Chapter 15.

And in order that you may better understand the difference between man, how he differs in all things from other creatures, and, being immortal, finds himself placed in second place after the Angels, and we will also set this forth in the true and Orthodox sense. Other animals were given to live by means of air animation, and to man from the most immortal and distinct essence, and God breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Those are commanded to serve and to be in subjection: to rule and to rule; to them are given various kinds and forms of nature, which, by God's command, coarse and visible nature has begotten: to this is something God-like and God-like, corresponding in all things to the original and only-begotten image of the Father: and God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him (Gen. 1:27); wherefore He took care that His image might be established in it, that it might not be accessible to decay, as the makers of statues are wont to do: they take care not only of the beauty and splendor of their statues, that they may be beautiful to the point of splendor, but they also endeavour, as far as is possible for them, for the immortality of their works, that they may remain intact for a long time, as, for example, Phidias, having made a statue of Jupiter Olympian (and it was made of ivory), ordered oil to be poured near the feet in front of the statue, in order to preserve it as immortal as possible. Thus, if the artists of man-made things act in this way, then could not God, the supreme artist, Who can create all things out of the bearer, undoubtedly arrange for His rational work, man, to be non-perishable and immortal? Would He have allowed that that which He deliberately vouchsafed to create with His own hands, having formed in His own image and likeness, this adornment of the world, for which the world was created, should be so ingloriously destroyed and given over to destruction and corruption? It is impossible to say. Whoever dares to think in this way would fall into madness.

Chapter 16.

But perhaps, without dwelling attentively on what has just been said, you, Aglaophon, will say: "If, in your opinion, this living being was immortal from birth, how was it made mortal, when the immortal must necessarily be what it is, without descending and passing into a worse and mortal nature? It is impossible, otherwise it is not immortal." To this I will say: the freedom in the election of good, given to man and having received such a law, rose up with malicious joy the hater of good, envy. God created man for incorruption, and made him the image of his own eternity: God did not create death, and does not rejoice in the destruction of the living: but through the envy of the devil death entered into the world, as the wisdom of Solomon also bears witness (Wis. 1:2:24). "But again it is necessary to ask: whence comes death, if God did not create death? If from envy, then how could envy be stronger than God's will? This we will call offensive to God."

But that which is subjected to torment is changed and suffered, for the unborn is not subjected to suffering, and consequently the devil is not the one who has not received existence, but the one who has received. But if he received existence, and if that which received existence came from some beginning and his creator exists, then it follows that there is some creator of the devil as well. And so, did he receive existence, or did he not receive it? It must be thought that there is only one thing that has an unborrowed being, namely God: for in general, there can be absolutely no other creator besides Him. I am the first, and I am the last, saith the Lord, and besides Me there is no God (Isaiah 44:6). Without His will, nothing can be changed or created, for even the Son confesses that He cannot create of Himself unless He sees the Father creating. For whatsoever He doeth, that also doeth the Son (John 5:19). There is nothing hostile or hostile or resisting God; for if anything were to oppose God, it would cease to exist, since its existence would be destroyed by the power and power of God; only the creator can destroy the immortal.

Chapter 17.

And so, you say, what is the devil? The spirit revolving around matter, as it is also said in Athenagoras,13 who received existence from God, as well as the other Angels, received existence from Him, and they were entrusted with the control of matter and types of matter. Such was the destiny of the Angels, to be with God in His providence for the creatures which He has ordered, so that God should have the universal and chief care for everything, possessing dominion and authority over everything and everything, like a ship, unswervingly guiding the rule of wisdom, and in part the Angels assigned to this would watch over this. The rest of the angels remained in the state in which God created them and distributed them; but this one became proud, and in the government entrusted to him became evil, having become jealous of us, like those who afterwards were inflamed with the flesh and entered into lustful communion with the daughters of men (Gen. 6:2). For they, as well as men, have been ordained by God to have the free will of one or the other, that either by obeying His word they may abide with Him and enjoy blessedness, or, if they do not obey, they may be condemned. The devil was also the morning star: how hast thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? (Isaiah 14:12) Together with the angels, He shone with light, He was the morning star, but He fell and was cast down to the earth, and directed man in the opposite direction. For God is angry with the proud, and puts up a barrier to haughty thoughts. It occurs to me to say about it in verse:

Dragon! You are the beginning of all evil for people and the end, Thou art the deception of the blind, which beareth heavy evil, A leader to recklessness, you find joy In the tears of life, in the lamentations of death; Consanguineous to criminal offense Fratricidally you raised your hands; You have persuaded Cain to be stained with blood streams Earth for the first time; And thou hast deceived the forefather, So that he fell from his incorruptible life to the earth.

Chapter 18.

