khazarzar-gregory-of-nyssa-de-infantibus-praemature-abreptis

Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, to Hierius, concerning infants snatched away before their time. To you, excellent sir, all the sophists and prose-writers will assuredly display the power of eloquence, running as it were in some broad stadium of your wonders; for a noble and ample subject, set before those who are able, somehow knows how to make the speech more grand-voiced, a subject over which the speech is lifted up, rising together with the greatness of the deeds. But we, like old horses, remaining outside the stadium of the subject, will rouse only our ear by the contests of speeches concerning you, if perhaps some echo should reach even as far as us, driving the speech with a vehement and strained leap through your wonders. Since it happens that, even if from old age the horse remains outside the contests, often stirred to eagerness by the clatter of those charging down, it lifts its head and looks on, breathes in a contesting spirit, and stirs its feet together, frequently striking its hooves against the ground—for which eagerness alone is for the contests, but the power of running was used up beforehand by time—in the same way our speech also, remaining outside the contest because of old age and yielding the stadium to those in their prime in education, shows to you only its eagerness of being willing to contend even before you, if only it were young like those now in their prime in speeches. But how great is the display of my eagerness is not in the telling of any of your...

For scarcely could even a vigorous and well-strung discourse attain this, so as not to fall far short of the worth of him who interprets this wondrous harmony of character, somehow compounded out of opposites. For just as nature, shading the unmixed intensity of the rays with the projections of the eyelids, brings a tempered light to the eyes, so that the sun may be gentle, being duly blended with the shadow of the lashes in proportion to the need; so the august and noble quality of his character, mingled with measured humility, does not turn away the gaze of those who look upon him, but makes them look with pleasure, so that neither is the gleam of his dignity dimmed, nor is his inner disposition despised because of lowliness, but each is seen equally in the other—in the lofty, his commonness, and in the lowly, conversely, his dignity. Let another recount these things and hymn the many-eyed nature of his soul, that the eyes of his soul are perhaps equal in number to the hairs of his head, looking sharply and unerringly from every side alike, so as to foresee from afar and not be ignorant at close range, nor wait for experience to be the teacher of what is advantageous, but to foresee some things with the eyes of hope, to contemplate others through memory, and to survey others in a circle in the present, and to activate all at once without confusion, apportioning the mind appropriately to all such activities. And let that man again marvel at the august wealth of poverty, if there is anyone in our life who knows how to make such a thing a matter of praise and wonder.

Perhaps, even if it was not so before, yet now because of you even a longing for poverty will flourish, and your plainness will be counted blessed before the bricks of Croesus with all his talents. For what has land and sea made so blessed, each greeting it with its own revenues, as your disposition away from material abundance has made your life? For just as those who scrape the rust off iron make it bright and silver-like, so the ray of your life has become more radiant, always being cleansed by your care from the rust of money. And let these things be passed over by those able to speak them, and also that you know well in what matters receiving is more glorious than being free of gain; for give me leave to speak boldly, that you do not despise all gains, but those which none of your predecessors has yet been able to touch, you alone have grasped with both hands; for instead of some clothing or money or slaves, you have taken the very souls of men and hold them, having deposited them in the treasury of love. Let chroniclers and sophists go through these things, for whom it is a fine world to write such things well; but let our old discourse stir itself only so much as to go at a walking pace through the problem set before us by your wisdom: what one ought to know concerning those snatched away before their time, on whom birth is almost joined to death; things which the wise Plato also, among those outside, having philosophized much in the person of the one who came back to life concerning the courts there, left unspoken, as being evidently too great to come under human reasoning.

If, then, there is anything of this sort among the things examined, such as to resolve the ambiguities of the problem, you will of course accept the word that has been found; but if not, you will surely pardon old age, accepting only our eagerness to provide you with something pleasing. For the story says that Xerxes himself—that man who made almost the whole world under the sun a single camp and set the entire inhabited world in motion for himself—when he marched against the Greeks, received with pleasure the gift of a poor man. And the water was a stranger's gift, and this too was not carried in a clay vessel, but contained in the hollow of the palms of his hands. In this way, then, you too, in accordance with the greatness of mind that is yours, will surely imitate that man, to whom the intention was the gift, if indeed our gift is found to be small and watery. Just as in the case of the heavenly wonders, the beauties that appear are seen equally whether the one looking up at the heaven happens to be educated or a layman, but the thoughts about them are not the same for the one who comes from philosophy and the one who entrusts the appearance to the senses alone (for the latter either delights in the rays of the sun, or judges the beauty of the stars worthy of wonder, or has observed the number of the moon's course in the month; but the one who is clear-sighted in soul and purified through education for the understanding of heavenly things, leaving behind these things by which the more irrational part of sense is gladdened, looks to the harmony of the whole and, from the circular motion, observes the concord that comes from opposites;

