To Autolycus

A glib tongue and elegant phrasing give pleasure, and win praise for empty glory, among wretched people whose minds are corrupted; but the lover of truth pays no attention to defiled words, and examines instead what the reality behind the words is, and of what kind. Since, then, my friend, you have assailed me with empty words, boasting of your gods of stone and wood, hammered and cast, modeled and painted, which neither see nor hear (for they are idols and the works of human hands), and since you also call me a Christian as though I bore an evil name: I for my part confess that I am a Christian, and I bear this name beloved of God, hoping to be useful to God. For it is not as you suppose, that the name of God is a grievous thing; perhaps it is because you yourself are still useless to God that you think this way about God.

But if you say, “Show me your God,” I would say to you, “Show me your man, and I will show you my God.” Show me, that is, that the eyes of your soul see and the ears of your heart hear. For just as those who see with the eyes of the body perceive the business of this earthly life and at the same time tell apart what differs, light or darkness, white or black, ugly or beautiful, well proportioned and well measured or ill proportioned and ill measured, oversized or stunted, and likewise what falls on the ear, sounds high or low or sweet: so it is with the ears of the heart and the eyes of the soul, and their power to see God. For God is seen by those who are able to see him, when they have the eyes of their soul opened. All people have eyes, but in some they are clouded over and do not see the light of the sun. Yet it is not because the blind do not see that the light of the sun does not shine; the blind must blame themselves and their own eyes. So you too, O man, have the eyes of your soul clouded over by your sins and your evil deeds. A person must have a pure soul, like a polished mirror. When there is rust on the mirror, a person's face cannot be seen in it; so too when there is sin in a person, such a one cannot behold God. So show me yourself: that you are not an adulterer, not sexually immoral, not a thief, not a robber, not a swindler, not a man who lies with males, not insolent, not a slanderer, not given to anger, not envious, not boastful, not arrogant, not violent, not a lover of money, not disobedient to parents, not one who sells his children. For to those who do these things God does not show himself, unless they first cleanse themselves from all defilement. All these things, then, darken your sight, as when a discharge of matter comes over the eyes so that they cannot look at the light of the sun; so, O man, your impieties darken you so that you cannot see God.

You will say to me, then, “You who see, describe to me the form of God.” Listen, O man. The form of God is unspeakable and inexpressible, and cannot be seen with eyes of flesh. In glory he is beyond containing, in greatness beyond grasping, in height beyond conceiving, in strength beyond comparing, in wisdom beyond rivaling, in goodness beyond imitating, in beneficence beyond describing. If I call him Light, I am speaking of his handiwork; if I call him Word, I am speaking of his sovereignty; if I call him Mind, I am speaking of his wisdom; if I call him Spirit, I am speaking of his breath; if I call him Wisdom, I am speaking of his offspring; if I call him Strength, I am speaking of his might; if I call him Power, I am speaking of his activity; if I call him Providence, I am speaking of his goodness; if I call him Kingdom, I am speaking of his glory; if I call him Lord, I am speaking of him as Judge; if I call him Judge, I am speaking of him as just; if I call him Father, I am speaking of all things as coming from him; if I call him Fire, I am speaking of his wrath. You will say to me, then, “Is God angry?” Indeed he is: he is angry with those who do evil; but to those who love and fear him he is good and kind and merciful. For he is the teacher of the godly and the father of the righteous, but the judge and punisher of the ungodly.

He is without beginning because he is uncreated; he is unchangeable because he is immortal. He is called God (θεός) because he has set (τεθεικέναι) all things on his own secure foundation, and because of θέειν; and θέειν means to run, to move, to act, to nourish, to provide, to govern, and to give life to all things. He is Lord because he rules over the universe; Father because he is before all things; Creator and Maker because he is the founder and maker of all things; Most High because he is above all things; Almighty because he himself rules and encompasses all things. For the heights of the heavens and the depths of the abysses and the ends of the world are in his hand, and there is no place of his rest. The heavens are his work, the earth is his creation, the sea is his handiwork, the human being is his formation and his image; sun, moon, and stars are his elements, made for signs and seasons and days and years, for the service and use of human beings. And God made all things out of what did not exist into being, so that through his works his greatness might be known and understood.

For just as the soul in a human being is not seen, being invisible to people, but is perceived through the movement of the body, so God cannot be seen by human eyes, but is seen and perceived through his providence and his works. When someone sees a ship on the sea, fitted out, running before the wind and making for harbor, he will plainly conclude that there is a pilot on board steering it; so we must conclude that God is the pilot of the universe, even though he is not seen with eyes of flesh, since he is beyond containing. If a human being cannot look at the sun, though it is a very small element, because of its surpassing heat and power, how much less can a mortal face the glory of God, which is beyond expression? A pomegranate, enclosed by its rind, has within it many cells and compartments separated by membranes, and many seeds that dwell in it. In the same way the whole creation is enclosed by the spirit of God, and the enclosing spirit, together with the creation, is enclosed by the hand of God. And just as the pomegranate seed, dwelling within, cannot see what is outside the rind, since it is inside, so the human being, enclosed with the whole creation by the hand of God, cannot behold God. Again, an earthly king is believed to exist even though he is not seen by everyone, and is known through his laws and ordinances, his officials and forces and statues; and will you not allow God to be known through his works and mighty deeds?

Consider, O man, his works: the change of the seasons in their times and the turning of the weather; the orderly course of the elements; the orderly progress of days and nights, months and years; the varied beauty of seeds, plants, and fruits; the manifold brood of four-footed beasts, birds, creeping things, and swimming creatures of fresh water and sea; the instinct given to the animals themselves to beget and rear their young, not for their own use but so that human beings may have them; the providence God exercises in preparing food for all flesh; the subjection he has decreed, by which all things are subject to humankind; the flow of sweet springs and ever-flowing rivers; the supply of dews, showers, and rains in their seasons; the manifold movement of the heavenly bodies; the morning star rising and announcing the coming of the perfect light; the bonds of the Pleiades and Orion, and Arcturus, and the dance of the other stars in the circle of the heaven, all of which the manifold wisdom of God has called by their own names. He alone is God who made light out of darkness, the chambers of the south, the treasuries of the deep, the boundaries of the seas, and the treasuries of snow and hail; who gathers the waters into the storehouses of the deep and the darkness into his storehouses, and brings out the sweet, longed-for, and delightful light from his storehouses; who brings up clouds from the ends of the earth and makes lightnings for the rain; who sends out the thunder to bring fear, and announces the crash of the thunder beforehand by the lightning, so that no soul may faint from sudden terror; and who measures out the strength of the lightning that comes down from heaven so that it does not burn up the earth. For if the lightning were given full power, it would burn up the earth, and if the thunder were, it would overturn everything on it.

This is my God, the Lord of all, who alone stretched out the heaven and set in place the breadth of the earth under heaven; who stirs up the depths of the sea and makes its waves roar; who rules its might and calms the tossing of its waves; who founded the earth upon the waters and gave a spirit to nourish it, whose breath gives life to all things, and who, if he held back his breath, would make all things fail. Him you speak of, O man; his breath you breathe; him you do not know. This has happened to you because of the blindness of your soul and the hardness of your heart. But if you wish, you can be healed. Entrust yourself to the physician, and he will operate on the eyes of your soul and of your heart. Who is the physician? God, who heals and gives life through his Word and his Wisdom. God made all things through his Word and his Wisdom; for “by his Word the heavens were made firm, and all their host by his Spirit.” His Wisdom is supreme: “God by Wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding he prepared the heavens; by his knowledge the depths broke open, and the clouds poured down dew.” If you understand these things, O man, living purely, holily, and justly, you can see God. But before everything else let faith and the fear of God lead the way in your heart, and then you will understand these things. When you have put off mortality and put on incorruption, then you will see God as you deserve. For God raises your flesh immortal together with your soul; and then, having become immortal, you will see the Immortal, if you believe him now; and then you will know that you spoke against him unjustly.

But you do not believe that the dead are raised. When it happens, you will believe, whether you want to or not; and your faith will be counted as unbelief, unless you believe now. Why do you disbelieve? Do you not know that faith leads the way in all things? What farmer can reap unless he first entrusts the seed to the earth? Who can cross the sea unless he first entrusts himself to the ship and the pilot? What sick person can be healed unless he first entrusts himself to the physician? What art or science can anyone learn unless he first gives himself up and entrusts himself to the teacher? If, then, the farmer trusts the earth, the sailor the ship, and the sick man the physician, will you not entrust yourself to God, when you have received so many pledges from him? First, he made you out of nothing into being. For if at one time your father did not exist, nor your mother, much more did you once not exist. And he formed you from a small moist substance, a tiny drop, which itself once did not exist; and God brought you into this life. Then you believe that statues made by human beings are gods and work wonders, and yet you do not believe that the God who made you can make you again hereafter?

The names of the gods you say you worship are the names of dead men. And what men, and of what kind? Is not Kronos found to be a devourer of children, consuming his own offspring? And if you mention Zeus his son, learn his deeds and his conduct too. First, he was nursed on Ida by a goat, and, according to the myths, he killed her, flayed her, and made himself a garment of her skin. His other deeds, his incest with his sister, his adulteries, and his corruption of boys, are better told by Homer and the other poets. Why should I list the rest, about his sons: Heracles who burned himself, Dionysus drunk and raving, Apollo who feared Achilles and fled from him, who loved Daphne and did not foresee the death of Hyacinthus; or Aphrodite wounded, and Ares the bane of mortals, and even the ichor flowing from these so-called gods? And these are mild things to mention, when a god called Osiris is found torn limb from limb, for whom rites are held every year as though he were lost and found and sought limb by limb; for no one knows whether he is lost, and no one shows whether he is found. Why should I speak of Attis castrated, or Adonis roaming the woods and hunting and wounded by a boar, or Asclepius struck by lightning, and Sarapis who fled from Sinope to Alexandria, or the Scythian Artemis, herself a fugitive, a murderess and a huntress, who fell in love with Endymion? It is not we who say these things; your own historians and poets proclaim them.

Why should I go on to list the multitude of creatures the Egyptians worship: creeping things, cattle, wild beasts, birds, and fish of the waters, and even footbaths and indecent noises? And if you mention the Greeks and the other nations, they worship stones and wood and other matter, as we have said, images of dead men. Phidias is found making the Olympian Zeus for the Eleans at Pisa, and the Athena on the acropolis for the Athenians. I too will ask you, O man, how many Zeuses there are. First there is Zeus called Olympian, and Zeus Latiaris, and Zeus Casius, and Zeus of the Thunderbolt, and Zeus the Forefather, and Zeus of the All-Night Festival, and Zeus Guardian of the City, and Zeus Capitolinus. And Zeus son of Kronos, who became king of the Cretans, has a tomb in Crete; the others perhaps were not even thought worthy of burial. And if you mention the mother of the so-called gods, far be it from my lips to relate her deeds (for it is unlawful for us even to name such things), or the deeds of the attendants by whom she is served, and how many taxes and contributions she and her sons provide to the emperor. For they are not gods but idols, as we said before, the works of human hands and unclean demons. “May those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them.”

So I will rather honor the emperor, not by worshiping him but by praying for him. I worship God, the real and true God, knowing that the emperor was made by him. You will say to me, then, “Why do you not worship the emperor?” Because he was not made to be worshiped, but to be honored with lawful honor. For he is not God, but a man appointed by God, not to be worshiped but to judge justly. In a way he has been entrusted with a stewardship by God. He himself does not want those he has appointed under him to be called emperors, since “emperor” is his own title and no one else may be called by it; in the same way no one may be worshiped except God alone. So you are wrong in every respect, O man. Honor the emperor by being loyal to him, being subject to him, and praying for him; for by doing this you do the will of God. For the law of God says: “My son, honor God and the king, and do not disobey either of them; for they will suddenly take vengeance on their enemies.”

As for your laughing at me and calling me a Christian, you do not know what you are saying. First, what is anointed is sweet and useful and nothing to laugh at. What ship can be useful and seaworthy unless it is first caulked with oil? What tower or house is handsome and useful unless it has been anointed? What person entering this life, or competing as an athlete, is not anointed with oil? What work or ornament can look beautiful unless it is oiled and polished? And the air and everything under heaven is, in a way, anointed with light and spirit. Will you not, then, be anointed with the oil of God? That is why we are called Christians: because we are anointed with the oil of God.

