God tends a changing world like a farmer through the seasons
After this he says: “Nor have the things that are seen been given to man; but each thing comes into being and perishes for the sake of the preservation of the whole, according to the exchange I spoke of before, from one into another.” It is superfluous to spend more time refuting this, since we have already set out the refutation as best we could.
A reply has also been given to this: “Neither good things nor evil things among mortals could become fewer or more.” And we have spoken as well to this: “Nor does God need a new correction.” But God does not, like a man who has built something defectively and made it with too little skill, apply a correction to the world when he cleanses it by a flood or a conflagration. Rather, he is checking the outpouring of evil so that it spreads no further; and I think that he is also doing away with it altogether, in due order, to the benefit of the whole. Whether, after evil has been done away with, there is reason for it to come into being again or not, such questions will be examined in a discussion devoted to them.
So God does indeed always will to repair faults by a new correction. For even if everything was ordered by him in the most beautiful and most secure way in the making of the universe, he nonetheless needed a kind of healing art for those sick with evil and for the whole world, which evil has, as it were, defiled. And nothing has been neglected by God, or will be neglected, since at each time he does what it was fitting for him to do in a world that is changeable and subject to alteration.
And just as a farmer does different kinds of farm work on the land and on what grows from it according to the different seasons of the year, so God orders whole ages as if they were, so to speak, years, doing in each of them whatever the reasonable order of the universe itself requires, which God alone grasps most clearly, as it truly is, and carries out.
Greek
Μετὰ ταῦτα λέγει ὅτι οὔτε τὰ ὁρώμενα ἀνθρώπῳ δέδοται, ἀλλ᾿ ἕκαστα τοῦ ὅλου σωτηρίας εἵνεκα γίνεταί τε καὶ ἀπόλλυται καθ᾿ ἣν προεῖπον ἀμοιβὴν ἐξ ἀλλήλων εἰς ἄλληλα· περισσὸν δὲ τὸ προσδιατρίβειν τῇ τούτων ἀνατροπῇ, κατὰ δύναμιν ἡμῖν προεκτεθείσῃ. εἴρηται δὲ καὶ εἰς τοῦτο· οὔτε δὲ τὰ ἀγαθὰ οὔτε τὰ κακὰ ἐν τοῖς θνητοῖς ἐλάττω ἢ πλείω γένοιτ᾿ ἄν. λέλεκται καὶ εἰς τό· οὔτε τῷ θεῷ καινοτέρας δεῖ διορθώσεως. ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ὡς ἄνθρωπος τεκτηνάμενός τι ἐνδεῶς καὶ ἀτεχνότερον δημιουργήσας ὁ θεὸς προσάγει διόρθωσιν τῷ κόσμῳ, καθαίρων αὐτὸν κατακλυσμῷ ἢ ἐκπυρώσει, ἀλλὰ τὴν χύσιν τῆς κακίας κωλύων ἐπὶ πλεῖον νέμεσθαι, ἐγὼ δ᾿ οἶμαι ὅτι καὶ πάντῃ τεταγμένως αὐτὴν ἀφανίζων συμφερόντως τῷ παντί. εἰ δὲ μετὰ τὸν ἀφανισμὸν τῆς κακίας λόγον ἔχει τὸ πάλιν αὐτὴν ὑφίστασθαι η μὴ, ἐν προηγουμένῳ λόγῳ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐξετασθήσεται. θέλει οὖν διὰ καινοτέρας διορθώσεως ἀεὶ ὁ θεὸς τὰ σφάλματα ἀναλαμβάνειν. εἰ γὰρ καὶ τέτακται αὐτῷ πάντα κάλλιστα καὶ ἀσφαλέστατα κατὰ τὴν τῶν ὅλων δημιουργίαν, ἀλλ᾿ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἰατρικῆς τινος αὐτῷ ἐδέησε τοῖς τὴν κακίαν νοσοῦσι καὶ παντὶ τῷ κόσμῳ, ὑπ᾿ αὐτῆς ὡσπερεὶ μολυνομένῳ, καὶ οὐδέν γε ἠμέληται τῷ θεῷ ἢ ἀμεληθήσεται, ποιοῦντι καθ᾿ ἕκαστον καιρὸν ὅπερ ἔπρεπεν αὐτὸν ποιεῖν ἐν τρεπτῷ καὶ μεταβλητῷ κόσμῳ. καὶ ὥσπερ γεωργὸς κατὰ τὰς διαφόρους τῶν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ὡρῶν διάφορα ἔργα γεωργικὰ ποιεῖ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὰ ἐπ᾿ αὐτῆς φυόμενα, οὕτως ὁ θεὸς οἱονεὶ ἐνιαυτούς τινας, ἵν᾿ οὕτως ὀνομάσω. οἰκονομεῖ ὅλους τοὺς αἰῶνας. καθ᾿ ἕκαστον αὐτῶν ποιῶν ὅσα ἀπαιτεῖ αὐτὸ τὸ περὶ τὰ ὅλα εὔλογον, ὑπὸ μόνου θεοῦ ὡς ἀληθείας ἔχει τρανότατα καταλαμβανόμενον καὶ ἐπιτελούμενον.