The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire

Apuleius and his initiation

Between these two judgments we may find Apuleius. He is a man of letters, but he has a taste for religion. Ceremony, mystery, ritual, sacraments, appeal to him, and there he stands with his contemporaries. But a man, in whose pages bandit and old woman, ass and Isis, all talk in one Euphuistic strain, was possibly not so pious as men of simpler speech. Yet his giving such a conclusion to such a tale is significant, and there is not an absurdity among all the many, in which he so gaily revels, but corresponded with something that men believed.

In conclusion, we may ask what Lucian of Samosata and Diogenes of Oinoanda had to offer to Aristides and Pausanias and Apuleius; and what they in turn could suggest to men whose concern in religion goes deeper than the cure of physical disease, trance and self-conscious revelling in ceremony. Some spiritual value still clung about the old religion, or it could not have found supporters in a Plotinus and a Porphyry, but (to quote again a most helpful question) "how much else?"

CHAPTER VIII
CELSUS

Deliquit, opinor, divina doctrina ex Judæa potius quam ex Græcia oriens. Erravit et Christus piscatores citius quam sophistam ad præconium emittens,– TERTULLIAN, de Anima, 3.

At the beginning of the last chapter reference was made to the spread of Christianity in the second century, and then a brief survey was given of the position of the old religion without reference to the new. When one realizes the different habits of mind represented by the men there considered, the difficulties with which Christianity had to contend become more evident and more intelligible. Lucian generally ignored it, only noticing it to laugh at its folly and to pass on – it was too inconspicuous to be worth attack. To the others – the devout of the old religion, whose fondest thoughts were for the past, and for whom religion was largely a ritual, sanctified by tradition and by fancy, – the Christian faith offered little beyond the negation of all they counted dear. We are happily in possession of fragments of an anti-Christian work of the day, written by a man philosophic and academic in temperament, but sympathetic with the followers of the religion of his fathers – fragments only, but enough to show how Christianity at once provoked the laughter, incensed the patriotism, and offended the religious tastes of educated people.

It was for a man called Celsus that Lucian wrote his book upon the prophet Alexander and his shrine at Abonoteichos, and it has been suggested that Lucian's friend and the Celsus, who wrote the famous True Word, may have been one and the same. The evidence is carefully worked out by Keim,[⁶⁸³] but it is not very strong, especially as some two dozen men of the name are known to the historians of the first three centuries of our era. Origen himself knew little of Celsus – hardly more than we can gather from the quotations he made from the book in refuting it. From a close study of his occasional hints at contemporary history, Keim puts Celsus' book down to the latter part of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, or, more closely, to the year 178 A.D.[⁶⁸⁴] Celsus' general references to Christianity and to paganism imply that period. He writes under the pressure of the barbarian inroads on the Northern frontier, of the Parthians in the East and of the great plague. His main concern is the Roman State, shaken by all these misfortunes, and doubly threatened by the passive disaffection of Christians within its borders.[⁶⁸⁵] From what Turk and Mongol meant to Europe in the Middle Ages and may yet mean to us, we may divine how men of culture and patriotism felt about the white savages coming down upon them from the North.

Of the personal history of Celsus nothing can be said, but the features of his mind are well-marked. He was above all a man of culture, – candid, scholarly and cool. He knew and admired the philosophical writings of ancient Greece, he had some knowledge of Egypt, and he also took the pains to read the books of the Jews and the Christians. On the whole he leant to Plato, but, like many philosophic spirits, he found destructive criticism more easy than the elaboration of a system of his own. Yet here we must use caution, for the object he had set before him was not to be served by individual speculation. It was immaterial what private opinions he might hold, for his great purpose was the abandonment of particularism and the fusion of all parties for the general good. Private judgment run mad was the mark of all Christians, orthodox and heretical, – "men walling themselves off and isolating themselves from mankind"[⁶⁸⁶] – and his thesis was that the whole spirit of the movement was wrong. A good citizen's part was loyal acceptance of the common belief, deviation from which was now shown to impair the solidarity of the civilized world. Of course such a position is never taken by really independent thinkers; but it is the normal standpoint of men to whom practical affairs are of more moment than speculative precision – men, who are at bottom sceptical, and have little interest in problems which they have given up as insoluble. Celsus was satisfied with the established order, alike in the regions of thought and of government. He mistrusted new movements – not least when they were so conspicuously alien to the Greek mind as the new superstition that came from Palestine. He has all the ancient contempt of the Greek for the barbarian, and, while he is influenced by the high motive of care for the State, there are traces of irritation in his tone which speak of personal feeling. The folly of the movement provoked him.