And as for your denying that the dead are raised, when you say, “Show me even one person raised from the dead, so that I may see and believe”: first, what great thing is it if you believe once you have seen it happen? Besides, you believe that Heracles, who burned himself, is alive, and that Asclepius, struck by lightning, was raised; and do you disbelieve what God has done for you? Perhaps I could even show you a dead man raised and alive, and you would disbelieve that too. God shows you many proofs so that you may believe him. If you wish, consider the ending of seasons and days and nights, how they too die and rise again. And what of the resurrection of seeds and fruits, which takes place for the use of human beings? For example, a grain of wheat or of any other seed, when it is cast into the earth, first dies and is dissolved, then is raised and becomes an ear. And the trees and fruit trees: do they not, by God's command, bring forth their fruits in their seasons out of what is hidden and invisible? Sometimes, too, a sparrow or some other bird swallows the seed of an apple or a fig or some other tree, comes to a rocky hill or a tomb and drops it there, and the seed takes hold and grows into a tree, though it had once been swallowed and had passed through so much heat. All these things the wisdom of God brings about, to show through them too that God is able to bring about the general resurrection of all human beings. And if you wish to see a still more wonderful sight that proves the resurrection, not only among earthly things but among heavenly ones too, consider the resurrection of the moon that happens every month: how it wanes, dies, and rises again. Hear, too, of a work of resurrection taking place in you yourself, O man, even if you do not know it. Perhaps you once fell ill and lost your flesh, your strength, and your looks; but receiving mercy and healing from God, you recovered your body, your looks, and your strength. And just as you did not know where your flesh went when it disappeared, so you do not know where it came from or how it came back. But you will say, “From food and juices turned into blood.” Very well; but this too is the work of God, who designed it so, and of no one else.

So do not disbelieve, but believe. For I too once disbelieved that this would happen, but now, having considered these things, I believe. At the same time I came upon the sacred writings of the holy prophets, who by the Spirit of God foretold how past things happened, how present things are happening, and in what order future things will be accomplished. Having received proof, then, from events that happen as they were foretold, I do not disbelieve but believe, obeying God. Submit yourself to him too, if you will, and believe him, lest by disbelieving now you should be convinced later, in distress, in eternal punishments. These punishments were foretold by the prophets; and the poets and philosophers, who came later, stole from the holy writings in order to make their own teachings credible. Yet they too foretold the punishments that will come upon the ungodly and unbelieving, so that it might be attested to all, and no one might say, “We did not hear, and we did not know.” If you wish, read the prophetic writings eagerly yourself; they will guide you more clearly to escape the eternal punishments and to obtain the eternal good things of God. For he who gave the mouth to speak, formed the ear to hear, and made the eyes to see, will examine all things and judge with justice, rendering to each according to the worth of his deeds. To those who by patience in good works seek incorruption he will give eternal life, joy, peace, rest, and a multitude of good things “which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man.” But for the unbelievers and the scornful, who do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, when they are defiled with adulteries, sexual immorality, homosexual acts, greed, and unlawful idolatries, there will be wrath and fury, tribulation and distress; and in the end eternal fire will hold such people. Since you added, my friend, “Show me your God”: this is my God, and I advise you to fear him and believe him.

Some days ago, my excellent Autolycus, we had a conversation. You asked me who my God was, and gave your ears to our discussion for a little while, and I set out for you my religion. Then we said goodbye to each other with great friendliness and went each to his own house, although at first you were harsh toward us; for you know and remember that you thought our teaching foolishness. Since you have urged me since then, I wish, unskilled in speech though I am, to show you now more precisely, in this treatise, the futile labor and vain religion in which you are held fast, and at the same time to make the truth plain to you from a few of your own histories, which you read but perhaps do not yet understand.

It seems ridiculous to me that stonecutters, modelers, painters, and metal-casters should model and paint and carve and cast and so fashion gods. When the craftsmen have made them, they think nothing of them. But when they have been bought by someone and set up in a so-called temple or in some house, not only do those who bought them sacrifice to them, but even those who made and sold them come eagerly, with a parade of sacrifices and libations, to worship them, and hold them to be gods. They do not realize that the images are just what they were when they made them: stone or bronze or wood or paint or some other matter. The same thing has happened to you who read the histories and genealogies of the so-called gods. When you read of their births, you think of them as human beings; but afterward you call them gods and worship them, not noticing or understanding that they were born just such as you read they were.

Of the gods of those days, if indeed they were born, many births were recorded. But now, where is any birth of gods shown? If they begot and were begotten then, clearly gods ought to be born up to the present day; if not, the whole idea will seem feeble: either they have grown old and so no longer beget, or they have died and exist no longer. For if gods were born, they ought to go on being born to this day, just as human beings are; indeed there ought to be more gods than human beings, as the Sibyl says: “If gods beget and yet remain immortal, the gods born would outnumber men, and there would never be room for mortals to stand.” The children of human beings, who are mortal and short-lived, are to be seen to this day, and human beings have not ceased to be born, so that cities and villages are full and even the countryside is inhabited. How much more, then, ought gods, who according to the poets do not die, to beget and be begotten, since you say the gods had a birth? And why was the mountain called Olympus inhabited by gods then, but deserted now? Or why did Zeus once live on Ida (he was known to live there according to Homer and the other poets), while now no one knows of him there? And why was he not everywhere, instead of being found in one part of the earth? Either he neglected the rest, or he was unable to be everywhere and provide for all. If he was, say, in the east, he was not in the west; and if he was in the west, he was not in the east. But it belongs to the Most High and Almighty God, the true God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see all things and hear all things, and not to be contained in a place; otherwise the place containing him would turn out to be greater than he, since what contains is greater than what is contained. For God is not contained; he himself is the place of all things. And why did Zeus leave Ida? Did he die, or did the mountain no longer please him? And where did he go? To heaven? No. You will say, to Crete? Yes, where his tomb is shown to this day. Or you will say, to Pisa, which to this day glories in the handiwork of Phidias. Let us come, then, to the writings of the philosophers and poets.

Some of the Stoics deny altogether that God exists, or say that, if he exists, he cares for no one but himself. These views are wholly the product of the folly of Epicurus and Chrysippus. Others say that all things happen by chance, that the world is uncreated and nature eternal, and have dared to declare that there is no providence of God at all, but that God is only each person's conscience. Others again teach that the spirit that pervades all things is God. Plato and those of his school acknowledge that God is uncreated and the Father and Maker of all things; but then they suppose that matter as well as God is uncreated, and say that it has existed as long as God. But if God is uncreated and matter uncreated, then according to the Platonists God is no longer the Maker of all things, and, as far as their view goes, the sole sovereignty of God is not established. And further, just as God, being uncreated, is also unchangeable, so matter, if it were uncreated, would also be unchangeable and equal to God; for what is created is mutable and changeable, but what is uncreated is immutable and unchangeable. And what great thing would it be if God made the world out of preexisting matter? Even a human craftsman, when he gets material from someone, makes whatever he wants out of it. But the power of God is shown in this, that he makes whatever he wants out of what does not exist; just as giving life and motion belongs to no one but God alone. A man makes an image, but he cannot give reason and breath or sensation to what he has made. God has this power beyond him: to make what is rational, breathing, and capable of sensation. As, then, in all these things God is more powerful than man, so too in making, and having made, the things that exist out of what did not exist, whatever he wills and in whatever way he wills.

So the opinions of the philosophers and writers do not agree. While they declared these views, the poet Homer is found introducing, on another theory, the origin not only of the world but also of the gods. He says somewhere: “Ocean, origin of the gods, and mother Tethys, from whom come all the rivers and every sea.” In saying this he no longer establishes a god; for who does not know that Ocean is water? And if water, then not a god. God, if he is the Maker of all things, as indeed he is, is also the Creator of water and of the seas. Hesiod too told of the origin not only of the gods but also of the world itself. And though he said the world was created, he lacked the strength to say by whom it was made. Moreover he said that the gods were Kronos, and Zeus his son, and Poseidon and Pluto; and we find that these are later than the world. He also relates that Kronos was warred upon by Zeus, his own son. For he says: “Having conquered by might his father Kronos; and he ordered all things well for the immortals alike and appointed their honors.” Then he goes on to tell of the daughters of Zeus, whom he calls the Muses, and he is found as their suppliant, wishing to learn from them how all things came into being. For he says: “Hail, children of Zeus, and grant me lovely song; celebrate the holy race of the immortals who are forever, who were born of Earth and starry Heaven and dark Night, and whom the salt Sea nourished. Tell how at first the gods and earth came to be, and the rivers and the boundless sea raging with its swell, and the shining stars and the wide heaven above; how they divided their wealth and shared out their honors, and how at first they took possession of Olympus with its many folds. Tell me these things, you Muses who have your homes on Olympus, from the beginning, and say which of them first came to be.” But how did the Muses know these things, since they were later than the world? Or how could they tell them to Hesiod, when their father had not yet been born?

In a way Hesiod supposes both matter and the making of the world, when he says: “First of all Chaos came to be, and then broad-breasted Earth, a secure seat forever for all the immortals who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and misty Tartarus in a recess of the wide-wayed earth, and Eros, fairest among the immortal gods, who loosens the limbs and overpowers the mind and wise counsel in the breasts of all gods and all men. From Chaos came Erebus and black Night. And Earth first bore, equal to herself, starry Heaven, to cover her all around and to be a secure seat forever for the blessed gods; and she bore the tall Mountains, pleasant haunts of the goddess Nymphs who dwell in the wooded mountains. She also bore the barren sea raging with its swell, Pontus, without the union of love; and then, lying with Heaven, she bore deep-eddying Ocean.” Yet in saying this he did not show by whom these things came to be. If in the beginning there was chaos, and some matter already lay there, uncreated, who was it that refashioned, reordered, and transformed it? Did matter reshape and adorn itself? For Zeus came into being long afterward, not only after matter but after the world and a multitude of human beings, and so did his father Kronos. Or was there rather some sovereign power that made matter, I mean God, who also set it in order? Moreover, Hesiod is found talking nonsense in every way and contradicting himself. Having spoken of earth, heaven, and sea, he would have the gods come from them, and from these he proclaims certain most terrible beings, kinsmen of the gods: the race of the Titans and the Cyclopes and a multitude of Giants, and the Egyptian demons, or rather vain men, as Apollonides, also called Horapius, records in his book entitled Semenouthi and in his other histories of the Egyptian religion and of their kings.

Why should I tell of the Greek myths and the futile labor in them: Pluto reigning over darkness, and Poseidon plunging under the sea, embracing Melanippe and begetting a man-eating son; or all the tragedies the writers have composed about the children of Zeus? That these were born men and not gods, they themselves show by listing their genealogies. Aristophanes the comic poet, in the play entitled The Birds, undertaking to describe the making of the world, said that in the beginning an egg came into being, the first form of the world, in these words: “First the black-winged one bore an egg.” Satyrus too, in his history of the demes of the Alexandrians, beginning from Philopator, also called Ptolemy, shows that Dionysus was the founder of his line; which is why Ptolemy established the first tribe named after him. Satyrus speaks thus: “Of Dionysus and Althaea daughter of Thestius was born Deianira; of her and Heracles son of Zeus, Hyllus; of him, Cleodemus; of him, Aristomachus; of him, Temenus; of him, Ceisus; of him, Maron; of him, Thestius; of him, Acous; of him, Aristomidas; of him, Caranus; of him, Coenus; of him, Tyrimmas; of him, Perdiccas; of him, Philip; of him, Aeropus; of him, Alcetas; of him, Amyntas; of him, Bocrus; of him, Meleager; of him, Arsinoe; of her and Lagus, Ptolemy also called Soter; of him and Berenice, Ptolemy Philadelphus; of him and Arsinoe, Ptolemy Euergetes; of him and Berenice, daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene, Ptolemy Philopator.” Such, then, is the kinship of the kings of Alexandria with Dionysus. And so in the Dionysian tribe there are demes assigned: Althaeis, from Althaea, the wife of Dionysus and daughter of Thestius; Deianeiris, from the daughter of Dionysus and Althaea, the wife of Heracles. This is where the demes among them get their names: Ariadnis, from the daughter of Minos, the wife of Dionysus, a girl who loved her father, who lay with Dionysus in the form of a steersman; Thestis, from Thestius, the father of Althaea; Thoantis, from Thoas, son of Dionysus; Staphylis, from Staphylus, son of Dionysus; Euaenis, from Eunous, son of Dionysus; Maronis, from Maron, son of Ariadne and Dionysus. All these are sons of Dionysus. And many other names have arisen and exist to this day: from Heracles, those called Heraclidae; from Apollo, Apollonidae and Apollonii; from Poseidon, Posidonii; and from Zeus, Dii and Diogenae.

