy and profane sacrifices, and utterly to banish from among men the remembrance of them as gods, and the honour that was assigned to them: for it was an impiety that those who were cared for by the good should propitiate the evil.

And whether it is Phylarchus, or any one else, who records that all the Greeks, before going out to their wars, offer a human sacrifice, do not thou hesitate to take him also as a witness of the daemoniacal possession of the Greeks: do not neglect either to declare that those in Africa, and the Thracians, and the Scythians, who follow the like practices, have been subjected to the same daemoniacal frenzies; as also the Athenians, and the inhabitants of the Great City, since these also used to sacrifice men at the festivals of Jupiter Maximus.

But in fact if you were to collect the catalogue of all those who have been mentioned above, you would find that, as I might almost say, the whole manufacture of gods by the heathen depends upon these same murderous spirits and evil daemons. For if in Rhodes, and in Salamis and the other islands, and at Heliopolis in Egypt, in Chios, and Tenedos, and Lacedaemon, Arcadia, Phoenicia, Libya, and, besides all these, in Syria and Arabia, and among the Panhellenes and the Athenians who stand at the very head of them, in Carthage also and Africa, and among Thracians and Scythians, it has been shown that the rites of human sacrifice to daemons were celebrated in old times, and continued down to our Saviour's time, why may you not say with good reason that all mankind were at that time enslaved to wicked daemons, and that life was not relieved from these great evils before our Saviour's teaching shed light upon the world? For indeed it was proved by the statement of history that these things continued till the times of Adrian, and have been abolished since his reign: and this was exactly the time at which the doctrine of salvation began to flourish among all mankind.

Moreover it is not in their power to say that they used to sacrifice to the evil daemons; since the history made it clear that the human sacrifices were dedicated especially to the great gods themselves. For it affirmed that they were offered to Hera and to Athena, to Kronos and Ares and Dionysus, and to supreme Zeus himself, and to Phoebus, that is to Apollo the most venerable and most wise of all: and these and none other they address as the greatest and best of saviours and gods.

These then must themselves be the wicked daemons. For if they delighted in such human sacrifices and homicides, may you not with good reason reckon them in the same class of blood-guiltiness with the wicked spirits, whether they were said themselves to delight in such offerings, or to acquiesce in them, and connive at their being done by others?

For why should they permit men at all to propitiate the wicked spirits? Or why allow them to err so far as to worship and flatter the evil daemons? And why to be enslaved by the wicked, when, as being good themselves and gods, it behoved them by their greater and more divine power to drive away everything whatsoever base and wicked as far as possible from man's daily life?

Surely a good father would not calmly see his own son corrupted by evil men; nor would a prudent master calmly see his servant led away by his enemies, nor yet a commander in time of war give up his own soldiers as prisoners to the enemy, when it was in his power to bring them safe off; nor would a shepherd give up his sheep to the wolves: and shall then gods and good daemons give up mankind in subjection to the bad and wicked daemons? And shall

'The thrice ten thousand guardians of mankind,' 33
I mean their shepherds and preservers, kings and fathers and lords, deliver up their dearest ones to their enemies and foemen, fierce as wild beasts, to harry and plunder in so merciless and cruel a manner? Will they not cast a shield over their suppliants, and fight in their defence? Will they not drive the hostile and wicked daemons far away from the human fold, like savage and devouring beasts? And will they not teach every man to be of good courage because he is closely allied with a countless multitude of gods and good daemons, and, because he is consecrated to those who are not only stronger but also the more numerous and the greatest gods, to pay little or rather no regard to the weakness of the wicked daemons? But since they did not act thus, but on the contrary themselves helped the evil daemons by permitting the fore-mentioned human sacrifices by their oracles, and by delighting in all kinds of obscene language and the practices attendant thereon, it is proved by deed, as the saying is, that they were not themselves at all different in nature from the evil daemons, but rather were of one and the same will and purpose; and that, to speak yet more truly, he was no god at all, nor any good daemon, that was worshipped of old by all the heathen in every city and country district.

For how could the wicked ever become friendly to the good, unless one should say that one mixture might be made of light and darkness? And how much better is human reason than those supposed gods, when it enjoins that no sacrifice should be offered even to wicked daemons! So at all events the writer formerly quoted, in the work wherein he asserted that men ought not to offer living victims, says that neither ought we to sacrifice to wicked daemons, speaking in this wise: 34

CHAPTER XVIII

[PORPHYRY] 'Wherefore a wise and prudent man will guard against using sacrifices such as these, whereby he will draw down daemons of this kind to himself, but will be careful to purify his soul in every way; for they never attack a pure soul, because of its being unlike themselves. But if it is necessary for States to propitiate these daemons also, that is nothing to us; for States regard wealth and externals and things for the body as good, and the contrary as ill; but there are in them very few who care for the soul.'

After this he adds:

CHAPTER XIX

[PORPHYRY] 'We, however, as far as possible, will require none of the things which these evil daemons supply: but with all our soul and with all outward means we make every endeavour, by freedom from passions, and a clearly formed conception of the realities of being, and the life that looks to them and agrees with them, to grow like to God and those about Him; but to grow unlike to wicked men and daemons and, generally, to all that takes delight in what is mortal and material.

35 'But the philosopher whom we describe as standing aloof from external things will not, we may fairly say, trouble daemons, nor have need of soothsayers, nor of the entrails of animals; for he has made it his care to stand aloof from the very things for which divinations exist. For he neither lets himself fall into marriage, that he should trouble the soothsayer about a wedding, nor into commerce; nor will he trouble him about a servant, or a theft, or any other of the vanities of mankind. But on the subjects of his inquiry no soothsayer, nor animal's entrails will indicate the truth. By himself alone, as we said, he will approach the god whose seat is in his own true heart, and there uniting all his powers in one full stream will receive his suggestions concerning the life eternal.' [Porphyry, ibid. ii. 52]

Hereby then his language most clearly shows to whom we must ascribe the oracles, and the inquiries by inspection of sacrifices, and those prognostications about uncertainties at which the multitude marvel. For by calling all these things 'vanities,' he rejects them as being wrought by wicked daemons.

So when going through his account of evil daemons, and asserting that the wise and prudent man never gave himself over to them, nor drew such daemons to himself by his sacrifices, he next subjoins a statement that the philosopher 'will have no need of oracles nor of the entrails of animals,' and such like, as being part of the evil craft of daemons.

If then according to this the wise and prudent man ought to beware of using sacrifices of this kind, whereby to draw the daemons to himself----and if by these were meant sacrifices by shedding of blood, and by slaughter of brute animals----none could justly be called prudent and wise among those who of old used to sacrifice animals to the daemons,and much less any of those who offered human sacrifices.

But almost all nations in the world, so to speak, before our Saviour was made known unto mankind, were convicted of propitiating the evil daemons by the human sacrifices which were performed in every place: none of these therefore was wise and prudent.

So then the common sense and consideration of mankind, guided by true reason, expressly forewarns every wise and prudent man not to make use of sacrifices for courting the favour of the wicked daemons, 'but to be diligent in purifying his soul in all ways; for they do not assail a pure soul, because it is unlike themselves.'

But their god Apollo (for we must again compare him with men, and show how far he falls short of right reason) enjoins sacrificing to the picked daemon, not otherwise of course than as being friendly to him: and the bad is friendly to the bad. The witness of this is the same author as before, in the work which he entitled Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, who relates the following story word for word:

CHAPTER XX

[PORPHYRY] 'So when the prophet was eager to see the deity with his own eyes, and was urgent, Apollo said that such a thing was impossible before giving ransom to the wicked daemon. And these are his words:

"To the dread genius of thy fatherland
Bring thou, for ransom meet, libations first,
Then fragrant incense, and dark blood of grapes,
With rich milk from the mothers of thy flock." 36
'Again, he spake more plainly on the same subject:

"Bring wine and milk, and water crystal-clear,
Holm boughs and acorns, and in order lay
The entrails, and the rich libations pour."
'But when asked what prayer should be used he began, but, did not finish, speaking thus:

"O daemon, crowned king of erring souls
Beneath daik caves, and on the earth above----"'
So spake the wonderful god, or rather the most wily daemon: but the dictates of natural reason are the very contrary, exhorting us 'to purify the soul,' but not to draw the wicked daemons to our side by sacrifices, 'for they do not assail a pure soul, because it is unlike them.' But then if he who was cautious, and did no sacrifice to daemons, was rightly judged to be a wise and prudent man, I leave it to you to consider, who and what kind of being he could reasonably be esteemed who, by his oracle, advised men to sacrifice to the wicked daemons.

Now if from this point you review what has been said, it will be evident what sort of beings in natural disposition those were who delighted in human sacrifices, or those who had long before enslaved the whole human race to such beings. But should any one say that the custom of human sacrifice is not wicked, but was most rightly practised by the men of old, he must at once condemn all of the present day, because none worship after the manner of their fathers.

CHAPTER XXI

If, however, it was prudent in those of our day to make their escape from that harsh and fierce cruelty, then none of the ancients was wise in propitiating the wicked daemons by human sacrifices. But in fact it is plain even to a blind man, as the saying is, that those who were deified of old by all the heathen, could neither be gods nor good daemons but were as far removed as possible from goodness.

Wherefore also they might justly be called enemies of God and impious,who ruined all human life, and from whom never any save only our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ provided the way of escape for all men, by preaching to all alike, Greeks and Barbarians, a cure for their ancestral malady, and deliverance from their bitter and inveterate bondage. To that deliverance the language of the Demonstration of the Gospel urges men to hasten, shouting with loud voice to be heard of all, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me, He hath sent me to preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to heal the broken-hearted.' 37 And again, 'To bring out the prisoners from their bonds, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house.' 38

For these are the things which long ages ago the truly divine oracles of the Hebrews foretold, preaching the good tidings of deliverance for us who had long been blind of soul, and fast bound in the many-linked fetters of wicked daemons. Wherefore with good reason, after being enlightened in the eyes of our understanding by the word of salvation, and made prudent, and wise, and pious, and free from all ills, we will neither sacrifice nor be in bondage to the supposed gods of the heathen, who formerly indeed tyrannized over us also; but having been led and brought near by our Saviour's teaching to the only true God, who is both our Lord and our Preserver, our Saviour and Benefactor, and moreover our Maker and Creator, and sole King of the universe, Him only we will believe to be the true God, and to Him alone will we render the homage which is due, honouring and worshipping Him only, not as the daemons like, but as the Saviour of all mankind sent down from Him has taught us by the doctrine of His Gospel.

If we worship God in this way, far from fearing the wicked daemons, we shall pursue and drive them away from us by chastity, and a pure disposition, and by a life of prudence and perfect virtue, which has been marked out by our Saviour: for it was acknowledged that they cannot approach a pure soul because it is unlike themselves. But neither shall we need divination and oracles, nor shall we scrutinize the entrails of animals, nor pry into any of the operations of daemoniacal influence.

For Christ's word enjoined on us to be careful to shun the very things for the sake of which these practices are eagerly pursued by the multitude; and exhorted us to desire only those things concerning which no soothsayer nor any entrails of animals will give clear indication of the truth, but only the Word of God Himself, who dwells in the true hearts of those who, because of perfect purity of soul, are able to receive Him inwardly in themselves. For concerning these He says somewhere in the holy Scriptures, 'I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.' 39

These then are the proofs of the wickedness of the daemons derived from the topic of sacrifices. Hear however what the author of the work On Abstinence from Animal Food relates again on the same subject, expressly acknowledging that, while the wicked daemons are sculptured in many shapes, and give their character to forms of all kinds, they elude and deceive most men. For, says he, by slipping into the persons of good beings, and alluring the multitude to their company by inflaming men's passions, they wish themselves to be entitled the supreme gods.

And so far, says he, have they prevailed, as to deceive even the wisest poets and philosophers of the Greeks, whom he also admits to have been the authors of the perversion of the multitude: he says also that from them all kinds of imposture arose, and the things which allure men to pleasure are supplied by them; also he says how they wish to be gods, though they are really evil daemons, and how the power which presides over them is supposed to be the supreme god. All these things Porphyry relates in the following manner: 40

CHAPTER XXII

[PORPHYRY] 'All souls which fail to control the spirit connected with them, but are for the most part controlled by it, are on this account greatly vexed and harassed, whenever the angry passions and desires of the spirit are excited: and these souls might reasonably be themselves called daemons, but mischievous ones.' And the whole number, both these and those of the adverse power, are invisible and perfectly imperceptible by human senses. For they are not clothed with a solid body, nor all with one form, but their forms being moulded in various shapes, and expressing the character of their spirit, sometimes become visible, at other times are invisible: sometimes also the daemons, at least the worst sort of them, change their forms.

'The spirit, in so far as it is corporeal, is capable of suffering and of perishing: but, by being so bound in subjection to the soul that the character thereof continues for a long time, it is nevertheless not rendered eternal; for it is natural that some portion of it should be continually wasting away and changing.

'The spirits then of the good are well proportioned, as also are the bodies of those which become visible; but those of the maleficent are misproportioned. These last, occupying chiefly the region near the earth with their sensuous nature, omit no effort to work all kinds of evil. For with a disposition wholly violent and treacherous, and deprived of the guardianship of the better daemons, they make their assaults for the most part forcibly and suddenly like ambuscades, here trying to lie hid, and there using violence.'

Presently he adds: 41

'These things and the like they do with the purpose of turning us away from the right notion of the gods, and drawing us towards themselves. For they themselves delight in all things that are done in this irregular and inconsistent way; and having slipped as it were into the persons of the other gods, they take advantage of our thoughtlessness, and attach the multitude to their company, by inflaming men's lusts by amours, and desires of wealth and power and pleasure, and again by ambitions, out of which things grow wars and seditions, and the like.

'But worst of all, from these crimes they mount up higher, and make men believe the like concerning the chief gods, until they bring even the God of all goodness under these accusations, and say that by Him all things are thrown into confusion. And not only ordinary men have been thus affected, but also not a few of those who are occupied in philosophy.

'And the cause of their errors has been mutual; for of the students of philosophy, those who did not depart from the common train of thought came to agree with the opinions of the multitude: and on the other hand again the multitudes, hearing from those who were thought to be wise what agreed with their own opinions, were confirmed in holding more strongly such thoughts concerning the gods.

42 'For poetry further inflamed men's imaginations by using language adapted to astonish and beguile, and able to work in them a fascination and belief concerning things utterly impossible; whereas they ought to have been firmly persuaded that the good never does harm, nor the evil ever does good. For, as Plato says, to chill is no property of heat, but of the contrary principle; (nor is to warm a property of cold, but of the contrary); so neither is it a property of the just to do harm.

'And of course the divine is by nature most just of all, else it would not be divine. Wherefore this power and office (of doing harm) must be far removed from the beneficent daemons. For the power which is naturally fit and willing to do harm is contrary to the beneficent power, and opposites can never exist in the same subject.'

Again: 43

'It is by the adverse powers, however, that the whole imposture is accomplished; for these and their prince are especially honoured by those who, through their impostures, work mischief.

44 'For they are full of every kind of illusion, and well able to deceive by their wonder-working. By their help those possessed by evil daemons prepare philters and love-potions: for all lewdness, and hope of wealth and fame is wrought by them, and deception above all.

'For falsehood is congenial to them: for they wish to be gods, and the power who presides over them wishes to be thought the supreme god. These are they who delight "in libations and burnt-offerings," 45 by which very things the spiritual and bodily element is nourished and fattened. For this element lives on vapours and exhalations, in various ways by their various contrivances, and is strengthened by the sacrifices of blood and flesh.'

Hereby then we have heard them confess that not only the poets among the Greeks inflamed men's imaginations concerning the evil daemons as if they were gods and good, but so did also those of the philosophers who were thought to be earnest about the gods; for they themselves worshipped not gods but wicked daemons, and so plunged the multitude and the common people headlong into the like delusion.

In their statement at all events it was clearly confessed that the multitudes, by hearing from those who were thought to be wise doctrines about the gods agreeing with their own opinions, were encouraged to think still more of the wicked daemons as if they were gods. And these charges are not brought upon our authority, but by the very men who know their own affairs much more accurately than we do.

In fact the same writer, having made no slight acquaintance with the superstition which is unknown to most, says that the wicked daemons wish to be gods, and to have among men the reputation of being good.

And who the power presiding over them happens to be, shall be made clear by the same author again, who says that the rulers of the wicked daemons are Sarapis and Hecate; but the sacred scripture says Beelzebul. Hear then how he writes on this point in his book Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles. 46

CHAPTER XXIII

[PORPHYRY] 'But it is not without reason that we suspect the wicked daemons to be subject to Sarapis, nor from being persuaded only by the symbols, but because all the sacrifices for propitiating or averting their influence are offered to Pluto, as we showed in the first book. But this god is the same as Pluto, and for this reason especially rules over the daemons, and grants tokens for driving them away.

'It was he then who made known to his suppliants how they gain access to men in the likeness of animals of all kinds; whence among the Egyptians also, and the Phoenicians, and generally among those who are wise in divine things, thongs are violently cracked in the temples, and animals are dashed against the ground before worshipping the gods, the priests thus driving away these daemons by giving them the breath or blood of animals, and by the beating of the air, in order that on their departure the presence of the god may be granted.

'Every house also is full of them, and on this account, when they are going to call down the gods, they purify the house first, and cast these daemons out. Our bodies also are full of them, for they especially delight in certain kinds of food. So when we are eating they approach and sit close to our body; and this is the reason of the purifications, not chiefly on account of the gods, but in order that these evil daemons may depart. But most of all they delight in blood and in impure meats, and enjoy these by entering into those who use them.

'For universally the vehemence of the desire towards anything, and the impulse of the lust of the spirit, is intensified from no other cause than their presence: and they also force men to fall into inarticulate noises and flatulence by sharing the same enjoyment with them.

'For where there is a drawing in of much breath, either because the stomach has been inflated by indulgence, or because eagerness from the intensity of pleasure breathes much out and draws in much of the outer air, let this be a clear proof to you of the presence of such spirits there. So far human nature ventures to investigate the snares that are set about it: for when the deity enters in, the breathing is much increased.'

So much then concerning the wicked daemons, the ruler of whom he says is Sarapis. But the same author also teaches us that Hecate rules them, speaking thus: 47

'Are not these perhaps they over whom Sarapis rules, and whose symbol is the three-headed dog, that is the wicked daemon in the three elements, water, earth, air: these are restrained by the god, who has them under his hand. But Hecate also rules them, as holding the threefold, elements together.'

And again he says: 48

'After quoting yet one oracle, composed by Hecate herself, I will bring my account of her to an end.

'Lo! here the virgin, who in changing forms
Runs forth o'er highest heaven, with bovine face,
Three-headed, ruthless, arm'd with shafts of gold,
Chaste Phoebe, Ilithyia, light of men;
Of nature's elements the triple sign,
In ether manifest in forms of fire,
Upon the air in shining car I sit,
While earth in leash holds my black brood of whelps.'
After these verses the author plainly states who the whelps are; namely, that they are the wicked daemons, of whom we have just ceased speaking. So much then for these statements. But by still more evidence let us go on to confirm our argument, that those who are by the many regarded as gods are in reality wicked daemons, bringing with them no good at all.

[Footnotes moved to end and numbered]

1. 136 d 3 Diogenianus, a Fragment preserved by Eusebius only

2. Rom. iv. 17

3. 142 b 1 Heb. i. 14

4. 143 c 4 Porphyry, Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, a fragment preserved by Eusebius only

5. 144 b 1 Porphyry, l. c.

6. 144 d 5 See below, p. 147 d 1

7. 149 b 2 Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food, ii. 34. Cf. Eus. Dem. Ev. p. 105 a

8. 150 b 1 Apollonius of Tyana in Philostratus. Cf. Eus. Dem. Ev. p. 105 b

9. 151 a 1 Porphyry, l. c., ii. 7. Cf. 29 b 2

10. b 7 Porphyry, l. c., ii. 11

11. c 2 ibid. ii. 12

12. d 9 ibid. ii. 13

13. 152 d 11 Porphyry, l. c., ii. 13

14. d 15 ibid. ii. 24

15. 152 c 5 ibid, ii. 27

16. c 7 'Empedocles ap Sturz. 312 ' (Gaisford)

17. c 11 Porphyry, l. c., ii. 60

18. d 10 ibid. ii. 62

19. 153 c 1 Porphyry, l. c., ii. 36

20. c 6 ibid. ii. 58

21. 155 b 1 Porphyry, l. c., ii. 54

22. d 3 ibid. ii. 55

23. c 5 Porphyry, l. c., ii. 27

24. d 3 Philo Byblius, Phoenician History, i. Cf. p. 40 c 1

25. 157 a 9 Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. c iii

26. 158 b 3 Hom. Il. iii. 33 (Lord Derby's translation)

27. 158 c 12 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, i. 23

28. 160 b 2 Dion. Hal. i. 38

29. 161 a 3 Diod. Sic. xx. 14

30. c 3 Ps. cvi. 37

31. d 3 Ps. xcvi. 5

32. d 4 I Cor. x. 20

33. 105 a 3 Hesiod, Works and Days, 250 ; cf. p. 233 d

34. 166 b 2 Porphyry, Abstinence, ii. 43; cf. Theodoret, Gr. Aff. Cur. 138, 22

35. 167 a 1 Porphyry, ibid. ii. 52

36. 168 b 2 Porphyry, Fragment, preserved by Eusebius

37. 169 d 7 Is. lxi. 1

38. 170 a 1 Is. xlii. 7

39. d 10 2 Cor. vi. 16 ; cf. Lev. xxvi. 12

40. 171 c 1 Porphyry, Abstinence, ii. 38

41. 172 b 1 ibid. ii. 40

42. d 4 ibid. ii. 41

43. 173 a 10 Porphyry, Abstinence, ii. 41

44. b 1 ibid. ii. 42

45. b 6 Hom. Il. ix. 496

46. 174 b 1 Porphyry, Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, a Fragment preserved by Eusebius.

47. 175 b 6 Porphyry, ibid.

48. c 2 ibid.
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

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Part 1 of 3

BOOK V

CONTENTS


• I. Further proof that the prophetic and oracular shrines among the heathen belonged to evil daemons, and how they have all been destroyed and have failed since our Saviour's teaching in the Gospel p 178 b
• II. The manner of the daemoniacal operation p 181 a
• III. That the superstition of the Greeks concerning the gods consisted of many divisions and various opinions p 182 e
• IV. That the prophetic and oracular shrines among the heathen belonged to evil daemons p 184 a
• V. That the mythical narratives related concerning gods contain covert histories of daemons p 187 a
• VI. That their so-called good daemons are agents of death p 190 a
• VII. That they minister also to amorous pleasures; and the kind of pleasures in which they severally delight p 191 b
• VIII. That they are drawn down by incantations, and compelled against their will to serve the designs of men p 193 a
• IX. That they cannot withdraw of their own accord p 195 b
• X. The kind of methods by which their wonderful gods are subjected to the impostors p 197 d
• XI. That the daemons whom men have supposed to be gods taught them their own curious arts p 199 d
• XII. That they themselves taught men how to array their images for magical rites p 200 b
• XIII. That they showed the proper forms of their own statues p 201 a
• XIV. That they encourage the practice of magic p 202 a
• XV. That they love the lifeless blocks p 203 c
• XVI. Of the oracles that have failed p 304 d
• XVII. That the daemons whom they worship as gods actually die p 205 d
• XVIII. Of the oracles mentioned among the Greeks of old times p 208 b
• XIX. Apollo charged with commanding twice seven boys and maidens to be sent out by the Athenians to the Cretans to be sacrificed p 209 c
• XX. How Apollo has been the cause of death to many by the ambiguity of his responses p 210 b
• XXI. How again by an ambiguous response he caused Croesus to lose his own kingdom p 212 c
• XXII. How they used to mislead inquirers by deluding them through the responses p 213 d
• XXIII. That by their darkness and obscurity they concealed their own ignorance p 214 d
• XXIV. That, being unable to give any help in the misfortunes of war, they used to quibble and deceive their suppliants by ambiguous responses p 216 b
• XXV. The answers to the Lacedaemonians p 219 a
• XXVI. The like to the people of Cnidos p 220 b
• XXVII. How they incited those who consulted them to war against each other p 221 b
• XXVIII. That the treatment of Lycurgus the law-giver of the Lacedaemonians was not worthy of a god p 222 d
• XXIX. That they failed to give answers about matters of importance p 224 c
• XXX. That, in advising men what to do, they were guided by ordinary human reasonings p 225 b
• XXXI. That their recommendations were for the most part unphilosophical p 225 c
• XXXII. That they used to take part with the wrongdoers p 226 d
• XXXIII. That in accordance with the opinions of the multitude they injudiciously belauded the poets, who had displayed nothing worthy of the philosophical life p 227 a
• XXXIV. That they exhorted men to glorify pugilists and athletes with honours equal to those of the gods p 230 a
• XXXV. That they used to flatter tyrants p 233 a
• XXXVI. That they bade men worship lifeless matter p 233 d

CHAPTER I

THOUGH the statements already set forth were sufficient to prove that those who have been honoured among the heathen as gods in every city and country district were not gods nor yet good daemons, but the very contrary, yet I am not sorry still further to strengthen the same argument even superabundantly by more numerous and ample proofs, since the demonstration thereof clearly shows the deliverance from the evils of former times which was provided for all men by our Saviour's teaching in the Gospel Hear therefore how Greeks themselves confess that their oracles have failed, and never so failed from the beginning until after the times when the doctrine of salvation in the Gospel caused the knowledge of the one God, the Sovereign and Creator of the universe, to dawn like light upon all mankind.

We shall show then almost immediately that very soon after His manifestation there came stories of the deaths of daemons, and that the wonderful oracles so celebrated of old have ceased. But already it has been proved above that, until after the teaching of the Gospel, the human sacrifices which were formerly so cruelly and ruthlessly perpetrated among all the heathen have never admitted any cessation of evils: and on the present occasion it is a good thing to add to this that not only the superstitious worship of daemons but also the multitude of ruling powers among the heathen became from that time extinct.

For almost in every city and village you might in old times see kings, and tyrants, and local governors, and lords, and ethnarchies and multitudes of rulers, by reason of which they were continually rushing into wars against one another, and ever perpetually at work in raiding country districts, and besieging cities, and making slaves and captives of their neighbours, being wildly driven by their local daemons into mutual wars.

Which being so, I leave it to you to consider for yourself in what kind of confusion of mutual evils and misfortunes the whole of life was entangled.

Since then it was only after the time of our Saviour's abode among men that these troubles together with the delusion of polytheism were removed all at once out of the way, must we not wonder exceedingly at the great mystery of the exhibition of true salvation in the Gospel? For thereby all at once in the whole world inhabited by man houses of prayer and temples were set up and consecrated, in cities and villages and in the deserts of barbarous nations, to the sovereign Ruler and Creator of all things and the only God; and books and lectures, and all kinds of learning, and instructions containing exhortations concerning the highest virtue and the mode of life accordant with true godliness, have been delivered in the hearing of men and women and children alike, while all the oracles and divinations of daemons are dead.

Nor, since the divine power of our Saviour in the Gospel shone forth like light upon all men, is any man now so mad as to dare to propitiate the murderous and bloodthirsty and misanthropic and inhuman daemons by the murder of his best-beloved, and by the slaughter of men in sacrifices, such as the sages and kings of old, being verily possessed by daemons, loved to practise.

But with regard to the fact that the evil daemons no longer have any power to prevail since our Saviour's advent among men, the very same author who is the advocate of the daemons in our time, in his compilation against us, bears witness by speaking in the following manner:

[PORPHYRY] 'And now they wonder that for so many years the plague has attacked the city, Asclepius and the other gods being no longer resident among us. For since Jesus began to be honoured, no one ever heard of any public assistance from the gods.' 1

This is Porphyry's statement in his very words. If then, according to this confession, 'since Jesus began to be honoured no one ever heard of any public assistance from the gods, because neither Asclepius nor the other gods were any longer resident,' what ground is there henceforth for the opinion that they are gods and heroes?

For why do not rather the gods and Asclepius prevail over the power of Jesus? If indeed, as they would say, He is a mortal man----perhaps they would even say that He is a deceiver----while they are gods and saviours, why then have they all fled in a body, Asclepius and all, having turned their backs to this mortal, and given over all humanity forthwith into the power of Him who, as they would say, is no longer living?

But He even after death, ever continues to be honoured every day among all nations, plainly showing the certainty and divinity of the life after death to those who are able to discern it.

Moreover though He is one, and as might be supposed alone, He drives away the multitude of the gods throughout the whole world, and bringing their honours to naught, so prevails that they are gods no longer, nor exercise any power, nor anywhere show themselves, nor reside as they were wont in the cities, because they were no gods but evil daemons; while only His honours, and those of the God of the universe who sent Him down, increase every day, and advance to greater dignity over all humanity.

Whereas on the contrary those gods, if indeed there were any who really cared for things on earth, ought to have utterly put aside His deception, if any there were, and themselves to bestow their own remedies and benefits abundantly on all.

But in fact they have often attempted this by means of those at various times in power who have made most violent war upon the teaching of our Saviour. Nevertheless, they found the object of their attempt impracticable, as the divine power of our Saviour always more than conquered them all, and overthrew all the insurrections of the evil daemons against His teaching, and drove the daemons themselves away; for evil daemons verily they were, though falsely supposed to be gods or even good daemons.

CHAPTER II

THESE then, being certain daemons who dwell about the earth and underground, and haunt the heavy and cloudy atmosphere over the earth, and have been condemned, for causes which we shall afterwards allege, to inhabit this dark and earthly abode, love to dwell in graves and monuments of the dead and in all loathsome and impure matter, and delight in bloodshed and gore and the bodies of animals of all kinds, and in the exhalation from the fumes of incense and of vapours rising out of the earth. These and their rulers, who are certain powers of the air, or of the nether world, having observed that the human race was grovelling low about the deification of dead men, and spending its labour very zealously upon sacrifices and savours which were to them most grateful, were ready at hand as supporters and helpers of this delusion; and gloating over the miseries of mankind, they easily deceived silly souls by certain movements of the carved images, which had been consecrated by them of old in honour of the departed, and by the illusions produced by oracles, and by the cures of bodies, which these same daemons were secretly ravaging by their own operation, and then again releasing the men and letting them go free from suffering.

Hereby they the more drove the superstitious headlong into supposing sometimes that they were heavenly powers and certain real gods, and at other times that they were the souls of the deified heroes.

From this cause the belief in the polytheistic error began now to be regarded by the multitude as something greater and more venerable, as their thought passed from what was visible to the invisible nature of those who were hidden in the statues, and so confirmed the delusion more strongly.

Thus then at length the terrestrial daemons, and 'the world-rulers' that haunt the air, and the 'spiritual hosts of wickedness,' 2 and the leader of them all in malice, were regarded among all men as the greatest of gods; the memory also of those long dead came to be thought worthy of greater worship.

For the shapes of the consecrated images in the various cities were thought to wear the semblance of dead men's bodies, but of their souls and their divine and incorporeal powers the evil daemons made counterfeit presentations by abundance of fictitious miracles; until at length their consecrated ministers themselves used continually to exaggerate the folly of the illusion, and prepare most of their contrivances by evil arts of jugglery, while the evil daemons again took the lead themselves in teaching these tricks to their ministers. These daemons at all events were the authors of the imposture which was the beginning of the mischief to all human life, as was in fact proved in the preceding book.

CHAPTER III

SINCE, therefore, these wicked and earthly daemons, as well as the aerial and infernal spirits, whom the divine oracles call 'world-rulers' and 'spiritual hosts of wickedness, and principalities, and powers,' 3 at one time played the part of good daemons, and at another assumed the semblance of heavenly deities, and again at other times metamorphosed themselves into heroes, and in some cases by their deeds let the evidence of their wickedness directly appear, the delusion naturally went on increasing much among mankind. For some admitted that they were gods, and others that they were heroes and daemons but not gods: and while entitling some of the daemons good, but calling others bad, they yet affirmed that it was necessary to propitiate the bad also, on account of the damage they could inflict: so that their whole manufacture of deities fell into several classes.

The first kind is that which consists of the luminaries which are seen in the sky, and these they say were the first to be called gods (θεούς) because of their running (θέειν), and because they are the cause of our beholding (θεωρεῖν) things visible. The second class is that which has been advanced to great honour because of the benefits said to be conferred by them on our common life: and this kind they themselves acknowledge to have been begotten of men, bringing forward as examples the so-called heroes, Heracles, and the Dioscuri, and Dionysus, and the corresponding deities among the barbarians.

From this class, after separating and putting aside the more disgraceful acts recorded of them, they assumed a third kind of deification, and called it mythical. Of this kind, indeed, they became ashamed, although it was real and most ancient; so they have changed it into a better agreement, as they say, with natural laws, by allegories of a more figurative nature, according to certain theories which they devised.

Yet even at this stage of deception they were not satisfied to stop: for after having degraded the venerable and adorable name of God to the level of their own passions, they further invented a fourth manner of deification, not worthy even of refutation, because it manifestly carries with it its own shame.

Then by giving to their own foul and unbridled lusts the name of gods, an Eros, and Aphrodite, and Desire, and by calling speech Hermes, and reasoning Athena, they have adopted these also in their own theology, and thus remodelled human actions into the fifth kind of deities.

For they made images to represent the operations of war and of art, and assigned them to certain gods, the operations of war to Ares and Athena, and those of art to Hephaestus and certain others.

In addition to all these they brought in a sixth and seventh kind, consisting of daemons, a truly versatile and multiform class, pretending at one time to be gods, and at another to be souls of the dead; nor did they give us any aid to the cultivation of virtue in the soul, but always made a mock of every person who feared the gods, carrying him down into the depths by their delusive error.

Even this class, though it was wicked throughout, they have divided into two, the mischievous and the beneficent, and given them the titles of good and bad.

These things being so, I think it is necessary for us to put aside the matters that do not even need refutation, and to consider the sequel of our argument concerning daemoniacal operation, of which we took a partial and preliminary view in the preceding book, and will now complete what remains.

Come then, let us now at last proceed to the actual proofs. And I will place first those which are drawn from the book which Plutarch has written On the Cessation of Oracles: where, on the point that the prophetic and oracular shrines among the heathen are the abodes of evil daemons, he writes in the following manner: 4

CHAPTER IV

[PLUTARCH] 'Now though they are right who say that Plato, by his discovery of the element which underlies the qualities generated (which element they call matter), released the philosophers from many great difficulties: yet to me it seems that those men solved more and greater difficulties, who set the race of daemons midway between gods and men, and discovered that it, in a manner, brings together and unites our society with them; whether this doctrine comes from the Magi and Zoroaster, or is Thracian and derived from Orpheus, or Egyptian, or Phrygian, as we conjecture from seeing that with the initiations in both regions there are mingled many symbols of mortality and mourning in the orgiastic performance of their sacred rites. Among the Greeks Homer is seen to make use of both the names indifferently, and occasionally to call the gods daemons. But Hesiod is the first who plainly and definitely set forth four races of rational beings----gods, then daemons, then heroes, and, last of all, men: he seems, however, to make a change from this order, so that the men of the golden age are set. apart as a numerous class of good daemons, and the demi-gods as heroes.'

Then he says next:

'But upon these matters it is not necessary for us to dispute with Demetrius: for whether the time be more or be less, whether it be fixed or indefinite, in which the soul of a daemon and the life of a hero undergo change, it will none the less be proved, in the judgement of whomsoever he chooses, by the testimony of wise men of old, that there are certain natures on the confines, as it were, between gods and men, susceptible of mortal influences and involuntary changes, whom it is right for us, according to the custom of our fathers, to regard and address as "daemons," and to hold in reverence.'

To this, after other matters, he adds:

'It seems to me to be no unreasonable postulate that those who preside over the oracles are not gods, who ought rightly to be kept clear from matters pertaining to earth, but daemons in the service of gods. But to take as it were a handful out of the verses of Empedocles, and charge these daemons with sins, and infatuations, and heaven-sent wanderings, and to imagine them dying deaths like men, I consider too bold and barbaric.' 5

Again he adds to what has been quoted the following:

'For in daemons also, as in men, there are degrees of virtue; some having but a feeble and obscure remnant, a sort of residue, of the part subject to passion and destitute of reason, while in others this part is large and hard to be extinguished; and traces and symbols of this are in many places preserved by sacrifices and initiations and mythologies, and retained in scattered fragments. Now with respect to the Mysteries, in which we might obtain the, chief indications and elucidations of the truth concerning daemons, 'I must keep a religious silence,' as Herodotus says: but as to festivals and sacrifices, as well as days of ill omen mourning, on which the eating of raw flesh and the rending of victims, and fasting and beating of the breast are practised, and again in many places obscene language at the temples, "and other frantic excitements with tumult and tossing of the head," these, I should say, are performed not in honour of any god, but as propitiatory offerings for the sake of averting evil daemons. And it is neither credible that gods demanded or accepted the human sacrifices offered of old, nor, without cause, would kings and generals have submitted to them by giving up their sons and devoting and sacrificing them; but they were trying to avert and to satisfy the anger and sullenness of harsh and stubborn powers of vengeance, or the furious lusts of some, who were neither able nor willing to have intercourse of bodies with bodies. But just as Heracles besieged Oechalia for the sake of a maiden, so oftentimes strong and violent daemons, demanding a human soul that is enveloped in a body, . . . bring pestilences upon cities and barrenness of the soil, and stir up wars and seditions, until they succeed in obtaining the object of their desire.' 6

Hereby the philosopher before mentioned clearly proved that the sacrifices described above were offered in honour of evil daemons in all the cities. Or even if among these there were, as they say, some who were by nature good, or even gods, what need was there to offer worship to the bad, when they ought to have been driven away by the good?

For if indeed they had some good champions, surely it was right to have confidence in these without caring at all for the worse kind, and to turn away the adverse powers by modest words and prayers, not by obscene language.

