ZBORNIK - Matica srpska

In the hopeless situation of a small troop of warriors at the end
of Iotapata's siege Josephus tries to argue his comrades out of a
senseless resistence or suicide saying among others as follows:
Body is perishable, soul is immortal and a part of God in the
body. If somebody destroys the deposit of a man or manages it ill, he
is regarded as a villain and unreliable. Is it conceivable that if somebody
throws out God's deposit from his body, his crime will remain
hidden? […] Are you ignorant of it that those who make their exit in
accordance with the law of nature and return the loan given by God
when he who gave it wants it to be returned, will have eternal fame? 13
In Hermas' Shepherd the conception is used in a more abstract
way:
Who lie do not give God due to him, they become defrauders of
God, because they do not return him the deposit gotten from him. For
they have gotten a truthful spirit. If they return a lying one, they defraud
the Lord's commandment and became defrauders. 14
Let me finally mention a curious reversial of the traditional
conception with Origenes. Explaining Ev. Luc. 23, 46 he writes as
follows:
If he [Jesus] deposited his spirit with the Father, he gave his spirit
as a deposit. It is a different matter to give graciously and to grant
and again to deposit. He who makes a deposit, makes it in order to
receive the deposit. Wherefore was it necessary to lodge the spirit, the
deposit with the Father? For me, for my life, for my mind. 15
It is not God, the Father who deposits life and not he who receives
(demands) it (the latter being the end of life), but the Son deposits
his spirit (life) with the Father, this depositing means the end
of his life, and it is he who receives it, the latter being the beginning
of (a new form of) life.
13 BJ 3, 372; 374.
14 Herm. Past. m. 3, 2.
15 Dial. c. Heracl. 7: Entretien d'Origène avec Héraclide et les évêques ses
collègues sur le Père, le Fils et l'âme. Ed. J. Scherer. Publication de la Société Fouad
I de Papyrologie. Textes et Documents 9. Le Caire 1949. Since the original is
not easy of access, I give here also the Greek text: =/� �������� �� ������ ��
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