Soteriology · 2 excerpts
God gave the good, as the apostle also testifies in the same letter. Those who work it will receive glory and honor, because they worked the good when they were also able not to work it.
Those who do not work it will receive God’s just judgment, because they did not work the good when they were able to work it. The showing is not that some are good by nature and others evil, but that the good lies in human choice.
Celsus thinks it impossible that those divided across Asia, Europe, and Libya — Greeks and barbarians to the ends — should ever agree in one law, and says that whoever thinks so knows nothing.
We say it is not only possible but true that the whole rational nature will one day come under the Word and be remade into his perfection — when each, using bare power of choice (ἐξουσία), chooses what he wills and comes to be in what he chose.
It is not likely that, as some bodily wounds outrun every medical art, so some evils of the soul should be impossible for the Logos and God over all to heal. The Word is stronger than every evil in the soul; his therapy comes to each by God’s will, and the end of things is the removal of evil.