|
Why, then, do we not rather believe the divinity in those matters,
which human talent cannot fathom? Why do we not credit the assertion
of divinity, that the soul is not co-eternal with God, but is
created, and once was not? For the Platonists seemed to themselves
to allege an adequate reason for their rejection of this doctrine, when
they affirmed that nothing could be everlasting which had not always
existed. Plato, however, in writing concerning the world and the
gods in it, whom the Supreme made, most expressly states that they
had a beginning and yet would have no end, but, by the sovereign will
of the Creator, would endure eternally. But, by way of interpreting
this, the Platonists have discovered that he meant a beginning, not
of time, but of cause. "For as if a foot," they say, "had been
always from eternity in dust, there would always have been a print
underneath it; and yet no one would doubt that this print was made by
the pressure of the foot, nor that, though the one was made by the
other, neither was prior to the other; so," they say, "the world
and the gods created in it have always been, their Creator always
existing, and yet they were made." If, then, the soul has always
existed, are we to say that its wretchedness has always existed? For
if there is something in it which was not from eternity, but began in
time, why is it impossible that the soul itself, though not previously
existing, should begin to be in time? Its blessedness, too, which,
as he owns, is to be more stable, and indeed endless, after the
soul's experience of evils, this undoubtedly has a beginning in time,
and yet is to be always, though previously it had no existence. This
whole argumentation, therefore, to establish that nothing can be
endless except that which has had no beginning, falls to the ground.
For here we find the blessedness of the soul, which has a beginning,
and yet has no end. And, therefore, let the incapacity of man give
place to the authority of God; and let us take our belief regarding
the true religion from the ever-blessed spirits, who do not seek for
themselves that honor which they know to be due to their God and ours,
and who do not command us to sacrifice save only to Him, whose
sacrifice, as I have often said already, and must often say again,
we and they ought together to be, offered through that Priest who
offered Himself to death a sacrifice for us, in that human nature
which He assumed, and according to which He desired to be our
Priest.
|
|