Such is the devil. Death is introduced for punishment, just as children who are beginning to learn to read and write are given blows for correction. Death is nothing but the separation and separation of the soul from the body. "You say, 'Well?' then God is the author of death? "Again we meet the same speech. Let it not be, because teachers are not the main culprits for the fact that children experience pain from blows. And so it is a good thing to die, if it is introduced, like blows, for the punishment of children, not a sinful death, wise men, but death, which consists in the separation and separation of the soul from the body. For man, being free and autocratic, and having received a sovereign will and free will to choose good, as I said when I heard, "Of every tree of the garden thou shalt eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will die a death (Gen. 2:17), inclining yourself to eat, with the help of the devil, who persuaded you to disobey by various kinds of seductive cunning, you violated the commandment of God; and this became for him a stumbling-block, a snare, and a stumbling-block. For God did not create evil, and in no way is He the author of evil. But everything that He created free for the preservation and observance of the law, which He righteously ordained, if it did not keep it, is called evil. And the most grievous harm is to disobey God, spontaneously transgressing the boundaries of truth. Therefore, when man, having departed from the command of God, stained himself and defiled himself, and impressed upon himself the filth of manifold evil, which the prince and father of delusion had begotten, having conceived unrighteousness, according to the Scriptures (Psalm 7:15), in order to be able to constantly carry away and incite man to unrighteousness: then God Almighty, seeing that man, created immortal, had suffered bitterness to the point of humiliation from the deceit of the devil, did not allow him to eat of the tree of life, but he clothed him and his wife Eve in garments of skins, and drove them out of paradise, having ordained death for them, and saying, "For dust thou art dust, and to dust shalt thou return" (Gen. 3:19), so that by resurrection he might deliver them from humiliation, as is proper to the best artist, and restore them again in their own body without humiliation.

Chapter 19.

Doubt has already been examined, and it has been proved that leather garments are not bodies. Nevertheless, we will speak again (since it is necessary to say this more than once). For even before the construction of these garments, the first-created one acknowledges that he has bones and flesh, when he sees the woman brought to him, he exclaims: "Behold, this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called a woman: for she was taken from her husband. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall be one flesh (Gen. 2:24). I cannot tolerate some idle talkers and shameless violators of the Scriptures, who, in order to convey the opinion that there is no resurrection of the flesh, presuppose both spiritual bones and spiritual flesh, and rush hither and thither, up and down, with allegories. And that this must be accepted as it is written, is confirmed by the Scriptures. Christ answers the Pharisees, who asked about the release of his wife: "Do you not know that he who created man and woman in the beginning created them? And He said, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, etc." (Matt. 19:45). Further, how can one accept the words only in the reasoning of souls: be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth? (Gen. 1:28) And again: "And the Lord God created man from the dust of the ground" (2:7), which is evident about the body itself; for it was not from dust or from heavy matter that the soul received its being. From all this, therefore, it justly follows that man was created with a body before the garments of skins, because all these things are spoken of before his fall, and of the garments after his fall. Let us, therefore, proceed again to consider what is before us, having sufficiently proved that the garments of leather are not bodies, but a mortal appurtenance prepared for the intelligent. Now it remains to consider what causes a person to be evicted from the boundaries of paradise. God did not cast him out, because he did not want him to pluck from the tree of life and eat (for if he had eaten of the tree of life again, he might live forever), but lest, as we have supposed, evil should become immortal. Otherwise, why did He send Christ from heaven to earth, if He resolutely wanted man to die completely, without tasting life? If the disputant says that God did this out of repentance, then this reasoning is weak, since it admits of changes of thought in God. No, God is not ignorant of the future and is not the creator of evil, but is supremely good and knows the future in advance. Thus He expelled man from paradise, not so that he might not live forever eating of the tree of life, but that sin might first be put to death by death, so that in this way, after the destruction of sin, having risen pure after death, man might taste life.

Chapter 20.

No one would be so foolhardy as to presume to claim that it was said in a different sense. For in general, he who asserts that this flesh is incapable of immortality, as truly subject to the disease of insanity, blasphemes. Why, then, is Adam expelled after the garments of leather, having received a prohibition to eat of the tree of life and to live, if it were absolutely impossible for a man to live forever with a body? But the prohibition is made because he could not die if he had taken and eaten of the tree of life. For it is said, "And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins, and clothed them." And the Lord God said, Behold, Adam became as one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now lest he stretch out his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. And the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden, to till the land from which he was taken. And he expelled Adam (Gen. 3:21-24). And so the body (of a person) could live forever and be immortal, if he had not received a ban on eating from life. And he received a ban so that sin would also be destroyed, slain together with the body, and the body would rise after the destruction of sin. And so that man may not be immortal, as I have said, evil, or eternally living, containing in himself the predominant sin, as it were vegetating in an immortal body and having immortal nourishment, — for this reason God made him mortal, clothed him with deadness. Such was the purpose of the garments of leather, so that through the destruction and disintegration of the body all sin would perish to its foundations, as if uprooted, so that not the slightest part of the root would remain, from which new branches of sins would again sprang.