But when they did nothing of this kind, but tried to make supplication to the evil daemons by a foul and licentious life and unseemly words, and by feeding on raw flesh, and rending victims asunder, and by human sacrifices, how was it even possible that doing such deeds, and pursuing practices pleasing to the wicked, they should be received as friends by the Supreme God, or by the divine Powers subject to Him, or by any good beings at all?

But in fact it is. manifest to all that he who practises the things that are dear to the wicked can never be a friend of the good. So then it was not to gods, nor yet to good daemons, but only to the wicked, that those of whom I have spoken paid worship.

And this argument is still further confirmed by Plutarch, in the passage where he says that the mythical narratives told as concerning gods are certain tales about daemons, and the deeds of Giants and Titans celebrated in song among the Greeks are also stories about daemons, intended to suggest a new phase of thought.

Of this kind then perhaps were the statements in the Sacred Scripture concerning the giants before the flood, and those concerning their progenitors, of whom it is said, 'And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, they took unto them wives of all that they chose,' and of these were born 'the giants the men of renown which were of old.'

For one might say that these daemons are those giants, and that their spirits have been deified by the subsequent generations of men, and that their battles, and their quarrels among themselves, and their wars are the subjects of these legends that are told as of gods. Plutarch indeed, in the discourse which he composed On Isis and the gods of the Egyptians, speaks as follows word for word: 7

CHAPTER V

[PLUTARCH] 'THEY therefore do better who think that the incidents recorded concerning Typhon and Osiris and Isis refer to sufferings neither of gods nor of men, but of certain mighty daemons, whom Plato and Pythagoras and Xenocrates and Chrysippus, following the ancient theologians, state to have been stronger than men, and far superior in power to our nature; having, however, their divine element not unmixed nor unalloyed, but sharing both in the nature of the soul and the bodily sense, which is susceptible of pleasure and pain, and in all the feelings which, being engendered by these alternations, trouble some of them more and some less. For various degrees of virtue and vice are found in daemons just as in men. Thus the deeds of the Giants and Titans celebrated in song among the Greeks, and many unholy practices of Kronos, and the contests of Python with Apollo, and the banishments of Dionysos, and the wanderings of Demeter, fall nothing short of the acts of Osiris and Typhon, which one may hear everywhere made the subject of licentious fables. Also the things which, being veiled in mystic rites and initiations, are kept secret and out of sight, have a similar relation to the gods.' 8

Presently he adds:

'Empedocles even asserts that the daemons suffer punishment for any sins and offences which they have committed:

"The angry ether drives them down to sea;
Sea spits them out upon the solid earth;
Earth flings them to the blazing Sun; he back
To ether's whirling depths. Thus each from each
Receives, and all reject the hateful crew:" 9

until having been thus chastened they recover once more their natural place and rank. Akin to these and suchlike stories are said to be the legends told concerning Typhon, how that he committed dreadful crimes out of envy and spite, throwing everything into confusion, and filled both earth and sea all full of evils, and then was punished for it.'

Having put forward these statements, and worked out the argument more fully in the book which I have mentioned, Plutarch relates the like stories also in his book On the Cessation of Oracles, in the following manner: 10

'This man ascribed his inspiration to daemons, and had much to say about Delphi, and there was none of the stories told here about Dionysos, nor of the sacred rites performed, of which he had not heard; but those also he asserted to be mighty sufferings of daemons, and the same of the story about the Python, and that the slayer's banishment was not for nine years nor to Tempe, but that he was driven out and entered into another world: and afterwards, in the revolutions of nine Great Years having become pure and a true Phoebus in brilliancy, he returned thence and took possession of the oracle, which was guarded in the meantime by Themis. Such, he said, was the case also with the legends of Typhon and the Titans, that there were battles of daemons against daemons, then banishments of the conquered, or punishments by a god of those who had committed sins, such as Typhon is said to have committed upon Osiris, and Kronos on Uranos; gods, whose honours among us have become more obscure, or have altogether ceased, since they have departed into another world. For I learn that the Solymi, who are neighbours of the Lycians, used to pay the highest honours to Kronos: but after he killed their chief rulers Arsalos, and Arytos, and Tosibis, and fled, and departed to some place or other----for they cannot tell whither----he was neglected, but Arsalos and his companions were addressed as gods by the name Sciri, and the Lycians make their imprecations both public and private in their name. Many stories like these you may gather from the mythologies. But if we call certain daemons by the customary names of the gods, it is not to be wondered at, said the stranger; for each of them likes to be called after the god with whom he has been associated, and of whose power he partakes: even as among us one is Dius, and another Athenaeus, and a third Apollonius, or Dionysius, or Hermaeus. But though some of these by accident were rightly so named, the greater part received names not at all befitting them, but changed in derivation from the names of gods.'

So much says Plutarch in his careful treatise On the Cessation of Oracles, showing, in addition to the other points, that the daemons are subject to death, the very thing which I shall bring forward at the proper time.

But meanwhile, let us collect whatever else concerning the power and operation of the good daemons, as he calls them, is set forth at another time by the author of the compilation against us in the book which he entitled Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles: for now again, as indeed often before, I shall make use especially of him as a witness and evidence of the delusion about those whom they imagine to be gods, in order that they may be put to shame at being stricken by their own spears and arrows.

For thus the demonstration of the matters which lie before us, being derived from the very friends of their gods, who have both been esteemed devout, and have accurately examined the account of their own religion, will be found complete and irrefutable.

Now the author aforesaid writes as follows in his book which he entitled Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, wherein he protests against betraying the secrets of the gods, and binds himself by oath and exhorts others to conceal what he shall say and not publish it to many.

What then Avere these matters of such importance? He affirms that Pan is a servant of Dionysos, and that he being one of the good daemons appeared once upon a time to those who were working in the fields. What ought a good deity, or at all events the advent of a good deity, to confer on those to whom the manifestation of the good has been vouchsafed?

Did then any good result to the beholders of this good daemon, or have they found him an evil daemon, and learned this by practical experience? This admirable witness says indeed that those to whom this blessed sight was vouchsafed all died at once; for thus he speaks: 11

CHAPTER VI

[PORPHYRY] 'IN other cases also ere now some were shown to be servants of certain gods, as Pan of Dionysos: and this has been made clear by Apollo of Branchidae in the following verses. For nine persons were found dead; and when the inhabitants of the country district inquired the cause, the god made answer:

"Lo! where the golden-horned Pan
In sturdy Dionysos' train
Leaps o'er the mountains' wooded slopes!
His right hand holds a shepherd's staff,
His left a smooth shrill-breathing pipe,
That charms the gentle wood-nymph's soul.
But at the sound of that strange song
Each startled woodsman dropp'd his axe,
And all in frozen terror gaz'd
Upon the Daemon's frantic course.
Death's icy hand had seiz'd them all,
Had not the huntress Artemis
In anger stay'd his furious might.
To her address thy prayer for aid." '

Hast thou now heard how Apollo of Branchidae described both the figure and the deeds of the daemon whom Porphyry calls good? See then also the noble achievements of the rest, for the sake of which forsooth they abandoned their life in heaven, and chose the company of men instead.

Surely it was their duty at any rate to set an example of temperance, and to suggest what was profitable and beneficial to mankind: but they did nothing of the kind. Hear what things are brought to light by him, who had searched out the most unutterable secrets, and was favoured with the knowledge of things forbidden.

At one time he says that some of these good daemons are the slaves of amorous pleasures, and then that others delight in drums and flutes, and women's clatter; and that others again take pleasure in wars and battles, and Artemis in hunting, and Deo in the fruits of the ground; that Isis is still mourning for Osiris, and Apollo uttering oracles. Such are the benefits conferred on mankind by those whom they call good daemons! Now listen to the proofs of this. 12

CHAPTER VII

[PORPHYRY]

'NE'ER mid the immortal gods an idle threat
Or unaccomplish'd doom to seers inspir'd
Spake Hecate; but from the almighty mind
Of Zeus descends in brightest truth array'd.
Lo! by my side walks Wisdom with firm step,
Leaning on oracles that ne'er can fail.
In bonds secure me: for my power divine
Can give a soul to worlds beyond the sky.'

Perhaps then on this account the soul is of threefold form and parts: and one part of it is irascible, and another concupiscent, by which latter it is invited to amorous indulgence. These are not my ideas, do not suppose it, but what you have heard from the writer before mentioned; from whom again the following is taken:

'But what utterly perplexes me is, how, being invoked as superiors, they receive orders as inferiors; and while requiring their worshipper to be just, they submit when bidden themselves to do injustice; and, while they would not listen to one who invokes them, if defiled by sensual pleasure, do not hesitate themselves to lead any whom they meet into lawless indulgence.'

This also you may find in the same author's Epistle to Anebo the Egyptian. 13 And in the aforesaid treatise Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, in addition to what has been quoted, he speaks as follows:

'Moreover, some of them have plainly shown what office is assigned to each, as the Didymaean Apollo does in what follows: (the inquiry was, whether a man is bound to take an oath which one has tendered to him):

"Rhea, great mother of the blessed gods,
Loves flutes and rattling drums and female rout.
The din of war is bright-helm'd Pallas' joy.
Latona's daughter o'er the rocky steep
With spotted hounds pursues the savage beast.
Great Juno sends the soft rain's welcome sound;
Rich crops of full-ear'd grain are Deo's care:
And Pharian Isis by Nile's fruitful stream
With wildered steps her fair Osiris seeks."'

If then 'flutes, and the rattle of drums, and a throng of women' are the care of the Mother of the gods, we ought surely to practise these things to the neglect of every virtue, because the aforesaid goddess has no care for modesty or any other devout practice: as also the din of battle, and conflicts, and wars are dear to Athena, and not peace nor the things of peace. Also let Artemis 'Latona's daughter' care for her spotted hounds, because, as a huntress, she wages war afield with the wild bea,sts, and for the other goddesses in like manner the offices enumerated. Well then what would these things contribute towards the divinely favoured and blessed life? But consider whether what he adds next seems to you to be the mark of a divine, or of a vicious and utterly wicked nature. 14

CHAPTER VIII

[PORPHYRY] 'THIS also was rightly declared by Pythagoras of Rhodes, that the gods who are invoked over the sacrifices have no pleasure therein, but come because they are dragged by a certain necessity of following, and some of them more, and some less.

'Some however, having made as it were a custom of being present, attend more readily, and especially if they happen to be of a good nature: but others, even if they are accustomed to be present, are eager to do some harm, and especially if any one seems to behave rather carelessly in the performances.

'For as Pythagoras had made these statements, I learned, by close observation of the oracles, how true his words are. For all the gods say that they have come by compulsion, yet not simply so, but as it were, if I may so speak, by compulsion under the guise of persuasion.

'In what goes before we have mentioned those statements of Hecate, as to the means by which she says she is made to appear:

"The lightsome air and boundless realm of stars,
Unsullied home of deity, I leave,
To tread the fruitful earth at thy command:
Thou know'st the secret spell, which mortal man
Has learn'd, to charm immortal spirits down."

'And again:

"I come at sound of thy persuasive prayer,
Which man inspir'd by heavenly counsels learn'd."

'And still more plainly:

"What need of thine, by spells that bind the gods,
Calls Hecate from swiftest ether down?"

'And then:

"Some from the sky thy wheel with mystic charm
Draws swiftly, though unwilling, down to earth.
And others floating midway on the winds,
From the bright empyrean far remov'd,
As ominous dreams thou dost to mortals send,
Service unseemly laid on powers divine."

'And again:

"Some from their lofty home above the sky
Down through mid air with Harpies swift descending
Bow to the mystic spells that bind the gods,
And rushing swiftly down to Deo's earth
Bring messages to man of things to come."

'And again another is compelled to say:

"Hear the unwilling voice thy power constrains."'

After this again the author says:

'For they give out answers for their own compulsion, as will be shown by Apollo's answer as to means of compelling him. It is expressed thus:

"Strong to compel and weighty is this name."

'Then he added:

"Then come thou swiftly at these words,
Drawn from my heart in mystic chant,
The while I quench the sacred fire.
Thus nature dares thy birth divine,
Immortal Paean, to declare."

'And again Apollo himself speaks:

"A stream of heavenly light from Phoebus flowing,
Veil'd in the clear breath of the purest air,
By soothing song and mystic spell allur'd
Falls like a glory round the prophet's head,
Pierces the delicate membrane of the brain,
Fills the soft coating of the inward frame,
Thence surging upward in hot stream returns,
And through the living pipe gains welcome voice."'

To this the writer adds the remark:

'Nothing could be plainer than this, nothing more godlike and more natural; for that which comes down is a spirit; and an emanation from the heavenly power having entered into an organized and living body, uses the soul as a basis, and through the body, as its organ, utters speech.'

But this is sufficient to prove that they suffer compulsion; and that they also request to be set free, as if it were not in their own power to withdraw, you may learn from what follows.

CHAPTER IX

[PORPHYRY] 'Now that the gods so summoned are eager to withdraw, will be shown by such passages as the following, where they say:

"But now release the king; for mortal frame
No longer can the present god endure."

'And again:

"Why with long prayers torment this mortal frame?"

'And again:
"Go now, return with speed; thy saving work
On me is done.'

'And how to dismiss them, Apollo himself will teach us, saying:

"Cease then thy cunning spells, let the man rest,
Free the old image from its willow bands,
And from my limbs with vigorous hand rend off
The linen shroud."

'He told also the mode of dismissal:

"Lift thy foot up high before thee,
Stop the muttering from the cave;"

and the verses that follow these.'

To which he adds, if they are still tardy in the dismissal:

"Unwrap the linen cloud, and set the prophet free."

'Again at another time he gave a form of dismissal such as this:

"Ye Nymphs and Naiads with the Muses join
To set Apollo free; and then in songs
Exalt the praises of the archer god."

'At another time he says:

"Now loose the wreaths, with water bathe my feet,
Rub out the magic lines, and let me go.
The branch of laurel from my right hand take,
And both my eyes, both nostrils wipe with care:
Then raise, O friends, this mortal from the ground."'

Upon this the author further remarks:

'So then he exhorts them to rub out the lines, that he may go free; for these hold him fast, as indeed does also the form of dress in which he is arrayed, because it bears representations of the gods who have been invoked.'

By these quotations I think it has been clearly shown that there is nothing at all worthy of deity, nothing either great or truly divine in these spirits who have fallen to such a depth of degradation as to be drawn and dragged down by any common men, not by reason of any attainment in virtue and wisdom, but merely by their pursuing and practising the arts of magical imposture.
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

Postby admin » Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:17 am

Part 2 of 3

Neither, therefore, did Pythagoras the Rhodian speak rightly, nor would the author of this testimony of theirs, nor any man whatsoever call them with good reason gods, nay, nor yet good daemons, dragged about as they are by mortal men and mere impostors, not according to their own judgement, but dragged by force and compulsion, and without having in themselves the power of release from their bonds.

For if the deity is not subject to force or to compulsion, but is in nature superior to all things, being free and incapable of suffering, how can they be gods who are beguiled by juggling tricks managed by means of such dresses, and lines, and images?----beguiled, I say, by wreaths also and flowers of the earth, and withal by certain unintelligible and barbarous cries and voices, and subdued by ordinary men, and, as it were, enslaved by bonds, so that they cannot even keep safe in their own control the power of independence and free will.

How, too, can they be called good daemons if they are dragged down by force and compulsion? For what is the cause that they give themselves up grudgingly and not of their own free will to those who need help?

If they are good and make their appearance for a good purpose, and if there is, as was said, any benefit to the soul from them, they ought surely to welcome the good by choice, and anticipate the suppliants by their benefits instead of waiting to be compelled.

But if the transaction was not honourable and not beneficial, and therefore its occurrence not according to their mind, how then could they be good, if they practised what is neither honourable nor expedient?

Or how can they deserve to be admired and honoured with divine worship who are enslaved by common impostors of the most abandoned character, and compelled to perform what is neither honourable nor expedient contrary to their judgement, and are led and dragged down, not because they approve of men's morality, nor to promote virtue or any branch of philosophy, but by forbidden practices of impostors? Such practices the same author has mentioned again in his Epistle to the before-mentioned Egyptian, as though he were consulting a prophet upon secret truths, and requesting to be taught by him the words in which they accomplish these results. For he asks as in doubt, and speaks somewhat as follows. 15

CHAPTER X

[PORPHYRY] 'BUT what utterly perplexes me is, how, though invoked as superiors, they receive orders as inferiors, and while requiring their worshipper to be just, submit when bidden themselves to do injustice; and, while they would not listen to one who invokes them, if defiled by sensual pleasure, do not hesitate themselves to lead any whom they meet into lawless indulgence.

'They also give orders that their interpreters must be abstainers from animal food, that they may not be tainted with the vapours from the carcases, though they are themselves mightily allured by the vapours from the sacrifices; also that the initiate must not touch a dead body, though it is by means of dead animals that the gods are for the most part brought down.

'But much more absurd than this is the notion that a man under the power of any ordinary master should employ threats, not merely to a daemon perchance or to a dead man's soul, but to the royal Sun himself, or the Moon, or any of the deities in heaven, and try to frighten them by lies, in order that they may speak the truth.

'For to say that he will batter the heavens, and publish the secrets of Isis, and show the forbidden mystery at Abydos, and stop the sacred boat, and scatter the limbs of Osiris for Typhon,----is not this the last excess of stupidity on the part of him who threatens things of which he has neither knowledge nor power, and of degradation to those who have been frightened at so vain an alarm, and at mere fictions, like very silly children?

'And yet Chaeremon the sacred scribe records these things as common talk among the Egyptians, and they say that these and other such methods are most forcible.

'What meaning have the very prayers, which speak of him who arose out of a marsh, and is seated upon the lotus, and voyages in a ship, and changes his shapes hourly, and is transfigured according to the signs of the zodiac? For thus they say he is beheld by our eyes, not knowing that what they are attaching to him is the peculiar affection of their own imagination.

'If these things are spoken symbolically, as being symbols of his powers, let them tell us the interpretation of the symbols. For it is evident that if it was what the sun undergoes, as in eclipses, the same thing would have been seen by all who gaze upon him.

'Further, what is meant by the unintelligible names, and among these the preference of the barbarous names over those which properly belong to each deity? For if he who hears looks to the thing signified, the thought remaining the same is sufficient to show it, whatsoever the name may be.

'For, I suppose, the god invoked was not an Egyptian by birth: and even if he was an Egyptian, yet surely he did not use the Egyptian language, nor any human language at all. For either these were all impostors' tricks, and symbols of the passions which affect us, veiled by the titles which they ascribe to the gods, or else we have been unconsciously holding ideas concerning the deity contrary to his real condition.'

After these statements he again expresses his doubts to the Egyptian, saying:

'If some are passionless (though others are subject to passions, and for this reason, they say, phalli are set up to these latter, and obscene phrases uttered), quite useless will be those invocations of gods which profess to summon them to aid, and to appease their wrath, and to make expiation, and yet more useless the arts by which gods are said to be constrained. For the passionless nature can neither be enticed, nor forced, nor compelled by necessity.'

And then he adds again: 16

'Vain has their study of wisdom been, who worried the divine mind about finding a runaway slave, or buying a farm, or perchance about a marriage, or commerce. Or if there has been no neglect of wisdom, and if her associates speak most truly on other subjects, but nothing sure or trustworthy in regard to happiness, then they were neither gods nor good daemons, but only that deceiver as he is called.'

So far then let these quotations suffice from this work of Porphyry. Moreover, these noble gods themselves became the first instructors in this evil art of imposture. For whence could men know these things, except from the daemons themselves having revealed their own case, and published one against another the spells that bind them?

Do not suppose that this is our own statement: for we do not admit that we either understand or wish to know any of these things. Yet in proof of the absurdity of these practices, and at the same time in our own defence for withdrawing from them, let us bring forward our witness to these facts, who is regarded as a wise man among his acquaintances, and both knows and expounds accurately his own system.

The same author then, in the aforesaid collection of oracles, speaks thus word for word. 17

CHAPTER XI

[PORPHYRY] 'BUT not only have they themselves informed us of their mode of life, and the other things which I have mentioned, but they also suggested by what sort of things they are pleased and prevailed upon, and moreover by what they are compelled, and what one ought to sacrifice, and what day to avoid, and what sort of figure should be given to their statues, and in what shapes they themselves appear, and in what kind of places they abide; and of all the things whereby men thus honour them there is not one which they were not taught by the daemons themselves. As the proofs which confirm this are many, we will bring forward a few out of the number, not to leave our statement without witness.'

CHAPTER XII

'THAT they themselves suggested how even their statues ought to be made, and of what kind of material, shall be shown by the response of Hecate in the following form:

"My image purify, as I shall show:
Of wild rue form the frame, and deck it o'er
With lizards such as run about the house;
These mix with resin, myrrh, and frankincense,
Pound all together in the open air
Under the crescent moon, and add this vow."

'Then she set forth the vow, and showed how many lizards must be taken:

"Take lizards many as my many forms,
And do all this with care. My spacious house
With branches of self-planted laurel form.
Then to my image offer many a prayer,
And in thy sleep thou shalt behold me nigh."

'And again in another place she described an image of herself of this same kind.'

CHAPTER XIII

'MOREOVER they have themselves indicated how they appear with regard to their forms, and from these their images were set up as they are. Sarapis for example says of himself, after seeing Pan:

"A brilliant light shone through the god's own house;
He came, the mighty god, and met me there.
My matchless strength, and glow of lordly fire,
And waving curls he saw, which from my head
On either side play round my radiant brows,
And mingle with the red beard's sacred locks."

'Pan also taught men a hymn concerning himself, which runs as follows: 18

"To Pan, a god of kindred race,
A mortal born my vows I pay;
Whose horned brows and cloven feet
And goat-like legs his lust betray,"

and the rest.

'Hecate also speaks of herself thus:

"Do all anon: a statue too therein;
My form----Demeter bright with autumn fruits,
White robes, and feet with golden sandals bound.
Around the waist long snakes run to and fro,
Gliding o'er all with undefiled track,
And from the head down even to the feet
Wrapping me fairly round with spiral coils."

'And the material, she says, must be

"Of Parian stone or polish'd ivory."

CHAPTER XIV

'IN many cases the gods, by giving signs of their statements beforehand, show by their knowledge of the arrangement of each man's nativity that they are, if we may so say, excellent Magians and perfect astrologers. Again he said that in oracular responses Apollo spake thus:

"Invoke together Hermes and the Sun
On the Sun's day, the Moon when her day comes,
Kronos and Aphrodite in due turn,
With silent prayers, by chiefest Magian taught,
Whom all men know lord of the seven-string'd lyre."

'And when they cried "You mean Ostanes," he added:

"Call with loud voice seven times each several god." '

The same writer also alleges what follows:

'The symbols of Hecate are wax of three colours, white and black and red combined, having a figure of Hecate bearing a scourge, and torch, and sword, with a serpent to be coiled round her; and the symbols of Uranus are the mariners' stars nailed up before the doors. For these symbols the gods themselves have indicated in the following verses. The speaker is Pan:

"Evil spirits drive afar:
Then upon the fire set wax
Gleaming fair with colours three,
White and black must mingle there
With the glowing embers' red,
Terror to the dogs of hell.
Then let Hecate's dread form
Hold in her hand a blazing torch,
And the avenging sword of fate;
While closely round the goddess wrapp'd
A snake fast holds her in his coils,
And wreathes about her awful brow.
Let the shining key be there,
And the far-resounding scourge,
Symbol of the daemons' power."'

By these and the like quotations this noble philosopher of the Greeks, this admirable theologian, this initiate in secret mysteries, exhibits The Philosophy to be derived from Oracles as containing secret oracles of the gods, while openly proclaiming the plots laid against men by their wicked and truly daemoniacal power. For what benefit to human life can there be from these evil arts of sorcery? Or what pleasure to the gods in this scrupulous care about lifeless statues? Of what divine power can there be a likeness in the formation of such shapes? Why should he not have counselled us to study philosophy rather than to practise magic and pursue forbidden arts, if the path of virtue and philosophy is sufficient for a happy and blessed life? But he, continuing his own refutation, adds to what has been mentioned the following: 19

CHAPTER XV

[PORPHYRY] 'Now that they love the symbols of their features is signified by Hecate comparing them with what men love, as follows:

"What mortal longs not for the features carv'd
In bronze, or gold, or silver gleaming bright?
What god loves not this pedestal, whereon
I weave the tangled web of human fates?"'

He has made it clear that not only the features are dear, but that also, as I said, the gods themselves are confined therein, and dwell in the underlying likeness as it were in a sacred place: for they could not be supported on earth, except on sacred ground: and that ground is sacred which bears the image of the deity; but if the image be taken away, the bond which held the deity on earth is loosed.

By all these testimonies, then, I think it is clearly proved that their gods were found to be daemons haunting the earth and enslaved to passions: wherefore it seems to me that I have followed sound reason in turning away from them.

You see, for instance, how they say that their magic figures and images of that kind hold them fast in certain spots of ground: though they ought, if, as they say, there is any real divinity in them, to set foot in no other place, except only in the thought of the soul, and that thought too purified from all filth and from every stain, and adorned with modesty and righteousness and all the other virtues.

For when these previously exist in a man's soul as in a truly hallowed place, the advent of a divine Spirit would naturally follow; nor would, souls already prepared by virtuous and godly practice for the reception of the Deity have had any further need of the evil arts of sorcery.

So that they of whom we were just now speaking are expressly convicted on all this evidence of being certain daemons who haunt the earth, and are the slaves of passion and of bodily pleasures. Listen, however, next to what statements the same writer makes concerning the cessation of their celebrated oracles.

CHAPTER XVI

'"OF Pytho and of Claros, sacred shrines
Of Phoebus, let my tongue speak reverent words.
Erewhile ten thousand oracles divine
Gush'd forth on earth in flowing streams, and breath
Of dizzy vapours. Some the earth herself,
Wide opening her deep bosom, back received,
And some the course of countless time destroy'd.
The Sun alone, which lights our mortal life,
Hath still his spring in Didyma's deep vale,
Where flows the sacred stream from Mycale:
And still beneath Parnassus' lofty peaks
Springs Castalie's fair fount; mid Clarian rocks
Still from the cave prophetic voices sound."

'But to some people of Nicaea he gave this response:

"Nought can restore the Pythian voice divine:
Enfeebled by long ages, it hath laid
The keys of silence on the oracle.
Yet still to Phoebus bring your offerings due." '

To this we may here opportunely add the words of Plutarch from the book which he has written On the Cessation of Oracles. 20

[PLUTARCH] 'When Ammonius had ceased, Tell us rather, my Cleombrotus, said I, about the oracle: for the reputation of the deity there was great in former times, but now it seems to be fading away.

'But as Cleombrotus kept silence and looked down, Demetrius said that there was no need for men to inquire and doubt about the state of things there, when they saw the decay of the oracles here, or rather the failure of all except one or two: but we ought to consider generally through what cause they have grown thus feeble.

'For why need we speak of the others, when Boeotia, which in former times, as far as oracles were concerned, spake with many voices, is now completely forsaken by them, just as streams run dry, and a great drought of inspiration has overspread the land. For in no other place now except at Lebadeia does Boeotia enable inquirers to draw from the well of prophecy: but of the rest, silence has overtaken some and utter desolation others.'

In addition to this the same author speaks of their daemons dying, as follows: 21

CHAPTER XVII

'THE opinion, said he, that those who preside over the oracles are not gods----for gods ought rightly to be kept free from the affairs of earth----but daemons who are servants of gods, seems to me no unfair assumption. But to take as it were a handful out of the verses of Empedocles, and to lay sins and frenzies and heaven-sent wanderings upon these daemons, and to imagine them dying deaths like men, I consider too bold and barbaric. Hereupon Cleombrotus asked Philip who the young man was, and whence he came; and when he had learned his name and city, he said, We are not ourselves unconscious, Ileracleon, that we have entered upon strange arguments: but in dealing with great subjects it is not possible to arrive at a probable opinion without employing great principles.

'But you are yourself unconsciously taking back what you grant. For you admit that daemons exist; but, in claiming that they are not wicked and not mortal, you no longer have daemons to defend. For in what do they differ from the gods, if they are both in regard to essence incorruptible, and in regard to virtue free from passion and from sin?

'While Heracleon was silently pondering in himself some answer to this, Philip said to him, Nay, Heracleon, that daemons are wicked was admitted not only by Empedocles, but also by Pinto, and Xenocrates and Chrysippus: and moreover when Democritus prayed that he might meet with favourable apparitions, it was evident that he knew of others perverse and mischievous, with certain propensities and impulses.

'Now with regard to the death of such beings, I have heard a story from a man who was no fool nor braggart. For the father of Aemilianus the rhetorician, whose hearers some of us have been, was Epitherses, my fellow citizen and grammar-master. He said that once on a voyage to Italy he embarked in a ship carrying merchandise and many passengers: and at evening off the Echinades the wind dropped, and the ship drifted and came near to Paxi; that most of them were awake, and were drinking after they had supped. And suddenly a voice was heard from the island Paxi, some one calling aloud on Thamus, so that they were amazed. For Thamus was the pilot, an Egyptian, not even known by name to many of those on board. Though called twice however, he kept silence, but the third time he answered him that called. He then raised his voice higher and said, "When thou art come off Pelodes, announce that the Great Pan is dead."

'On hearing this, Epitherses said they were all struck with amazement, and began to take counsel together, whether it were better to do what was commanded, or not to meddle with the matter, but let it pass; whereupon Thamus decided, that if there should be wind, he would sail past and keep quiet, but if the wind should fail and a calm come on near the place, he would report what he had heard.

'When therefore he was come off Pelodes, as there was neither wind nor sea, Thamus looking from the poop towards the land spake as he had heard, that "The Great Pan is dead": and he had no sooner ceased speaking than there came a loud lamentation, not of one but of many, mingled with amazement.

'And inasmuch as there were many persons present, the tale was soon spread in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by Tiberius Caesar. And Tiberius so fully believed the story, that he made thorough inquiry and research about Pan; and the learned men of his court being present in great number conjectured that it was Pan the son of Hermes and Penelope.

'So then Philip had witnesses to his story in some of those who were present, and had heard it from the aged Aemiiian. But Demetrius said that there were many desert islands scattered about among those on the coast of Britain, some of which were named after daemons and heroes. And that he himself, being sent by the Emperor to make an investigation and survey, sailed to the nearest of the desert islands, which had but few inhabitants, and these all sacred persons inviolable to the Britons.

'Very soon after his arrival there arose a great commotion in the air, and many portents in the sky, and violent blasts of wind, and falling of thunderbolts. And when this abated, the islanders said that one of the higher powers had been extinguished; for as a lamp, they said, while lighted does no harm, but being extinguished is hurtful to many, so great souls are benignant and harmless in their shining, but their extinction and dissolution oftentimes, as now, cause winds and storms, and often infect the air with pestilent diseases.

'There was however one island there, in which Kronos was confined and guarded in his sleep by Briareus; for his sleep had been artfully contrived to keep him bound; and there were many daemons about him as attendants and servants.'.

So far Plutarch. But it is important to observe the time at which he says that the death of the daemon took place. For it was the time of Tiberius, in which our Saviour, making His sojourn among men, is recorded to have been ridding human life from daemons of every kind: so that there were some of them now kneeling before Him and beseeching Him not to deliver them over to the Tartarus that awaited them.

You have therefore the date of the overthrow of the daemons, of which there was no record at any other time; just as you had the abolition of human sacrifice among the Gentiles as not having occurred until after the preaching of the doctrine of the Gospel had reached all mankind. Let then these refutations from recent history suffice.

CHAPTER XVIII

BUT since the matters which have been mentioned are not known to all, it seems to me well to pass from this point to subjects which are self-evident to all the learned, and to examine the oracular responses of most ancient date which are repeated in the mouth of all Greeks, and are taught in the schools of every city to those who resort to them for instruction.

Take up again therefore the ancient records from the beginning, and observe what kind of answer the Pythian god gives to the Athenians when afflicted with a pestilence on account of the death of Androgeus. The Athenians were all suffering from a pestilence for one man's death, and thought to receive the help of the gods.

What advice then does this saviour and god give them? To cultivate justice and benevolence and all other virtue in future, some one will perhaps suppose; or to repent of the offence, and to perform some holy and religious rites, as the gods would thereby be propitiated. Nay, nothing of the kind.

For what indeed did their admirable gods, or rather their utterly wicked daemons, care for these things? So again they say what is natural and familiar to themselves, things merciless and cruel and inhuman, plague upon plague, and many deaths for one.

In fact Apollo bids them every year send of their own children seven grown youths, and as many maidens, fourteen innocent and unconcerned persons for one. and that not once only but every year, to be sacrificed in Crete in the presence of Minos: so that even to the time of Socrates, more than five hundred years afterwards, this dreadful and most inhuman tribute was still kept in memory among the Athenians. And this it was that caused the delay in the death of Socrates.

This answer of the oracle is at once stated and very justly condemned in a vigorous argument by a recent author, who has composed a separate work on The Detection of Impostors: to whose own words, and not mine, now listen, as he aims his stroke at the author of the response in the manner following: 22

CHAPTER XIX

[OENOMAUS] 'WHAT then? When the Athenians had caused the death of Androgeus, and suffered a pestilence for it, would they not have said that they repented? Or if they did not say so, would it not have been proper for thee to say "Repent," rather than to say this?

"Of plague and famine there shall be an end,
If your own flesh and blood, female and male,
By lot assigned to Minos, ye send forth
Upon the mighty sea, for recompense
Of evil deeds: so shall the god forgive."

'I pass over the fact that you gods are indignant at the death of Androgeus at Athens, but sleep on while so many die in all places and at all times: though thou knewest that Minos at that time was master of the sea, and of mighty power, and all Hellas was paying court to him: he Avas therefore a lover of justice, and a good lawgiver, and seemed to Homer to be

"Frequent in converse close with mighty Zeus," 23

and after death he became a judge in Hades: and thou for this offence wouldst exact these penalties on his behalf!

'But I pass over these matters just as you gods do, and also the fact that after letting the murderers escape ye bade them send the innocent to death, yea, sent them to a man whom ye were about to exhibit as a judge of all mankind, but who in this very case knew not how to give judgement. And yet how many ought you gods in justice to send to the Athenians in place of these youths, whom ye unjustly slew in revenge for Androgeus? '

This same writer, after recalling the story about the Heracleidae, counts up the number of persons whose death Apollo has caused by the ambiguity of his responses, in the following words. 24

CHAPTER XX

[OENOMAUS] 'BUT since I happen to have mentioned this subject, let me now relate the incidents of the narrative concerning the Heracleidae. For they once set out to invade the Peloponnese by way of the Isthmus, but failed in the attempt. So Aristomachus the son of Aridaeus, because his father had perished in the invasion, comes to thee to learn about the way: for he was eager as his father had been. And thou tellest him,

"Heaven shows the way to victory through the straits."

'So he starts on the enterprise by way of the Isthmus, and is killed in battle. His son Temenus, unhappy son of hapless sire, was the third who came to thee, and thou gavest the same promise to him as to his father Aristomachus: and he said, "But my father trusted thee, and perished in the invasion."

'Then thou said'st, I do not mean "straits" on land, but on "the broad-bosomed," because, I suppose, it was difficult for thee to say simply "by the sea." And he went by sea, after making them think that he was making his incursion by land, and he encamped midway between Navatus and Typaeum. He killed with his spear Carnus son of Phylander, an Aetolian knight, doing, as I think, quite rightly. And when a plague presently fell upon them, and Aristodemus died, they returned again, and Temenus came and complained of his failure, and was told that he had brought upon himself the penalty for the messenger of the god, and he heard the poem concerning his vow to the Carnean Apollo, which told him in the oracular answer,

"Thou sufferest vengeance for my prophet's death."

'What then says Temenus? "What must I do? And how can I appease you?"

"To the Carnean god due honour vow."

'O most accursed, and most shameless prophet! Dost thou then not understand that he who hears the word "straits" will miss its meaning? Yet knowing this thou none the less givest this answer, and then lookest on at his mistake.

'But the word "strait" was ambiguous, and chosen in order that, if he were victorious, thou mightest seem to be the cause of his victory; but, if defeated, not at all to blame for his defeat, being able to take refuge in "the broad-bosomed." But the man went on "the broad-bosomed," and did not succeed; and again, an excuse is found in the death of thy messenger Carnus.

'Yet how, most noble god, didst thou, to whom Carnus was so dear, bid him be inspired for others, but not for himself? And though thou shouldest have saved Carnus, who was but one, how didst thou suffer him to die, and for his death didst bring an Homeric plague upon the multitude, and dictate vows for the plague?

'And if he had accomplished nothing by his vow, another excuse would have been found for thy quibble, and ye would never have ceased, they on their side inquiring, and thou quibbling, so that whether they were victorious or defeated thy malpractice would not have been detected. For their passion and eagerness were strong enough to mislead them, so as to make them not distrust thee, even if they were to be slain a thousand times.

'To this it is worth while to add the story of Croesus. He reigned over Lydia, having received the government as it had come down to him from a long line of ancestors. Then hoping to succeed somewhat beyond his forefathers, he was minded to show piety towards the gods, and, after making trial of them all, he preferred the Apollo of Delphi, and proceeded to adorn his temple with bowls and ingots of gold, and a countless multitude of offerings, and made it in a short time the richest of all temples in the world; nor in his magnanimity did he omit all that sufficed for sacrifices.

'So after he had made such loans to the god, the Lydian king naturally felt confidence in his magnificent works of piety, and resolved to make an expedition against the Persians, expecting to increase his empire greatly by the alliance of the god.

'What then did the wonderful oracle-monger do? That very same Delphian, Pythian, friendly god contrives that his suppliant, his dear friend, his client should not only fail to win the foreign empire, but also be driven from his own, the god not doing this at all purposely, I think, but rather in ignorance of what was to happen: for surely it was not with any knowledge of the future (since he was no god nor any superhuman power) that he craftily contrived his response to suit either event, and with the seeming affirmation,

"The Halys crossed,
Croesus a mighty empire shall destroy," 25

overturned the kingdom of Lydia which had come down from a succession of ancestors to the pious king, great and ancient as it was, and rendered to his favoured worshipper this fruit of his extreme zeal towards him.'

