駁尤利安 第 1 章 第 2/6 段

For since they beheld Moses as having become full of every virtue, some of those in Egypt, honoring him, I suppose, called him god, or perhaps had somehow learned that which was said to him by the God who is over all:

'Behold, I have made you a god to Pharaoh.'

Concerning antiquity, then, I think — and indeed that the writings of Moses arise before the wisdom honored among the Greeks and hold the more venerable renown — a sufficient argument has been worked out by us, having a demonstration that is irreproachable and clear:

and I say that after this we must inquire carefully into the opinion which the Hebrews have held concerning God and the coming-to-be, or rather the construction, of the world, and then likewise make clear to those who will read what seemed true to the wise men of the Greeks.

For where they agree with the words of the divinely-inspired Scripture, one might observe them to be better than themselves and in agreement with one another:

but where each renders an account of his own private discoveries, it is easy to show them to be at variance and intoxicated with strange opinions.

For it was not possible at all to perceive the things that are beyond mind and beyond the reasonings within us, unless God, who rules over all, both instills light into the mind and engenders wisdom and enlarges the tongue, and, so far as is possible, permits them both to conceive and to express something of the ineffable things concerning himself.

And such grace would not come to all indiscriminately, but rather to those who are beyond the passions of the flesh and freed from earthly impurity, sound in mind, and knowledgeable in the noble deeds that lead to piety.

'Be still, and know that I am God.' And indeed also our Lord Jesus Christ says:

'Blessed are the pure in heart,' he says, 'for they shall see God.'

And the nature that transcends all things would be seen, not with the eyes of the body, but with the hidden inner eyes of the mind, purity instilling in it a subtle and exact refinement, and drawing the rays of the vision of God into apprehensions beyond sense-perception.

Now the men who lived from Adam until Noah honored one God, who by nature and in truth is the demiurge and Lord of all things:

for no one of them is accused of having inclined toward other gods, or of having offered worship to unclean demons.

But after the flood, and the construction of the tower, and the divisions of the tongues, those who were scattered throughout the earth held even this opinion concerning God at variance with one another.

For having removed their mind from the truth and anchored it instead in temporal and earthly matters and in the pleasures of the body, they went off into every kind of the most outlandish thing, and, as it were, divided among themselves the offenses of polytheistic error.

worshipping the stars and the elements of the world, fire and water, air and earth, from which each particular thing is said to be composed:

while others again, having slipped into the utmost ignorance of all, fell into such vulgarity of reasoning that they even built temples and elaborately-wrought precincts with costly materials, set up in them sacred shrines and statues of men, and, having wept over the dead, dared even to consider these dead men gods and to honor them with libations and sacrifices.

Very many indeed, in the course of life, are those who attach to the elements of the world the glory that befits God alone:

and of all others, the Chaldeans are especially confirmed in such a doctrine, and they measure out most elaborately the movement of the stars, and make the flights of birds a pretext for divination.

But, as I have already said, the divinely-inspired Abraham was different from their folly:

for he did not think it right to love and reckon among the things perceived by sense and visible the highest nature of God, that which transcends everything; nor indeed did he err from the truth by enclosing it within created things, but rather, raising it on high and placing it above everything that has been called into being, he was justly admired.

For this reason, indeed, he was also received by God:

for the One who was being sought thereafter made himself manifest to him.

Let us see, then, what sort of opinion the patriarch Abraham is seen to have held, and then who among those after him will be a trustworthy witness for the clarification of the faith and opinion present in him:

but, I think, Moses would suffice for us in this regard, he who was his descendant and, knowing the things Abraham had held as his conviction, deemed it right both to hold these same convictions himself and to hand them down in writing.

Therefore, in composing the book of Genesis, he said that certain men had plundered the territory of the Sodomites, and then, holding Lot captive along with the others, they rejoiced as having been victorious, but they were disappointed of their hope, since Abraham unexpectedly marched out against them, and, having overpowered them by force, freed from captivity those who had once been seized.

And when he was returning from the slaughter of the five kings (for so it is written), the king of the Sodomites, Chedorlaomer, entreated him, saying:

'I will stretch out my hand to the Most High God, who created heaven and earth, that I will take nothing of all that is yours, from a thread even to a sandal-strap, lest you should say, "I have made Abraham rich."' And he crowned him as one who had been victorious.

And the king of Salem, that is, Melchizedek, blessed him, saying:

'Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, who created heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.'

And sending one of his fitting, or rather most well-disposed, servants into the land between the rivers, and commanding him to become the one who would lead the bride for Isaac, he said: 'I will make you swear by the God of heaven and the God of earth.'

