2

the analogy of faith. But if Paul came first in time, and Basil was revealed many generations later, you speak of the work of the divine economy on behalf of men, not a proof of a diminution in virtue; since also Moses was many ages later than Abraham, and Samuel than Moses, and Elijah than him, and after him the great John, and after John, Paul, and after him, Basil.

3

Just as, therefore, among those who came before, later time in no way diminished the saints in glory according to God, so also now in the account of virtue, let the claims of time be silent. For such a thing, as we said, holds the proof of God's providence for men. For he who knows all things before their beginning, as the prophet says, and perceives the evil of the devil that accompanies human generations, prepares a physician suitable and fitting for the sickness of each generation, so that he might not overlook the disease of men as incurable, overpowering the race because of a lack of those who can set things right.

4

For this reason, when the Chaldean philosophy once prevailed—they who defined the cause of things in the certain motion of the stars, and did not think that some power creative of things lay beyond what is seen— then he reveals Abraham, who, using such an education as a stepping-stone, sought out him who is understood through the things that are seen. And he became a path of faith for those who came after, a faith in the truly existing God, having himself led the way to it by abandoning the ancestral deceit and the affinity of the senses for the visible creation. Then, when the Egyptians had discovered a certain demonic and magical wisdom from the suggestion, I think, of the one who in various ways sinks souls through deceit, he raised up Moses to make the Egyptian deceit disappear with an excelling wisdom. And anyone who knows the Scripture surely recognizes the account, how, when the magicians made a counter-display of their own deceptions against the divine signs, Moses overwhelmingly prevailed through the alliance from above, obliterating all the Egyptian might. And you understand this both through the other things and by the riddle of the staffs.

5

As time went on and the Israelites, through anarchy, were sinfully disposed in a democratic confusion, Samuel appeared, holding sway over his subjects by himself and restraining them from mingling with foreigners; then, having transformed the anarchy into the establishment of a kingdom, he gathered the nation together around himself, becoming the lawgiver of the royal dynasty. And after these things, many generations later, when that Ahab, that woman's slave, both departed from the ancestral ordinances, enslaved to a luxurious woman, and through her drew in the error of idols, causing the Israelite people to revolt with him, then God reveals Elijah, possessing a healing power that counterbalanced the magnitude of the people's disease, a man who, in his contempt for the care of the body, was squalid in countenance and shaded by the abundance of his own hair, solitary in his life, grave to behold with a smileless face, and with a downcast gaze, covering with a goatskin so much of his body as is more seemly to be covered, but for the rest enduring the weather and paying no heed to the harshness of heat and cold. Who, appearing to the people, chastens Israel with the scourge of famine, as if striking the disorder of the people with such a blow as with a club; and after these things, also with the divine fire which came about at the sacrifice, he cures the disease concerning idols.

6

Then after him, that other one appears many ages later, he who came into this life in the spirit and power of Elijah, through Zacharias and Elizabeth, and calling the whole nation into assembly in the wilderness by his preaching, and the ransom for the blood of the prophets, and all kinds of pollutions, and the various things of sin

2

ἀναλογίαν τῆς πίστεως. εἰ δὲ προήκει τῷ χρόνῳ Παῦλος, καὶ πολλαῖς ὕστερον γενεαῖς ἀνεδείχθη Βασίλειος, τῆς θείας ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀνθρώπων οἰκονομίας λέγεις τὸ ἔργον, οὐκ ἀπόδειξιν τῆς κατ' ἀρετὴν ἐλαττώσεως· ἐπεὶ καὶ Μωϋσῆς τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ πολλοῖς χρόνοις μεταγενέστερος, καὶ Σαμουὴλ Μωϋσέως, καὶ τούτου Ἠλίας, κἀκείνου ὁ μέγας Ἰωάννης, καὶ μετὰ Ἰωάννην Παῦλος, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτον Βασίλειος.

3 Ὥσπερ οὖν ἐν τοῖς προάγουσιν οὐδὲν ὁ χρόνος δευτερεύων εἰς τὴν κατὰ Θεὸν δόξαν τοὺς ἁγίους ἠλάττωσεν, οὕτω καὶ νῦν ἐν τῷ τῆς ἀρετῆς λόγῳ σιωπάσθω τὰ πρεσβεῖα τοῦ χρόνου. τὸ γὰρ τοιοῦτον, καθὼς ἔφαμεν, τῆς ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀνθρώπων τοῦ Θεοῦ προμηθείας τὴν ἀπόδειξιν ἔχει. ὁ γὰρ εἰδὼς τὰ πάντα πρὶν γενέσεως αὐτῶν, καθώς φησιν ὁ προφήτης, καὶ τὴν συνδιεξιοῦσαν ταῖς ἀνθρωπίναις γενεαῖς τοῦ διαβόλου κακίαν κατανοῶν, πρόσφορόν τε καὶ κατάλληλον τῷ καθ' ἑκάστην γενεὰν ἀρρωστήματι τὸν ἰατρὸν ἑτοιμάζει, ὡς ἂν μὴ ἀθεράπευτον περιίδοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὴν νόσον δι' ἐρημίαν τῶν διορθουμένων κατακρατοῦσαν τοῦ γένους.

