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| Chapter XXV
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Chapter XXV.
But if you depreciate the littleness of man, not
on account of his body, but of his soul, regarding it as inferior to
that of other rational beings, and especially of those who are
virtuous; and inferior, because evil dwells in it,—why should
those among Christians who are wicked, and those among the Jews who
lead sinful lives, be termed a collection of bats, or ants, or worms,
or frogs, rather than those individuals among other nations who are
guilty of wickedness?—seeing, in this respect, any individual
whatever, especially if carried away by the tide of evil, is, in
comparison with the rest of mankind, a bat, and worm, and frog, and
ant. And although a man may be an orator like Demosthenes, yet,
if stained with wickedness like his,3776
| 3776 The allusion may
possibly be to his flight from the field of Chæronea, or to his
avarice, or to the alleged impurity of his life, which is referred to
by Plutarch in his Lives of the Ten Orators.—Spencer. | and guilty of
deeds proceeding, like his, from a wicked nature; or an Antiphon, who
was also considered to be indeed an orator, yet who annihilated the
doctrine of providence in his writings, which were entitled
Concerning Truth, like that discourse of Celsus,—such
individuals are notwithstanding worms, rolling in a corner of the
dung-heap of stupidity and ignorance. Indeed, whatever be the
nature of the rational faculty, it could not reasonably be compared to
a worm, because it possesses capabilities of virtue.3777
| 3777 ἀφορμὰς ἔχον
πρὸς
ἀρετήν. | For these adumbrations3778
towards virtue do not allow of those who
possess the power of acquiring it, and who are incapable of wholly
losing its seeds, to be likened to a worm. It appears, therefore,
that neither can men in general be deemed worms in comparison with
God. For reason, having its beginning in the reason of God,
cannot allow of the rational animal being considered wholly alien from
Deity. Nor can those among Christians and Jews who are wicked,
and who, in truth, are neither Christians nor Jews, be compared, more
than other wicked men, to worms rolling in a corner of a
dunghill. And if the nature of reason will not permit of such
comparisons, it is manifest that we must not calumniate human nature,
which has been formed for virtue, even if it should sin through
ignorance, nor liken it to animals of the kind
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