He continues to say, that “neither have visible things[752] been given
to man [by God], but each individual thing comes into existence and
perishes for the sake of the safety of the whole, passing agreeably to
the change, which I have already mentioned, from one thing to another.”
It is unnecessary, however, to linger over the refutation of these
statements, which have been already refuted to the best of my ability.
And the following, too, has been answered, viz. that “there will neither
be more nor less good and evil among mortals.” This point also has been
referred to, viz. that “God does not need to amend His work
afresh.”[753] But it is not as a man who has imperfectly designed some
piece of workmanship, and executed it unskilfully, that God administers
correction to the world, in purifying it by a flood or by a
conflagration, but in order to prevent the tide of evil from rising to a
greater height; and, moreover, I am of opinion that it is at periods
which are precisely determined beforehand that He sweeps wickedness
away, so as to contribute to the good of the whole world.[754] If,
however, he should assert that, after the disappearance of evil, it
again comes into existence, such questions will have to be examined in a
special treatise. It is, then, always in order to repair what has become
faulty[755] that God desires to amend His work afresh. For although, in
the creation of the world, all things had been arranged by Him in the
most beautiful and stable manner, He nevertheless needed to exercise
some healing power upon those who were labouring under the disease of
wickedness, and upon a whole world, which was polluted as it were
thereby. But nothing has been neglected by God, or will be neglected by
Him; for He does at each particular juncture what it becomes Him to do
in a perverted and changed world. And as a husbandman performs different
acts of husbandry upon the soil and its productions, according to the
varying seasons of the year, so God administers entire ages of time, as
if they were, so to speak, so many individual years, performing during
each one of them what is requisite with a reasonable regard to the care
of the world; and this, as it is truly understood by God alone, so also
is it accomplished by Him.
Footnote 752:
τὰ ὁρώμενα.
Footnote 753:
οὔτε τῷ Θεῷ καινοτέρας δεῖ διορθώσεως.
Footnote 754:
ὅτι καὶ πάντη τεταγμένως αὐτὴν ἀφανίζων συμφερόντως τῷ παντί.
Footnote 755:
τὰ σφάλματα ἀναλαμβάνειν.