The divinely-inspired Abraham, then, knew and clearly confessed that there was one and only God, and he called him Most High, and the maker of the coming-to-be of all things, both those in heaven and those upon earth.

This height, therefore, is not perceptible by sense, nor is it conceived as being in a place, nor is it such as one might take it to be in a bodily sense, but consists in God's presiding over all things in a manner befitting God, and in the fact that by him were made the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, and the firmament itself, and indeed the earth — I mean the element itself.

But if all things came to be by him, then he is surely, in every way, other than all things, and other in nature, since he is neither generated nor indeed from things that are not, but rather ungenerated and eternal, older than all time, and the beginning of all things.

The divinely-inspired Abraham, then, as I have just said, clearly knew there to be one God, and to him alone he rendered pure and undefiled worship.

...the occasion, for the advancement of what had been rightly known, sharpened his understanding — then indeed, then he was instructed more subtly in the doctrines concerning the Godhead:

For he did not learn merely that there is one God and no other besides him, but he was also taught — still, as it were, in types, and almost even perceptibly — that the fullness of the one, unblemished nature is understood in a holy and consubstantial Trinity.

For this is the foundation and unshakeable basis of the doctrines concerning the Godhead.

And the prophet Isaiah confirms us in this very point, saying:

'If you do not believe, neither indeed will you understand.'

But that there is altogether need of instruction through enigmas for those who are only just now approaching such subtle and, as it were, finely-filed conceptions — those concerning God, that is — how could anyone doubt, since not even the wise men among the Greeks were ignorant of this matter? Porphyry, at any rate, who held no ignoble reputation among them for worldly learning, says something of this sort in the first book of his Philosophic History concerning those called wise men, or rather those who had gained a reputation for the appearance of wisdom:

For being unable, he says, to hand down clearly in speech the first forms and the first principles, because of their difficulty of conception and difficulty of expression, they had recourse to numbers for the sake of clear instruction, imitating the geometers and the grammar-teachers;

For just as these, wishing to hand down the powers of the letters and these very things, had recourse to the characters, calling them, for the sake of first instruction, 'elements' -- yet afterward they teach that these characters are not themselves the elements, but that through them a notion is formed of the true elements -- so also the geometers, being unable to represent the incorporeal by reason, have recourse to the drawing of figures, calling this a triangle, not meaning that the thing falling under sight is the triangle, but that it is of such a kind, and through it they represent the notion of the triangle;

So also concerning the first principles and forms the Pythagoreans did the same thing;

not being strong enough to represent by reason the incorporeal things and the first principles, they had recourse to demonstration by means of numbers, and so they called by the name 'One' the principle of unity, and that of identity and equality, and the cause of the concord and sympathy of the universe and of the preservation of that which remains the same and abides in the same condition.

Since, then, the properties and distinctive attributes of the deity are hard to bring forth and hard to express, and not readily open to contemplation, and whatever accounts might be given concerning it would be found altogether small and falling short of the truth, we learn the things concerning it through more vivid figures and types, as through a mirror and in a riddle.

Thus, we say, was the divinely-inspired Abraham instructed;

for it is written thus concerning him:

'And God appeared to him at the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent at midday;'

'And lifting up his eyes he looked, and behold, three men stood over against him; and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and worshipped upon the ground, and said:'

'Lord, if I have found favor before you, do not pass by your servant.'

And he said to him -- so it is written:

'Where is Sarah your wife?' And he answering said:

'I will return to you at this time, when the season comes round, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.'

Now observe: when the divinely-inspired Abraham ran to meet them, he did not speak as though to three, saying:

'Lords, if I have found favor before you, do not pass by your servant' -- he did not address the three thus; rather, he named the three by the single title 'Lord,' as though deeming it right that one alone should come down to lodge with him -- since indeed the three, being as one, spoke again as though from the person of one, saying:

'Where is Sarah your wife?' and, 'I will return to you at this time, when the season comes round.'

Observe then, observe: those who appeared to him were three, each subsisting individually in his own hypostasis, yet by the principle of consubstantiality gathered together into one, and taking such care to conduct their speech in this manner.

But the images of such things are somewhat dim, and fall far short of the truth; nevertheless they have their usefulness for leading us by the hand toward, I say, the things that are beyond mind and speech.

For there is, by common confession, one nature of the deity -- that which is over all, and through all, and in all -- and it is spread out, in the mode of the intellect, into the holy Trinity, venerable and consubstantial: into the Father, I say, and indeed also the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Yet even though each of those named subsists individually -- truly being that which it is also called -- nevertheless the principle of consubstantiality gathers them together into an unvarying nature;

for the Son is begotten of the Father, and is in him and from him by nature; and the Spirit likewise proceeds, being the very own of God the Father, and likewise also of the Son;

for through him the Father sanctifies that which by nature is to be sanctified.

