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12.92 Since, then, there is such a great difference among transgressors, it is not right to be angry with all in the same way, but to loathe those who openly embrace the swinish life, and for the others to counsel and advise and extend a hand and carefully tend and offer the medicines of health; but as for those, if they persist in living brutishly, let us both lament them while they are alive and, 12.93 when they die, apply to them the epitaph of Sardanapalus. For on his tomb was inscribed: “I have what I ate and what I insolently enjoyed and the pleasures I experienced with love, but all the many and blessed things are left behind; for I too am ashes, having been king of great Nineveh.” 12.94 But in fact, those who wrote this inscribed it falsely. For the deceased does not have what he ate and drank, but those things have passed into foul-smelling corruption; but he has only the stench of his lawless life, which continually pains and grieves the soul, conscious of its own worst evils and remembering the lawless things it did. 12.95 This twelfth discourse, O men, I have brought to you, and I have shown what the philosophers of the Greeks thought concerning God and matter and creation, and indeed concerning virtue and vice, and what the divine oracles have taught us, and how all their things have been extinguished and have been given over to the gloom of oblivion, while these things flourish and bloom and have many myriads of hearers and teachers in every city and country, who do not have Platonic eloquence, but offer the healing of the truth; and the delusion of the falsely named gods has been driven out, but the doctrines of our Savior 12.96 are being pro- claimed. For Porphyry also said this in the works he wrote against us: “But now,” he says, “they are amazed that for so many years a sickness has seized the city, since Asclepius’s visitations and those of the other gods no longer exist; for since Jesus has been honored, no one 12.97 has perceived any public benefit from the gods.” These things Porphyry, our greatest enemy, has said, and he has openly confessed that Jesus, being believed in, has rendered the gods useless, and that after the cross and the saving passion, Asclepius no longer deceives men, nor does any other of the so-called gods. For the light, having dawned, has sent their whole swarm, like some bats, to the darkness. 12.98 I ask that you also share in this ray. For on account of this I undertook the labor, and having gathered, as it were, certain herbs from all over, I have prepared for you the antidote.

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12.92 Ἐπειδὴ τοίνυν τοσαύτη τῶν παρανομούντων διαφορά, οὐ χρεὼν ἅπασι χαλεπαίνειν ὁμοίως, ἀλλὰ τοὺς μὲν προδήλως τὸν συώδη βίον ἀσπαζομένους μυσάττεσθαι, τοῖς δὲ ἄλλοις καὶ ξυμβουλεύειν καὶ παραινεῖν καὶ χεῖρα ὀρέγειν καὶ θεραπεύειν ἐπιμελῶς καὶ προσφέρειν τῆς ὑγιείας τὰ φάρμακα· ἐκείνους δέ, ἤν τοι ἐπιμένωσι θηριωδῶς βιοτεύοντες, καὶ περιόντας θρηνήσωμεν καὶ 12.93 ἀποθανοῦσι τὸ Σαρδαναπάλου ἐπίγραμμα προσενέγκωμεν. Τῷ γὰρ δὴ ἐκείνου ἐπεγέγραπτο τάφῳ· Τόσσ' ἔχω ὅσσ' ἔφαγον καὶ ἐφύβρισα καὶ μετ' ἔρωτος τέρπν' ἔπαθον, τὰ δὲ πολλὰ καὶ ὄλβια πάντα λέλειπται, καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ σποδός εἰμι, Νίνου μεγάλης βασιλεύσας. 12.94 Ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ τοῦτο ψευδῶς οἱ γεγραφότες ἐπέγραψαν. Οὐ γὰρ ἔχει ὁ τελευτήσας, ἅπερ ἔφαγε καὶ ἔπιεν, ἀλλ' εἰς τὴν δυσώδη φθορὰν ἐκεῖνα κεχώρηκεν· ἔχει δὲ μόνον τοῦ παρανόμου βίου τὴν δυσοσμίαν, ἣ διηνεκῶς τὴν ψυχὴν ἀλγύνει καὶ ἀνιᾷ, ξυνειδυῖαν ἑαυτῇ τὰ κάκιστα καὶ μεμνημένην ὧν παρανόμως εἰργάσατο. 12.95 Ταύτην ὑμῖν, ὦ ἄνδρες, δευτέραν καὶ δεκάτην διάλεξιν προσ ενήνοχα, καὶ ἐπέδειξα, τίνα μὲν περὶ Θεοῦ καὶ ὕλης καὶ κτίσεως, καὶ μέντοι καὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας τοῖς τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἔδοξε φιλοσόφοις, καὶ τίνα ἡμᾶς οἱ θεῖοι ἐξεπαίδευσαν λόγοι, καὶ ὡς ἔσβεσται μὲν τὰ ἐκείνων ἅπαντα καὶ παραδέδοται τῷ ζόφῳ τῆς λήθης, ἀνθεῖ δὲ ταῦτα καὶ τέθηλε καὶ πολλὰς ἔχει καθ' ἑκάστην καὶ πόλιν καὶ χώραν ἀκροατῶν μυριάδας καὶ διδασκάλους, τὴν μὲν Πλατωνικὴν εὐέπειαν οὐκ ἔχοντας, τὴν δὲ τῆς ἀληθείας ἰατρείαν προσφέροντας· καὶ τῶν μὲν ψευδωνύμων θεῶν τὸν πλάνον ἐληλαμένον, τοῦ δὲ ἡμετέρου Σωτῆρος τὰ δόγματα 12.96 κηρυτ- τόμενα. Τοῦτο γὰρ δὴ καὶ ὁ Πορφύριος, ἐν οἷς καθ' ἡμῶν ξυνέγραψεν, εἴρηκεν· "Νυνὶ δέ" φησι "θαυμάζουσιν, εἰ τοσούτων ἐτῶν κατείληφε νόσος τὴν πόλιν, Ἀσκληπιοῦ μὲν ἐπιδημίας καὶ τῶν ἄλλων θεῶν οὐκέτι οὔσης· Ἰησοῦ γὰρ τιμωμένου, οὐδεμιᾶς 12.97 δημοσίας τις θεῶν ὠφελείας ᾔσθετο." Ταῦτα ὁ πάντων ἡμῖν ἔχθιστος Πορφύριος εἴρηκε, καὶ ἀναφανδὸν ὡμολόγησεν, ὡς πιστευόμενος ὁ Ἰησοῦς φρούδους ἀπέφηνε τοὺς θεούς, καὶ μετὰ τὸν σταυρὸν καὶ τὸ σωτήριον πάθος οὐκέτι φενακίζει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους Ἀσκληπιός, οὐδὲ ἄλλος τις τῶν καλουμένων θεῶν. Ἅπαντα γὰρ αὐτῶν τὸν ὁρμαθόν, οἷόν τινας νυκτερίδας, τῷ σκότῳ παρέπεμψεν ἀνατεῖλαν τὸ φῶς. 12.98 Ταύτης καὶ ὑμᾶς τῆς ἀκτῖνος μεταλαχεῖν ἀξιῶ. Τοῦδε γὰρ χάριν καὶ τὸν πόνον ἀνεδεξάμην, καὶ οἷόν τινας βοτάνας πανταχόθεν ξυλλέξας, τὸ ἀλεξίκακον ὑμῖν κατεσκεύασα φάρμακον.