And why should I go on listing the multitude of such names and genealogies? In every way, then, all the writers and the so-called poets and philosophers are deluded, and so are those who pay attention to them. For they composed myths and follies about their gods: they showed them to be not gods but men, some drunkards, others fornicators and murderers. And about the origin of the world, too, they said things that are base and contradict one another. First, some declared that the world is uncreated, as we showed above; and those who said it is uncreated and an eternal nature spoke inconsistently with those who taught that it was created. For they spoke by guesswork and human thinking, not according to the truth. Others again said that there is providence, and so undid the teachings of the former. Aratus says: “Let us begin from Zeus, whom we men never leave unnamed. Full of Zeus are all the streets, all the marketplaces of men; full are the sea and the harbors; everywhere we all have need of Zeus. For we are also his offspring; and he, kindly to men, gives favorable signs, and rouses the peoples to work, reminding them of their livelihood. He tells when the soil is best for oxen and mattocks, and tells when the seasons are right both for digging around the plants and for sowing all kinds of seed.” Whom, then, shall we believe, Aratus, or Sophocles, who says, “There is no [clear] providence of anything; it is best to live at random, as best one can”? Homer, again, does not agree with him, for he says, “Zeus increases and diminishes men's valor.” And Simonides: “No one without the gods has won valor, neither city nor mortal. God is all-wise; nothing among them is free of woe.” Likewise Euripides: “Nothing comes to men apart from God.” And Menander: “No one cares for us, then, but God alone.” And again Euripides: “For when God wills to save, he gives many occasions for rescue.” And [Thestius]: “If God wills, you are saved, even if you sail on a mat.” They said ten thousand such things, and contradicted themselves. Sophocles, for one, who elsewhere speaks of there being no providence, says: “No mortal escapes the stroke of God.” They also brought in a multitude of gods, or else spoke of one sovereign God; and to those who said there is no providence they said the opposite. So Euripides admits it, saying: “We strive after many things in hope, laboring in vain, knowing nothing.” Against their will they confess that they do not know the truth. Inspired by demons and puffed up by them, what they said they said through the demons. For the poets, Homer and Hesiod, inspired, as they say, by the Muses, spoke by fantasy and error, not by a pure spirit but by a deceiving one. This is clearly shown from the fact that even to this day those possessed by demons are sometimes exorcised in the name of the true God, and the deceiving spirits themselves confess that they are demons, the same ones who worked in those poets then. Yet sometimes some of the poets, coming to their senses in soul and departing from the demons, said things that agree with the prophets, as a testimony both to themselves and to all people, about the sole sovereignty of God, the judgment, and the other things they spoke of.

But the men of God, bearers of the Holy Spirit who became prophets, inspired and made wise by God himself, became taught by God, holy and righteous. That is why they were thought worthy to receive this reward: they became instruments of God and received the wisdom that comes from him, and through this wisdom they spoke about the creation of the world and about everything else. They also foretold plagues and famines and wars. And there were not one or two of them but many, at various times and seasons, among the Hebrews, and among the Greeks also the Sibyl; and they all spoke in harmony and agreement with one another, both about what happened before them and about what happened in their own time, and about what is being fulfilled now in ours. So we are convinced that what is to come will also happen as they said, just as the earlier things have been accomplished.

First, then, they taught us with one voice that God made all things out of nothing. For nothing was coeval with God; but he, being his own place, lacking nothing, and existing before the ages, willed to make the human being, by whom he might be known; for him, then, he prepared the world beforehand. For what is created is also in need, but what is uncreated needs nothing. God, then, having his own Word within him, in his own heart, begot him, uttering him together with his own Wisdom before all things. This Word he had as his helper in the things made by him, and through him he made all things. He is called “Beginning” because he rules and is lord of all things made through him. He, then, being the Spirit of God, and Beginning, and Wisdom, and Power of the Most High, came down upon the prophets and through them spoke about the making of the world and about everything else. For the prophets did not exist when the world was made; but the Wisdom of God that was in him existed, and his holy Word, who is always present with him. That is why he speaks thus through Solomon the prophet: “When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him, and when he made the foundations of the earth strong, I was beside him, setting things in order.” And Moses, who lived many years before Solomon, or rather the Word of God speaking through him as through an instrument, says: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.” First he named “beginning” and “making,” and only then did he bring in God; for one must not name God idly and to no purpose. For the divine Wisdom foreknew that some would talk nonsense and name a multitude of gods that do not exist. So, that the true God might be known through his works, and that God made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them by his Word, he said: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.” Then, having spoken of their making, he explains to us: “And the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water.” This is what the divine Scripture teaches first: in a sense, a created matter, made by God, from which God made and fashioned the world.

The beginning of creation is light, since light reveals the things that are being set in order. That is why it says: “And God said, Let there be light. [And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good,]” that is, good for the human being, for whom it was made. “And God divided between the light and the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water. And it was so. And God made the firmament, and God divided between the water that was under the firmament and the water above the firmament. And God called the firmament heaven; and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. And God said, Let the water that is under the heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And the water was gathered into its gatherings, and the dry land appeared. And God called the dry land earth, and the gatherings of the waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind and likeness, and fruit trees bearing fruit whose seed is in them, according to their likeness. And it was so. And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and fruit trees bearing fruit whose seed is in them, according to their kind, upon the earth. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth and to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years; and let them be for light in the firmament of heaven, to shine upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars; and God set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things with living souls, and birds flying over the earth across the firmament of heaven. And it was so. And God made the great sea creatures and every living soul of creeping things, which the waters brought forth according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that they were good. And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea, and let the birds multiply upon the earth. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living souls according to their kind, four-footed creatures and creeping things and wild beasts of the earth according to their kind. And it was so. And God made the wild beasts of the earth according to their kind, and the cattle according to their kind, and all the creeping things of the earth. And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make the human being according to our image and likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and the cattle and all the earth and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth. And God made the human being; according to the image of God he made him; male and female he made them. And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all the cattle and all the earth and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth. And God said, See, I have given you every seed-bearing plant that yields seed, which is upon all the earth, and every tree that has in it the fruit of seed that is sown; it shall be food for you, and for all the wild beasts of the earth and all the birds of heaven and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, which has in it the breath of life, every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw all that he had made, and see, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. And the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. And on the sixth day God finished his works that he had made, and on the seventh day he rested from all his works that he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it he rested from all his works that God had begun to make.”

No human being can worthily set out the explanation and the whole design of the six days' work, not even if he had ten thousand mouths and ten thousand tongues. Nor, if someone lived ten thousand years, sojourning in this life, would he even so be able to say anything worthy about it, because of the surpassing greatness and the riches of the wisdom of God contained in the six days' work written above. Many writers have imitated it and tried to give an account of these things, taking their starting points from here, whether about the creation of the world or about the nature of the human being; yet they did not utter even the smallest spark of truth worthy of it. What the philosophers, historians, and poets have said seems credible because it is adorned with fine phrasing; but their teaching is shown to be foolish and empty, because the mass of their nonsense is great and not the smallest part of the truth is found in them. And if something true seems to have been said by them, it is mixed with error. Just as a deadly poison mixed with honey or wine or something else makes the whole harmful and useless, so their long-windedness turns out to be futile labor, and rather harmful to those who believe it. Again, about the seventh day, which all people name but most do not understand: what the Hebrews call the sabbath is rendered in Greek hebdomas (“the seventh”); every race of human beings names it, but they do not know why they call it so. And as for the poet Hesiod's saying that from Chaos came Erebus and Earth and Eros, lord over his gods and men, his words are shown to be vain, frigid, and foreign to all truth. For God must not be overcome by pleasure, since even temperate human beings abstain from every shameful pleasure and evil desire.

To begin from below, from earthly things, and so to tell of the making of what came into being, is a human, lowly, and very feeble way of thinking, as far as God is concerned. A man, being below, begins to build from the ground, and cannot make the roof in its proper order unless he first lays the foundation. But God's power is shown in this, that first he makes what comes into being out of nothing, and as he wills. For what is impossible with human beings is possible with God. That is why the prophet said first that the heaven was made, in the manner of a roof, saying, “In the beginning God made the heaven,” that is, the heaven was made through the Beginning, as we have already shown. By “earth” he means the ground and foundation, as it was in potential; by “abyss,” the mass of the waters; and “darkness,” because the heaven made by God covered the waters together with the earth like a lid. And the Spirit moving over the water is the one God gave to bring life to the creation, as he gave a soul to the human being, mixing the fine with the fine (for the spirit is fine and the water is fine), so that the spirit might nourish the water, and the water with the spirit might nourish the creation, penetrating everywhere. The Spirit, being one and holding the place of light, stood between the water and the heaven, so that the darkness might in a way have no fellowship with the heaven, which is nearer to God, before God said, “Let there be light.” The heaven, then, being like a vault, held matter together, which was like a clod. For another prophet, called Isaiah, has spoken of the heaven thus: “This is God, who made the heaven like a vault and stretched it out like a tent to dwell in.” The command of God, that is, his Word, shining like a lamp in a closed room, lit up the region under heaven, making light apart from the world's luminaries. And God called the light day and the darkness night; for man would not have known to call the light day or the darkness night, nor the other things either, unless he had received their names from God who made them. At the very start of the history and of the genesis of the world, then, holy Scripture spoke not of this firmament but of another heaven, which is invisible to us; after it this heaven, which is visible to us, was called the firmament, on which half of the water was taken up, to serve humankind for rains, showers, and dews. The other half of the water was left on the earth for rivers, springs, and seas. Since the water still covered the earth, especially the hollow places, God through his Word made the water gather into one gathering, and made the dry land visible, which before had been invisible. The earth, then, having become visible, was still unformed; so God formed and adorned it with all kinds of herbs, seeds, and plants.

Consider, then, the variety in these things, their different beauty and their abundance, and how through them the resurrection is shown, as a sign of the resurrection of all human beings that is to come. Who, if he thinks about it, will not marvel that a fig tree grows from a fig seed, or that enormous trees grow from the other tiniest seeds? We say that the world is like the sea. For just as the sea, if it did not have the inflow and supply of rivers and springs to feed it, would long ago have dried up because of its saltiness, so the world, if it had not had the law of God and the prophets flowing and welling up with sweetness, compassion, righteousness, and the teaching of God's holy commandments, would already have perished because of the wickedness and sin that abound in it. And just as in the sea there are islands, some inhabited, well watered, and fruitful, with anchorages and harbors, so that those caught in storms may find refuge in them, so God has given to the world, tossed and battered by the storms of sin, the assemblies called holy churches. In them, as in islands with good harbors, are the teachings of the truth, and to them flee those who wish to be saved, who become lovers of the truth and wish to escape the wrath and judgment of God. And just as there are other islands, rocky, waterless, barren, full of wild beasts, and uninhabited, to the harm of those who sail and are caught in storms, on which ships are wrecked and those who put in there are destroyed, so there are the teachings of error, I mean the heresies, which destroy those who come to them. For they are not guided by the word of truth; but just as pirates, when they have filled their ships, run them onto such places in order to destroy them, so it happens to those who stray from the truth: they are destroyed by error.

On the fourth day the lights came into being. For God, knowing things beforehand, knew the nonsense of the foolish philosophers, who were going to say that the things that grow on the earth come from the heavenly bodies, so as to set God aside. So, that the truth might be shown, the plants and seeds were made before the heavenly bodies; for what comes later cannot produce what is earlier than itself. These things contain a pattern and type of a great mystery. The sun is a type of God, and the moon of the human being. And as the sun far surpasses the moon in power and glory, so God far surpasses humankind; and as the sun always remains full, never growing less, so God always remains perfect, full of all power, understanding, wisdom, immortality, and every good thing. But the moon wanes every month and in effect dies, being a type of the human being; then it is born again and waxes, as a pattern of the resurrection that is to come. Likewise the three days that came before the lights are types of the Triad: of God, and of his Word, and of his Wisdom. And the fourth type is the human being, who needs the light, so that there are God, Word, Wisdom, human being. That is why the lights came into being on the fourth day. The arrangement of the stars represents the order and rank of the righteous and godly, who keep the law and the commandments of God. The conspicuous and bright stars are an image of the prophets; that is why they stay fixed, not moving from place to place. Those of a lesser degree of brightness are types of the people of the righteous. And those that move and flee from place to place, which are called planets (“wanderers”), are a type of the people who depart from God, abandoning his law and his commandments.

On the fifth day the living creatures of the waters came into being, and through them too the manifold wisdom of God is shown. For who could count their multitude and their endlessly varied offspring? Moreover, the creatures that came from the waters were blessed by God, so that this too might be a sign that human beings would receive repentance and forgiveness of sins through water and the washing of regeneration: all who come to the truth, are born again, and receive a blessing from God. But the sea monsters and the birds that eat flesh are an image of the greedy and the lawbreakers. For though the water creatures and the birds are of one nature, some of them remain in their natural state and do not harm those weaker than themselves, but keep the law of God and eat of the seeds of the earth; while others transgress the law of God by eating flesh, and harm those weaker than themselves. So too the righteous, keeping the law of God, bite no one and harm no one, but live holy and righteous lives; while robbers, murderers, and the godless are like sea monsters and wild beasts and flesh-eating birds, for by their strength they devour those weaker than themselves. The brood of water creatures and creeping things, then, though it shared in God's blessing, received no distinctive property of its own.

On the sixth day, when God made the four-footed creatures, the wild beasts, and the creeping things of the land, he passed over their blessing in silence, reserving the blessing for the human being, whom he was about to make on the sixth day. At the same time the four-footed creatures and the wild beasts were made as a type of some people who do not know God, who are godless and set their minds on earthly things and do not repent. For those who turn from their lawless deeds and live righteously fly upward in soul like birds, setting their minds on things above and pleasing the will of God. But those who do not know God and are godless are like birds that have wings yet cannot fly up and reach the heights of the divine. So such people are called human beings, but they set their minds on what is low and earthly, weighed down by their sins. Wild beasts (θηρία) are so called from their becoming savage (θηριοῦσθαι). They were not made evil or venomous from the beginning, for nothing was made evil by God from the beginning, but all things were good, and very good; it was the sin of the human being that made them evil. When the human being transgressed, they transgressed with him. Just as, when the master of a house does well, the servants too necessarily live in good order, but when the master sins, the slaves sin with him, so it happened with the creatures of the human being: when he, their lord, sinned, his servants sinned with him. When, then, the human being returns again to his natural state and no longer does evil, they too will be restored to their original gentleness.

