Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Mister Monday (2003), p. 247.
Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 29 : Avoiding Utopia
The Way of God's Will Chapter 1-8. Kingdom of Heaven http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/WofGW/wogw1-08.htm Translated 1980.
I. What the disciple should be; and concerning Common Conceptions, as translated by Gilbert Murray
Variant translation:
It is requisite that those who are willing to hear concerning the gods should have been well informed from their childhood, and not nourished with foolish opinions. It is likewise necessary that they should be naturally prudent and good, that they may receive, and properly understand, the discourses which they hear. The knowledge likewise of common conceptions is necessary; but common conceptions are such things as all men, when interrogated, acknowledge to be indubitably certain; such as, that every god is good, without passivity, and free from all mutation; for every thing which is changed, is either changed into something better or into something worse: and if into something worse, it will become depraved, but if into something better, it must have been evil in the beginning.
I. What the Requisites are which an Auditor concerning the Gods ought to possess: and of common Conceptions, as translated by Thomas Taylor
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: Those who wish to hear about the Gods should have been well guided from childhood, and not habituated to foolish beliefs. They should also be in disposition good and sensible, that they may properly attend to the teaching.
They ought also to know the common conceptions. Common conceptions are those to which all men agree as soon as they are asked; for instance, that all god [here and elsewhere, = godhood, divine nature] is good, free from passion, free from change. For whatever suffers change does so for the worse or the better; if for the worse, it is made bad; if for the better, it must have been bad at first.
