Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book II/Chapter XLIV

by Arnobius

44. But, you say, they came of their own accord, not sent^[1] by their lord. And^[2] where was the Almighty Creator, where the authority of His royal and exalted place,^[3] to prevent their departure, and not suffer them to fall into dangerous pleasures? For if He knew that by change of place they would become base—and, as the arranger of all things,^[4] He must have known—or that anything would reach them from without which would make them forget their greatness and moral dignity,—a thousand times would I beg of Him to pardon my words,—the cause of all is no other than Himself, since He allowed them to have freedom to wander^[5] who He foresaw would not abide by their state of innocence; and thus it is brought about that it does not matter whether they came of their own accord, or obeyed His command, since in not preventing what should have been prevented, by His inaction He made the guilt His own, and permitted it before it was done by neglecting to withhold them from action.

Footnotes

1. So the ms., reading non missione—“not by the sending;” but, unaccountably enough, all edd. except Hildebrand and Oehler read, jussione—“not by the command.”
2. So the ms..
3. Lit., “royal sublimity.”
4. Lit., “causes.”
5. The ms. and both Roman edd. read abscondere—“to hide,” for which the other edd. read, as above, abscedere, from the margin of Ursinus.