As for the making of the human being, his creation is beyond human power to express, although the divine Scripture gives only a brief account of it. For when God says, “Let us make the human being according to our image and likeness,” he first shows the dignity of the human being. God made all things by a word and regarded them all as secondary works; but the making of the human being alone he considers an eternal work worthy of his own hands. Moreover, God is found as if he needed help, saying, “Let us make the human being according to our image and likeness.” But he said “Let us make” to no one else than to his own Word and his own Wisdom. When he had made him and blessed him, to increase and fill the earth, he subjected all things to him as subject to his hand and his servants. And he commanded him to take his food from the beginning from the fruits of the earth, from seeds and herbs and the fruit of trees; and he ordered the animals to share the human being's diet, so that they too might eat of all the seeds of the earth.

So God, having finished the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them on the sixth day, rested on the seventh day from all his works that he had made. Then holy Scripture sums up, saying: “This is the book of the genesis of heaven and earth, when it came into being, on the day God made the heaven and the earth, and every green thing of the field before it came to be, and every plant of the field before it sprang up; for God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth.” By this it has shown us that at that time the whole earth was watered by a divine spring and had no need of a man to work it; the earth brought forth all things of itself at the command of God, so that the man would not have to toil at working it. And so that the formation of the human being might also be made known, and not seem to people a question impossible to answer, since God had said “Let us make the human being” but had not yet shown how he was made, Scripture teaches us, saying: “And a spring went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth; and God formed the man, dust from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” That is why most people call the soul immortal. After forming the man, God chose for him a place in the regions of the east, excelling in light, radiant with brighter air, and with the loveliest plants, and there he put the man.

The words of the sacred history in Scripture run as follows: “And God planted the garden in Eden, toward the east, and put there the man whom he had formed. And God made every tree spring up out of the ground, beautiful to look at and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowing what may be known of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden; from there it divides into four heads. The name of the first is Pheison; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Evilat, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good, and there are the carbuncle and the green stone. And the name of the second river is Geon; it flows around the whole land of Ethiopia. And the third river is the Tigris; it is the one that flows opposite Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. And the Lord God took the man whom he had formed and put him in the garden to work it and to keep it. And God commanded Adam, saying: From every tree in the garden you may eat for food; but from the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat; on the day you eat from it you shall surely die. And the Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make for him a helper corresponding to him. And God formed further out of the ground all the wild beasts of the field and all the birds of the heaven, and brought them to Adam; and whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. And Adam gave names to all the cattle and all the birds of the heaven and all the wild beasts of the field; but for Adam there was found no helper like him. And God cast a trance upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs and filled up flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib that he had taken from Adam into a woman, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her husband. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And the two were naked, Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed.”

“Now the serpent was more cunning than all the wild beasts on the earth that the Lord God had made. And the serpent said to the woman: Why is it that God said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent: We may eat from every tree of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden God said, You shall not eat from it, nor touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman: You will not surely die; for God knew that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasing to the eyes to look at, and beautiful to contemplate; and she took of its fruit and ate, and gave some also to her husband with her, and they ate. And the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the evening, and Adam and his wife hid from the face of God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called Adam and said to him: Where are you? And he said to him: I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I am naked, and I hid. And he said to him: Who told you that you are naked, unless you have eaten from the tree, the only one I commanded you not to eat from? And Adam said: The woman whom you gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. And God said to the woman: What is this you have done? And the woman said: The serpent deceived me, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the wild beasts on the earth; on your breast and your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he will watch for your head, and you will watch for his heel. And to the woman he said: I will greatly multiply your pains and your groaning; in pain you shall bear children, and your turning shall be toward your husband, and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said: Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree, the only one I commanded you not to eat from, cursed is the ground in your labors; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of your field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread until you return to the ground from which you were taken; for earth you are, and to earth you shall go.” Such are the words of holy Scripture about the history of the human being and of paradise.

You will say to me, then: “You say that God must not be contained in a place; how can you now say that he walked in the garden?” Listen to what I say. The God and Father of all things cannot be contained, and he is not found in a place; for there is no place of his rest. But his Word, through whom he made all things, who is his Power and his Wisdom, taking on the role of the Father and Lord of all, came into the garden in the person of God and conversed with Adam. For the divine Scripture itself teaches us that Adam said he had heard the voice. And what else is the voice but the Word of God, who is also his Son? Not as the poets and mythographers speak of sons of gods born of intercourse, but as the truth describes him: the Word who was always innate in the heart of God. For before anything came into being, God had him as his counselor, since he was his own mind and understanding. But when God willed to make what he had planned, he begot this Word as uttered, the firstborn of all creation; not that he himself was emptied of the Word, but he begot the Word and is always in converse with his Word. So the holy Scriptures teach us, and all the Spirit-bearers, among whom John says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” showing that at first God was alone and the Word was in him. Then he says: “And the Word was God; all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” The Word, then, being God and born of God, is sent by the Father of all, whenever he wills, to some place; and when he comes he is both heard and seen, being sent by the Father, and he is found in a place.

God, then, made the human being on the sixth day, but made known how he was formed only after the seventh day, when he also made the garden, so that he might be in a better place and a distinct region. That these things are true, the facts themselves show. How can one fail to observe the pangs women suffer in childbirth, and how afterward they forget the pain, so that God's word might be fulfilled, that the human race should increase and multiply? And what of the condemnation of the serpent, how loathsome it is, creeping on its belly and eating dust, so that this too might be a proof to us of what was said before?

God, then, made every tree spring up out of the ground besides, beautiful to look at and good for food. For at first there were only the things made on the third day, plants, seeds, and herbs; but those in the garden were made with a distinct beauty and loveliness, since they are even called a planting planted by God. The other plants the world also has, like them; but the two trees, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, no other land has had, but only the garden. That the garden too is earth and was planted on the earth, Scripture says: “And God planted a garden in Eden, toward the east, and put the man there; and God made every tree spring up out of the ground besides, beautiful to look at and good for food.” The words “out of the ground” and “toward the east” clearly teach us, then, that the garden is under this heaven, under which the east and the earth also lie. Eden in Hebrew is interpreted “delight.” Scripture has indicated that a river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there divides into four heads. Two of them, called Pheison and Geon, water the eastern regions, especially the Geon, which flows around the whole land of Ethiopia, and which, they say, appears in Egypt as the river called the Nile. The other two rivers are plainly known among us, the Tigris and the Euphrates, for they border on our own regions. When God had put the man, as we said, in the garden to work it and to keep it, he commanded him to eat of all the fruits, clearly including the fruit of the tree of life, and commanded him not to taste of the tree of knowledge alone. God moved him from the earth, from which he had been made, into the garden, giving him an opportunity for progress, so that by growing and becoming perfect, and even being declared a god, he might in this way also ascend into heaven, possessing everlasting life. For the human being had been made in between, neither wholly mortal nor altogether immortal, but capable of either; and so too the place, the garden, was made in between the world and heaven as regards its beauty. The command “to work it” means no other work than keeping the command of God, so that he might not disobey and destroy himself, as in fact he did destroy himself through sin.

The tree of knowledge was itself good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, that held death, but the disobedience. There was nothing else in the fruit but knowledge; and knowledge is good when one uses it properly. But Adam, at the age he then was, was still an infant; so he could not yet take in knowledge worthily. Even now, when a child is born, it cannot yet eat bread; it is first nourished with milk, and then, as it grows older, it comes to solid food. So it would have been with Adam. God did not forbid him to eat of knowledge, then, out of envy, as some think. He also wished to test him, to see whether he would obey his command. And at the same time he wished the human being to remain simple and innocent for a longer time, while he was still a child. For it is a holy thing, not only before God but also before human beings, to be subject to one's parents in simplicity and innocence. And if children must be subject to their parents, how much more to the God and Father of all? Besides, it is unseemly for little children to think thoughts beyond their age; as one grows in years in due order, so one grows in understanding. Again, when a law commands someone to abstain from something and he does not obey, clearly it is not the law that brings the punishment, but the disobedience and the transgression. A father sometimes commands his own child to keep away from certain things, and when the child does not obey his father's command, he is beaten and punished because of his disobedience; it is not the things themselves that are the blows, but the disobedience that brings disgrace on the one who disobeys. So too for the first-formed man, it was his disobedience that brought about his expulsion from the garden; not that there was anything evil in the tree of knowledge, but through disobedience the human being drew upon himself toil, pain, and grief, and in the end fell under death.

In this too God showed the human being a great kindness: he did not let him remain forever in sin. In a way, as a kind of banishment, he cast him out of the garden, so that, having paid for his sin by punishment over a fixed time and having been disciplined, he might afterward be called back. That is why, after the human being was formed in this world, it is written in Genesis, in a mysterious way, as though he had been placed in the garden twice: so that the first placing might be fulfilled when he was put there, and the second is to be fulfilled after the resurrection and the judgment. Moreover, just as a vessel that has some flaw after it is shaped is melted down or remolded so as to become new and whole, so it happens to the human being through death: he is in effect broken, so that at the resurrection he may be found sound, I mean spotless, righteous, and immortal. And when God called and said, “Where are you, Adam?”, he did not do this as if he did not know; but, being patient, he gave him an opportunity for repentance and confession.

But someone will say to us: “Was the human being made mortal by nature?” Not at all. “Immortal, then?” We do not say that either. “Then was he made nothing at all?” We do not say that either. He was made by nature neither mortal nor immortal. If God had made him immortal from the beginning, he would have made him God; and if he had made him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. So God made him neither immortal nor mortal, but, as we said above, capable of both: so that, if he inclined toward the things of immortality and kept the commandment of God, he would receive immortality from him as a reward and become God; but if he turned to the things of death and disobeyed God, he would himself be the cause of his own death. For God made the human being free and master of himself. What, then, the human being brought upon himself through carelessness and disobedience, God now gives him as a gift, through his own love for humankind and mercy, when the human being obeys him. For just as the human being drew death upon himself by disobedience, so whoever wishes can obtain eternal life for himself by obeying the will of God. For God has given us a law and holy commandments; everyone who keeps them can be saved, and, attaining the resurrection, inherit incorruption.

After Adam had been cast out of the garden, he knew Eve his wife, whom God had made for him as a wife out of his rib. God did this not because he was unable to form the man's wife separately, but because he knew beforehand that human beings would name a multitude of gods. Knowing the future, he knew that error, through the serpent, would name a multitude of gods that do not exist; for though God is one, error was already then planning to sow the idea of many gods, saying, “You will be like gods.” So, lest it be supposed that one god made the man and another the woman, he did not make the two of them separately. Moreover, God made the man's wife together with him so that the mystery of God's sole sovereignty might be shown by it, and so that their affection for each other might be the greater. When Adam said to Eve, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” he also prophesied, saying, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”; and this is shown fulfilled in us ourselves. For who that marries lawfully does not set less store by mother and father and all his kindred and his whole household, being joined and united to his own wife and loving her more? That is why some even become liable to death for the sake of their wives. To this Eve, because she was deceived by the serpent at the beginning and became the originator of sin, the evil demon also called Satan, who then spoke to her through the serpent and is still at work to this day in the people possessed by him, cries out “Euan.” He is called “demon” and “dragon” (δράκων) because he ran away (ἀποδεδρακέναι) from God; for at first he was an angel. There is much to say about him, so I pass over the account for now; I have spoken about him elsewhere.

When Adam knew his wife Eve, she conceived and bore a son named Cain. And she said, “I have gained a man through God.” And she bore a second son, named Abel. He became a shepherd of sheep, while Cain worked the ground. The story of these two is fuller, and so is the plan of its interpretation; so the book itself, entitled The Genesis of the World, can teach those who love learning its history more precisely. When Satan saw not only Adam and his wife alive but also that they had had children, since he had not been able to kill them, he was driven by envy; and when he saw Abel pleasing God, he worked in his brother, called Cain, and made him kill his brother Abel. And so death began to journey through this world, and it travels on to this day over every race of human beings. But God, being merciful and wishing to give Cain an opportunity for repentance and confession, as he had with Adam, said: “Where is Abel your brother?” But Cain answered God defiantly, saying: “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” So God, angry with him, said: “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. And now cursed are you from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand; groaning and trembling you shall be on the earth.” That is why, from then on, the earth in its fear no longer accepts the blood of a human being, nor of any animal; which shows that the earth is not to blame, but the human being who transgressed.