how the inner circles are rolled back in the opposite direction by the unerring revolution, how the stars observed within them are shaped in manifold ways, in their approaches and recessions and under-runnings and eclipses and sideways deviations, always working out that unceasing harmony in the same way and likewise—whereby not even the position of the smallest star is overlooked and left unobserved, but all things provide equal care to those who, through wisdom, have transferred their mind to things above—in the same way you too, my honored head, looking upon the economy of God in existing things, having let go of those things about which the mind of the many is busily occupied (I mean wealth and vanity and the desire for empty glory, which, flashing like rays directly, are accustomed to strike with amazement the more irrational), you do not leave unexamined even the things that seem smaller among those observed in existing things, but you search out and investigate the unevenness of human life, not only that observed in wealth and poverty or the differences in dignities and birth (for you know that these are nothing to those whose being is not in their own subsistence, but in the vain supposition of those who gape at things that do not exist as though they subsisted; for if anyone should take away from the man made brilliant by glory the conceit of those who look to him, nothing will be left to the man who prides himself on that empty puffing, even if all the material of wealth happens to be buried with him), but it is a matter of concern to you

to know, among other things of the divine economy, what each of the things that come to be looks toward, and for whose sake for one the life is stretched out to a long old age, while another partakes of living only as much as to draw the air in through breathing and straightway cease from life. For if nothing among the things that come to be in the world is without God, but all things depend on the divine will, and the divine is wise and provident, surely some reason attends these things too, bearing the marks at once of the wisdom of God and of his providential care; for what comes to be at random and without reason would not be a work of God; for it is God's own, as the Scripture says, to make all things in wisdom. What, then, is the wise thing in that case? The human being passed through birth into life, drew the air, began living from a wail, paid the tear to nature as a first offering of lamentation to life, before partaking of any of the pleasant things of life; before sensation was strung taut, still loose in the harmonies of the limbs, tender and diffuse and unarticulated, and, to say it all, before becoming a human being (if indeed the rational grace is proper to a human being, but he had not yet contained the reason in himself), this one who has nothing more than the one still held in the mother's womb except to have been in the air—being at this age of life, he is loosed through death, either exposed or suffocated or by itself through sickness ceasing from life—what must one think about him? How must one hold concerning those who have died in this way? Will that soul too see the judge? Will it stand with the others at the tribunal? Will it undergo the judgment of the things lived?

Will it receive the recompense according to worth, either being purified by fire according to the voices of the Gospel, or being refreshed by the dew of blessing? But I do not know how one ought to understand these things concerning such a soul; for the name of recompense signifies that something must in every way have been provided beforehand, but from one who has not lived at all the material for providing anything has been removed in advance; and in the case of those where there is no giving, neither will it be properly called a recompense. And if there is no recompense, neither is the thing set before us in hope good nor evil; for this name promises the requital of things understood in either direction; but what is found neither in good nor in evil is certainly in nothing; for the opposition of such a contrariety is immediate, I mean of good and of evil, neither of which will belong to one who has not begun with the other. What is therefore in nothing, no one would say exists at all. But if someone should say that such a thing both exists and exists among good things, since God gives, not repays, good things to such persons, what cause of this allotment does he speak of? Where will he demonstrate the just with his argument? And how will he show the meaning to be in agreement with the Gospel voices? There it says that a certain commercial exchange of the kingdom accrues to those who are deemed worthy; for since you have done both this and that, it says, you are just to receive the kingdom in return. But here, since neither action nor choice is present, what occasion is there to say that even for these the thing hoped for from recompense comes to be from God?

