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Therefore, whether according to the first sense, affirmatively, “where will the impious and sinner appear,” he will not be at all free of a circumscribed life, not having the life that escapes all circumscription and is beyond every place. Or according to the second, negatively, “Where will he appear,” not having God who holds life together for well-being, the one who is to become a place for all the worthy. How will he exist, not having God himself as a place, according to the abiding and establishment of well-being in God. And to speak simply, if the righteous is saved with much difficulty, what will become of, or what will be suffered by, the one who has taken no account of piety and virtue during the present life.

SCHOLIA. α΄. Pleasure and pain, he says, were not co-created with the nature of the flesh; but the transgression devised the one for the corruption of the will, and condemned the other for the dissolution of nature; so that pleasure might work the voluntary death of the soul, which is sin; and pain, through dissolution, might bring about the ceasing-to-be of the flesh according to its form.

β΄. That according to providence, for the chastisement of pleasure according to choice, God has given to nature pain contrary to choice, and the death that follows upon it.

γ΄. The devising of voluntary labors, and the bringing on of involuntary ones, he says, remove pleasure, ceasing its motion in actuality; but they do not destroy its power which is inherent in nature for generation, like a law. For philosophy according to virtue is naturally disposed to work dispassion of the will, but not of nature; according to which dispassion of the will, the grace of divine pleasure in the intellect supervenes.

δ΄. He calls unjust pleasure the law of sin mixed into nature from the transgression.

ε΄. He says that the suffering and death of the Lord was shown to be a mean destined for the removal of the extremes, as He had a birth free of pleasure, and the death of His divine flesh for our sake was pure of a passible life; according to which beginning and birth and death He voluntarily endured for us, in order that, appearing as a mean, He might take away our birth from pleasure and the death from a passible life, and transfer us to another life, free of temporal beginning and end, which not nature but grace creates.

στ΄. That, he says, it was utterly impossible for nature, having been subjected both to pleasure according to choice and to pain contrary to choice, to be recalled again to the life from the beginning, unless the Creator had become man, accepting by choice the pain devised for the chastisement of the pleasure of nature according to choice, which did not have preceding it the (644) birth from pleasure; in order to free nature from the birth of condemnation, by accepting a birth that did not have its beginning from pleasure.

ζ΄. The end of the Lord through death. η΄. Clearly, to the passible aspect of nature. θ΄. How we intensify the penalty of pain according to nature, by striving to console it with pleasure.

ι΄. The wisdom of God, he says, is shown in His having become truly a man by nature; and the justice, in His having assumed the passible aspect of nature in birth, just as we have; and the power, in His creating for nature, through sufferings and death, eternal life and immutable dispassion.

ια΄. That the Lord, having taken away the pleasure from the law of sin for the setting aside of the birth according to the flesh of those born in Him by grace through the Spirit,

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Οὐκοῦν εἴτε κατά τήν πρώτην ἐπιβολήν καταφατικῶς, ὁ ἀσεβής καί ἁμαρτωλός που φανεῖται, περιγεγραμμένης οὐκ ἔσται ζωῆς τό παράπαν ἐλεύθερος· τήν πᾶσαν διαφεύγουσαν περιγραφήν, καί παντός ἐπέκεινα τόπου ζωήν οὐκ ἔχων. Εἴτε κατά τήν δευτέραν ἀποφατικῶς, Ποῦ φανεῖται, τόν Θεόν οὐκ ἔχων πρός τό εὖ συνέχοντα τήν ζωήν, τόν μέλλοντα πᾶσιν γίνεσθαι τόπον τοῖς ἀξίοις. Πῶς ἔσται, τόπον αὐτόν οὐκ ἔχων τόν Θεόν, κατά τήν τοῦ εὖ εἶναι ἐν Θεῷ μονήν τε καί ἵδρυσιν. Καί ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν, εἰ μετά πολλῆς δυσχερείας ὁ δίκαιος σώζεται, τί ἔσται, ἤ τί πείσεται ὁ μηδένα λόγον εὐσεβείας καί ἀρετῆς κατά τήν παροῦσαν ζωήν ποιησάμενος.

ΣΧΟΛΙΑ. α΄. Ἡδονή καί ὀδύνη, τῇ φύσει φησί τῆς σαρκός οὐ συνεκτίσθησαν· ἀλλ᾿ ἡ

παράβασις, τήν μέν ἐπενόησεν εἰς φθοράν τῆς προαιρέσεως· τήν δέ κατεδίκασεν εἰς λύσιν τῆς φύσεως· ἵνα ἡ μέν ἡδονή, ψυχῆς ἑκούσιον ἐργάσηται θάνατον τῆς ἁμαρτίας· ἡ δέ ὀδύνη διά τῆς λύσεως, τήν κατ᾿ εἶδος ποιήσεται τῆς σαρκός ἀπογένεσιν.

