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For tho divino, says the poet oi Agrigentum,'
This discourso respecting God is most dissiculi to handie. For since the first principis of eve thing is diffleuit to findout, the absolutoly firat anil oldest principie, Whicli is thecause os ali other things being and haring been, is difficult
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to exhibit. For how can stat be expressed Whicli is notther genus, nor disserence, nor species, nor individual, nor num-ber; nay more, is neither an event, nor that to Which an even happensi No one can rightly express Him Wholly. For on account of res greatnem He is ranked as tho All, and is tho Father of the universe. Nor are any parta in be
His namo; but for mant, me me good names, in order thattho mind may have these as minis of suppori, so as not inere in other respecti. For each ono is iraeis does not e prem God; but ali together aro indicative of the power of tho Omnipotent. For predicates are expressed euher hom What bolongs to things themselves, or hom their mutuat relation. But nono of these are admissibie in refersnce to God. Norany more is He apprehended by the science of demonstration.
THE KNΟ-EDGE OF GOD A DIVINE GIFT, ACCORDINO TOTHE PHILOSOPHERS.ΕVERYTHING, then, Which falla under a name, is originaled,
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has reached the conception os tho blessed and incorruptibio nature; or Whether ino free-Will Whicli is in us, by reaching the knowledge of the good, leaps and bounds over the barriere, as tho gymnasis say; yet it is not Without eminent grace that the wes is Winged, and scara, and is mised abovo the highor spheres, laying aside ad that is hemy, and surrendering itselfio ita Endred element. Plato, iso, in Meno, mys that viriue is God-ψVen, as the fossoWing expressions inoW: From this argument then, o Meno, virtuo is stlown in come to those, in Whom it is found, is divino providence.' Does it not then appear that thegnostic disposition ' whicli has come to ali is enigmaticallyeallod divina providence ' And he adds moro explicitis: μ Η, then, in this wholo treatlae Wo have investigated meli, it resulta stat virtus is nesther is nature, nor is it taught, butis produced by divine providence, not Without intelligence, in thoso in .hom it is found V Wisdom Which is God-givon, as Ming the poner of the Faster, rouses indeed our De Will, and ad is fiath, and repvs tho application of the elect withiis cro ing fello fhip. d no. I mill adduco Plato himself, Who clearly deemsit fit to boliovo tho ehildron os God. For, discoursing on gοdsinat ars visibie and bom, in Timopus, he says: But to speah of tho oster demons, and to know stela birth, is too muta forus. But me must credit those Who have tormerly spolien, they
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to vilisy philosophy and run down faith, and to pratse iniquity and selicitato a libidinous liso. But now faith, is itis tho voluntary assent of tho foui, is stili tho doer of good things, the foundation os right conduci; and ii Aristotio
that it is not necessary. But the good differ especialty immtho bad in inclinations and good destres. For ali depravi ty
I cannot help admiring in every particular stat divine ulterance : Vertiri Verily, I say unto you, He stat entereth
β The texi ἐπίστηται, but the sense Mems to require ἐπίστευσε. η πέποιθεν ia confidence.
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men; and the most, Who had not quite divested them- solves of shame With respect to the truth, apprehended theeternat beneficenco in divino providence. In fine, then, Xenocrates the Chalcedonian was not quilo Without hope that tho notion os the Diviniu existed even in the irrationalcreatures. And Democritus, though against his mili, Willmae this avoWal by the consequences of his domas; forho representa the fame images as imuing, hom the divine essen , on men and on the irrationat animais. Far homdestituto os a divine idea is man, Who, it is Written in Genesis, partook of inspiration, Ming endo ed With a purer esseneothan the other animato creatures. Hence the 'thagoreans
say that miud comes in man by divine providence, as Plato and Aristolle avo ; but me asseri that the Holy Spiritinspires him Who has belloved. The Uatonisis hold that mind is an emuence of divine dispensation in the foui, and they place the wul in the bo . For it is expressty said by Joci, one of the twelve propheis, And it shali come to passaiter these things, I Will pour out of my Spirit on ali flesti, and your sons and your daughters shali prophe . ' But itis not as a portion os God that tho Spirit is in sach os us. But hoW this dispensation tahes place, and What tho Holy Spirit is, inalt be inown by us in the books on prophecy, and in those on the soni. But increduli is good at con- aling the depius of knowledge,' accordi to Heraclitus; μ for increduliu escapes hom ignorance.'