But if someone accepts this argument without examination—that one who has thus departed to this life will certainly be among good things—then from this, non-existence will appear more blessed than life, if indeed for that one the participation in good things is beyond doubt, even if he happens to have barbarian parents and was conceived in a union not sanctioned by custom, while for the one who has lived the time that is possible and lawful by nature, the defilement of evil is certainly mixed into his life, either more or less, or, if he is to be entirely outside of fellowship with evil, he needs many labors and toils for this very thing; for virtue is not achieved by those who pursue it without effort, nor is the alienation from pleasures painless for human beings; so that one who has shared in the longer life must certainly encounter one of the distressing things from both sides—either now struggling in the toilsome contest of virtue, or then being pained through the recompense of griefs because of a life in evil. But in the case of those who die prematurely there is nothing of this sort, but immediately the good portion awaits those who have departed in untimely death, if indeed

The argument of those who have supposed thus is true. Consequently, from what follows, unreason will be shown to be preferable, and virtue will be revealed through these things as worth nothing. For if no loss toward participation in good things has come to the one who did not partake of virtue, it would be futile and unprofitable to labor over this, since the irrational condition takes precedence in God's judgment. You, then, having thought through all these things and the like, commanded me to examine the argument concerning this, so that for us, through the consequent inquiry, the understanding concerning it might be established upon some firm conception. But I, looking to the difficulty of contemplating the question set before us, think that the voice of the apostle also fits the present argument, which he uttered concerning things unattainable, saying: O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? But since again the apostle says that it is proper to the spiritual man to examine all things, and he welcomes those enriched by divine grace in every word and all knowledge, I say that it is well not to neglect the examination that is possible, nor to overlook the matter under inquiry as unsearchable and unobservable in these things, so that, in likeness to the premise of the problem, the argument concerning it might not be destroyed, incomplete and untimely, like some infant of those just born, corrupted, as it were, by a kind of death through the negligence of those who are weak toward the inquiry of the truth, before it comes forth into the light and reaches maturity.

I say, then, that it is well not to engage immediately in hand-to-hand combat with the objections in a rhetorical and contentious manner, but rather, having imposed a certain order on the discourse, to advance the investigation of the problem by a consecutive method. What, then, is the order? First, to know whence human nature came and for the sake of what it came into generation; for if we do not err in these matters, we shall not have erred concerning the investigation now set before us either. Now that everything is from God—whatever after Him is understood and seen among existing things—it would be superfluous to establish by argument that it has its being, since, I think, no one of those who have in any way examined the truth of existing things objects to such a supposition; for it is agreed by all that the whole is dependent on a single cause, and that nothing among existing things has its being from itself, nor is itself its own principle and cause, but that there is one nature uncreated and eternal, always in the same state and similarly disposed, surpassing every dimensional concept, being without increase and without diminution and contemplated beyond every limit, whose work is both time and place and all things in them, and whatever notion grasps before these, whether intelligible or supramundane.

And we say that one of the things that have come to be is also human nature, using as a guide to this a certain account of the God-inspired teaching, which says that when all things had been brought into being by God, man too was brought forth upon the earth, compounded in his nature from things of different kinds, the divine and intelligible substance having been mingled with the portion contributed to him from each of the elements, and that he was made by the Creator for this purpose: to be a living likeness of the divine and transcendent power. But it would be better to set down the very text itself, which reads as follows: "And God made," it says, "the man; in the image of God he made him." And the reason for the construction of this living being some of those before us have given as this: that all creation is divided in two, as the apostle says, into the visible and the invisible (by the invisible is signified the intelligible and incorporeal, and by the visible the perceptible and corporeal); since, then, all things that exist are divided into these two (into the perceptible, I mean, and into that which is contemplated by thought), and the angelic and incorporeal nature, which belongs to the invisible things, dwells in the supramundane and supercelestial realms because the dwelling-place is suited to the nature (for the intelligible nature is fine and pure and weightless and easily moved, and the celestial

a body that is fine and light and ever-moving), but earth, which is the last of perceptible things, does not have this in a way suited and fitted for the conduct of intelligible things in it (for what communion could there be of the upward-moving and light with the heavy and weighty?), so that earth might not be wholly without share in and deprived of the intelligent and incorporeal conduct of life—for this reason, by a greater providence, human generation was constituted, the intelligent and divine substance of the soul being molded together with the earthly portion, so that through its natural union with the weighty and corporeal the soul might live in the element of earth in a manner suited to it, since earth has something akin and of the same nature as the substance of the flesh. And the goal of things that come to be is that in all creation, through the intelligent nature, the power that transcends the whole be glorified, both heavenly and earthly things being joined to one another toward the same goal through the same activity (I mean through looking toward God). And the activity of looking toward God is nothing other than a life resembling and suited to the intelligent nature. For just as bodies, being earthy, are sustained by earthy nourishment, and we apprehend in them a certain corporeal form of life, operating in both irrational and rational beings, so too one must suppose that there is also a certain intelligible life, through which nature is preserved in that which is.

