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Arnobius
11. But, supposing that these things do not at all hinder or prevent your being bound to believe and hearken to them in great measure;[3468] and what reason is there either that you should have more liberty in this respect, or that we should have less? You believe Plato,[3469] Cronius,[3470] Numenius, or any one you please; we believe and confide in Christ.[3471] How unreasonable it is, that when we both abide[3472] by teachers, and have one and the same thing, belief, in common, you should wish it to be granted to you to receive what is so[3473] said by them, but should be unwilling to hear and see what is brought forward by Christ! And yet, if we chose to compare cause with cause, we are better able to point out what we have followed in Christ, than you to point out what you have followed in the philosophers. And we, indeed, have followed in him these things—those glorious works and most potent virtues which he manifested and displayed in diverse miracles, by which any one might be led to feel the necessity of believing, and might decide with confidence that they were not such as might be regarded as man’s, but such as showed some divine and unknown power. What virtues did you follow in the philosophers, that it was more reasonable for you to believe them than for us to believe Christ? Was any one of them ever able by one word, or by a single command, I will not say to restrain, to check[3474] the madness of the sea or the fury of the storm; to restore their sight to the blind, or give it to men blind from their birth; to call the dead back to life; to put an end to the sufferings of years; but—and this is much easier[3475]—to heal by one rebuke a boil, a scab, or a thorn fixed in the skin? Not that we deny either that they are worthy of praise for the soundness of their morals, or that they are skilled in all kinds of studies and learning; for we know that they both speak in the most elegant language, and that their words flow in polished periods; that they reason in syllogisms with the utmost acuteness; that they arrange their inferences in due order;[3476] that they express, divide, distinguish principles by definitions; that they say many things about the different kinds of numbers, many things about music; that by their maxims and precepts[3477] they settle the problems of geometry also. But what has that to do with the case? Do enthymemes, syllogisms, and other such things, assure us that these men know what is true? or are they therefore such that credence should necessarily be given to them with regard to very obscure subjects? A comparison of persons must be decided, not by vigour of eloquence, but by the excellence of the works which they have done. He must not[3478] be called a good teacher who has expressed himself clearly,[3479] but he who accompanies his promises with the guarantee of divine works.
12. You bring forward arguments against us, and speculative quibblings,[3480] which—may I say this without displeasing Him—if Christ Himself were to use in the gatherings of the nations, who would assent? who would listen? who would say that He decided[3481] anything clearly? or who, though he were rash and utterly[3482] credulous, would follow Him when pouring forth vain and baseless statements? His virtues have been made manifest to you, and that unheard-of power over things, whether that which was openly exercised by Him or that which was used[3483] over the whole world by those who proclaimed Him: it has subdued the fires of passion, and caused races, and peoples, and nations most diverse in character to hasten with one accord to accept the same faith. For the deeds can be reckoned up and numbered which have been done in India,[3484] among the Seres, Persians, and Medes; in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria; among the Galatians, Parthians, Phrygians; in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus; in all islands and provinces on which the rising and setting sun shines; in Rome herself, finally, the mistress of the world, in which, although men are[3485] busied with the practices introduced by king[3486] Numa, and the superstitious observances of antiquity, they have nevertheless hastened to give up their fathers’ mode of life,[3487] and attach themselves to Christian truth. For they had seen the chariot[3488] of Simon Magus, and his fiery car, blown into pieces by the mouth of Peter, and vanish when Christ was named. They had seen him, I say, trusting in false gods, and abandoned by them in their terror, borne down headlong by his own weight, lie prostrate with his legs broken; and then, when he had been carried to Brunda,[3489] worn out with anguish and shame, again cast himself down from the roof of a very lofty house. But all these deeds you neither know nor have wished to know, nor did you ever consider that they were of the utmost importance to you; and while you trust your own judgments, and term that wisdom which is overweening conceit, you have given to deceivers—to those guilty ones, I say, whose interest it is that the Christian name be degraded—an opportunity of raising clouds of darkness, and concealing truths of so much importance; of robbing you of faith, and putting scorn in its place, in order that, as they already feel that an end such as they deserve threatens them, they might excite in you also a feeling through which you should run into danger, and be deprived of the divine mercy.
13. Meantime, however, O you who wonder and are astonished at the doctrines of the learned, and of philosophy, do you not then think it most unjust to scoff, to jeer at us as though we say foolish and senseless things, when you too are found to say either these or just such things which you laugh at when said and uttered by us? Nor do I address those who, scattered through various bypaths of the schools, have formed this and that insignificant party through diversity of opinion. You, you I address, who zealously follow Mercury,[3490] Plato, and Pythagoras, and the rest of you who are of one mind, and walk in unity in the same paths of doctrine. Do you dare to laugh at us because we[3491] revere and worship the Creator and Lord[3492] of the universe, and because we commit and entrust our hopes to Him? What does your Plato say in the Theætetus, to mention him especially? Does he not exhort the soul to flee from the earth, and, as much as in it lies, to be continually engaged in thought and meditation about Him?[3493] Do you dare to laugh at us, because we say that there will be a resurrection of the dead? And this indeed we confess that we say, but maintain that it is understood by you otherwise than we hold it. What says the same Plato in the Politicus? Does he not say that, when the world has begun to rise out of the west and tend towards the east,[3494] men will again burst forth from the bosom of the earth, aged, grey-haired, bowed down with years; and that when the remoter[3495] years begin to draw near, they will gradually sink down[3496] to the cradles of their infancy, through the same steps by which they now grow to manhood?[3497] Do you dare to laugh at us because we see to the salvation of our souls?—that is, ourselves care for ourselves: for what are we men, but souls shut up in bodies?—You, indeed, do not take every pains for their safety,[3498] in that you do not refrain from all vice and passion; about this you are anxious, that you may cleave to your bodies as though inseparably bound to them.[3499]—What mean those mystic rites,[3500] in which you beseech some unknown powers to be favourable to you, and not put any hindrance in your way to impede you when returning to your native seats?
14. Do you dare to laugh at us when we speak of hell,[3501] and fires[3502] which cannot be quenched, into which we have learned that souls are cast by their foes and enemies? What, does not your Plato also, in the book which he wrote on the immortality of the soul, name the rivers Acheron, Styx,[3503] Cocytus, and Pyriphlegethon, and assert that in them souls are rolled along, engulphed, and burned up? But though a man of no little wisdom,[3504] and of accurate judgment and discernment, he essays a problem which cannot be solved; so that, while he says that the soul is immortal, everlasting, and without bodily substance, he yet says that they are punished, and makes them suffer pain.[3505] But what man does not see that that which is immortal, which is simple,[3506] cannot be subject to any pain; that that, on the contrary, cannot be immortal which does suffer pain? And yet his opinion is not very far from the truth. For although the gentle and kindly disposed man thought it inhuman cruelty to condemn souls to death, he yet not unreasonably[3507] supposed that they are cast into rivers blazing with masses of flame, and loathsome from their foul abysses. For they are cast in, and being annihilated, pass away vainly in[3508] everlasting destruction. For theirs is an intermediate[3509] state, as has been learned from Christ’s teaching; and they are such that they may on the one hand perish if they have not known God, and on the other be delivered from death if theyhave given heed to His threats[3510] and proffered favours. And to make manifest[3511] what is unknown, this is man’s real death, this which leaves nothing behind. For that which is seen by the eyes is only a separation of soul from body, not the last end—annihilation:[3512] this, I say, is man’s real death, when souls which know not God shall[3513] be consumed in long-protracted torment with raging fire, into which certain fiercely cruel beings shall[3514] cast them, who were unknown[3515] before Christ, and brought to light only by His wisdom.
15. Wherefore there is no reason that that[3516] should mislead us, should hold out vain hopes to us, which is said by some men till now unheard of,[3517] and carried away by an extravagant opinion of themselves, that souls are immortal, next in point of rank to the God and ruler of the world, descended from that parent and sire, divine, wise, learned, and not within reach of the body by contact.[3518] Now, because this is true and certain, and because we have been produced by Him who is perfect without flaw, we live unblameably, I suppose, and therefore without blame; are good, just, and upright, in nothing depraved; no passion overpowers, no lust degrades us; we maintain vigorously the unremitting practice of all the virtues. And because all our souls have one origin, we therefore think exactly alike; we do not differ in manners, we do not differ in beliefs; we all know God; and there are not as many opinions as there are men in the world, nor are these divided in infinite variety.[3519]
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