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have been implanted congenitally in men? And how was an extension lavishly granted to Hezekiah on account of his tear? Or who will endure to accept a limit that is able to receive diminution or increase, O noble lawgiver who holds power even to the point of insolence? Truly these empty marvels of your unstudied study are imitations of Hellenic mythology and phantoms of an unsubstantial and astrological fate. But you, leap for me and dance and, singing a paean, display the rites of Pan. For you have gathered winds into your bosom with your sophisms. You are proud of the images of empty dreams and the sea has been parted for you by your visions, and you work wonders more wondrous than Moses, and for you captains and chariots have perished, and you beat the drum with your manners, puffing yourself up, and you mimic David in your exorcisms, parading solemn words, not a holy tent, and you are almost like the Corybantes and have become similar to the melancholic, having learned neither the supervision of a letter nor collected the definitions of contemplation. But if, O judges, we have won the victory in the contest, we do not ask to be crowned by you with celery and wild olive, but to be honored with "the shield of good will" and to be illumined by a vote of confirmation and to be made splendid by the applause of affirmation, so that we too with the prophet may cry out today, "'Truth has sprung out of the earth, and righteousness' has 'looked down' from heaven" upon our tribunal. A decision of the same person on the same question, through prosopopoeia: the arbitrators Evaggelos and Theopemptos Of the God who loves judgment and righteousness, and gives utterance "in the opening of the mouth," and pours grace upon the lips, and prepares and beautifies the tongue as the pen of a scribe, and who drives the movements of the heart and steers the mind toward straight intentions, and who gives "the form of knowledge" to everyone, I suppose, who asks and knocks at the door of higher contemplation and leads him to the innermost recesses of thoughts, and who fills the cup of wisdom and intoxicates the thirsty as with a mighty stream of instruction, now each of us will pray to bring forth a riddle and a "dark saying" "as light" and to fashion it most clearly with beauty, and to utter a "good word" that travels the royal road, which is both evangelical and smooth, bearing nothing crooked toward uneven error. We then, philosophizing about the proposed dogma for your examination, say neither that there are limits of life for each and all and by necessity possessing immutability—for this is Hellenic and characteristic of a tyrannical fate and foreign to ecclesiastical legislation—nor do we hold to a diffuse indeterminacy, looking to an abyss of infinitude as being completely out of tune with nature (for the infinite must be ascribed to God alone on account of the superiority of his incomprehensibility). Therefore, both length of life and its shortening by death follow us according to our choice. For just as virtue and vice, and the kingdom of heaven and eternal darkness and the sleepless "worm" and the unquenchable "fire" and all that the impartial and evil-hating judgment of God has prepared for punishment or delight, are in our power, so also the extension of life and the onslaught of death are affixed to the human race by virtue or by vice.

Or was not also the God-formed creature, "the first man" who became "of the earth, earthy," a borderland between death and immortality? For it was possible for him, had he in no way disregarded the commandment, not to taste of death, or conversely, having gone astray through reluctance for virtue and inattention to the better, to be turned back to the dissolution of decay and, having sinned, to make his return to the bosom of the earth. Therefore, there are indeed limits of life, inasmuch as having been born from earth, we shall all depart to earth; but extension and cutting off happen to the life of men either through virtue or through vice of soul. Whose "limbs" fell "in the wilderness"? Was it not of those who lusted for meat? not by prayer

