34. Such is the true word about the Divine.[115] O all ye men, Greeks and Barbarians, Chaldæans and Assyrians, Egyptians and Libyans, Indians and Ethiopians, Celts and ye army-leading Latins,[116] and all ye dwellers in Europe, Asia and Libya.[117] To you I am become a counsellor, being a disciple of the Word who loves man and myself a lover of mankind, so that you may hasten to be taught by us who is the real God and what His well-ordered creation. And that you give not heed to the sophistries of artificial discourses,[118] nor to the crazy promises of plagiarizing heretics, but to the august simplicity of unboastful truth. Through the knowledge of which, you shall escape the coming menace of the judgment of fire, and the unlighted vision of gloomy Tartarus unillumined by the voice of the Word, and [Sidenote: p. 523.] the boiling of the Lake of the eternal Gehenna of flame, and the ever-threatening eye of the angels punished in Tartarus,[119] and the worm which through the filth of the body turns towards the body which threw it forth as for food. And these things thou shalt escape when thou hast been taught the God Who Is. And thou shalt have an immortal body together with an incorruptible soul. And thou shalt receive the kingdom of the heavens, who whilst on earth didst also recognize the heavenly King. But thou shall speak with God and be joint heir with Christ, not enslaved by desires nor sufferings nor diseases.[120] For thou [wilt] have become God. For whatever sufferings thou underwent as man, thou hast shown that thou art a man; but whatever is appurtenant to a God, that God has promised to bestow, because thou hast been made divine, since thou hast been begotten immortal. This is the [true] “Know Thyself,” the knowledge of the Creator God. For to him who knows himself has occurred the being known to Him by whom [Sidenote: p. 524.] he is called. Wherefore now, O men, be not your own enemies, nor hesitate to turn again. For Christ is the God over all, Who has arranged to wash away iniquity from among men, and to make anew the old man who from the beginning was called His image, thus showing forth His love towards thee. Having hearkened to Whose august precepts, and having become a good imitator of the Good One, thou wilt be like unto and be honoured by Him. For God asks no alms,[121] and has made thee God for His own glory. FOOTNOTES