Archelaus

“ But, again, if evil is unbegotten, how does it happen that man is sometimes found to be stronger than it? For, by obeying the law of God, he will often overcome every root of wickedness; and it would be a ridiculous thing if he, who is but the production, should be found to be stronger than the unbegotten. ”

“ But if, on the other hand, a person maintains that the body is the work of the wicked one, inasmuch as it is so corruptible, and antiquated, and worthless, it would follow then that it is incapable of sustaining the virtue of the spirit or the movement of the soul, and the most splendid creation of the same. For just as, when a person puts a piece of new cloth into an old garment, the rent is made worse; [7] so also the body would perish if it were to be associated, under such conditions, with that most brilliant production the soul. ”

“ Or how can we make the contrary supposition, according to your assertion, namely, that he is discovered to be of the most senseless apprehension, and the dullest heart and in short rather like the brutes in his natural constitution? But if the case stands thus, again, how is it that man, who is possessed of no insignificant power in mental capacity and knowledge, could have received his substance from one who thus is, of all beings, the most ignorant and the bluntest in apprehension? ”

“ For iron, to take an example, has not been an evil thing always, but only from the period of man’s existence, and since his art turned it to evil by applying it to false uses; and every sin has come into existence since the period of man’s being. ”

“ For one who ardently affects or desires, desires something which is different and better. If, indeed, man takes his origin from him in respect of the evil nature, we see how man was his own, as I have frequently shown. [3] For if man was his own, he was also evil himself, just as it holds with our illustration of the like tree and the like fruit; for an evil tree, as you say, produces evil fruit. And seeing that all were evil, what did he desiderate, or in what could he show the beginning of his wickedness, if from the time of man’s formation man was the cause of his wickedness? ”

“ Moreover, the law and precept having been given to the man himself, the man had not by any means the power to yield obedience to the serpent, and to the statements which were made by him; and had the man then yielded no obedience to him, what occasion would there have been for him to be evil? ”

“ Yea, we shall have to fancy the devil himself to have gone to such an excess of folly, as not to have perceived that in making man he made an adversary for himself, and neither to have considered what might be his future, nor to have foreseen the actual consequence of his act ”