Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 12.djvu/72

58 of it, being restored from what he was; and the whole is named from a part.

But nobility is itself exhibited in choosing and practising what is best. For what benefit to Adam was such a nobility as he had? No mortal was his father; for he himself was father of men that are born. What is base he readily chose, following his wife, and neglected what is true and good; on which account he exchanged his immortal life for a mortal life, but not for ever. And Noah, whose origin was not the same as Adam's, was saved by divine care. For he took and consecrated himself to God. And Abraham, who had children by three wives, not for the indulgence of pleasure, but in the hope, as I think, of multiplying the race at the first, was succeeded by one alone, who was heir of his father's blessings, while the rest were separated from the family; and of the twins who sprang from him, the younger having won his father's favour and received his prayers, became heir, and the elder served him. For it is the greatest boon to a bad man not to be master of himself.

And this arrangement was prophetical and typical. And that all things belong to the wise. Scripture clearly indicates when it is said, "Because God hath had mercy on me, I have all things." For it teaches that we are to desire one thing, by which are all things, and what is promised is assigned to the worthy. Accordingly, the good man who has become heir of the kinsjdom, it registers also as fellow-citizen, through divine wisdom, with the righteous of the olden time, who under the law and before the law lived according to law, whose deeds have become laws to us; and again, teaching that the wise man is king, introduces people of a different race, saying to him, "Thou art a king before God among us;" those who were governed obeying the good man of their own accord, from admiration of his virtue.

Now Plato the philosopher, defining the end of happiness, says that it is likeness to God as far as possible; whether concurring with the precept of the law (for great natures that are free of passions somehow hit the mark