66. So, then, even if you
are pure, and have been cleansed from every stain of vice, have won
over and charmed3863
those
powers not to shut the ways against you and bar your passage when
returning to
heaven, by no efforts will you be able to reach the
prize
of immortality, unless by
Christ’s
gift you have perceived what
constitutes this very immortality, and have been allowed to enter on
the true
life. For as to that with which you have been in the
habit of taunting us, that our
religion is new,
3864
and arose a few days ago, almost, and
that you could not abandon the ancient
faith which you had
inherited
from your fathers, and pass over to barbarous and
foreign rites, this
is urged wholly without reason. For what if in this way we chose
to
blame the preceding, even the most ancient ages, because when they
discovered how to raise crops,
3865
they
despised acorns, and
rejected
with
scorn the
wild strawberry; because they ceased to be covered with
the bark of
trees and clad in the hides of
wild beasts, after that
garments of
cloth were devised, more useful and convenient in wearing;
or because, when
houses were built, and more comfortable dwellings
erected, they did not cling to their ancient huts, and did not prefer
to remain under
rocks and
caves like the
beasts of the
field? It
is a disposition possessed by all, and impressed on us almost from our
cradles even, to prefer good things to bad, useful to useless things,
and to pursue and seek that with more pleasure which has been generally
regarded
3866
| 3866
So the later edd., reading constiteritfrom the margin of
Ursinus; but in the ms. and first four edd. the
reading is constituerit—“has
established,” for which there is no subject. |
as more
than usually precious, and to set on that our hopes for
prosperity and favourable circumstances.
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