Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| Someone of unsound judgment might suppose that these words are spoken of the birth of a human being. But when a human child is born, what reason is there for the earth to go unsown and unploughed, and for the vine not to long for the edge of the pruning hook or any other tending? How could this be understood as said of a human birth? For nature is the servant of a divine ordinance, not the worker of a human command. Moreover, the joy of the elements marks the descent of God, not the conception of some human being; and the poet's prayer that the end of his own life be lengthened is a sign that he is calling upon a divine being. For it is from God, not from a human being, that we are accustomed to ask for life and for safety.
2| The Erythraean Sibyl, at any rate, says to God: "Why, O Master, do you lay upon me the compulsion of prophecy, and do not rather lift me up from the earth and keep me safe until the most blessed day of your coming?" And Maro, to what has been said, adds these lines as well: "Begin to know your noble mother by her smile, for she carried you for many years. Yet your parents never smiled upon you as upon a mortal; you did not touch a marriage bed, nor did you know a lavish feast."
3| For how could his parents have smiled upon him? His Father is God, a power without qualities, without shape, yet encompassing all other things, though not within the bounds of a human body. And who does not know that the Holy Spirit has no knowledge of the marriage bed? What desire or longing could there be in the disposition of the Good, toward which all things strive? And what at all do wisdom and pleasure have in common? But let these things be left for those to speak of who pursue a human education that delights the crowd and have no experience of divine education. For the former boast for the sake of display and reputation, while the latter prepare themselves to keep their souls pure from every evil deed and word.
4| I call upon you yourself, O godliness, as an ally in what I say: you who are a holy law, the most longed-for hope of all good things, the teacher of holiness, the unfeigned promise of immortality. You, piety and love of humankind, I worship; and to your healing care we who have been healed owe everlasting gratitude. But the countless multitude, who have no part in your help, turn away even from God because of their inborn hatred of you, and they do not know at all that the cause of their living and being, both for themselves and for the rest of the ungodly, depends on the One whose due it is to have charge of what is better. For the whole world is his possession, and all that is in the world.
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