The forefather Abraham, then, was not ignorant of him who is worshipped in the holy Trinity, the demiurge of earth and heaven and of all things, who holds dominion over all.

And those who were born from him, Isaac I mean and Jacob, thought no differently, but following in the footsteps of their father's virtue, became zealots of his faith.

And indeed the blessed Moses, expounding the things concerning them in the Book of Cosmogony, says that the God of all appeared to Jacob, and confirming him in good hopes, said:

'I am the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac.'

And Jacob himself also confessed, saying:

'If the Lord will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, then the Lord shall be my God.'

And these things suffice concerning them;

but I say it is now necessary at last to turn our discourse to the divinely-inspired Moses himself.

For he too proclaims one God, by nature and in truth, not ignorant of him through whom all things were brought into being -- I mean his living and hypostatic Word, and the life-giving Spirit who is in God and from him, sent to creation through the Son;

'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' -- and having thus declared him, more summarily and as it were in brief compass by this saying, to be the maker of the coming-to-be of all things, he elaborates the narrative further, and has shown that through the living Word of God who holds dominion over all, the things that once were not were brought forth into existence, and are given life also in the Spirit.

'Let there be light,' and there was light;

'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water,' and it was so;

and in each of the things that came to be, one might observe the Father saying, 'Let this or that thing come to be,' while bringing forth through the Word into being whatever he wills, without any delay at all;

for the Word of God is living and active, and even if he but nods assent, that which is willed comes to be.

'And the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was upon the deep, and the Spirit of God was borne above the water;'

he therefore makes mention, most clearly, of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and in other ways too proclaims the one deity, both by nature and in truth, within the holy and consubstantial Trinity.

Upon the Sodomites, who had committed unbearable transgressions, he sent down fire: 'The Lord,' it says, 'rained down upon Sodom fire and brimstone from the Lord.'

But indeed I think it right to bring forward also that other point -- I would say -- one of those most especially profitable to those who will read this.

For it is written thus concerning the formation of man:

'Let us make man according to our image and likeness'; then a little after:

'And God made man; according to the image of God he made him.'

For the Son is the image of God the Father, to whom we also have been conformed in the mode of the intellect; and human nature has been enriched with this excellence;

for the beauty of him who fashioned it shines forth in it.

What then would they say -- those who set themselves up against our arguments, feigning piety by agreeing that God is one and alone, yet not that he has also begotten the Son from himself? To whom did God say:

'Let us make man according to our image and likeness'? Will one not reckon that the holy and consubstantial Trinity itself makes these statements to itself -- the all-wise Moses wishing to show that the formation of man came about with God not without forethought, but, one might almost say, honored with deliberations? For the divine and undefiled mind would have no need of deliberation, hesitation, or inquiry concerning anything whatsoever;

for whatever he wills, at once that very thing is rightly and unimpeachably so.

But human nature has been honored, as I said, with what might be called deliberations.

But let us not pass over in silence the words of the impious either.

For perhaps they would say at once, in response to these things:

'It is not, as you yourself suppose and deem right to think, that the Father spoke to his own Word and the Spirit, but to certain gods who exist alongside him, second and lesser.'

And yet, how is it not evident to everyone that even those accustomed to philosophize in the manner of the Greeks agreed in holding that there is one God, the demiurge of all things and by nature beyond all things, but that other gods, as they themselves say -- both intelligible and sensible -- were made by him and brought forth into being? And indeed Plato says most clearly:

'In my judgment, then, one must first distinguish what is that which always is and has no coming-to-be, and what is that which is always becoming, but never is.'

'The former is apprehended by understanding together with reason, ever being in the same state; the latter, again, is opined by opinion together with unreasoning sense-perception, coming to be and perishing, but never truly being.'

Now by 'that which always is and has no coming-to-be' he names the supreme nature, superior to having been made -- I mean, of course, the true and existing God of all things;

for thus, indeed, he himself also somewhere says to the hierophant Moses:

And 'that which is becoming, but never is' -- that which was brought from non-being into existence by a certain ineffable and inconceivable power of God, who fashioned by his art this whole universe.

It is established, then -- and has been shown to me with great clarity, not only from our own sacred Scriptures but also from what they themselves have known to think and say -- that all things were brought forth by God into being, and that he himself has allotted to himself a nature not of one kind with the things that have come to be.

For that which is made is inferior, and by nature always stands somewhere in a lesser rank than that which made it.

