Oration to Origen 1 part 2/3

but for the better, which is abiding and not easily shaken, for whose sake also the forging of the bonds and this sacred knot was rather effected.

Therefore, by the divine word, it was not the soul of David that was knit to the soul of Jonathan;

but on the contrary, the soul of the inferior, undergoing this, is said to be knit to the soul of David.

For the better, being self-sufficient, would not choose to be knit to its own inferior; but the inferior, needing the help that comes from the better, ought, being knit, to be attached to the better;

so that the one, abiding in itself, may enjoy no harm from communion with the inferior, while the other, disordered, being bound out of itself and fitted to the better, harmed in nothing, may by the constraints of the bonds be won over to the better.

Wherefore it belonged to the superior, and not to the lesser, to forge the bonds;

but to be bound belonged to the inferior, so that he has not even any power somehow to be loosed from the bonds.

By certain such constraints this David has bound us fast, both now and from that time, so that we cannot be loosed from his bonds, not even if we should wish.

Nor then, even if we should go abroad, will he release our souls, holding them thus knit fast according to the divine writing.

But thus, having taken us from the beginning and gone about us by every means, when the greater part had been accomplished for him and it seemed we should stay, thereupon, like some good farmer dealing with a piece of fallow land—either land in no way good, but salty and scorched, rocky and crumbly, or land not wholly barren nor unfruitful, but indeed very fertile, yet still untilled and neglected, hardened with thorns and wild thickets and difficult to work;

or like some planter dealing with a plant—either wild and bearing no cultivated fruit, yet not wholly useless, if one skilled in the planter's art should bring a cultivated shoot and graft it in, splitting it in the middle, then joining and binding them, until both, having coalesced, are nourished as one (for thus you would see a kind of mingled tree, bastard indeed, yet fruitful out of the unfruitful, bearing the fruit of the good olive upon wild roots);

or wild indeed, yet not useless to a skilled planter; or even cultivated, yet bearing fruit poorly, or again through lack of skill unpruned, unwatered and parched, choked by the many superfluous shoots growing at random, and hindered from reaching perfection in its growth and bearing fruit by one another;

taking us as such, and going round us with his own husbandman's art, and observing not only the things seen by all and visible on the surface, but digging up and testing also the inmost things—asking, propounding, and listening to our answers—when he perceived something in us not useless, unprofitable or hopeless, he dug, turned over, watered, set everything in motion, applied all his art and care, and worked us into shape;

the thorns and thistles and all the kind of wild weeds or plants—all that our soul, shaken up, sent up and yielded in rank profusion, being as it were disordered and headstrong—he cut out and removed entirely by his refutations and by his restraining;

laying hold of us, and at times very Socratically tripping us up by argument, if anywhere he saw us altogether refractory like some wild horses, bounding off the road and running about hither and thither at random, until by a certain persuasion and constraint, as by a bridle—the argument from our own mouth—he brought us to quietness before him;

applying his arguments to us at first with difficulty and not without pain, as to people unaccustomed and not yet practised in following argument, yet purging us out nonetheless.

And when by these means he had made us fit and well prepared for the reception of the words of truth, then indeed, as upon well-worked, soft soil ready to bring forth the seeds cast upon it, he sowed unsparingly;

making both the casting of the seeds timely, and all the rest of his care timely, working each thing fittingly and with the things proper to the discourse;

all that was dull and bastard in the soul—whether so by nature or thickened by the superfluous nourishments of the body—he sharpened and made lean by the subtle arguments and methods of rational disciplines, which, woven out of the simplest first principles into successions and variously turned, advance into a certain intricate and hard-to-unravel texture, rousing us as though sleeping, and teaching us ever to hold to the matters in hand, in no way slipping away either through their length or through their subtlety.

the uncritical and rash habit—of assenting to whatever chances to come, of whatever sort it may be, even if it happen to be false, and of contradicting often even when some true things have been said—this too he trained out of us, both by these aforesaid and by other manifold arguments;

for this part of philosophy is manifold, accustoming us not to cast forth and again to retract our testimonies at random or as it happens, but, examining accurately not the merely apparent things only (for many things glorious in themselves and of solemn appearance, having rushed into our ears under decorous voices as though true, being yet rotten and false, snatch us up and obtain from us a verdict of truth, and not long after are detected as unsound and untrustworthy, having vainly counterfeited the truth;

and easily showed us to have been ridiculously deceived, and to have testified at random to things to which we least ought);

and again, on the other hand, other things solemn indeed and not vaunting, or set forth in voices not trustworthy, seeming paradoxical and of all things most incredible, and forthwith rejected as false and unworthily insulted, were afterward, by those who tracked them out and considered them accurately, perceived to be of all things most true and simply unassailable—the very things hitherto deemed to be rejected and disreputable—not, then, to examine only the apparent and obtruding things, which are sometimes deceitful and sophistical, but to investigate the inner things, sounding out each, lest anything ring unsound, and first assuring ourselves in them, thus also to agree with those outside and to declare ourselves concerning each thing—this he taught us.

