Letter 507

To Socrates the Count. [comes, a senior imperial official] Very easily indeed will Christ the Savior raise up the bodies of those who have died, more quickly than a word from me. For which, tell me, is the greater in comparison of labors: to fashion a statue that did not exist before, or to recast one that has crumbled to pieces back into the same form? Therefore the God who made us out of what did not exist will plainly also be able to raise us up again when we have fallen.

Εὐμαρῶς λίαν τῶν θανόντων ἀνθρώπων τὰ σώματα ὁ Σωτὴρ Χριστὸς ἀναστήσει θᾶττον παρμοῦ. Ποῖον γάρ, εἰπέ μοι, μεῖζον ἐν συγκρίσει καμάτων, ἀνδριάντα πλάσαι τὸν πρῴην μὴ ὑφεστῶτα, ἢ τὸν διαπεσόντα ἀναχωνεῦσαι εἰς τὸ αὐτό; Ὁ τοίνυν ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ποιήσας ἡμᾶς Θεός, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ πεπτωκότας ἡμᾶς ἐξαναστῆσαι δυνήσεται.