4. The foregoing clearly shows the arguments which mostly silence such readers as cannot dispose of the. scriptural statements which are adduced in favour of there being three kinds of good things and three of evil things. Moreover, not only have confessedly unsophisticated believers been thus beguiled, but even some of those who profess wisdom according to Christ have fallen into the snare; for they suppose such promises as these to be made by the Creator, and that beyond their literal signification the threats have no meaning. Well, then, in reply to all who so strangely apprehend the Scriptures, we must further inquire whether the Prophets, against whom no charge is brought, kept the law; Elias, for instance, the poorest of men, so poor that he had not bread of his own to eat, and was therefore sent to a woman of Zarephath which belonged to Zidon; and Eliseus, who at the house of the Shunammite had a very little chamber, and a bed, and a cheap candlestick, who also fell sick and died; and Isaiah, who went three years naked and barefoot; and Jeremiah, who was cast into a miry pit, and was constantly derided, so that he prayed he might have a lodging-place in the wilderness; and John, who was in the deserts and ate nothing but locusts and wild honey, who had a leathern girdle about his loins, and was clothed in raiment of camel's hair. They will, I suppose, admit that these men kept the law. And we will ask whether |219 what our opponents consider good things, were the lot of those who kept the law. And if they cannot show that this was so, there will be no escape for them; they will have to allow either that the promises which are said to be given to the godly are false, or that being true they must be anagogically interpreted; and once they are compelled to resort to allegory, there is an end of their supposition that the law threatens the ungodly with bodily disease, and such external things as are reckoned to be evils, and that the promise of bodily health and wealth is for those who follow after God.