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| Chapter XXI
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Chapter
XXI.
What,
then, is justice? We distinctly remember what in the course of our
argument we
said in the commencement of this treatise; namely, that man was
fashioned in imitation of the Divine nature, preserving his resemblance
to the Deity as well in other excellences as in possession of freedom
of the will, yet being of necessity of a nature subject to change. For
it was not possible that a being who derived his origin from an
alteration should be altogether free from this liability. For the
passing from a state of non-existence into that of existence is a kind
of alteration; when being, that is, by the exercise of Divine power
takes the place of nonentity. In the following special respect, too,
alteration is necessarily observable in man, namely, because man was an
imitation of the Divine nature, and unless some distinctive difference
had been occasioned, the imitating subject would be entirely the same
as that which it resembles; but in this instance, it is to be observed,
there is a difference between that which “was made in the
image” and its pattern; namely this, that the one is not subject
to change, while the other is (for, as has been described, it has come
into existence through an alteration), and being thus subject to
alteration does not always continue in its existing state. For
alteration is a kind of movement ever advancing from the present state
to another; and there are two forms of this movement; the one being
ever towards what is good, and in this the advance has no check,
because no goal of the course to be traversed1995
| 1995 of
the course to be traversed: τοῦ
διεξοδευομένου. Glauber remarks that the Latin translation here,
“ejus qui transit,” gives no sense, and rightly takes the
word as a passive. Krabinger also translates, “ejus quod
evolvitur.” Here again there is unconscious Platonism:
αὐτὸ τὸ
καλόν is
eternal. |
can be reached, while the other is in the direction of the contrary,
and of it this is the essence, that it has no subsistence; for, as has
been before stated, the contrary state to goodness conveys some such
notion of opposition, as when we say, for instance, that that which is
is logically opposed to that which is not, and that existence is so
opposed to non-existence. Since, then, by reason of this impulse and
movement of changeful alteration it is not possible that the nature of
the subject of this change should remain self-centred and unmoved, but
there is always something towards which the will is tending, the
appetency for moral beauty naturally drawing it on to movement, this
beauty is in one instance really such in its nature, in another it is
not so, only blossoming with an illusive appearance of beauty; and the
criterion of these two kinds is the mind that dwells within us. Under
these circumstances it is a matter of risk whether we happen to choose
the real beauty, or whether we are diverted from its choice by some
deception arising from appearance, and thus drift away to the opposite;
as happened, we are told in the heathen fable, to the dog which looked
askance at the reflection in the water of what it carried in its mouth,
but let go the real food, and, opening its mouth wide to swallow the
image of it, still hungered. Since, then, the mind has been
disappointed in its craving for the real good, and diverted to that
which is not such, being persuaded, through the deception of the great
advocate and inventor of vice, that that was beauty which was just the
opposite (for this deception would never have succeeded, had not the
glamour of beauty been spread over the hook of vice like a
bait),—the man, I say, on the one hand, who had enslaved himself
by indulgence to the enemy of his life, being of his own accord in this
unfortunate condition,—I ask you to investigate, on the other
hand, those qualities which suit and go along with our conception of
the Deity, such as goodness, wisdom, power, immortality, and all else
that has the stamp of superiority. As good, then, the Deity entertains
pity for fallen man; as wise He is not ignorant of the means for his
recovery; while a just decision must also form part of that wisdom; for
no one would ascribe that genuine justice to the absence of
wisdom.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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