II.
Having thus spoken concerning God, so far as it was possible for me to speak of Him, 1 let us next proceed to the human race, that we may see which of them participate in the truth and which of them in error.
For it is clear to us, O King, 2 that there are three 3 classes of men in this world; these being the worshippers of the gods acknowledged among you, and Jews, and Christians. Further they who pay homage to many gods are themselves divided into three classes, Chaldaeans namely, and Greeks, and Egyptians; for these have been guides and preceptors to the rest of the nations in the service and worship of these many-titled deities.
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The Greek might be rendered, "so far as there was room for me to speak of Him," i.e., the attributes of the Deity are not further relevant to the discussion--as the translator into Syriac takes it. The Armenian adopts the other meaning, viz., the theme is beyond man's power to discuss. As translated by F. C. Conybeare, the Armenian is in these words: "Now by the grace of God it was given me to speak wisely concerning Him. So far as I have received the faculty I will speak, yet not according to the measure of the inscrutability of His greatness shall I be able to do so, but by faith alone do I glorify and adore Him." ↩
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The "King" in the Greek is Abenner, the father of Josaphat; in the Syriac, as in the Greek originally, he is the Roman Emperor, Hadrian. ↩
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The Armenian and Syriac agree in giving four races, which was probably the original division. To a Greek, men were either Greeks or Barbarians; to a Greek Christian it would seem necessary to add two new peoples, Jews and Christians. The Greek calls the Barbarians "Chaldaeans." This change of classification is probably the cause of the omission in the Greek of the preliminary accounts of the four classes. The Greek blends the summaries with the fuller accounts. ↩
