Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

attacks, will end in self destruction. But if one should gain the mastery it would completely
annihilate the conquered. Thus, to maintain the balance in the struggle between good and
evil is to represent them as engaged in a war without end and in perpetual destruction, where
the opponents are at the same time conquerors and conquered. If good is the stronger, what
is there to prevent evil being completely annihilated? But if that be the case, the very utterance
of which is impious, I ask myself how it is that they themselves are not filled with horror to
think that they have imagined such abominable blasphemies.
It is equally impious to say that evil has its origin from God; 1424 because the contrary
cannot proceed from its contrary. Life does not engender death; darkness is not the origin
of light; sickness is not the maker of health. 1425 In the changes of conditions there are
transitions from one condition to the contrary; but in genesis each being proceeds from its
like, and not from its contrary. If then evil is neither uncreate nor created by God, from
whence comes its nature? Certainly that evil exists, no one living in the world will deny.
What shall we say then? Evil is not a living animated essence; it is the condition of the soul
opposed to virtue, developed in the careless on account of their falling away from good. 1426
1424 With this view Plutarch charges the Stoics. Αὐτοὶ τῶν κακῶν ἀρχὴν ἀγαθὸν ὄντα τὸν Θεον ποιοῦσι.
(c. Stoicos, 1976.) But it is his deduction from their statements—not their own statements. cf. Mosheim’s note
on Cudworth iv. § 13. Origen (c. Celsum vi.) distinguishes between την κακίαν καὶ τὰς ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς πράξεις, and
κακόν as punitive and remedial; if the latter can rightly be called evil in any sense, God is the author of it. cf.
Amos iii. 6. Vide, also, Basil’s treatment of this question in his Treatise ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν αἰτιος τῶν κακῶν ὁ θεος.
cf. Schroeck. Kirchengeschichte xiii. 194.
1425 Fialon points out the correspondence with Plat. Phæd. § 119, καί τίς εἰπε τῶν παρόντων ἀκούσας…πρὸς
Θεν, οὐκ ἐν τοῖς πρόσθεν ἡμῖν λόγοις αὐτὸ τὸ ἐναντίον τῶν νυνὶ λεγομένων ὡμολογεῖτο, ἐκ τοῦ ἐλάττονος
τὸ μεῖζον γίγνεσθαι, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ μείζονος τὸ ἔλαττον, καὶ ἀτεχνῶς αὕτη εἶναι ἡ γένεσις τοῖς ἐναντίοις ἐκ τῶν
ἐναντίων ; νῦν δέ μοι δοκεῖ λέγεσθαι ὅτι τοῦτο οὐκ ἄν ποτε γένοιτο. Καὶ ὁ Σωκράτης …ἔφη…οὐκ ἐννοεῖς τὸ
διαφέρον τοῦ τι νῦν λεγομένου καί τοῦ τότε· τότε· μὲν γὰρ ἐλέγετο ἐκ τοῦ ἐναντίου πράγματος τὸ ἐναντίον
πρᾶγμα γίγνεσθαι, νῦν δὲ ὅτι αὐτὸ τὸ ἐναντίον ἑαυτῷ ἐναντίον οὐκ ἄν ποτε γένοιτο, οὔτε τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν οὔτε τὸ
ἐν φύσει· τότε μὲν γὰρ περὶ τῶν ἐχόντων τῶν ἐναντίων ἐλέγομεν, ἐπονομάζοντες αὐτὰ τῇ ἐκείνων ἐπωνυμί&
139·, νῦν δὲ περὶ ἐκείνων αὐτῶν ὧν ἐνόντων, ἔχει τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν τὰ ὀνομαζόμενα, αὐτὰ δ᾽ ἐκείνα οὐκ ἄν
ποτέ φαμεν ἐθεγῆσαι γένεσιν ἀλλήλων δέξασθαι.
1426 “Cette phrase est prise textuellement dans Denys l’Aréopagite, ou du moins dans l’ouvrage qui lui est at-
tribué. (De Div. Nom. iv. 18. Laur. Lyd. de mensib. ed. Rœth. 186, 28.).” Fialon. In the Treatise referred to, περὶ
Θείων ᾽Ονομάτων, “evil” is said to be “nothing real and positive, but a defect, a negation only. Στέρησις ἄρα
ἐστὶ τὸ κακὸν, καὶ ἔλλειψις, και ἀσθένεια, καὶ ἀσυμμετρία.” D.C.B. i. 846. cf. “Evil is null, is nought, is silence
implying sound.” Browning. Abt. Vogler.
“The Earth was Invisible and Unfinished.”
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