After this hear what indignation the writer not unreasonably utters. 26

CHAPTER XXI

[OENOMAUS] 'IT seems then that thou dost verily know all things that are worth no more than sand, but knowest nothing that is excellent. For example, that "the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise boiling should strike on thy senses," is a piece of knowledge worth but sand, not being even true in itself, but nevertheless becoming to the braggart and the shameless, who looks supercilious over his empty bits of knowledge and tries to persuade Croesus the Lydian captive not to despise him.

'For he relying upon the trial (of the oracles), intended soon after to ask thee whether he should make an expedition against the Persians, and to make thee his adviser concerning his insane and grasping policy. And thou didst not shrink from telling him, that

"The Halys crossed,
Croesus a mighty empire shall destroy." 27

'That certainly was well contrived, that it mattered nought to thee, if he should suffer some strange disaster from being incited by an ambiguous oracle to attack a foreign empire, nor if certain bitter and malicious persons, instead of duly praising thee for having driven a madman headlong, went so far as to accuse thee of having uttered a phrase which was not even equally balanced, that the Lydian king might hesitate and take counsel; but they said that the word "καταλῦσαι" could be understood by the Greeks only in one way, not to be driven from his own empire, but to acquire the empire of another.

'For Cyrus, the semi-Mede or semi-Persian, or, as he was called in the riddle, "the mule," being of a royal race by his mother, but of an ordinary stock on his father's side, shows incidentally the inflated poetry, but especially the blind divination of the soothsayer, if he did not know that the riddle would be misunderstood.

'If, however, he was thus playing with him not from ignorance but from insolence and malice, heavens! how strange are the playthings of the gods. And if it was not this, but that the things must of necessity so happen, this is of all deceitful speeches the most wicked. For if it must so happen, why nevertheless dost thou, unhappy god, sit at Delphi chanting empty and useless prophecies? And of what use art thou to us? And why are we so mad, who run to thee from all quarters of the earth? And what right hast thou to the savour of sacrifices?'

This plain speaking of Oenomaus in the Detection of Impostors is not free from cynical bitterness. For he will not admit that the oracles which are admired among all the Greeks proceed from a daemon, much less from a god, but says that they are frauds and tricks of human impostors, cunningly contrived to deceive the multitude. And since I have once mentioned these matters, there can be no objection to hearing other refutations also; and first, that in which the same author says that he had been himself deceived by the Clarian Apollo: he writes as follows: 28

CHAPTER XXII

[OENOMAUS] 'BUT forsooth I too must take some part in the comedy, and not pride myself on not having fallen into the common derangement; and I must tell of the bargain in wisdom, which I myself imported out of Asia, from thee, O Clarian god:

"In the land of Trachis lieth
Thy fair garden, Heracles,
Where all flowers for ever blooming,
Laden with perpetual dews,
Culled all day, yet ne'er diminish." 29

'Then I myself also, impotent fool that I was, became elated by the "Heracles," and the "garden of Heracles in its bloom," dreaming of a certain Hesiodic "sweat" because of the name Trachis, and on the other hand of an "easy" life because of the blooming garden.

'Then, on my inquiring further whether the gods were inclined to help me, some one of the multitude, swearing by the very gods that were to help, said that he certainly had heard that this very answer had been given from thee to one Callistratus, a merchant of Pontus.

'When I heard this, what, thinkest thou, was my indignation, at being forsooth robbed by him of my "virtue"? But although dissatisfied I nevertheless began to inquire whether the merchant also had been at all flattered by the "Heracles." So then it appeared that he also was in some trouble, and was bent upon gain, and expecting from his gain some pleasant kind of life.

'So as it appeared that the merchant was no better treated than myself, I would no longer accept the oracle, nor the "Heracles," but disdained to share the same treatment, when I saw the troubles that were actually present and the pleasures that existed only in hope.

'However, it appeared that none went without his share in the oracle, neither robber nor soldier, neither lover nor mistress, neither flatterer, nor rhetorician, nor sycophant. For of what each man desired, the trouble came first, while the joy was only expected.'

Having made these statements, he immediately adds, how after a second and third inquiry he found that the wonderful prophets knew nothing, but were concealing their own ignorance simply by the obscurity of their ambiguous language. So he speaks as follows:

CHAPTER XXIII

[OENOMAUS] 'But since my business was now so forward, and I wanted only a man to act as a stranger's guide to wisdom, and he was difficult to find, I requested thee also to point out such an one:

"On Eupelians and Achaeans obligation he will lay,
And, if true, for his conjecture shall receive no little pay."

'What sayest thou? If I was desirous of becoming a sculptor or painter, and was seeking for teachers, was it sufficient for me to hear Ἔν τε τοῖσιν Εὐπέλευσιν, or rather should I not have said that the speaker was mad?

'This, however, thou art perhaps not able to understand, for the characters of mankind are very obscure: but whither I had better travel from Colophon is no longer a matter so unintelligible to the god:

"When a man large stones projecteth from a widely-whirling sling,
With the blows he slays grass-eating geese unutterably great."

'Now who will interpret for me what in the world is meant by these "grass-eating geese unutterably great"? Or the "widely-whirling sling"? Will Amphilochus, or the god of Dodona, or wilt thou at Delphi, if I should come thither? Wilt thou not go and hang thyself with thy "widely-whirling sling," and take thy unintelligible verses with thee? '

But now, after such censures as these, it is time to observe again from the beginning how the same author confutes the most ancient oracular responses, those at Delphi, which are held forsooth in the very highest admiration in the histories of Greece.

'Vast was the Persian host in arms against the Athenians, nor was there any other hope of safety for them, except the god only. So they, not knowing who he was, invoked him as the helper of their forefathers. This was the Apollo at Delphi. What therefore did this wonderful deity do? Did he fight in defence of his friends? Did he remember the "libations and burnt offerings," and the customary honours which they paid to him in sacrificing their hecatombs? Not at all. But what said he? That they should flee, and provide a wooden wall for their flight: thus indicating the navy, by means of which alone he said that they could be saved when their city was burned. O mighty help of a god!

'Then he pretends forsooth to foretell a siege not only of the other buildings in the city, but also of the very temples consecrated to the gods. But this was what all might expect from the invasion of the enemy, apart from any oracle.'

Very naturally therefore the writer again makes sport of this delusion of the Greeks, and censures it in the following words:
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

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Part 3 of 3

CHAPTER XXIV

[OENOMAUS] 'PERHAPS, however, such answers as I have described are those of an intentional mischief-maker; find we ought rather to bring forward for judgement his other answers which were given to the Athenians. So then let the responses to the Athenians be read: 30

"Wretches, why sit ye here? Fly, fly to the ends of creation,
(Quitting your homes, and the crags which your city crowns with her circlet.)
Neither the head, nor the body is firm in its place, nor at bottom
Firm the feet, nor the hands (nor resteth the middle uninjured.
All----all ruined and lost). Since fire and impetuous Ares,
Speeding along in a Syrian chariot, hastes to destroy her.
Not alone shalt thou suffer; full many the towers he will level,
Many the shrines of the gods he will give to a fiery destruction.
Even now they stand with dark sweat horribly dripping,
Trembling and quaking for fear."

'Lo! there you have the oracle that was given to the Athenians. Is there perchance anything prophetic in it? "Yes, surely," some one will say, "for you had so much confidence in him yourself: and this will be known, if you add what was further said to them when they besought him to help them." So then, let it be added: 31

"Pallas has not been able to soften the lord of Olympus,
Though she has often prayed him, (and urged him with excellent counsel).
Yet once more I address thee in words than adamant firmer
When the foe shall have taken (whatever the limit of Cecrops
Holds within it, and all which divine Cithaeron shelters),
Then far-seeing Zeus grants this to the prayers of Athene;
Safe shall the wooden wall continue for thee and thy children;
Wait not the tramp of the horse, not the footmen mightily moving
Over the land, but turn your back to the foe, and retire ye.
Yet shall a day arrive when ye shall meet him in battle.
Holy Salamis, thou shalt destroy the offspring of women,
When men scatter the seed, or when they gather the harvest."

'Thy Zeus is worthy of himself, O son of Zeus! Thy Athena also is worthy of Athena, O brother of Athena! And this eagerness and counter-eagerness well become the father and the daughter, or rather the gods in general! And this ruler of Olympus, too weak to destroy this one city without bringing against it that countless host from Susa, was forsooth a mighty god, having dominion over the world, and persuasive withal, as moving so many nations from Asia into Europe, but yet unable in Europe to overthrow one single city. 32

'And thou too, the prophet so bold and so ready also to run needless risks for nothing, dost thou not cry pity? (so the men Blight say, on whose behalf "Pallas has not been able to soften the lord of Olympus"). Or was it that Zeus was wroth not with the men, but with the stones and timber? And then wast thou to save the men, and he to burn the buildings with foreign fire? Because he had at the moment no thunderbolt?

'Or rather are we somewhat bold, and foolhardy in forbidding you gods to talk such nonsense? But how knewest thou, O prophet, that

"Holy Salamis shall destroy the offspring of women,"

but didst not further know whether it would be,

"When men scatter the seed, or when they gather the harvest"?

'And how knewest thou not even this, that a man might say that "the offspring of women" were either those of his own kindred, or might say that they were "the enemies," if he scented the evil device?

'But we must wait for what will happen, for happen one or other of these must. For in truth "Salamis the holy" would not have been inappropriate even in case of defeat, as being called by such an epithet in compassion: and the naval battle that was to take place either

"When men scatter the seed, or when they gather the harvest,"

is beplastered with poetical bombast, in order that, by this artifice, the prediction might escape detection, and it might not be clearly seen at the moment, that a naval battle does not take place in winter.

'Now too it is not difficult to see the stage-play, and the wheeling in of the gods, the one beseeching and the other refusing to yield, so useful for the coming event, and the unexpected turn of the war, the one if they should be saved, the other if they should be destroyed. For if they should be saved, behold! the prayers of Pallas have been foreshown, which were able to turn the anger of Zeus: or if not, even this result is not unprovided for by the prophet; for "Pallas is not able to soften Zeus." And to meet half-evil fortunes the artist mixed the oracle, as though Zeus had on the one hand fulfilled his own purpose, but on the other hand had not disregarded the request of his daughter.

'And as to the "towers," it might perhaps have been false that many would be destroyed, if they had attacked them with reeds instead of iron and fire, though in this case even with reeds so great an army could at all events have accomplished something. "But it was I," says he, "who discovered the wooden wall which alone could not be destroyed." Yes, it was thy advice, but not a prophecy, not unlike that "Haste, oh! haste thee away, nor blush to behave like a coward."

'He therefore who solved that riddle was as good as thyself in discerning that the city of the Athenians was the Persian's avowed cause for the invasion, and the whole expedition was directed against this city first and chiefly. For even I myself, who am no prophet, should have discerned this, and bidden not only the Lydian king, but also the Athenians to turn their backs and flee. For "Yet shall a day arrive when ye shall meet him in battle," for there cometh on "the tramp of the horse and the footmen mightily moving." Also that they must flee in ships, and not on the mainland: for it would have been ridiculous, as they had ships, and dwelt by the sea, not to have collected their goods in all haste, and put on board all the provisions they had, and made their escape, giving over the land to those who chose to take it.'

These then were the answers given to the Athenians: but those given to the Lacedaemonians were utterly weak and ridiculous. For either, says he, the whole city shall be besieged, or it shall mourn the loss of the king. From every circumstance, it was natural for any one to guess this, that either one or the other would happen.

But surely it was no divination of a god to use such ambiguity in ignorance of the future, when he ought to have given help, and appeared opportunely as saviour of the Greeks, and rather to have procured the victory over the enemies and barbarians for the Greeks, as his own friends. And if he had not power to do this, he should at least have provided that they should suffer no harm, and not be conquered. But even this he failed to do, nay, he did not even know how the circumstances of their defeat would turn out. Wherefore on this point also hear how his censure is expressed.

CHAPTER XXV

[OENOMAUS] 'BUT, thou wilt say, one must not give the same advice to the Lacedaemonians. That is true. For thou knewest not, O sophist, as in the case of Attica, what course the affairs of Sparta would take. Therefore thou wast afraid lest thou shouldest bid them flee, and then they should flee, and the enemy never invade them.

'Since therefore it was necessary to say something, this is what thou saidst to the Lacedaemonians:

"O habitants of Sparta's spacious streets,
Either your glorious city shall be sacked
By Perseus' warrior sons, or else a king
Sprung from the race of mighty Heracles
Must die, and all Laconia mourn his fate." 33

'Again there is the combination most unlike prophecy. However, let it pass, that we may not seem to be both wearisome and incompetent by trampling upon thee twice for the same fault; but let us examine the remaining facts.

'In so great a danger all were looking to thee, and thou wast both their informant of the future, and their adviser as to present action. And while they believed thee trustworthy, thou wast sure that they were fools; and that the present opportunity was convenient for drawing on the simpletons, and driving them headlong, not only to the schools of sophistry at Delphi and Dodona, but also to the seats of divination by barley and by wheat-flour, and to the ventriloquists.

'For at that time not only the gods were believed, but also cats and crows, and the delusions of dreams. It was not difficult therefore to see that they would neither have accepted both misfortunes rather than one, nor the greater instead of the less, and it was less that one, even their king, should fall instead of all.

'So then with the fall of the city there would be no escape for him either; but if he were posted somewhere else by himself, perhaps something unexpected might happen. The remaining course then was for those who reasoned thus to send the king to carry on the war, and stay at home themselves out of danger, awaiting the event.

'For him therefore, taking his stand with a few against that immense host, destruction was manifest; but Sparta had a respite from fear, and hopes of the unexpected: while the trick would be equally undetected, whether the city escaped or was captured.

'Why so? Because it had not been said, forsooth, that the city should be saved if the king died, but that either he should perish alone or the whole city together: and this answer could not be called to account in either case, whether he were to perish alone or not alone. Such is the fruit of arrogance and folly.'

Such was the course in this case. But it would not be right to pass by the answer which he gave to the Cnidians, when they offered vows and prayed for the alliance of the god.

CHAPTER XXVI

[OENOMAUS] 'THE Cnidians also suffered something like this, when Harpagus made an expedition against them. For when they tried to cut through the Isthmus there and make their city an island, at first they stuck close to the work; but when they had to face the labour, they were for giving up and consulting the oracle. And thou saidst to them:

"Fence not the isthmus off, nor dig it through:
Jove would have made an island, had he wished": 34

and the lazy cowards were persuaded, and turned back from the work, and gave themselves up to Harpagus. But mark the cunning trick: for since it was not certain that they would escape, even if they dug the trench, thou didst stop them from this; but in not bidding them to continue the work, thou dost promise their escape.

'To this however thou didst add, not that it was better for them not to dig it, but that it was not the pleasure of Zeus that it should be an island. So then in discouraging them the chances were evenly balanced; but in giving them encouragement the promise of escape preponderated: in this case then it was safe for the sophist to deter them. And so, without telling them anything of what they had come for, thou sentedst them away with the idea that they had heard something good.'

Now I think these instances sufficiently convict the feebleness both of the givers and receivers of the responses, and that there is no truth or inspiration to be found in their declarations.

But you will see the mischievous disposition either of the evil daemons or of the men who played false with the divinations, if you learn how in the war of Greeks against each other they irritated those who consulted them, whereas they ought to have been arbiters of peace and friendship.

At one time, therefore, this Delphian god again irritates the Lacedaemonians, as if they were his friends and familiars, against the Messenians, and at another time gives an answer against the Lacedaemonians to the Messenians, if the latter should propitiate the daemons again by human sacrifice. Listen now to this story also.

CHAPTER XXVII

[OENOMAUS] 'WHEN wisdom is associated with divination she will review such answers as these, and will permit no random discourse, inasmuch as she makes all things sure by their moorings to herself, and assigns their degrees of precedence. Nor will she permit the Pythian prophet, in his folly, to prophecy either to these, or to the Lacedaemonians about the Messenians, and the land which the Messenians held after defeating the Lacedaemonians by a stratagem.

"Set not thy hand to deeds of war alone,
So Phoebus bids; for as by stratagem
The people hold Messenian soil, so now
Shall they be caught by arts which they first used." 35

'Wisdom bids them rather think of peace and frugality and contentment. But they perhaps, though disciplined by the laws of Lycurgus, had come to inquire from insatiate desire and vainglory, that they might not seem to be inferior in battle to Messenians, though reputed to have been bred up in habits of endurance.

'But surely if they had been thus bred up in habits of endurance, they would have been content with little, and would have had no need of fighting, and arms, and the rest of such folly.

'This was the answer to the Lacedaemonians against the Messenians; but on the other hand the answer to the Messenians against the Lacedaemonians was as follows; for thou didst give oracles to the Messenians also against the Lacedaemonians, and not only to the Lacedaemonians against the Messenians:

"A virgin of the race of Aepytus
The lot shall choose, whom to the infernal gods
Thou must devote, Ithome thus to save." 36

'For I do not accept the false inventions, that the victim chosen from the race of Aepytus was not a pure virgin, and therefore the Messenians could not offer the sacrifice. For it is thy nature to make confusion.'

Such then are the statements of ancient history. And in our own days also one might observe thousands of similar cases, in which from ancient times even to our own the successive rulers at one time rushed into unprofitable wars by the advice of the oracles, at another time were foiled by the obscurity of the responses, or again were misled from the actual deceit of the oracles.

What need to tell how at times in the greatest crises either of battle-array against the enemy, or of danger in bodily sickness, men gained no help or healing from the supposed gods. But their answers from the oracles always and constantly turn out to be such as the ancient histories prove them to have been.

But of those Pythian responses which Were most celebrated among the Greeks there was a certain one addressed to Lycurgus, to whom at his coming the Pythoness addressed that famous answer:

'To my rich shrine thou com'st, Lycurgus, dear
To Zeus and all who in Olympus dwell:
Whether to hail thee god or mortal man
Doubts my prophetic soul, yet hope prevails
To welcome thee as god. To seek good laws,
Lycurgus, thou art come; such will I give.'

These, with the additional lines, were the words of the oracle. Let us then examine closely what observations were made in answer thereto in the criticism before quoted. The author writes thus: 37

CHAPTER XXVIII

[OENOMAUS] 'BUT when the precursor and model of Tyrtacus once came to thee, thou saidst he had come from hollow Laccdaemon, "a friend of Zeus and all who in Olympus dwell," and that thou wert in doubt, "whether to hail him god or mortal man, yet hope prevailed to welcome him as god," because he came "to seek good laws."

'But, if he was a god, how was it that the "friend of Zeus and all who in Olympus dwell" did not understand civic law?

'However, since such matters as have been shown to this most godlike of men by the voice of the god cannot perhaps be discovered without a god's help, let us look at the divine utterance, and the things which thou didst teach Lycurgus:

"To seek good laws,
Lycurgus, thou art come; such will I give."

'Give then, I should say: for no such gift as this didst thou ever yet promise to any man.

"So long as to the oracles ye pay
Your promises and vows, and justice due
To fellow citizens and strangers give,
Show to the aged reverence sincere,
Duly respect the sons of Tyndarus,
Menelaus and the deathless heroes, who
In noble Lacedaemon dwell enshrined,
So long far-seeing Zeus shall guard your home."

'Apollo! What divine teaching and exhortation! And for this no long voyage is needed, nor a journey from Peloponnesus to Delphi, or even to the very Hyperboreans, whence, as they say, in accordance with the response of another prophetess, Asteria,

"Founders and priests of fragrant Delos came."

'I suppose that this Lycurgus never had a nurse, nor ever sat in a company of old men, from whom, as well as from her, he might have heard nobler and wiser lessons than these.

'Perhaps, however, thou wilt add something more, if Lycurgus entreat thee to speak plainly.

"If some should lead aright, and others follow,"----

I shall still say that this comes from the same company, and request Lycurgus not to desist, for the chance that he may go back to Sparta with some political lesson received from thee.

"Two ways there are diverging far apart,
This leading on to freedom's glorious home,
That to the hateful cell of slavery.
This manly valour treads and concord true,
And to this path be ye the peoples' guides.
Through hateful strife and baneful cowardice
Men reach the other path; of that beware."

'Thou bid'st them to be manly: this we have often heard even from the cowardly. But also to be of one mind: this we have heard not only from the wise, but ere now from the very leaders of sedition: so we can excuse thee from giving us this exhortation.

'Nevertheless being a prophet didst thou not know that we have received it many a time and from many persons, who had neither eaten greedily of the laurel, nor drunk the water of Castalia, nor ever been supercilious about wisdom?

'Tell us then about manliness, tell us about freedom, tell us about concord, in what way they are engendered in a state, and bid not us, who are ignorant, to lead the peoples in this path, but lead us thyself. For it is a noble path, but difficult for us and formidable.'

To this he adds further remarks.

CHAPTER XXIX

[OENOMAUS] 'THOU art ready to speak of marriage also:

"From Argive pastures choose a well-bred foal
Of dark-maned sire."

'And about children:

"Astion, of race most honourable,
None gives thee honour; but thy Labda soon
Conceives, and bears a mighty rock, (to crush
The tyrants, and on Corinth justice do)."

'About a colony:

'"Gainst men of gold lead forth a numerous host,
Brass on thy shoulders, iron in thine hand."

'About vainglory:

"No spot on earth can match Pelasgia's soil,
What soil with thine, Pelasgia, can compare?
The mares of Thrace, or Sparta's beauteous dames,
Or men who drink fair Arethusa's fount."

'And it seems to me that thou art no better than the so-called marvel-mongers, nay not even than the rest of the quacks and sophists. At them, however, I do not wonder, that they throw men over for pay; but I do wonder at thee, the god, and at mankind, that they pay to be thrown over.

'Then the famous Socrates, in answer to him who asked whether he should marry or not, said neither, but that he would repent of both: and to the man who wished for children he said that he would not do right, if, instead of trying how, if he should have children, he might treat them in the best way, he made no account of this but was only considering how he might get them.

'And when another man had determined to travel, because things were not well with him at home, he said that he was not taking right counsel; for he would go away and leave his country where it was, but would take his folly with him, which would make him disagreeable to the people there just as much as to those at home. And not only when he was questioned, but also of his own accord he often resorted to such conversations.'

CHAPTER XXX

'FOR twenty days before the Dog-star rise,
And twenty days that follow next thereon,
In shady bower let Bacchus be thy leech:' 38

'A medical and not a prophetical answer given to the Athenians when troubled by the burning heat.

"Grandson of Presbon, son of Clymenus,
Thyself, Erginus, would'st the race prolong:
'Tis late; yet give the old plough a new tip."

'For a young woman to be wedded to an old man, if he desires children, this is the advice not of a prophet, but of one who understands nature. Desire, however, sets the weaklings beside themselves.'

CHAPTER XXXI

'FOR this reason, if thou canst not persuade them to learn something worthy of the school of a god instead of their contemptible questions, I recommend thee to take a rod to them rather than to say to Archilochus of Paros after he had thrown away his substance in political follies, and in sorrow had come to consult thee:

"To Thasos, Archilochus, go, and dwell in that glorious island."

'For he would have profited more had he been told in this other way:

"Archilochus, come to thy senses, in poverty make no bewailing."

'Or to the Cretans who had come to thee:

"Dwellers in Phaestus and Tarra and wave-beaten headland of Dium,
Hear ye my bidding, and offer the Pythian lustrations to Phoebus
In pious devotion, so dwell ye for ever in Creta's fair island,
Worshipping wealth and Zeus in customs not those of your fathers."

'It would have been better for them to be told:

"Dwellers in folly and madness and self-conceited elation,
Hear ye my bidding, and offer at home in pious devotion
Lustrations your folly to purge; so dwell ye in wisdom for ever
Worshipping wealth in customs not those of your sires but divine."

'Beware lest thou need lustration more than Crete, for inventing lustrations such as those of Orpheus and Epimenides.'

CHAPTER XXXII

'BUT why, O wisest of gods, if Charilaus and Archelaus, the kings of Lacedaemon,

"Give to Apollo as his share of gain
One half, it were far better for themselves?"

'To what other Apollo dost thou mean? For surely thou dost not claim this for thyself, O most shameless prophet, lest any one should rebuke thee, as sharing so basely with the robbers.'

Enough, however, of this subject. So come, let us append to it the verses in which at another time Apollo admires Archilochus, a man who in his own poems employed against women all kinds of foul and unspeakable abuse, which any modest man would not endure even to listen to: Euripides also he admires though he was expelled from the school and philosophy of Socrates, and is caricatured upon the stage even to the present day: besides these Homer also, whom the noble Plato banishes from his own republic, as in no respect profitable, but as having been the author of language which utterly corrupts the young. For these reasons again the author before mentioned scoffs at the soothsaying god as follows:

CHAPTER XXXIII

[OENOMAUS]

'"IMMORTAL and renowned in song thy son,
Telesicles, among all men shall be."

'Now this son was Archilochus.

"A son, Mnesarchus, thou shalt have, whom all
Mankind shall honour, who to noble fame
Shall rise, encircled with the festal grace
Of sacred crowns."

'The son was Euripides.

'Homer was told:

"Life hath a twofold destiny for thee;
This shall in darkness veil twin orbs of light;
That with immortal gods, in life, in death,
Shall set thee equal."

'And for this cause it was said of him:

"Happy and hapless, born to either doom."

'The speaker is not a man, but one who has sometimes insisted that he must not

"As god be careless of the woes of men."

'Come then, thou god, be not careless even of us. For we desire, if it be not wrong, some of us worthy fame, others sacred crowns, others equality with the gods, and others immortality itself. 'What then was that, for which Archilochus seemed to thee worthy of heaven? Grudge not to other men that upward path, thou of all gods best friend to man! What dost thou bid us do? Or must we, of course, do what Archilochus did, if we would show ourselves worthy of the home of you gods? Abuse bitterly the maidens who are unwilling to marry us, and associate with profligates far baser than the basest of men? But not without poetry, for that is the language of gods, as well as of god-like men like Archilochus. And no wonder perhaps. For through excellence in this art the home is well ordered, and the private life is happy, and cities are kept in concord, and nations are well governed.

'Not unnaturally therefore he was regarded by thee as a servant of the Muses, and his murderer deemed worthy neither of admission to you gods, nor of speech from you, because he had slain a man of skilful speech.

'There was no injustice then in the threat against Archias, nor anything inopportune in the Pythia avenging Archilochus though long since dead, and commanding the blood-guilty one to depart out of the temple; for he had slain a servant of the Muses.

'To me at all events thou didst not appear to be out of order in avenging the poet; for I remembered the other poet also, and the sacred crowns of Euripides; though indeed I was in doubt, and desirous of hearing, not that he had been crowned, but how these crowns were "sacred"; nor that his fame sprang up, but in what way it was "noble" fame.

'For he used to be applauded in the crowds, I know: also he was agreeable to tyrants, this too I know: and he practised an art which won admiration not only for the lover of it himself, but also for the city of Athens, because it alone gave birth to tragic poets.

'If therefore the applause is a competent judge, and the table in the Acropolis, I have nothing more to say, since I see Euripides supping in the Acropolis, and the commons both of the Athenians and the Macedonians applauding. But if apart from these the gods have any vote, and that trustworthy, and not inferior to the vote of the tyrants or to that of the crowds, come tell us, for which of his excellences did you gods give your vote in favour of Euripides, that we may hasten at full speed to heaven in the track marked out by your praises.

'For surely there is no lack even now of Sapaeans or Lycambes ready to be caricatured, nor in the present day would either a Thyestes, or an Oedipus, or the hapless Phineus object to be made a subject of tragedy; nor would they, I think, be envious of any one who desired the friendship of the gods: but even those of old, if they had learned that there would be a certain Euripides, a man who came to be dear to the gods for having dressed them up, they would, I think, have ceased to care for their old misfortunes, and instead of giving their mind to better ways would have turned to making verses. And if they heard loud-sounding names of men of former times, they would use them for their journey to heaven, that on their arrival they might sit in Olympus among the boxers, in the hall of Zeus. For this is what the poet at Delphi says.

'Now let us look at the question which "the happy" Homer asks of the god: for I suppose it was something about heaven, and important enough to call forth an answer from the god; otherwise he would not so readily have pronounced him "happy," and in addition to this happiness have awarded him an answer.

"Thou seek'st a fatherland, but none is thine.
A motherland thou hast, nor near, nor far
From Minos' realm: there is thy doom to die,
When from the tongues of schoolboys thou hast heard
A long-drawn hymn thou canst not understand."

'Was it then a terrible thing, O thou wisest of men, or rather of gods, if this "happy" man should know neither where on earth he sprang from his mother's womb, nor where he should close his eyes and lie? I should have thought it of equal importance, whether a Homer or one of the beetles came to consult the god on these points, and that the god could no more have given any guidance on such unknown matters to Homer than to a beetle.

'As for example, if a beetle did not spend his life and his old age on that same dunghill on which he was begotten, but fell in with an adverse wind, and a cruel beetle-daemon, who caught him up into the air and carried him away by force to some other land and some other dunghill, and then he came to Delphi and inquired which was the dunghill of his fatherland, and what land would receive him when dead.'

Let this suffice then about the poets.

CHAPTER XXXIV

BUT since this wonderful god by his own responses has deified not only poets but even boxers and athletes, the author before mentioned seems to me to pass an appropriate censure on this also in the following words:

[OENOMAUS]

'O thou who knowest to number the sands and to measure the ocean
Who hast ears for the silent, and knowest the dumb man's meaning.' 39

'I would that thou wert ignorant of all such things, but knewest this, that the art of boxing is no better than that of kicking, that thou mightest either have immortalized asses also, or else not Cleomedes boxer of Astypalaea, in such words as these:

"Last of the heroes was he, Cleomedes of Astypalaea;
Now no longer a mortal with sacrifice honour him duly." 40

'For what then, O ancient interpreter of the religion of the Greeks, as Plato calls thee, didst thou deify this man? Was it because at the Olympic games he struck his antagonist a single blow and laid open his side, and thrust in his hand and seized his lung?

'By Apollo! how godlike a deed! Or was it not that alone, but also because, being punished by a fine of four talents for this act, he did not submit, but in wrath and indignation turned his anger against the boys in the school, by pulling away the column which upheld the roof. Is it for these deeds then, thou manufacturer of gods, that we ought to honour Cleomedes?

'Or wilt thou add this also, as the other proof at once of his manliness and his friendship with the gods, that having stepped into a sacred chest, and pulled the cover over it, he could not be caught by his pursuers when they wished to drag him out? A hero then no longer mortal art thou, O Cleomedes, for inventing such contrivances to attain immortality.

'The gods at least were immediately sensible of thy good deeds, and snatched thee up to heaven, just as Homer's gods snatched Ganymede; but him they chose for his beauty, and thee for thy strength, and for the good use made of it!

'I wish therefore, O prophet, as I said, that thou hadst let alone the sand and the sea, and instead of them hadst learned how much boxing is worth, that thou mightest regard the pugnacious asses as gods, and the wild asses as the very best of the gods: and there would have been some proper oracle over the death of a wild ass, rather than over thy boxer:

"Chief of the deathless gods is a wild ass, not Cleomedes;
Now no longer a mortal with sacrifice honour him duly."

'For indeed you must not wonder, if even a wild ass should lay claim to immortality, as being fully provided with divine qualifications, and should not endure what he heard, but should threaten that with a blow he would knock even Cleomedes himself into the pit, and not permit him to go up to heaven.

'For he would say that he was more worthy of the very gifts of the gods than Cleomedes, as being ready to fight not with him alone, even if he were to use thongs of iron, but also with the Thasian boxer, both at once, him I mean on account of whose statue the gods were aggrieved, and made the land of the Thasians barren.

'About this man also we trust to no human testimony but to that of the same god. And from these facts I clearly perceived that boxing was, as we said, a godlike pursuit, though most persons, even those who think themselves wise, were not aware of it: or they would have given up being gentlemen, and would have practised the art of the Thasian boxer, whom the gods, though they did not grant immortality to him, as they did to Cleomedes, yet loved much.

'Thus his statue of bronze exhibited a power beyond the images of other men, by falling down upon his enemy who was scourging it, which seems to show a kind of divine solicitude.

'But the senseless Thasians, having no experience in things divine, were indignant and accused the statue of a crime, and exacted punishment, and ventured to sink it in the sea.

'They did not escape however, these Thasians, but the gods showed them how great a wrong they had dared to commit, by sending a famine upon them as the minister of divine justice, which with difficulty taught them what the counsels of the gods were; and thou the most philanthropic of gods didst send them help in thine own fashion, saying:

"Bring thy banished ones home, and gather a liberal harvest."

'But again the stupid people supposed that they must recall the men who were in banishment: but they were mistaken; for as the gods have no love at all for mankind, what care they about men being recalled from banishment, in comparison with their care for statues? For this of course the land gained no help towards being relieved of its barrenness, but that some wise person who understood the mind of the gods conceived that the banished one was the statue which had been drowned in the sea. And so it was. For no sooner was it set up again, than immediately the land began to flourish, and the Thasians thenceforward (enjoying abundant harvests) wore long hair in honour of Ceres.

'Must not then these be clear proofs that a godlike athleticism is honoured by the gods? For again the gods were wroth because of an insult to the statue of a conqueror in the pentathlum, and for this the Locrians were famished, like the Thasians, until they found a remedy in thy oracle, running thus:

"Hold the dishonoured in honour, and then shalt thou plough up thy land."

'For neither did the Locrians perceive the meaning of the gods before they had thee to help them in the matter. But they had cast the pentathlete Euthycles into prison, on a charge of having received bribes against his country: and not only so, but after he was dead they committed outrages upon his statues, until the gods could not endure their conduct, and sent the most violent famine upon them. And they would have utterly perished by the famine, had there not come help from thee, saying that they ought to honour men trained and fattened, who are no less dear to the gods than the oxen which the millers fatten, and by sacrificing which men sometimes win your assent. Not less perhaps, but even much more, than fat cattle do you delight in fat men, so that sometimes you grow angry with a whole city and a whole nation, because one or two persons do wrong to these failings.

'How I wish then, O prophet, thou hadst been our trainer instead of prophet, or both prophet and trainer together, that as there is a Delphic oracle so there might have been a Delphic gymnasium. For it would not have been inappropriate to the Pythian contest that the gymnasium also should be Pythian.'

To this I will append what he says by way of proving that the gods whom we are discussing are also flatterers of tyrants.

CHAPTER XXXV

'"HAPPY the man who now to my sacred dwelling approacheth,
Cypselus, son of Aetion, king of illustrious Corinth." 41

'So then tyrants also are happy, and not only those who conspire against tyrants:

"Cypselus, who shall work full many misfortunes to Corinth,"

and Melanippus, who wrought many blessings for the city of Gela.

'But if Cypselus was "happy," O thou miserable god, how could Phalaris fail to be liappy too, being of like character with Cypselus? So that your oracle would have run better in this other way:

"Phalaris, happy art thou, and Melanippus likewise,
Leaders and guides of mankind in the pathways of heavenly discord."

'But I have also heard an oracle of thine in prose concerning Phalaris, praising and honouring him, because after he had discovered their conspiracy and tortured them, he admired their endurance and released them. So Loxias and his father Zeus voted Phalaris a respite from death, because he behaved mercifully towards Chariton and Melanippus. But I wish thou hadst just taught us about death and life, that life is a most noble thing. To all this let us add the following:'

CHAPTER XXXVI

'"FAR better will Methymna's dwellers fare,
If Dionysus' wooden head they honour."

'For the cities offer sacrifice and keep festivals not only to wooden heads of Dionysus, but also to heads of stone, and bronze, and gold; not only to wooden heads but also to actual heads of Dionysus, and to very many of the other gods of Hesiod.

'For verily there are

"Three times ten thousand on the fruitful earth,"

not immortals, but rulers of mankind of wood and stone: and if they

"Man's insolence or just behaviour scanned," 42

there never would have been raised a crop of nonsense so great, that at length the evil has reached even to you gods, having passed over to Olympus, where, as they say,

"The abode of the gods is for ever secure."

'Yet surely if it were "secure," it would not be accessible to nonsense, nor would any one of the Olympians have reached such a pitch of insanity as to turn a log of olive-wood into a god. This log became entangled in the meshes of a net, and was dragged up by the Methymnaeans, who caught it in their nets twice, it may be, and thrice, or oftener in the same place, and thence ran out into the Libyan sea, and did not cast it out upon the land: for if they had done that, it would not have stuck fast in the meshes, no, by Dionysus!

'But as the top of the log was like a head (Apollo! what a strange contrivance!), one might ask, what business had it in the sea? Why, what else, to be sure, except that it sat waiting until some insane men (for I will not say, gods also) should meet with it, and believe it to be fallen not from Zeus, but from Poseidon, and then should carry it off to their town, as if it were some lucky prize, though in reality it was unlucky, and no prize, but a firebrand? Or perhaps it was not enough that of itself it utterly ruined them, but an increase of infatuation, so to say, fetched from Delphi gave it new strength and intensity.'

So far Oenomaus. But now, after what has been stated, pass again to The Philosophy to be derived from Oracles of the author who has made the compilation against us, and read from the responses of the Pythian god concerning Fate, and see whether it will not occur to you also that the account of the celebrated oracles is still more inconsistent with any divine power.

