The Teacher sighed gently at these words of mine, and then said; Maybe these were the objections, or such as these, that the Stoics and Epicureans collected at Athens made in answer to the Apostle. I hear that Epicurus carried his theories in this very direction. The framework of things was to his mind a fortuitous7    ὡς τυχαία, κ.τ.λ. It is better to connect this directly with Epicurus himself, than to refer it, by bracketing the preceding sentence (with Oehler), to his followers. Macrina infers from the opinions known to her of Epicurus, what he must have said about the human soul: i.e. that it was a bubble; and then what his followers probably said. There is no evidence that Epicurus used this actual figure: still Gregory may be recording his very words.—Lucian (Charon, 68) enlarges on such a simile: and his ὠκύμορον φύσημα, as a description of man, is reproduced by Gregory himself in Orat. de Beatitud. p. 768 D. and mechanical affair, without a Providence penetrating its operations; and, as a piece with this, he thought that human life was like a bubble, existing only as long as the breath within was held in by the enveloping substance8    τῷ περιέχοντι. Sifanus takes this of the surrounding atmosphere. So also Krabinger, “aere circumfuso,” just as above (182 A.) it does certainly mean the air, and Wolf quotes a passage to that effect from Marcus Antoninus and the present instance also. Still there is no reason that it should not here mean the body of the man, which is as it were a case retentive of the vital breath within; and the sense seems to require it. As to the construction, although πομφόλυξ is sometimes masculine in later Greek, yet it is much more likely that περιταθέντος (not περιτεθέντος of the Paris Editt.) is the genitive absolute with τοῦ σώματος: τῶ περιέχοντι would then very naturally refer to this., inasmuch as our body was a mere membrane, as it were, encompassing a breath; and that on the collapse of the inflation the imprisoned essence was extinguished. To him the visible was the limit of existence; he made our senses the only means of our apprehension of things; he completely closed the eyes of his soul, and was incapable of seeing anything in the intelligible and immaterial world, just as a man, who is imprisoned in a cabin whose walls and roof obstruct the view outside, remains without a glimpse of all the wonders of the sky. Verily, everything in the universe that is seen to be an object of sense is as an earthen wall, forming in itself a barrier between the narrower souls and that intelligible world which is ready for their contemplation; and it is the earth and water and fire alone that such behold; whence comes each of these elements, in what and by what they are encompassed, such souls because of their narrowness cannot detect. While the sight of a garment suggests to any one the weaver of it, and the thought of the shipwright comes at the sight of the ship, and the hand of the builder is brought to the mind of him who sees the building, these little souls gaze upon the world, but their eyes are blind to Him whom all this that we see around us makes manifest; and so they propound their clever and pungent doctrines about the soul’s evanishment;—body from elements, and elements from body, and, besides, the impossibility of the soul’s self-existence (if it is not to be one of these elements, or lodged in one); for if these opponents suppose that by virtue of the soul not being akin to the elements it is nowhere after death, they must propound, to begin with, the absence of the soul from the fleshly life as well, seeing that the body itself is nothing but a concourse of those elements; and so they must not tell us that the soul is to be found there either, independently vivifying their compound. If it is not possible for the soul to exist after death, though the elements do, then, I say, according to this teaching our life as well is proved to be nothing else but death. But if on the other hand they do not make the existence of the soul now in the body a question for doubt, how can they maintain its evanishment when the body is resolved into its elements? Then, secondly, they must employ an equal audacity against the God in this Nature too. For how can they assert that the intelligible and immaterial Unseen can be dissolved and diffused into the wet and the soft, as also into the hot and the dry, and so hold together the universe in existence through being, though not of a kindred nature with the things which it penetrates, yet not thereby incapable of so penetrating them? Let them, therefore, remove from their system the very Deity Who upholds the world.

