Section CLXXXIV

And indeed in very truth, says Athenagoras the Athenian philosopher¹, second to none among the defenders of the Christian faith, let the end of created man be considered, and then let it be considered how it happens that so many are deprived of its attainment. And concerning the end² of created man, no one should doubt that among those things which are most certain this must be numbered³:

God made man neither without purpose—for he is wise, and no work of wisdom is useless—nor for his own use, for he needs nothing… Nor did he make man on account of any of the things created by himself. For nothing among those things which use reason and judgment has been or is created for the use of another, whether superior or inferior, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν ἰδίαν αὐτῶν τῶν γενομένων ζωήν τε καὶ διαμονήν, but for the proper life and perpetuity of those who are created… Therefore, if man was created neither without cause nor in vain—

—nor for the use of the Creator himself or of any other thing founded by him, εὔδηλον ὅτι κατὰ μὲν τὸν πρῶτον καὶ κοινότερον λόγον, δι᾽ ἑαυτόν, καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ πάσης τῆς δημιουργίας θεωρουμένην ἀγαθότητα καὶ σοφίαν ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον· κατὰ δὲ τὸν προσεχέστερον τοῖς γενομένοις λόγον, διὰ τὴν αὐτῶν τῶν γενομένων ζωήν, οὐκ ἐπὶ μικρὸν ἐξαπτομένην, εἶτα παντελῶς σβεννυμένην, it is evident that, if the first and more broadly extending reason is considered, God was moved to found man on account of himself and the goodness and wisdom shining forth in all his works; but if the nearer reason, more interior to the created men themselves, is considered, it was on account of their own life, which indeed was not to be kindled for some brief time and thereafter extinguished entirely… For τοῖς αὐτὸν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ἀγαλματοφοροῦσι τὸν ποιητήν, νοῦν τε συνεπιφερομένοις, καὶ λογικῆς κρίσεως μεμοιραμένοις, τὴν εἰς ἀεὶ διαμονὴν ἀπεκλήρωσεν ὁ ποιητής, ἵνα γινώσκοντες τὸν ἑαυτῶν ποιητήν, καὶ τὴν τούτου δύναμίν τε καὶ σοφίαν, νόμῳ τε συνεπόμενοι καὶ δίκῃ, τούτοις συνδιαιωνίζωσιν ἀπόνως οἷς τὴν προλαβοῦσαν ἐκράτυναν ζωήν, καίπερ ἐν φθαρτοῖς καὶ γηΐνοις ὄντες σώμασιν, to those who bear in themselves the image of the Creator himself, who are endowed with mind and have obtained rational judgment, the Creator allotted and destined perpetuity, that, knowing their own Maker and his power and wisdom, and obeying law and justice, they might perpetually and without any labor remain in those things by which they had steadfastly sustained their foregoing life, although they were in earthly bodies subject to corruption.

When these things had been confirmed, as was fitting, he repeats them in summary, and at the same time declares the cause and reason why so many, carried away crosswise, do not arrive where the goodness and wisdom of the Creator directed them. “For he would not have erred,” he says⁴, “who should say that this is the end of life endowed with prudence and rational judgment: perpetually and without interruption to be occupied in those things with which natural reason chiefly and primarily agrees, and unceasingly to glory in the contemplation of him who is and of his law, κἂν οἱ πολλοὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐμπαθέστερον—”

—καὶ σφοδρότερον τοῖς τῇδε προσπεπονθότες, ἄστοχοι τούτου διατελῶσιν, although many among men, passionately and vehemently affected by earthly things, do not attain this end; οὐ γὰρ ἀκυροῖ τὴν κοινὴν ἀποκλήρωσιν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ἀποπιπτόντων τοῦ προσήκοντος αὐτοῖς τέλους, ἰδιαζούσης τῆς ἐπὶ τούτοις ἐξετάσεως, καὶ τῆς ἑκάστῳ συμμετρουμένης ὑπὲρ τῶν εὖ ἢ κακῶς βεβιωμένων τιμῆς ἢ δίκης. For the multitude of those who fall away from the end congruent with them does not overturn the common lot, since the examination and inquiry into things of this kind pertains to individuals, and the reward or penalty for a life well or badly lived is accommodated to each one.

Therefore a) the reason for creating man was none other than the goodness and eminent beneficence of God; and b) he founded him⁵ ἐπ᾽ ἀφθαρσίᾳ, incorruptible, and as an ἔμψυχον ἄγαλμα, animated image of himself; but c) he destined him for a most excellent end, of which kind is to be blessed by the contemplation of God himself and by the pleasure and gladness proceeding therefrom; nor did d) δωτὴρ ἐάων, the giver of good things, and he from whom, as James⁶ says, there is πᾶσα δόσις ἀγαθὴ καὶ πᾶν δώρημα τέλειον, every good gift and every perfect gift, deny any of those things by which men could obtain such felicity; but e) by their own wickedness many have brought it about, and still bring it about, that by divine justice they are repelled from the attainment of the common end and the common beatitude. What, therefore, is more certain than that eternal and happy immortality is prepared for all by the first and antecedent will, and that none are excluded from possessing it by the second and consequent will except those who have rendered the effects of benignity ineffectual and vain?