[Footnotes have been numbered and placed at the end]

1. 179 d 9 Porphyry, Against the Christians

2. 181 d 10 Ephes. vi. 12

3. 182 c 3 Ephes. vi. 12

4. 184 a 1 Plutarch, On the Cessation of Oracles, c. x. p. 414

5. 184 c 9 Plutarch, On the Cessation of Oracles, c. xii. p. 416 C ibid. c. xvi. p. 418 E b I Plutarch, ibid. p. 417 B

6. 185 a 1 Plutarch, b 9 Herod. ii. 171. 185 c 3 Pindar, Fr. 121 (224)

7. 187 a 1 Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, c. xxv. p. 360 D

8. 187 d 3 Plutarch, On Isis, cc. xxvi, xxvii. p. 361 C

9. 187 d 5 Empedocles, Fr. 32

10. 188 b 1 Plutarch, On the Cessation of Oracles, c. xxi. p. 421 B

11. 190 a 1 Porphyry, Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles

12. 191 b 1 Porphyry, Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles

13. 191 d 6 Porphyry, Epistle to Anebo, § 28 (Parthey)

14. 193 a 3 Porphyry, Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles

15. 197 d 1 Porphyry, Epistle to Anebo, § 28

16. 199 a 3 Porphyry, Epistle to Anebo, § 4

17. 198 d 2 Porphyry, Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles

18. 201 c 1 The same lines are quoted above, 124 b 3

19. 203 c 2 Porphyry, Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles

20. 205 b 4 Plutarch, On the Cessation of Oracles, c. 5, p. 411 E

21. 205 d 3 Plutarch, l. c., c. xvi, p. 418 E

22. 209 b 2 Oenomaus, The Detection of Impostors, a Fragment preserved by Eusebius

23. 209 d 8 Hom. Od. xix. 179

24. 210 b 2 Oenomaus, The Detection of Impostors

25. 212 b a cf. Herod. i. 53

26. 212 c 1 Oenomaus

27. 212 c 3 Herod. i. 47: cf. p. 457 a

28. 213 d 3 Oenomaus, ibid.

29. 214 a 10 Hesiod, Works and Days, vv. 287-290

30. 216 b 5 Herodotus, vii. 140 (Rawlinson's translation)

31. 216 d 4 Herod. vii. 141 (Rawlinson)

32. 218 b 4 Herod, i. 55

33. 219 b I Herod. vii. 220

34. 220 c 2 Herod. i. 174

35. 221 c 1 Pausanias, iv. 12

36. 221 d 8 Compare the version of the oracle in Pausanias, iv. 9 Herod, i. 65; Themistius, Or. V (xix. p. 225; Theodoret 141) 240

37. 222 d 1 Oenomaus

38. 225 c 6 Pausanias, ix. 37

39. 230 b 4 Herod. i. 47

40. 230 c 3 Plato, Republic, 427 C

41. 233 a 1 cf. Herod. v. 92. b 6 cf. Athenaeus, xiii. 78

42. 233 d 8 Hesiod,Works and Days, 250; Hom. Od. xvii. 487
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

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Part 1 of 3

BOOK VI

CONTENTS


• Preface p. 236 a
• I. The seeming prophecies of the daemons in the oracles are conjectures from the course of the stars, like those made by men. p. 236 d
• II. They destroy our free will by asserting that our purposes are set in motion by Fate p. 238 b
• III. They were not able even to defend their own consecrated shrines when struck by lightning p. 238 d
• IV. They say that the decrees of Fate may be annulled by magic p. 240 d
• V. They utter lying prophecies p. 241 c
• VI. Refutation of the argument in defence of Fate p. 242 a
• VII. How their philosophers refuted the opinions even of their gods concerning Fate by truer reasoning. From Oenomaus p. 255 b
• VIII. On the same subject. From Diogenianus p. 262 a
• IX. On the same subject. From Alexander Aphrodisiensis p. 268 a
• X. How the argument for Fate is refuted from Mathematical science. From Bardesanes p. 273 b
• XI. How refuted also from the interpretation and testimony of the Divine Scriptures. From Origen p. 281 a

PREFACE

In the books which we have already completed we have sufficiently exposed the character of the oracles; and the divine power of our Saviour has exhibited in the teaching of His Gospel an excellence worthy of God and at the same time beneficial to man; for by it alone, and by no other teaching, deliverance from the daemoniacal phantoms, which had from the beginning over shadowed and afflicted the whole life of man, was secured for all.

Now let us examine their false doctrines about fate, and so restore the true account of the same subject, in order that the daemons who have been supposed to inspire the oracles may be shown not only by the wickedness of their system, but also by the error and falsity of their opinions, to be worthless and impotent. Consider therefore whether it will not occur to you also that the account of them is inconsistent with divine power, both from what I shall set before you in refutation of their doctrine concerning fate, and from the very manner in which they are said to perform their divinations.

For it is not said that they have gained the knowledge of future events beforehand by any superior power, but that they guess what is coming from observation of the motion of the stars, just as men do. Thus, it is said, they have no power either to help, or to effect anything at all, except what is in accordance with fate. And the evidence of this shall be that self-same daemons' advocate, who in his book entitled Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, speaks word for word as follows:

CHAPTER I

[PORPHYRY] 1 'The gods, if they speak with a knowledge of things determined by fate, declare that their utterances are derived from the course of the stars, and almost all the truthful gods acknowledge this.'

Then a little farther down he says:

'Apollo was asked of what sex a woman's child would be, and by the stars he said it would be female, having learned this from the time of conception: and thus he speaks:

"The shoot springs forth from earth, whose thirsty meads
All freshening moisture from their mother drain,
While life still stirs within her its due time.
No boy she bears, 'tis but a feeble girl;
The Moon with Venus watched the chaste embrace
That brings thee soon, O friend, a female child."

'See how from the time of conception, because the Moon was then approaching Venus, he said that a girl would be born. Moreover from those signs they foretell diseases; for listen:

"A baneful poison ravages his breast
And pours its cruel pangs o'er all the lung,"----

'and so on: to which he adds:

"So wrought the purpose of the Fates, which urged
Their deadly strife, to slay thee by disease,
Since Saturn treads on high his baneful path."

'And after some other verses:

"But the Destroyer, hastening on to meet
The star of Saturn, forced thee to conclude
Life's fated day, and robbed thy soul of hope.
For this thy godlike father's sacred heart
Warned thee to shun the baneful god of war."'

These things show that their divination is not from any divine power in them, but from observation of the stars according to mathematical principles; so that in this they differ nothing from other men, nor show any work of a higher or more divine nature. But see how they also destroy our free-will, by referring not only external events and things independent of us, but also our own purposes, to the course of the stars.

CHAPTER II

[PORPHYRY] 2 'Thus also Apollo spake concerning a certain man, explaining at the same time whence came his eagerness for war:

"In Mars he hath a vehement natal star,
Which drives him on, yet not unto the tomb:
For Jupiter's decree foretold it thus,
And soon shall give him glory from the war."

'And again on another man:

"Saturn's long hair outspread and cruel rays
Saddened the hapless boy's tempestuous life."'

So great a horror of Fate have these brave gods, as to confess that they cannot even defend their own temples when struck by lightning! Much hope there must be then for men to get help by prayer from those who are not even able to help themselves! Of what use is it henceforth to be pious, and to worship and serve the gods, who can give no help at all even to themselves? Hear, however, what the oracle says:

CHAPTER III

[PORPHYRY] 3 'Thus even shrines and temples have their destinies, and Apollo's own temple had been destined to be struck by lightning, as he says:

"Offspring of Erichthonius' godlike race,
Boldly ye come mine oracle to ask
When shall this fairest shrine be laid in dust.
Hear then this utterance of the voice divine,
That issues from the laurel-shaded cave.
When high in air the warring winds resound,
And storms embattled meet with thundering crash,
While the wide world lies wrapped in silent frost,
And the imprisoned air no outlet finds,
A blazing torch falls, where it will, to earth.
Whereat the wild beasts on the mountain tops
Flee in swift terror to their dens, nor stay
To scan with trembling eyes Jove's fallen bolt.
Shrines of the blessed, trees of stateliest growth,
Steep mountain peaks, fair ships upon the sea
All shattered lie beneath those wings of fire.
Fair Amphitrite too, Poseidon's bride,
Cleft by that awful stroke shrinks moaning back.
Ye therefore, though by mighty pain oppressed,
Bear with brave souls the counsels of the Fates
That know no change: for whatsoe'er the lot
Their whirling spindles twine, his awful brow
Zeus nods on high to fix the changeless doom.
Thus in long ages past this fairest shrine
By fiery bolts from heaven was doomed to fall."'

If therefore by the spindles of the Fates even the shrines of the venerable gods and their holy temples are conquered by 'wings of fire,' what hope can be left for mortal men to escape from their destiny? If, moreover, there is no help from the gods, but one must in any case

'Bear with brave soul the counsels of the Fates
That know no change,'

what is the meaning, some one may say, of our useless zeal concerning the gods?

Or what need to assign a portion 'of libation and burnt-offering,' and the honour thereof, to those who are not worthy even of these things, if they have no power to help us at all? For then we ought not to ascribe the bestowal of good things to them, but to that (destiny) which they confessed to be the cause of the evil.

For if anything either good or the reverse is destined for men, it will of necessity occur, and, whether the gods will or not, it will come to pass. We ought therefore to worship Necessity only, and care little, or rather nothing, for the gods, as being able neither to annoy nor to benefit us.

But then if He, who is God over all, is sole ruler of the Fates, and sole Lord over them also----for, as the Oracle says:

'Whate'er the lot
Their whirling spindles twine, his awful brow
Zeus nods on high, to fix the changeless doom'----

why then dost thou not put aside all else, and confess that the universal Monarch and the Lord of Fate is the only God, and only Giver of good, and Saviour? Seeing that for Him alone it is easy to turn and change even what you call

'The counsels of the Fates
That know no change:'

so that the man who has been consecrated to the all-ruling God, and worships only Him, is enslaved neither to necessity nor to fate, but. as being free and released from every bond, follows without hindrance the divine dispensations of salvation. Such is the path which true reason shows: but see by what means this author, the contrary, that the decrees of fate are dissolved.

CHAPTER IV

[PORPHYRY] 4 'For when a certain man prayed that he might be visited by a god, the god said that he was unfit because he was bound down by nature, and on this account suggested certain expiatory sacrifices, and added:

"A blast of daemon power with gathered force
The fortunes of thy race hath overrun,
Which thou must scape by magic arts like these."

'Hereby it is clearly shown that the use of magic in loosing the bonds of fate was a gift from the gods, in order to avert it by any means.'

It is Porphyry who tells you this, not I. But how was it, that he who advised to loose the bonds of fate by magic arts, though he was himself a god, did not annul the destiny of his own temple to be burned by lightning? And how can we fail to see what is the character of him who encourages the use of magic, and not of philosophy? Besides all this the same author confesses that the gods speak falsely.

CHAPTER V

[PORPHYRY] 5 'But further, the exact knowledge of the course of the stars, and the consequences dependent on them, is unattainable by men, and not by them only, but also by some of the daemons. Hence when consulted they speak falsely on many matters.'

To this again he adds:

'Also, they say, it is the surrounding atmosphere that compels the oracles to be falsified, and not that the deities present willingly add the falsehood. For they often declare beforehand that they are going to speak falsely: but the inquirers persist, and compel them to speak, because of their folly. Apollo, for instance, once upon a time, when the condition of the atmosphere was, as we stated, unfavourable, said:

"Cease from these words of power, lest I speak false."

'And that what I was saying is true, will be shown by the oracles.

'For example, one of the gods when invoked made answer:

"To tell the constellations' sacred course
This day befits not; all prophetic power
Lies bound and fettered in the silent stars."'

And he adds:

'It is shown therefore whence the falsehood often arises.'

CHAPTER VI

Is there not now an end of all doubt in your judgement, that there was nothing divine at all in the responses of the gods? For how could the divine ever speak falsely, being in nature most truthful, since surely the divine is truthful? And how could a good daemon ever deceive the inquirers by false statements? Or how could that which is 'fettered' by the course of the stars be superior to man?

Nay, a mortal man who paid any little regard to virtue would never lie, but would choose rather to reverence the truth; nor would he lay the blame of a lie upon any necessity of fate or course of the stars. But even if any one were to bring fire or sword against his body, to compel him to pervert the word of truth, yet even against this he would reply in freedom's tone:

'Come fire, come sword;
Burn, and scorch up this flesh, and gorge thyself
With my dark blood : for sooner shall the stars
Sink down to earth, and earth rise up to heav'n,
Than fawning word shall meet thee from my lips.' 6

But the deluding and deceitful daemon makes pretences and cajoles the senseless, in order that whenever he should fail of foretelling what was to come, he might provide himself an excuse for his blunder in fate.

So when the daemon had by his oracular answers made everything depend on fate, and had taken away the freedom arising from self-determined action, and subjugated this also to necessity, see into what a deadly pit of evil doctrines he has plunged those who believe him.

For if we must refer not only external events, but also the desires founded upon reason, to the stars and fate, and if human judgements are extorted by some inexorable necessity, there will be an end of your philosophy, an end also of religion: nor is there, as we thought, any praise of virtue for the good, nor any friendship with God, nor any worthy fruit of self-denying toils, if universal causation has been usurped by necessity and fate.

So then it is not right to blame those who offend in the affairs of life, nor yet the impious and the most infamous, nor even to admire the virtuous; but on this principle, as I said, there will be an end also of the great glory of philosophy, if it is made dependent not on voluntary study and discipline, but on necessity imposed by the stars.

See then into what an abyss of evil doctrines these wonderful gods have cast men down, and observe how this doctrine urges on and encourages to recklessness, and injustice, and countless other evils, bringing about an entire overthrow of the whole life.

If, for example, a man were at once to give credit to the marvellous responses of the gods, that truthfulness or falsehood, and the will to start upon an expedition or any other business, or the unwillingness to undertake such matters, was no work of ours but of inexorable fate, would he not choose to be careless and indolent in all matters that could not be performed without labour and pains and exertion on our own part?

For if he thought that this or that would take place by fate, whether we took trouble and care about it or not, would he not certainly wish to choose the easier course, and give himself, up to carelessness, since the result to be attained would be brought to pass by fate and necessity?

Hence one may hear the multitude say, This will be accomplished, if it is destined for me, and why need I give myself trouble?

For if he who set out on an expedition, did this not from his own choice, but from being driven by external necessity, so also evidently would the man who set himself to robbery and plundering graves and all other practices whether impious and lawless or orderly and prudent: for this would be a consequence of the doctrine of fate.

How then would the man who believed that he was undertaking these practices not of his own will, but under external necessity, be likely to give heed to one who admonished him and taught him not to give himself over abjectly to the practices before mentioned?

For he would say to his monitor, as has been said by some before our time, Why, sir, do you admonish me? For this of course does not rest with me, to change my purpose, since fate has determined it beforehand. What need then to exert myself for things which I shall not be able even to desire, unless this also is my destiny. And if it is so destined, I shall desire it even without your teaching, being led thereto by fate. Why then do you trouble yourself to no purpose? But if you mean to say that your exhortation and teaching is also brought about by necessity, to exhort and persuade me thus, yet even in this case what need to be so earnest? For the exhortation is idle and useless. Since if it is so fated, I shall be diligent; and if it is not so fated, the result will be that we both take trouble in vain.

Must not the man who holds this opinion rather give up indolently and say to himself, Come, let me not care to toil, nor trouble myself to no purpose: for that which, is fated will of necessity come to pass? But if a man is diligent about anything, or teaches or encourages himself or another, either to obey or to disobey, and to sin or not to sin, and to rebuke sinners, and to praise them that do well, is it not clearly proved that he has left us the reality of our power and free-will, and simply attaches to it the name of fate; just as if any one were to call by the name of evil that natural goodness, by the presence of which the living being is best governed?

In the same way (since we plainly feel ourselves compelled by no external cause in chastening our sons, and scourging our domestics when they have done amiss, and in wishing or not wishing this or that, but feel that we make such movements quite independently by our own power) he would be wrong who said that these things are done according to fate, with a view to paralyse our own exertions and the exhortations and admonitions given to others, which we see to be the chief sources of success in human affairs.

Moreover this doctrine would overthrow laws, which are made for the sake of their usefulness to man. For what need is there to command or forbid those who are constrained by a necessity of a different kind? Nor will it be right to punish offenders, since for the same reason they have done no wrong, nor to award honours to the doers of the noblest deeds, though these customs of reward and punishment have severally been a chief cause of checking injustice and of readiness to do good.

But further, this opinion would overthrow piety towards the deity, if, fettered as we are by the necessities of fate, neither God Himself, nor the ministers of these oracular gods give us any help either in answer to our prayers or for our piety.

And would it not be most shameless and impudent to say that we are moved like lifeless puppets pulled by strings this way and that by some external power, to will of necessity to do this or that, and to choose other things against our will? For we plainly feel ourselves desiring this or that by our own impulse and motion, and again we take ourselves to task for carelessness, and feel that we succeed or not from this cause, and suffer no compulsion from any external source, but choose some things by voluntary determination, and shun and decline others of our own deliberate purpose.

So evident therefore is the argument for free-will that, in the same way as the feeling of pain and pleasure, and seeing and hearing this or that, is perceived not by reasoning but by actual sensation, so we consciously feel ourselves moving of ourselves and of our own purpose, and choosing some things and rejecting others; thus the freedom and independence of the rational and intelligent nature in us is in any case justly to be acknowledged.

And although the mass of mankind are perplexed by countless things happening to us contrary to our purpose, we must in this case distinguish the nature of the circumstances in which we are placed, and take into consideration the law by which things not in our own power come to pass. For thus the cause of these events also will be attributed to no irrational fate, but to another law, dependent on the providence of the universe. Let us then examine the problem carefully.

That both the existence and the government of all things depend as a whole on the providence of God, the statutes of true religion plainly declare.

But then the several events being caused according to their particular kind, some by habit, some by nature, some by impulse and impression, and others by reasoning and our own judgement and purpose, and some again produced according to a primary law, and others according to effects contingent upon the primary occurrences, render the arrangement of the whole complex and intricate, the author of the universe having allotted to each class of beings a proper and distinct constitution of nature.

Though it would be difficult, therefore, for any one to examine fully the principle of all the rest, yet that of freewill he may more easily learn in the following manner. Man is not a thing of one simple kind, nor consisting of one nature only, but is composed of two opposites, body and soul, the former attached contingently as an instrument to the soul, but the intelligent essence subsisting in accordance with its primary law, and of these the one is irrational and the other rational, and the one perishable but the other imperishable, and the one mortal but the other immortal; so that we have a body of the same kind as brute beasts, but a soul akin to the rational and immortal nature. In this case then surely it is natural, that this double product, inasmuch as it partakes of a double nature, should regulate its life in a twofold and diverse manner, at one time serving the bodily nature, and at another welcoming with the diviner part its proper liberty. Thus the same man is both a slave and free, having had such a combination of soul and body allotted to him by God, for reasons known to Himself.

If therefore any one were to subject the natural functions either of the body or of the soul to necessity as their cause, calling it 'fate,' he would miss the proper name. For if there were some irresistible necessity of fate, and if many of the functions which by nature belong to the body and the soul are thereby impeded, and if ten thousand other external things combine by some accident in attaching themselves contrary to nature to both soul and body, how can fate and nature be the same thing?

For if they say that fate is unalterable, and that nothing d can happen contrary to it (because necessity is inexorable), and if, as I said, many things happen both to soul and body contrary to their natural functions, a man would not use right names, if he said that fate and nature are the same.

So then of our inward experiences part must depend upon reasoning and the choice that is in our own power, such as are the natural functions of the soul, and part on the nature of the body, and another part must be incidental to them, I mean to soul and body, but effects due by nature to others: yet no one could rightly detach either the free-will of the soul, or the natural action of the body, nor yet the contingency of external things from Him who is their Author.

For God Himself, the God of the universe, has been shown to be the Creator both of things in our own power and of things dependent on nature, and of things accidental. For the declaration of the divine Scripture, 'He spake, and they were made: he commanded and they were created,' 7 must be understood universally of all things.

So then if, at any time when we form certain purposes, other things happen contrary to our intention, we must remind ourselves, that this is owing, as we said, to that twofold and heterogeneous character of the combination in us, I mean of soul and body, in consequence of which the essence of the soul, which is of an intelligent and rational nature, in a body which is by nature childish, shares the position of an irrational being contrary to its own nature: and the mind, which is naturally wise, often in consequence of some accident becomes silly, from being distraught by excessive ailments, say, of the body.

Oftentimes too old age, having in the course of nature overtaken the body, deprives the understanding of the right judgements of its prime, by blunting the rational power of the intelligent soul contrary to nature.

Injuries again and pains and mutilations, which have happened to the body contrary to its nature, accidentally overcome the free-will of the soul, when it gives in to the pains because of its connexion with the body: so that an inevitable bond is found to have been thrown in the way of the freedom of the soul, at one time by the nature of the body, at another by accidents coming from without.

Nevertheless the power of our free-will has, as we said, reached such a pitch of courage and strength, as to dare in many cases to encounter and oppose the bodily nature and the accidents from without.

The bodily nature invites the man to amorous desire, but the soul having bridled the passion by sound reason becomes master of the bodily nature. And again the one, necessitating hunger and thirst and cold and feelings of this kind, invites to the remedies and satisfactions which are in accordance with nature; but the will being persuaded by sound reasons, and having voluntarily embraced certain ascetic counsels, by many days' fasting and endurance beats off the natural desire of the body, choosing and preferring this course by excellence of reason.

Then again the one naturally delights in all pleasures, and in the easy movement of the body: but the will from a desire of virtue welcomes the life of labour and hardship.

But there are also some who have turned to evil, and 'changed the natural use into that which is against nature, . . . men with men working unseemliness.' 8

Thus then reason does not give way in all things to nature, but conquers in many, as also it is conquered; and the man now leads, and now is himself led, so that in some cases even prematurely he hastens by violent hands to release himself from the body, whenever he judges life to be unprofitable for him. If then his whole contest were with the proper nature of the body only, this would be tolerable: but since God has planted his civil and social life in the midst of a multitude, so that he is made to pass his time among wild beasts and venomous reptiles, and amid fire and water and the surrounding air, and the perverted and diverse natures in all these, his conflict and resistance is naturally not only against his own bodily nature intimately connected with him, but also against the countless accidents from without, in the midst of which he who leads this mortal life must live, so that he has to hold out bravely against these also.

Ere now, for instance, many such and such kinds of food, and such and such temperatures of the atmosphere, and sudden frosts, and burning heats, and very many other things, though moving naturally according to certain laws proper to them, yet by falling accidentally upon us, have caused no common disturbance of our independence because of the connexion with the body; for our bodily nature cannot withstand the assaults from without, but is overpowered and conquered by the external circumstances which occur according to their proper nature.

Again, we pass our lives in company with a multitude of men who share the same nature with us, and, acting on their individual right, take away our independence by the free exercise of their own choice: therefore in this way again we shall naturally be subject to the purposes of others, when their independent power thus in a manner makes use of us, either against the body or in regard to the soul.

For as our bodily nature is often overpowered by things which assail it from without, so sometimes our will also, being disturbed by a thousand external wills, is induced by its own independent decision to give itself up to the external forces; and sometimes is rendered better, and sometimes worse: since bad company is apt to corrupt, just as on the contrary the intercourse of honourable men makes us better. For 'evil communications corrupt good manners,' 9 just as the company of the good saves and improves.

And though the rational faculty of the soul is carried this way and that by the arguments of those who encounter it from without, yet the proper virtue of the rational essence gains strength again, and proves its power to be truly divine and godlike, when by holding out against all external circumstances, and gaining the victory over them all by a free spirit, without abating aught of its own virtue, it is prepared for the study of philosophy. When however it is careless, it is affected by the evil with the worst results, just as also it is improved by careful attention from without.

What need after this to say, that 'both fruitfulness and barrenness in souls and bodies' 10 such as these, brought about by some accident in a manner proper to the government of the world and right and good for the whole, work a vast amount of disturbance of every kind to individual portions, and especially to our independence.

But over all existing things universally, both those that occur through us and our causation, and those that come accidentally from without, and those that are due to the operations of nature, there rules one almighty and all-powerful providence of God that extends through all, which also arranges most things by diviner laws inexpressible by us, guiding the whole in due obedience to the rein, and changing many even of natural consequences to suit the occasion, and working and co-operating with our wills, and at other times assigning their proper place to external circumstances.

When these things have been divided in this manner into three classes, those which depend on ourselves, those which take place according to natural law, and those which are accidental, and when all are summed up in one law which proceeds from the counsel of God, there will be no room for the doctrine of fate.

Thus we shall have found that the source of evil, about which many have doubted, has place in nothing natural, neither in bodies, nor in spiritual substances, much less in things that occur accidentally from without: it will be found, I say, solely in the self-determined motion of the soul, and in this, not when following the course of nature it walks in the straight road, but when it departs from the king's highway, and turns by its own decision into the course contrary to nature, being its own master.

For the soul having obtained this excellent gift from God is free and master of itself, having assumed the determination of its own motion: but the divine law united with it by nature, like a beacon and a star, calls to it with a voice from within and says, 'Thou shalt walk in the king's highway, thou shalt not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left,' teaching us that 'the king's highway' is the path in accordance with right reason. 11

For the Creator of all implanted in every soul this natural law as a helper and defender in its actions; and while by His law He showed it the right way, by the self-determined freedom bestowed on it He declared the choice of the better course to be deserving of praise and approbation, and of greater honours and rewards for its good deeds, because it performed them not under compulsion but by its own independent decision, though it had the power of choosing the opposite: so that, on the other hand, that soul which chose the worst acts was deserving of blame and punishment, as having 'proprio motu' transgressed the law of nature, and given birth to a source and fount of wickedness, and used itself basely not from any external necessity but of free determination and judgement. 'The chooser then is answerable, God is not to blame.' 12 For God made neither nature nor yet the substance of the soul evil: since a good Being may not create anything but what is good. Everything, then, that is according to nature is good: and every rational soul possesses by nature the good gift of free-will, which has been given for choosing what is good.

But when it acts wickedly, it is not nature that should be blamed: since evil comes to it not by nature but against nature, being a matter of choice but not an effect of nature. For when one who had power to choose the good, instead of choosing this, voluntarily rejected the better part and claimed the worse, what room for excuse could be left to him after becoming the cause of his own disease, and disregarding the innate law which was, as it were, his preserver and healer?

The man then who pays no regard to all these considerations, but thinks everything dependent upon necessity and the course of the stars, and asserts that the causes of the perversity of men's offences proceed not from us but from the power that moves all things----must he not be introducing an unholy and impious argument?

For if either he should suppose the course of the world to be automatic and undesigned, he would be convicted at once as an atheist, besides being blind to the all-wise harmony and arrangement of the universe revolving in its eternal motion with beauty and order. If on the other hand he shall confess that God's providence is the guiding and moving force which presides over all and administers all by a law of perfect wisdom, even thus he will not have escaped from the absurdity of impiety; since as to the sins committed among men he acquits the offenders of having committed any of their wrong deeds of their own determination, but attributes the cause of the evils to the general providence, miscalling it necessity and fate, and saying that it is the cause of all the foul and infamous deeds and cruelty and bloodguiltiness among men.

And who could be more impious than the man who represents the God of the universe, the very Maker and Creator of this world, as by compulsion forcing one man, who is unwilling to commit an impiety, to do so, and to be an atheist of necessity, and a blasphemer against God Himself; and forcing another, whom He constituted by nature a male, to bear the woman's part contrary to nature, not of his own will but under compulsion from Him; and a third to become a murderer not of his own determination but driven by a necessity from God; so that he cannot reasonably blame the offenders, but must either believe that these are no sins at all, or declare God to be the author of all evils?

For whether God Himself, being present with all things, and seeing all and hearing all, compels men to act thus, or Himself constituted the course of the universe and the motion of the stars such as we see it, to effect and to compel such actions, He who arranged such an instrument, and contrived the net for ensnaring the prey, must Himself be also the one to blame for those who are caught therein.

Whether therefore by Himself alone, or else by some necessity contrived by Himself, He entangles the unwilling in these evils. Himself and no other must be the author of all evil; and it could no longer be justly said that man was prone to sin, but the doer thereof was God. And what statement could be more impious than this?

He then who brings in fate, directly thrusts out God and God's providence, just as he who makes God ruler over all must overthrow the argument concerning fate. For either God and fate must be the same thing, or different the one from the other: the same thing, however, they cannot be.

For if they say that fate is a certain chain of causes which has come down unbroken and unchanged from the course of the heavenly bodies, must there not be prior to fate the corporeal elements out of which even the heavenly bodies are composed, and of which heavenly bodies one would naturally say that fate is some accidental conjunction?

But how could that which is accidental to the elements be the same thing with the God who is over all, if indeed the elements are considered lifeless and irrational in their proper nature, while God apart from bodies is essential life and wisdom, bestowing the benefit of His creative work both upon the particular elements and on the arrangement of the universe?

God, therefore, and fate are not the same thing. But then if they are different, which is the stronger? Why, nothing is nobler, nothing more mighty than God. Therefore He will conquer and prevail over the bad; else, by yielding to fate when it does evil, He would draw the blame upon Himself, because being able to restrain the evil-working necessity He did not restrain it, but let it loose for the ruin and destruction of all things; or rather He wrought this Himself, if He is to be represented as Maker and Creator of all things even of fate itself.

But supposing Him to take no account of the administration of the world, there would again rise up the atheists' voice, against which we ought to shut our ears, since the Divine providence and power display themselves manifestly both in the universal effects of perfect wisdom and skill, and in the indubitable evidences in ourselves of the free and self-governing power of the rational soul.

For in accordance with this power, though ten thousand obstacles from without by some accident oppose both the body's nature and the independent efforts of our will, nevertheless the freedom of virtue in the soul holds out against all, showing that the choice of the good, so far as in us lies, is irresistible and invincible.

And this the present time of our Saviour's teaching has proved by actual facts. For to show that these are not mere sounds and empty words, you have the opportunity of witnessing the conflict of the godly, and of observing those who by voluntary choice have accepted the sufferings of the contest for religion: sufferings of which countless multitudes both of Greeks and Barbarians throughout the whole world inhabited by man have given proof, by gladly enduring all bodily outrages, and going through every kind of torture with a cheerful countenance, and finally accepting with a glad welcome the release of the soul from the body in many various forms.

Yet surely in this case no reason would permit us to name fate as the cause. For where, pray, did the course of the stars ever in the world's history bring forth such champions of piety? Or at what time before our Saviour's teaching was sown broadcast among all men, has human life exhibited such a conflict throughout the whole world inhabited by man?

Or where has all time produced a school of doctrines such as these, able to overthrow superstitious error, and to teach all men, both Greeks and Barbarians, the knowledge of the One God over all?

And to whom among the celebrated sages of all time, Barbarian or Greek, was there ever vouchsafed such a fate as this, to make the doctrine proposed by him give light to the whole world, and be known even to the ends of the earth, and to win the reputation of a God among those devoted to him?

But if these things were not in the beginning, nor have ever happened, nor been heard of, then the cause of them was not a chain of causes and a necessity. For there would have been nothing to hinder others also from receiving long ago the same nativity and fate by the same revolution and cycle of the stars.

From what kind of fate then has our Saviour God appeared and been proclaimed throughout the whole world, while those who were of old esteemed gods among both Greeks and Barbarians have been overthrown, and not otherwise overthrown than by the teaching of the new God?

And what sort of fate announced to all men that God is the Creator of all things, and compelled them to affirm that there is no such thing as fate? And how did fate force men both to say and to think that fate itself does not exist? And what of those who for the sake of our Saviour's pious teaching have for a long time past endured all kinds of conflicts, and are even yet carrying on the struggle?

They found therefore one and the same destiny, to be brought into subjection under one system and doctrine, and to display one mind and will, and the same virtue of soul, to accept one and the same kind of life, to love the same doctrine, and to endure contentedly the same sufferings for their steadfast piety.

But what sound reason would allow us to say this, that young and old together, of every age, and of either sex, men of barbarous nature, slaves and free, learned and uneducated, not born in a corner of the earth nor under these same stars with us, but throughout the whole world inhabited by man, have been forced by a necessity of fate to prefer a certain doctrine to all the customs of their forefathers, and to welcome death for the religion of the One God over all, and to be thoroughly instructed in the teaching concerning the immortality of the soul, and to prefer a philosophy that consists not in words but in deeds?

For these are the things that even a blind man could clearly see to be the proper effects of no necessity, but of learning and instruction, being manifest proofs of voluntary purpose and free-will.

There would be countless other arguments to prove the proposition, most of which I shall omit, and for my part be contented with what I have stated; but I will leave you to consider your own reading of your venerable philosophers, that so you may learn how much wiser and better than your oracular deities was the man who convicted their wonderful responses of falsehood, and castigated the Pythian god himself for his answers concerning fate. So listen again to him who entitled his own writing, 'The detection of impostors,' and note with what a fine vigorous spirit he corrects the error of the multitude, and indeed of Apollo himself, by what he writes as follows word for word:
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

Postby admin » Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:32 am

Part 2 of 3

CHAPTER VII

[OENOMAUS] 13 'To think then that thou should'st sit in Delphi unable, even should'st thou wish it, to keep silence! So Apollo, the son of Zeus, now wishes, not because he wishes, but because he is ordained by necessity to wish! But since I have been led on, I know not how, into this argument, I am inclined to pass over all the rest, and inquire into a matter that is appropriate and well worth inquiry. For, so far as it depends on the philosophers, there has been lost out of human life, whether one likes to call it a rudder, or ballast, or foundation----there has been lost the governing power of our life, which we suppose to be absolute over the highest necessity; but Democritus, unless I am mistaken, and Chrysippus think to prove the noblest of man's faculties, according to the former, a slave, and according to the latter, half-enslaved. Their argument, however, is worth no more than a man can claim for the things of man: but if deity also now makes war upon us, good heavens, what will become of us?'

'But that is not likely nor just, if at least we may conjecture from these responses following:

"Hated of all thy neighbours, belov'd of the blessed Immortals,
Sit thou still, with thy lance drawn inward, patiently watching."

'"What then? says the Argive; if I should so wish, is it in my power, and can I, if it shall please me, sit still, patiently watching?" "It is in thy power," thou would'st say, "and thou canst; or how should I have enjoined this on thee?"

"Carystus, heir of noble Cheiron's race,
Forsake thy native Pelion, and seek
Euboea's cape: there thou art doomed to found
A sacred home. But haste, and tarry not." 14

'Is there then anything really dependent on man, O Apollo, and have I power to will to "forsake Pelion"? Yet surely I used to hear from many wise men, that if it is fated for me to "seek Euboea's cape," and "found a sacred home," I shall both come thither and settle, whether thou tell me or not, and whether I should will it or not. If, however, there is any need for me too to will what necessity forces me to will even if I should he unwilling----but thou, O Apollo, art more worthy to be believed, and so I am inclined to give heed rather to thee:

"Tell thou the Parians, Telesicles,
I bid thee found in the Aerian isle
A city fair to view."

'Yes, surely' (some one will perhaps say in vain conceit, or to confute thee), 'I shall tell them, even if thou bid me not: for so it is fated: and the "Aerian isle" is Thasos, and the Parians will come to it, when my son Archilochus shall have explained to them, that this island was formerly called Aeria. I suppose therefore that thou, being terrible in taking vengeance, wilt not bear with him, so ungrateful and audacious as he is, since if thou hadst not chosen to inform him, he would never have given the message, nor would his son Archilochus have led the colony of Parians, nor would the Parians have inhabited Thasos.

'I know not therefore whether thou sayest these things without knowing what thou sayest. But since we seem to be at leisure to hold even a long conversation, and since the subject is of no slight importance, tell me this, for perhaps a few points out of many are sufficient.

'Are we, I and thou, anything? You will say, Yes. But whence do we know this? Whereby did we determine that we do know it? Is it not the fact that nothing else is so satisfactory a proof (of our existence) as our conscious sensation and apprehension of ourselves?

' What again? How did we ever find out that we are animals ? And how that among animals we are, as I should say, men, and among men one an impostor, and another an exposer of impostors; but as thou would'st say, the one a man, the other a god, and the one a prophet, the other a false accuser? And let it be as thou sayest, if I be proved wrong.

'But how do we know that we are conversing at the present moment? What sayest thou? Did we not rightly judge our apprehension of ourselves by that which is most immediate, the fact itself? Evidently so. For we found nothing else either higher than it, or prior to it, or more trustworthy.

'For if this is not to be so, then let not hereafter one named Alcmaeon come to thee at Delphi, after he has slain his mother, and been driven from home, and is longing to return home. For he knows not either whether he himself is anything at all, nor whether he is driven from home, nor whether he is longing for home. But even if Alcmaeon is mad, and imagines things that do not exist, yet the Pythian god at least is not mad. And thou must not speak to him thus:

"How to return to thy home thou seek'st, son of Amphiaraus."

'For even thou knowest not yet whether any son of Amphiaraus is consulting thee, nor whether thou, the consulted, art anything at all, and able to answer concerning the matters on which he consults thee.

'Neither therefore let Chrysippus, the author of the semi-slavery, whatever that exactly is, attend in the Porch, nor think that those drivellers will attend there to listen to him, the Nobody: neither let him take his stand and struggle about nothing against Arcesilaus present in person, and Epicurus not present.

'For what Arcesilaus is, and what Epicurus, or what the Porch is, or what the young men, or what the Nobody, he neither knows nor can know; for he knows not even, what comes far earlier, whether he himself is anything.

'But neither will you gods nor Democritus endure that any one should talk thus: for there is no more trustworthy criterion than that of which I speak; nor if there seem to be any others, could they be made equal to this, or, if made equal, could not surpass it.

'So then, some one may say, since thou, O Democritus, and thou, O Chrysippus, and thou, O prophet, are indignant if any one should wish to deny your consciousness of yourselves----for of those many books of yours it is no longer possible to deny the existence----come, let us also be indignant on the other side.

'How, pray? Is this self-consciousness to be the most trustworthy and primary evidence wherever it pleases you? but where it pleases you not, is there some occult power, Fate, or Destiny, to tyrannize over it?----a power having for each of you a different meaning, proceeding according to one from god, and according to another from those minute bodies which are carried down, and tossed up, and twirled round, and broken up, and separated, and combined by necessity?

'For lo! the manner of our self-consciousness is the same in which we are also conscious of our voluntary or enforced actions. And we are not unconscious of the great difference between walking and being carried, or between choosing and being compelled.

'But do you ask the reasons for which I bring these matters into the discussion? Because thou, O prophet, hast failed to perceive things over which we have power, and thou that knowest all things seemest not to know these which are fast moored to our own will.