Cain too had a son, named Enoch. And he built a city, which he named after his son Enoch. From then began the building of cities, and this before the flood; not as Homer falsely says: “For not yet had a city of mortal men been founded.” To Enoch was born a son named Gaidad, who begot the one called Meel; and Meel begot Mathousala, and Mathousala Lamech. And Lamech took two wives, named Ada and Sela. From then began polygamy, and music as well. For Lamech had three sons, Obel, Joubal, and Thobel. Obel became a man living in tents and raising cattle; Joubal is the one who invented the harp and the lyre; and Thobel became a hammer-smith, a worker in bronze and iron. This is as far as the line of Cain is recorded; the rest of his descendants have been left out of the genealogy and forgotten, because he murdered his brother. In place of Abel, God granted Eve to conceive and bear a son, who is called Seth; from him the rest of the human race has come down to this day. For those who wish to learn and love learning, it is easy to set out all the generations from the holy Scriptures. We have already given a partial account in another work, as we mentioned above: the order of the genealogy in the first book On Histories. All these things the Holy Spirit teaches us, who spoke through Moses and the other prophets; so that the writings of us who worship God are more ancient, and are shown to be truer, than those of all the historians and poets. As for music, some have talked nonsense, saying that Apollo invented it; others say that Orpheus discovered music from the sweet singing of birds. Their account is shown to be empty and vain, for these lived many years after the flood. We have given the account of Noah, whom some call Deucalion, in the book we mentioned; you too can read it if you wish.

After the flood there was again a beginning of cities and kings, in this way. The first city was Babylon, and Orech and Archath and Chalane, in the land of Sennaar; and their king was named Nebroth. From these went out one named Assour, after whom the Assyrians are named. And Nebroth built the cities of Nineveh and Roboom and Calak, and Dasen between Nineveh and Calak; and Nineveh was at first a great city. Another son of Sem, the son of Noah, named Mesraein, fathered the Loudoueim and those called Enemigeim, and the Labieim, the Nephthaleim, the Patrosonieim, and the Chaslonieim, from whom came the Phylistieim. We have given the list of the three sons of Noah, their descendants and their genealogy, in summary in the book we mentioned. Now we will recall what was left out, about the cities and kings and the things that happened when there was one lip and one language. The cities described above came into being before the languages were divided. When the people were about to be divided, they took counsel by their own judgment, not through God, to build a city and a tower whose top would reach up to heaven, so as to make a glorious name for themselves. Since, then, against the will of God they dared to undertake an arrogant work, God overthrew their city and laid the tower flat. From that time he changed the languages of human beings, giving each a different language. So the Sibyl has indicated, announcing that wrath was about to come upon the world. She spoke thus: “But when the threats of the great God are fulfilled, with which he once threatened mortals, when they built a tower in the land of Assyria (they were all of one speech, and they wished to climb up to the starry heaven), at once the Immortal laid a mighty constraint on the winds; and then the winds threw down the great tower from on high and stirred up strife among mortals against one another. But when the tower had fallen, and the tongues of human beings were divided into the many languages of mortals, the earth was filled with mortals divided among kings,” and so on. These things took place in the land of the Chaldeans. In the land of Canaan there was a city named Charran. At that time the first king of Egypt was Pharaoh, who was called Nechaoth by the Egyptians; and so the kings after him followed in succession. In the land of Senaar, among those called Chaldeans, the first king was Arioch; after him another, Ellasar; after him Chodollagomor, king of Elam; and after him Thargal, king of the nations called Assyrians. Five other cities arose in the portion of Ham, the son of Noah: first the one called Sodom, then Gomorrah, Adama, Seboein, and Balak, also called Segor. The names of their kings are these: Ballas, king of Sodom; Barsas, king of Gomorrah; Sennaar, king of Adama; Hymoor, king of Seboein; and Balach, king of Segor, also called Balak. These served Chodollagomor, king of the Assyrians, for twelve years; in the thirteenth year they revolted from Chodollagomor. And so it came about that the four kings of the Assyrians made war on the five kings. This was the first beginning of wars on the earth. And they cut down the giants of Karanaein, and strong nations with them, and the Ommaeans in their city, and the Chorraeans in the mountains called Seir, as far as the place called the Terebinth of Pharan, which is in the desert. At the same time there was a righteous king named Melchizedek in the city of Salem, now called Jerusalem. He was the first priest of all the priests of God Most High. From him the city was named Hierousalem, the Jerusalem mentioned above; and from him priests came to be found over all the earth. After him Abimelech reigned in Gerar; after him another Abimelech; then Ephron reigned, also called the Hittite. Such are the names of these earlier kings. Of the Assyrian kings over many intervening years, the rest have been passed over in silence and not recorded. Last of all, in times close to our own, the kings of the Assyrians are recorded as Theglaphasar, after him Selamanasar, then Sennacherim; his commander was Adramelech the Ethiopian, who also reigned over Egypt. Yet these, compared with our Scriptures, are quite recent.

From this, those who love learning and antiquity can consider the histories, to see whether what we say through the holy prophets is recent. At first there were only a few people, in the land of Arabia and Chaldea; after their languages were divided, they gradually began to become many and to multiply over the whole earth. Some turned to settle toward the east, others in the parts of the great continent and toward the north, so as to spread as far as the Britons in the northern regions; others in the land of Canaan, also called Judea and Phoenicia, and in the regions of Ethiopia, Egypt, and Libya, the so-called torrid zone, and the regions stretching to the west; and the rest from the coast and Pamphylia, in Asia, Greece, and Macedonia, and then in Italy and the lands called the Gauls, the Spains, and the Germanies; so that now the whole earth is filled with its inhabitants. So human settlement on the earth was at first threefold, in the east, the south, and the west; and afterward, as human beings became very numerous, the remaining parts of the earth were settled too. Not knowing these things, the writers want to call the world spherical and to compare it to a cube. How can they say anything true about it, when they know neither how the world was made nor how it was settled? As human beings gradually increased and multiplied on the earth, as we said, so the islands of the sea and the other regions were settled.

Which of the so-called wise men, poets, and historians, then, was able to tell the truth about these things? They were born much later and brought in a multitude of gods; they were born so many years after the cities, later than the kings and the nations and the wars. They should have recalled all things, including what happened before the flood, about the creation of the world and the making of the human being; and the prophets of the Egyptians or the Chaldeans, and the other writers, should have told precisely what happened afterward, if indeed they spoke by a divine and pure spirit and proclaimed truly what was spoken through them. And they should have foretold not only what was past or present but also what is coming upon the world. This shows that all the others have gone astray, and that only the Christians have taken hold of the truth, since we are taught by the Holy Spirit, who spoke in the holy prophets and foretold all things.

From now on, then, be willing to search with an open mind into the things of God, I mean what was spoken through the prophets, so that by comparing what we say with what the others say, you may be able to find the truth. That the names of the so-called gods turn out, among the pagans themselves, to be the names of men, as we showed above, we have proved from the very histories they wrote. Their images are still being molded every day, to this very day: idols, the works of human hands. And the mass of foolish people worship these, but reject the Maker and Creator of all things, who nourishes everything that breathes, following vain teachings through the error of a senseless tradition received from their fathers. Yet God, the Father and Creator of all things, did not abandon humankind, but gave a law and sent holy prophets to proclaim and teach the human race, so that each one of us might come to his senses and know that God is one. They also taught us to abstain from unlawful idolatry, adultery, murder, sexual immorality, theft, love of money, perjury, anger, and all licentiousness and uncleanness; and that whatever a person does not want done to himself, he should not do to another; so that whoever acts righteously may escape the eternal punishments and be counted worthy by God of eternal life.

The divine law forbids worshiping not only idols but also the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, or the other stars; nor may one worship the heaven or the earth or the sea or springs or rivers. One must serve only the true God and Maker of all things, in holiness of heart and sincerity of mind. That is why the holy law says: “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife.” The prophets say the same. Solomon teaches us not to sin even by a nod, saying: “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and let your eyelids nod what is right.” And Moses, himself a prophet, says about the sole sovereignty of God: “This is your God, who makes firm the heaven and creates the earth, whose hands displayed all the host of heaven; and he did not show them to you so that you should go after them.” Isaiah himself says: “Thus says the Lord God, who made firm the heaven and founded the earth and all that is in it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it: this is the Lord your God.” And again through him: “I,” he says, “made the earth and man upon it; with my hand I made firm the heaven.” And in another chapter: “This is your God, who formed the ends of the earth; he will not hunger or grow weary, and his understanding is unsearchable.” Likewise Jeremiah says: “He made the earth by his strength, he set the world upright by his wisdom, and by his understanding he stretched out the heaven, and a mass of water in the heaven; he brought up clouds from the end of the earth, made lightnings for the rain, and brought out winds from his storehouses.” One can see how all the prophets spoke in friendship and agreement, uttering by one and the same Spirit their teaching on the sole sovereignty of God, the origin of the world, and the making of the human being. More than that: they were in anguish, grieving over the godless race of human beings, and they put to shame those who seemed to be wise, because of the error and hardness of heart in them. Jeremiah said: “Every man has become foolish, without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his carved images; in vain does the silversmith work the silver; there is no breath in them; in the day of their visitation they will perish.” David says the same: “They are corrupt and have become abominable in their deeds; there is no one who does good, not even one; all have turned aside, together they have become worthless.” Likewise Habakkuk: “What does a carved image profit the man who carved it, a false phantom? Woe to him who says to the stone, Wake up, and to the wood, Rise up.” So spoke the other prophets of truth as well. Why should I list the multitude of the prophets, who are many and have said ten thousand things in friendship and agreement? Those who wish can, by reading what was spoken through them, know the truth precisely, and not be led astray by opinion and futile labor. These prophets we have mentioned arose among the Hebrews: unlettered men, shepherds, and ordinary people.

The Sibyl, who was a prophetess among the Greeks and the other nations, at the beginning of her prophecy reproaches the human race, saying: “Mortal men of flesh, who are nothing, how quickly you exalt yourselves, not looking to the end of life! Do you not tremble, and do you not fear God, your overseer, the Most High, who knows and sees all things, witness of all, Creator who nourishes all, who has put his sweet spirit in all things and made it the guide of all mortals? There is one God, who alone rules, exceedingly great, unbegotten, almighty, invisible, who alone sees all things, but is not seen by any mortal flesh. For what flesh can see with its eyes the heavenly and true God, the immortal, who dwells in the heavens? Men cannot even stand facing the rays of the sun, being born mortal, men of bones, of veins and flesh. Worship him who alone exists, the ruler of the world, who alone has been from age to age, self-begotten, unbegotten, ruling all things forever, allotting judgment to all mortals in the light common to all. You will have the reward you deserve for your evil counsel, because you have given up glorifying the true and everlasting God and offering him holy hecatombs, and have made your sacrifices to the demons in Hades. You walk in conceit and madness; you have left the straight and right path and gone astray among thorns and stakes. Stop, foolish mortals, roaming in darkness and lightless black night; leave the darkness of night and take hold of the light. See, he is plain to all and does not deceive. Come, do not forever pursue darkness and gloom; see, the sweet light of the sun shines surpassingly bright. Store up wisdom in your breasts and know: there is one God, who sends rains, winds, earthquakes, lightnings, famines, plagues, and grievous sorrows, and snows and ice. Why should I tell them one by one? He rules heaven, he governs earth, he himself exists.” And to those who are said to be born gods she said: “If what is born must surely also perish, then a god cannot be formed from a man's loins and a womb. But God is one alone, most high, who made the heaven and the sun and the stars and the moon, the fruitful earth and the swelling waves of the sea, the lofty mountains and the ever-flowing streams of springs. He also brings forth the countless multitude of creatures in the waters; the creeping things that move on the earth are given life; and the many-colored birds, clear-voiced, twittering, tawny, shrill-winged, beating the air with their wings; in the mountain glens he placed the wild race of beasts. He subjected all the cattle to us mortals, and appointed a ruler of all, fashioned by God, and subjected to man things manifold and beyond comprehension. For what mortal flesh can know all these things? He alone knows who made them from the beginning, the incorruptible and eternal Creator, dwelling in the ether, who offers the good a far greater reward of good, but rouses wrath and fury against the wicked and unjust, and war and plague and tearful pains. O men, why do you exalt yourselves in vain and tear yourselves up by the roots? Be ashamed of making gods of weasels and vermin. Is it not madness and frenzy that takes away the sense from your minds, if gods steal dishes and plunder pots? Instead of dwelling in the rich golden heaven, they look out on moth-eaten things and are hung about with thick spiders' webs! You worship snakes, dogs, and cats, you fools, and you revere birds and creeping beasts of the earth, and stone figures and images made by hands, and heaps of stones by the roadsides; these you revere, and many other vain things, which it is shameful even to mention. These are gods that deceive thoughtless mortals, and from their mouth pours deadly poison. But he in whom is life and imperishable, everlasting light, who pours out for men a joy sweeter than [sweet] honey: to him alone must you bend your neck, and turn your path toward the ages of the godly. Leaving all these things, you have all, in your folly and with raving spirit, drained the cup full of justice, strong, heavy, weighty, quite unmixed; and you will not become sober and return to a sound mind, and know God the King, who oversees all things. Therefore the gleam of blazing fire is coming upon you; you will be burned with torches forever, all the day long, put to shame for your lies about useless idols. But those who honor the true and everlasting God inherit life, dwelling for the length of eternity in the flourishing garden of paradise, feasting on sweet bread from the starry heaven.” That these things are true, useful, just, and welcome to all people is clear; and that those who have done evil must necessarily be punished according to the worth of their deeds.

