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

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Chapter XXXIV
Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. VI, Adversus Gentes, Book II
by Arnobius, translated by Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell
Chapter XXXV
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158764Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. VI, Adversus Gentes, Book II — Chapter XXXVHamilton Bryce and Hugh CampbellArnobius

35. But, say my opponents, if souls are mortal and[1] of neutral character, how can they from their neutral properties become immortal? If we should say that we do not know this, and only believe it because said by[2] One mightier than we, when will our readiness of belief seem mistaken if we believe[3] that to the almighty King nothing is hard, nothing difficult, and that[4] what is impossible to us is possible to Him and at His command?[5] For is there anything which may withstand His will, or does it not follow[6] of necessity that what He has willed must be done? Are we to infer from our distinctions what either can or cannot be done; and are we not to consider that our reason is as mortal as we ourselves are, and is of no importance with the Supreme? And yet, O ye who do not believe that the soul is of a neutral character, and that it is held on the line midway between life and death, are not all whatever whom fancy supposes to exist, gods, angels, dæmons, or whatever else is their name, themselves too of a neutral character, and liable to change[7] in the uncertainty of their future?[8] For if we all agree that there is one Father of all, who alone is immortal and unbegotten, and if nothing at all is found before Him which could be named,[9] it follows as a consequence that all these whom the imagination of men believes to be gods, have been either begotten by Him or produced at His bidding. Are they[10] produced and begotten? they are also later in order and time: if later in order and time, they must have an origin, and beginning of birth and life; but that which has an entrance into and beginning of life in its first stages, it of necessity follows, should have an end also.


Footnotes

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  1. ↑ The ms. reading is, mortalis est qualitatis. The first five edd. merely drop est—“of mortal, of neutral,” etc.; LB. and the others read, es et, as above.
  2. ↑ Lit., “heard from.”
  3. ↑ So the ms., according to Crusius, the edd. reading cred-id-imus—“have believed.”
  4. ↑ Lit., “if we believe that.”
  5. ↑ So the ms., reading ad modum obsecutionis paratum—“prepared to the mode of compliance;” for which the edd. read adm. executioni—“quite prepared for performing,” except Hildebrand, who gives adm. obsecutioni—“for obedience.”
  6. ↑ So the ms., according to Crusius, but all edd. read sequ-a-tur (for i)—“Is there anything which He has willed which it does not follow,” etc.
  7. ↑ So all edd., reading mutabiles, except the two Roman edd. and Oehler, who gives, as the reading of the ms., nu.—“tottering.”
  8. ↑ Lit., “in the doubtful condition of their lot.”
  9. ↑ Lit., “which may have been of a name.”
  10. ↑ LB., followed by the later edd., inserted si, “if they are,” which is certainly more consistent with the rest of the sentence.
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