'And it was evident that this would be the source of no little trouble: for he who knows not the source, which was the cause of the consequences, would be likely, I suppose, to know the consequences themselves!

'Evidently then he was an impudent prophet who foretold to Laius 15 that his son would kill him: for the son surely would be master of his own will, and neither any Apollo, nor any higher than he, would be able by any power to attain to a knowledge of things which neither exist at present, nor need ever come into existence.

'For surely the most ridiculous of all things is this, the mixture and combination of the two notions, that there is something in men's own power, and that there is nevertheless a fixed chain of causation. For, as the wiser sort say, it is like the account in Euripides.

'For that Laius should choose to beget a child, was in the power of Laius himself, and this had escaped the notice of Apollo: but after he had begotten a son, there lay upon him an inevitable necessity of dying by his son's hand. In this way therefore the necessity dependent on the future event supplied to the prophet his presentiment of what would take place.

'But I suppose the son also, as well as the father, was master of his own will: and as the latter had the power of begetting or not, so the son had the power of slaying or not. Now this is the character of all your oracular answers: and this was that which the Apollo of Euripides said:

"And all thy house shall wade through streams of blood:" 16

'namely, that the son shall be blinded by his own hand, on account of the marriage with his mother and of the sovereignty to which he succeeded for his solution of the riddle; and that his sons shall fall by mutual slaughter, because of the banishment of the one from the kingdom, and the ambition of the other, and the marriage of the exile at Argos, and the expedition of seven ridiculous chieftains, and the battle: and since these things were separately dependent on many causes and powers, how could it be possible for thee to understand, or for the chain of causes to bind them together?

'For if on the contrary Oedipus being his own master had not wished to reign, or, having wished and accomplished this, had not chosen to marry Jocasta, or after marrying had not been puffed up with pride, nor been desponding and disagreeable, how could the several events have been brought to pass? How could he have torn out his eyes? Or how could he have cursed his sons with the curse described by Euripides and thee?

'In what way too could the events which followed these have taken place, if there were no causes existing before thou could'st tell anything about the future? And again, if the sons had agreed and reigned together, or if they had made an arrangement to reign by turns and adhered to the terms settled; or if he who was banished had determined to go off not to Argos but to Libya or to the Perrhaebi; or if after having arrived at Argos he had decided to be a salt-fish-monger, and not to take a rich wife but some poor workwoman or huckstress; or if Adrastus had not given him his daughter, or if he had given her, but Polynices had b not desired to return home; or if, though desiring it, he had restrained himself; or if Adrastus had given no heed to his request for alliance in war; or if neither Amphiaraus nor Tydeus nor the several other commanders of divisions would follow Adrastus; or if, though they followed, Polynices on arriving had not fought with his brother, but either had reigned together with him by agreement, or, if he refused, had retired, being persuaded by what Euripides says:

"How foolishly thou com'st thine home to sack;" 17

'or if, not this one, but the other had listened to those other Euripidean subtleties:

"Are sun and night content to serve man's need,
And wilt thou bear no equal in the house?" 18

'how in any such case could they have joined battle, "and all the house of Laius waded through blood"?

'However, these things, you will say, have come to pass. They have come to pass: but by what way didst thou attain to the knowledge of them? Dost thou not see how frequently the whole action of the play has been broken through by the power which lies in us who perform the action? And so I will take whatever supposed case thou wilt, and cut across that chain of yours, and show that it is impossible.

'Yet thou wilt say that thou knowest the last links of the supposed case. Yes, but the whole case has been regulated by the force of our interruption of the chain.

'Or perhaps thou dost not understand what I mean? Yet in every supposed case, O prophet, there are the living beings often making either few or many fresh beginnings therein. And these beginnings having cut across the events preceding them always themselves bring others on: and these latter may proceed as long as no other beginning supervenes from any source, commanding the events which come after it to conform not to those which went before but to itself.

'Now such afresh beginning may be either an ass, or a dog, or a flea. For surely, by Apollo! thou wilt not rob even the flea of his free will: but the flea will act upon a certain impulse of his own, and being sometimes mixed up with human affairs will make himself the commencement of some new course; and thou art unconsciously consulting this kind of animal.

"Trachis, the home of godlike Heracles,
Thou hast destroyed, O Locrian ; and on thee
Zeus hath sent curses, and shall yet send more."

'What sayest thou? Had it not then been destined by you gods to be destroyed? And why are we mortals to blame, and not that necessity of yours? Thou doest not justice, O Apollo, nor art right in laying the punishment upon us who do no wrong.

'And this Zeus of yours, I mean the necessity of your necessity, why does he take vengeance upon us, and not upon himself (if he must punish some one), for having shown the necessity to be of such a character? And why too does he threaten us? Or why, as if we were the masters of this event, do we suffer famine for it? Moreover it will either be rebuilt by us, or not; and whichever it may be, this has been fixed by fate.

'Cease therefore from thy wrath, O Zeus, the lord of famine: for that which has been destined will be, and that is what thy chain has been appointed to do: and we are nothing compared to it. And thou too cease, Apollo, from uttering vain oracles: for just that which will be, will be, even though thou keep silence. And what is to be done to us, O Zeus and Apollo, who are not at all the causes of your enactment of law, enactment, that is, of necessity. Or what have we to do with your threatened curses, which yourselves deserve to bear for what we were compelled by necessity to do? "Oeteans, rush not in blind frenzy on."

'Why, Apollo, we are not "rushing on," but are being driven, and not by "blind frenzy," but by that necessity of yours.

'And how is it, O Apollo, that thou praisest that famous Lycurgus, who was not virtuous either willingly or by choice, but unwillingly? That is if a man can be virtuous unwillingly. But what ye do now is just as if one were to praise and honour those who are beautiful in body, but to blame and punish the ugly.

'For the wicked might justly say to you, You did not permit us, O ye gods, to become virtuous; and not only so, but you even forced us to be wicked. And as to the virtuous, if they walk about with their elbows stuck out, one will not permit it, but will say to them, O Chrysippus and Cleanthes and the rest of your band, since you have been made to be virtuous, I give praise to virtue, but no praise to you in whom virtue resides.

'Nay, even Epicurus, against whom you, Chrysippus, so often railed, I acquit of the charges, so far at least as you can judge. For how is he to blame, who was not of his own accord luxurious or unjust, as you so often reproached him?

"Well ordered lives the gods approving view,
And welcome holy offerings of the just."

'Now it seems to me that you gods would not say this, unless you were persuaded that men seek the objects of their pursuit not involuntarily but with a will: and after what has been already proved, no sophist either divine or human will dare to say that whatever men will is ordained by fate: or else we shall no longer use reasoning with him, but take a stout strap, as for an unruly boy, and curry his ribs right well.'

Thus did Oenomaus inveigh, against the soothsayer. And if you do not like this kind of argument, yet take and read the extracts from the other philosophers concerning fate, which are fit to overthrow not only the oracles that have already been quoted, but also generally all the other contrivances in defence of the dogma.

For since not only unlearned and simple persons, but also many who prided themselves greatly upon education and philosophy, have e'er now been dragged into agreement with the dogma, I think it absolutely necessary to set forth the mutual contradictions of the philosophers themselves, for an accurate examination of the problem. First then I will quote for you from Diogenianus the arguments concerning fate, which he urged against Chrysippus as follows:

CHAPTER VIII

[DIOGENIANUS] 19 'In addition to all this it is worth while to quote also the opinions of Chrysippus the Stoic on this subject. For in his first book Of Fate wishing to show that all things are comprehended under necessity and fate, he employs among certain other testimonies the following expressions in the poet Homer:

"For me the hateful doom of death,
E'en from my birth assigned, too soon hath yawn'd," 20

'and:

"Though the time shall come
For him to suffer all such things as fate
Decreed, when first his thread of life was spun;" 21

'and again :

"His fate I say no mortal e'er hath shunned." 22

'But he does not observe that the expressions elsewhere used by the Poet are directly opposed to these, I mean those which Chrysippus himself employs in his Second Book, when he wishes to prove that there are also many things caused by us, as for example:

"They by their own presumptuous folly died", 23

and this:

"Perverse mankind, whose wills, created free,
Charge all their woes on absolute decree;
All to the dooming gods their guilt translate,
And follies are miscalled the crimes of fate." 24

'For these expressions and such as these are opposed to the idea that all things take place according to fate. Nor indeed was he able to perceive even this, that Homer by no means bears witness to his dogma even in those former verses. For it will be found from them that he suggests not that all things are brought to pass according to fate, but rather that certain things occur according thereto.

'For the passage----

"For me the hateful doom of death,
E'en from my birth assigned, too soon hath yawned "----

'could not mean that all things occur according to fate, but only just that he was soon to die: for most truly it is fated that every being born into life must die.

'Moreover the passage----

"Though the time shall come
For him to suffer all such things as fate
Decreed, when first his thread of life was spun "----

'has the same meaning. For it does not say that all things which are to befall him hereafter will occur according to fate, but that certajn things will occur to him according to necessity. For what else than this is signified by the distinction "such things as"? And many things, though not all, are laid upon us according to necessity.

'Again, the verse----

"His fate I say no mortal e'er hath shunned"----

'is a very good statement. For who could possibly escape things that of necessity occur to every living being? So that Chrysippus, far from having Homer voting with him in the opinion that all things take place according to fate, would have him as an opponent; since the latter has often and plainly stated that many things occur through our causation, but can nowhere be found to say expressly that all things occur according to necessity.

'And inasmuch as a poet does not promise us the true nature of real things, but imitates all kinds of human passions, and dispositions, and opinions, it would be suitable for him often to make contrary statements: but it would not befit a philosopher to make contrary statements, nor to use the testimony of a poet for this purpose.'

After other matters, he says, also:

'But Chrysippus thinks that he brings another strong proof of the presence of fate in all things, in the adoption of names of this kind. For he says that destiny (πεπρωμενην) is a certain arrangement determined (πεπερασμενην) and concluded, and that fate (ειμαρμενην) is a kind of bond woven (ειρομενην) either out of the will of Zeus, or of any other cause.

' Moreover the goddesses of fate (Μοιρας) have been so called from some one of them having been assigned (μεμερισθαι) and allotted to each of us. In the same way he says that the word το χρεων ("the debt") is used, meaning the portion that falls to our share and is due to us according to fate. And the number of the Fates suggests the three periods in which all things revolve, and by which they are fulfilled.

'Lachesis is so called from casting lots (λαγχανειν) for each man's destiny: Atropos from the unchanging (ατρεπτον) and unalterable character of the distribution; and Clotho from all things being twisted together (συγκλεκωσθαι) and woven, and from their having only one appointed solution. For by this and the like silly talk he thinks that he proves the necessity present in all things.

'But it occurs to me to wonder if in speaking thus he was not conscious of his own nonsensical talk. For let it be granted that men entertained these notions when they imposed the names that have been set forth, according to his own etymologies, and supposed that fate had bound all things fast, and that the causes which had been from eternity predetermined were immutable in all real existences and all passing events.

'What then, Chrysippus? do you follow all the opinions of mankind, and does not one of them appear to you to be mistaken on any point, and are all men capable of seeing the truth?

'How then say you that there is no man who does not seem to you as mad as Orestes and Alcmaeon, except the wise? And there have been, say you, only one or two wise, and the rest for their folly have been equally mad with those whom I have named?

'And how do you refute the errors of those opinions of theirs about riches, for example, and fame, and sovereignty, and pleasure in general, things which most men have thought good? How say you, too, that the established laws and the constitutions of states have all been wrong? Or why did you write such a multitude of books, if on no point mankind held mistaken opinions?

'For we must not say that, when they hold the same opinions with you, they judge rightly, but when they differ, are mad.

'For in the first place even you do not call yourself wise, much less do we, that we should make their concurrence with your opinion a criterion of their good judgement at any time; and further, even if this were true, why should you say that they are all equally mad, instead of commending them, in as far as they appeared to be of the same opinions with you, for having got hold of a right opinion, and considering them to be wrong, in as far as they dissented from you?

'Not even thus, however, was it natural to suppose that their opinion is an adequate evidence of the truth; and every one would acknowledge, not that he is mad, as you think, but that he is far removed from wisdom.

'It will be ridiculous therefore for you to use these men, whom vou would declare to be no better than yourself in understanding, as bearing witness by their imposition of the names, unless indeed it has happened that those who originally gave these names were wise men----a thing which you cannot possibly prove.

'However, let it be granted to you that this is so, and that those names are given with their significations as you wish, and that this circumstance has not been a result of false opinions: where then do they indicate that all things without exception are in accordance with fate, and not rather these only, if any, with which fate is concerned.

'For the number of the Fates, and their names, and Clotho's spindle, and the thread wound upon it, and the ball of this thread, and all other such things mentioned in that story, indicate the immutability and eternal fitness of the causes in all things which are bound by necessity to take place thus, and all which are hindered from being otherwise.

'And there would be many things of this nature; but others are not so; and to some of these latter men ascribed gods as rulers and creators, and of some they supposed us to be ourselves the causes, and of others again nature, and of others fortune: and of this last they wished to indicate the changefulness and instability, and its turning now this way and now that; and to show this kind of casualty in affairs by an image, they represented Fortune as standing on a globe.

'Or are not even these opinions held among mankind? For if at times men confuse the causes, and think that those things which are the results of fate or fortune proceed from a divine power, and that the things of which we are the cause depend on fate, yet surely it is manifest to every one that they think there are all these causes in things.

'So the result is that neither the notions adopted by mankind, nor the imposition of such names as have been mentioned, bear testimony to the opinion of Chrysippus.'

To this he next adds:

'Such are some of the proofs that he has used in his first book Concerning Fate, but in the second he tries to solve the absurdities that seem to follow from the statement that all things are subjected to necessity, the same absurdities which we set forth at the beginning: for example, that it destroys the earnest desire on our own part in regard to censure, and praise, and exhortation, and all things which appear to be consequent upon our own causation.

'In the second book then he says it is evident that many things do originate with us, but nevertheless even these are connected by fate with the general arrangement of the whole.

'And he has employed certain examples of the following kind. That a man's cloak should not be lost, was fated, he says, not absolutely but with the condition of its being carefully kept: and that this or that man should be saved from the hands of the enemy, with the condition of his fleeing from the enemy: and the birth of children, with the willingness to cohabit with a wife.

'For just as it would be absurd, says he, if, upon some one's saying that Hegesarchus the boxer would come off from the fight without a single scratch, a man were to recommend Hegesarchus to fight with his hands down, because it was fated that he was to come off untouched, whereas he who made the assertion said so because of the man's superabundant caution against being hit; so it is also in all other cases.

'For many things cannot take place without the addition of our willing them, and bringing into play the most intense earnestness and zeal concerning them, because it was fated, he says, that they were to take place with this condition.

'Here then again one may wonder at the man's want of discernment and consideration, both of the sensible evidences and of the inconsequence of his own arguments. For I imagine that just as what we call sweet is the direct opposite of what is called bitter, and black of white, and hot of cold, so what depends on us is the direct opposite of what depends on fate; if at least it is assumed that one calls the effects of fate whatever things take place absolutely whether we will or no, and effects of our action whatever things come to their fulfilment from our diligence and energy, or fail of fulfilment in consequence of our carelessness and indolence.

'If therefore my diligence in guarding the cloak be the cause of its being saved, and a man's will to consort with his wife the cause of the children being born, and the will to flee from his enemies the cause of his escape from being killed by them, and the fighting bravely against his antagonist and guarding against the blows from his hands the cause of his coming off from the contest without a scratch, how is the dependence on fate to be maintained here? For if these results follow from fate, they cannot be said to follow from our will: but if from us, then evidently not from fate, because these cannot concur one with the other.

'But, says he, they will follow from our will, that will however having been included in fate. But how included (I should say), if at least both the guarding the cloak and the not guarding it proceeded from my free will? For thus it is evident that its preservation also would be in my power.

'Also from the very distinction which Chrysippus makes, it becomes evident that our causation is freed from fate. For, says he, it is fated that the cloak be preserved, if thou guard it: and that there will be children, if also thou shouldst will it; but otherwise none of these things would have to take place. But in the case of things predetermined by fate we should never employ these pretended conditions.

'So we do not say that every man will die, if so and so should happen, and that he will not die if it should not happen, but simply that he will die, whatsoever may be done to prevent his dying at all; nor do we say that a certain man will be incapable of feeling pain, even if he do this or that; but that every man is capable of feeling pain, whether he wish it or not: and so of all other things which are fated to be in this way and no other.

'So that if it is necessary that this or that should take place, if we should wish it, but otherwise not, it is manifest that our wishing or not wishing was not previously constrained by any other cause, but was in our own power.

'And if this was not subject to necessity, it is evident also that the occurrence of this or that was not eternally predetermined, unless even the very wish to guard the cloak, or the unwillingness, was a consequence of some fate and the effect of some external necessary cause.

'But in this latter case the power of our free will is utterly destroyed, and the cause of the cloak being saved or being lost would no longer be in me; wherefore also I should reasonably be free from blame if it were lost (for its loss was due to some other cause), and on the other hand I should deserve no praise if it were saved, because even this was not my doing. But you were as positive with your argument as if you could make all sure.'

So far the writer before mentioned. But to this let us subjoin also our extracts from the writings of Alexander of Aphrodisias, a man very illustrious in philosophical studies, who also himself in his book On Fate used such statements as follow to overthrow the dogma.

CHAPTER IX

[ALEXANDER APHRODISIENSIS] 25 'The causes of events are divided into four kinds, as the divine Aristotle has shown: for of causes some are efficient, and some material; there is also among them the formal cause; and besides these three there is the final cause, for the sake of which the thing is done.

'So many are the different kinds of causes: for whatever is a cause of anything will be found to be included under one of these classes. For although all events do not require so many causes, yet those which require the most do not exceed the said number.

'But the difference between them will be more easy to recognize, if it be seen in some example of what occurs. Let us then show the distinction of causes in the case of a statue. Now as the "efficient cause" of the statue there is the artist who made it, whom we call the sculptor: and as "matter," the bronze substance, or stone, or whatever that may be which is shaped by the artist according to his art: for this also is a cause of the production and existence of the statue.

'Again, the form also, which is produced in this substance by the artist, is itself a cause of the statue: wherefore the form is either a man throwing a quoit, or a javelin, or it is of some other definite shape.

'These, however, are not the only causes of the production of the statue, but the end for the sake of which it has been made----that is either the honour of some person, or piety towards a god----is inferior to none of the causes of its production. For without a cause the statue would not have been made at all.

'Since therefore the causes are so many, and their mutual differences easily recognized, we might justly reckon fate among the efficient causes, as bearing a relation to its own effects analogous to the art which creates the statue.

'This being so, it would follow that we should direct our argument to efficient causes: for thus it will be known whether we ought to regard fate as the cause of all things that are done, or to make room also for some other things besides this as being efficient causes of certain things.

'Now Aristotle, in making his classification of all things that are done, says that some of them are done for the sake of something, the doer of them having before him a certain aim and end of what is done; and others for the sake of nothing, namely all such as are not done in consequence of any purpose of the doer, nor have reference to any definite end, being such as, for instance, either holding fast a straw or twisting it about, and either stroking or pulling one's hair, and all actions of this kind.

'For that these things are done is well known; but they are without the final cause which is the purpose to be gained. Of things therefore which are done in this way, without aim or object, there can be no reasonable classification.

'But of those things which have reference to something, and are done for the sake of something, some take place according to nature, others according to reason. For those which have nature as the cause of their production advance according to certain numbers and definite order to some end, on reaching which they cease to be produced----unless any obstacle hinder them in their natural course to this appointed end.

'Also those things which are done according to reason have some end; for nothing done according to reason is done at random, but they all have reference to some end.

'Now things which are done according to reason are all such as are produced by the doers reasoning about them, and contriving in what way they may be done. In this way are produced all things which are done according to the rules of art, and those which result from a deliberate purpose.

'And these differ from the products of nature, because these latter have both their origin and the causes of the special character with which they are produced in themselves (for their nature is of this special character); and because they are produced in a certain order, although the nature which is their efficient cause does not employ any reasoning about them, in the same way as do the arts.

'But the results of art and of deliberate purpose have the origin of their movement and their efficient cause from without, and not in themselves, and the maker's calculation concerning them guides their production.

'A third class among things done for some end, namely those that are believed to result from chance or spontaneous action, and which differ from those that are primarily done with some purpose in this way, that in the latter case the means which precede the end are employed for the sake of the end, while in the former cases the actions preceding the end are done for some other end, but while so done for another purpose there occurs to them as an end that which is said to be spontaneous and accidental.

'Now these things being so, and all things that are done having been distributed into these four kinds, it follows upon this that we should see among which of the efficient causes we must set fate.

'Is it among those things which are done for no purpose? Or is this altogether unreasonable? For we always use the name fate in regard to some end, and say that this has been brought about in accordance with fate. Wherefore we must necessarily set fate among the things which have a final cause.'

After making these distinctions word for word, the aforesaid author next establishes them more at length, and shows that fate is nothing else than the consequences of natural law; because in actions performed according to our reasoning and according to art the necessity of fate is not discerned.

But he affirms that many natural consequences are hindered from occurring, and that these cases are called contrary to nature, just as in the operations of art there are many things said to be contrary to art. If then any things at all are done contrary to natural law, they must also be done contrary to fate, since the decrees of fate are nothing else than the laws of nature.

[ALEXANDER APHRODISIENSIS] 26 'We see, for instance,' he says, 'that the body, from being thus or thus constituted by nature, is liable to diseases and death according to its natural constitution: not, however, in all cases alike, nor of necessity. For oftentimes careful treatment, and changes in the mode of life, and the directions of physicians, and the counsels of the gods avail to drive off a condition of this kind.

'In the same way in the case of the soul also one might find, contrary to the natural condition, preferences and practices and modes of life different in each of those who were improving from discipline and studies, and better counsels. . . .

'For example, when the physiognomist once said some absurd things about Socrates the philosopher, very far removed from his chosen course of life, and was being derided for it by the companions of Socrates, Socrates said that Zopyrus had made no mistake: for he would have been of such a character, as far as it depended on his nature, had he not become better than his nature through the discipline of philosophy.'

Such are the effects of nature, which, he says, differ not at all from those of fate. 27

'But the results of chance are of the following kind, when a thing has been done for one purpose, and there occurs not that for which it was done, but something else which was not even expected at first. For when a man, in digging for another purpose, and not to find treasure, has lighted upon a treasure, he has found it, he says, by chance. Also when a man has gone into the market for some other purpose, and falls in with his b debtor with money in his hand, and receives what is due to him, men say he has recovered his money by chance. Also when the horse, in hope of food or for some other purpose, has escaped from those who were holding him, but is met in his flight and course by falling into the hands of his masters, he is said by some to have been saved accidentally. Under such conditions these cannot be the results of fate.

'There are also some causes undiscoverable by human reason, which are believed to occur in consequence of certain antipathies, the real cause of their occurrence being unknown. Such are the effects which certain amulets have been presumed to produce, though they have no reasonable and probable cause to produce these effects: incantations also, and certain conjurings of this kind. For the cause of these things is acknowledged by all men to be obscure: for which reason they call them αναιτιολογετα, things of which the cause cannot be explained.

'And there are besides these many things which occur contingently, and whichever way it happens, and neither can these be according to fate.

'By contingent events are meant those wherein it was possible that they might not happen, as is also made clear by the very expression, "whichever way it happens": 28 as for example, the moving of one's own limbs, and the casual turning of the neck, and stretching out a finger, and lifting the eyebrows, or that one who is sitting should stand up, and one who is moving should become still, and one who is talking become silent; and in thousands of cases one would find that there existed a power capable of the opposite effects, and these cases cannot depend on fate: for the things which depend on fate do not admit the opposite of their actual condition.

'Moreover, a man's power of deliberation is not given to him without purpose: yet he would have this power of deliberation to no purpose, if he performed his actions from necessity. But it evidently appears that man alone has from nature this advantage over the other animals, that he does not follow the impressions of sense as they do, but has in his reason a judge of the circumstances which befall him: and by using this, if the things presented by sense are, on examination, such as they at first appeared, he assents to the impression, and so will pursue them: but if they appear to be different, he no longer abides by his previous conception, after reason has proved the representations false, in consequence of his deliberating upon them.29

'At any rate we deliberate only about things which we have power to do: and whenever we act without having deliberated, we often repent and blame ourselves for our want of consideration: and further, if we see others acting inconsiderately, we charge them with doing wrong, and bid them consult such and such advisers, as knowing that such actions are in our own power.30

'That their argument about fate is false, is sufficiently testified by the fact that even its champions themselves are not able to conform to their own statements. For they profess to exhort and to teach, and they advise men to learn and to be educated, and they reprove and punish those who do things that are not right, as sinning of their own will.31 Moreover, they leave behind them very many books, by which they expect the young to be educated. They would have ceased, therefore, from being so eager in their arguments if they had observed that (in their books) they claim forgiveness for involuntary offenders, but say that voluntary transgressors deserve punishment, implying evidently that to offend or not lies in their own power.32

'Thus even according to their own account the necessity arising from fate is abolished, and it is established that free-will is ours by nature, with the limitation that there are also very many things not in our own power, as the effects of natural laws, and the accidents of fortune, though even these are contrary to the doctrine of fate, as we have previously shown.'

These statements we have abridged out of a great many, because in the opinions expressed on our side the argument in favour of free-will is of great length: and with this doctrine the utterances of the philosophers which we have quoted concurred, confirming by their testimony our sacred Scriptures, and convicting of falsehood the opinions concerning fate not only of the multitude of mankind but also of the wonderful oracular gods. And some of these extracts were sarcastically aimed against the famous answers of oracles, and some were objections urged against the wonderful philosophers by their own associates. Now therefore it is time to examine also the arguments of the astrologers against the Chaldean sect, of those, I mean, who profess this mischievous charlatanism as a learned study. And my proofs on this subject I shall present to you from one who is by birth a Syrian, and has pursued his inquiries to the highest point of Chaldean science. The man's name is Bardesanes, and in his Dialogues with his companions it is recorded that he spake as follows:
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

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Part 3 of 3

CHAPTER X

[BARDESANES] 33 'It is by natural law that man is begotten, is nourished, reaches maturity, begets children, eats, drinks, and sleeps, grows old and dies: and this is the case of every man and of every irrational animal.

'And as to the other living creatures, which have only an animal soul, and are begotten wholly by sexual intercourse, they are almost wholly borne along in the course of nature. A lion is carnivorous, and takes revenge if he be injured: and therefore all lions are carnivorous and take revenge. Ewe lambs eat grass, and touch no flesh, and if injured take no revenge: and every lamb's character is the same.

'A scorpion eats earth, and injures those who have not injured him, striking with a venomous sting: and all scorpions have the same evil disposition. An ant knows by nature the advent of winter, and by toiling through the whole summer stores up food for itself: and all ants work in like manner.

'A bee makes honey, and also feeds upon it: and all bees follow the same husbandry. And I might have set before you many kinds of animals, which being unable to depart from their own nature might have caused you much wonderment. But I thought I had given sufficient proof from the examples set forth, that all other animals according to the community or diversity of nature given to each are borne along pleasantly by necessity.

'But men alone, having as their special privilege the mind, and the reason which proceeds from it, in what they have in common follow nature, as I said before, but as to their special gift are not governed by nature.

'For they do not all even eat the same food: some feed like lions, and others like lambs: they have not one fashion of raiment: there is not one custom, nor one law of civil society among them, nor one impulse of desire for things: but each man chooses a life for himself according to his own will, not imitating his neighbour, except in what he chooses.

'For his freedom is subject to no slavery, and if ever he shall voluntarily be a slave, this also is a part of his freedom, that he is able to be a voluntary slave.

'How many of mankind, and especially among the Alans, eat raw flesh, like wild beasts, without tasting bread, and not because they have it not, but because they are not willing! Others, like tame animals, taste no flesh: some eat only fish; while others never taste fish, not even if they be starving. Some drink water, some drink wine, and some drink strong liquor.

'And in short there is a great difference among mankind in food and drink, as they differ even in the eating of vegetables and fruits. Moreover some, like scorpions and like asps, injure without having been injured; and some, like other animals, revenge themselves when injured: and others ravage like wolves, and steal like weasels; while others, like lambs and goats, are pursued by men of like feelings with themselves, and do no injury to those who injure them. Some also are called good, and some bad, and some just.

'Whence we may understand that man is not altogether led by nature (for of what kind shall we say his nature is?): but is borne one way according to nature, and another way according to will. Wherefore he incurs praise and blame and condemnation in matters dependent on will: but in matters dependent on nature he has immunity from blame, not out of pity, but from reason.'

And afterwards he says: 34

'Men enacted different laws in each country, some written, and some unwritten: of which I shall mention some, according to what I know and remember, beginning from the beginning of the world.

'Among the Seres it is law that none should murder, nor fornicate, nor steal, nor worship graven images: and in that very great country you cannot see a temple, nor a harlot, nor a reputed adulteress, no thief dragged off to justice, no homicide, no murdered man.

'For among them no man's free-will was compelled by the fiery planet Mars in mid-heaven to kill a man with the sword, nor by the conjunction of Venus with Mars to consort with another man's wife, though of course Mars was in mid-heaven every day, and Serians were being born every day and every hour.

'Among the Indians and Bactrians there are many thousands of those called Brahmans, who according to the tradition of their forefathers and of their laws neither commit murder, nor worship images, nor taste animal food, nor are ever intoxicated, as they never taste wine or strong drink, have no communication with evil, but devote themselves to God; whereas the other Indians are guilty of murder and fornication and drunkenness, and worship images, and in almost everything follow the course of fate.

'But in the same clime of India there is a certain tribe of Indians who hunt down the strangers that fall in their way, and sacrifice and eat them; and neither the beneficent stars have hindered them from blood-guiltiness and unlawful marriages, nor have the maleficent compelled the Brahmans to do evil.

'Among the Persians it was lawful to marry their daughters, and sisters, and mothers: and these unholy marriages the Persians practised not only in that country and that clime, but also any of them who migrated from Persia, those who are called Magusaei continue to practise the same iniquity, handing down the same laws and customs to their children in succession.

'And of these there are still many in Media and in Egypt, and in Phrygia, and in Galatia. Yet surely Venus was not found in the regions and houses of Saturn, with Mars in close company with Saturn, at the nativities of all of them.

'Among the Geli it is customary for the women to till the ground, and build houses, and do all the labour, and to consort with whom they will, and not be blamed by the men; nor is any called an adulteress, because they are all hard workers, and consort with all, and especially with strangers.35

'The Gelan women neither perfume themselves nor wear dyed garments, but are all barefooted, although the Gelan men adorn themselves with soft clothing, and various colours, and wear gold ornaments and perfume themselves, and this not from any effeminacy in other respects, for they are brave, and very warlike, and much given to hunting.

'And it was not the lot of all the Gelan women to find Venus an evil influence in Capricornus or in Aquarius, nor of all their men to have the Paphian goddess with Mars in Aries, where the Chaldean students say that those who are both brave and luxurious are born.

'Among the Bactrians the women use every kind of distinguished ornament and every kind of perfume, and receive more attendance than the men from handmaidens and young pages: they promenade on horseback with great show, and adorn their horses with much gold and precious stones: nor are they chaste, but consort promiscuously with their slaves and with strangers, having immunity in this respect, and are not blamed by their husbands, over whom they in a manner domineer.

'Yet surely the laughter-loving Aphrodite is not in her own regions in mid-heaven with Zeus and Ares at every birth of the women in Bactria. But in Arabia and Osrhoene, not only are adulteresses put to death, but even those who are suspected are not let off without punishment.

'Among the Parthians and Armenians murderers are put to death, sometimes by the judges, and sometimes by the blood-relations of the murdered. And if any man murder his wife, or a childless brother, or an unmarried sister, or a son or daughter, he is not accused by any one, the law being such in those countries; but among the Greeks and Romans the murderers of their kinsmen and relations are subjected to greater punishment.

'Among the Atri he who steals anything worth an obol is stoned, among the Bactrians he who steals trifles is spit upon, among the Romans he is severely beaten: for such are their laws.

' From the river Euphrates, and as far as the Ocean towards the East, he who is reviled as a murderer, or a thief, is not at all indignant: but he who is reviled for sodomy avenges himself even to the death: among the Greeks, however, even their wise men are not blamed for having favourites.

'In the same East those who suffer outrage, if it become known, are put to death by brothers, or fathers, or kinsmen, and are not thought worthy of burial in open day.

'Among the Gauls the young men give themselves in marriage openly, not regarding this as a matter of reproach, because of the law among them. Yet it cannot possibly have been the lot of all in Gaul who thus impiously suffer outrage to have the morning-star with Mercury setting in the houses of Saturn and regions of Mars at their nativities.

'In Britain many men have the same wife: but in Parthia many wives have one husband, and they are all chaste and obedient to him according to the law.

'The Amazons are all without husbands, but like the brute creatures once in the year about the vernal equinox they pass beyond their own frontiers and consort with men of the neighbouring countries, counting this a sort of festival: and conceiving by them they return home, and according to the law of nature necessarily bear children at one season, and the males who are born they expose, but rear the females: and they are warlike, and attentive to gymnastic exercises.

'Mercury in conjunction with Venus in the houses of Mercury makes modellers, and painters, and bankers; but in the houses of Venus perfumers, or singing-masters, and actors of dramatic poems.

'Among the Taïni and Saraceni, and in the inland part of Libya, also among the Moors, and among the Nomads by the mouth of the Ocean, and in the further part of Germany, and in the inland region of Sarmatia, and in Scythia, and in all the nations on the north of the Pontus, and in all Alania, and Albania, and Otene, and Saunia, and in Chryse, there is not a banker to be seen, nor modeller, nor painter, nor architect, nor geometer, nor singing-master, nor actor of dramatic poems; but the character proceeding from the operation of Mercury and Venus is wanting in that whole circuit of the world.

'The Medes all cast out the still-breathing corpses to the dogs whom they carefully rear: yet they have not all of them Mars with the Moon in Cancer beneath the earth at their birth in the daytime.

'The Indians burn their dead, and with them burn their wives with their own consent: and surely all the Indian women who are burnt alive have not the Sun with Mars, in Leo, or in the region of Mars, beneath the earth at their birth in the night.

'Most of the Germans die by strangulation, and surely the majority of Germans have not the Moon and the hour of their birth intercepted by Saturn and Mars.

'There are men born in every nation, every day, and with every kind of nativity: but law and custom prevail in each division of mankind because of man's free-will. Thus their nativity does not compel the Seres to murder against their will, or the Brahmans to eat flesh, or the Persians to abstain from unlawful marriages, or the Indians to cease to be burned, or the Medes to cease from being eaten by dogs, or the Parthians to give up polygamy, or the women in Mesopotamia to be unchaste, or the Greeks to cease from practising athletic exercises with their bodies naked, or the Romans to cease to rule, or the Gauls to cease from effeminacy, or the other barbarous nations to converse with those whom the Greeks call Muses. But as I said before, each nation and each man uses his own freedom as he will and when he will, and is also a slave of his nativity and the nature which clothes him with flesh, sometimes according to his will, and sometimes contrary to his will. For everywhere and in every nation there are rich and poor, rulers and ruled, healthy and sickly, each according to the lot of his nativity.

'These arguments, O Bardesanes, said I, have entirely persuaded me. But the astrologers say that this earth is divided into seven zones, and that one of the seven stars rules each zone; and that the different laws have not been enacted by men for themselves, but the will of each ruling star prevails in his own region, and is regarded by those under his rule as law.

'He replied: This answer of theirs, O Philip, is not true. For although the earth is divided into seven zones, yet nevertheless we find many differences of laws in the same division. For there are neither seven laws corresponding to the seven stars, nor twelve corresponding to the signs of the zodiac, nor thirty-six corresponding to the decani, but numberless laws.

'You ought also to remember what I said before, that in the same clime and same region of India there are Indians who are cannibals, and there are those who abstain from animal food; also that the Magusaei marry their daughters not only in Persia, but also in every nation where they may dwell, observing the laws of their forefathers, and the initiatory rites of their mysteries.

'Also, we gave a list of many barbarous nations living in the South and West and East and North, that is in different climes, who have no share in the science of Hermes.

'How many wise men, think you, have set aside badly constituted laws? And how many laws have been abolished from being impracticable? How many kings after gaining power over nations have changed the laws that were before their time and established their own? Yet none of the stars had lost its proper clime.

'Yesterday the Romans having become masters of Arabia changed the laws of the barbarians. For one free-will follows another free-will. But I will now set forth for you a fact which might convince even the incredulous.

'The Jews who received a law through Moses all shed the blood of their male children by circumcising them on the eighth day, not waiting for the appearance of a star, nor respecting the influence of clime, nor yielding to any law of a foreign country: but whether they are in Syria, or Gaul, or Italy, or Greece, or Parthia, or wherever they may be, they perform this rite.

'And this is not dependent on nativity, for all Jews cannot have the same natal stars. Moreover every seventh day, wherever they may be, they abstain from all work, and neither travel nor use fire: nor does his nativity compel a Jew either to build or to demolish a house, to work, to buy or to sell on the sabbath day, although on that same day Jews beget and are begotten, and sicken and die: for these are things not dependent on freewill.

'In Syria and Osrhoene many used to mutilate themselves in honour of Rhea: hereupon king Abgar at one stroke commanded that those who cut off the genital organs should also have their hands cut off, and from thenceforth no one in Osrhoene mutilated himself.

'And what shall we say concerning the sect of the Christians? For we who hold those opinions have arisen in multitudes in different climes, in every nation and region, and though many in number, are called by one name.

'And neither in Parthia do the Christians, Parthians though they are, practise polygamy, nor do those in Media cast their dead to dogs, nor do those in Persia, though they are Persians, marry their daughters, nor among the Bactrians and the Gauls do they form unnatural unions, nor do those in Egypt worship Apis or the dog, the he-goat, or the cat. But wherever they are, they are neither overcome by ill-constituted laws and customs, nor does their nativity, regulated by their ruling stars, compel them to practise the evils forbidden by their teacher, but they submit to sickness and poverty and sufferings and reputed infamies.