Some of the poets, too, have already uttered these things, as if speaking oracles against themselves and as a testimony to those who do wrong, saying that they will be punished. Aeschylus said: “For the doer it is due also to suffer.” Pindar too said: “Since for one who does something it is fitting also to suffer.” Likewise Euripides: “Bear your suffering; you rejoiced in doing. It is lawful to do harm to an enemy wherever you catch him.” And again the same poet: “I hold it a man's part to harm his enemies.” Likewise Archilochus: “One great thing I know: to repay with terrible evils the one who does me [any] evil.” And that God sees all things and nothing escapes him, but being patient he holds back until he is about to judge, Dionysius has said this too: “The eye of Justice, looking out as with a calm face, always sees all things alike.” And that the judgment of God will come and evils will suddenly overtake the wicked, Aeschylus also indicated, saying: “Evil comes swift-footed upon mortals, in return for the offense, upon one who transgresses what is right. You see Justice voiceless, unseen by one who sleeps or walks or sits; she follows next, from the side, or at another time later. Night does not hide one who has done evil; whatever terrible thing you do, think that someone sees.” And does not Simonides say: “There is no evil that men may not expect; in a short time God overturns all things”? Again Euripides: “Never should one think the good fortune of an evil man, or his arrogant wealth, secure, nor the race of the unjust; for time, born of no one, shows up the wickedness of men.” And again Euripides: “For the divine is not without understanding, but can discern oaths that were wrongly sworn and forced.” And Sophocles: “If you have done terrible things, you must also suffer terrible things.” So whether about an unjust oath or about any other offense, they themselves have all but foretold that God will examine it; and about the conflagration of the world, willingly or unwillingly, they spoke in agreement with the prophets, although they came much later and stole these things from the law and the prophets.

And what does it matter whether they came last or first? At any rate they too spoke in agreement with the prophets. About the conflagration, the prophet Malachi foretold: “See, the day of the Lord is coming like a burning furnace, and it will set all the ungodly ablaze.” And Isaiah: “For the wrath of God will come like hail driven down with violence, and like water rushing down a ravine.” So the Sibyl and the other prophets, and indeed the poets and philosophers too, have made plain the truth about righteousness, judgment, and punishment; and also about providence, that God cares not only for us who are living but also for the dead, though they said it unwillingly, since they were convicted by the truth. Among the prophets, Solomon said of the dead: “There will be healing for the flesh and care for the bones.” David says the same: “The bones that have been humbled will rejoice.” In agreement with these Timocles too said: “To the dead, God in his kindness is mercy.” So the writers, having spoken of a multitude of gods, came down to the sole sovereignty of God; speaking of there being no providence, they spoke of providence; asserting that there is no judgment, they confessed that there will be a judgment; and those who denied that there is perception after death confessed that there is. Homer, having said, “The soul flew off like a dream and is gone,” says elsewhere, “The soul flew from his limbs and went down to Hades,” and again, “Bury me as quickly as you can, that I may pass the gates of Hades.” As for the other writers you have read, I think you know well how they spoke. All these things will be understood by anyone who seeks the wisdom of God and pleases him through faith, righteousness, and good works. For one of the prophets we mentioned, called Hosea, said: “Who is wise and will understand these things, discerning and will know them? For the ways of the Lord are straight, and the righteous will walk in them, but the ungodly will stumble in them.” The lover of learning must love to learn. So try to meet with me more often, so that by hearing the living voice you may learn the truth precisely.

Theophilus to Autolycus, greeting. Writers like to compose a multitude of books for the sake of empty glory, some about gods and wars or chronology, some about useless myths and other futile labor, in which you too have been engaged up to now. You do not shrink from putting up with that toil; yet when you talk with us you still think that the word of truth is nonsense, supposing that our Scriptures are recent and newfangled. For this reason I too will not shrink from summing up for you, God permitting, the antiquity of our writings, and I am making a brief memorandum of it for you, so that you may not shrink from reading it, and may recognize the nonsense of the other writers.

Those who write ought themselves to have been eyewitnesses of what they affirm, or to have learned it accurately from those who saw it. In a way, those who write about what they cannot know are beating the air. What good did it do Homer to write of the Trojan War and deceive many people, or Hesiod his catalogue of the genealogy of the gods he names, or Orpheus his three hundred and sixty-five gods, whom at the end of his life he rejects, saying in his Testaments that God is one? What good did his description of the sphere of the heavens do Aratus, or those who wrote like him, apart from human glory, which they did not even receive as they deserved? And what truth did they tell? What good did their tragedies do Euripides and Sophocles and the other tragedians, or their comedies Menander and Aristophanes and the other comic poets, or their histories Herodotus and Thucydides? What good did his secret shrines and the Pillars of Heracles do Pythagoras, or Cynic philosophy Diogenes, or Epicurus his teaching that there is no providence, or Empedocles his teaching of atheism, or Socrates his swearing by the dog and the goose and the plane tree and by Asclepius, struck by lightning, and the spirits he used to invoke? Why did he die willingly, and what kind of reward did he hope to receive after death? What good did his learning do Plato, or their teachings the other philosophers, not to list them all, since they are many? We say these things to show how useless and godless their thinking is.

All these, being lovers of empty and vain glory, neither knew the truth themselves nor turned others toward the truth. What they said convicts them, since they said things that contradict one another, and most of them undid their own teachings. Not only did they refute one another, but some even made their own teachings void, so that their glory turned into disgrace and folly; for they are condemned by those who have understanding. They spoke about gods, and later taught atheism; or they spoke about the origin of the world, and finally said that all things come about by chance; and speaking about providence, they then taught that the world has no providence. What more? When they tried to write about decency, did they not teach the practice of licentiousness, fornication, and adultery, and even introduce loathsome unspeakable acts? And they proclaim that their gods, first of all, engage in unspeakable unions and lawless meals. For who does not sing of Kronos devouring his children, and of Zeus his son swallowing Metis and preparing foul feasts for the gods, where they say a lame smith, Hephaestus, waited on them; and of Zeus not only marrying Hera, his own sister, but also doing unspeakable things with an unclean mouth? His other deeds, all that the poets sing of, you probably know. Why should I go on to list the stories about Poseidon and Apollo, or Dionysus and Heracles, Athena the lover of embraces, and shameless Aphrodite, since we have given a more precise account of them elsewhere?

We would not even need to refute these things, except that I see you now in doubt about the word of truth. For, being wise, you gladly put up with fools; otherwise you would not have been moved by senseless people to be led away by empty words and to believe the rumor that has taken hold, from godless mouths that falsely slander us, the worshipers of God called Christians. They say that our wives are held in common, that we live in promiscuous intercourse, that we even have intercourse with our own sisters, and, most godless and cruel of all, that we eat human flesh. They also say that our teaching has only recently come into the world, that we have nothing to offer in proof of our truth and teaching, and that our teaching is foolishness. I am most surprised at you: in other matters you are serious and search into everything, yet you listen to us rather carelessly. If it were possible for you, you would not shrink from spending even the nights in libraries.

Since you have read a great deal, what do you think of the writings of Zeno, or of Diogenes and Cleanthes, all that their books contain? They teach cannibalism: that fathers should be cooked and eaten by their own children, and that if anyone refuses, or throws away some part of the abominable meal, he himself who would not eat should be eaten. Besides these, an even more godless voice is found, that of Diogenes, who teaches children to lead their own parents to sacrifice and devour them. And does not Herodotus the historian tell the tale that Cambyses slaughtered the children of Harpagus, cooked them, and set them before their father as food? He also tells that among the Indians fathers are eaten by their own children. What godless teaching from those who recorded such things, or rather taught them! What impiety and godlessness! What minds they had, who philosophized so “precisely” and professed philosophy! For those who taught these things filled the world with impiety.

And about lawless conduct, nearly all who have strayed in the chorus of philosophy are in agreement. First of all Plato, who is thought to have philosophized more nobly than the rest, in the first book of what he calls the Republic expressly lays down, in a way, that wives should be common to all. He uses the example of the son of Zeus, the lawgiver of the Cretans, so that on this pretext many children may be born of such unions, and, as he supposes, those who are grieving may be consoled by such intercourse. Epicurus too, besides teaching atheism, advises intercourse with mothers and sisters, even in defiance of the laws that forbid it. For Solon legislated clearly about this, that children should be born lawfully of a husband, so that those born would not be the offspring of adultery, and no one would honor as his father a man who was not his father, or dishonor his real father through not knowing that he was his father. And all the other laws, of the Romans and of the Greeks, forbid such things to be done. Why, then, do Epicurus and the Stoics teach incest and intercourse between males, filling whole libraries with such teachings, so that people learn lawless intercourse from childhood? And why should I spend more time on them, when they have proclaimed the same sort of things about those they call gods?

Having said that there are gods, they then treated them as nothing. Some said that the gods are made of atoms, others that they dissolve into atoms, and they say that the gods can do no more than human beings. Plato, having said that there are gods, would make them material. Pythagoras, after laboring so hard over the gods and traveling up and down the world, finally defines nature and says that all things happen by chance, and that the gods care nothing for human beings. Then there is all that Clitomachus the Academic introduced on atheism. And what of Critias, and of Protagoras of Abdera, who says: “Whether there are gods, I cannot say, nor can I show what they are like; for many things hinder me”? As for Euhemerus, the most godless of all, it is superfluous for us even to speak of him. After daring to say many things about the gods, in the end he would have it that there are no gods at all, but that all things are governed by chance. And Plato, who said so much about the sole sovereignty of God and about the soul of man, saying that the soul is immortal, is he not later found contradicting himself, saying that souls pass into other human beings, and that some even go into irrational animals? How will his teaching not appear terrible and unlawful to anyone with sense: that one who was once a human being will later be a wolf or a dog or an ass or some other irrational beast? Pythagoras too is found talking the same nonsense, besides doing away with providence. Which of them, then, shall we believe? Philemon the comic poet, who says, “Those who worship God have good hopes of salvation,” or those we have mentioned, Euhemerus and Epicurus and Pythagoras and the rest, who deny that there is any religion and abolish providence? About God and providence Ariston said: “Take heart: God is accustomed to help all who are worthy, [indeed,] and such people above all. If there is no reward of honor laid up for those who live as they should, what more is there in being godly? Suppose it were so; yet I see all too often those who choose to live godly lives faring badly, while those who seek nothing but their own advantage enjoy a more honored position than we do, for the present. But one must look far ahead and await the final outcome of all things. For it is not as some think, a malicious opinion and useless for life, that there is some random drift, or that things are awarded as chance falls; the wicked judge all these ideas to be provisions for their own way of life. There is a reward of honor for those who live holy lives, and a fitting punishment for the wicked; for without providence nothing at all happens.” From all that others, and indeed most of them, have said about God and providence, one can see how inconsistently they spoke: some abolished God and providence altogether, while others affirmed God and confessed that all things are governed by providence. The intelligent listener and reader, then, must pay close attention to what is said, as Simylus also said: “It is the custom to call poets alike both those who are extraordinary by nature and those who are fine; but one ought to judge.” And as Philemon says: “A senseless listener sitting there is a trial; in his folly he never blames himself.” One must, then, pay attention and understand what is said, examining critically what the philosophers and the poets have said.

Denying that there are gods, they then acknowledge them again, and say that these gods commit lawless deeds. And first of all the poets sing, in their sweetest tones, the grievous deeds of Zeus. And Chrysippus, who talked a great deal of nonsense, is he not found suggesting that Hera had intercourse with Zeus with a foul mouth? Why should I list the licentiousness of the so-called mother of the gods, or of Zeus Latiaris thirsting for human blood, or of Attis castrated, or how Zeus called Tragoedus, having burned his own hand, as they say, is now honored as a god among the Romans? I pass over in silence the precincts of Antinous and of the other so-called gods; for when these stories are told, they make intelligent people laugh. So those who have philosophized in this way are convicted by their own teachings, whether of atheism or of promiscuity and lawless intercourse; and cannibalism too is found among them in the writings they composed, and they record that the very gods they have honored were the first to do these things.

We too confess God, but one God, the Founder, Maker, and Creator of this whole world; and we know that all things are governed by providence, but by his alone. We have learned a holy law; but we have as lawgiver the true God, who teaches us to act justly, to be godly, and to do good. About godliness he says: “You shall have no other gods besides me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them; for I am the Lord your God.” About doing good he said: “Honor your father and your mother, that it may go well with you and that you may live long on the land that I, the Lord your God, am giving you.” And about justice: “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife; you shall not covet his house, nor his field, nor his servant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his beast of burden, nor any of his cattle, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor. You shall not pervert the justice due to the poor in his lawsuit; you shall keep far from every unjust word; you shall not put to death the innocent and the righteous; you shall not acquit the ungodly, and you shall not take bribes; for bribes blind the eyes of those who see and corrupt the words of the righteous.” Of this divine law Moses became the minister, he who was also the servant of God: to the whole world, but above all to the Hebrews, also called Jews. The king of Egypt had enslaved them long before, though they were the righteous offspring of godly and holy men, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God remembered them, and through Moses worked wonders and astonishing signs, rescued them, and brought them out of Egypt, leading them through what is called the desert. He brought them back to the land of Canaan, later called Judea, gave them a law, and taught them these things. Such, then, are the ten chief points of this great and wonderful law, which leads to all righteousness, as we said before.