But if the nourishment of the flesh, being in flux and flowing away, deposits through its very passage a certain vital power in those in whom it comes to be, how much more does participation in the truly existing one, who always remains and is always in the same state, preserve the participant in being. If, then, this is the life proper and suited to the intellectual nature—to partake of God—the participation would not come about through opposites, unless what is partaken were in some way akin to what desires it. For just as the enjoyment of light comes to the eye by its having a natural light in itself for the apprehension of what is of the same kind, and neither a finger nor any other of the members of the body performs the act of sight, because no light has been established by nature in any other of the members, so too in the case of participation in God it is altogether necessary that there be something akin to what is partaken in the nature of the one who enjoys it. For this reason the Scripture says that man was made in the image of God, so that, I think, he might see the like through the like. And to see God is the life of the soul, as has been said in what has gone before. But since in some way ignorance of the truly good, like a mist, has darkened the discerning faculty of the soul, and the mist, having thickened, became a cloud, so that through the depth of ignorance the ray of truth could not penetrate, necessarily with the separation from the light its life also failed together with it. For it has been said that the true life of the soul is actualized in participation in the good, and that, when ignorance obstructs the divine understanding, the soul that does not partake of God falls away from life.

Let no one compel us to trace the ignorance back to its origin, saying whence it comes and from what, but let him understand from the very meaning of the name that knowledge and ignorance indicate a certain relation in which the soul stands. But none of the things that are conceived and spoken of in relation to something else presents a substance; for the account of what is relative is one thing, and the account of substance another. If, then, knowledge is not a substance, but an activity of the mind concerning something, much more is ignorance acknowledged to be far from being according to substance. But what is not according to substance does not exist at all. It would be futile, then, to busy oneself about whence that which does not exist comes. Since, then, the word says that the life of the soul is participation in God, and participation, as far as possible, is knowledge, and ignorance is not the existence of something, but the removal of the activity that consists in knowledge, and since, when participation in God is not active, the alienation of life necessarily followed (and this would be the last of evils), accordingly the maker of every good works in us the healing of evil; for healing is a good. But the manner of the

Whoever does not look to the gospel mystery altogether does not know the cure. Since, then, alienation from God, who is life, has been shown to be an evil, the cure of such sickness was to be made God's own again and to be in life. Since this life lies before human nature in hope, it cannot be said strictly that the participation in life is a recompense for those who have lived well, and that the opposite is a punishment; rather, what is said is like the example drawn from the eyes. For we do not say that the comprehension of visible things is a prize and privilege for one whose eyes are purified, or, conversely, that the non-participation in the activity of sight is a condemnation and a punitive sentence for the sick. Rather, just as seeing necessarily follows for one who is disposed according to nature, and for one who has been diverted from nature by a passion, the having of sight inactive, in the same way the blessed life is connatural and proper to those whose soul's senses have been purified; but in those where the passion of ignorance, like some rheum, becomes an obstacle to participation in the true light, non-participation in that thing necessarily follows, whose participation we say is life to the participant. Since these things have been thus distinguished by us, it would be time to examine in argument the problem set before us. It was something like this: if the recompense of goods takes place according to justice, in what class will he be who ended his life in infancy, having laid down in this life neither good nor evil, so that through these things the recompense according to worth should come to him?

Looking to the sequence of what has been examined, we shall answer that the good hoped for is naturally proper to the human race, but is also called, in a certain sense, the same thing as a recompense. This meaning will again be made clear by the same illustration: for let two persons be supposed in our argument who have contracted some disease in their eyes. Of these, let the one give himself more earnestly to the treatment, enduring all the things brought by the medical art, even if they be painful; but let the other be disposed more intemperately toward baths and drunkenness, having accepted no counsel of the physician for the health of his eyes. We say, then, looking to the outcome of each, that each justly receives the fruits of his own choice—the one the deprivation of light, the other the enjoyment. For what necessarily follows we call a recompense by a misuse of the term. These things can also be said concerning the things sought in the case of the infant: that the enjoyment of that life is proper to human nature, but since the disease of ignorance prevails over almost all who live in the flesh, the one who has cleansed himself by the appropriate treatments and, as it were, washed away ignorance like some film from the discerning part of the soul, has a gain worthy of his earnestness, having come to be in the life according to nature; but the one who flees the purifications that come through virtue and, through deceptive pleasures, prepares for himself the disease of ignorance as hard to cure, being disposed contrary to nature, has been alienated from what is according to nature and becomes a partaker of neither the life that is proper to us nor that which is suited to us.

