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| Argument: Righteous and Pious Men Shall Be Rewarded with Never-Ending Felicity, But Unrighteous Men Shall Be Visited with Eternal Punishment. The Morals of Christians are Far More Holy Than Those of the Gentiles.
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Chapter
XXXV.—Argument: Righteous and Pious Men Shall Be Rewarded
with Never-Ending Felicity, But Unrighteous Men
Shall Be Visited with Eternal Punishment. The Morals of
Christians are Far More Holy Than Those of the Gentiles.
“And yet men are admonished in the books and
poems of the most learned poets of that fiery river, and of the heat
flowing in manifold turns from the Stygian marsh,—things which,
prepared for eternal torments, and known to them by the information of
demons and from the oracles of their prophets, they have delivered to
us. And therefore among them also even king Jupiter himself
swears religiously by the parching banks and the black abyss; for, with
foreknowledge of the punishment destined to him, with his worshippers,
he shudders. Nor is there either measure or termination to these
torments. There the intelligent fire1828
| 1828 πῦρ
σωφρονοῦν is an
expression of Clemens Alexandrinus, so that there is no need for the
emendation of “rapiens” instead of “sapiens,”
suggested by one editor. |
burns the limbs and restores them, feeds on them and nourishes
them. As the fires of the thunderbolts strike upon the bodies,
and do not consume them; as the fires of Mount Ætna and of Mount
Vesuvius, and of burning lands everywhere, glow, but are not wasted; so
that penal fire is not fed by the waste of those who burn, but is
nourished by the unexhausted eating away of their bodies. But
that they who know not God are deservedly tormented as impious, as
unrighteous persons, no one except a profane man hesitates to believe,
since it is not less wicked to be ignorant of, than to offend the
Parent of all, and the Lord of all. And although ignorance of God
is sufficient for punishment, even as knowledge of Him is of avail for
pardon, yet if we Christians be compared with you, although in some
things our discipline is inferior, yet we shall be found much better
than you. For you forbid, and yet commit, adulteries; we are
born1829
| 1829 “Are known
as” is another reading. | men only for our own wives: you
punish crimes when committed; with us, even to think of crimes is to
sin: you are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; we are
even afraid of our own conscience alone, without which we cannot
exist: finally, from your numbers the prison boils over; but
there is no Christian there, unless he is accused on account of his
religion, or a deserter.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
