(1) Since men live but for a very short period, if their life is compared with the whole of time, they will make a most beautiful journey as it were, if they pass through life with tranquillity. This however they will possess in the most eminent degree, if they accurately and scientifically know themselves, viz. if they know that they are mortal and of a fleshly nature, and that they have a body which is corruptible and can be easily injured, and which is exposed to every thing most grievous and severe, even to their latest breath. And in the first place, let us direct our attention to those things which happen to the body; and these are pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, phrensy, gout, stranguary, dysentery, lethargy, epilepsy, putrid ulcers, and ten thousand other diseases.

But the diseases which happen to the soul are much greater and more dire than these. For all the iniquitous, evil, illegal, and impious conduct in the life of man, originates from the passions of the soul. For through preternatural immoderate desires many have become subject to unrestrained impulses, and have not refrained from the most unholy pleasures, arising from being connected with daughters or even mothers. Many also have been induced to destroy their fathers, and their own offspring. But what occasion is there to be prolix in narrating externally impending evils, such as excessive rain, drought, violent heat and cold; so that frequently from the anomalous state of the air, pestilence and famine are produced, and all-various calamities, and whole cities become desolate?

Since therefore many such-like calamities are impendent, we should neither be elevated by the possession of corporeal goods, which may rapidly be consumed by the incursions of a small fever, nor with what are conceived to be prosperous external circumstances, which frequently in their own nature perish more rapidly than they accede. For all these are uncertain and unstable, and are found to have their existence in many and various mutations; and no one of them is permanent, or immutable, or stable, or indivisible. Hence well considering these things, and also being persuaded, that if what is present and is imparted to us, is able to remain for the smallest portion of time, it is as much as we ought to expect; we shall then live in tranquillity and with hilarity, generously bearing whatever may befal us.

(30) And there is set no limit, no, not one, For mortals of their course to make an end, Except when Death's remorseless final end Comes, sent from Zeus,"- Diphilus writes: "There is no life which has not its own ills, Pains, cares, thefts, and anxieties, disease; And Death, as a physician, coming, gives Rest to their victims in his quiet sleep."

(20) With even greater clarity he adds: "The cause of these things was the material element in the world's constitution, which was at one time bound up with its ancient nature. For before it came into its present ordered state it was in a condition of great chaos." To the same effect in the Laws he laments the of men saying: "The gods had mercy on mankind which born for trouble, and to give them rest from their labours appointed the changing cycle of feasts." And in the Epinomis discusses the causes of this pitiful condition and says this:)m the beginning birth was difficult for every human being; to get to the state of being an embryo, then to be born, and l to be nourished and educated, all this is attended by count- pains, as we all agree." What then? Does not Heraclitus call birth death, just as Pythagoras and Socrates in the Gorgias,54 when he says: "Death is what we see when we are awake; and what we see in our sleep is a dream." But enough of this. When we discuss First Principles we consider the difference between the views of the philosophers and those of the Marcionites. But I think I have shown clearly enough that Marcion took from Plato the starting-point of his "strange" doctrines, without either grateful acknowledgment or understanding.