Our argument concerning these matters standing thus, what then, pray, do those say who suspect that the God of all things spoke to other gods?

For demiurge and creation would be reckoned as differing in nature, superiority, and worth -- a nature originate and a nature unoriginate, incorruptible and subject to corruption -- if indeed it may be said without falsehood that whatever is conceived as being in a state of coming-to-be must in every way and altogether also be subject to the necessity of being corrupted.

For the divinely-inspired Moses, through the mystagogical guidance of the Holy Spirit, looking toward things that were to come, took thought beforehand for our own affairs -- and in what manner I shall now say:

For since the one, ineffable, and inconceivable nature of God is conceived in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that is, in the consubstantial Trinity -- lest anyone, carried away from what was fitting through very great foolishness, should say that man was made according to the image and likeness of God, but not still also of the Son (for it would likewise be plausible to suppose the reverse, that man came to be according to the likeness of the Son, but not still also of the Father) -- Moses, having foreseen, as I said, the sophistries that would at some time be devised by certain persons, said that the holy Trinity itself spoke to itself:

'Let us make man according to our image and likeness' -- so that man might be understood as having been formed, evidently in the mode of the intellect, in conformity with the whole ineffable nature of the deity.

But they, though excessively conceited in their own supposed wisdom, think these things to be mere nonsense, and, because of an exceeding great stupidity that keeps the light of truth from ever touching them, they insist, perhaps, that he directed his utterance to certain falsely-named and spurious gods.

And yet, is it not fitting to consider carefully that the demiurge by nature would not have granted the surpassing dignity of his own glory and preeminence to the nature of the things that have come to be? And we do not at all say this from any supposed envy on his part -- whence, indeed? -- but because the nature of the things that have been made could never attain to the preeminence of the divine dignities, nor, I think, could it ever be enriched, and this essentially, with those things which belong most especially and peculiarly to the ineffable nature alone.

And it is absurd also in another way to suppose that the King and Lord of all things spoke to other gods, saying:

'Let us make man according to our image and likeness.'

Leaving aside, then, the nonsense in these matters, let us proceed to this: that one must confess together that the fullness of the ineffable deity is to be conceived within the holy and consubstantial Trinity, and that we have been formed in conformity with the true and most exact image of the Father, that is, with the Son; and his divine beauty is imprinted upon our souls through participation in the Holy Spirit;

For indeed he is in us, even as the Son himself is.

For the Spirit is the truth, according to what is written:

Thus has the all-wise Moses truly initiated us into the mysteries, and those who came after him — the holy prophets and apostles and evangelists — have held no views apart from his.

One and the same manner of theology is seen in all of them, and one could not at all discover them at variance with one another in any respect whatsoever.

For having truly been divinely inspired, they speak the things that come from the one Holy Spirit; and concerning this our Lord Jesus Christ, speaking most clearly in them, allows us no room to doubt:

"It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of our Father speaking in you."

…we are accustomed to accord it its fitting place — and this is far from being so!

but we also reckon ourselves among the children of Abraham.

For we are the sons according to the promise, and Paul, writing to persuade us of this, says:

"For not all who are of Israel are Israel, nor because they are the seed of Abraham are they therefore all children; but the children of the promise are reckoned as the seed."

Now it would be no difficult matter to add very many further things to what has been said concerning our devout religion and the blameless belief which we hold regarding the God who rules over all.

But since reason, in its skill, persuades us to assign to each of our subjects its own fitting limits, I shall for the present set those matters aside and turn rather to the need of speaking about the affairs of the Greeks, of investigating closely what is found among them, and of making an exact test of each man's opinion.

Orpheus, then, the son of Oeagrus, they say, was the most superstitious of all the rest, and preceded the poetry of Homer, being indeed older in time; and he wove songs and hymns for the falsely-named gods, and thereby won a reputation not without wonder; then, having condemned his own doctrines, and perceiving that, having all but abandoned the highway, he had strayed off the straight road, he passed over to better things and chose truth in place of falsehood, and spoke thus concerning God:

"I will speak to those for whom it is lawful; but you, all you profane alike, shut fast the doors;

and you, Musaeus, offspring of light-bringing Selene, listen;

and let not what formerly appeared in your breast rob you of your dear span of life.

But looking to the divine word, attend to it, directing the intellectual vessel of your heart, and set your foot rightly upon the path, and gaze upon the Lord of the cosmos alone;

he is one, self-begotten; all things are the offspring of the One; and he himself abides and prevails within them;

no mortal beholds him, but he himself beholds all.

