APOLOGY

...from the straw, the fruit serves men, while the straw supports the animals needed for human use. But if it is argued that all of this is done by Nature, he moved backward from this grain to the immediately preceding one in this manner: If Nature produced that seed, who produced the one immediately before it? If that one also followed a progression owed to Nature, who was the predecessor? This continued until he came to the first, which must necessarily have been created, since there was no one else by whom it could be produced. He proved by many arguments that Nature was incapable of creation. Therefore, God is the Creator of all. Lucilio said these things either as a display of learning, or from fear rather than from conscience, as Gramondus interprets it. But does not conscience convince even the most impious that God exists?

• There is nothing, Antipho,
  Which cannot be corrupted by telling it badly. original: "Nihil est, Antipho, Quin male narrando possit depravarier." A quote from Terence's play Phormio, Act IV, Scene IV.

UNJUST CONDEMNATION.

But let us return: the matter is settled; he speaks to a belly that lacks ears Meaning he is arguing to those who will not listen.. For indeed, because he was clearly convicted by proofs in a formal Decree, after a six-month period spent preparing the lawsuit, he is condemned by a capital judgment, says Gramondus. Thus, the end has come. They were demanding a charge of heresy and the corruption of youth through a new doctrine, and when the evidence was failing or ambiguous, as Gramondus says, look! As if from a machine A reference to the deus ex machina, there appears Francon—