But the infant that has known no evil, since no disease of the soul's eyes obstructs its participation in the light, comes to be in the natural state without needing the health that comes from purification, because it did not admit the disease into its soul even at the beginning. And it seems to me that, by some analogy, the present manner of life has a kinship with the life that is hoped for. For just as the first age of infants is nursed and reared on milk from the breast, and then another nourishment suited to the subject succeeds this one, having a natural and fitting relation to the one being nourished, until it reaches perfection, so, I think, the soul too, through things always suited to it, in some order and sequence, partakes of the life according to nature, receiving a share of the things set before it in blessedness as it has room for and is able, just as we have learned this very thing from Paul, who feeds in one way the one already grown through virtue, and in another way the infant and the more imperfect. For to such people he says, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able; but to those who have fulfilled the measure of the intelligible age he says, Solid food is for the perfect, for those who by habit have their senses exercised.

Just as, then, it is not possible to say that the man and the infant are among things alike, even if no disease attaches to either of them (for how could those who do not share the same things be in equal enjoyment?), but the fact of not being harmed by some disease is spoken of similarly in the case of both the one and the other, as long as each is outside of passion, yet the enjoyment of things that pertain to delight is no longer similarly actualized by the same things for both (for the one has it in his power both to be gladdened through words and to preside over affairs and to pursue offices with good repute and to be made illustrious by benefactions to those in need, and to live with a wife, if it so happens to be according to his desire, and to rule a household and to find whatever pleasures there are in life alongside these things—recitations and spectacles, hunts and baths and gymnasia and the delights of drinking-parties and any other such thing; whereas for the infant delight is milk and the nurse's embrace and gentle motion that draws on sleep and sweetens it; for the gladness beyond this the incomplete state of his age does not have the nature to contain)—in the same way, those who through virtue have nourished their souls in this present life and, as the apostle says, have exercised their noetic senses, if they are removed to that incorporeal life, will partake of the divine delight in proportion to the disposition and capacity present in them, sharing in the things set before them either more or less according to each one's present capacity.

But the soul that has not tasted virtue remains untouched by the evils that come from wickedness, since it was never at the outset brought into contact with the disease of wickedness; but of that life which the preceding argument defined as the knowledge and participation of God, it partakes, in comparison with the first, to the extent that the one being nourished can contain, until, settled as it were in some suitable nourishment by the contemplation of the One who is, it becomes capable of more, partaking of the One who is in abundance according to its capacity. Looking to these things, we say that the soul of the one who has come through every virtue and the soul of the one who has had no share in life at all are alike outside the evils that come from wickedness; yet we do not conceive of the conduct of each of these as being in the same condition. For the one has heard, as the prophet says, the heavenly narratives, through which the glory of God is proclaimed, and through creation he was led to the understanding of the Master of creation, and he used as his teacher of the truly wisdom the wisdom that is contemplated in existing things; and having understood the beauty of this light, he analogically conceived the beauty of the true light; and in the firmness of the earth he was taught the immutability of the one who made it; and having understood the immeasurable greatness of heaven, he was led to the infinite and unbounded character of the power that encompasses the whole; and seeing the rays of the sun extending from such great heights even to us, he believed from the things that appear that the providential energies of God do not grow weak in descending from the height of the divinity to each of us.

