Men and beasts at the beginning
Next, addressing the race of men who perceive their own superiority over the irrational animals, he says: “As for what you say, that God has given us the power to catch wild beasts and make use of them, we shall reply that, in all likelihood, before there were cities and arts and such ways of living together, and weapons and nets, men were carried off and eaten by wild beasts, while wild beasts were very seldom caught by men.”
Observe, in answer to this, that even if men catch wild beasts and wild beasts carry off men, there is a great difference between those who prevail by understanding and the beasts that get the better, by savagery and cruelty, of men who do not use their understanding to keep from suffering anything at the hands of beasts.
And the words “before there were cities and arts and such ways of living together” come, I think, from a man who has forgotten what he said earlier: that the world is unbegotten and indestructible, and that only the things on earth suffer floods and conflagrations, and that not all of them meet with these at once. Just as those who hold that the world is unbegotten cannot speak of its beginning, so neither can they speak of a time when there were no cities at all and the arts had not yet been discovered.
But let us grant him this too; it agrees with our own views, though no longer with his, or with what he said earlier. What has this to do with the claim that at the beginning men were certainly carried off and eaten by wild beasts, while the beasts were not caught by men? For if the world came into being by providence, and God presides over the universe, the first sparks of the human race, when it began, must have come under some protection from higher beings, so that at the beginning there was fellowship between the divine nature and men. The poet of Ascra had this in mind when he said: “For then the feasts were shared, and the seats were shared, by immortal gods and mortal men” (Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, fragment 1.6–7).
Greek
Εἶτα λέγει πρὸς τὸ τῶν αἰσθανομένων τῆς ἑαυτῶν ὑπεροχῆς ἀνθρώπων γένος. ἣν ὑπερέχει τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων. ὅτι πρὸς ὅ ὑμεῖς φατε, ὡς ὁ θεὸς ἡμῖν δέδωκεν αἱρεῖν τὰ θηρία δύνασθαι καὶ καταχρήσασθαι, ἐροῦμεν ὅτι ὡς εἰκὸς. πρὶν πόλεις εἶναι καὶ τέχνας καὶ τοιαύτας ἐπιμιξίας καὶ ὅπλα καὶ δίκτυα. ἄνθρωποι μὲν ὑπὸ θηρίων ἡρπάζοντο καὶ ἠσθίοντο. θηρία δ᾿ ὑπ᾿ ἀνθρώπων ἥκιστα ἡλίσκετο. ὅρα δὲ πρὸς ταῦτα ὅτι, εἰ καὶ αἱροῦσιν ἄνθρωποι θηρία καὶ θηρία ἀνθρώπους ἁρπάζει. πολλή ἐστι διαφορὰ τῶν συνέσει κρατούντων παρὰ τὰ ἀγριότητι καὶ ὠμότητι περιγινόμενα τῶν οὐ χρωμένων τῇ συνέσει πρὸς τὸ μηδὲν ὑπὸ θηρίων παθεῖν. τὸ δὲ πρὶν πόλεις εἶναι καὶ τέχνας καὶ τοιαύτας ἐπιμιξίας ἐπιλελησμένου οἶμαι εἶναι ὧν ἀνωτέρω προεῖπεν. ὡς ἀγενήτου ὄντος τοῦ κόσμου καὶ ἀφθάρτου. καὶ μόνων τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς κατακλυσμοὺς καὶ ἐκπυρώσεις πασχόντων, καὶ οὐ πάντων ἅμα τούτοις περιπιπτόντων. ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν οὖν τοῖς ἀγένητον ὑφισταμένοις τὸν κόσμον ἀρχὴν αὐτοῦ εἰπεῖν. οὕτως οὐδὲ χρόνον. ὅτ᾿ οὐδαμῶς ἦσαν πόλεις οὐδὲ τέχναι πω εὕρηντο. ἀλλ᾿ ἔστω καὶ ταῦτα ἡμῖν μὲν συνᾳδόντως αὐτῷ συγχωρεῖν αὐτῷ δὲ καὶ τοῖς ἀνωτέρω ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ λελεγμένοις οὐκέτι· τί οὖν τοῦτο πρὸς τὸ πάντως κατ᾿ ἀρχὰς τοὺς μὲν ἀνθρώπους ὑπὸ θηρίων ἁρπάζεσθαι καὶ ἐσθίεσθαι. μηκέτι δὲ τὰ θηρία ὑπ᾿ ἀνθρώπων ἁλίσκεσθαι; εἴπερ γὰρ κατὰ πρόνοιαν ὁ κόσμος γεγένηται, καὶ θεὸς ἐφέστηκε τοῖς ὅλοις, ἀναγκαῖον ἦν τὰ ζώπυρα τοῦ γένους τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀρξάμενα ὑπό τινα γεγονέναι φρουρὰν τὴν ἀπὸ κρειττόνων. ὥστε κατ᾿ ἀρχὰς ἐπιμιξίαν γεγονέναι τῆς θείας φύσεως πρὸς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους. ἅπερ καὶ ὁ Ἀσκραῖος ποιητὴς ἐννοῶν εἶπε· ξυναὶ γὰρ τότε δαῖτες ἔσαν, ξυνοὶ δὲ θόωκοι ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι καταθνητοῖς τ᾿ ἀνθρώποις.