Thus, then, was the critical part of our soul concerning expressions and arguments rationally trained;

not according to the judgements of fine rhetors, as to whether something is Hellenic or barbarous in speech;

that small and unnecessary study;

but this thing most necessary of all to Greeks and barbarians alike, to wise and laymen, and in short (that my discourse may not be long by going through each art and pursuit) to all men who have chosen any kind of life whatsoever;

if indeed all who discuss anything in common are concerned and earnest not to be deceived.

And it is not this thing only—the form which dialectic alone has been allotted to set right;

but again the humble part of our soul—we who were astounded at the grandeur, the wonder-working, and the manifold and all-wise craftsmanship of the cosmos, and who marvelled irrationally and cowered down in amazement, knowing nothing how to reason at all, like irrational animals—he roused and set upright by other disciplines, the natural sciences, making clear each of the things that are, and discerning most wisely into the very first elements, and then interweaving them by reason and traversing both the nature of the whole and of each part, and the manifold mutation and change of the things in the cosmos;

until, leading us on by his clear teaching and arguments—both those he had learned and those he had himself discovered concerning the sacred economy of the whole and the blameless nature—he implanted in our souls a rational wonder in place of an irrational one.

This is the lofty and inspired learning which natural philosophy, most lovely to all, teaches.

What need to mention the things of the sacred sciences—geometry, dear to all and beyond dispute, and astronomy, that travels among the heights? Each of these he imprinted upon our souls, teaching or recalling them—or I know not what I ought to say—making geometry simply the unshaken base of all, and a sure foundation;

and leading us up even to the highest things through astronomy, as by a kind of ladder reaching to heaven, by each of the two studies making heaven accessible to us.

But the things that are of all the most surpassing, and for the sake of which especially the whole philosophic race labours—as out of a varied husbandry, gathering from all the other studies and from long philosophizing the good fruits, namely the divine virtues that concern character, from which comes the untroubled and steadfast state of the soul's impulses;

and which were to render us truly godlike and blessed.

And these too he worked out by his own gentle and wise arguments, not least also most necessary ones, concerning our morals and manners.

And not by arguments only, but already also by deeds, he in a way piloted our impulses, by the very contemplation and consideration of the impulses and passions of the soul, from which especially, when these are recognized, the soul of ours is by nature set right out of its disorder, and transferred from a confused state to one judged and well-ordered;

so that, beholding itself as in a mirror, it might see the very beginnings and roots of evils—all the irrational element in it, from which the absurd passions rise up against us;

and again, how great is the best part of it, the rational, under whose rule it remains in itself unharmed and unaffected;

then, having considered these accurately in itself, it might cast out and put away all the things growing from the worse part—which pour us out through licentiousness, or contract and stifle us through abjectness, such as pleasures and desires, or griefs and fears, and all the rank of evils that follows upon these kinds—rising up against them while they are yet beginning and only just sprouting, and not suffering them to grow even a little, but destroying and making them vanish;

but all that rises in us from the better part, being good, these it might nourish and preserve, fostering them from their beginning and guarding them together until perfection.

For thus might the divine virtues at some time come to the soul: prudence, which is first able to judge these very movements of the soul, the knowledge of good and evil also concerning the things outside us, if there be any, arising from them;

and temperance, the power that rightly chooses these things from the beginning;

and justice, which assigns to each what is fitting;

and the preservation of all these, courage.

Not, then, by arguments merely declared did he accustom us, as though prudence were the knowledge of good and evil, or of things to be done and not to be done;

this being that empty and unprofitable study, if the argument should be apart from the deeds, and prudence not doing the things to be done and turning away from those not to be done, but only furnishing the knowledge of these to those who possess it—such as we see many to be.