For if the luminary, being one, both comprehends the whole underlying subject by its illuminating power in common and, distributing itself to all who partake of it, is present whole and undivided to each, how much more does the Creator of the luminary become all things in all things, as the apostle says, and is present to each, giving himself to such an extent as the underlying subject receives. But also, if one sees a stalk of grain upon the earth and the shoot from a plant and a ripe cluster of grapes and the beauty of autumn fruit either in fruits or in flowers, and the self-sown grass and a mountain rising from its peak to the ethereal height and the springs in the foothills flowing like breasts from the flanks of the mountain, and rivers flowing through the hollows and the sea receiving the streams from every direction and remaining within its measure, and waves bounded by the shores and not overstepping the appointed boundaries against the mainland—the one who sees these things and the like, how would he not grasp all things by reason, through which the teaching of the One Who Is becomes for those who theologize, having prepared for himself no small power toward participation in that delight by the thoughts being present with him, through which the mind is guided toward virtue—geometry and astronomy and the understanding of truth through number and every method that demonstrates things unknown and confirms things grasped, and before these the philosophy of the God-inspired Scripture, which brings perfect purification to those who through it have been taught the divine mysteries?

But the one who has come to the knowledge of none of these things, nor has been led by hand through the world to the understanding of the goods that are above the world, but has passed through life tender and untrained and unexercised in his mind—that one would not be in the same condition as those in which the argument demonstrated the one who came before, so that for this reason the one who did not partake of life is no longer shown to be more blessed than the one who partook well, according to the objection brought forward against us. For compared with one who has lived together with evil, not only would the one who has no experience of evil be more blessed, but perhaps even the one who did not enter into life at all. For we have been taught such a thing also concerning Judas through the evangelical voice, that in such cases the wholly non-existent is better than that which subsists in evil. For to the one, because of the depth of the evil implanted in him, the punishment through purification is extended to infinity; but how could pain attach to that which does not exist? But if someone should judge the infantile and untimely one by the standard of the life according to virtue, such a one is truly untimely, using such a judgment about things that exist. You ask, then, for what reason one who is at this age is withdrawn from life, and what divine wisdom is providing for through this. But if you mean those cases in which the infant is a proof of unlawful conception and for this reason is made to disappear by those who begot it, you would not reasonably demand from God an account of the works of evil, since he brings to judgment the things that have come to be in this way not well.

But if someone, even though his parents are rearing him and caring for him with attention and earnestly praying, nonetheless does not share in life, because the illness prevails until death (which alone is unambiguously the cause), we conjecture these things about such cases: that it belongs to perfect providence not only to heal the passions of those who have come to be, but also to provide that one should not even come to the beginning of the forbidden things. For it is likely that the one who knows the future equally with the past prevents the infant's advance to the perfection of life, so that the evil that has been discerned by foreknowledge should not be brought to completion in the future to be lived out in this way, and life should not become material for evil for the one who is going to live together with such a choice. It would be easy to set out the thought by some example: for let it be supposed that a feast of every kind is set before the banquet, and let such a man preside over the guests as knows accurately the peculiarities of each one's nature and what is suitable to such a temperament, and what is harmful and unsuitable; and let there be added to him also a kind of authoritative power to allow one person, according to his own will, to partake of what is set before him, and to turn another away, and to do everything so that each, according to his own constitution, may take hold of what is suitable, in order that neither the sickly man may be further inflamed, adding material to his disease through the foods, nor the stronger man may grow weary, falling into a plethoric distaste through unsuitable nourishment.

In these matters, if someone among those addicted to drunkenness is led out while the banquet is still in progress—either being at the beginning of his intoxication or continuing at the dinner until the end—the steward arranges this, so that the table may remain consistently well-ordered, kept clean from the evils that come from excess and drunkenness and folly. Just as, then, the one who is dragged away from the savory steam of the delicacies does not take pleasure in the deprivation of what he desires, but rather condemns some lack of discernment in the steward, as though he were keeping him back from what was set before him out of some envy and not out of forethought—but if he looks toward those who are still behaving shamefully by prolonging their drunkenness, in vomitings and headaches and in babbling something improper, he acknowledges gratitude to the one who removed him before such a condition of immoderate surfeit; if, then, we have understood the example, it would be easy to apply the insight we have grasped in this to the matter presently before us. For what was the matter before us? For what reason does God, when there is great eagerness among parents to preserve for themselves a successor in life, often allow the child that has been born to be snatched away prematurely in the incompleteness of its age? To these we shall say that banqueting example: that since the table of life has a great and varied preparation of foods (and understand, in the manner of culinary expertise, that not all things in life are sweetened with the honey of pleasure, but in some places life is also seasoned with the harsher of circumstances, just as the craftsmen of the pleasures of the belly and the feast do, rousing the appetites of the diners with sharper or saltier or astringent things)—