4 Τούτου χάριν ἐπικρατούσης ποτὲ τῆς Χαλδαϊκῆς φιλοσοφίας οἳ τὴν τῶν ὄντων αἰτίαν ἐν τῇ ποιᾷ κινήσει τῶν ἄστρων ὡρίζοντο, ὑπερκεῖσθαι δέ τινα τῶν φαινομένων δύναμιν ποιητικὴν τῶν ὄντων οὐκ ᾤοντο· τότε τὸν Ἀβραὰμ ἀναδείκνυσιν, ὃς ἐπιβάθρᾳ τῇ τοιαύτῃ παιδεύσει χρησάμενος, ἀνεζήτησε τὸν διὰ τῶν ὁρωμένων νοούμενον. καὶ ὁδὸς τοῖς ἐφεξῆς ἐγένετο πίστεως τῆς εἰς τὸν ὄντως ὄντα Θεόν, αὐτὸς πρὸς ταύτην καθηγησάμενος διὰ τοῦ καταλιπεῖν τὴν πατρῷαν ἀπάτην καὶ τὴν τῶν αἰσθ ητηρίων πρὸς τὴν φαινομένην κτίσιν συγγένειαν. εἶτα τῶν Αἰ γυπτίων δαιμονίαν τινὰ καὶ γοητικὴν σοφίαν ἐξευρηκότων ἐξ ὑποθήκης, οἶμαι, τοῦ ποικίλως τὰς ψυχὰς δι' ἀπάτης καταβυθίζοντος, ἀνέδειξε τὸν Μωϋσέα τῷ ὑπερβάλλοντι τῆς σοφίας τὴν Αἰγυπτίαν ἀπάτην ἐξαφανίσοντα. ἐπιγινώσκει δὲ πάντως τὸν λόγον ὁ τὴν Γραφὴν ἐπιστάμενος, πῶς, ἀντεπιδεικνυμένων τοῖς θείοις σημείοις τῶν γοήτων τὰς ἰδίας ἀπάτας, ὑπερέσχε κατὰ κράτος ὁ Μωϋσῆς διὰ τῆς ἄνωθεν συμμαχίας τὴν Αἰγυπτίαν ἰσχὺν πᾶσαν ἐξαφανίσας. νοεῖς δὲ τοῦτο διά τε τῶν ἄλλων καὶ τῷ τῶν ῥάβδων αἰνίγματι.

5 Προϊόντος δὲ τοῦ χρόνου καὶ τῶν Ἰσραηλιτῶν δι' ἀναρχίας ἐν δημοκρατικῇ συγχύσει πλημμελῶς διακειμένων, ὁ Σαμ ουὴλ ἀναφαίνεται κρατῶν δι' ἑαυτοῦ τὸ ὑπήκοον καὶ τῆς πρὸς τοὺς ἀλλοφύλους ἐπιμιξίας ἀπείργων· εἶτα πρὸς βασιλείας κατάστασιν τὴν ἀναρχίαν μετασκευάσας συνήθροισεν αὐτὸ περὶ ἑαυτῷ ὁμόφυλον τῆς βασιλικῆς δυναστείας νομοθέτης γενόμενος. μετὰ ταῦτα δὲ πολλαῖς ὕστερον γενεαῖς ὅτε Ἀχαὰβ ἐκεῖνος, τὸ γυναικεῖον ἀνδράποδον, αὐτός τε τῶν πατρῴων ἀπέστη θεσμῶν γυναικὶ χλιδώσῃ δεδουλωμένος καὶ τὴν τῶν εἰδώλων πλάνην δι' ἐκείνης ἐπισπασάμενος, συναπέστησεν ἑαυτῷ τὸν Ἰσραηλίτην λαόν, τότε ἀναδείκνυσιν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν Ἠλίαν ἀντίρροπον ἔχοντα τῷ μεγέθει τῆς νόσου τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὴν θεραπεύουσαν δύναμιν, ἄνδρα, ἐν ὑπεροψίᾳ τῆς θεραπείας τοῦ σώματος, αὐχμῶντα τὸ πρόσωπον καὶ τῷ πλήθει τῶν ἰδίων τριχῶν σκιαζόμενον, ἰδιαστὴν τῷ βίῳ, σεμνὸν προσιδεῖν ἐν ἀμειδεῖ τῷ προσώπῳ, καὶ συννενευμένον τῷ βλέμματι δέρματι αἰγείῳ τοσοῦτον τοῦ σώματος σκέποντα ὅσον εὐπρεπέστερόν ἐστι καλυπτόμενον, τῷ δὲ λοιπῷ διακαρτεροῦντα πρὸς τὸν ἀέρα καὶ οὐδὲν πρὸς τὴν ἐκ τοῦ θάλπους τε καὶ κρύους ἀνωμαλίαν ἐπιστρεφόμενον. ὃς ἀναφανεὶς τῷ λαῷ, τῇ τε διὰ τοῦ λιμοῦ μάστιγι σωφρονίζει τὸν Ἰσραήλ, καθάπερ τινὶ σκυτάλῃ τῇ τοιαύτῃ πληγῇ τῆς ἀταξίας τοῦ λαοῦ καθαπτόμενος· μετὰ ταῦτα δὲ καὶ τῷ θείῳ πυρὶ τῷ περὶ τὴν ἱερουργίαν γεγενημένῳ θεραπεύει τὴν περὶ τὰ εἴδωλα νόσον.

6 Εἶτα μετ' ἐκεῖνον ἄλλος ἐκεῖνος χρόνοις ὕστερον πλείοσιν ἀναφαίνεται, ὁ ἐν πνεύματι καὶ δυνάμει Ἠλίου διὰ Ζαχαρίου καὶ Ἐλισάβετ ἐπιδημήσας τῷ βίῳ, καὶ ἅπαν τὸ ἔθνος ἐξεκ κλησιάζων ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ διὰ κηρύγματος, καὶ τὸν ἐπὶ τῷ αἵματι τῶν προφητῶν λύθρον, καὶ τὰ παντοδαπὰ μιάσματα, καὶ τὰ ποικίλα τῆς ἁμαρτίας