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| Against Plato, on the Cause of the Universe.
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Against Plato,
on the Cause of the Universe.1579
| 1579
Gallandi, Vet. Patr., ii. 451. Two fragments of this
discourse are extant also in the Parallela Damascenica
Rupefucaldina, pp. 755, 789. [Compare Justin, vol. i. p. 273;
Tatian, ii. 65; Athenagoras, 130, and Clement passim; vol. iii.
Tertullian, 129; Origen, iv. p. 412. This is a fragment from
Hippol. Against the Greeks. |
1. And this is the passage regarding
demons.1580
| 1580 The
reading in the text is ὁπερὶ
δαιμόνων
τόπος; others read λόγος for τόπος = thus far the discussion
on demons. | But now we
must speak of Hades, in which the souls both of the righteous and the
unrighteous are detained. Hades is a place in the created system,
rude,1581
a locality
beneath the earth, in which the light of the world does not shine; and
as the sun does not shine in this locality, there must necessarily be
perpetual darkness there. This locality has been destined to be
as it were a guard-house for souls, at which the angels are stationed
as guards, distributing according to each one’s deeds the
temporary1582
| 1582 Or
it may be “seasonable,” προσκαροίυς. | punishments for
(different) characters. And in this locality there is a certain
place1583
| 1583
τρόπων. There is
another reading, τόπων = of the places. | set apart by
itself, a lake of unquenchable fire, into which we suppose no one has
ever yet been cast; for it is prepared against the day determined by
God, in which one sentence of righteous judgment shall be justly
applied to all. And the unrighteous, and those who believed not
God, who have honoured as God the vain works of the hands of men, idols
fashioned (by themselves), shall be sentenced to this endless
punishment. But the righteous shall obtain the incorruptible and
unfading kingdom, who indeed are at present detained in Hades,1584
| 1584
Hades, in the view of the ancients, was the general receptacle of souls
after their separation from the body, where the good abode happily in a
place of light (φωτεινῷ), and the evil
all in a place of darkness (σκοτιωτέρῳ).
See Colomesii Κειμήλια
litteraria, 28, and Suicer on ᾅδης. Hence Abraham’s
bosom and paradise were placed in Hades. See Olympiodorus on
Eccles., iii. p. 264. The Macedonians, on the authority of
Hugo Broughton, praying in the Lord’s words, “Our Father
who art in Hades” (Πατὴρ ἡμῶν
ὁ ἐν ᾆδῃ)
(Fabricius). [Hippolytus is singular in assigning the
ultimate receptacle of lost spirits to this Hades. But
compare vol. iii. p. 428, and vol. iv. pp. 293, 495, 541,
etc.] | but not in the
same place with the unrighteous. For to this locality there is
one descent, at the gate whereof we believe an archangel is stationed
with a host. And when those who are conducted by the
angels1585
| 1585
Cf. Constitut. Apostol., viii. 41. | appointed unto
the souls have passed through this gate, they do not proceed on one and
the same way; but the righteous, being conducted in the light toward
the right, and being hymned by the angels stationed at the place, are
brought to a locality
full of light. And there the righteous from the
beginning1586
| 1586
[They do not pass into an intermediate purgatory, nor require prayers
for “the repose of their souls.”] | dwell, not
ruled by necessity, but enjoying always the contemplation of the
blessings which are in their view, and delighting themselves with the
expectation of others ever new, and deeming those ever better than
these. And that place brings no toils to them. There, there
is neither fierce heat, nor cold, nor thorn;1587
| 1587
τρίβολος.
[Also the Pindaric citation in my note, vol. i. 74.] | but the face of the fathers and the
righteous is seen to be always smiling, as they wait for the rest and
eternal revival in heaven which succeed this location. And we
call it by the name Abraham’s bosom. But the
unrighteous are dragged toward the left by angels who are ministers of
punishment, and they go of their own accord no longer, but are dragged
by force as prisoners. And the angels appointed over them send
them along,1588
| 1588
In the Parallela is inserted here the word
ἐπιγελῶντες, deriding them. | reproaching
them and threatening them with an eye of terror, forcing them down into
the lower parts. And when they are brought there, those appointed
to that service drag them on to the confines or hell.1589
And those who are so near hear
incessantly the agitation, and feel the hot smoke. And when that
vision is so near, as they see the terrible and excessively
glowing1590
| 1590
According to the reading in Parallela, which
inserts ξανθὴν = red. | spectacle of the
fire, they shudder in horror at the expectation of the future judgment,
(as if they were) already feeling the power of their punishment.
And again, where they see the place of the fathers and the
righteous,1591
| 1591 The
text reads καὶ
οὗ, and where. But in
Parallela it is καὶ οὗτοι = and
these see, etc. In the same we find ὡς
μήτε for
καὶ
τοὺς
δικαίους. | they are also
punished there. For a deep and vast abyss is set there in the
midst, so that neither can any of the righteous in sympathy think to
pass it, nor any of the unrighteous dare to cross it.
2. Thus far, then, on the subject of Hades,
in which the souls of all are detained until the time which God has
determined; and then1592
| 1592
[It would be hard to frame a system of belief concerning the
state of the dead more entirely exclusive of purgatory, i e., a
place where the souls of the faithful are detained till (by
Masses and the like) they are relieved and admitted to glory, before
the resurrection. See vol. iii. p. 706.] |
He will accomplish a resurrection of all, not by transferring souls
into other bodies,1593
| 1593
μετενσωματῶν,
in opposition to the dogma of metempsychosis. |
but by raising the bodies themselves. And if, O Greeks, ye refuse
credit to this because ye see these (bodies) in their dissolution,
learn not to be incredulous. For if ye believe that the soul is
originated and is made immortal by God, according to the opinion of
Plato,1594
in time, ye ought
not to refuse to believe that God is able also to raise the body, which
is composed of the same elements, and make it immortal.1595
| 1595
The first of the two fragments in the Parallela ends
here. | To be able
in one thing, and to be unable in another, is a word which cannot be
said of God. We therefore believe that the body also is
raised. For if it become corrupt, it is not at least
destroyed. For the earth receiving its remains preserves them,
and they, becoming as it were seed, and being wrapped up with the
richer part of earth, spring up and bloom. And that which is sown
is sown indeed bare grain; but at the command of God the Artificer it
buds, and is raised arrayed and glorious, but not until it has first
died, and been dissolved, and mingled with earth. Not, therefore,
without good reason do we believe in the resurrection of the
body. Moreover, if it is dissolved in its season on account of
the primeval transgression, and is committed to the earth as to a
furnace, to be moulded again anew, it is not raised the same thing as
it is now, but pure and no longer corruptible. And to every body
its own proper soul will be given again; and the soul, being endued
again with it, shall not be grieved, but shall rejoice together with
it, abiding itself pure with it also pure. And as it now sojourns
with it in the world righteously, and finds it in nothing now a
traitor, it will receive it again (the body) with great joy. But
the unrighteous will receive their bodies unchanged, and unransomed
from suffering and disease, and unglorified, and still with all the
ills in which they died. And whatever manner of persons they
(were when they) lived without faith, as such they shall be faithfully
judged.1596
3.1597
| 1597
The second fragment extant in the Parallela begins
here. | For all, the righteous and the
unrighteous alike, shall be brought before God the Word. For the
Father hath committed all judgment to Him; and in fulfilment of the
Father’s counsel, He cometh as Judge whom we call Christ.
For it is not Minos and Rhadamanthys that are to judge (the world), as
ye fancy, O Greeks, but He whom God the Father hath glorified, of whom
we have spoken elsewhere more in particular, for the profit of those
who seek the truth. He, in administering the righteous judgment
of the Father to all, assigns to each what is righteous according to
his works. And being present at His judicial decision, all, both
men and angels and demons, shall utter one voice, saying,
“Righteous is Thy judgment.”1598
Of which voice the justification
will be seen in the awarding to each that which is just; since to those
who have done well shall be assigned righteously eternal bliss, and to
the lovers of iniquity shall be given eternal punishment. And the
fire which is unquenchable and without end awaits these latter, and a
certain fiery worm which dieth not, and which does not waste the body, but
continues bursting forth from the body with unending pain. No
sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will
deliver them from punishment; no voice of interceding friends will
profit them.1599
For neither
are the righteous seen by them any longer, nor are they worthy of
remembrance. But the righteous will remember only the righteous
deeds by which they reached the heavenly kingdom, in which there is
neither sleep, nor pain, nor corruption, nor care,1600
| 1600 The
second fragment in the Parallela ends here. | nor night, nor day measured by time; nor sun
traversing in necessary course the circle of heaven, which marks the
limits of seasons, or the points measured out for the life of man so
easily read; nor moon waning or waxing, or inducing the changes of
seasons, or moistening the earth; no burning sun, no changeful Bear, no
Orion coming forth, no numerous wandering of stars, no
painfully-trodden earth, no abode of paradise hard to find; no furious
roaring of the sea, forbidding one to touch or traverse it; but this
too will be readily passable for the righteous, although it lacks no
water. There will be no heaven inaccessible to men, nor will the
way of its ascent be one impossible to find; and there will be no earth
unwrought, or toilsome for men, but one producing fruit spontaneously
in beauty and order; nor will there be generation of wild beasts again,
nor the bursting1601
substance of
other creatures. Neither with man will there be generation again,
but the number of the righteous remains indefectible with the righteous
angels and spirits. Ye who believe these words, O men, will be
partakers with the righteous, and will have part in these future
blessings, which “eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for
them that love Him.”1602
To Him be the glory and the power,
for ever and ever. Amen.
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