The Christian propaganda

This, he says, is the language of the Christians: "'Let no cultured person draw near, none wise, none sensible; for all that kind of thing we count evil; but if any man is ignorant, if any is wanting in sense and culture, if any is a fool, let him come boldly.' Such people they spontaneously avow to be worthy of their God; and, so doing, they show that it is only the simpletons, the ignoble, the senseless, slaves and women-folk and children, whom they wish to persuade, or can persuade."[⁶⁸⁷] Those who summon men to the other initiations (teletàs), and offer purification from sins, proclaim: "Whosoever has clean hands and is wise of speech," or "Whosoever is pure from defilement, whose soul is conscious of no guilt, who has lived well and righteously." "But let us hear what sort these people invite; 'Whosoever is a sinner, or unintelligent, or a fool, in a word, whosoever is god-forsaken (kakodaímôn), him the kingdom of God will receive.' Now whom do you mean by the sinner but the wicked, thief, house-breaker, poisoner, temple-robber, grave-robber? Whom else would a brigand invite to join him?"[⁶⁸⁸] But the Christian propaganda is still more odious. "We see them in our own houses, wool dressers, cobblers, and fullers, the most uneducated and vulgar persons, not daring to say a word in the presence of their masters who are older and wiser; but when they get hold of the children in private, and silly women with them, they are wonderfully eloquent, – to the effect that the children must not listen to their father, but believe them and be taught by them; … that they alone know how to live, and if the children will listen to them, they will be happy themselves, and will make their home blessed. But if, while they are speaking, they see some of the children's teachers, some wiser person or their Father coming, the more cautious of them will be gone in a moment, and the more impudent will egg on the children to throw off the reins – whispering to them that, while their father or their teachers are about, they will not and cannot teach them anything good … they must come with the women, and the little children that play with them, to the women's quarters, or the cobbler's shop, or the fuller's, to receive perfect knowledge. And that is how they persuade them."[⁶⁸⁹] They are like quacks who warn men against the doctor – "take care that none of you touches Science (epistéue); Science is a bad thing; knowledge (gnôsis) makes men fall from health of soul."[⁶⁹⁰] They will not argue about what they believe – "they always bring in their 'Do not examine, but believe,' and 'Thy faith shall save thee'"[⁶⁹¹] – "believe that he, whom I set forth to you, is the son of God, even though he was bound in the most dishonourable way, and punished in the most shameful, though yesterday or the day before he weltered in the most disgraceful fashion before the eyes of all men – so much the more believe!"[⁶⁹²] So far all the Christian sects are at one.

And the absurdity of it! "Why was he not sent to the sinless as well as to sinners? What harm is there in not having sinned?"[⁶⁹³] Listen to them! "The unjust, if he humble himself from his iniquity, God will receive; but the just, if he look up to Him with virtue from beginning to end, him He will not receive."[⁶⁹⁴] Celsus' own view is very different – "It must be clear to everybody, I should think, that those, who are sinners by nature and training, none could change, not even by punishment – to say nothing of doing it by pity! For to change nature completely is very difficult; and those who have not sinned are better partners in life."[⁶⁹⁵] Christians in fact make God into a sentimentalist – "the slave of pity for those who mourn"[⁶⁹⁶] to the point of injustice.

The ecclesia of worms

Jews and Christians seem to Celsus "like a swarm of bats – or ants creeping out of their nest – or frogs holding a symposium round a swamp – or worms in conventicle (ekklesiáxiousi) in a corner of the mud[⁶⁹⁷] – debating which of them are the more sinful, and saying 'God reveals all things to us beforehand and gives us warning; he forsakes the whole universe and the course of the heavenly spheres, and all this great earth he neglects, to dwell with us alone; to us alone he despatches heralds, and never ceases to send and to seek how we may dwell with him for ever.'" "God is," say the worms, "and after him come we, brought into being by him (hup' autoû gegonótes), in all things like unto God; and to us all things are subjected, earth and water and air and stars; for our sake all things are, and to serve us they are appointed." "Some of us," continue the worms ("he means us," says Origen) – "some of us sin, so God will come, or else he will send his son, that he may burn up the unrighteous, and that the rest of us may have eternal life with him."[⁶⁹⁸]

The radical error in Jewish, and Christian thinking is that it is anthropocentric. They say that God made all things for man,[⁶⁹⁹] but this is not at all evident. What we know of the world suggests that if is not more for the sake of man than of the irrational animals that all things were made. Plants and trees and grass and thorns – do they grow for man a whit more than for the wildest animals? "'Sun and night serve mortals,' says Euripides – but why us more than the ants or the flies? For them, too, night comes for rest, and day for sight and work." If men hunt and eat animals, they in their turn hunt and eat men; and before towns and communities were formed, and tools and weapons made, man's supremacy was even more questionable. "In no way is man better in God's sight than ants and bees" (iv. 81). The political instinct of man is shared by both these creatures – they have constitutions, cities, wars and victories, and trials at law – as the drones know. Ants have sense enough to secure their corn stores from sprouting: they have graveyards; they can tell one another which way to go – thus they have lógos and ennoiai like men. If one looked from heaven, would there be any marked difference between the procedures of men and of ants?[⁷⁰⁰] But man has an intellectual affinity with God; the human mind conceives thoughts that are essentially divine (theías ennoías).[⁷⁰¹] Many animals can make the same claim – "what could one call more divine than to foreknow and foretell the future? And this men learn from the other animals and most of all from birds;" and if this comes from God, "so much nearer divine intercourse do they seem by nature than we, wiser and more dear to God." Thus "all things were not made for man, just as they were not made for the lion, nor the eagle, nor the dolphin, but that the universe as a work of God might be complete and perfect in every part. It is for this cause that the proportions of all things are designed, not for one another (except incidentally) but for the whole. God's care is for the whole, and this Providence never neglects. The whole does not grow worse, nor does God periodically turn it to himself. He is not angry on account of men, just as he is not angry because of monkeys or flies; nor does he threaten the things, each of which in measure has its portion of himself."[⁷⁰²]

The God of the philosophers

Celsus held that Christians spoke of God in a way that was neither holy nor guiltless (ouch hosíôs oud' euagôs, iv, 10); and he hinted that they did it to astonish ignorant listeners.[⁷⁰³] For himself, he was impressed with the thought, which Plato has in the Timæus, – a sentence that sums up what many of the most serious and religious natures have felt and will always feel to be profoundly true: "The maker and father of this whole fabric it is hard to find, and, when one has found him, it is impossible to speak of him to all men."[⁷⁰⁴] Like the men of his day, a true and deep instinct led him to point back to "inspired poets, wise men and philosophers," and to Plato "a more living (energesteron) teacher of theology"[⁷⁰⁵] – "though I should be surprised if you are able to follow him, seeing that you are utterly bound up in the flesh and see nothing clearly."[⁷⁰⁶] What the sages tell him of God, he proceeds to set forth.

"Being and becoming, one is intelligible, the other visible, (noetòn, horatòn). Being is the sphere of truth; becoming, of error. Truth is the subject of knowledge; the other of opinion. Thought deals with the intelligible; sight with the visible. The mind recognizes the intelligible, the eye the visible.

"What then the Sun is among things visible, – neither eye, nor sight – yet to the eye the cause of its seeing, to sight the cause of its existing (synístathai) by his means, to things visible the cause of their being seen, to all things endowed with sensation the cause of their existence (gínesthai) and indeed the cause himself of himself being seen; this HE is among things intelligible (noetà), who is neither mind, nor thought, nor knowledge, but to the mind the cause of thinking, to thought of its being by his means, to knowledge of our knowing by his means, to all things intelligible, to truth itself, and to being itself, the cause that they are – out beyond all things (pántôn epékeina òn), intelligible only by some unspeakable faculty.

"So have spoken men of mind; and if you can understand anything of it, it is well for you. If you suppose a spirit descends from God to proclaim divine matters, it would be the spirit that proclaims this, that spirit with which men of old were filled and in consequence announced much that was good. But if you can take in nothing of it, be silent and hide your own ignorance, and do not say that those who see are blind, and those who run are lame, especially when you yourselves are utterly crippled and mutilated in soul, and live in the body – that is to say, in the dead element."[⁷⁰⁷]

Origen says that Celsus is constantly guilty of tautology, and the reiteration of this charge of ignorance and want of culture is at least frequent enough. Yet if the Christian movement had been confined to people as vulgar and illiterate as he suggests, he might not have thought it worth his while to attack the new religion. His hint of the propagation of the Gospel by slaves in great houses, taken with the names of men of learning and position, whom we know to have been converted, shows the seriousness of the case. But to avoid the further charge which Origen brings against Celsus of "mixing everything up," it will be better to pursue Celsus' thoughts of God.

"I say nothing new, but what seemed true of old (pálai dedogména). God is good, and beautiful, and happy, and is in that which is most beautiful and best. If then he 'descends to men,' it involves change for him, and change from good to bad, from beautiful to ugly, from happiness to unhappiness, from what is best to what is worst. Who would choose such a change? For mortality it is only nature to alter and be changed; but for the immortal to abide the same forever. God would not accept such a change."[⁷⁰⁸] He presents a dilemma to the Christians; "Either God really changes, as they say, to a mortal body, – and it has been shown that this is impossible; or he himself does not change, but he makes those who see suppose so, and thus deceives and cheats them. Deceit and lying are evil, taken generally, though in the single case of medicine one might use them in healing friends who are sick or mad – or against enemies in trying to escape danger. But none who is sick or mad is a friend of God's; nor is God afraid of any one, so that he should use deceit to escape danger."[⁷⁰⁹] God in fact "made nothing mortal; but God's works are such things as are immortal, and they have made the mortal. The soul is God's work, but the nature of the body is different, and in this respect there is no difference between the bodies of bat, worm, frog, and man. The matter is the same and the corruptible part is alike."[⁷¹⁰]

God's anger

The Christian conception of the "descent of God" is repulsive to Celsus, for it means contact with matter. "God's anger," too, is an impious idea, for anger is a passion; and Celsus makes havoc of the Old Testament passages where God is spoken of as having human passions (anthrôpopathés), closing with an argumentum ad hominem– "Is it not absurd that a man [Titus], angry with the Jews, slew all their youth and burnt their land, and so they came to nothing; but God Almighty, as they say, angry and vexed and threatening, sends his son and endures such things as they tell?"[⁷¹¹] Furthermore, the Christian account of God's anger at man's sin involves a presumption that Christians really know what evil is. "Now the origin of evil is not to be easily known by one who has no philosophy. It is enough to tell the common people that evil is not from God, but is inherent in matter, and is a fellow-citizen (empoliteúetai) of mortality. The circuit of mortal things is from beginning to end the same, and in the appointed circles the same must always of necessity have been and be and be again."[⁷¹²] "Nor could the good or evil elements in mortal things become either less or greater. God does not need to restore all things anew. God is not like a man, that, because he has faultily contrived or executed without skill, he should try to amend the world."[⁷¹³] In short, "even if a thing seems to you to be bad, it is not yet clear that it is bad; for you do not know what is of advantage to yourself, or to another, or to the whole."[⁷¹⁴] Besides would God need to descend in order to learn what was going on among men?[⁷¹⁵] Or was he dissatisfied with the attention he received, and did he really come down to show off like a nouveau riche (oi neóploutoi)?"[⁷¹⁶] Then why not long before?[⁷¹⁷]

Should Christians ask him how God is to be seen, he has his answer: "If you will be blind to sense and see with the mind, if you will turn from the flesh and waken the eyes of the soul, thus and thus only shall you see God."[⁷¹⁸] In words that Origen approves, he says, "from God we must never and in no way depart, neither by day nor by night, in public or in private, in every word and work perpetually, but, with these and without, let the soul ever be strained towards God."[⁷¹⁹] "If any man bid you, in the worship of God, either to do impiety, or to say anything base, you must never be persuaded by him. Rather endure every torture and submit to every death, than think anything unholy of God, let alone say it."[⁷²⁰]

Thus the fundamental conceptions of the Christians are shown to be wrong, but more remains to be done. Let us assume for purposes of discussion that there could be a "descent of God" – would it be what the Christians say it was? "God is great and hard to be seen," he makes the Christian say, "so he put his own spirit into a body like ours and sent it down here that we might hear and learn from it."[⁷²¹] If that is true, he says, then God's son cannot be immortal, since the nature of a spirit is not such as to be permanent; nor could Jesus have risen again in the body, "for God would not have received back the spirit which he gave when it was polluted with the nature of the body."[⁷²²] "If he had wished to send down a spirit from himself, why did he need to breathe it into the womb of a woman? He knew already how to make men, and he could have fashioned a body about this spirit too, and so avoided putting his own spirit into such pollution."[⁷²³] Again the body, in which the spirit was sent, ought to have had stature or beauty or terror or persuasion, whereas they say it was little, ugly and ignoble.[⁷²⁴]

Then, finally, "suppose that God, like Zeus in the Comedy, waking out of long sleep, determined to rescue mankind from evil, why on earth did he send this spirit (as you call it) into one particular corner? He ought to have breathed through many bodies in the same way and sent them all over the world. The comic poet, to make merriment in the theatre, describes how Zeus waked up and sent Hermes to the Athenians and Lacedæmonians; do you not think that your invention of God's son being sent to the Jews is more laughable still?"[⁷²⁵] The incarnation further carried with it stories of "God eating" – mutton, vinegar, gall. This revolted Celsus, and he summed it all up in one horrible word.[⁷²⁶]

The ignominy of Jesus

The ignominy of the life of Jesus was evidence to Celsus of the falsity of his claim to be God's son. He bitterly taunts Christians with following a child of shame – "God's would not be a body like yours – nor begotten as you were begotten, Jesus!"[⁷²⁷] He reviles Jesus for the Passion – "unhelped by his Father and unable to help himself."[⁷²⁸] He goes to the Gospels ("I know the whole story," he says[⁷²⁹]) and he cites incident after incident. He reproaches Jesus with seeking to escape the cross,[⁷³⁰] he brings forward "the men who mocked him and put the purple robe on him, the crown of thorns, and; the reed in his hand";[⁷³¹] he taunts him with being unable to endure his thirst upon the cross – "which many a common man will endure."[⁷³²] As to the resurrection, "if Jesus wished really to display his divine power, he ought to have appeared to the actual men who reviled him, and to him who condemned him and to all, for, of course, he was no longer afraid of any man, seeing he was dead, and, as you say, God, and was not originally sent to elude observation."[⁷³³] Or, better still, to show his Godhead, he might have vanished from the gibbet.[⁷³⁴]

What befel Jesus, befals his followers. "Don't you see, my dear sir?" Celsus says, "a man may stand and blaspheme your dæmon; and not that only, he may forbid him land and sea, and then lay hands on you, who are consecrated to him like a statue, bind you, march you off and impale you; and the dæmon, or, as you say, the son of God, does not help you."[⁷³⁵] "You may stand and revile the statues of the gods and laugh. But if you tried it in the actual presence of Dionysus or Herakles, you might not get off so comfortably. But your god in his own person they spread out and punished, and those who did it have suffered nothing… He too who sent his son (according to you) with some message or other, looked on and saw him thus cruelly punished, so that the message perished with him, and though all this time has passed he has never heeded. What father was ever so unnatural (anósios)? Ah! but perhaps he wished it, you say, and that was why he endured the insult. And perhaps our gods wish it too, when you blaspheme them."[⁷³⁶]

Celsus would seem to have heard Christian preaching, for beside deriding "Only believe" and "Thy faith will save thee," he is offended by the language they use about the cross. "Wide as the sects stand apart, and bitter as are their quarrels and mutual abuse, you will hear them all say their 'To me the world is crucified and I to the world.'"[⁷³⁷] In one great passage he mixes, as Origen says, the things he has mis-heard, and quotes Christian utterances about "a soul that lives, and a heaven that is slain that it may live, and earth slain with the sword, and ever so many people being slain to live; and death taking a rest in the world when the sin of the world dies; and then a narrow way down, and gates that open of themselves. And everywhere you have the tree of life and the resurrection of the flesh from the tree – I suppose, because their teacher was nailed to a cross and was a carpenter by trade. Exactly as, if he had chanced to be thrown down a precipice, or pushed into a pit, or choked in a noose, or if he had been a cobbler, or a stone-mason, or a blacksmith, there would have been above the heavens a precipice of life, or a pit of resurrection, or a rope of immortality, or a happy stone, or the iron of love, or the holy hide."[⁷³⁸]

The Cross and the miracles

The miracles of Jesus Celsus easily explains. "Through poverty he went to Egypt and worked there as a hired labourer; and there he became acquainted with certain powers [or faculties], on which the Egyptians pride themselves, and he came back holding his head high on account of them, and because of them he announced that he was God."[⁷³⁹] But, granting the miracles of healing and of raising the dead and feeding the multitudes, he maintains that ordinary quacks will do greater miracles in the streets for an obol or two, "driving devils out of men,[⁷⁴⁰] and blowing away diseases and calling up the souls of heroes, and displaying sumptuous banquets and tables and sweetmeats and dainties that are not there;" – "must we count them sons of God?"[⁷⁴¹] There are plenty of prophets too, "and it is quite an easy and ordinary thing for each of them to say 'I am God – or God's son – or a divine spirit. And I am come; for already the world perisheth, and ye, oh men, are lost for your sins. But I am willing to save you; and ye shall see me hereafter coming with heavenly power. Blessed is he that has worshipped me now; but upon all the rest I will send eternal fire, and upon their cities and lands. And men who do not recognize their own guilt shall repent in vain with groans; and them that have believed me, I will guard for ever.'"[⁷⁴²] Jesus was, he holds, an obvious quack and impostor. In fact, there is little to choose between worshipping Jesus and Antinous, the favourite of Hadrian, who had actually been deified in Egypt.[⁷⁴³]

The teaching of Jesus, to which Christians pointed, was after all a mere medley of garbled quotations from Greek literature. Thus when Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to go into the kingdom of God, he was merely spoiling the Platonic saying that it is impossible for a man to be exceedingly good and exceedingly rich at the same time.[⁷⁴⁴] The kingdom of heaven itself comes from the "divinely spoken" words of Plato; it is the "supercelestial region" of the Phædrus.[⁷⁴⁵] Satan is a parody of Heraclitus' conception of War.[⁷⁴⁶] The Christian resurrection comes from metempsychosis.[⁷⁴⁷] The idea that "God will descend, carrying fire (like a torturer in a law-court)" comes from some confused notion of the teaching of the Greeks upon cycles and periods and the final conflagration.[⁷⁴⁸] Plato has this advantage that he never boasted and never said that God had "a son who descended and talked with me."[⁷⁴⁹] The "son of God" itself was an expression borrowed in their clumsy way by the Christians from the ancients who conceived of the universe as God's offspring.[⁷⁵⁰]

Resurrection

Christians lay great stress on the immortality, "but it is silly of them to suppose that when God – like a cook – brings the fire, the rest of mankind will be roasted and they themselves will alone remain, not merely the living, but even those who died long ago, rising from the earth with the identical flesh they had before. Really it is the hope of worms! For what soul of a man would any longer wish for a body that had rotted?"[⁷⁵¹] The loathsomeness of the idea, he says, cannot be expressed, and besides it is impossible. "They have nothing to reply to this, so they fly to the absurdest refuge, and say that all is possible with God. But God cannot do what is foul, and what is contrary to nature he will not do. Though you in your vulgarity may wish a loathsome thing, it does not follow that God can do it, nor that you are right to believe at once that it will come to pass. For it is not of superfluous desire and wandering disorder, but of true and just nature that God is prince (archegétes). He could grant immortal life of the soul; but 'corpses,' as Heraclitus says, 'are less useful than dung.' The flesh is full of – what it is not beautiful even to mention – and to make it immortal contrary to all reason (paralogôs), is what God neither will nor can do. For he is the reason of all things that are, so that he cannot do anything contrary to reason or contrary to himself."[⁷⁵²] And yet, says Celsus, "you hope you will see God with the eyes of your body, and hear his voice with your ears, and touch him with the hands of sense."[⁷⁵³] If they threaten the heathen with eternal punishment, the exegetes, hierophants, and mystagogues of the temples hurl back the same threat, and while words are equal, they can show proofs in dæmonic activities and oracles.[⁷⁵⁴] "With those however who speak of the soul or the mind (whether they choose to call it spiritual, or a spirit intelligent, holy and happy, or a living soul, or the supercelestial and incorruptible offspring of a divine and bodyless nature – or whatever they please) – with those who hope to have this eternally with God, with such I will speak. For they are right in holding that they who have lived well will be happy and the unjust will be held in eternal woes. From this opinion (dógmatos) let not them nor any one else depart."[⁷⁵⁵]