And again, that temperance is a kind of knowledge of things to be chosen and not to be chosen—the other philosophers do not very much teach it, and especially the more recent ones, who, though vigorous and strong in their arguments (such as I have often admired, when they prove the virtue of God and of men to be the same, and the wise man on earth to be equal to the first God), are yet unable to hand down either prudence, so that one should also do the things of prudence, or temperance, so that one should also choose the very things he has learned;

and likewise also concerning justice, and further courage.

Not thus did he expound to us the things concerning the virtues by arguments, but rather called us on to the deeds;

and he called us on more by his deeds than by what he said.

And I beg of the philosophers now living—as many as I myself have known and as many as I have heard others tell of—and of other men also, to bear without resentment what is now being said by us.

And let no one suppose that I say these things either out of friendship toward the man, or still out of hostility toward the rest of the philosophers

(of whom, if anyone else, I myself too wish to be a lover for the sake of their arguments, and I wish to praise them, both myself and to hear others saying the finest things about them;

but indeed things are such that the very name of philosophy is outraged to the last degree by almost all, and I came near to choosing to remain wholly a layman, rather than to learn any of the things which these men declare—men whom, on account of the rest of their life, I thought it not even worth approaching, perhaps not rightly thinking so)—only let no one suspect that I say these things out of some ambition, whether of the praises owed to the man, or of that other ambition against the philosophers outside;

but let one be persuaded that we, lest we should seem to flatter, say things even smaller than his deeds, not framing for ourselves words and names and artful occasions of encomium;

I was being taught to praise and to speak an encomium about something—anything that was not true, I willingly forbore.

Therefore not even now, having set myself to praise, do I think I ought simply to exalt this man by the censures of others;

or I should speak ill of the man, comparing his blessed life with the failings of others, in order that I might have something greater to say about him;

but I will confess the very thing I have experienced, apart from any comparison and craftiness of words.

This man first and alone urged me also to philosophize in the philosophy of the Greeks, persuading me by his own character to listen to and bear with the discourse concerning morals—I who would not have been persuaded, so far as concerned the other philosophers (again I confess), not rightly indeed, but unhappily for us, well-nigh so.

For I did not at first fall in with many, but only with a few of those who professed to teach, but who, all of them, made philosophizing stop at words.

But this man first urged me to philosophize also by his arguments, having anticipated by his deeds the exhortation through words;

not merely declaring studied phrases, but not even deigning to speak unless he should do so with a sincere mind, one that would also strive to do the things said, or trying to render himself such as the one who, by his arguments, he describes as the man who will live well; and setting forth, I would have said, a pattern of a wise man;

but since the discourse promised us at the outset truth, not elegance, I do not yet call him a pattern of a wise man;

although indeed I wish to say it is true.

Not, then, an exact pattern, but one greatly wishing to be made like, forcing himself with all earnestness and eagerness, if I must say so, even beyond human power;

and moreover fashioning us also into others such as he—not masters of arguments and knowers of the things concerning the impulses, but of the impulses themselves;

pressing us on toward deeds and toward the arguments, and bringing to bear, in that very contemplation, no small portion of each virtue—perhaps even the whole, if we had had room for it;

compelling us, if I must say so, to act justly by reason of the proper activity of the soul, to which he persuaded us to give ourselves;

leading us away from the busyness of life and the turmoil of the marketplace, and rousing us to look round upon ourselves and to do truly our own proper things.

And that this is to act justly, and that this is the truly just—the doing of one's own proper work—certain of the ancient philosophers also have said, calling it the doing of one's own things, more effective, it seems to me, toward blessedness both for themselves and for those who come to them;

if indeed it belongs to this virtue to assign to each according to worth, and to each his own.

For what else would be the soul's own thing, and what so worthy, as to take care of itself—not looking outward nor meddling with another's affairs, nor, to put it briefly, wronging itself with the worst injustice, but turned inward toward itself, rendering itself to itself and acting justly? Thus, then, by compelling us, if I must say so, to do just things, he educated us;

and again, no less, to be prudent by being toward oneself and willing and trying to know oneself;

this being the best work of philosophy, which is also ascribed to the most oracular of the divinities as an all-wise injunction, namely: 'Know thyself.'

And that this is truly the work of prudence, and that this is the divine prudence, is well said by the ancients;

being truly the same virtue of God and of man, the soul practising to behold itself as in a mirror, and the divine Mind—if it should become worthy of this communion—being mirrored in itself, and tracking out a certain ineffable way of this deification.

