Even if none of our writers went so far as to guarantee these positions, it would be enough to support them, in the absence of others considered 'sages', to refer to the disciple of Plato in person, Aristotle. This last said, as we have already affirmed, that the universe is in no way endowed with a soul, nor reason, nor thought. In these cirumstances, the force of truth has prevented Julian from claiming that the universe --- or the Whole, as it could be, to employ the proper term of Plato --- is endowed at all with a soul or even thought, since there are in his camp, as I said, a group of those who touch him more closely on this point than his most resolute contradictors!
It is not likely that God gave the mission of creation to gods completely stripped of soul or thought: this arises from the nature of the problem itself, if it is subjected to suitable examination. Who can imagine the Creator of the world entrusting to other divinities the creation of the three races? Would one speak of hesitation on his side, or of total contempt for our destiny? Such attitudes are in my opinion completely foreign to the supreme Essence!
37. Because, if the Creator is good, how could he express hesitation towards some task?
"It was --- Plato also affirms this --- actually a kindness; however a good being does not nourish ill will towards nothing."
As for claiming that God showed scorn, that would amount to allotting vanity and attributing arrogance to Him.
However, how could he allow himself to reign over beings whom he judged as unworthy for him to create? Or how is it that he takes pleasure from our worship if he couldn't be bothered to create us in the first place?
That He demands that we honour Him, that He requires obedience and understands that human nature is like his in every kind of virtue, it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to bring a thousand veracious testimonies drawn from the inspired Scripture. But as Julian grants especially his confidence to those of his own kind, I recall that Porphyry wrote in book II of his work On Abstinence from animal flesh :
"Let us also therefore sacrifice, but let us sacrifice as appropriate, to God who rules the whole universe, as a sage has said. No material offerings, no clouds of incense, no formulas of consecration! Because there is no material body which does not appear from the start impure with respect to the immaterial one. Therefore the word itself, when it passes by words, is inappropriate for God, nor the interior word, when soiled by the evil of the soul: let us adore him through the purity of silence, the purity of thoughts which we form on him! Thus uniting ourselves to God and assimilating ourselves to him, we must offer to him the holy sacrifice of our intellect, which will be at the same time a hymn to his glory and the path of our safety. However it is in the absence of passions and the contemplation of God that achieves this sacrifice."
38. So God wants us to honour him, and that by the holiness of our life, we will conform ourselves to him on the spiritual level, by engraving his beauty in our souls.
But then, tell me Julian, how can he demand this attitude of us, if he has almost abandoned us to other creators, and stripped us of the privilege of being made by him which he gave to all other creatures? What leads him to provide for things here below if they are, as Plato says, given as playthings to other divinities?
Because he exercises his providence, and his care and benevolence extend to the smallest things; to learn this we can listen to one who knew God as his father:
"Are not two sparrows sold for an as? However not one of them will fall to the ground without the consent of our Father."
Perhaps Julian will declare the formula inadmissible because false --- because he contorts himself furiously against God! --- but will this receive a good reception from people of his group, I mean people as deceived as him? Thus Alexander, the disciple of Aristotle, has written in his treatise On Providence :
"To say that God refuses to grant his providence to things here below, is to go resolutely against the concept of God: because one needs a certain ill will and a nature completely perverted not to do good when one can do it; both one and the other ideas are foreign to God, in him is found neither both nor either of them. So it remains that God can and will exercise his providence on the things here below; however it is obvious that he exercises this providence if he can and wishes to do so. Nothing then, among things fortuitious, could in good logic exist without the divine decision and will."
39. Some claim that Plato himself shared this thesis, and it is public knowledge that Zeno of Citium and the Stoics assert it. So from their testimony it results that human things are the object of providence on the part of the Almighty, the single and natural God of the universe. --- "And then, will someone say, what can we conclude from that?" --- well, it is appropriate for a God, exercising of his own wish his providence, not to deprive the human race of his most precious gift, which is to be created by Him, and not to see the job allotted to creators themselves created and which are divine only in name and not by any other measure --- if it is true that it will always be repugnant to the divine glory to allow others the power to create and invite nothing-beings to do it. Because it is impious to claim that the appropriate and privileged character of the divine and unutterable nature can belong naturally to such or such of the creatures which it created. In fact these features are indeed appropriate only to the divine nature and to it alone, and display its glory to a supreme degree. Inaccessible to a creature --- I mentioned this above --- are the exclusive privileges of being single and supreme, and we affirm that one of these privileges is to be able to act as creator and to bring beings from nothing into existence. Under these conditions, how could a nature resulting from birth and creation, destined inevitably for corruption by the same laws which are its being, hold the active role of God?
40. In fact, if to create is regarded as a form of knowledge in God, one cannot present as irrational the gift of the creative capacity made by God to his creature: doesn't it sometimes happen to us that we create things starting from something already made, while using suitable know-how? If on the other hand, as I said, the fact of creating in the way that God does constitutes an ability and capacity pertaining only to an exceptional nature, and exceeds the measure of a creature, why do those people belittle the privilege of the supreme nature, and grant according to their good pleasure to beings created and promised to corruption? After which, persuaded that they have in their heads an idea of genius, they denature instead the words of God, by claiming that the Uncreated has confided to created beings the power to bring into existence what is specific to him only. --- OK, they say, but then it follows that a thing created by God should be stronger than death and corruption! --- Thus, friends, it is from jealousy towards certain beings that the Creator refused to give them the best part, that on the contrary He condemned them to a worse, one could say, by not being willing to create them! Apparently, He has avoided the fate which prohibited Him from creating mortal beings --- perhaps even He was unaware of this fate completely?
If they claim that God was in ignorance, the creature knows more than Him: the creators, they affirm themselves, were perishable beings! If on the other hand, giving up this position, they accept that God knew, how then would a good being refuse to do what he knows to be good? Because in the end it is quite true that the immortal one is preferable to the mortal!
[To be continued]
This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2006, 2007. All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.