For there is nothing to prevent, according to both Pythagoras and Plato, but that bodies, after a dissolution, may be again formed of the same principles that they were first made of. But let this point of the resurrection be put off for the present.

37. But you, O most excellent, clement, and benevolent emperors in all things by nature and by education, and so worthy of the empire, give to me your approbation, seeing I have refuted the accusations against us, and proved that we are religious towards God, and inoffensive towards men,

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natures and essences, out of which those truths are compounded, be of necessity eternal likewise. For how can this be an eternal truth, that the diameter of a square is incommensurable with the sides, if the rationes, or reasons, of a square, diameter, and sides, or their intelligible essences, were not themselves eternal? These are therefore called by Plato, not only 'Things which are always the same and unchangeable;' but also Things which were never made, but always exist;' and sometimes, 'Things that were neither made, nor can be destroyed;' sometimes Things ingenerable, and incorruptible.' Of which Cicero thus: 'Hæc Plato negat gigni, sed semper esse, et ratione et intelligentiâ contineri:' These things Plato affirmeth to have been never made, but always to be, and to be contained in reason and understanding. And though perhaps it may seem strange, even Aristotle himself also, notwithstanding his so often clashing with Plato's ideas, here really agreeth in the main, that the forms or species, or the universal intelligible essences of things, which are the proper and immediate objects of science, were eternal, and never made. Thus in his metaphysics; 'No man ever makes the form or species of a thing, nor was it ever generated;' and again, 'There is no generation of the essence of a sphere.' -And he sometimes calleth these objects of science, immutable essence, or nature." Lastly, where he writeth against the Heraclitics, and those other sceptics who denied all certainty of science, he first discovers the ground of their error herein to have been this; "That they supposed singular bodies, or sensibles existing without, to be the only things or objects of the mind, or knowledge." The original of these men's mistakes was this, "Because truth is to be looked for in things, and they conceived the only things to be sensibles, in which it is certain there is much of the indeterminate nature. Wherefore they perceiving all the nature of sensibles to be moveable, or in perpetual flux and mutation, since nothing can possibly be verified, or constantly affirmed, concerning that which is not the same, but change

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and pure in our souls. For who can seem to have a fairer claim to your royal favour than we who offer up prayers for your reign; that the son may succeed, as is most right, to the kingdom of his father; that your dominions may be still enlarged by all others submitting to it; that all your actions may succeed according to your wishes, and this too on our own behalf, that we may live a quiet and peaceable life under you, and show always a ready obedience to all your commands.

able, concluded that there could be no truth at all, nor certainty of science, those things which are the only objects of it, never continuing the same." And then he subjoins, by way of opposition to this sceptical doctrine of theirs, and the forementioned ground thereof, "We would have these men therefore to know that there is another kind of essence of things besides that of sensibles, to which belongeth neither motion or corruption, nor any generation at all." By which essences of things that have no generation nor corruption, he could understand nothing else but those intelligible natures, species, and ideas, which are the standing and immutable objects of science.-HUMPHREYS.

II. RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

ALL the opinions and notions of men concerning the truth of things that be, have a mixture of something false; not that it proceeds from any substantive principle in the nature of the thing, or from any fault in each particular subject, but is rather occasioned by the perverseness of some, who have honoured the bad seed [the tares] to the destruction of the truth. This appears very plain from such as have of old employed themselves in speculations of this kind, who differ both from the ancients and from their own contemporary, but not least from the confusion of the common notions concerning this subject. Men of such a turn of mind have left no sort of truth uncorrupted; not even the being, the knowledge, and the providence of a God, and the plain consequences thereof; nay, not the very things which delineate to us the law of religion. Some openly and once for all deny the truth about such things, and others give them such a colour as suits their inclinations.

It therefore is proper, I think, for those who discourse on these topics to make use of two lines of argument; the one, on behalf of the truth, the other, in explanation of it; on behalf of the truth, to those who disbelieve or doubt, in explanation of it to those who are of ingenuous tempers and receive the truth with good will. Wherefore in treating the subject now under debate, what is proper at each time must be observed with accuracy, our words be measured thereby, and our reasoning adapted thereunto; lest, if we should seem to use always the same method, we neglect convenience and the place suitable for each particular thing.

For, in the order of demonstration and physical conse

quence, the arguments which prove any truth are always antecedent to such as only explain it but with regard to what is convenient, vice versa, the demonstrative may precede the explanatory. For neither could the farmer with propriety commit his seed to the ground, before he had cleared the wild wood and such things as would hinder and choke the growth of the good seed, nor does the physician give the patient restorative drugs until he has expelled the existing disease or checked its advance; so neither can truth be established, whilst false notions keep their place in the mind of the hearers, and oppose the arguments of the teacher. Wherefore I also, looking to what is most expedient, sometimes place the arguments proving the truth before those which are explanatory of it, and in the same manner, with a view to what is fitting, it seems desirable to act in my observations on the subject of the resurrection: for on this subject also we find men who altogether disbelieve, but some who doubt, and some even of those who have received the first principles, who are as much perplexed as those who doubt : but, what is most unreasonable of all, that they have these feelings, though they have no occasion of doubt from the things themselves, nor can give any reasonable reason why they disbelieve or are in difficulty.

2. Let us view the matter thus. If every doubt does not arise in the mind spontaneously and from some inconsiderate thought, but with some good cause and grounds founded on truth, (for then it has good reason, when the thing itself, about which they doubt, seems to be doubtful: for to doubt those things that are not doubtful, is the part of men who have no sound judgment about the truth), then it behoves those who disbelieve or doubt concerning the resurrection, to state their opinion about it, not according to their own unreasonable fancy, or to gratify the intemperate, but either to deduce man's origin from no cause, (which indeed is also very easy to be refuted) or to refer the cause of things to God, to look to the hypothesis of this doctrine, and by it to

prove that the resurrection has nothing credible in it. But this they will do, if they shall be able to show, either that God can not or will not again join and form into the shape of the same men those bodies which have died, or are wholly in a state of dissolution. But, if they cannot do this, let them cease from this impious doubt, and from blaspheming what they ought not. For that they do not speak the truth in stating either his want of power or his want of will, I shall make clear from what I shall here say. A man's want of power is known to be such from the truth, either from his not knowing what is to be done, or from his not having sufficient power to do well what has been determined on. For he who does not know anything of what ought to be done, can neither attempt nor do at all that which he is ignorant of: and he who knows well what is to be done, and whence it may be done, and how, but altogether has not power to do what he knows, or has not enough power, will not attempt it at all, if he is wise, and considers his own power. But, if he attempts it unadvisedly, he will not accomplish his intentions. But neither is it possible for God to be ignorant of the nature of the bodies that will rise again, either as regards a whole limb or a part, nor where each of the decayed limbs goes, and what part of the elements has received the decayed part which goes to its kindred, although among men it may seem difficult to distinguish that which has been naturally again united to the whole mass. For he who was not unacquainted, before the particular formation of each, either with the nature of the elements that would be necessary, from which to form men's bodies, nor the parts of these, from which he was about to take whatsoever seemed suitable to the constitution of the human body, it is manifest that, after the whole has decayed, he cannot be ignorant where each is gone, of those things which he took for the completion of each. For as regards the order of things that prevails amongst us, and our judgment in the case of others, to know beforehand things that have not happened, is the greatest. But looking to the

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