'For as the free man of our idea is not compelled to be a slave, and, even if he be compelled, resists those who compel him, so also the man whom we regard as a slave cannot easily escape from his subjection.

'For if we could do all things, we ourselves should be the all, even as, if we could do nothing, we should be instruments, as I said before, of others, and not masters of ourselves. But with God's approval all things are possible and irresistible; for nothing can resist His will. For even the things which seem to resist, resist only because He is kind, and allows each nature to have its own privilege, and its freedom of will.'

So far the Syrian. And when I have mentioned one thing more, I will conclude the discussion. For since we have made sufficient extracts from the non-Christian writings, whilst those from the sacred Scriptures are still wanting, and since these are what we most need for The Preparation of the Evangelic Demonstration, it would be well to examine these also, that our argument may be deficient in none of the considerations proper to the question before us. From this source I shall also make our present subject clear to you.

You would not, however, be able to understand the bare letter of the sacred oracles, since in most points they are obscurely expressed. And therefore I shall set before you their interpreter: and if you are not envious of stronger minds, you know perhaps the man, who to this present time still takes rank in the companies of Christ by the works which he has bequeathed, nor indeed is unknown even to those without for the zeal which he has displayed in their studies also. Consider then how many and how excellent determinations on the subject before us the admirable Origen has given in his Commentaries on Genesis, and how he traced out the argument concerning Fate.

CHAPTER XI

[ORIGEN] 36 'One of the things most necessary to resolve is the statement that the lights, which are no other than the sun and moon and stars, are given "for signs"; not only because the nations who are alien to the faith of Christ stumble upon the topic of Fate, since all things upon earth, and the circumstances of each individual man, perhaps of brute animals also, are supposed by them to occur by the combination of the so-called wandering stars with those, in the zodiac; but also because many of those who are supposed to have received the faith are distracted by the doubt whether all human affairs are not ruled by necessity, so that it is impossible for them to take place otherwise than as the stars, according to their different configurations, bring them to fulfilment.

'Now the consequence for those who hold these doctrines is that they utterly destroy our free-will, and therefore also both praise and blame, and commendable, or on the other hand blame-able actions.

'But if this is the case, there is an end of the proclaimed judgement of God, and of threatenings against sinners that they shall be punished; also, on the other hand, of the privileges and beatitudes promised to those who have devoted themselves to the better life: for none of these things will any longer have a good d reason for their occurrence.

'Also if any one would look at the consequences to himself of the doctrines he holds, (he would see that) both his faith will be vain, and Christ's advent of no avail, and all the dispensation of law and prophets, and the labours of the Apostles to establish the churches of God through Christ.

'Unless perchance Christ Himself having, according to these so daring thinkers, been subjected to the necessity arising from the motion of the stars by the birth which He assumed, both did and suffered all, because those extraordinary powers were bestowed on Him not by God the Father of all things, but by the stars. From which arguments, atheistical and impious as they are, it follows also that believers must be said to believe in God because led to do so by the stars.

'But we would ask of them with what purpose God made such a world, that some of the dwellers therein being men should take the place of women, not having been in any way themselves the cause of the outrage, while others placed in the condition of wild beasts, by the course of the world having made them such, because God had so arranged the whole, give themselves over to most cruel and utterly inhuman practices, such as murder and piracy?

'And what must we say of the things which occur among men and of the sins committed by them, countless as they are, when they are acquitted of all blame by the champions of these grand doctrines, who ascribe to God the cause of all things evil and blameable?

'But if some of them, as if apologizing for God, say that the good God is another who has not the government of any of these things, and impute such evils as these to the Demiurge of the world----in the first place they will not even thus be able to prove what they wish, that He is just. For how could He, who according to them is the author of so much evil, be reasonably called just?

'And in the second place we must inquire what they will ever say about themselves? Are they subject to the course of the stars, or are they freed from it, and in their life have no influence wrought upon them from that source? For if they shall say that they are subject to the stars, it is evident that the stars granted them the power of perceiving this, and the Demiurge by the motion of the universe will have suggested the doctrine concerning the higher god whom they have invented; and this they do not wish.

'But if they shall answer that they are exempt from the laws of the Demiurge which depend upon the stars, in order that their statement may not be a denial incapable of proof, let them endeavour to convince us more irresistibly, by showing the difference between a mind subject to nativity and fate, and another free from them. For it is evident to those who know men of this kind that, when required to give them an explanation, they will be quite unable to do so.

'In addition to what has been said, prayers also are superfluous, being employed in vain. For if it has been fixed by necessity that this or that should happen, and if the stars do this, and nothing can take place contrary to their mutual combination, we are unreasonable in asking God to grant us this or that.

'But why need I prolong the discussion, by proving the impiety of the trite topic concerning fate so hackneyed by the multitude without examination? For what I have already said is sufficient for an outline.

'Let us, however, remember from what point we have come upon our present subject, while examining the passage "Let the lights be for signs." 37 They who learn the truth on any matters have either been eyewitnesses of the facts, and so give a faithful description of this or that circumstance, because they saw what was done and suffered by the actors and sufferers, or else they learn this or that from having heard the report of those who were in no way the causes of what happened.

'But let us at present exclude from our argument the possibility that the actors or sufferers, by relating what they have done or suffered, bring one who has not been present to a knowledge of the facts.

'If therefore the man, who is informed by one who is in no way the cause of the events, that this or that has occurred or will occur to certain persons, fails to distinguish that an informant concerning something that has occurred or will occur is in no way the cause of the matter being of this or that character, he will suppose that the man who has represented to him that this or that has taken place, or this or that will take place, has himself done or will do the things of which he informs him, but will evidently be mistaken in his supposition.

'Just as if any one having met with a prophetic book which foreshowed the story of the traitor Judas, after learning what was to take place should think, on seeing it fulfilled, that the book was the cause that this or that happened afterwards, because he had learned from the book what would be afterwards done by Judas; or again should suppose that the cause was not the book but the man who wrote it at first, or he who inspired him, say, to speak, namely God.

'But just as in the case of the prophecies concerning Judas the very expressions when examined show that God was not the author of Judas' betrayal, but only foreshowed it because He foreknew what acts would follow from this man's wickedness through his own fault; so if any one were to plunge deep into the question of the foreknowledge of all things by God, and by those in whom He imprinted, as it were, the language of his own foreknowledge, he would understand that neither He who foreknew was in any way the cause of the things foreknown, nor the instruments which received the impressions of the words of the foreknowledge of Him who foreknew.

'That God indeed knows long before that every thing which is to be will happen, is evident, even apart from Scripture, from the very idea of God to the man who understands the excellence of the power of the Divine mind.

'But if it is necessary to prove this from Scripture also, the prophecies are full of examples of this kind, and so also is the description by Susanna of God as knowing all things before they come to pass, where she speaks as follows: "O God, the Eternal, the discerner of secrets, that knowest all things before they be, Thou understandest that these have borne false witness against me." 38

'And most clearly in the third Book of Kings both the name of the king who waste reign and his deeds were recorded many years before they came to pass, being predicted as follows: "And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in the land of Judah: and he went up unto the altar that is in Bethel, to sacrifice unto the calves that he had made." 39 Then after a few words: "And behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel, and Jeroboam was standing upon his altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar by the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD: Behold a son is to be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he sacrifice the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall he burn upon thee. And he gave a sign in that day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken, saying, Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are thereon shall be poured out."

'And after a few words it is shown, that "both the altar was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the LORD."

'Isaiah also came long before the captivity in Babylon, and some time after that captivity came Cyrus the king of the Persians who assisted in the building of the temple in the times of Ezra; and in Isaiah there is the following prophecy concerning Cyrus by name: "Thus saith the LORD God to Cyrus mine anointed, whose right hand I have holden, that nations should obey before him, and I will break the strength of kings, I will open doors before him, and cities shall not be shut. I will go before thee, and make mountains plain, I will break in pieces doors of brass, and shatter bars of iron: and I will give thee treasures of darkness, hidden unseen treasures will I open to thee, that thou mayest know that I am the LORD God, which call thee by thy name, the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel my chosen, I will call thee by my name, and will accept thee." 40

'From this passage it is clearly shown that, for the sake of the people whose benefactor Cyrus had been, though he knew not the religion of the Hebrews, God granted to him the rule over many nations. And these facts one may learn also from the Greeks who recorded the history of Cyrus the subject of the prophecy.

'Moreover in Daniel, in the time of the Babylonian monarchs, there are shown to Nebuchadnezzar the kingdoms that should come after him. And they are shown by the image, in which the kingdom of Babylon is called gold, the Persian silver, the Macedonian brass, and the Roman iron. 41

'Again in the same prophet the events concerning Darius and Alexander, and the four successors of Alexander king of Macedon, and Ptolemy, the ruler of Egypt, who was surnamed Lagos, are thus foretold: "Behold, an he-goat came from the west over the face of the whole earth: ... and the goat had a horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram that had the horns, which I saw standing before the river, and ran upon him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake both his horns, and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, and he cast him upon the ground, and trampled upon him, and there was none to deliver the ram out of his hand. And the he-goat magnified himself exceedingly. And when he was grown strong, his great horn was broken, and there came up from beneath it other horns towards the four winds of heaven, and out of one of them came forth one strong horn, and waxed exceeding great toward the south and toward the west." 42

'And why need I mention the prophecies concerning Christ, as for instance the place of His birth, Bethlehem, and the place where He was brought up, Nazareth, and the flight into Egypt, and the miracles which He wrought, and how he was betrayed by Judas who had been called to be an Apostle? For all these are signs of God's foreknowledge.

'Moreover the Saviour Himself says, "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed by armies, then ye shall know that her desolation is at hand." 43 For He foretold what afterwards happened, the final destruction of Jerusalem.

'Since then we have given proofs concerning God's foreknowledge, it will not be inopportune, in order to explain how the stars are for signs, to observe that the motion of the stars is so ordered, that the so-called planets follow a course opposite to the fixed stars, in order that from the configuration of the stars signs of all things that happen concerning each individual man, and generally, may be made known: I do not say "known" by men, for the power of truly understanding from the motion of the stars the case of each one of those who are doing or suffering whatever it may be, is far too great for man: but "known" by the powers which for many reasons must necessarily know these things, as we shall show to the best of our power in what follows.

'But from certain observations, or even from the teaching of angels who had transgressed their own order, and to afflict our race taught something about these things, men got to understand them, and then thought that those stars from which they supposed themselves to receive the signs were the causes of those things which the Scripture says that they signify. And these very matters we will immediately discuss in a summary way, but very carefully, according to the best of our ability.

'We will therefore propose for consideration the following questions:

'(1) How our freedom is preserved, if God foreknows from eternity the things which are supposed to be done by every man?

'(2) In what way the stars are not efficient causes of human affairs, but only signs of the same?

'(3) That men cannot have exact knowledge of these affairs, but the signs are set forth by powers greater than man's.

'(4) What is the cause of God's having appointed the signs for the information of those powers? This shall be the fourth subject of inquiry.

'Let us look then at that first question, about which many of the Greeks were scrupulous, because they thought that all things are made subject to necessity, and that our freedom can in no way be maintained, if God foreknows future events: for so they rashly accepted an impious dogma, rather than admit that which, as they say, gives glory to God, but destroys our freedom, and therefore destroys praise and blame, the merit of virtues and the culpability of vices.

'And they say, if God knew from eternity that this or that man would be unjust and would commit certain acts of injustice, and if God's knowledge is infallible, then the man foreseen to be of such a character will certainly be unjust, as he will commit these acts of injustice, and it is impossible that he should not do injustice: and if it is impossible that he should not do injustice, his doing injustice is compelled by necessity, and it will be impossible that he should do anything else than that which God foreknew. But if it is impossible for him to do anything else, and if no man is to be blamed for not doing an impossibility, we have no right to blame the unjust.

'From the unjust man and deeds of injustice they pass on to the other kinds of sin, and then on the other hand to what are considered good deeds; and it follows, they say, upon God's having foreknown the future that our free-will cannot possibly be maintained.

'In answer to whom we have to say that, when God was contemplating the beginning of His creation, since nothing takes place without a cause, he travelled over in His mind every future event, and saw that, when this has occurred, that follows, and if this consequence occurs, that third thing follows: and when this third is settled, that other will occur; and thus having travelled on to the end of all things, he knows the things that will be, though He does not at all cause the occurrence of everything that He knows.

'For just as, if a man should see another to be rash through ignorance, and through his rashness to be thoughtlessly walking on a slippery road, and should perceive that he will slip and fall, he does not become the cause of the other's slipping; so we must consider that God, having foreseen of what character each man will be, discerns also the causes of this his future character, and that he will commit these sins, or perform those good deeds.

'And if we must speak freely, we shall not say that foreknowledge is the cause of events (for God does not meddle with the man whom He has foreknown to be about to sin, at the time of his sinning): but we shall say something more strange and yet true, that the future event is the cause that the foreknowledge of it is of such a character. For it does not take place because it has been known, but it has been known because it was about to take place.

'We must however make a distinction. For if any one interprets the expression, "It will certainly be," as if there were a necessity that what is foreknown must take place, we do not grant him this: for we shall not say that, since it was foreknown that Judas would become a traitor, there was an absolute necessity for Judas to become a traitor. In fact in the prophecies concerning Judas there are reproaches and accusations of Judas recorded, which prove to every one his culpability. But blame would not have attached to him, if he was of necessity a traitor, and if it was not possible for him to be like the other apostles.

'Now see if this is not made clear by the express statements which we will bring forward, running thus: "Nor let there be any to have compassion on his fatherless children,... because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, and the broken in heart, to slay them. Yea, he loved cursing, and it shall come unto him: and he delighted not in blessing, and it shall be far from him." 44

'If, however, any one shall explain the expression, "It will certainly be," by saying that though certain events will be in accordance with its indication, yet that it was possible also for it to have been otherwise, this we admit as true. For though it is "not possible that God should lie," 45 yet it is possible, concerning things that may either happen or not happen, that He should know either that they will happen or that they will not happen.

'But we will state this more clearly in the following way. If it is possible for Judas to be an Apostle like Peter, it is possible for God to perceive concerning Judas that he will continue an Apostle like Peter: if it is possible for Judas to become a traitor, it is possible for God to know concerning him that he will be a traitor.

'But if Judas will be a traitor, and God has foreknowledge of the two contingencies before mentioned, of which only one can possibly be realized, then as He foreknows the truth, He will foreknow that Judas will become a traitor: it being at the same time possible that the object of His knowledge might also come to pass in the other way. And God's knowledge would say, "though it is possible for this man to do this, yet the contrary also is possible; but whereas both are possible, I know that this he will do."

'For though God might say, "It is not possible that this or that man should fly," He cannot say in like manner, in giving an oracle, for instance, concerning any one, that it is not possible for this man to act temperately. For there is absolutely no power in the man of flying at all, but there is a power of acting temperately, and of acting intemperately.

'And as he possesses both these powers, the man who gives no heed to words of exhortation and discipline gives himself over to the worse power; but he who has sought the truth and purposed to live according to it, gives himself over to the better power. The one does not seek for what is true, because he inclines towards pleasure: but the other inquires concerning the truth, because he is persuaded by the general opinions of mankind and by words of exhortation.

'Again, the one chooses pleasure, not because he has no power to resist it, but because he makes no effort; while the other despises it, because he sees the indecency that there is often in it.

'To show, however, that God's foreknowledge imposes no necessity on those concerning whom He has conceived such knowledge, will add to what I have already said the following argument, that in many places of the Scriptures God commands the prophets to preach repentance, without claiming for Himself the knowledge, whether those who hear will return or will continue in their sins: as in Jeremiah it is said, "It may be they will hearken and will repent." 46

'For it is not from ignorance whether they will hear or not that God Says, "It may be they will hearken and will repent"; but He shows, as it were, from the expression, that there was the even balance of the things that might happen, lest His foreknowledge, if previously announced, should make the hearers to fall, by presenting an idea of necessity, as though it were not in their own power to return; and thus His foreknowledge should itself become, as it were, the cause of their sins: or again, lest those who, from ignorance of the good foreknown, are able in their conflict and resistance against vice to live a life of virtue, should because of the foreknowledge relax in their efforts and cease to take a vigorous stand against sin, from expecting that what had been foretold would certainly come to pass. For in this way also the foreknowledge of the good to come would be a kind of hindrance.

'So then God, in arranging all things in the world beneficially, with good reason made us blind to future events. For the knowledge thereof would have made us give up the contest against vice, and from appearing to have been clearly perceived would have weakened us and made us to cease from the struggle against sin, and so to become more readily subjected to it.

'At the same time also the fact that there had come to this or that man the foreknowledge that he would in any case be good, would be at variance with his becoming noble and good. For in addition to our natural qualities there is need of great earnestness and exertion in order to become noble and good: but the previous acquisition of the knowledge that one will in any case be noble and good gradually relaxes the endeavour. Wherefore it is to our advantage that we know not whether we shall be good or bad.

'But since we have said that God made us blind to future events, see whether we can explain a certain disputed expression from Exodus, "Who made man dumb or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?",47 in this way, that He may be seen to have made the same man both blind and seeing, seeing in reference to things present, but blind to things to come. For it is not necessary on the present occasion to explain the words dumb and deaf.

'That very many things, however, which are not in our power, are causes of many things which are in our power, we will ourselves admit: and if they, I mean the things which are not in our power, did not take place, certain of the things which are in our power could not be done. But of the things in our power this or that is done in consequence of these antecedents which are not in our power, it being possible upon the same antecedents also to do other things than those which we do.

'And if any one claims that our free-will is independent of everything, so that we do not choose a certain course in consequence of this or that having happened to us, he forgets that he is a part of the world, and encompassed by association with mankind and with his surroundings.

'However, I think it has been fairly proved in a summary manner, that God's foreknowledge does not in any way necessitate the foreknown events. So now, come, let us also contend for the fact that the stars are in no way the causes, but only the signs, of what happens among mankind.

'Now it is clear that if this or that configuration of the stars were supposed to be an efficient cause of certain things that happen to the man (for this be the present subject of inquiry), the configuration which there may have been, say, to-day affecting this man, cannot be thought to have been the cause of the past circumstances affecting another or others: for every efficient cause is prior to its effect.

'But as far as we can judge from the doctrines of those who profess such arts, things prior to the configuration are supposed to be foretold concerning the men.

'For they profess that in some such manner as follows, when they have learned the hour of this or that man's birth, they can discover how each of the planets was situated vertically either to this or that degree of the sign of the zodiac, or of the minute divisions therein, and what star of the zodiac was on the eastern horizon, and what on the western, and what on the Meridian, and what on the Anti-Meridian.

'And when they have settled the places of the stars, which they think they have figured for themselves, as having had such a configuration at the moment of a certain man's nativity, then by the time of his birth they search out not only future events, but also the past, and things that had happened before the birth and before the generation of the man in question, concerning his father, of what country he is, rich or poor, whole in body or maimed, good or bad in moral disposition, of large possessions or of none, of this or that occupation. The same also concerning his mother, and elder brothers, if there happen to be any.

'Now let us admit at present that they discover the true place (of the stars), although on this very point we shall afterwards show that it is not so: let us inquire therefore of those who suppose that human affairs are brought under necessity by the stars, in what way the configuration of to-day, which is of a certain kind, can possibly have been the cause of earlier events.

'For if this is impossible, in proportion as the truth is disccovered concerning the time of the earlier events, it is clear that the stars moving thus in the heaven cannot have caused the past events which took place before they were in this position. But if so, perhaps one who admits that they tell true, from observing what is said about future events, will say that they tell true not because the stars cause the events but only because they signify them.

'But if any one assert that though the stars are not the cause of the past events, yet other configurations have been the causes of their production, and that the present configuration has only indicated them, but that nevertheless things to come are foreshown from the present configuration of a certain person's nativity; let him prove the difference between being able to show that some things have been discerned with truth from the stars as efficient causes, but other things merely from their indications.

'And if they are not able to assign the difference, they will candidly agree that none of the things which concern mankind are caused by the stars, but as we have said before are only indicated, if so it be; which is the same as if one learned both past and present events not from the stars, but from the mind of God, by some prophetic utterance.

'For just as we before showed that the argument on behalf of our free-will is not at all impaired by God's knowing what every man will do, so neither do the signs which God appointed to give indications hinder our free-will. But like a book which contains future events in the language of prophecy, it is possible that the whole heaven, being as it were a book of God, may contain the things to come.

'Wherefore in the Prayer of Joseph we may understand in this way what is said by Jacob, "For I read in the tablets of heaven all things that shall happen to you and to your sons." 48 Perhaps also the saying, "The heaven shall be rolled together as a scroll," 49 shows that the lessons therein contained significant of the things to come will be accomplished and, so to say, fulfilled, just as the prophecies are said to have been fulfilled by having come to pass.

'And thus the heavenly bodies will have been for signs, according to the expression which says, "Let them be for signs." 50 But Jeremiah, to recall us to ourselves, and to take away the fear consequent upon the things supposed to be indicated by the stars, and perhaps suspected also of proceeding from them, says, "Be not dismayed at the signs from heaven." 51

'Let us look at a second attempt to show how the stars cannot possibly be efficient causes, but, if anything, significations. For it is possible to learn the fortunes of one man from an infinite number of nativities (but this we state as a hypothesis, granting the possibility that a knowledge of them may be attained by men): for to take an instance, whether such a man will suffer so and so, and will die by falling among robbers and being slain, this, says the astrologer, we may learn both from his own nativity, and, if he happen to have several brothers, from the nativity of each of them.

'For they think that the nativity of each includes that a brother will die by robbers, and in like manner the nativity of the father, and that of the mother, and of his wife, and of his sons, and of his servants, and of his best friends; perhaps also of the very men who are to kill him.

'How then, to grant them this, is it possible that the man whose fortune is involved in so many nativities should come under the configuration of the stars in this nativity rather than in the others? For the assertion that the configuration in this or that man's particular nativity has been the cause of these events, but that the configuration in the nativity of these others has not been the cause but only the indication, is incredible.

'And it is silly to say that the nativity of all included in each an efficient cause of this man's being killed, so that in fifty nativities (I am speaking according to the hypothesis) it was contained that this or that man was to be killed. Nor do I know how they will be able to maintain that, though the configuration at the nativity of nearly all men in Judaea was such that they received circumcision on the eighth day, were mutilated, and ulcerated, and likely to suffer inflammation and wounds, and at their very entrance into life were in need of physicians, yet that of the Ishmaelites in Arabia was such that they were all circumcised when thirteen years old. For this is stated in history concerning them.

'And again that of certain tribes among the Aethiopians the knee-caps are cut away, and one of the breasts of the Amazons. For how do the stars produce these effects in these nations? I think that, if we were to give our attention to it, we should not be able even to fix anything true to say concerning them.

'As there are so many modes of prognostication current, I do not understand how men ran upon the difficulty of saying that the methods of augury and of sacrifice do not contain the efficient cause, but only give signs, and yet do not say the same of the study of the stars and casting of nativities.

'For if events are known (to grant that they are known), and if they are produced from the same source from which the knowledge is derived, why are the events to be caused by the stars rather than by the birds, and why by the birds rather than by the entrails of the sacrifices, or by the shooting stars? These reasons, however, will at present suffice for overthrowing the opinion that the stars are efficient causes of human affairs.

'But as to the assumption which we have allowed, because it did not damage our argument, that it is possible for men to understand the celestial configurations, and the signs, and the things signified, let us now examine whether this is true.

'It is said then by those who are clever in such matters, that the man who is to ascertain truly the results of the science of nativities must know not only in which of the twelve signs of the zodiac the planet is, but also in what degree of the sign, and in what minute, and the more exact say, in what second; and this they say he must do in the case of each of the planets, examining their relative position to the fixed stars.

'Again on the Eastern horizon it will be necessary, they say, to see not only what sign was thereon, but also the degree, and the minute, or the second.

'Since then the hour comprises, to speak broadly, half a sign of the zodiac, how is it possible for any one to find the minute, if he has not the proportionate division of the hours? How, for instance, know that a certain man is born at the fourth hour, and at the half-hour, and quarter, and eighth, and sixteenth, and thirty-secondth part of the hour?

'For they say that the indications (given by the planets) vary greatly in consequence of the ignorance not only of the entire hour, but even of the exact division of it. For example, in the birth of twins the interval is often a very small part of an hour, and there occur many differences in the incidents and actions in their cases, because, as the astrologers say, of the relative position of the stars, and because the subdivision of the zodiacal sign which was on the horizon was not ascertained by those who are supposed to have observed the hour.

'For it is impossible for any one to say that the interval between the birth of this child and of that is the thirtieth part of an hour. Let us, however, grant them the point concerning their calculation of the hour. Now there is a current theorem, which shows that the Ecliptic moves like the planets from West to East one degree in a hundred years, and that this in the long course of time alters the position of the signs, the calculated sign being one, and the visible figure, as it were, another. And the results, they say, are found not from the visible figure, but from the calculated sign, and this cannot possibly be ascertained.

'But let this also be granted, that the calculated sign is ascertained, or that from the visible sign the true can be ascertained. Yet they will themselves acknowledge that they are not able entirely to preserve the conjunction, as they call it, of the planets which happen to be in these configurations, when, for instance, the malign indication from a certain planet is obscured, because it is overlooked by this other of more benign power, and to such or such a degree obscured: or frequently again when the obscuration of the malign planet by the aspect of the more benign is impeded, from the fact that another has entered into the configuration in a certain way, so as to be significant of misfortune.'

'I think too that any one who has given attention to these subjects must despair of the comprehension of them as being in no way accessible to man, but reaching only, if at all, to an indication. And if any one has had experience of the facts, the liability of those who talk, or even of those who have written, on the subject to failure in their conjectures, will be better known to him, than their supposed ability to succeed.

'For instance, Isaiah, seeing that these things cannot be discovered by man, says to the daughter of the Chaldeans, who beyond all men made the greatest profession of this art, "Let now the astrologers of the sky stand up and save thee,... let them announce to thee what shall come upon thee." 52 For hereby we are taught that those who are entirely devoted to the study of these matters are unable to foreshow what the Lord has purposed to bring upon each nation.'

So far the author mentioned. But in fact this whole discussion of ours is summed up in two chief points, that those who have been supposed in each city to give oracular responses are not gods, and that they are not even good daemons, but are on the contrary a class of jugglers, cheats, and deceivers, who for the destruction and perversion of true religion have put forward, besides all other delusion among mankind, especially this delusion about Fate.

And since no one from the beginning except Jesus our Saviour has ransomed the whole human race from this delusion, we have had good reason for dealing seriously with all the present subjects in the commencement of the Preparation for the Gospel, in order that we might learn by facts from what ancestors we are sprung, and by what kind of delusion they were formerly possessed, and from how manifold and great blindness and ungodliness both we ourselves and all men living have emerged, and have found the cure for that long and inveterate daemoniacal activity in the saving doctrine of the Gospel only.

[Footnotes numbered and placed at the end]

1. 236 d 3 Porphyry, On the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles.

2. 238 b 1 Porphyry, ibid.

3. 238 d 2 Porphyry, On the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles.

4. 240 d 4 Porphyry, On the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles.

5. 241 c 1 Porphyry, ibid.

6. 242 c 2 Euripides, Syleus Fr., cf Eur. Phoen. 521

7. 247 a 3 Ps. cxlviii. 5

8. 248 a 4 Rom. i. 26, 27

9. 249 a 6 Menander, i Cor. xv. 33

10. 249 b 9 cf Plato, Rep. 546 A

11. 250 a 11 Num. xx. 17

12. c 6 Plato, Rep. x. 617 E

13. 255 b 1 Oenomaus, The Selection of Impostors

14. c 9 Herodotus, vii. 148

15. 258 a 9 Euripides, Phoenissae, 19

16. c 9 Euripides, Phoenissae, 20

17. 259 c 1 Euripides, Phoenissae, 570

18. c 4 ibid. 541

19. 262 a 1 Diogenianus, Answers to Chrysippus

20. a 6 Hom. Il. xxiii. 78

21. b 2 Il. xx. 127

22. b 6 Il. vi. 488

23. c 3 Od. i. 7

24. c 5 Od. i. 32 (Pope)

25. 268 a 1 Alexander Aphrodisiensis, On Fate, c. iii. p. 8 (Bruns 1882)

26. 270 c 7 Alex. Aphrod. c. vi. p. 16

27. 271 a 4 ibid. c. viii

28. d 2 Alex. Aphrod. c. ix

29. d 11 ibid. c. xi, much altered and abridged

30. 272 b 3 ibid. c. xii. p. 42

31. 272 c 1 Alex. Aphrod. c. xviii. p. 62

32. c 7 ibid. c. xix. p. 64

33. 273 b 4 Bardesanes, On Fate. A fragment preserved in Greek only by Eusebius

34. 274 d 10 Bardesanes. Compare Clementine Recognitions, ix. c. 19

35. 275 d 7 Cf. Clem. Recogn. ix. c. 22

36. 281 a 3 Origen, On Genesis, tom, iii; Philocalia, c. xxiii

37. 283 a 9 Gen. i. 14

38. 284 b 2 Susanna, 42

39. b 7 I Kings xii. 32

40. d 12 Isa. xlv. 1

41. 285 b 6 Dan. ii. 39

42. c 4 Dan. viii. 5

43. 286 a 3 Luke xxi. 20

44. 288 b 4 Ps. cix. 12, 16

45. c 5 Heb. vi. 18

46. 289 b 11 Jer. xxvi. 3

47. 290 b 2 Exod. iv. 11

48. 292 b 1 Prayer of Joseph; see Schurer, Jewish People, Div. II. vol. iii. p. 127 f.

49. c 1 Isa. xxxiv. 4

50. c 6 Gen. i. 14

51. d 1 Jer. x. 2

52. 295 c 7 Isa. xlvii. 13
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

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Part 1 of 3

BOOK VII

CONTENTS


• I. Concerning the mode of life of the original Hebrews, and the good reasons for our preferring their divine Scriptures to the doctrines of our forefathers p. 298 d
• II. Recapitulation of the theology of other nations, and its evil effects on their mode of life p. 299 b
• III. Exposition of the character of the Hebrews, and their modes of thought concerning the Maker and Framer of the Universe p. 301 b
• IV. Their opinions concerning the immortality of the soul, and the substance of the body p. 302 b
• V. How for their piety they were rewarded with the recorded theophanies and oracles p. 303 d
• VI. That apart from Judaism before the time of Moses they were illustrious for piety p. 304 b
• VII. That Moses himself has recorded in his own writings the lives of those Hebrews who lived before his time p. 305 a
• VIII. That we showed good judgement and wise consideration in accepting their history : also a brief survey, according to the authors quoted, of the lives of the men beloved of God, both those before the flood and those who afterwards continued till the generation of Moses p. 306 b
• IX. Of the doctrinal theories of the Hebrews p. 313 b
• X. Of general Providence, and the constitution and construction of the world p. 314 a
• XI. The opinions of the Hebrews concerning God as the First Cause of the Universe p. 317 c
• XII. On the theological doctrine of the Second Cause p. 320 c
• XIII. Philo concerning the Second Cause p. 322 d
• XIV. Aristobulus on the same p. 324 a
• XV. On the constitution of rational creatures p. 324 c
• XVI. On the adverse powers p. 328 a
• XVII. On the nature of man p. 330 b
• XVIII. Philo on the soul p. 331 b
• XIX. That matter is not uncreated p. 333 c
• XX. On the same subject from Origen's Commentaries on Genesis p. 334 d
• XXI. Philo on the same p. 336 b
• XXII. That matter is not uncreated, nor the cause of evil p. 337 b

CHAPTER I

NEXT as to the Hebrews, and their philosophy and religion which we have preferred above all our ancestral system, it is time to describe their mode of life. For since it has been proved that our abandonment of the false theology of Greeks and barbarians alike has not been made without reason, but with well-judged and prudent consideration, it is now time to solve the second question by stating the cause of our claiming a share in the Hebrew doctrines. When therefore we have the necessary leisure, we shall prove that our borrowing what was profitable from barbarians brings no blame upon us; for we shall show that the Greeks and even their renowned philosophers had plagiarized all their philosophic lore and all that was otherwise of common benefit and profitable for their social needs from barbarians: but that nothing at all has yet been found among any of the nations like the boon which has been provided for us from the Hebrews, will become manifest in the following manner.

CHAPTER II

ALL the rest of mankind, from the very first establishment of social life and for all subsequent time, persisted in attending to bodily sense only, because they had formed no clear conception concerning the soul within them, and believed that nothing more than what was seen had any real subsistence; they therefore referred beauty and utility and the sole good to bodily pleasure. And as they thought that this alone was to be earnestly desired, as being the only good and agreeable and pleasant thing, and sufficient for the enjoyment of a happy life, they believed it to be the greatest of gods, and have deified it; even life itself they did not desire, if there was to be no participation in bodily pleasure, and they cherished life not for the sake of mere living but for living in pleasure, and prayed that this as the only good might be granted to their children.

Hence some conjectured that sun, moon, and stars were the sources of supply for the life in the flesh; and being also struck with a kind of wonder at beholding their light, pronounced them the first gods, and declared them to be sole causes of the universe. But others again have bestowed the title of gods upon the fruits of the earth, and the moist and dry and hot elements, and the other component parts of the world by which their bodies were nourished and fattened, and made the life of the flesh and its pleasure their pursuit: and others, long before them, with barefaced effrontery deified their own passions, and pleasure their mistress, saying that love, and desire, and lust ruled the very gods themselves. By others, certain tyrants and potentates, who had provided and invented pleasures for them, were deified, both during life and after death, in return for the enjoyments which they had gained from them. Others again, by becoming the playthings of evil spirits and daemons, gave yet greater strength to the passionate part of their soul, by procuring pleasures from them also through the customs of their worship. Others, who could not endure any of these things, introduced atheism as far better than such theology as this: and others yet more shameless than all these declared the philosophic and thrice-blessed life to be no other than the life of pleasure, having defined pleasure as the consummation of all good.

And so in this way the whole race of mankind having become enslaved to the goddess, or rather the foul and licentious daemon, pleasure, as to a harsh and most cruel mistress, was involved in all kinds of miseries. 'For,' as the holy Apostle says, 'their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due.' 1

In this way both Greeks and barbarians, wise and simple, falling to the ground and on their belly, worshipped pleasure as a goddess; they cast themselves down on their faces like reptiles; they believed in her as an irresistible and inexorable deity, and were content. In songs also and hymns, and in the festivals of gods, and in their public spectacles, they were initiated in the orgies and celebrated the unseemly rites of none other than foul and licentious pleasure; so that this, above all, has been rightly abolished among us. 'For the devising of idols was the beginning of fornication.' 2

So great had been the manifold variety, to speak briefly, of the theology of the other nations, attached to impure and abominable pleasure as its one principle, but. like a hydra of many necks and many heads, carried out into many various divisions and sections.

When therefore they had entrenched themselves in so great an error, naturally in their service of the goddess and evil daemon, pleasure, evils upon evils gathered round them, while they defiled the whole of life with mad passions for women and outrages on men, marriages with mothers, and incest with daughters, and had surpassed in their excess of wickedness the savage nature of wild beasts. Such then was the character of the ancient nations, and of their false theology, as exhibited in the preceding books by the Greek historians and philosophers whom we have brought together.

CHAPTER III

IF therefore you have had a general view of the mode of life among the ancients, now set your mind to observe next how the children of the Hebrews alone among so many go off on the opposite course.

For of all mankind these were the first and sole people who from the very first foundation of social life devoted their thought to rational speculation; and having set themselves to study reverently the physical laws of the universe, first as to elements of bodies, earth, water, air, fire, of which they perceived that this universe consisted, the sun also, and moon, and stars, they considered them to be not gods, but works of God; for they perceived that the nature of bodily substance is not only irrational but also lifeless, inasmuch as it is ever in flux and liable to perish. They further argued that it is not possible that the order of the whole cosmos, so well and wisely composed, and full as it is of living beings both rational and irrational, should have a spontaneous cause ascribed to it, nor possible to suppose the creative principle of the living to be lifeless, nor the formative principle of the rational to be itself irrational.

But since a building could never be spontaneously composed of timber and stones, nor yet a garment be completed without a weaver, nor cities and states without laws and an order of government, nor a ship without a pilot, nor the smallest instrument of art exist except through an artificer, nor a ship ever gain a sheltering harbour without a good pilot, therefore neither can the nature of the universal elements, lifeless and irrational as it is, ever by its own law apart from the supreme wisdom of God attain to reason and life. With these thoughts then and such as these the fathers of the Hebrew religion, with purified mind and clear-sighted eyes of the soul, learned from the grandeur and beauty of His creatures to worship God the Creator of all.

CHAPTER IV

AND next, as they became conscious that they were themselves no small part of the whole, they believed that the one part of themselves was precious (and that this was also the true man, which is discerned in the soul), and that the other part holds the place of an envelope of the former, and that this is the body. And so having thus distinguished them, they concentrated their whole thought and diligence upon the life of the inner man.

This they reasoned must be well-pleasing with God the Creator of all, who seemingly had endowed man's nature with dominion over all things upon earth, not so much by strength of body as by excellence of soul: for of existing things some were inanimate, as stones and stocks; and some partakers of a living force, as the plants that grow out of the earth; and some admitted to share in sensation and the impulse of perception, such as are the irrational animals: but all these were subjected, to the service of the one sole race of mankind, constrained thereto not by vigour and strength of body, but by the exercise of reason and by excellence of soul, whereby they have comprehended that the privilege of rule and royalty over all things upon earth has been granted originally from the Author of the universe.

Starting from this thought, they determined to honour the body and the pleasures of the body no higher than the other creatures upon earth; but the ruling principle in themselves akin, as it were, to the Ruler of all, and the soul's rational and intelligent faculty, godlike and capable of true knowledge, bearing, as it were, the likeness of the God over all, this alone they held in high esteem.

