講辭選（辯護辭/論洗禮/巴西流葬辭） 第 1-1 章 第 2/4 段

but in the case of others it is better even to overlook some things, so as, while seeing, not to see, and, while hearing, not to hear, according to the proverb—lest we provoke them to desperation by drowning them in a zeal for reproofs, and in the end make them reckless toward everything, having dissolved their sense of shame, which is the very medicine of persuasion.

And indeed one must even be angry with some, without being angry;

and show disdain, without disdaining;

and despair of some, without despairing—wherever their nature so requires.

And others must be treated with gentleness and humility, and by joining them in eagerness toward the more cheerful hopes.

And as for some, to conquer them, but as for others, to be vanquished, is often more profitable;

and the abundance and power of some, but the poverty or ill fortune of others, must be either praised or deprecated.

For it is not as with virtue and vice—that the one is always and to all most noble and most beneficial, while the other is most base and most harmful;

so it is not with our medicine, that one and the same thing is shown to be always and for the same persons the most healthful, or the most perilous;

such as severity, or gentleness, or each of the other things I have enumerated.

But to some this is good and useful, while to others, again, the contrary—according, I suppose, as the occasions and circumstances may coincide, and as the disposition of those being treated may admit.

Now to distinguish all these things by reasoning, and to discern them with the utmost precision, so as to comprehend the whole treatment under a single rule, is impossible, even if one attains to the greatest diligence and intelligence;

but it is in the very experience and practice of these matters that it becomes manifest to the healing word and to the man who applies it.

And in general this is plain to us: that, just as for those who walk upon a rope stretched aloft on high it is not safe to lean to this side or to that, and the inclination, even if it seem small, carries them to no small consequence, but their safety consists in keeping the balance even;

so also in these matters, whichever way a man inclines, whether through vice or through ignorance, there is no ordinary danger both to himself and to those whom he leads, in the fall of sin.

But we must truly walk by the king's highway, and look well about us, turning aside neither to the right nor to the left, as the Proverbs say.

to one who will know the souls of his flock, and will lead them according to the principles of shepherding—the right and just kind, worthy of our true Shepherd.

And as for the very dispensing of the word—that I may mention last what is first among our concerns, I mean that divine and lofty word which all now make their study—if anyone else is so bold as to suppose it within the reach of every mind, I marvel at his intelligence, not to say his simplicity.

To me, at least, it seems no trivial matter, nor one requiring but little of the Spirit, to give to each one his measure of the word in due season, and to dispense with discernment the truth of our doctrines:

all that has been philosophically taught concerning worlds, or the world, concerning matter, the soul, the mind, and the intelligent natures both higher and lower, concerning the Providence that binds together and governs all things, all that seems to accord with reason, and all that runs counter to our lower, human reason;

and further, all concerning our first formation and our final refashioning, concerning types and truth, concerning covenants, and the first and second coming of Christ, His incarnation, sufferings, and dissolution; all concerning the resurrection, the end, the judgment and the recompense, both the more sorrowful and the more glorious;

and—the chief point of all—what must be held concerning the sovereign and blessed Trinity;

which indeed is the greatest of perils for those entrusted with the work of enlightening: lest, fearing polytheism, they collapse the Word into a single hypostasis and leave us with bare names alone, supposing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be one and the same;

nor, on the other hand, dividing Him into three—either alien and foreign to one another, or disordered and without origin, or, so to speak, gods opposed to one another—lest they fall from the contrary extreme into an equal evil;

as a plant, when twisted, bends far to one side.

For there are at present three maladies concerning theology: atheism, Judaism, and polytheism. Of the first, Sabellius the Libyan became the champion; of the second, Arius of Alexandria; and of the third, certain among ourselves who are over-orthodox.

What, then, is my counsel? That we escape what is harmful in all three and abide within the bounds of true godliness; that we be not drawn by this novel resolving or compounding into the atheism of Sabellius, defining all things to be rather one than each to be nothing;

for that which by mutual interchange and transition into one another ceases to be what it is, escapes from existence altogether;

nor that we sketch out and fashion for ourselves a composite and absurd God, like the fabulous beasts of mythology;

nor again, dividing the natures after the manner of that madness which has been so aptly named after Arius, that we be shut up into Jewish poverty and introduce envy into the divine nature, circumscribing the Godhead to the Unbegotten alone, as though we feared lest our God should be destroyed in being the Father of a true God, equal to Him in nature in honour;

nor again, setting up three principles in opposition to one another or in mere coordination, that we introduce the polytheism of the Greeks, from which we have fled.

For of whom would He be Father, if the Son were separated and estranged from Him in nature, together with the creation? For sonship does not imply alienation. Or if the Son were merged into the Father and confounded with Him—which is the same as to say, confounding Him?

nor, on the other hand, so excessively Christ-loving as not even for Him to preserve His being a Son;

(for of whom would He be Son, if He were not referred to the Father as His origin?) nor that we strip from the Father the dignity of being the origin—the dignity that belongs to Him as Father and Begetter;

for then He would be the origin of small and unworthy things—or rather, would be so in a small and unworthy way—if He were not the origin of the Godhead and goodness which is beheld in the Son and the Spirit:

the one as Son and Word, the other as Procession and as indissoluble Spirit.

since indeed it is necessary both to keep the one God and to confess the three hypostases, each with its own distinctive property.