The Hebrews by race had come as sojourners into the land of Egypt from the land of the Chaldeans. At that time, when a famine had come, they were forced to move to Egypt, where grain was being sold, and they sojourned there for some time; and this happened to them as God had foretold. After they had sojourned in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years, when Moses was about to lead them out into the desert, God taught them through the law, saying: “You shall not oppress a sojourner; for you know the soul of a sojourner, since you yourselves were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”

When the people transgressed the law God had given them, God, being good and merciful and not wishing to destroy them, besides giving the law, later also sent them prophets from among their brothers, to teach them and remind them of the things of the law, and to turn them to repentance, so that they would sin no more. And they foretold that if the people persisted in their evil deeds, they would be handed over as subjects to all the kingdoms of the earth; and that this has already happened to them is plain. About repentance, the prophet Isaiah, speaking to all in general but expressly to the people, says: “Seek the Lord, and when you find him, call upon him; when he draws near to you, let the ungodly forsake his ways and the lawless man his plans, and let him return to the Lord his God, and he will find mercy, for he will abundantly forgive your sins.” And another prophet, Ezekiel, says: “If the lawless man turns away from all the lawless deeds he has done, and keeps my commandments and does my ordinances, he shall surely live and shall not die. None of the wrongs he has done shall be remembered, but by the righteousness he has done he shall live; for I do not desire the death of the lawless, says the Lord, but that he should turn from his evil way and live.” Again Isaiah: “Turn back, you who devise deep and lawless plans, so that you may be saved.” And another, Jeremiah: “Turn back to the Lord your God, like the grape-gatherer to his basket, and you will find mercy.” Many, indeed countless, are the sayings in the holy Scriptures about repentance, since God always wishes to turn the human race away from all its sins.

Moreover, concerning righteousness, of which the law spoke, the teaching of the prophets and of the Gospels is found to agree with it, because all the Spirit-bearers spoke by the one Spirit of God. Isaiah said this: “Put away the wickedness from your souls; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the wronged; defend the orphan and vindicate the widow.” And again the same prophet: “Loose every bond of injustice,” he says, “untie the knots of violent contracts, set the broken free, and tear up every unjust bond. Break your bread for the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see someone naked, clothe him, and do not disregard your own kin. Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will spring up quickly, and your righteousness will go before you.” Likewise Jeremiah: “Stand by the roads,” he says, “and look, and ask which is the good way of the Lord our God, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. Judge with righteous judgment, for in these things is the will of the Lord your God.” So too Hosea says: “Keep justice and draw near to the Lord your God, who made firm the heaven and created the earth.” And another, Joel, spoke in agreement with them: “Gather the people, sanctify the assembly, bring in the elders, gather the infants at the breast; let the bridegroom come out of his chamber and the bride out of her bridal room. And pray earnestly to the Lord your God, that he may have mercy on you, and he will blot out your sins.” Likewise another, Zechariah: “Thus says the Lord Almighty: Judge with true judgment, and show mercy and compassion each to his neighbor; do not oppress the widow and the orphan and the sojourner; and let none of you bear a grudge in your hearts against his brother, says the Lord Almighty.”

And concerning chastity, the holy word teaches us not only not to sin in deed, but not even in thought: not even to entertain any evil in the heart, or to look at another man's wife with the eyes and desire her. Solomon, who was king and prophet, said: “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and let your eyelids nod what is right; make straight paths for your feet.” And the voice of the Gospel teaches about purity even more strictly, saying: “Everyone who looks at another man's wife to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” “And he who marries,” it says, “a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery; and whoever divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery.” Again Solomon says: “Can anyone tie fire up in his garment and not burn his clothes? Or can anyone walk on burning coals and not burn his feet? So he who goes in to a married woman will not go unpunished.”

And to show that we are to be well disposed not only toward our own people, as some think, the prophet Isaiah said: “Say to those who hate you and abhor you, You are our brothers, so that the name of the Lord may be glorified and be seen in their joy.” And the Gospel says: “Love your enemies, and pray for those who mistreat you. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even robbers and tax collectors do this.” It teaches those who do good not to boast, so that they may not be people-pleasers: “Do not let your left hand know,” it says, “what your right hand is doing.” Moreover, the divine word commands us to be subject to rulers and authorities and to pray for them, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life. And it teaches us to render to all what is due: honor to whom honor is due, fear to whom fear, tax to whom tax; and to owe no one anything, except to love all.

Consider, then, whether those who learn such things can live promiscuously and be defiled by forbidden sexual relations, or, most godless of all, eat human flesh, when we are forbidden even to watch the gladiatorial shows, so that we may not become partners and accomplices in murder. Nor may we watch the other spectacles, lest our eyes and ears be defiled by sharing in the songs sung there. For if one speaks of cannibalism, there the children of Thyestes and Tereus are eaten; and if of adultery, not only of men but also of gods, it is put on as tragedy among them, and they proclaim it melodiously, with honors and prizes. But far be it from Christians even to think of doing any such thing. Among them self-control is present, continence is practiced, monogamy is kept, chastity is guarded, injustice is cast out, sin is rooted out, righteousness is practiced, the law is their way of life, godliness is lived out, God is confessed, truth rules, grace preserves, peace shelters, the holy word guides, wisdom teaches, life governs, God reigns. We have much more to say about our way of life and about the ordinances of God, the Creator of all creation; but for now we think we have said enough to make you reflect, especially in the light of what you have read up to now, so that, as you have been a lover of learning up to now, you may go on being one.

Now I wish, God permitting, to show you more precisely the matter of chronology, so that you may know that our teaching is not recent or mythical, but older and truer than all the poets and writers, who wrote about what they could not know. Some said that the world is uncreated and went on into infinity; others said it was created and that 153,075 years have already passed. This is what Apollonius the Egyptian relates. And Plato, who is thought to have been the wisest of the Greeks, what nonsense he came to! In the work he calls the Republic it is written in so many words: “For how, if these things had remained for all time as they are now ordered, would anything new ever have been discovered? For ten thousand times ten thousand years these things were unknown to the people of those times; it is a thousand years, or twice as many, since they came to be: some were made known by Daedalus, some by Orpheus, some by Palamedes.” And in saying that these things came about, he indicates ten thousand times ten thousand years from the flood to Daedalus. And after saying much about the cities of the world, their settlements and nations, he admits that he has said these things by guesswork. For he says: “If, stranger, some god were to promise us that, if we undertook the examination of legislation, what has now been said …” Clearly he spoke by guesswork; and if by guesswork, then what he said is not true.

One must rather become a disciple of God's legislation, as Plato himself admitted that the exact truth cannot be learned otherwise, unless God teaches it through the law. And did not the poets Homer, Hesiod, and Orpheus say that they had learned from divine providence? Moreover, they say that according to the historians there were seers and foretellers, and that those who learned from them wrote accurately. How much more, then, shall we know the truth, who learn from the holy prophets, who received the Holy Spirit of God? That is why all the prophets spoke in agreement and friendship with one another, and proclaimed beforehand what would happen to the whole world. For the very fulfillment of the things foretold, which have already been accomplished, can teach those who love learning, or rather those who love the truth, that what the prophets proclaimed is truly true, including the times and seasons before the flood and the reckoning of the years from the creation of the world to the present day; and so it can show the nonsense and falsehood of the historians, and that what they said is not true.

Plato, as we said, having indicated that a flood took place, said that it was not over the whole earth, but only over the plains, and that those who fled to the highest mountains were saved. Others say that there were Deucalion and Pyrrha, who were saved in a chest, and that Deucalion, after coming out of the chest, threw stones behind him, and human beings came from the stones; that is why, they say, the mass of human beings is called “peoples” (λαοί). Others again said that Clymenus lived at the time of a second flood. That those who wrote such things and philosophized so vainly are found to be wretched, utterly impious, and senseless is clear from what has been said. But our prophet and the servant of God, Moses, in narrating the genesis of the world, told how the flood came upon the earth, and how the events of the flood took place, without telling tales of Pyrrha or Deucalion or Clymenus, or saying that only the plains were flooded and only those who fled to the mountains were saved.

Nor does Moses indicate that there was a second flood. On the contrary, he said that there would never again be a flood of water on the world, such as has never been and never will be. He says that eight human souls in all were saved in the ark, which was built by God's command, not by Deucalion but by the one called in Hebrew Noah, which is interpreted in the Greek language as “rest.” As we have shown in another work, Noah announced to the people of his time that a flood was coming, and prophesied to them, saying, “Come (δεῦτε), God is calling (καλεῖ) you to repentance”; so he was fittingly called Deucalion. This Noah had three sons, as we showed in the second volume, whose names are Sem, Cham, and Japheth; they had three wives, one each, and there were Noah himself and his wife. Some have called this man Eunuch. Eight human souls in all, then, were saved, those who were found in the ark. Moses indicated that the flood lasted forty days and forty nights, as the floodgates of heaven poured and all the springs of the abyss gushed forth, so that the water rose fifteen cubits above every high mountain. And so the race of all the people of that time was destroyed, and only those kept safe in the ark were saved, the eight we mentioned. The remains of the ark are shown to this day in the Arabian mountains. Such, in summary, is the history of the flood.

Moses, as we have said, led out the Jews, who had been driven from the land of Egypt by King Pharaoh, whose name was Tethmosis. After the expulsion of the people, they say, he reigned twenty-five years and four months, as Manetho relates. After him Chebron reigned 13 years; after him Amenophis, 20 years and 7 months; after him his sister Amesse, 21 years and 1 month; after her Mephres, 12 years and 9 months; after him Mephrammouthosis, 20 years and 10 months; after him Tythmoses, 9 years and 8 months; after him Damphenophis, 30 years and 10 months; after him Horus, 36 years and 5 months; his daughter, 10 years and 3 months; after her Mercheres, 12 years and 3 months; his son Armais, 4 years and 1 month; after him Ramesses, 1 year and 4 months; after him Messes Miammou, [6]6 years and 2 months; after him Amenophis, 19 years and 6 months; and his sons Thoissos and Ramesses, 10 years, who, they say, had a great force of cavalry and a naval fleet in their time. The Hebrews, who at that time were sojourning in Egypt and had been enslaved by the king called Tethmosis, built for him fortified cities, Peitho and Ramesse and On, which is Heliopolis. So the Hebrews are shown to be older even than the cities that were then famous among the Egyptians. They are our forefathers, from whom we have the sacred books, which are older than all the historians, as we said. The country was called Egypt after King Sethos; for Sethos, they say, is called Aegyptus. Sethos had a brother named Armais; he is the one called Danaus, who came from Egypt to Argos, and whom the other historians mention as being very ancient.

Manetho, who talked a great deal of nonsense on behalf of the Egyptians, and even said blasphemous things against Moses and the Hebrews with him, as though they had been driven out of Egypt because of leprosy, did not manage to state the chronology accurately. In calling them shepherds and enemies of the Egyptians, he said “shepherds” against his will, convicted by the truth; for our forefathers who sojourned in Egypt were indeed shepherds, but not lepers. When they came to the land called Jerusalem, where they afterward settled, it is shown how their priests, attending the temple by God's command, used to heal every disease, so that they cured even lepers and every blemish. It was Solomon, the king of Judea, who built the temple. That Manetho was wrong about the chronology is clear from what he himself said; and also about the king who drove them out, whose name was Pharaoh. For he reigned over them no longer: he pursued the Hebrews with his army and was drowned in the Red Sea. He also lies in saying that those he called shepherds made war on the Egyptians; for they had left Egypt 313 years earlier, and from then on lived in the country that is still called Judea, before Danaus even came to Argos. And it is clear that most people consider Danaus more ancient than the other Greek figures. So Manetho, without meaning to, has pointed us to two points of truth in his writings: first, he admitted that they were shepherds; second, he said that they left the land of Egypt. So from these records too it is shown that Moses and those with him lived nine hundred or even a thousand [years] before the Trojan War.

Also concerning the building of the temple in Judea, which King Solomon built 566 years after the Jews came out of Egypt, it is recorded among the Tyrians how the temple was built, and the documents are preserved in their archives. In these records the temple is found to have been built 134 years and eight months before the Tyrians founded Carthage. (It was recorded by Hieromus, king of the Tyrians, son of Abibalus, because Hieromus had become Solomon's friend through a friendship inherited from his father, and also because of Solomon's surpassing wisdom. They constantly tested each other with riddles; as proof of this, they say that copies of their letters are preserved among the Tyrians to this day, and that they sent writings to each other.) So Menander of Ephesus records in his history of the kingdom of the Tyrians, speaking as follows: “When Abibalus, king of the Tyrians, died, his son Hieromus succeeded to the kingdom; he lived 53 years. He was succeeded by Bazorus, who lived 43 years and reigned 17. After him Methouastartus, who lived 54 years, reigned 12. After him his brother Atharymus, who lived 58 years, reigned 9. He was killed by his brother, named Helles, who lived 50 years and reigned 8 months. He was killed by Iouthobalus, priest of Astarte, who lived 40 years and reigned 12. He was succeeded by his son Bazorus, who lived 45 years and reigned 7. His son Mettenus, who lived 32 years, reigned 29. He was succeeded by Pygmalion, who lived 56 years and reigned 7. In the seventh year of his reign, his sister fled to Libya and built the city that to this day is called Carthage. So the whole time from the reign of Hieromus to the founding of Carthage adds up to 155 years and eight months. And the temple in Jerusalem was built in the twelfth year of the reign of Hieromus; so the whole time from the building of the temple to the founding of Carthage was 133 years and eight months.”