Then as they reflected that there was no other good than God the giver of all good things, they declared that the knowledge of Him, and His friendship, were the consummation of all happiness, because on Him alone depends the cause of life itself, and soul, and body, and all things necessary to them.

To Him therefore they have eagerly consecrated themselves wholly, body and soul, making their whole life dependent upon Him, and determining to devote themselves to Him only, and to nothing else among things visible.

Having then thus been shown to be both lovers of God and beloved by Him, they were declared to be true worshippers and priests of the Most High God, or were deemed worthy to be called 'a chosen generation and a royal priesthood and holy nation of God,' 3 and have bequeathed to their descendants a seed of this true religion.

Do you not think then that we have with reason preferred these to the Greeks, and accepted the histories of godly men among the Hebrews rather than the gods of Phoenicia and Egypt, and the blasphemous absurdities about those gods?

CHAPTER V

OBSERVE then further to what a degree of godly virtue these men are said to have advanced. The Deity having accepted them for the general piety and wisdom of their life, and especially for their devotion to His service, now vouchsafed to them diviner oracles and manifestations of Himself and visions of angels, correcting the defects of their mortal nature by suggestions to guide their conduct, and revealing to them the knowledge of doctrines and precepts worthy of God: so that their minds were enlightened no longer by mere arguments and conjectures, but by the bright light of truth itself; and so inspired by God they pondered over the attainment of things future, as if already present, and prophesied what was to happen universally to the human race.

Such are the examples of the excellence of the Hebrews contained in the much celebrated and truly divine oracles, which we have preferred to the fables and the follies of the Greeks and of our forefathers: for these latter contained the foulest tales concerning their gods, while the other contained religious teaching concerning men beloved of God.

CHAPTER VI

THESE things were known among the forefathers of the Jews from long ages past, far before Moses and the Jewish nation existed. For indeed it is well to make this distinction also clear, that Judaism was not yet in existence at that time, but those of whom I speak were Hebrews alike by name and in character, and as yet neither were nor were called Jews.

And you may know the difference between Hebrews and Jews thus: the latter assumed their name from Judah, from whose tribe the kingdom of Judah was long ages afterwards established, but the former from Eber, who was the forefather of Abraham. And that the Hebrews were earlier than the Jews, we are taught by the sacred writings.

But as to the manner of their religion, Moses was the first author of legislation for the Jews, and taught them to observe a certain day of rest, and to keep it with the utmost care for a reminder of the study of the holy scriptures; he taught them also the distinction between animals that might or might not be eaten, and yearly festivals, and certain bodily purifications, another long period also being more religiously observed in accordance with certain covenants.

But the Hebrews who were earlier in time than Moses, having never heard of all the Mosaic legislation, enjoyed a free and unfettered mode of religion, being regulated by the manner of life which is in accordance with nature, so that they had no need of laws to rule them, because of the extreme freedom of their soul from passions, but had received true knowledge of the doctrines concerning God. But now after remarks of this kind, it is time to go through the written records.

CHAPTER VII

So then the great theologian Moses, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, if ever any was, and understanding well the customs of his forefathers, by way of preface to the sacred laws has committed to indelible records the lives of the forefathers of the Hebrews, and the blessings which God vouchsafed to them, and on the other hand the characters and the punishments of other godless and impious nations, because he thought that this would be a needful lesson for those who were to be taught his laws, both for avoidance of the like customs to those of the wicked, and for encouragement to adopt the life of the godly.

It was needful besides that they should not be ignorant, that before them, and before his own written laws, many of their forefathers by right use of reason had already been honourably distinguished for excellence in religion; who having been called friends of God and prophets, gained in his writings eternal remembrance; who also were no aliens in race to these for whom he was ordaining his laws.

Wherefore also it was the more necessary for them, as being by birth descendants of righteous men beloved of God, to show themselves emulous of the piety of their forefathers, and to be eager to obtain from God equal blessings with those who had begotten them. Nor must they grow sluggish and discouraged as if this were impossible, nor renounce the hope of those blessings for themselves; for they were possible, and had been gained with entire success by their own forefathers; whose portraits he was handing down to those who were being instructed in the things of God, recounting the lives of the men of old, and delineating as in painted likenesses the peculiar virtue of each one.

CHAPTER VIII

NOR is there anything to hinder us from briefly running over their history. First then we will take those before the Mood, according to the contents of Moses' own writing. For, as before, we ought, I think, to examine the ancestral history of the Hebrews from no other sources than their own, since we learned the Egyptian history from Egyptians, and the Phoenician from their own writers, as again the Grecian history from those illustrious among Greeks, and their philosophy from the philosophers, and not from those who were ignorant of philosophy. For from what other source would it be proper to inquire about the healing art than from those who are well skilled in it? In accordance then with this rule, I think we ought to receive the history of the Hebrews from the learned among the Hebrews, and not from any other source.

As then the story holds among them, from the beginning before the Flood, from the first creation of mankind and for the following generations there have been a certain number of righteous men beloved of God: one of whom 'hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God.' 4

Now this shows that to none but the Creator of all things he gave the title both of Lord and God of the universe: for he was persuaded that not only by creative power had He well and orderly disposed the whole, but also, like the lord as it were of a great city, was the ruler of the whole, and dispenser, and master of the house, being at once Lord, and King, and God.

The first to lay to heart the idea and the name of this Being as Lord and God was the godly man of whom I speak, and who in place of all substance, and title, and abundance, or rather in place of all good, 'hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God,' having procured Him for a treasure to himself of blessings both of soul and body.

In consequence of this it is recorded that he was the first to be called among the Hebrews a true man. At all events he is named Enos, which is 'true man,' by a well-applied appellation. For it is said that we ought to consider and to call no other a 'true man' than him who attains to the knowledge of God and to piety, who is at the same time full of knowledge and of reverence.

For those who are not of this character, but differ in nothing from irrational animals, as driven headlong after the belly and lust, the Hebrew Scripture teaches us to call beasts rather than men, being accustomed to use names in their proper meaning.

Accordingly its custom is to call such men now wolves and dogs, and now swine feeding on refuse and delighting in it; and again reptiles and serpents, answering to the manifold forms of wickedness.

But if at any time it is necessary to denote the man of the common multitude and the race itself, again it uses a suitable and natural appellation, and indicates man as a whole by the name of Adam, because it suggests that this is the proper and natural name of the progenitor and forefather of all men, a name implying according to its translation into the Greek language 'the earthborn.'

So Enos is recorded as the first of the beloved of God among the Hebrews, since he first 'hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God,' proving the truly rational faculty of the soul to be both capable of knowledge and of understanding the true worship of the Godhead: the first of which would be a proof of true knowledge of God, and the second of his hope in the God whom he knew.

For not to neglect nor put in a secondary place the true knowledge of God, but ever and through all to 'hope to call upon the name of the Lord God,' partly as lord of the household, and partly as a gracious and good Father, this must be the thrice blessed end of all.

Such then was he who among the Hebrews has been introduced as the first true man, not Adam, the earthborn by name, who for transgressing God's commandment fell from his better lot, but the very first of God's beloved, who 'hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God.'

Judging therefore by sound reasoning we ourselves also were well pleased to imitate such a character as this, and welcomed the statement of the history as profitable and most beneficial to us; and made a vow that, equalling the example of the man of whom I speak, we would call upon the name of the Creator and Lord of all with a steadfast and good hope.

But now after him of whom we have spoken there was another who 'pleased the Lord, and was not to be found,' as Moses says,5 'because God translated him' for the high perfection of his virtue. For difficult it is to find the truly wise.

Such, however, is he who is perfect in God, he who is withdrawn from the converse of the multitude. For the man of a different character, who frequents the marketplaces and courts and taverns and shops and the general crowd, hustling and being hustled, is swallowed up in the very gulf of wickedness. But he who is taken by God, and translated from this world to that, though he cannot be seen or found by men, has become the friend of God, and is found by God.

Him the Hebrews love to name Enoch: and the name would signify the grace of God. We deemed it therefore a blessed thing to emulate the life of this example also as being good.

Again after these a third appeared: Noah who has received testimony as 'a righteous man in his generation.' 6 And the following will be proofs of his righteousness. A great foulness and darkness of indescribable wickedness had overtaken the whole human race, and the giants talked of by every mouth were carrying on with ungodly and impious efforts their wars with God which are still so celebrated: and already the fathers of this their brood, whether they had sprung from some condition mightier than man's nature, or in whatever way endowed, are said to have begun the teaching of curious arts among men, and to have introduced devices of witchcraft and other mischievous sorcery into their life, so that the whole human race had fallen under one sentence of judgement with God.

And so when all were about to be destroyed by one decree, this one man alone, of whom we are now speaking, is found 'righteous in his generation,' together with his family. While therefore all who were upon the earth were being destroyed by a flood, and the earth itself purged from the former evils by a sudden deluge of waters, the friend of God with his sons and their wives were most wonderfully preserved by God, as a spark to kindle the life that was to follow.

This man then also would be a primitive model, a living and breathing image, who had given an example to his posterity of the character that is pleasing to God.

Such were those before the Flood. And there were others again who came after it, conspicuous for piety, whose memory is preserved by the sacred oracles. One of these is announced as 'priest of the Most High God,' called by his Hebrew name a 'king of righteousness.' 7

For all these there was not one word about bodily circumcision, nor yet about the Jewish commandments of Moses: and therefore it is not right either to call them Jews, nor yet Greeks, because they did not believe in more gods than one like Greeks or the other nations. But they would be more properly called Hebrews, either because of Eber, or rather because of the interpretation of the name.

For by interpretation they are a kind of 'passengers,' who have set out on their journey from this world to pass to the contemplation of the God of the universe. For they are recorded to have travelled the straight path of virtue aright by natural reasoning and by unwritten laws, and to have passed beyond carnal pleasures to the life of perfect wisdom and piety.

Among all these then let us count also the celebrated progenitor of the whole nation, Abraham, to whose righteousness the oracles bear witness; again the righteousness not of the law of Moses, for that was not yet in existence, since Moses arose in the seventh generation after Abraham; but nevertheless he also is pronounced to be eminently righteous and pious, like those who have been mentioned above. So at least the Scripture says: 'And Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.' 8 The answer indeed of God foretells that he shall be 'a father of many nations,' and says expressly that 'in him shall all the nations and all the tribes of the earth be blessed,' 9 directly prophesying the things which are being now accomplished in our time.

But this Abraham, after he had been made perfect in righteousness which he had successfully maintained, not by the law of Moses, but by faith, and after the appearances of God which are recorded, when about to be called the father of a true-born son even in his old age, is the first who in accordance with a divine command circumcises himself, and enjoins the performance of this rite upon his posterity, whether as a manifest signification of the great multitude of the children to be born of him, or that the children might have a paternal mark to show whether they were living in emulation of their forefathers, or falling away from their virtue, or for any other causes whatsoever they were, which we have not now leisure to discuss carefully.

Such then was the character of Abraham set forth like the former for our imitation. And next to him Isaac is exhibited as the successor both to his father's knowledge of God and to divine favour, having received this from his father as the noblest and most blessed of all inheritances. United to one wife, once only, say the sacred oracles, he begat children: but being made thereby the father of twin children, he is said to have set this limit to his intercourse with his wife in his extreme self-control.

Here let me bring before you Jacob, who was also called Israel, a man who received a double name in consequence of the unusual eminence of his proper virtues. When exercised indeed in practical habits and modes of life, and experiencing troubles on behalf of religion, he was called Jacob, a name which when translated into the Greek language means a man in training, an athlete; but when afterwards he receives the rewards of victory over his opponents and is crowned, and is already in the enjoyment of the blessings of contemplation, then his name also is changed by the God who communes with him, who both vouchsafes to him a vision of God, and bestows by his new name the rewards of diviner gifts and honours.

And so the answer of God says to him: 'Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name, for thou hast had power with God, and shalt prevail with men' 10---- where Israel indicates 'the man who beholds and contemplates': since the very name when translated means 'a man beholding God.'

Such then was the character of this man, from whom arose the Twelve Tribes of the Jewish nation. And countless things might be told concerning the life of these men, and their philosophic endurance and discipline, some things viewed literally, and some in allegorical suggestions: of which things others have spoken, as well as myself in my treatise 'Concerning the numerous offspring of the men of old.' Such then were these patriarchs.

Besides them I can tell you of another, whose name was Job, whom the sacred oracles testify to have been a man 'blameless, true, just, and devout, abstaining from every evil thing.' 11 Though he did not belong at all to the Jewish race, he has received witness for all right deeds of religion.

Now as to the children of Jacob, they cherished the knowledge of God and the piety inherited from their forefathers, and advanced the fame of the elder Hebrews to a high degree of glory, so that at length they annexed the government of all Egypt.

Joseph indeed having first been crowned with the rewards of chastity, and afterwards having received the government of Egypt, displayed the divinely favoured character of the Hebrews: and him too we have made it our prayer to emulate, though he had been made a slave by the plot of his brethren, a slave too of an Egyptian.

For I pass by all the rest of his advantages in regard to beauty and strength of body and comeliness, though the Scriptures record that he excelled all in prime of beauty: but his qualities of soul how could any one describe, though he purposed to speak his praise in a manner worthy of his virtue.

The story is that he had by nature the stamp of gentle birth, and the nobility of his disposition blooming upon his face: and so excellently was he endowed with the eminent graces of piety, that his soul shone bright in chastity and justice, in prudence and manliness, and above all in knowledge and piety towards the God of all, which his parents are said to have implanted in his soul from the cradle.

So when his master's wife fell madly in love with him, and tried to drag him as young and beautiful into licentious and amorous intercourse, and attempted first to cajole him with words, and then besought him with entreaties, and at last ventured to lay violent hands upon him, and had recourse now to immodest and shameless embraces, the hero recalling the memory of the piety of his forefathers, and showing himself both in words and deeds the religious man and true Hebrew, shakes off the base and licentious woman, putting her aside with a stronger hand, and running away as from some terrible and raging beast finds safety in flight.

Afterwards with sober reasoning he reflects as follows within himself and says: 'If my master from trusting me knoweth none of the things in his house, and hath given into my hands all that is therein, . . . how then shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?' 12 For which the God of the universe, crowning him as a victor with the rewards of virtue, gives over to him the royalty and governance over his masters and over Egypt itself. Moreover, he also as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and not a Jew (because the Jewish nation did not yet exist), has been received among the thrice blessed and most highly favoured friends of God.

But after the Hebrews who have been mentioned, the race of their descendants began to grow into a great multitude, and the Jewish nation, which they constituted, now went on multiplying daily and waxing great, until the influence of the pious conduct of their godly forefathers of old began little by little to be weakened and blunted, while the effects of their intercourse with Egyptians gained so much strength over the multitude of whom I speak, that they forgot the virtue of their forefathers, and came round in their modes of living to like customs with the Egyptians, so that their character seemed to differ in nothing from the Egyptians.

At this point then, when they had turned out such as I have described, the God of their forefathers sends forth Moses as a leader and lawgiver, thus verifying the promises given by the oracles to their progenitors: and then having performed by his hand the wonders that are recorded and the extraordinary signs from heaven, He promulgates a law that was suited to the moral condition of those who heard it. For they were unable through moral weakness to emulate the virtue of their fathers, inasmuch as they were enslaved by passions and sick in soul; so He gave them the polity that corresponded to their condition, ordaining some things openly and clearly, and implying others enigmatically, by suggesting symbols and shadows, but not the naked truth, for them to keep and observe.

And so the Jewish polity began about that time with Moses, and continues in accordance with the voices of their own prophets until the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ. For this also was a prophecy of Moses himself and the prophets who followed, that the customs and ordinances of Moses should not fail before those of the Christ appeared, the ordinances, that is, of the new covenant, which has been proclaimed to all nations through our Saviour; and thus these ordinances found a fulfilment in the way which had been announced.

But since we have briefly described the life of the Hebrews before Moses, and shown the character of their religion, it is time to consider the method of their doctrine also, from the writings of Moses and the prophets who followed him.

CHAPTER IX

FIRST of all then that admirable theologian and lawgiver himself, in founding by his own writing a polity in accordance with religion for the Jewish people, did not think it fit to employ the common and trite preambles to his books; but after he had collected every law enjoining what ought to be done and forbidding what ought not to be done, and the public and civic arrangements concerning their mutual contracts, he thought it right to make his teaching begin with their ancestral theology, because he considered no other instruction to be proper to laws pertaining to religion, than that theology which had come down to him from their forefathers.

He begins therefore with God according to the hereditary doctrines of the theology of their Hebrew progenitors, not as was the wont of Egyptians, nor yet of Phoenicians, or the other nations, who like them degraded the adorable name to a multitude of gods, and regarded the luminaries in the sky as visible gods, and as unseen and invisible gods either the departed from among men, or the daemons of earth and air, according to the statements which we have previously proved.

But having made his whole narrative begin with the universal Cause and Creator of things visible and invisible, he shows that He is the Lawgiver of the constitution of the universe, and establishes Him as king of the world, as of one great city.

He teaches us therefore at the outset to regard Him as the real Author and Ruler not only of the laws which he is himself about to ordain presently for men, but also of the laws of universal nature.

CHAPTER X

IN fact he represents Him as King and Lawgiver of the whole world: for by His decree and power all things have received their being, and by His laws and limitations again the whole duration of time is directed in its course and order.

For by God's word and law first of all the firmament of heaven is firmly fixed, and the heavy and solid earth is wonderfully poised contrary to its proper nature upon the lighter elements: by the divine word and law the alternating course of night and day is carried round, and by God's word and law the sun himself and moon and the circling host of other stars fulfil their proper course in seemly order; and by the law of the universal King the tropical changes, and periodical revolutions, and yearly cycles, and annual seasons are completed in the all-harmonious concert of the universe; by God's law winter gives way to spring, and spring to the next change of seasons, the depths also of ocean surging up in the flood-tides of winter are yet by divine law shut off in their proper seas, so that they dare not transgress the bounds of their sacred laws; and the dry substance of the earth, being watered by streams of rain and snowstorms supplied likewise by divine law in due measure, brings forth innumerable kinds of plants and animals: in a word, nature the universal mother, subjected to God's command, obeys the divine laws and the counsel of the all-ruling God.

For not without design, nor as it chanced, nor by spontaneous and irrational impulse, has this so vast system been arranged; nor is this great and most beautiful construction the work of a causeless nature; but it is a creation of the all-wise Architect of the universe, and is directed by the same Being's words and sacred laws.

Having begun from this point, and assigned the laws which concern the nature of the universe before treating of human legislation, the prophet exhorted men before all things to give their mind to God the universal King, and not carelessly to forsake His laws; since the sun himself, the heaven, and the world, the earth and all things upon earth, and all that are considered works of nature serve His commandments and ordinances and sacred laws and words.

Wherefore, in just consequence, even more ought the human race, being no small part of the whole, to adhere closely to the divine ordinances, and not be surpassed by the partial elements. For in the beginning the earth received its law from Him who said: 'Let the earth bring forth grass, yielding seed after its kind, and fruit-tree bearing fruit.' 13 And at His word the earth, exhibiting its readiness to obey His law, never yet even to the present time disregarded the divine command.

Thus also when God said: 'Let the waters bring forth the moving things that have living souls, and fowls that fly in the firmament of heaven:' 14 at the word, the element of water performed its work, and is now still seen rendering its obedience to His law.

If then sun and moon and stars, having been appointed by the divine law to perform their proper courses, and 'to be also for signs and for seasons and for days, and for years,' 15 do not disregard their code of laws, what excuse can still be left for you to obtain pardon if you despise the laws of God?

By this preliminary teaching the admirable author convinced us, and with good reason made us emulous of his own divine knowledge and piety; because we have been unable to find anything like this among the theologians of the nations before mentioned.

Then after the primary theology he passes on to the second doctrine which is both physical and philosophical. That is to say, next to the knowledge of God, and the arrangement of the universe, he advances in order to that which is by nature second; the doctrine, that is, concerning the nature of man, because next to the knowledge of God it is necessary for one to know himself. For this reason he next teaches us what man is, and what it is that leads him to the knowledge and worship of God, and what is the life that corresponds to the ruling part of man. Having therefore drawn the distinction, between body and soul, he defines the true man as placed in the soul, partaking of an intelligent and incorporeal and rational essence, as having been created after the image of God; but the body as being an earthly envelope of the soul: and to these he adds a third, 'the breath of life,' 16 a power uniting and combining that which was taken from the ground with that which had been made after the image of God.

He relates also that the man thus described has his first abode in the thrice-blessed Paradise of God, full of immortal and eternal blessings; but that having been subjected to the law of God, like the rest of the creatures in the beginning of the world, he through heedlessness and transgression of the divine command forfeited this most enviable life.

This is the philosophy which Moses teaches in the preface to his sacred laws, making as it were a proclamation that we are not to disregard our proper dignity, and the likeness to the divine nature which we received, and from which we had been further endowed with the immortality of the soul; because it is not lawful for a king's image to be obliterated. But the original and true image of the God of the universe is His own Word, who is very Wisdom, and very Life, and Light, and Truth, and whatsoever man can conceive of noble and good: and the human mind is an image of an image, inasmuch as it is acknowledged to have been made after the image of God.

And for those who were to observe the sacred laws, this preliminary instruction he thought it necessary to receive, and to remember what was the part of them taken out of the earth and to be resolved into earth again, and what the better part in us like to God, and how we ought to behave towards each of the said parts, and not to treat with outrage and impiety the man after the image of God, nor to defile him with foul and unlawful practices; but ever to keep the desire for that first and thrice-blessed abode and life, and to be eager to recur to it, making it our prayer to win that first and thrice-blessed life and dignity, and also to prepare here already for our departure thither; because otherwise it is not possible for the profane and unpurified to tread those sanctuaries, from which the first man through heedlessness has fallen by despising the divine command.

After this the Hierophant adds another most conclusive doctrine, teaching us not to doubt that there is lying in wait for each of us an evil daemon, a slanderer and hater of goodness, plotting from the beginning against the salvation of men.

He calls him 'Dragon' and 'Serpent,' 17 black and a lover of darkness, full of venom and wickedness: and says that he through envy of our divinely inspired life, still tries to trip up and drag down every one of those who are adhering to God; and that by his deceit the forefathers of our race fell from their diviner lot: wherefore also we must be always on the watch against the mischievous crafts of the said daemon.

But why should I thus anticipate, when I ought at once to describe the several things which I have stated out of the Scriptures themselves? Let us then begin with God, after having in the first place invoked His aid through our Saviour.
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

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Part 2 of 3

CHAPTER XI

THEIR system then sets forth the first principle of theology by beginning from the power which made and organized the universe, not by syllogistic reasoning or plausible arguments, but in a more dogmatic and didactic manner of divination by aid of the Holy Ghost, under whose inspiration Moses commenced his doctrine of God in the following manner: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' 18

Then he says: 'God said, Let there be light, and there was light.' 19 And again: 'God said, Let there be a firmament: and it was so.' 20 And again: 'God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, yielding seed after his kind and in his likeness, and every fruit-tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, after his kind, upon the earth: and it was so.' 21 And again: 'God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years: and it was so.' 22And again: 'God said, Let the waters bring forth moving creatures of living souls after their kind, and all the fowls of the heaven after their kind: and it was so.' 23 And again: 'Let the earth bring forth four-footed beasts and creeping things and wild beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so.' 24

The Scripture then by saying in these places 'God said' represents the divine command, and that God willed all things to be thus made, not, however, that we need suppose Him to speak with a voice and words. But summing up the whole statement, it says: 'This is the book of the generation of heaven, and earth, in the day that God made the heaven and the earth, and all things that are therein.' 25

Such is the theology of the Hebrews, instructing us that all things subsist by the creative Word of God: and afterwards it teaches that the whole world was not left thus desolate by Him who constructed it, as an orphan by his father, but that it is for ever administered by the providence of God; so that God is not only the Organizer and Maker of the whole, but also the preserver, and administrator, and king, and ruler, presiding for ever over the sun itself and moon and stars and the whole heaven and world, overlooking all things with His great eye and divine power, and present with all things both in heaven and earth, and arranging and administering all things in order.

And in the very same way the succeeding prophets also with corresponding inspiration spake at one time in the person of God Himself, saying: 'I am a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God far off. Shall a man do anything in secret, and I not know it? Do not I fill the heaven and the earth? saith the Lord.' 26

And at another time they spake of God thus: 'Who measured the water with His hand, and the heaven with a span, and all the earth with His fist? Who set the mountains by measure, and the hills by a balance? Who knew the mind of the Lord, and who became His counsellor?' 27 And again: 'Who set the heaven for a canopy, and spread it out as a tent to dwell in.' 28 And again: 'Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath showed all these.' 29 And then: 'The LORD God that created the heaven, and fixed it, that established the earth and that which is therein, and giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk thereon, I am the LORD God.' 30 And presently: 'I stretched forth the heaven by Myself, and established the earth.31 I am the LORD God: there is none beside Me.' 32

And again: 'Thus shall ye say unto them: The gods which made not the heaven and the earth, let them perish from the face of the earth, and from under the heaven. The Lord who made the earth by His power, established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heaven, and brought up clouds from the end of the earth; He made lightnings for rain, and brought forth winds out of His treasures. Every man is become too brutish for knowledge.' 33

And again: 'Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, and where can I be hidden from Thy presence? If I go up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, there Thou art. If I should take my wings in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me.' 34

These and the like are the statements of the theologians later than Moses, who were themselves also Hebrews, and spake concerning God in accordance with their earliest forefathers. But listen now to those who were before Moses, men beloved of God and highly blessed, the first Hebrews, and the very first of them all, Abraham, who has been pronounced the forefather of the whole Jewish race.

'And Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I will lift up mine hand unto the Most High God, who created the heaven and the earth.' 35 And even before Abraham Melchizedek is introduced as priest of the Most High God, blessing Abraham in these words: 'Blessed be Abraham of the Most High God, who delivered thine enemies into thy hand: and blessed be the God who created the heaven and the earth.' 36

In addition to this the narrative introduces Abraham as conversing thus with his servant: 'Put thine hand under my thigh, and I will make thee swear by the LORD the God of heaven, and the God of the earth.' 37 And he adds: 'The LORD the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that took me from my father's house, and from the land where I was born.' 38

Besides all these passages, in the appearance of God to Moses himself, when Moses asked whom he must believe God to be, the answer says: 'I AM THAT I AM. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.' 39

Let these extracts suffice as examples from among ten thousand in the theology of the Hebrews. Is it then right to set in comparison with them the theologies of the wise men of Greece? Some of whom declared that there is no God at all, and others assert that the stars are gods, and that they are red-hot masses of metal, fixed in the sky like studs and plates, and others that God is an artistic fire proceeding in a regular course; and others that the world is not administered by divine providence, but by a kind of irrational nature; and others that things in heaven alone are administered by God, but not things on earth also; and again that the world is uncreated, and was not made by God at all, but subsists spontaneously and accidentally; and others that the complex whole is made up of certain indivisible and minute corpuscles devoid of life and reason.

The doctrines, however, drawn from the oracles of the Hebrews concerning the God of the universe are briefly such as I have described: and after the God of the universe the next thing is to review the doctrines of the Hebrew philosophy concerning the first principle of things created.

CHAPTER XII

THALES of Miletus declared that the first principle of all things is water, Anaximenes the air, Heracleitus fire, Pythagoras numbers, Epicurus and Democritus corporeal atoms, Empedocles the four elements. Let us therefore look also at the oracles of the Hebrews.

Next to the Being of the God of the universe, which is without beginning and uncreate, incapable of mixture and beyond all conception, they introduce a second Being and divine power, which subsisted as the first beginning of all originated things and was originated from the first cause, calling it Word, and 'Wisdom, and Power of God.' 40

And the first to teach us this is Job, saying: 'But whence was wisdom found? And what is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the way thereof, nor yet was it found among men,41... but we have heard the fame thereof. The Lord established the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof.' 42

And David also somewhere in the Psalms, addressing Wisdom by another name, says: 'By the word of the LORD were the heavens established':43 for in this manner he celebrated the Word of God the Organizer of all things. Moreover, his son Solomon also speaks as follows in the person of Wisdom herself, saying: 'I Wisdom made counsel my dwelling, and knowledge and understanding I called unto me.44 By me kings reign, and rulers decree justice.'45 And again:

'The LORD created me as the beginning of His ways unto His works, from everlasting He founded me, in the beginning or ever He made the earth, and before the depths were made, 46. . . before the mountains were settled, and before all hills He begat me;47 . . . when He was preparing the heaven I was beside Him;48 . . . and as He was making safe the fountains beneath the heaven,49 . . . I was with Him arranging. I it was in whom He daily delighted, and I was rejoicing before Him in every season when He was rejoicing in having completed the habitable world.' 50

So Solomon speaks in Proverbs. And the words also which follow are somewhere spoken in Wisdom's own person: 'But what wisdom is, and how she came into being, I will declare, and will not hide mysteries from you; but I will trace her out from the beginning of creation.' 51 To which he afterwards adds: 'For she is an understanding spirit, holy, alone in kind, manifold, subtil, freely moving, clear, undefiled, . . . all-powerful, all-surveying, and going through all intelligent, pure, and most subtil spirits. 52

'For wisdom is more moving than any motion; she penetrateth and passeth through all things by reason of her pureness. For she is a breath of the power of God, and a clear effluence of the glory of the Almighty: therefore doth nothing defiled find entrance into her. For she is an effulgence from everlasting light, an unspotted mirror of the working of God, and an image of His goodness. . . . And she reaches from end to end with full strength: and sweetly doth she order all things.' 53

Moreover, the sacred Scripture introduces this divine Word in various ways as sent from the Father for the salvation of mankind: and so it relates that it was He who showed Himself to Abraham and to Moses and to the other prophets beloved of God, and taught them so many things in oracles, and prophesied the things to come, whenever it mentions that God or the Lord appearedand entered into converse with the prophets.

That He also became known to all men as having been sent by the Greater to be a Saviour of the sick and a physician of souls, the Scripture thus declares: 'He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.' 54 And again at another time it says: 'His Word shall run swiftly.' 55 Whence the teaching of the Gospel also in renewing the doctrine of the prophets and fathers makes the theology clear in the following way: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made, that hath been made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.' 56

With good reason then does Moses in his perfect wisdom, when commencing his account of the creation of the world, inspired by the same Spirit declare that in the beginning aforesaid 'God created the heaven and the earth'; and introduces God communing with Him, as with His own and first-born Word, upon the creation of man, in the passage where he writes: 'And God said, Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.'57

This the Psalmist also hinted, when describing the First Cause he said: 'He spake, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created':58 plainly supposing the direction and command of the First Cause to the Second, as of a father to a son. For. of course it is quite manifest that every one who speaks at all speaks to another, and he who commands, commands some other than himself.

But expressly mentioning again two Lords both together, that is to say Father and Son, Moses in his narrative of the punishment of the ungodly speaks thus: 'And the LORD rained brimstone and fire from the LORD upon Sodom and Gomorrah.' 59

In accordance with which David also said in a Psalm: 'The LORD said unto my lord, sit thou on My right hand, until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet.' 60 And further on he hinted at His secret and utterly ineffable generation, saying: 'From the womb I begat thee before the morning star.' 61

Lest, however, you should suppose that these are my subtleties, I will offer you as interpreter of the meaning of the Scripture a man of Hebrew race, who received from his forefathers an accurate knowledge of the history of his country, and had learned the doctrine from his teachers; that is, if you accept Philo as such a man. Listen then to him, how he interprets the divine utterances.

CHAPTER XIII

[PHILO IUDAEUS] 62 'WHY as if speaking of another God does He say, "In the image of God I made man," 63 and not in the image of Himself? With consummate beauty and wisdom is this oracle expressed. For nothing mortal could be made in the likeness of the Most High God and Father of the universe, but in the likeness of the second God, who is the Word of the former. For it was right that the rational character in the soul of man should be impressed on it by the divine Word; since the God who is prior to the Word is superior to every rational nature; and it was not lawful for any created thing to be made like to Him who is set above the Word in the most excellent and unique nature.'

This is what I wish to quote from Philo's first book of Questions and Answers. But the same author in the first book On Agriculture also calls the Word the First-born Son of God, in the following phrase:

'All these things then God the Shepherd and King guides according to justice, having set over them as a law His own right Reason (Word) and First-born Son, who is to receive the charge of this sacred flock, as a lieutenant of a great king.' 64

Also again in the second book the same author writes as follows word for word:

'If therefore any one wishes to escape the difficulties which present themselves in the questions thus raised, let him say freely that nothing material is so strong as to be able to support the weight of the world. But the eternal Word of the everlasting God is the most strong and firm support of the universe.

'He it is who, being extended from the middle to the ends and from the extremities to the middle, runs the full length of nature's invincible course, bringing all the parts together and binding them fast. For the Father who begat Him made Him an indissoluble bond of the universe.

'Naturally therefore will neither all earth be dissolved by all water which its bosom contains, nor will fire be extinguished by air, nor on the other hand will air be burnt up by fire, since the divine Word sets Himself as a boundary of the elements, like a vowel between consonants, in order that the universe may be harmonious as in the case of music expressed in writing, since He by the persuasion of His concurrence mediates and reconciles the threatenings of the adverse elements.' 65

Thus speaks Philo. And Aristobulus also, another wise man of the Hebrews, who flourished under the rule of the Ptolemies, confirms the doctrine as inherited from his fathers, addressing to Ptolemy himself the Interpretation of the sacred laws, in which he speaks as follows.

CHAPTER XIV

[ARISTOBULUS] 66 'BUT the same metaphor might be used also in the case of wisdom: for all light comes from it. Wherefore also some who were of the Peripatetic School have said that it holds the place of a torch: for by following it continuously men will be kept undisturbed through their whole life. But more clearly and more beautifully one of our forefathers, Solomon, said that wisdom subsisted before heaven and earth. This accords with what was said before.'

These then and such as these are the philosophical opinions which the Hebrews have held on this point. Is not this then of all statements the most honourable to God, as referring the beginning of the constitution of the universe to the rational and all-wise power of God, or more precisely to the very Wisdom and very Word of God, rather than to the lifeless and irrational elements?

Be that as it may; such are the opinions of the Hebrews concerning the beginning of the universe. And now let us consider what they teach concerning the constitution of the rational creatures, who came after that first Beginning.

CHAPTER XV

NEXT to the being of God the Universal King, which is without beginning and unbegotten, they teach that Beginning which is begotten from no other source than the Father, being both First-born and fellow worker of the Father's will, and perfectly likened unto Him.

And this Beginning is before all originate things which followed, on which account also they are wont to call it the Image of God, and Power of God, and Wisdom of God, and Word of God, nay further the Great 'Captain of the host of the Lord,' 67 and 'Angel of the great Counsel.' 68

But the intelligent and rational Powers which came after this Beginning pass man's nature to describe, both for multitude and for variety of form, except as far as it is possible to think thereon by the examples drawn from the analogy of things visible, sun, moon, and stars, and heaven itself which encompasses them all together within and beneath itself.

'For there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars,' says the divine Apostle; 'for one star differeth from another star in glory.' 69

In this way, therefore, we must think of the order in incorporeal and intelligent Beings also, the unutterable and infinite power of the God of the universe embracing all of them together; and the second place, next to the Father, being held by the power of the Divine Word, at once creative and illuminating. For which reason also the Hebrews are wont to call Him 'True Light,' 70 and 'Sun of Righteousness.' 71

And next after this second Being there is set, as in place of a moon, a third Being, the Holy Spirit, whom also they enroll in the first and royal dignity and honour of the primal cause of the universe, He also having been appointed by the Maker of the universe for a ruling principle of the created things which came after, those I mean which are lower in rank, and need the help which He supplies.

But this Spirit, holding a third rank, supplies those beneath out of the superior powers in Himself, notwithstanding that He also receives from another, that is from the higher and stronger, who, as we said, is second to the most high and unbegotten nature of God the King of all: from whom indeed God the Word is Himself supplied, and drawing as it were from an ever-flowing fountain which pours forth Deity, imparts copiously and ungrudgingly of the radiance of His own light to all, and especially to the Holy Spirit Himself, who is closer to Him than all and very near; and then to the intelligent and divine powers after Him.

But the Unoriginate Beginning of the whole, which is the fountain of all good, and cause of Deity and life as well as of light and every virtue, being also first of the first and beginning of all beginnings, or rather far beyond any beginning and any first and every thought that can be expressed or conceived, communicates wholly whatsoever is comprehended in His ineffable powers to His First-begotten alone, as being alone able to contain and receive that abundance of the Father's perfections which by the rest can neither be reached nor contained.

But the partial gifts He dispenses to those who are in part worthy through the ministration and mediatorship of the Second, in the measure attainable by each: and of these gifts the perfect and supremely holy have been bestowed by the Father on Him who is third from Himself, and receives the gifts through the Son, but is ruler and leader of those who follow.

Hence the whole body of Hebrew theologians, after Him who is God over all, and after Wisdom His Firstborn, regard as God the third holy Power which they call Holy Spirit, and by which they were enlightened and inspired.

Next after heaven, and sun, and moon, they say 'star differeth from star in glory.' 72 Now though for mortal nature it is not possible to find the number of the stars, nevertheless the oracles of the Hebrews say that God the King of All is not ignorant of the numbers and of the names of the heavenly host. Wherefore in them it is said: 'Who telleth the numbers of the stars, and calleth them all by names.' 73

Thus then after those first luminaries which are reckoned among incorporal powers, and excel in power and essence of intellectual light, there are countless tribes and families of stars and a vast difference incomprehensible to us, but not to the Maker of the universe.

And therefore, to represent them as comprehensible to God alone, one of their theologians says: 'Ten thousand times ten thousand ministered unto Him, and thousand thousands stood before Him': 74 showing by the number that to God they are comprehensible, but by the greatness of the number that to us they are infinite; in accordance with our custom of calling things that are many and infinite 'ten thousand,' as an expression of exceeding multitude.