Since, then, life is not honey-sweet in all its circumstances, but there are cases in which the relish is brine or astringency or sourness, or some biting and pungent quality rubbed into things makes the seasoning of life hard to swallow, and the cups of deceit are full of every kind of mixture—some of which, through the delusion of deceit, produced a flatulent condition in those who drank them, others provoked those who drank them to derangement, and in others they stirred up the vomiting of wickedly acquired goods through shameful repayment—so then, in order that the one who has not used the banquet rightly may not linger over such a preparation of the table, he is withdrawn more quickly from the full company of the diners, gaining the advantage of not being among those whose immoderate enjoyment becomes the cause of gluttony for the greedy. This is what I say is the achievement of perfect providence: not only to heal the passions once they have formed, but also to prevent them before they form. This is precisely what we have supposed concerning the death of those just born: that the one who makes all things by reason, out of love for humanity, removes the material of evil, not giving to the will—which is known through the foreknowing power—an occasion to be shown through works in the excess of evil for what it is, whenever it has its impulse toward evil. And often the one who establishes the banquet of life exposes the sophisticated compulsion of the love of money through such things, so that, I think, the sickness of the love of money might appear stripped of its fair-seeming coverings, shaded by no deceptive curtain.

For the many say that it is for this reason that they are widened in their desires for more, so that they might make those who come from them richer; but the unreasoning greed of the childless refutes their disease as being their own, not arising from necessity. For many, neither having succession among the many things for which they toiled nor being in hopes of having it, rear up in themselves many desires in place of ten thousand children, not having where to refer the necessity of this sickness. But if some, faring badly in life, tyrannical and bitter in their purpose, enslaved to every licentiousness, deranged by anger, sparing none of the incurable evils, robbers and murderers and traitors to their fatherlands, or if there is anything more accursed than these—such as patricides and matricides and child-killers and raging with unlawful unions—if certain such people grow old in this wickedness, how will anyone say that these things happen to those previously examined? For if the one snatched away before its time, so that it might not to the end, according to the example of the banquet, gorge itself on the passions of this life, is providentially led away from the banquet of life, for what reason does such a one revel in the banquet until old age, sprinkling over himself and his fellow guests a wicked dregs of evils? To whom we will say that the providence of God is no less in these matters

that an economy is made manifest; for that he who has driven the measure of wickedness to this point is able, through long periods of times, by means of the eternal purification, again to restore him to the whole fullness of those who are saved—this is altogether evident to everyone who looks to the divine power. For who is so unreflective concerning the divine nature, as, while seeing the other things of God—all that he accomplished by the surpassing greatness of his power in the mere impulse of his will—to think that in this one thing alone he is powerless? For if one should wish to examine it in a human way, it will be found more difficult to bring heaven and earth and the whole world in them from non-being into being than to lead back again to the life according to nature a soul that has wandered through wickedness, so that the philanthropic will would not be idle even in these things. But the duration of this life in wickedness does not have its origins from God; for it received the power of living from him who made life, but the power of living badly is led by one's own choice, and if this choice did not have its inclination toward that, man would not be in wickedness at all. For evil is nothing according to its own subsistence, not being created in the choice of the one who lives badly. If, then, God is not the cause of the wickedness that is constituted in anyone, the cause of their life in wickedness would no longer reasonably be referred to him. But why, you will certainly say, does he providentially lead one out of life before his choice is perfected through evil, while he leaves the other to become such that it would be better for him not to have been born at all?

To this we shall offer the more fair-minded something of this sort as an account: that often the life of those who have lived well becomes a cause of the better for those who come from them. And countless are the testimonies of these from the God-inspired Scripture, through which we are clearly taught that those who come from them share in the care that comes from God for the worthy. And it would be a good summary point that it becomes a hindrance to wickedness for someone who is going to live wholly according to that life. But since the argument here aims at things unclear, no one will certainly blame it, since the thought leads the mind in many ways in its conjecture. For one might say not only that God, granting favor to the leaders of the race, removes from the evil life the one who would live according to it, but even if there were nothing of this sort in the case of those snatched away before their time, it is nothing unreasonable to think that they would have grasped the more difficult life in accordance with wickedness than each of those who were known for wickedness during their life. For we have learned through many things that nothing happens without God, and again everyone would agree that the things administered by God are not random and irrational, knowing that God is Word and Wisdom and all virtue and truth, and nothing of the Word is irrational, nor of the wise anything unwise, nor would virtue and truth admit what is not virtuous and outside the truth. Whether, then, certain ones are snatched away prematurely according to the causes mentioned, or whether there is something else besides what has been said, it is fitting to agree that these things happen wholly with a better purpose in view.