β΄. Ὅτι κατά πρόνοιαν πρός κόλασιν τῆς κατά προαίρεσιν ἡδονῆς, δέδωκεν ὁ Θεός τῇ φύσει τήν παρά προαίρεσιν ὀδύνην, καί τόν ἐπ᾿ αὐτῇ θάνατον.

γ΄. Ἡ τῶν ἑκουσίων πόνων ἐπίνοια, καί ἡ τῶν ἀκουσίων ἐπαγωγή, φησίν, ἀφαιροῦνται μέν τήν ἡδονήν, τήν κατ᾿ ἐνέργειαν αὐτῆς καταπαύουσαν κίνησιν· οὐκ ἀναιροῦσι δέ τήν ὥσπερ νόμον τῇ φύσει πρός γένεσιν ἐγκειμένην αὐτῆς δύναμιν. Ἡ γάρ κατ᾿ ἀρετήν φιλοσοφία, γνώμης ἀπάθειαν, ἀλλ' οὐ φύσεως ἐργάζεσθαι πέφυκε· καθ᾿ ἥν γνωμικήν ἀπάθειαν, ἡ κατά νοῦν τῆς θείας ἡδονῆς ἐπιγίνεται χάρις.

δ΄. Ἄδικον ἡδονήν λέγει, τόν ἐκ τῆς παραβάσεως ἐμφυρέντα τῇ φύσει νόμον τῆς ἁμαρτίας.

ε΄. Μέσον ὀφείλοντα πρός τήν τῶν ἄκρων ἀναίρεσιν ἀναδειχθῆναι λέγει, τόν τοῦ Κυρίου πόνον καί θάνατον, ὡς ἡδονῆς ἐσχηκότος ἐλευθέραν τήν γένεσιν, καί ζωῆς ἐμπαθοῦς καθαρόν τόν θάνατον τῆς δι᾿ ἡμᾶς αὐτοῦ θείας σαρκός· καθ᾿ ἥν γένεσίν τε καί γέννησιν καί θάνατον δι᾿ ἡμᾶς ἑκουσίως ὑπέμεινεν· ἵνα τήν ἡμῶν ἐξ ἡδονῆς γένεσιν, καί τόν ἐξ ἐμπαθοῦς ζωῆς θάνατον, ἀφέλῃ μέσος ἀναφανείς, καί πρός ἑτέραν ἡμᾶς μετάγῃ ζωήν, ἀρχῆς ἐλευθέραν χρονικῆς καί τέλους, ἥν οὐ φύσις ἐλλ᾿ ἡ χάρις δημιουργεῖ.

στ΄. Ὅτι παντελῶς φησιν ἀμήχανον ἦν, τήν φύσιν ὑποβληθεῖσαν τῇ τε κατά προαίρεσιν ἡδονῇ, καί τῇ παρά προαίρεσιν ὀδύνῃ, πάλιν πρός τήν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀνακληθῆναι ζωήν, εἰ μή γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος ὁ δημιουργός, προαιρέσει δεχόμενος τήν πρός κόλασιν τῆς κατά προαίρεσιν τῆς φύσεως ἡδονῆς ἐπινοηθεῖσαν ὀδύνην, οὐκ ἔχουσαν προηγουμένην αὐτῆς τήν (644) ἐξ ἡδονῆς γένεσιν· ἵνα τῆς ἐκ καταδίκης ἐλευθερώσῃ τήν φύσιν γεννήσεως, ἐξ ἡδονῆς ἀρχήν οὐκ ἔχουσαν καταδεχόμενος γέννησιν.

ζ΄. Τό διά θανάτου τέλος τοῦ Κυρίου. η΄. Τῷ παθητῶ δῆλον ὅτι τῆς φύσεως. θ΄. Πῶς τῆς ὀδύνης πλέον τό κατά φύσιν ἐπιτείνομεν πρόστιμον, διά τῆς ἡδονῆς

αὐτήν παραμυθεῖσθαι σπουδάζοντες. ι΄. Τό μέν σοφόν τοῦ Θεοῦ φησιν, ἐν τῷ γενέσθαι φύσει κατ᾿ ἀλήθειαν ἄνθρωπον

δείκνυται· τό δέ δίκαιον, ἐν τῷ παθητόν κατά τήν γένεσιν ὁμοίως ἡμῖν ἀνειληφέναι τῆς φύσεως· τό δέ δυνατόν, ἐν τῷ διά παθημάτων καί θανάτου ζωήν ἀΐδιον τῇ φύσει δημιουργῆσαι, καί ἀπάθειαν ἄτρεπτον.

ια΄. Ὅτι τήν ἐκ τοῦ νόμου τῆς ἁμαρτίας ἡδονήν εἰς ἀθέτησιν τῆς κατά σάρκα γεννήσεως τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ χάριτι διά Πνεύματος γεννωμένων ὁ Κύριος ἀφελόμενος,