And consequently also to be temperate and to play the man;

to be temperate, by preserving this prudence of the soul that knows itself, if ever this should come to it;

for this again is temperance, being a kind of saved prudence;

and to play the man, by abiding in all the aforesaid pursuits, and not falling away either willingly or by any necessity, but keeping them and being masters of the things mentioned;

and this is the virtue—being a kind of saviour and guardian of doctrines.

And indeed he is still about to make us just, prudent, temperate or courageous—through our own slowness and sloth, and that though he was very earnest;

we neither possessing nor yet having come near to any virtue whatsoever, human or divine—far from it;

for these are the greatest and loftiest, and neither is to be grasped nor attained by anyone into whom God does not breathe the power;

and we are neither so naturally fitted, nor yet do we confess ourselves worthy to attain it;

not having done, through sloth and weakness, all the things which those who aspire to the best and woo perfection ought to do.

Just, then, or temperate, or possessing any of the other virtues, we are still about to become;

but that we are lovers, loving with a most keen love—which perhaps belongs to him alone—this wonderful man, friend and spokesman of the virtues, long ago established in us, by implanting a love for his own virtue and for the beauty of justice, whose truly golden face he showed us, and of prudence, desirable to all, and of that most lovely true wisdom, and of godlike temperance, which is the stability and peace of the soul for all who have acquired it, and of most wonderful courage, our endurance, and above all of piety, which they call the mother of the virtues, rightly so saying.

For this is the beginning and end of all the virtues;

for, setting out from this, the rest of the virtues would most easily come to us;

if, desiring and hastening to acquire for ourselves this very thing which every man ought—the man at least who is not godless or pleasure-loving—namely to become a friend and spokesman to God, we should take care of the rest of the virtues;

so that, not unworthy and defiled, but with all virtue and wisdom, as with some good escort and most wise priest, we might draw near to God.

And the end of all things is, I think, nothing other than, having been made like to God with a pure mind, to draw near to God and to abide in Him.

Over and above all his other diligence and earnestness, how could I set forth in words his teaching concerning theology, and his reverence—entering into the very disposition of the man, with what mind and preparation he wished us to learn thoroughly all the discourses concerning the Divine, guarding lest we should somehow be in danger concerning the most necessary thing of all, the knowledge of the Cause of all?

For he deemed it right that we should philosophize, reading with all our might everything of the writings both of philosophers and of poets of old, rejecting nothing and disapproving nothing (for we did not yet even have the power of judgement);

except whatever was of the godless, all those who, having tumbled out at once even from human notions, say that there is no God or providence (for these things it is not even worth reading, lest our soul, which is to be pious, be defiled even in passing, hearing arguments contrary to the worship of God;

for not even those who approach the temples should touch at all any of the profane things, by reason of the piety which they suppose they have);

the things of these men, then, are not at all even worth being numbered among men who have undertaken to be pious;

but all the rest he wished us to meet and converse with, having neither preferred nor again rejected any one race or philosophic school, neither Hellenic nor barbarian, but hearing all.

Wisely this, and very skilfully;

lest some one argument of these or those, heard and honoured by itself and alone, even if it happen not to be true, as though it alone were true, slipping into our soul, should deceive it, and disposing it after its own kind should make us its own, no longer able to withdraw or wash ourselves clean, like wools dyed with some fast dye.

For a dreadful thing and supple is the argument of men, manifold in its sophistries and sharp, which, rushing into the ears, both stamps the mind and lays hold of it, and, having persuaded those once snatched up to love it as true and to abide within, even if it be false and deceitful, like some sorcerer holds sway, having the deceived man himself as its champion;

the soul, wearied by the subtlety of the argument in face of the accuracy of examination, often more carelessly surrenders itself to false arguments and doctrines, themselves astray, and leading astray also those who hold them;

and not this only, but even if another argument should wish to set it right, no longer receiving it nor being persuaded otherwise, but held fast by the one within it, as by some inexorable tyrant that has gained the mastery over it.

For did not these very things—the doctrines fighting and opposing one another—introduce the factions of the philosophers, some setting themselves against the doctrines of others, and some holding to one set and others attaching themselves to others;

and though all wish and profess to philosophize, ever since they were first urged on, and say they wish it no less now that they have come to be among the arguments than as when they began it—rather even that they now have a greater love of philosophy, when (as one might say) it has been their lot even to taste it and to spend further time among the arguments, than when at first, being inexperienced, they were then by some impulse roused to philosophize;

though they say these things, yet no longer hearken to any arguments of those of differing opinion? Neither, then, has any one of the ancients urged any of the moderns or of those of the Peripatos to turn to him and to philosophize his philosophy, nor conversely, and in short no one any one.

