29. And would that it were
allowed me to deliver this argument with the whole world formed, as it
were, into one assembly, and to be placed in the hearing of all the
human race! Are we therefore charged before you with an impious
religion? and because we approach the Head and Pillar3290
| 3290
Columen is here regarded by some as equal to culmen; but
the term “pillar” makes a good sense likewise. |
of the universe with worshipful service,
are we to be considered—to use the terms employed by you in
reproaching us—as persons to be
shunned, and as godless
ones? And who would more properly bear the odium of these names
than he who either knows, or inquires after, or believes any other
god
rather than this of ours? To Him do we not owe this first, that
we exist, that we are said to be men, that, being either sent forth
from Him, or having fallen from Him, we are confined in the
darkness of
this body?
3291
| 3291
This is according to the doctrine of Pythagoras, Plato, Origen,
and others, who taught that the souls of men first existed in heavenly
beings, and that on account of sins of long standing they were
transferred to earthly bodies to suffer punishment. Cf. Clem.
Alex. Strom. iii. p. 433. |
Does it
not come from Him that we
walk, that we breathe and
live? and by the
very
power of living, does He not cause us to exist and to move with
the activity of animated being? From this do not causes emanate,
through which our
health is sustained by the bountiful supply of
various
pleasures? Whose is that
world in which you
live? or who
hath authorized you to retain its produce and its possession? Who
hath given that common
light, enabling us to see distinctly all things
lying beneath it, to handle them, and to
examine them? Who has
ordained that the
fires of the sun should exist for the growth of
things, lest
elements pregnant with
life should be numbed by settling
down in the torpor of inactivity? When you believe that the sun
is a deity, do you not ask who is his founder, who has fashioned
him? Since the moon is a goddess in your estimation, do you in
like manner care to know who is her author and
framer?
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