For he himself is fixed in the brazen heaven upon a golden throne, and his feet stand upon the earth;

and he has stretched forth his right hand to the very bounds of Ocean, on every side;

for around him tremble the towering mountains, and the rivers, and the depth of the grey, gleaming sea."

He names, then, one God — and this one self-begotten — reigning through all things and over all things; and he says that heaven is his throne, while the earth lies beneath his feet, wishing thereby, I think, to signify the boundlessness of that incorruptible nature, and that it comes through all things and fills all things.

And that he grasps the universe entirely would be intimated by the very fact that his hand is stretched out even to the bounds of Ocean itself, while the mountains and the sea and, in short, the whole cosmos tremble.

For as the God-inspired Scripture says:

"All the earth calls upon truth, and heaven blesses her, and all works are shaken and tremble."

Such, then, are the words of Orpheus in these verses.

As for Homer, best of the poets, one might say, I think, that he differed little from those who dance upon the stage;

for lovers of spectacle say that such dancers, being accustomed to give form to the natures of things through postures and gestures, seem to those who watch almost to display the very things themselves as present;

and he too has made it his practice to deify the virtues and the vices, and the parts of the world, and the very nature of the elements.

And indeed he says that the gods once clashed with one another at Ilium, and he clearly declares who stood arrayed against whom:

"Against lord Poseidon indeed stood Phoebus Apollo, holding his winged arrows;

and against Enyalius stood the grey-eyed goddess Athena;

and against Hera stood the golden-shafted, clamorous Artemis, the arrow-pourer, sister of the Far-Shooter;

and against Leto stood the strong, helpful Hermes;

and against Hephaestus stood the great, deep-eddying river."

Observe, then, in these verses, quite clearly, how he is eager to show, in a certain manner, the virtues rising up against the vices.

…as the crafty one of many wiles, and that Leto likewise is to be understood as Forgetfulness, and Hermes as Memory and Reason;

Then he takes up natural philosophy, and expounds the difference of the elements from one another, saying:

"Against lord Poseidon indeed stood Phoebus Apollo, holding his winged arrows;

and against Hera stood the golden-shafted, clamorous [Artemis]…

and against Hephaestus stood the great, deep-eddying river."

For here too it seems to me that by Poseidon he means the moist essence, by Apollo the sun, by Hera the air, by the golden-shafted, clamorous one the moon, by Hephaestus fire, and that the river stands, as it were, in the place of the cold.

But even though the love of myth-making is very great in him, we shall nevertheless find that he was not altogether ignorant of the truth;

"not even if a god himself should promise me, having scraped away old age, to make me young and blooming again."

For he says, somewhere, that not even if one of the gods should promise him the removal of old age, and the recovery of youth once more —

he has reserved this power for the God who is over all alone, ascribing to his powers alone the ability to accomplish all things effortlessly, even things beyond hope and beyond our own reckoning.

"Not even," he says, "if a god himself should promise me" —

for the phrase "a god himself" would not point to any one of those fashioned in myths, but would rather signify God himself alone, the one who truly exists.

Such, then, is thought to have been Homer's belief and speech; let us now proceed also to those solemn and beetle-browed men who have won no ignoble reputation for a semblance of wisdom among the sons of the Greeks.

Porphyry, then — who has poured out bitter words against us, and all but danced in mockery over the Christian religion — says that those called "the Wise," seven in number, seized this title for the following reason;

and he writes thus in the first book of his "History of Philosophy":

"There being nine such men, seven were called wise for the following reason.

A fisherman having sold a catch of fish to some young men, it happened that a golden tripod was found in the catch;

and when the fisherman said that he had sold fish, and not a tripod, while the young men attributed the find to their own good fortune, it was resolved to refer the judgment to the god;

and when the god gave the oracle to give the tripod to the wise man, the tripod was first brought to Thales; but he sent it on to Bias, declaring that he was the wise one;

and he sent it to another, and that one to yet another, until the tripod, having gone round to all seven, returned again to the first; then it was resolved to dedicate it to the god;

for he was the wisest of all."

What sort of opinions these men held, then, shall be told by us in due course.

For he too maintains that God is Mind, though existing in spherical fire, and that he is the soul of the world;

but Anaximander, going, as it were, an altogether different road, defines the infinite worlds themselves as god — I know not what he means by saying this.

But the one who possesses the greatest, and not unadmirable, skill in probing concepts to their depths — I mean Aristotle of Stagira, the disciple of Plato — names God a separate Form, yet maintains that he is set upon the sphere of the universe.

Moreover, those called the Stoics say that God is an artistic fire, proceeding methodically toward the coming-to-be of the world.

Plutarch has written of these matters, as have others among their chosen men, and also the one bold against us, Porphyry.