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συμφυῶς τοῖς ἀνθρώποις συγκαταβέβληνται; ᾿Εζεκίᾳ δὲ πῶς ἐπενθήκη πεφιλοτίμηται διὰ τὸ δάκρυον; ἢ τίς ἀνέξεται ὅρον ἐκδέξασθαι τὸν ὕφεσιν ἢ ἐπαύξησιν λαμβάνειν δυνάμενον, ὦ γενναῖε νομοθέτα καὶ μέχρι τῆς ὕβρεως ἔχων τὴν δύναμιν; ῎Οντως ἑλληνικῆς μυθολογίας ἀπομιμήματα καὶ τῆς ἀνυποστάτου καὶ μετεωρολογικῆς εἱμαρμένης ἰνδάλματα τὰ κενὰ ταῦτα τῆς ἀσπουδάστου σπουδῆς τερατολογήματα. σὺ δέ μοι σκίρτα καὶ χόρευε καὶ παιανίζων τὰ τοῦ Πανὸς ἐπιδείκνυσο. συνήγαγες γὰρ ἀνέμους εἰς κόλπον σου τοῖς σοφίσμασι. τῶν διακένων ὀνειράτων εἰκόσι μεγαλοφρονεῖς καὶ διέστηκέ σοι τοῖς ἐνυπνίοις ἡ θάλασσα θαυματουργεῖς τε Μωσαϊκώτερον καὶ τριστάται σοι καὶ ἅρματα διολώλασι καὶ τυμπανίζεις τοῖς τρόποις ἀποφυσώμενος καὶ τὸν ∆αυὶδ ἀπεικονίζεις ταῖς ἐξορχήσεσι, λόγους σεμνούς, οὐ σκηνὴν ἐκπομπεύων ἁγίαν, καὶ μονονουχὶ κορυβαντιῶσιν εἰκάζῃ καὶ τοῖς μελαγχολῶσι γέγονας παραπλήσιος, μήτε γράμματος ἐπιστασίαν μεμαθηκὼς μήτε θεωρίας ὅρους ἀναλεξάμενος. ᾿Αλλ' εἴ γε, δικασταί, τῆς ἀγωνίας τὸ κράτος ἀνεδησάμεθα, οὐ σελίνῳ καὶ κοτίνῳ στέφεσθαι παρ' ὑμῶν ἀξιοῦμεν, ἀλλ' "ὅπλῳ εὐδοκίας" γεραίρεσθαι καὶ ψήφῳ κυρώσεως καταλάμπεσθαι καὶ τῷ κρότῳ τῆς βεβαιώσεως ἀγλαΐζεσθαι, ὅπως καὶ ἡμεῖς μετὰ τοῦ προφήτου βοήσωμεν σήμερον «"ἀλήθεια ἐκ τῆς γῆς ἀνατέταλκε καὶ δικαιοσύνη" πρὸς τὸ ἡμέτερον ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν "διέκυψε" δικαστήριον». Τοῦ αὐτοῦ περὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ζητήματος ἀπόφασις διὰ προσωποποιΐας οἱ διαιτηταὶ Εὐάγγελος καὶ Θεόπεμπτοσ Τοῦ κρίσιν καὶ δικαιοσύνην ἀγαπῶντος θεοῦ καὶ ῥῆμα διδοῦντος "ἐν ἀνοίξει τοῦ στόματος" χείλεσί τε χάριν ἐκχέοντος καὶ καταρτίζοντος γλῶτταν ὡσεὶ κάλαμον γραμματέως καὶ ὡραΐζοντος, ἡνιοχοῦντος δὲ καρδίας κινήματα καὶ νοῦν πρὸς τὰς εὐθείας ἐπιβολὰς οἰακίζοντος, διδοῦντος δὲ "μόρφωσιν γνώσεως" παντί που τῷ αἰτοῦντι καὶ κρούοντι τῆς ἄνω θεωρίας τὴν θύραν καὶ πρὸς τὰ ἐνδόμυχα τῶν νοημάτων εἰσάγοντος, σοφίας τε πληροῦντος ποτήριον καὶ μεθύσκοντος ὡσεὶ κράτιστον τοὺς διψῶντας ῥεῖθρον παιδεύσεως, νῦν ἕκαστος ἡμῶν δεηθήσεται αἴνιγμα καὶ "λόγον σκοτεινὸν" ἐξοῖσαι "ὡς φῶς" καὶ διαμορφῶσαι κάλλει τρανώτατα, "λόγον" τε "ἀγαθὸν" ἐξερεύξασθαι βασιλικὴν ὁδὸν πορευόμενον εὐαγγελικήν τε καὶ λείαν καὶ σκολιὸν οὐδὲν ἐπιφερομένην πρὸς πλάνην ἀνώμαλον. ῾Ημεῖς μὲν οὖν φιλοσοφοῦντες περὶ τοῦ προκειμένου δόγματος ὑμῖν εἰς ἐξέτασιν οὔτε ὅρους ζωῆς φαμεν παντί τε καὶ πάντας καὶ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἔχοντας τὸ ἀκίνητον-ἑλληνικὸν γὰρ καὶ τυραννικῆς εἱμαρμένης ἴδιον τοῦτο καθέστηκε καὶ τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς νομοθεσίας ἀλλότριον- οὔτε δὲ τὴν ἔκχυτον ἀοριστίαν πρεσβεύομεν πρὸς ἄβυσσον ἀπειρίας ὁρῶντες ὡς ἀπᾴδουσαν πάντῃ τῆς φύσεως (μόνῳ γὰρ θεῷ προσενεκτέον τὸ ἄπειρον διὰ τὴν τῆς ἀκαταληψίας ὑπεροχήν). τοίνυν προαιρετικῶς ἡμῖν ἕπεται καὶ μῆκος ζωῆς καὶ ἡ παρὰ τοῦ θανάτου κολόβωσις. ὡς γὰρ ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἀρετή τε καὶ κακία καθέστηκε βασιλεία τε οὐρανῶν καὶ σκότος αἰώνιον καὶ "σκώληξ" ἀκοίμητος καὶ "πῦρ" ἀκατάσβεστον καὶ ὅσα προητοίμασε πρὸς κόλασιν ἢ τρυφὴν ἡ ἀδέσκατος κρίσις καὶ μισοπόνηρος τοῦ θεοῦ, οὕτω καὶ ζωῆς ἐπίδοσις καὶ θανάτου φορὰ ἀρετῇ ἢ κακίᾳ τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ φύλῳ προσπεπήγασιν.

῍Η οὐχὶ καὶ τὸ θεόπλαστον ζῷον "ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ πρῶτος ἐκ γῆς" γενόμενος "χοϊκός", θανάτου καὶ ἀθανασίας ὑπῆρχε μεταίχμιον; μετὸν γὰρ αὐτῷ μηδαμῶς ἠθετηκότι τὸ πρόσταγμα θανάτου μὴ γεύσασθαι ἢ ἔμπαλιν πλανηθέντι δι' ὄκνον ἀρετῆς καὶ ἀπροσεξίαν τοῦ κρείττονος εἰς ἀνάλυσιν φθορᾶς ἀποστρέφεσθαι καὶ πρὸς τοὺς κόλπους τῆς γῆς τὴν ἐπανάζευξιν ἡμαρτηκότι ποιήσασθαι. ζωῆς μὲν οὖν ὕπεισιν ὅροι καθὸ πεφυκότες ἐκ γῆς εἰς γῆν πάντες ἀπελευσόμεθα, ἐπίδοσις δὲ καὶ ἐκκοπὴ τῇ ζωῇ τῶν ἀνθρώπων προσγίνεται ἢ δι' ἀρετὴν ἢ διὰ κακίαν ψυχῆς. Τίνων "τὰ κῶλα" ἔπεσον "ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ"; οὐ τῶν κρεωφαγίαν ἐπιζητούντων; οὐ προσευχῇ