Μ. Καὶ ἡ διδάσκαλος ἠρέμα τοῖς ῥηθεῖσιν ἐπιστενάξασα, Τάχα που ταῦτα καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα, φησὶ, πρὸς τὸν Ἀπόστολον ἐν Ἀθήναις ποτὲ συστάντες προέφερον Στωϊκοί τε καὶ Ἐπικούρειοι. Καὶ γὰρ ἀκούω πρὸς ταῦτα μάλιστα τὸν Ἐπίκουρον ταῖς ὑπολήψεσι φέρεσθαι, ὡς τυχαία τις καὶ αὐτόματος ἡ τῶν ὄντων ὑπενοήθη φύσις, ὡς οὐδεμιᾶς προνοίας διὰ τῶν πραγμάτων διηκούσης. Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο κατὰ τὸ ἀκόλουθον καὶ τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ζωὴν πομφόλυγος δίκην ᾤετο πνεύματί τινι τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν περιταθέντος, ἕως ἂν περικρατῆται τὸ πνεῦμα τῷ περιέχοντι, τῇ δὲ διαπτώσει τοῦ ὄγκου καὶ τὸ ἐναπειλημμένον συγκατασβέννυσθαι. Ὅρος γὰρ τούτῳ τῆς τῶν ὄντων φύσεως τὸ φαινόμενον ἦν, καὶ μέτρον τῆς τοῦ παντὸς καταλήψεως ἐποιεῖτο τὴν αἴσθησιν, μεμυκὼς παντάπασι τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς αἰσθητήρια, καὶ πρὸς οὐδὲν τῶν νοητῶν τε καὶ ἀσωμάτων βλέπειν οἷός τε ὢν, ὥσπερ ὁ οἰκίσκῳ τινὶ καθειργμένος τῶν οὐρανίων θαυμάτων ἀθέατος μένει, τοῖς τοίχοις καὶ τῷ ὀρόφῳ πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἔξω θέαν ἐμποδιζόμενος. Ἀτεχνῶς γὰρ γήϊνοί τινές εἰσι τοῖχοι τὰ αἰσθητὰ πάντα, ὅσα ἐν τῷ παντὶ καθορᾶται, πρὸς τὴν τῶν νοητῶν θεωρίαν δι' ἑαυτῶν τοὺς μικροψυχοτέρους διατειχίζοντες. Γῆν ὁ τοιοῦτος βλέπει μόνην, καὶ ὕδωρ, καὶ ἀέρα, καὶ πῦρ: ὅθεν δὲ τούτων ἕκαστον, ἢ ἐν τίνι ἐστὶν, ἢ ὑπὸ τίνος περικρατεῖται, διιδεῖν ὑπὸ μικροψυχίας οὐ δύναται. Καὶ ἱμάτιον μέν τις ἰδὼν τὸν ὑφάντην ἀνελογίσατο, καὶ διὰ τῆς νηὸς τὸν ναυπηγὸν ἐνενόησεν, ἥ τε αὐτοῦ οἰκοδόμου χεὶρ ὁμοῦ τῇ τοῦ οἰκοδομήματος ὄψει τῇ διανοίᾳ τῶν θεωμένων ἐγγίνεται. Οἱ δὲ πρὸς τὸν κόσμον ὁρῶντες πρὸς τὸν διὰ τούτων δηλούμενον ἀμβλυωποῦσιν, ὅθεν τὰ σοφὰ ταῦτα καὶ δριμέα παρὰ τῶν τὸν ἀφανισμὸν ψυχῆς δογματιζόντων προφέρεται: σῶμα ἐκ στοιχείων, καὶ στοιχεῖα ἐκ σώματος, καὶ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι τὴν ψυχὴν καθ' ἑαυτὴν εἶναι, εἰ μήτε τούτων τι εἴη, μήτε ἐν τούτοις. Εἰ γὰρ ὅτι μὴ ὁμοφυὴς τοῖς στοιχείοις ἐστὶν ἡ ψυχὴ, διὰ τοῦτο οὐδαμοῦ εἶναι αὐτὴν οἱ ἀντιλέγοντες οἴονται: οὗτοι πρῶτον μὲν καὶ τὴν ἐν σαρκὶ ζωὴν ἄψυχον εἶναι δογματιζέτωσαν. Οὐ γὰρ ἄλλο τι τὸ σῶμά ἐστιν, εἰ μὴ συνδρομὴ τῶν στοιχείων: μὴ τοίνυν μηδ' ἐν τούτοις τὴν ψυχὴν εἶναι λεγέτωσαν δι' ἑαυτῆς ζωοποιοῦσαν τὸ σύγκριμα: εἴπερ οὐκ ἔστι μετὰ ταῦτα δυνατὸν, καθὼς οἴονται, τῶν στοιχείων ὄντων καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν εἶναι, ὡς μηδὲν ἄλλο ἢ νεκρὰν τὴν ζωὴν ἡμῶν παρ' αὐτῶν ἀποδείκνυσθαι. Εἰ δὲ νῦν ἐν τῷ σώματι τὴν ψυχὴν εἶναι οὐκ ἀμφιβάλλουσι, πῶς τοῦ σώματος εἰς τὰ στοιχεῖα τὸν ἀφανισμὸν αὐτῆς δογματίζουσι, ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ κατὰ ταύτης τῆς θείας φύσεως τὰ ἶσα τολμάτωσαν. Πῶς γὰρ ἐροῦσι τὴν νοεράν τε καὶ ἄϋλον καὶ ἀειδῆ φύσιν εἰς τὰ ὑγρά τε καὶ μαλακὰ καὶ στερέμνια διαδυομένην ἐν τῷ εἶναι συνέχειν τὰ ὄντα, οὔτε συγγενῶς ἔχουσαν πρὸς τὰ ἐν οἷς γίνεται, οὔτε διὰ τὸ ἑτερογενὲς ἐν αὐτοῖς εἶναι ἀδυνατοῦσαν; Οὐκοῦν ἐξῃρήσθω καθόλου τοῦ δόγματος αὐτῶν καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ Θεῖον, ᾧ διακρατεῖται τὰ ὄντα.