Let what has been said suffice for the testimony of the Phoenicians and Egyptians, as recorded about our times by the historians Manetho the Egyptian and Menander of Ephesus, and also by Josephus, who wrote the history of the Jewish war waged against them by the Romans. From these ancient records it is shown that the writings of the others are later than the writings given to us through Moses, and even later than the prophets who came after him. The last of the prophets, called Zechariah, flourished in the reign of Darius. And all the lawgivers are found to have made their laws in the intervening time. If one mentions Solon the Athenian, he lived in the times of the kings Cyrus and Darius, in the time of the prophet Zechariah just mentioned, who lived very many years after Moses. And as for the lawgivers Lycurgus, Draco, or Minos, the sacred books are older than they; for the writings of the divine law given to us through Moses are shown to be older even than Zeus, who reigned over the Cretans, and than the Trojan War. To make the demonstration of seasons and times more precise, God enabling us, we will now recount not only what happened after the flood but also what happened before it, so as to give, as far as possible, the total number of all the years; and we will go back to the very beginning of the creation of the world, which Moses, the servant of God, recorded through the Holy Spirit. Having told of the creation and genesis of the world, of the first-formed human being, and of what followed, he also indicated the years that passed before the flood. I ask grace from the only God to say everything truly and precisely according to his will, so that you and everyone who reads these things may be guided by his truth and grace. I will begin, then, from the recorded genealogies, taking my starting point from the first-formed human being.

Adam lived 230 years until he fathered a son; his son Seth, 205 years; his son Enos, 190; his son Cainan, 170; his son Maleleel, 165; his son Jared, 162; his son Enoch, 165; his son Methuselah, 167; his son Lamech, [188]. To him was born the Noah we mentioned, who fathered Sem at the age of 500. In his time the flood came, when he was 600 years old. So the total up to the flood comes to 2,242 years. Immediately after the flood, Sem, at the age of 100, fathered Arphaxad; Arphaxad fathered Sala at 135; Sala fathered his son at 130; his son Eber at 134, from whom their race was called Hebrews; his son Phaleg at 130; his son Ragau at 132; his son Serouch at 130; his son Nachor at 75; his son Tharra at 70; and his son Abraham, our patriarch, fathered Isaac at the age of 100. So up to Abraham there are 3,278 years. Isaac, whom we mentioned, lived 60 years until he fathered Jacob. Jacob lived 130 years until the migration into Egypt that we spoke of above. The sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt lasted 430 years, and after they left the land of Egypt they spent 40 years in the place called the desert. So the total comes to 3,938 years, at which time Moses died and Joshua the son of Nun succeeded him as ruler, and led them for 27 years. After Joshua, when the people transgressed the commandments of God, they served the king of Mesopotamia, named Chousarathon, for eight years. Then, when the people repented, they had judges: Gothoniel for 40 years, Eklon for 18, Aoth for 8. Then, when they fell away, foreigners ruled them for 20 years. Then Deborah judged them for 40 years. Then the Midianites ruled them for 7 years. Then Gideon judged them for 40 years, Abimelech for 3, Thola for 23, Jair for 22. Then the Philistines and Ammonites ruled them for 18 years. Then Jephthah judged them for 6 years, Esbon for 7, Ailon for 10, Abdon for 8. Then foreigners ruled them for 40 years. Then Samson judged them for 20 years. Then there was peace among them for 40 years. Then Samera judged them for one year, Eli for 20 years, and Samuel for 12.

After the judges, kings arose among them: the first, named Saul, reigned 20 years; then David our ancestor, 40 years. So up to the reign of David the total comes to 498 years. After them Solomon reigned, who was the first to build the temple in Jerusalem, by the counsel of God, for 40 years; after him Rehoboam, 17 years; after him Abijah, 7 years; after him Asa, 41 years; after him Jehoshaphat, 25 years; after him Joram, 8 years; after him Ahaziah, one year; after him Athaliah, 6 years; after her Joash, 40 years; after him Amaziah, 39 years; after him Uzziah, 52 years; after him Jotham, 16 years; after him Ahaz, 17 years; after him Hezekiah, 29 years; after him Manasseh, 55 years; after him Amon, 2 years; after him Josiah, 31 years; after him Jehoahaz, 3 months; after him Jehoiakim, 11 years; then another Jehoiakim, 3 months and 10 days; after him Zedekiah, 11 years. After these kings, since the people persisted in their sins and did not repent, the king of Babylon, named Nebuchadnezzar, came up against Judea, as Jeremiah had prophesied. He deported the Jewish people to Babylon and destroyed the temple that Solomon had built. The people spent 70 years in exile in Babylon. So up to the sojourn in the land of Babylon the total comes to 4,954 years, 6 months, and 10 days. And just as God foretold through Jeremiah the prophet that the people would be taken captive to Babylon, so he also indicated beforehand that they would return to their land after 70 years. When 30 years were completed, Cyrus became king of the Persians; and he, in accordance with the prophecy of Jeremiah, in the second year of his reign issued a written proclamation ordering all the Jews in his kingdom to return to their own country and rebuild for God the temple that the king of Babylon had destroyed. Moreover, Cyrus, at God's command, ordered his bodyguards Sabessarus and Mithridates to carry back the vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Judea and to place them in the temple. So in the second year of Darius the 70 years foretold by Jeremiah were fulfilled.

From this one can see how our sacred writings are shown to be older and truer than those of the Greeks and Egyptians, or of any other historians. Herodotus and Thucydides, or Xenophon, or the other historians, most of them began their histories roughly from the reign of Cyrus and Darius, since they were unable to give an accurate account of the ancient and earlier times. What great thing did they say, when they told of Darius and Cyrus, kings of the barbarians, or of Zopyrus and Hippias among the Greeks, or of the wars of the Athenians and Spartans, or the deeds of Xerxes, or of Pausanias, who was in danger of starving to death in the precinct of Athena, or of Themistocles and the Peloponnesian War, or of Alcibiades and Thrasybulus? Our purpose is not to find matter for long speeches, but to make plain the number of years from the foundation of the world, and to refute the futile labor and nonsense of the historians. There have not been two hundred million years, as Plato said, teaching that this many years passed from the flood to his own time, nor 153,075 years, as we said Apollonius the Egyptian records. Nor is the world uncreated, with all things happening by chance, as Pythagoras and the rest have babbled; rather, it was created and is governed by the providence of God, who made all things. And the whole span of time and the years are made plain to those who are willing to obey the truth. But lest we seem to have given the account only up to Cyrus and to neglect the times in between, as though we could not prove them, I will try, God permitting, to set out as far as possible the order of the following times too.

Cyrus reigned 38 years and was killed by Tomyris in the land of the Massagetae, in the 62nd Olympiad. From that time on the Romans were already growing great, God strengthening them. Rome had been founded by Romulus, said to be the son of Ares and Ilia, in the 7th Olympiad, on the tenth and seventh day before the Kalends of May, when the year was still reckoned as ten months. Cyrus, then, having died, as we said, in the 62nd Olympiad, this was 220 years after the founding of Rome, at the time when Tarquinius, called Superbus, ruled the Romans. He was the first to exile some Romans; he corrupted boys and made eunuchs of the citizens, and even corrupted girls before giving them in marriage. That is why he was fittingly called Superbus in the Roman language, which means “arrogant.” For he was the first to decree that those who greeted him should be greeted back by someone else. He reigned 25 years. After him the Romans were ruled by annual consuls, tribunes, or aediles for 458 years, whose names we think it would be long and superfluous to list. Anyone who wishes to learn them will find them in the records of Chryseros the nomenclator, a freedman of M. Aurelius Verus, who recorded everything clearly, both names and dates, from the founding of Rome to the death of his own patron, the emperor Verus. The annual magistrates, then, as we say, ruled the Romans for 453 years. Then the rulers called emperors ruled as follows: first Gaius Julius, who reigned 3 years, 4 months, and 6 days; then Augustus, 56 years, 4 months, and 1 day; Tiberius, 22 years; then another Gaius, 3 years, 8 months, and 7 days; Claudius, 13 years, 8 months, and 24 days; Nero, 13 years, 7 months, and 28 days; Galba, 7 months; Otho, 3 months and 5 days; Vitellius, 7 months and 22 days; Vespasian, 9 years, 11 months, and 22 days; Titus, 2 years and 22 days; Domitian, 15 years, 5 months, and 7 days; Nerva, 1 year, 4 months, and 10 days; Trajan, 19 years, 6 months, and 17 days; Hadrian, 20 years, 10 months, and 28 days; Antoninus, 22 years, 7 months, and 7 days; Verus, 19 years and 10 days. So the time of the Caesars up to the death of the emperor Verus is 225 years. And from the death of Cyrus and the reign of Tarquinius Superbus over the Romans to the death of the emperor Verus whom we mentioned, the whole time comes to 741 years.

The whole time from the foundation of the world may be summed up as follows. From the creation of the world to the flood there were 2,242 years. From the flood until Abraham our forefather fathered a son, 1,036 years. From Isaac the son of Abraham until the people spent their time with Moses in the desert, 660 years. From the death of Moses and the leadership of Joshua son of Nun to the death of David the patriarch, 498 years. From the death of David and the reign of Solomon to the sojourn of the people in the land of Babylon, 518 years, 7 months, and 10 days. From the reign of Cyrus to the death of the emperor Aurelius Verus, 741 years. Altogether, from the creation of the world, the total comes to 5,695 years, with the additional months and days.

When the times and everything said above are gathered together, then, one can see the antiquity of the prophetic writings and the divinity of our teaching: that our teaching is not recent, and that our beliefs are not, as some think, mythical and false, but older and truer. Thallus mentions Belus, who reigned over the Assyrians, and Kronos the Titan, saying that Belus, with the Titans, made war on Zeus and those with him who are called gods; and there he says: “And Gygus, defeated, fled to Tartessus.” That country was then called Acte, and is now called Attica, and Gygus then ruled it. We do not think it necessary to list the other countries and cities from which they got their names, especially for you, who know the histories. That Moses is shown to be older than all the historians (and not he alone, but most of the prophets who came after him), and older than Kronos and Belus and the Trojan War, is clear. For according to Thallus's history, Belus is found to be 322 years earlier than the Trojan War; and we have shown above that Moses precedes the capture of Troy by some 900 or even 1,000 years. Since Kronos and Belus flourished at the same time, most people do not know who Kronos is or who Belus is. Some worship Kronos and call him Bel and Bal, especially those who live in the eastern regions, not knowing who Kronos is or who Belus is. Among the Romans he is called Saturn; for they too do not know which of the two he is, Kronos or Belus. The Olympiads, they say, had their religious beginning from Iphitus, but according to some from Haemus, who was also called Ilius. We have shown above how the number of the years and the Olympiads is arranged. I think that the whole reckoning of the antiquity of our history and of the times has now been stated as precisely as possible. Even if some period has escaped us, say 50 or 100 or even 70 years, it is not tens of thousands or thousands of years, as Plato and Apollonius and the others who wrote falsely have said. Perhaps we do not know the exact number of all the years, because the additional months and days are not recorded in the sacred books. Moreover, Berossus too agrees about the times we speak of; he studied philosophy among the Chaldeans and made the Chaldean writings known to the Greeks, and in his account of the flood and many other things he said some things in agreement with Moses. He also agrees in part with the prophets Jeremiah and Daniel, about what happened to the Jews under the king of the Babylonians, whom he calls Nabopalassar, but who is called Nebuchadnezzar by the Hebrews. He also mentions that the temple in Jerusalem was laid waste by the king of the Chaldeans, and that the foundations of the temple were laid in the second year of Cyrus's reign, and the temple was completed in the second year of Darius's reign.

The Greeks do not mention the true histories. First, because they have only recently come to share in the art of writing; they themselves admit it, saying that letters were invented, according to some, by the Chaldeans, according to others by the Egyptians, and according to others again by the Phoenicians. Second, because they went astray and still go astray, making no mention of God, but only of vain and useless things. So they eagerly commemorate Homer and Hesiod and the other poets, but the glory of the incorruptible and only God they have not only forgotten but even blasphemed; and they have persecuted those who worship him, and they persecute them every day. Indeed, they offer prizes and honors to those who insult God in fine verse, while those who strive after virtue and live a holy life they have stoned, some of them, and put others to death, and to this day they subject them to cruel tortures. That is why such people have necessarily lost the wisdom of God and have not found the truth. If you wish, then, read these things carefully, so that you may have a counselor and a pledge of the truth.