55. But when, overcome, we
agree that there are these things,3781
and expressly allow that all human
affairs are full of them, they will next ask, Why, then, the
Almighty
God does not take away these evils, but
suffers them to exist and to go
on without ceasing through all the ages?
3782
| 3782
Lit., “with all the ages, in steady continuance.” |
If we have
learned of
God the
Supreme Ruler, and have
resolved not to
wander in a maze of impious and
mad conjectures, we must answer that we do not know these things, and
have never sought and striven to know things which could be grasped by
no powers
which we have, and that we, even thinking it
3783
| 3783
The ms., followed by Oehler alone,
reads ducetis—“and you will think;”
while all the other edd. read, as above, ducentes. |
preferable, rather remain in ignorance and want of
knowledge than say
that without
God nothing is made, so that it should be understood that
by His will
3784
| 3784
Here, too, there has been much unnecessary labour. These
words—per voluntatem—as they immediately follow
sine deo dicere nihil fieri—“to say that without God
nothing is made”—were connected with the preceding
clause. To get rid of the nonsense thus created, LB. emended
dei…voluntate—“without God’s
will;” while Heraldus regards them as an explanation of sine
deo, and therefore interprets the sentence much as LB. Orelli
gets rid of the difficulty by calling them a gloss, and bracketing
them. They are, however, perfectly in place, as will be seen
above. |
He is at
once both the source of
evil3785
and the occasion of countless
miseries. Whence then, you will say, are all these evils?
From the
elements, say the
wise, and from their dissimilarity; but how
it is possible that things which have not feeling and
judgment should
be held to be
wicked or criminal; or that he should not rather be
wicked and criminal, who, to bring about some result, took what was
afterwards to become very bad and hurtful,
3786
| 3786
It would not be easy to understand why Orelli omitted these words, if
we did not know that they had been accidentally omitted by
Oberthür also. |
—is for them to consider, who
make the assertion. What, then, do we say? whence? There is
no necessity that we should answer, for whether we are able to say
whence evil springs, or our
power fails us, and we are unable,
in either case it is a
small matter in our opinion; nor do we hold it
of much importance either to know or to be ignorant of it, being
content to have laid down but one thing,—that nothing proceeds from
God Supreme which
is hurtful and
pernicious. This we are assured of, this we know,
on this one
truth of
knowledge and
science we take our
stand,—that nothing is made by Him except that which is for the
well-being of all, which is agreeable, which is very full of
love and
joy and
gladness, which has unbounded and imperishable
pleasures, which
every one may ask in all his prayers to befall him, and think that
otherwise
3787
| 3787
Lit., “that apart from these it is pernicious.” |
life is
pernicious and fatal.
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