And now, after these arguments, and others of a similar kind, how can
Celsus escape appearing in a ridiculous light, when he imagines that
there never has been in the past, nor will be in the future, a greater
or less number of evils? For although the nature of all things is one
and the same, it does not at all follow that the production of evils is
a constant quantity.[738] For although the nature of a certain
individual is one and the same, yet his mind, and his reason, and his
actions, are not always alike:[739] there being a time when he had not
yet attained to reason; and another, when, with the possession of
reason, he had become stained with wickedness, and when this increased
to a greater or less degree; and again, a time when he devoted himself
to virtue, and made greater or less progress therein, attaining
sometimes the very summit of perfection, through longer or shorter
periods of contemplation.[740] In like manner, we may make the same
assertion in a higher degree of the nature of the universe,[741] that
although it is one and the same in kind, yet neither do exactly the same
things, nor yet things that are similar, occur in it; for we neither
have invariably productive nor unproductive seasons, nor yet periods of
continuous rain or of drought. And so in the same way, with regard to
virtuous souls, there are neither appointed periods of fertility nor of
barrenness; and the same is the case with the greater or less spread of
evil. And those who desire to investigate all things to the best of
their ability, must keep in view this estimate of evils, that their
amount is not always the same, owing to the working of a Providence
which either preserves earthly things, or purges them by means of floods
and conflagrations; and effects this, perhaps, not merely with reference
to things on earth, but also to the whole universe of things[742] which
stands in need of purification, when the wickedness that is in it has
become great.
Footnote 738:
οὐ πάντως καὶ ἡ τῶν κακῶν γένεσις ἀεὶ ἡ αὐτή.
Footnote 739:
οὐκ ἀεὶ τὰ αὐτά ἐστι περὶ τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ,
καὶ τὰς πράξεις.
Footnote 740:
θεωρίαις.
Footnote 741:
τῶν ὅλων.
Footnote 742:
τὰ ἐν ὁλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ.