We Will Pass on to Clear up Another of the Charges, if Only He Will Confess under the Stress of his Own Consciousness of Wrong that He Has Been Convicted Both of Perjury and of Making a False Defence. Otherwise, if He Attempts to Deny what I Say, I Can Produce as Witnesses any Number of My Brethren, Who, While Living in the Cells Built by Me on the Mount of Olives, Copied Out for Him Most of the Dialogues of Cicero. I Often, as they Wrote them Out, had in My Hands Quaternions of These Dialogues; and I Looked them Over Myself, in Recognition of the Fact that He Gave them Much Larger Pay than is Usually Given for Writings of Other Sorts. He Himself Also came to See Me at Jerusalem from Bethlehem, Bringing with Him a Book which Contained a Single Dialogue of Cicero, and Also one of Plato's in Greek; He Will not Pretend to Deny Having Given Me that Book, and Having Stayed Some Time with Me. But what is the Use of Delaying So Long Over a Matter which is Clearer than the Light? to all that I have Said this Addition is to be Made, after which all Further Comment is Superfluous; that after He had Settled in the Monastery at Bethlehem, and Indeed not So Long Ago, He Took the Office of a Teacher in Grammar, and Explained his Own' Maro and the Comedians and Lyrical and Historical Writers to Young Boys who had Been Entrusted to Him that He Might Teach them the Fear of the Lord: So that He Actually Became a Teacher and Professor in the Knowledge of those Heathen Authors, as to whom He had Sworn that if He Even Read them He Would have Denied Christ. Quaterniones May Mean Sets of Four. ' it Likely to be Used for a Cahier' of Four Sheets. C9 (2). But Now Let us Look at the Other Points which He Blames. He Says that the Doctrines in Question are of Heathen Origin, but in this Judgment He Condemns Himself. He Calls These Doctrines Heathenish; yet He Himself Incorporates them into his Works. He Here Makes a Mistake. Still, we Ought to Stretch Out the Hand to Him, and not to Press Him Too Far: for it is Only Because He Soars So Completely Above the World on the Wings of his Eloquence, and is Borne Along by the Full Tide of Invective and vituperation that He Forgets Himself and his Reason Loses Its Place. Do not be So Rash, My Brother, as to Condemn Yourself Unnecessarily. Neither You nor Origen are at once to be Set Down among the Heathen If, as You have Yourself Said, You have Written These Things to vindicate the Justice of God, and to Make Answer to those who Say that Everything is Moved by Chance or by Fate: If, I Say, it is from Your Wish to Show that God's Providence which Governs all Things is Just that You have Said the Causes of Inequality have Been Acquired by Each Soul through the Passions and Feelings of the Former Life which it had in Heaven; or Even if You Said that it is in Accordance with the Character of the Trinity, which is Good and Simple and Unchangeable that Every Creature Should in the End of all Things be Restored to the State in which it was First Created; and that this must be after Long Punishment Equal to the Length of all the Ages, which God Inflicts on Each Creature in the Spirit not of one who is Angry but of one who Corrects, Since He is not one who is Extreme to Mark Iniquity; and That, his Design Like a Physician Being to Heal Men, He Will Place a Term Upon their Punishment. Whether in this You Spoke Truly, Let God Judge; Anyhow Such views Seem to Me to Contain Little of Impiety against God, and Nothing at all of Heathenism, Especially if they were Put Forward with the Desire and Intention of Finding Some Means by which the Justice of God Might be vindicated. C10 (2). I Would Not, Therefore, have You Distress Yourself Overmuch About These Points, nor Expose Yourself Needlessly Either to Penance or to Condemnation. But There is a Matter of Real Importance, as to which I Can Neither Excuse nor Defend You; Namely, a Statement Openly Made by You which is not Only Heathenish but Beyond all Heathenism and Impiety --The Statement in the Treatise which I have Mentioned Above, that God Has a Mother-In-Law. Has Anything So Profane as this or So Impious Been Said Even by any of the Heathen Poets? it Would be a Foolish Question to Ask Whether You Find Anything of the Kind in the Holy Scriptures. I Only Ask Whether Your' Flaccus or Maro, Whether Plautus or Terence, or Even Whether any Writer of Satires among all their Unclean and Immodest Sayings Has ever Uttered Such an Outrage against God. No Doubt You were Led Astray by the Fact that the Girl to whom You Addressed the Treatise was Called the Bride of Christ: and Hence You Thought that Her Mother According to the Flesh Might be Called the Mother-In-Law of God. You did not Recollect that Such Things are Said not According to the Order of the Flesh, but According to the Grace of the Spirit. For a Woman is Called the Bride of Christ Because the Word of God is United in a Kind of Mystic Wedlock with the Human Soul. But if the Mother of the Girl in Question is Related to Christ by this Spiritual Connexion, She Herself Should be Called the Bride of Christ, not the Mother-In-Law of God. As it Is, You Might as Well Go on to Call the Father of the Girl God's Father-In-Law, and Her Sister his Sister-In-Law, or to Call the Girl Herself God's Daughter-In-Law. The Fact Is, You were So Anxious to Appear Completely Possessed of the Eloquence of Plautus or of Cicero, that You Forgot that the Apostle Speaks of the Whole Church, Parents and Children, Mothers and Daughters, Brothers and Sisters, all Together, as one virgin or Bride, when He Says, "I Determined this Very Thing, to Present You as a Chaste virgin to one Man, which is Christ. " but You Boast that You Follow not Paul's but Porphyry's Introduction, And, Since He Wrote his Impious and Sacrilegious Books against Christ and against God, You have Fallen, through his Introduction, into this Abyss of Blasphemy. Ep. xxii. C. 20.