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LET us add in completion What follows, and exhibit noπWith greater clearness the plagiarism of the Groeta hom tho Barbarian philosopby. Now tho Stoics say that God, like the foui, is essentiallybody and spirit. You mill find ait this explicitly in thoirwritings. Do not considor at present their allegories as thegnostic truth presenis them; Whether they show one thingand mean another, like the dexterous athletes. Weli, theysay that God pervades ali being; While we cali Him solelyΜaher, and Maher by tho Wo . They vrere misiod by what is sald in tho book os Wisdom : He pervades and passes through Hl by reason os His purity;' sinco they didnot understand that this mas sald of Wisdom, which was thosint of the creation os God. So be it, they say. But the philosophera, the Stoics, and Plato, and Pythagoras, nay more, Aristolle the Peripatetic, suppose the existence of matter among the first principies; and not one fini principio. Let them then know that whatis called mattor is them, is sald by them to be Without quality, and without io , and more daringly said by Plato to bonon-existence. And does he not say Very mysticatly, kno ing that tho truo and real first cause is one, in these very Words: μ No , then, let our opinion bo so. As to the firstprincipio or principies of the universe, or What opinion moought to enteriain about ali these potnis, me are not noW to Speis, for no other cause than on account of ira bsing dissiculi to explain our sentimenta in accordance With the presentform os discourso.' But undoubtedly that prophetic expression, Now the earth was invisibis and formiess,' supplied them mitti the ground of material essence. And tho introduction of chance' mas hence suggestedio Epicurus, Who misapprehended the statement, Vanity of Vanities, and ali is vani .' And it occurred io Aristolle to
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oriend Providenco as sar as the moon hom this psalm: Lord, Thy mercy is in the heavens; and Thy truth reacheth to theclouti. For the explanation of the prophetic mysteries liadnot yet been revealed previous to the advent of tho Lord. Punishments after death, on the oster hand, and penal retribution by fire, Were piliered hom tho Barbarian philosophyboth is ali tho poetie Μuses and by the Hellenic philosophy. Plato, accordingly, in the last book of the Repuibile, sus in
them along the Way, tearing their flesh With thorns.' For tho fiery men are meant to signisy the angels, Who seiae and punishthe wiched. μWho miselli,' it is sald, His angeis spiriis; His ministere flaming firo. It Iollows hom this that thosout is immortal. For What is tortured or corrected being in astate of sensation lives, though said to sustor. Wolli Did notPlato know of tho rivors of fire and the depili of the earth, and Tartarus, called by the Barbarians Gebenna, naming, ashe does propheticassy,' Cocytus, and Acheron, and Pyriphlegethon, and introducing Such correctivo tortures for disciplino But indicating the angels,V as the Scripture sus, of the lituo ones, and of the least, Which seo God,' and also the ove sight reaching in us exercised by the tutelary angels, he stirinlisnot hom Wriling, That when ali the fouis have solectod thoirseverat lives, according as it has salien to their tot, they a vanco in ordor to Lachesis; and sto sends along With cachone, as his guido in lite, and the joint accomptisher of his pur ses, the demon which he has chosen. Perhaps also tho demon os Socrates suggested in him something similar. Nay, the philosophera, having so heard iroin Moses, taughtthat tho World was created. And so Plato expressty said, - Whether mas it that the world had no beginning oi ita exist- ence, or derived ita beginning ironi some beginningi For
λ Ps. xxxvi. 5. ' Ps. civ. 4. Eusebius reada ποικπικως. ε γενητόν.
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and Father of this univorse, ho not only showed that thouniverse Was creared, but potnis out stat it Was generaled by him as a son, and that he is called iis fallier, as deriving itabeing imm him alone, and springing hom no existence. The Stolos, too, holit tho tenet that the World Was created.
And that tho dovit so spolien os by the Barbarian philosophy,
the prince of the demons, is a miched spirit, Plato asserta intho tenth book of the Latos, in these motas : Must Wo notsay that spirit Whicli pervades the things that are moved onali sides, pervades also heaven Well, What one or more lSeverat, say I, in reply sor you. Let us not suppose fewerthan tWo that whicli is beneficent, and that whicli is abloto accomptish the opposite.' Similarly in the Phindrvs ho
Further, in the tonth book of the Laisa, he expressty emiis that apostolic sentiment, Our contest is not With flesh and blood, but principalities, Willi pomers, With the spirituat things of those Whieli are in heaven; Writing thus: For since e are agreed that heaven is fuit os many good beings; butit is also fuit os the opposito os these, and more of these; and
thought and the worid os sense-the former archetypal, and the lalter tho imago of that whicli is called tho modet; and assigns tho former to the Μonad, as being perceived by thomind, and the world of sense to the number fix. For fix is
called by the Pythagoreans marriage, as bring the genitalnumber; and he places in the Monad tho invisibie heaven and the holy earth, and intellectual light. For in the beginning,'it is sald, God made tho heavon and tho earth; and the earthwas invisibio.' And it is added, And God sald, Lot there belight; and there Was light.' d in tho materiai cosmogonyΗe creates a solid heaven and what is solid is capable olbeing perceived by sense , and a visibis earth, and a light that
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is seen. Does not Plato henco appeis to have lest the ideas ofliving creatures in the intellectuat worid, and to mae intellectual objecta into sensibis species according in stela genera
earthly tabernaclo was formed of tho ground, but that therationes fout was breathed by God into man's face. For there, they say, the ruling saculty is siluated; interpreting the accessis the senses into the first man as the addition os the foui. Whereiore also man is said μω have been made in fGod' imago and likenoss.' For the imago of God is tho divinoand myal Word, the impassibio man ; and tho imago of the imago is tho human mind. And is you Wish to apprehendthe likeness by another name, you Will find it named in Μoses, a divine correspondence. For he says, Walh astor the Lord your God, and heep His command ments.' AndI rechon ali tho virtuous, servants and followers of God.
Ηence tho Stoics say that tho end of philosophy is to live agris ly to nature; and Plato, liheness to God, as Wo have inown in the second Miscellany. And Zeno the Stoic, borroWing from Plato, and he irem tho Barbarian philosophy, saysthat ali the good ara Diends of one another. For Socratessus in tho Phoedrus, that it has not been ordianod that the bad should bo a friend to tho bad, nor tho good benes a friend to tho good; as also ho fhowed suffciently in the Lysis, that triendship is never preservod in Wichednessand vice. And tho Athenian stranger similarly says, that there is conduci pleasing and conformabis to God, based onone ancient ground-principie, That like loves liho, provided
recollected tho following. In tho Ond of tho Timores he says: Gu must necessarily assimilate that whicli perceives tolliat whicli is perceived, according to iis original nature; and