I know also another account, having learned it from the wisdom of the apostle, through which certain of those who surpassed in wickedness were allowed to live according to their own choice. For having exercised such a thought more fully in the discourse to the Romans, and having set against himself the objection arising from what follows—namely, that the wicked man would no longer reasonably be held culpable if he had his being wicked from God, and would certainly not have come to be at all if it were contrary to the will of the one who rules over all things—he meets the argument thus, resolving the objection through some deeper contemplation. For he says that God, distributing to each according to worth, sometimes also gives place to wickedness with a view to the better; for it was for this reason that he allowed the Egyptian tyrant both to come to be and to be such a one, so that by his scourging Israel might be disciplined—that great people, which passes beyond every reckoning by number. For perhaps, since the divine power is made known through all things and is sufficiently able both to benefit the worthy and not weak for the punishment of wickedness, and since it was altogether necessary that there be settled elsewhere

That people of Egypt, so that they might have no fellowship with the evils of the Egyptians in the wandering of their life—for this reason that god-fighter, that Pharaoh renowned for every evil, was preserved together with the life of those who were being benefited and flourished alongside them, so that, with the twofold activity of God divided between both sides according to worth, Israel might receive the knowledge of the two: learning the better in its own case, and seeing the more grievous in those who are scourged because of wickedness—so that God, who in the exceeding greatness of his wisdom knows how to employ even evil in cooperation with the good. For the craftsman has need (if the apostolic word is to be confirmed even through our words)—the craftsman, then, who by his craft fashions iron into some implement useful for life, has need not only of that which readily yields to the craft by some natural softness, but even if the iron is very resistant, even if it is not easily softened by fire and is unable, by reason of its unyielding and stubborn nature, to be fashioned into a vessel of the necessities of life, the craft also seeks the cooperation of this too; for it will use such a one as an anvil, so that by the blows struck upon it the well-wrought and soft iron may be fashioned into something useful. But someone will say that not all have enjoyed the fruit of their own depravity in this life; nor indeed have those who live according to virtue in this life enjoyed the fruits of the labors of virtue. What, then, he says, is the usefulness of these things in the case of those who have lived in wickedness without punishment? I will set before you an account also for this, higher than human reasonings.

For the great David says somewhere in his own prophecy that this too is a portion of gladness for the virtuous, when they set the destruction of the condemned side by side with their own good things: "The righteous man," he says, "will be glad when he sees the vengeance of the ungodly; he will wash his hands in the blood of the sinner"—not as rejoicing over the pains of those who are distressed, but as then most of all recognizing what comes from virtue to those who are worthy. For he signifies by these words that the comparison of opposites becomes an addition and intensification of gladness for the virtuous. For the statement that he washes his hands in the blood of the sinner presents this thought: that what is purified in his activity of life is displayed in the destruction of sinners. For the word "to wash" conveys the impression of purity, but no one washes in blood—rather he is defiled—so that through this it becomes clear that the comparison of the gloomier things demonstrates the blessedness of virtue. Let us then bring the account to a summary, so that the thoughts examined may be easy to remember. For the untimely death of infants suggests that the one who has thus ceased from living is not to be thought of as being in pains, nor does it come about equally as for those who have been purified through every virtue in this life, since the better providence of God prevents the excess of evils in the case of those who would thus live in the future. But the fact that some of the wicked survive does not overturn the thought that has been set forth; for by the grace toward those who begot them, the evil was hindered in their case.

But for those who had no access to God from their parents, nor was that kind of benefit still bestowed along with them from those ancestors—or would he who was prevented by death from becoming wicked have appeared much more difficult to bear than those who are known for wickedness, if indeed he had obtained an unhindered wickedness? Or if some have advanced even to the utmost measure of wickedness, the apostolic contemplation consoles the inquiry, as the One who does all things in wisdom knows how to accomplish something good even through evil. But if someone has the extreme in wickedness and was forged by God's craft for no useful purpose, according to the example stated by us, this becomes an addition to the gladness of those who have lived well, just as the prophecy suggests to be understood, which one would reckon no small thing among good things, nor unworthy of God's providence.