To know³⁵¹²

3512 The sentence has been thus rendered by Sylburgius and by Bp. Kaye. Lowth, however, suggests the supplying of ἐνεργεῖ, or something similar, to govern πεποιθησιν, confidence.

So the best thing on earth is the most pious man; and the best thing in heaven, the nearer in place and purer, is an angel, the partaker of the eternal and blessed life. But the nature of the Son, which is nearest to Him who is alone the Almighty One, is the most perfect, and most holy, and most potent, and most princely, and most kingly, and most beneficent. This is the highest excellence, which orders all things in accordance with the Father’s will, and holds the helm of the universe in the best way, with unwearied and tireless power, working all things in which it operates, keeping in view its hidden designs. For from His own point of view the Son of God is never displaced; not being divided, not severed, not passing from place to place; being always everywhere, and being contained nowhere; complete mind, the complete paternal light; all eyes, seeing all things, hearing all things, knowing all things, by His power scrutinizing the powers. To Him is placed in subjection all the host of angels and gods; He, the paternal Word, exhibiting³⁵¹³

3513 Αναδεδειγμένῳ. Instead of this, ἀναδεδεγμένῳ, “ having received,” has been suggested by Sylburgius.

Wherefore also all men are His; some through knowledge, and others not yet so; and some as friends, some as faithful servants, some as servants merely. This is the Teacher, who trains the Gnostic by mysteries, and the believer by good hopes, and the hard of heart by corrective discipline through sensible operation. Thence His providence is in private, in public, and everywhere.

And that He whom we call Saviour and Lord is the Son of God, the prophetic Scriptures explicitly prove. So the Lord of all, of Greeks and of Barbarians, persuades those who are willing. For He does not compel him³⁵¹⁴

3514 By omitting “him” (τόν), as Sylburgius does, the translation would run this: “for He compels no one to receive salvation from Him, because he is able to choose and fulfil from himself what pertains to the laying hold of the hope.”

It is He who also gave philosophy to the Greeks by means of the inferior angels. For by an ancient and divine order the angels are distributed among the nations.³⁵¹⁵

3515 Deut. xxxii. 8, 9, Septuagint, quoted already more than once.

3516 Prov. viii. 30.

And how is He Saviour and Lord, if not the Saviour and Lord of all? But He is the Saviour of those who have believed, because of their wishing to know; and the Lord of those who have not believed, till, being enabled to confess him, they obtain the peculiar and appropriate boon which comes by Him.

Now the energy of the Lord has a reference to the Almighty; and the Son is, so to speak, an energy of the Father. Therefore, a hater of man, the Saviour can never be; who, for His exceeding love to human flesh, despising not its susceptibility to suffering, but investing Himself with it, came for the common salvation of men; for the faith of those who have chosen it, is common. Nay more, He will never neglect His own work, because man alone of all the other living creatures was in his creation endowed with a conception of God. Nor can there be any other better and more suitable government for men than that which is appointed by God.

It is then always proper for the one who is superior by nature to be over the inferior, and for him who is capable of managing aught well to have the management of it assigned to him. Now that which truly rules and presides is the Divine Word and His providence, which inspects all things, and despises the care of nothing belonging to it.

Those, then, who choose to belong to Him, are those who are perfected through faith. He, the Son, is, by the will of the Almighty Father, the cause of all good things, being the first efficient cause of motion—a power incapable of being apprehended by sensation. For what He was, was not seen by those who, through the weakness of the flesh, were incapable of taking in [the reality]. But, having assumed sensitive flesh, He came to show man what was possible through obedience to the commandments. Being, then, the Father’s power, He easily prevails in what He wishes, leaving not even the minutest point of His administration unattended to. For otherwise the whole would not have been well executed by Him.

But, as I think, characteristic of the highest power is the accurate scrutiny of all the parts, reaching even to the minutest, terminating in the first Administrator of the universe, who by the will of the Father directs the salvation of all; some overlooking, who are set under others, who are set over them, till you come to the great High Priest. For on one original first Principle, which acts according to the [Father’s] will, the first and the second and the third depend. Then at the highest extremity of the visible world is the blessed band of angels;³⁵¹⁷

3517 [So called from Heraclea in Lydia.]

As, then, the minutest particle of steel is moved by the spirit of the Heraclean stone,³⁵¹⁸

3518 The magnet. [So called from the Lydian Magnesia.]

3519 Lowth here reads ἐκτεινομένῳ, agreeing with πνεύματι, instead of ἐκτεινομένη, as in the Oxford text.

For this was the law from the first, that virtue should be the object of voluntary choice. Wherefore also the commandments, according to the Law, and before the Law, not given to the upright (for the law is not appointed for a righteous man³⁵²⁰

3520 1 Tim. i. 9.

But, on the other hand, they allowed him who had been delighted with vice to consort with the objects of his choice; and, on the other hand, that the soul, which is ever improving in the acquisition³⁵²¹

3521 Instead of ἐπίγησιν, the corrupt reading of the text, ἐπίκτησιν (as above), ἐπίδοσιν, and ἐπ᾽ ἐξήγησιν have been proposed.

3522 Eph. iv. 13.

These salutary revolutions, in accordance with the order of change, are distinguished both by times, and places, and honours, and cognitions, and heritages, and ministries, according to the particular order of each change, up to the transcendent and continual contemplation of the Lord in eternity.

Now that which is lovable leads, to the contemplation of itself, each one who, from love of knowledge, applies himself entirely to contemplation. Wherefore also the Lord, drawing the commandments, both the first which He gave, and the second, from one fountain, neither allowed those who were before the law to be without law, nor permitted those who were unacquainted with the principles of the Barbarian philosophy to be without restraint. For, having furnished the one with the commandments, and the other with philosophy, He shut up unbelief to the Advent. Whence³⁵²³

3523 The text has ὅτε but the sense seems to require, as Sylburgius suggests, ὅθεν or ὥστε.

3524 [The salvability of the heathen through Christ, is everywhere conspicuous in our author’s system; but there is a solemn dignity in the concluding paragraphs of this chapter, which deserves reflection. It would not be becoming for me to express my own views upon the subject here, but it is one assuming fresh importance in our day.]

And if any one of the Greeks, passing over the preliminary training of the Hellenic philosophy, proceeds directly to the true teaching, he distances others, though an unlettered man, by choosing³⁵²⁵

3525 Instead of ἑλόμενος, Sylburgius proposes ἁλάμενος, making a leap by faith to perfection.

Everything, then, which did not hinder a man’s choice from being free, He made and rendered auxiliary to virtue, in order that there might be revealed somehow or other, even to those capable of seeing but dimly, the one only almighty, good God—from eternity to eternity saving by His Son.

And, on the other hand, He is in no respect whatever the cause of evil. For all things are arranged with a view to the salvation of the universe by the Lord of the universe, both generally and particularly. It is then the function of the righteousness of salvation to improve everything as far as practicable. For even minor matters are arranged with a view to the salvation of that which is better, and for an abode suitable for people’s character. Now everything that is virtuous changes for the better; having as the proper³⁵²⁶

3526 The reading varies here. For οἰκήσεις of the text, Heinsius and the Latin translator adopt οἰκείαν, which, on the whole, seems preferable to οἴ´κησιν or ἡκούσης.

E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH