65. Nay,
my opponent
says
, if God is powerful, merciful, willing to save us, let Him
change our dispositions, and compel us to trust in His promises.
This, then, is violence, not kindness nor the bounty of the Supreme
God, but a childish
and vain
3854
strife in seeking to get the
mastery. For what is so unjust as to force men who are reluctant
and unwilling, to reverse their inclinations; to impress forcibly on
their minds what they are unwilling
to receive
, and shrink from;
to injure before benefiting, and to bring to another way of thinking
and feeling, by taking away the former? You who wish yourself to
be changed,
3855
and to suffer
violence, that you may do and may be compelled to take to yourself that
which you do not wish, why do you refuse of your own accord to select
that which you wish to do, when changed and transformed? I am
unwilling, He says, and have no wish. What, then, do you blame
God as though He failed you? do you wish
Him
to bring you
help,
3856
whose gifts
and bounties you not only reject and shun, but term empty
3857
words, and
assail with jocose witticisms? Unless, then,
my opponent
says
, I shall be a Christian, I cannot hope for salvation. It
is just as you yourself say. For, to bring salvation and impart
to souls what should be bestowed and must be added,
Christ
alone
has had given into His charge and entrusted
3858
to Him by God the Father, the remote
and more secret causes being so disposed. For, as with you,
certain gods have fixed offices, privileges, powers, and you do not ask
from any of them what is not in his power and permitted to him, so it
is the right of
3859
Christ
alone to give salvation to souls, and assign them everlasting
life. For if you believe that father Bacchus can give a good
vintage,
but
cannot give relief from sickness; if
you
believe
that Ceres
can give
good crops, Æsculapius
health, Neptune one thing, Juno
3860
another, that Fortune, Mercury, Vulcan,
are each the giver of a fixed and particular thing,—this, too,
you must needs receive from us,
3861
that souls can receive from no one
life and salvation, except from Him to whom the Supreme Ruler gave this
charge and duty. The Almighty Master of the world has determined
that this should be the way of salvation,—this the door, so to
say, of life; by Him
3862
alone is there access to the
light: nor may men either creep in or enter elsewhere, all other
ways
being shut up and secured by an impenetrable
barrier.
3854
So
most edd., reading
inanis
for the
ms.
animi
; retained, though not very
intelligible, in LB., while Hild. reads
anilis
—“foolish.”
3855
So the
ms.
now reads
verti
;
but this word, according to Pithœus, is in a later handwriting,
and some letters have been erased.
3856
So
the edd., reading
tibi desit? opem desideras tibi
, except
Hild. and Oehler, who retain the
ms.
reading,
t. d. o. desideranti
—“as
though He failed you desiring
Him
to bring
help.”
3857
So Ursinus, reading
in ania cognomines
for the
ms.
in alia
, which Orelli would
interpret, “call the reverse of the truth.”
3858
Lit., “For the parts of bringing…has enjoined and given
over,”
partes…injunctum habet et traditum
, where it
will be important to notice that Arnobius, writing rapidly, had carried
with him only the general idea, and forgotten the mode in which this
was expressed.
3859
Pontificium.
3860
Here, too, according to Pithœus, there are signs of erasure.
3861
i.e., admit.
3862
This passage at once suggests
John x. 9 and xiv. 6
, and it is therefore the more necessary
to notice the way in which Arnobius speaks (“so to say”),
which is certainly not the tone of one quoting a passage with which he
is well acquainted. [Elucidation I.]