A certain other prophet also, in discoursing of their nature, thus speaks of the Maker of them all as divine, saying: 'O LORD, my God, how greatly art Thou magnified; Thou didst clothe Thyself with honour and majesty. Who coverest Thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heaven like a curtain: . . . who maketh His angels winds, and His ministers a flaming fire.' 75

Now do not suppose that the beings here mentioned partake of the nature of this our mortal and earthly fire, nor yet of the winds proceeding from the irrational nature of air: but just as God Himself, though He is in His nature incorporeal and immaterial, and pure mind, or rather above mind, and above all reason, is yet called in a figurative way wind, and fire, and light, and certain other names adapted to mortal ears; so the divine Scriptures address the intelligent and rational Beings, angels, and archangels, and spirits, and divine powers, and heavenly hosts, principalities, and powers, and thrones, and dominions,76 as if they were myriads upon myriads of stars and luminaries, and say that the Sun of Righteousness and His fellow the Holy Spirit rule and preside over all.77

But all of them, with the Son Himself and Holy Spirit, all intelligent and rational living beings, together with those that are seen in heaven, and the heaven itself and all that it contains within it----all these are commanded by the sacred and prophetic Scripture to render to Him alone who is God over all, who through all and in all is universal King and Ruler and cause of the whole world, as being the Framer and Maker and Guardian and Saviour of all, to render, I say, to Him His becoming praise and the worship that is proper to God, saying: 'Praise ye God from the heavens: praise Him in the heights. Praise Him, all ye angels of His: praise Him, all His hosts. Praise Him, sun and moon: praise Him, all ye stars and light. Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for He spake, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created; He made them fast for ever and ever: He gave them a law, and it shall not pass away.' 78

Such are the doctrines received from the Hebrews, which we have preferred to the erroneous polytheism and daemonism of the Greeks, knowing and duly honouring divine powers as servants and ministers of God the universal King, but confessing Him alone as God, and worshipping Him alone, whom heaven itself, and all things that are in heaven, and things above heaven were taught to worship and praise and celebrate as God: for even the Only-begotten of God and First-born of the whole world, the Beginning of all, commands us to believe His Father alone true God, and to worship only Him.

CHAPTER XVI

NEXT we must consider what the Hebrew oracles deliver to us concerning the adverse power also. They teach that the divine powers set over the whole world by the will of the Father----'the ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall inherit salvation' 79----and the holy angels of God and archangels, and all the intelligent nature which is the minister of blessings, being full of light, and almoner of all the blessings that are bestowed on men from God, are the attendants of God the sole King of all; and next that, like the stars of heaven, they circle round the Sun of Righteousness 80 and His fellow the Holy Spirit, and enjoy the supply of their light, and for that reason are naturally compared to the luminaries in heaven.

But the nature which is turned away from these, and for its own wickedness is deprived of the company of the better spirits, and contrary to the former has exchanged light for darkness, Scripture calls by the names which befit the badness of their disposition.

The leader for instance of their fall, who had been the cause both for himself and for others of their apostasy from, the better angels, as having fallen down utterly beneath the piety of the more godlike, and wrought for himself the venom of malice and impiety, and become the author of darkness and folly in consequence of his wilful departure from the light----him the Scripture is wont to call dragon and serpent, and black and creeping, an engenderer of deadly poison, a wild beast, and a lion devouring mankind, and the adder among reptiles.

The divine words say that the cause of his falling away was frenzy of mind and distraction of thought, and describe as follows both his fall and his insanity: 'How is the day star, which did rise in the morning, fallen from heaven! He is crushed to the ground, which did send forth to all the nations. And thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into the heaven; above the stars of heaven will I set my throne. ... I will be like unto the Most High.' 81

And again: 'Thus saith the Lord: Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I have dwelt in the habitation of God.' 82 And again: 'Thou art the sealing of the pattern, and crown of beauty; thou wast born in the pleasaunce of the paradise of God; every precious stone was thy covering,' 83 and the rest.

And to this he adds: 'Thou wast in the holy mountain of God, in the midst of the stones of fire; thou wast blameless in thy days, from the day that thou wast created, till thine unrighteousness was found in thee.84 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thy knowledge was corrupted with thy beauty; because of the multitude of thy sins I have cast thee to the ground.' 85

By these passages then we have learned directly the former association of him of whom we speak with the diviner powers, and his fall from the better sort through his own arrogance and rebellion against God. Under him there is besides a countless race involved in similar offences, which for their impiety fell from the lot of the pious angels, and in exchange for their former lightsome and divine surrounding, and their honour in the King's palace, and a life passed among the blessed and angelic choirs, received by the just judgement and sentence of the mighty God an abode in Tartarus, the place befitting the impious, which is called by the divine word the abyss, and darkness, not such as with us, but that which is made known by the divine oracles.

And of this race a small fragment left on the earth and in the sublunar air to exercise the athletes of piety, has become a joint cause of the polytheistic delusion of mankind which is no better than atheism.

But upon these also holy Scripture has set appropriate names, more plainly when it calls them evil spirits and daemons, 'principalities and powers, world-rulers, and spiritual hosts of wickedness'; 86 but figuratively, when it is encouraging the beloved of God to have no fear of the crowd of hostile daemons, by what it says: 'Thou shalt go upon the asp and adder: the lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.' 87

A proof of their hatred of God is that they wish themselves to be proclaimed gods, and steal away for themselves the honours intended for God, and attempt to entice the simple by divinations and oracles as lures and baits, and draw them away from looking up to the God of the whole world, and drag them down into the pit of utter destruction in impious, and godless superstition. Wherefore an effort to flee with all speed from their deceits was made by the Hebrews alone from the earliest ages, by expressly teaching that 'all the gods of the nations are daemons.' 88

But now, by God's grace we may say, through our Saviour's teaching in the Gospel all nations from all parts of the earth have been delivered from the bondage of the daemons, and sing the praise of that God whom we have learned to be the only Saviour, and King, and God of the whole world.

CHAPTER XVII

HERE again the Phoenician and Egyptian account of the origin of animal life introduced spontaneous generation of all living beings upon the earth including even man, and described one and the same nature as springing forth in the like fortuitous manner from the earth, supposing that there is no difference at all between the irrational and the rational soul and being.

These at least were the doctrines set forth in the statements of their writers which have been previously quoted. But again with good reason we have preferred the Hebrews as having defined the circumstances of the original constitution of man with great beauty and wisdom and truth.

For the one part of ourselves they say is divine and immortal, being neither carnal nor corporeal by nature, and this they say is the true man made in the image and likeness of God; and he is the work of God, and not of chance nor of spontaneous growth, but of the universal Cause Himself, when by divine decree He had willed that the earthly regions should not be without a share of intelligent and rational being, that so the befitting hymn of praise should ascend to Him from all creatures in heaven and earth and sky, which possess reason and are able to apprehend His divine nature.

Thus then it is contained in the oracles of the Hebrews: 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness: and God created man, in the image of God created He him.' 89 And again: 'And God took dust from the earth and formed man, and breathed breath of life into his face; and man became a living soul.' 90 This again is interpreted by Philo the Hebrew, adding yet the following to his sayings which have been quoted.

CHAPTER XVIII

[PHILO IUDAEUS] 91 'BUT whereas the others, who said that our mind is a part of the ethereal nature, connected man by kinship with the ether; the great Moses did not liken the form of the reasonable soul to any of the things created, but said that it was a genuine coinage of that divine and invisible Spirit, marked and stamped by the seal of God, the impress of which is the eternal Word. "For God," says he, "breathed breath of life into his face, and man became a living soul." 92 So that he who receives that breath must be made like to Him that sends it forth.

'Wherefore also it is said that man was made iu the image of God, but not in the image of anything created. It naturally followed then that, as man's soul was fashioned after the likeness of the archetypal Word of the First Cause, so his body, being raised up toward heaven the purest portion of the universe, should lift its eyes on high.'

So far Philo. With good reason then does the sacred Scripture affirm that man was not made in the same way as the other animals; because some of them came forth from the earth at one command of God the King of all, and others again at His bidding flew up out of the watery element: but of the living creatures upon earth only the most beloved of God, ourselves, have been made in our soul after the image and likeness of God. And in reference to this man is also regarded as having the nature of a ruler and a king, and is the only one of the creatures upon earth that has powers of reasoning, creating, judging, and legislating, and is capable of learning arts and sciences. For only the soul in man is an intelligent and rational essence, in which the other animals on earth do not participate.

They therefore are serfs, and fill the place of servants to man: while he as lord and ruler enslaves and subjugates those that are far superior in bodily strength, but inferior by their privation in regard to the intelligent essence.

He therefore, they say, was created with a certain singular excellence after the image and likeness of God by God Himself. And for this reason he is able to attain to a presentation of the concept of God, and to form perceptions of wisdom and righteousness and every virtue, to calculate also the courses of sun and moon and stars, and the cycles of days and seasons, thanks to the kinship with heaven, which man alone of mortal things exhibits.

But the outward frame enveloping this part of man is essentially different in kind and born of the earth, yet this also itself is a work of God taken from earth and returning to earth. And therefore we ought to care for this part as much as a master cares for a brute beast when distressed, and to treat it gently, and feed it just as a slave well attached to the service of human life; but the master within, as being of noble birth and in nature akin to God, we must honour in liberal ways, as having also received honour from the First Cause of all.

The oracles at least say that the Universal King, having adorned man's original nature with divine powers and with the likeness of God, allotted his first mode of life in accordance with the gifts which He had bestowed, and associated him with divine companies in a Paradise of good things.

Also that God on His part had in the beginning as an all-kind Father bestowed these blessings upon him, but that he by wilful choice fell away from these happier conditions, and for neglect of a divine command passed by exchange into the condition of mortality.

Wherefore also it is our highest concern to make piety our very first aim, and to amend the first transgression by a sequel of happier omen; and so to hasten on to the recurrence and restoration of our proper state. For the true end of man's nature is not here on earth sinking down into ruin and destruction, but in yonder place from which the first man fell away.

And therefore it is necessary to win back again the purity and likeness to God of the intelligent being within us; and to this all men must zealously strive with all their might to return, by devotion to piety and virtue.

Such were the philosophic doctrines concerning man's nature taught by the Hebrews originally, before any Greeks had even come into the world: for these being of yesterday and quite newly sprung up from the earth, designed to steal away the doctrines of barbarians, and did not abstain from those of the Hebrews, as our discourse in its progress will presently show.

But since it was peculiar to the Hebrew doctrines to regard the Supreme God as the one sole Creator of all things, including the substance underlying bodies, which the Greeks call hylé (matter), whereas countless multitudes of barbarians and Greeks alike stood opposed to this opinion, some of them declaring that matter was the source of evil and subsisted without beginning, and others that in its own nature it had neither quality nor shape, but by the power of God had acquired its orderly arrangement together with its qualities; we must therefore show that the opinion of the Hebrews upholds a far better doctrine, approaching the question with logical demonstration, and overthrowing the opposite argument with correct reasoning.

I shall quote then the words of those who before our time have thoroughly examined the doctrine, and first of Dionysius, who in the first book of his exercitations Against Sabellius writes on the subject before us as follows:

CHAPTER XIX

[DIONYSIUS ALEXANDRINUS] 93 'NOR are they free from impiety who regarding matter as unoriginate give it over into the hand of God for orderly arrangement, inasmuch as being originally passible and changeable it yields to the alterations impressed upon it by God.

'For let them explain clearly from what source like and unlike originally subsist in God and in matter. For then we must further think of some higher than each of them, a thought which it is not lawful to entertain concerning God. For whence came it that they are unoriginate, a property said to be alike in both, and whence a third conceived to be higher than either of them?

'For if God is the absolutely unoriginate, and if the being unoriginate is, as one might say, His very essence, matter cannot be unoriginate; for matter and God are not the same: but if each is what it properly is, namely matter and God, while the unoriginate is attached to both, this manifestly is different from each of them, and earlier and higher than both.

'The idea however that these subsist together from the beginning, or rather that this one of them, the matter, subsists of itself, is utterly overthrown by the difference of their opposite conditions.

'For let them tell us the cause for which, though both be unoriginate, God on the one hand is impassible, unchangeable, immovable, actively operative, while the other is on the contrary passible, changeable, unstable, transformable.

'How then could they harmonize and agree in their course? Did God adapt Himself to the nature of matter, and so work it artistically? But this surely is absurd, that God should work like men, as a goldsmith, and a stonecutter, and in all the other handicrafts in which materials can be shaped and modelled.

'But if He gave to matter such qualities as He chose according to His own wisdom, and set His seal upon it in the manifold forms and varieties of shape and pattern of His own workmanship, then this is both a reverent and true account, and gives additional confirmation to the belief that God the real substance of the universe is unoriginate,

'For together with the being unoriginate He also combined His proper mode of existence. There is much then to be said against these men also, but it does not lie in our way now: yet in comparison with the most atheistical polytheists these are the more reverent.'

Such are the extracts from Dionysius: but listen also to what Origen says.

CHAPTER XX

[ORIGEN] 94 'IF it is a difficulty to any one that, because of the case of human artists, he cannot admit that God furnished the existing world without any substratum of unoriginate matter, since neither can a statuary make his proper work without bronze, nor a carpenter without timber, nor a builder without stones, we must question him about God's power, whether God, if He wills to establish whatever He chooses, there being no defect nor weakness in His will, cannot establish that which He chooses.

'For as, according to all who bring in providence in their own argument, the qualities which were non-existent are established by Him as He chooses for the orderly arrangement of the whole by His unspeakable power and wisdom, so, the reason being the same in both cases, His will is able to bring into existence all the substance that He needs.

'For to those who will not admit that this is so we shall put the question, whether it does not follow from their argument that God by a lucky chance found the substance unorigiuate, without which, had it not been supplied to Him by its unoriginate character, He could have produced no work at all, but would have continued to be no Creator, no Father, no Benefactor, no Good Being, nor anything else that is with good reason predicated of God.

'Whence also came the measurement of just so much of the substratum of matter as to suffice for the establishment of a world of the actual size? For it would seem as if some providence anterior to God must have supplied Him with the matter, providing that the art existing in Him should not have mere empty ideas from the want of any substance, with which He could co-operate in embellishing the world with so great beauty.

'Whence also has matter become capable of receiving every quality which God wills, unless God Himself made it for His own use just so much and such as He wished to have?

'At all events if we admit as a hypothesis that matter is unoriginate, this is what we shall say to those who wish to have it so; if without any providence supplying the, material substance to God it has become such as it is, what could providence, if it existed, have done more than their spontaneous chance?

'And if God Himself, when matter was non-existent, chose to prepare it, what would His wisdom and divine power have done more than that which, as supposed, arose from the unoriginate? For if it is found that the same result would have been produced by providence, which was produced even without providence, what reason is there why we should not dispense with the Demiurge and the Artificer in the case of the world-order also?

'For just as it is absurd in the case of this ordered world, so skilfully contrived, to say that it has become such without help from a wise Artificer, so it is also equally unreasonable that the matter, being of such extent, and such quality, and so pliable to the Artificer, the Word of God, has been unoriginate.

'In answer, however, to those who compare the fact that no workman makes anything without material, we must say that they are comparing dissimilar cases. For providence supplies every artificer with his material, as coming from some former art either human or divine. This then will at present suffice in answer to those who, because it is said, "And the earth was invisible and unarranged,'' 95 think that material substance is unoriginate.'

So far this author. But the Hebrew Philo also in his book Concerning Providence gives the following account of matter:
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Re: Praeparatio Evangelica, by Eusebius of Caesarea

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Part 3 of 3

CHAPTER XXI

[PHILO IUDAEUS] 96 'BUT concerning the quantity of the material substance, if it has indeed been created, there is this to be said. With a view to the creation of the world God estimated an exactly sufficient quantity of matter, so that there might be neither deficiency nor excess. For it would have been absurd that, whereas particular artists whenever they are making anything, and especially any costly thing, measure the quantity of materials that will suffice, yet He who devised numbers and measures and their equivalent relations to each other, should not have taken thought for a sufficiency.

'I shall therefore confidently assert that the world needed neither less nor more material substance for its furnishing, since otherwise it would not have been perfect, nor complete in all its parts; whereas now it has been well wrought and completed out of a perfect supply of material substance. For it is the proper mark of a workman thoroughly skilled in his art to see that he has sufficient material before beginning any fabric.

'Although therefore a man, even if he were superior in knowledge to all others, being unable entirely to escape from error which is natural to mortals, might perhaps be deceived in regard to the quantity of the matter, when practising his art, adding to it at one time as too little, and at another time taking from it as too much; yet He who is a kind of fountain of all knowledge was not likely to supply Himself with too little or too much of anything, inasmuch as He employs measures elaborated to a marvellous exactness, all satisfactory.

'But he who chooses to prate at random, might as well at once bring forward against us the works of all artists as having gained an advantage in their construction by the addition or diminution of something in the materials. However that may be, it is the part of sophistry to invent quibbles, but of wisdom to examine thoroughly everything in nature.'

Let this suffice to show the character of Philo's opinions. Maximus too, a man not undistinguished in the Christian life, has composed a special treatise Concerning Matter; from which I think it will be useful to quote some sentences of moderate length, for the accurate decision of the question before us.

CHAPTER XXII

[MAXIMUS] 97 'I DO not suppose that you any more than myself are ignorant that it is impossible for two unoriginate things to subsist together, although you certainly seem to have attached to your argument this presupposition, that it is absolutely necessary to affirm one of two things, either that God is separate from matter, or on the other hand that He is inseparable from it.

'Should any one therefore choose to say that He is united with it, that will be an assertion that the Uncreate is one only; for each will be a part of the other, and being parts each of the other they will not be two uncreated, but one consisting of different parts; for as we do not say that man though consisting of different parts is broken up into the small coin of many created things, but, as reason requires, we say that man is one being of many parts created by God, so, if God is not separate from matter, we must necessarily say that the Uncreated is one only.

'But if any one shall affirm that He is separate, there must of necessity be something that is intermediate between the two, which also makes their separation evident. For it is impossible that one thing can be proved to be separate from another, when there is no third in which the separation between them is found. And this stands true not only in this and any single case, but in very many.

'For the argument which we used in the case of two uncreated beings must necessarily succeed equally well, if the uncreated things were admitted to be three. For in their case also I should ask, whether they are separated one from another, or on the contrary each united to his neighbour.

'So if any one should choose to say that they were united, he will receive the same answer as the first; but if, on the contrary, that they are separated, he cannot avoid the necessary existence of something that separates them.

'But if perchance any one should say that there is also a third statement which may fitly be made concerning things uncreated, that is, that God is not separated from matter, nor on the other hand united with it as a part, but that God exists as it were locally in matter or matter in God, let him receive the conclusive answer, that if we call matter the place of God, we must of necessity say that He can also be contained, and is circumscribed by matter.

'Moreover He must be carried about like matter in a disorderly way, and does not remain settled and constant in Himself, when that in which He exists is carried now this way and now that. And besides this we must also say that God has existed in things of worse nature. For if matter was once without order, and He wishing to change it for the better put it into order, there was a time when God was in things without order.

'I might also fairly ask this question, whether God completely filled matter, or was in some portion only of it. If then any one should choose to say that God was in some portion of matter, he makes Him very much smaller than matter, if indeed a part of it contained the whole of Him: but if he should say that God is in all matter, he has to explain how He was to work upon it. For he must either say that there was a sort of contraction of God, and that when this was effected He wrought upon that part from which He had receded; or else that He wrought upon Himself together with the matter, not having any place into which He could withdraw.

'If however any one shall say that matter is in God, it is equally necessary to inquire whether it is by God's being separated from Himself, just as tribes of living creatures subsist in the air, by its being divided and parted for the reception of the creatures that arise in it; or whether matter is in God as in a place, that is, as water is in land.

'For if we should say, "As in the air," we must necessarily say that God is divisible: but if, "As water is in land," and if matter was in confusion and disorder, and moreover contained evils, we are compelled to say that God is the place of disorder and evil: which seems to me an irreverent statement, nay more, a dangerous one. For you claim the existence of matter in order to avoid calling God the author of evil, and while wishing to escape from this you say that He is the receptacle of evil.

'Now if you had said that from the nature of existing creatures you supposed matter to be uncreated, I should have had much to say about matter in proof that it cannot possibly be uncreated. But since you said that the origin of evil was the cause of such a supposition, I therefore think it well to proceed to the examination of this latter point. For when a clear statement has been given of the mode in which evils exist, and of the impossibility of denying that God is the author of evil, if matter is attributed to Him, I think that such a supposition is utterly overthrown.

'You say then that co-existing from the beginning with God there is matter without qualities, out of which He formed the beginning of this world? '

'Such is my idea.'

'Well then, if matter was without qualities, and if the world has been made by God, and there are qualities in the world, God must have been the maker of the qualities.'

'That is true.'

'Now since I heard you say before, that it is impossible for anything to be made out of the non-existent, answer me this question of mine. Do you think that the qualities of the world have not been produced out of pre-existing qualities?'

'I think so.'

'But are something else besides the substances?'

'That is so.'

'If then God made the qualities neither out of pre-existing qualities, nor out of the substances, because they are not themselves substances, we are compelled to say that they have been made by God out of non-existents. And hence I thought it was too much for you to say, that it was impossible to suppose that anything has been made by God out of non-existents.

'However, let the argument on this point stand as follows: Even among ourselves we see men making some things out of what is non-existent, however much they seem to be making them in some material: as for instance let us take our example in the case of architects. For they make cities not out of cities, and temples in like manner not out of temples.

'But if, because there are substances underlying these things, you suppose that they make them out of existing things, your argument deceives you. For it is not the substance that makes the city, or the temples, but the art which is employed about the substance; and the art is not produced out of some underlying art in the substances, but is produced out of an art which is non-existent in them.

'But I suppose you will meet my argument in this way, that the artist makes the art which is in the material substance out of the art which he has in himself. Now in answer to this I think it may fairly be said, that it is not produced even in the man out of any underlying art. For it is not possible to grant that the art exists independently by itself, since it is one of the accidents, and one of those things which have existence given to them at the moment when they are produced in a substance.

'For the man will exist even apart from his skill as an architect, but this will have no existence unless there be first a man. And hence we are compelled to say that it is the nature of the arts to be produced in men out of what is non-existent. If therefore we have now shown this to be so in the case of men, why was it not proper to say that God was able to make not only qualities but also substances out of what was non-existent? For the proof that it is possible for something to be made out of what is non-existent shows that this is the case with the substances also.

'But since you are anxious to inquire concerning the origin of evil, I will pass to the discussion of that subject. And I wish first to ask you a few questions. Do you think that evils are substances, or qualities of substances?

'I think it is right to say that they are qualities of substances.

'But matter, we said, has no quality nor shape?

'So I declared in the preface to my argument.

'If therefore evils are qualities of substances, and matter had no qualities, but God, you said, was the maker of qualities, God must be also the creator of evils. When therefore even in this way it is impossible to say that God is not the cause of evils, it seems to me superfluous to attach matter to Him. But if you have anything to say against this, begin your argument.

'If our inquiry arose out of contentiousness, I should not think it right to give a second definition of evils: but since it is rather for the sake of friendship and the benefit of our neighbour that we are examining the questions, I think it right to allow a new definition concerning them.

'I think it must have been long manifest to you, that my purpose and my earnest desire in our arguments is, that I do not wish to gain a victory by plausible statement of falsehood, but that the truth should be shown by means of accurate inquiry. And I clearly understand that you also are so disposed. Wherefore employ without any diffidence whatever kind of method you think will enable you to find the truth: for by employing the better method you will benefit not only yourself, but certainly me also on matters of which I am ignorant.'

'I think you plainly admitted that evils also are a kind of substances? '

'Yes, for I do not see them existing anywhere apart from substances.'

'Since then you say, my good sir, that evils also are substances, it is necessary for us to examine the definition of substance. Is it your opinion that substance is a kind of concrete body? '

'It is.'

'And does the concrete body subsist of itself independently, not requiring anything from whose previous existence it may receive its being? '

'Just so.'

'And do you think that evils depend on action of some kind? '

'So it seems to me.'

'And do actions come into being at the moment when the agent is present?'

'Such is the case.'

'And when the agent does not exist, there will never be any action of his? '

'There will not.'

'Well then, if substance is a kind of concrete body, and this requires nothing in union with which it may begin to exist, and if evils are actions of some agent, and if actions do require something in union with which they begin to exist, evils cannot be substances.

'But if evils are substances, and murder is an evil, murder will be a substance: yet surely murder is an action of some one, and so murder is not a substance. If however you mean that the agents are substances, I too agree. For example, a man who is a murderer, in respect of his being man is a substance: but the murder which he does is not a substance, but a work of the substance.

'So we say in one case that the man is evil, because of his committing murder, and in a contrary case that he is good, because of his doing good. And these names are attached to the substance in consequence of its accidents, which are not itself: for the substance is not murder, nor again adultery, or any of the like evils. But just as the grammarian is named from grammar, and the rhetorician from rhetoric, and the physician from the art of physic, though his substance is neither the art of physic nor yet rhetoric, nor grammar, but receives the name from its accidents, from which it seems fit to be so called, although it is neither one nor the other of them, in like manner it appears to me that the substance also acquires an additional name from what are thought to be evils, though it is neither of them.

'And in like manner if you imagine some other being in the mind as the cause of evils in men, I would have you consider that he also, inasmuch as he works in them and suggests the doing evil, is himself evil in consequence of what he does. For he too is said to be evil for this reason that he is the doer of evils. But the things which any one does are not himself, but his actions, from which he receives the name of being evil.

'For if we were to say that he himself is what he does, and if he does murders and adulteries and thefts and all the like, then he himself is these: and if he is himself these, and these gain real existence at the time of being done, and in ceasing to be done cease to exist, and it is by men that they are done----then the men must be the makers of themselves and the causes of their own being and ceasing to be.

'Whereas if you say that these are his actions, he has the character of being evil from what he does, not from what constitutes his substance. But we said that a man is called evil from the accidents pertaining to his substance, which are not the substance itself, as the physician from the art of physic.

'If then each man is evil in consequence of his actions, and if his actions receive a beginning of existence, then that man also began to be evil, and these evils too had a beginning. And if this is so, a man will not be without a beginning in evil, nor evils un-originate, because we say that they originate with him.'

'The argument against your opponent you seem to me, my friend, to have completed satisfactorily. For from the premises which you assumed for your argument you seemed to draw the conclusion fairly. For in very truth, if matter was without qualities, and God is the maker of qualities, and evils are qualities, then God must be the maker of evils.

'As to the argument then against that opponent, let us grant that it has been well stated: but in my opinion it is false to say that matter has no qualities; for of no substance whatever is it permissible to say that it is without qualities. For while describing what kind of thing matter is, the speaker indicates its quality by saying that it is without qualities, for that is a certain kind of quality.

'Therefore, if you please, take up the argument again from the beginning against me; since in my opinion matter has qualities eternally and without beginning. For so I maintain that evils arise from the emanation of matter, in order that God may not be the cause of evils, but matter the cause of them all.'

'I welcome your ready zeal, my friend, and commend your earnestness in these discussions. For certainly every one who wishes to learn ought not to assent simply and at random to what is said, but should make a strict examination of'the arguments. For even if the opponent by giving a false definition affords his adversary an opportunity of drawing such a conclusion as he pleases, it does not follow that he will persuade the hearer of this, but if he shall say what seems possible to be said fairly. From which one of two things must follow; for either he will gain the full benefit of hearing an answer to the question which seems to be stirred, or he will convict his opponent in the argument of saying what is not true.

'I think then that you ought not to have stated that matter possesses qualities eternally. For if this is so, of what will God be the maker? For whether we say substances, these we affirm existed before; or on the other hand qualities, these also were there.

'Since therefore substance exists, and qualities also, it seems to me superfluous to say that God is a creator. But that I may not seem to be arranging an argument for myself, do you now answer the question, in what way do you say that God is a creator? Is it that He changed the substances so that they were no longer those which they once were, but became others different from them? Or that He kept the substances the same that they were before, but changed their qualities? '

'I do not at all think that there has been any change of substances: for this appears to me an absurd thing to say. But I assert that there has been a certain change of the qualities, in respect to which I say that God is a creator; just as if one should chance to say that a house has been made out of stones, of which we cannot say that they are no longer stones in their substance, when the stones have become a house.

'For I say that the house has been made by the quality of construction, the former quality of the stones having evidently been changed. Just so it seems to me that God also, while the substance remains, has made a certain change in its qualities, in reference to which I say that the creation of this world has come from God.'

'Since therefore you assert that a certain change of the qualities has come from God, answer me a few questions which I propose to ask. Tell me now whether like myself you also think that evils are qualities of substances? '

'I think so.'

'And were these qualities in matter eternally, or had they a beginning of existence?'

'I say that these very qualities were eternally co-existent with matter.'

'But do you not say that God has made some change of the qualities?'

'That is what I say.'

'Was the change then for the better or for the worse? '

'I am disposed to say, for the better.'

'Well then, if evils are qualities of matter, and God changed its qualities for the better, we are compelled to ask, whence came the evils. For the qualities did not remain of the same kind as they were by nature. Either, if there were no evil qualities previously, but such qualities, you say, have grown around the matter from the first qualities having been changed by God, God must be responsible for the evils, as having changed what were not evil qualities so that they now are evil.

'Or do you not think that God changed the evil qualities for the better, but say that the rest, and so many only as were neither good nor bad for the purpose of arranging the world, have been changed by God? '

'So I held from the beginning.'

'How then do you say that He has left the qualities of the bad as they were? Was it that He was able to annihilate them also, but had not the will; or that He had not the power? For if you say that He had the power but not the will, you must necessarily admit that He is responsible for them, because though He had power to bring evils to an end, He permitted them to remain as they were, especially at the time when He began to operate on matter.

'For if He had taken no care at all about matter, He would not have been responsible for what He permitted to remain. But when He began to operate on a certain portion of it, but left a portion as it was, though He had power to change that also for the better, it seems to me that He incurred the responsibility of causing it, as having left a portion of matter to be mischievous in the destruction of the part on which He operated.

'Moreover in regard to this part it seems to me that the very greatest wrong has been done: this part, I mean, of matter which He so arranged that it now participates in evils. For if one were to examine the facts carefully, he would find that matter has now fallen into a worse condition than its former disorder. For before it was arranged in order, it might have had no sensation at all of evil; but now each of its parts becomes sensible of evils.

'Now let me give you an example in the case of a man. For before he was fashioned and made a living creature by the Creator's skill, he had from his nature the advantage of not participating in any evil at all: but from the time of his being made man by God, he also receives the sensation of approaching evil, and this, which you say has been done by God for the benefit of matter, is found rather to have been added to it for the worse.

'But if you say that the reason why evils have not been made to cease was that God was not able to annihilate them, you will be asserting that God is deficient in power: and the want of power will mean either that He is by nature weak, or that being overcome by fear He has been brought into subjection by some greater power.

'If then you will dare to say that God is weak by nature, you seem to me to be in danger for your very salvation: but if through being overcome by fear from the greater power, the evils will be greater than God, as prevailing over the impulse of His will; which seems to me an absurd thing to say of God.

'For why will not rather these evils be gods, as being able according to your argument to overcome God, since we say that God is that which has the authority over all things?

'I wish, however, to ask you a few questions also about matter itself. So tell me now, whether matter was something simple or compound: for the diversity of its products brings me round to such a mode of examining this subject. Since if matter was simple and uniform, but the world compound, and composed out of different substances and mixtures, (it is impossible to say that it has been made out of matter, because compounds cannot be composed out of a single thing which has no qualities); for "compound" signifies a mixture of several simple things.

'But if on the other hand you should choose to say that matter is compound, you must of course say that it has been composed out of certain simple things. Now if it was composed out of simple things, those simple things once existed by themselves, and matter has come from their composition; whence also it is shown to be created.

'For if matter is compound, and compounds are constituted out of simples, there was once a time when matter did not exist, that is to say, before the simples came together. But if there was once a time when matter did not exist, but never a time when the uncreate did not exist, matter cannot be uncreate. Henceforward, however, there will be many uncreate things. For if God was uncreate, as well as the simple elements out of which matter was composed, the uncreate will not be two only.

But is it your opinion that no existing thing is contrary to itself?'

'It is.'

'And is water contrary to fire? '

'It appears to me contrary.'

'And in like manner darkness to light, and heat to cold, and also moist to dry? '

'I think it is so.'

'Therefore if no existing thing is contrary to itself, (and these are contrary to each other) they will not be one and the same matter, nor yet from the same matter. I wish, however, to ask you again another question like this. Do you think that the parts of a thing are not destructive one of another? '

'I do.'

'And that fire and water, and the rest in like manner, are parts of matter? '

'They are so.'

'Well then? Do you not think that water is destructive of fire, and light of darkness, and all the other similar cases? '

'I do think so.'

'Therefore if the parts of a thing are not destructive one of another, while the parts of matter are destructive one of another, they will not be parts one of another: and if they are not parts one of another, they will not be parts of the same matter: nay more, they will not themselves he matter, because, according to the adversary's argument, no existing thing is destructive of itself.

'For nothing is contrary to itself; because it is the nature of contraries to be contrary to others. As for example white is not contrary to itself, but is said to be the contrary of black: and light is shown in like manner not to be contrary to itself, but appears to have that relation to darkness, and very many other things of course in the same way.

'If therefore there were also one kind of matter only, it would not be contrary to itself: but since such is the nature of contraries, it is proved that the one only kind of matter has no existence.'

So far the author before mentioned. And since the discourse has now been sufficiently extended, we will pass on to the eighth book of the Preparation for the Gospel; and after invoking the help of God, will fill up what is wanting to the preceding speculation.

[Footnotes moved to end and numbered]

1. 300 b 9 Rom. i. 26, 27

2. d 7 Wisdom xiv. 12

3. 303 b 6 i Pet. ii. 9

4. 306 d 2 Gen. iv. 26

5. 308 a 10 Gen. v. 24

6. c 6 Gen. vi. 9

7. 309 a 8 Gen. xiv. 18-20

8. 309 d 3 Gen. xv. 6

9. d 5-7 Cf. Gen. xvii. 5; xviii. 18; xii. 2

10. 310 d 1 Gen. xxxii. 28

11. 311 a 5 Job i. 1

12. 312 a 4 Gen. xxxix. 8

13. 315 b 4 Gen. i. 11

14. c 1 ibid. 20

15. c 8 ibid. 14

16. 316 a 5 Gen. ii. 8

17. 317 a 6 Gen. iii. 1

18. d 2 Gen. i. 1

19. d 4 ibid. 3

20. d 5 Gen. i. 6

21. d 6 ibid. 11

22. d 9 ibid. 14

23. 318 a 1 ibid. 20

24. a 4 ibid. 24

25. a 11 Gen. ii. 4

26. 318 c 7 Jer. xxiii. 23, 24

27. d 1 Is. xl. 12, 13

28. d 6 ibid. 23

29. d 7 ibid. 26

30. d 8 Is. xlii. 5, 6

31. d 12 Is. xliv. 24

32. 319 a 1 Is. xlv. 5, 6

33. a 3 Jer. x. 11-14

34. b 1 Ps. cxxxix. 7

35. c 4 Gen. xiv. 22

36. c 8 ibid. 19

37. d 2 Gen. xxiv. 2

38. d 4 ibid. 7

39. d 9 Ex. iii. 14

40. 320 d 2 i Cor. i. 24

41. d 3 Job xxviii. 12

42. d 6 ibid. 22

43. d 9 Ps. xxxiii. 6

44. 321 a 1 Prov. viii. 12

45. a 3 ibid. 15

46. a 4 Prov. viii. 22

47. a 6 ibid. 25

48. a 7 ibid. 27

49. a 8 ibid. 28

50. a 9 ibid. 30

51. b 6 Wisd. of Sol. vi. 22

52. b 9 ibid. vii. 22

53. c 9 ibid. viii. 1

54. 321 d 13 Ps. cvii. 20

55. d 15 Ps. cxlvii. 15

56. d 19 John i. 1

57. 322 b 1 Gen. i. 26

58. b 4 Ps. xxxiii. 9, cxlviii. 5

59. c 3 Gen. xix. 24

60. c 7 Ps. cx. 1

61. d 1 Ps. cx. 3

62. d 11 Philo Iudaeus, a Fragment preserved by Eusebius alone

63. d 11 Gen. ix. 6

64. 323 b 3 Phil. i. Noah's husbandry, bk. 1.

65. 823 b 9 Phil. i. Noah's husbandry, bk. ii.

66. 324 a 1 Aristobulus. Cf. 375 d, 663 c

67. d 5 Joshua v. 14

68. d 6 Isa. ix. 6

69. 325 a 5 i Cor. xv. 41

70. 325 b 3 John i. 9

71. b 4 Mal. iv. 2

72. 326 b 1 i Cor. xv. 41

73. b 6 Ps. cxlvii. 4

74. c 4 Dan. vii. 10

75. 826 d 1 Ps. civ. 1

76. 327 a 6 Cf. Col. i. 16

77. b 1 Mal. iv. 3

78. c 3 Ps. cxlviii. 1

79. 328 a 4 Heb. i. 14

80. b 6 Mal. iv. 2

81. 328 d 7 Isa. xiv. 12

82. 329 a 2 Ezek. xxviii. 2

83. a 4 ibid. 12

84. a 8 ibid. 14

85. b 1 ibid. 17

86. d 5 Eph. vi. 12

87. d 8 Ps. xci. 13

88. 330 a 7 Ps, xcvi. 5

89. 330 d 12 Gen. i. 26

90. 331 a 1 Gen. ii. 7

91. b 1 Philo Iud. tom. i. p. 332 M

92. b 6 Gen. ii. 7

93. 333 c 6 Dionysius of Alexandria, Against Sabellius, a Fragment preserved by Eusebius only

94. 334 d 1 Origen, Commentary on Genesis, a Fragment preserved by Eusebius alone

95. 336 a 8 Gen. i. 2

96. b 5 Philo Iud. On Providence, tom. ii. p. 625 M. Fragment preserved by Eusebius alone

97. 337 b 3 Maximus: cf. Origen, Philocalia, c. 24; Methodius, On Free Will I, 5. 1
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