For one would not easily be persuaded to attach himself, transferring from his own to others'—and these perhaps the very ones which, if he had been persuaded by them before he came to philosophize, he would at the first also have loved;

he was readily persuaded—since, his soul not being preoccupied, he had not yet held fast to arguments—and he would also have loved, similarly being opposed, on account of those, to these which he now holds.

Such things have our fine, most learned and most searching Greeks philosophized, with whatever each one chanced to fall in with from the beginning, driven on by some impulse, saying that these alone are true, and all the rest, of the other philosophers, deception and nonsense;

by argument confirming his own no more than each of the others champions his own—as to there being no need to transfer and to deliberate anew, by necessity or persuasion;

having (if one must speak the truth) no other thing than the irrational impulse, coming from philosophy, toward these doctrines, and (lest it be a paradox to say it) no other judgement of the things he supposes true than blind chance;

each one loving these things which he chanced upon at first, by which as it were bound, he is no longer able to give heed to others;

if indeed he should have anything to say with demonstration of the truth of his own concerning all things, and that the things of the opposite party are false, being aided also by argument—since otherwise unaided, having given himself away and surrendered himself at random as a windfall to the arguments that had forestalled him;

and these tripped up those who held them in other matters too, and indeed also in the greatest and most necessary of all, the knowledge concerning the Divine and piety.

And yet they remain bound in them in a way, and no one could easily rescue them, as out of a shoal in a most broad and hard-to-cross plain, which no longer allows those who have once fallen in either to run back or to cross over and be saved, but holds them within it until death;

or as out of a wood deep, dense and high, into which some wayfarer has entered, intending perhaps to set out again and to bring himself once more into the open beyond the thicket, but by reason of its extent and density is unable, turning about ever so much within it, and finding within certain continuous paths, travels along various ways, as though to set out perhaps through one of them;

but these lead only inward, and in no way to an exit, being certain paths of the wood itself alone;

and at last the wayfarer, worn out and despairing, as though all things had become wood and there were no longer any dwelling-place on earth, wishes to remain there, having set up his hearth, providing for himself as much open space as possible in the wood;

an all-wise contrivance, full of passages and cunningly devised with continuous entrances and exits, yet wishing also to go out he is no longer able, having been caught within by a contrivance that seems to him wise.

And no labyrinth is so hard to thread and intricate, nor wood so dense and intricate, nor plain or shoal, so terrible to master those who draw near, as is argument—if there should be any against these very philosophers.

In order, then, that we might not suffer the same thing as the many, he did not lead us to some one of the philosophic arguments, nor did he deem it right that we should go off after them alone, but he led us to all, wishing us to be untried by no Hellenic doctrine.

And he himself went in with us, leading the way and taking us by the hand, as on a journey, in case anything crooked, unsound and sophistical should meet us;

as a craftsman who, from his long converse with the arguments, is unaccustomed to nothing nor inexperienced in anything, himself aloft remaining in safety, and reaching out a hand to others he kept them safe, as if hauling up men being drowned;

everything that was useful and true of each of the philosophers he gathered and set before us;

but whatever was false he separated out—both the rest, and especially all that was peculiar to men's piety.

Concerning these things he counselled us to give no heed, not even if some all-wise man should be attested by all men, but to give heed to God alone and to His prophets;

himself interpreting and clarifying whatever was dark and enigmatic—as many such things are in the sacred voices (whether because it is thus pleasing to God to converse with men, so that the divine word may not enter naked and uncovered into an unworthy soul, such as the many are; or because every divine oracle is by nature most clear and most simple, but to us, having fallen from God and unlearned how to listen, appears, by reason of time and antiquity, obscure and dark—I cannot say);

but clarifying and bringing into light, whether they happened to be riddles, being a powerful and most intelligent hearer of God;

or whether they had nothing crooked by nature nor unintelligible to him—being thus disposed, alone of men now living (of whom I myself have known and have heard others speak concerning some), having practised to receive in his soul the pure oracles as luminous, and to teach others;

because their Author, the leader of all, who whispers to the prophets, friends of God, and suggests all prophecy and mystic and divine word, so honoured him as to appoint him a friend and spokesman;