These things, then, would require a longer time than the present occasion—indeed, I think, than a whole lifetime—both to grasp and to set forth in a manner sufficient and worthy;

or rather, both now and ever they require the Spirit, by whom alone God is conceived, interpreted, and heard.

For only by the pure may the Pure and ever-unchanging One be touched.

But the reason for which we have now briefly treated these things is this: to show that it is exceedingly difficult—especially before a multitude, when discoursing on matters so great, a multitude composed of every kind of age and disposition, like some many-stringed instrument requiring varied notes—to find a word capable of fitting all together and of illuminating them with the light of knowledge;

not only because, the peril being shaken in these three—thought, word, and hearing—it is inevitable to stumble in one at least of them, even if not in all;

for either the mind has not been illumined, or the word has failed, or the unpurified hearing has not received it;

and from any one of these, as from them all alike, the truth must needs come away lame;

but also because that very thing which, for those who profess to teach anything else, makes their discourse easiest and most readily accepted—namely, the reverent disposition of the hearers—here becomes the loss and the danger.

For inasmuch as they regard the contest as being about God and the greatest of all that exists, about salvation itself and the first hope of all, the more fervent they are in faith, the more resistant they are to the word; and reckoning compliance to be a betrayal of the truth rather than piety, they would sooner give up anything than the reasonings they have brought from home, and the habit of those doctrines in which they have been brought up.

And I say this still of the more moderate, those whose passion is not wholly evil: who, even if they err from the truth, yet because they suffer this through reverence, and have zeal—though not according to knowledge—may perhaps be among those not too severely condemned, nor beaten with many stripes, like those who fall away from the Master's will through malice and wickedness.

And perhaps these might sometime be persuaded otherwise and be changed by the very same reverence by which they once resisted, if some word should lay hold of them, striking timely either from within or from without, as iron strikes flint, upon a mind that is pregnant and worthy of the light;

in which, even from a tiny spark, the beacon of the truth might most swiftly blaze forth.

But what could one say of those who, through vainglory or love of power, speak unrighteousness against the heights—the boastings of some Jannes or Jambres, who arm themselves not against Moses but against the truth, and rise up in revolt against sound doctrine? Or of that third class, who, through ignorance and the rashness that follows upon it, charge headlong against every argument with swinish fury, and trample underfoot the fair pearls of the truth?

Or of all those who, bringing no preconception of their own from home, nor any pattern of the doctrines concerning God, whether worse or better, but subjecting themselves to all teachers and all teachings—as though they would select from all the better and safer—yet trusting in themselves as poor judges of the truth;

and then, carried about and whirled now this way, now that, by mere plausibility, washed over and trodden down by every argument, having changed many teachers and many writings, casting them off as easily as dust before the winds; at last, wearied out in both ear and mind (O the unreasonableness!), they come to be displeased alike with every word, and stamp upon themselves a perverse character—to mock and despise our very faith as unstable and having nothing sound in it, passing in their ignorance from the speakers to the message itself;

just as if a man whose eyes were diseased, or whose ears were impaired, should blame the sun or the sounds—the one as dim and not shining, the others as tuneless and feeble.

And for this reason it is easier to engrave truth afresh upon a soul, as upon wax not yet stamped, than to write over other writing—I mean over wicked teachings and doctrines—a godly word, so that the latter becomes confused and disordered by the former.

For it is better to tread a road that is smooth and well-worn than one untrodden and rough, and to plough land that the plough has often cut and tamed;

but to write upon a soul which no wicked word has yet engraved, nor into whose depths the letters of evil have been stamped—

for then two tasks would fall to the God-fearing calligrapher: both to erase the former characters and to inscribe in their place those more approved and more worthy to remain.

So many, then, are the wicked—both as regards the other passions and as regards the word itself—and so many are the marks and characters of the evil one;

and so great is the task laid upon him who has been entrusted with this tutelage and oversight of souls.

And the discourse has passed over the greater part, lest it become more lengthy than is needful.

Just as, then, if someone should attempt to lead and to tame a beast composed of many beasts—of many kinds and many forms, larger and smaller, gentler and wilder—it would surely be a labour for him, and no small struggle, to govern a nature so uneven and so strange, since each of the beasts delights neither in the same calls, nor the same food, nor the same touch of the hand, nor the same whistlings, nor the same modes of the rest of its training, but different ones in different things, taking pleasure or feeling distress as the nature and habit of each may be;

what then would the keeper of such a beast have to do? What else but to be manifold and varied in his skill, and to apply to each the appropriate treatment, so that the beast might be well guided by him and kept safe? In just this way, this common body of the Church—composed of many and diverse characters and minds, as of a single creature compounded and dissimilar—makes it utterly necessary that its ruler too be both simple and consistent in his uprightness toward all,

and at the same time most manifold and varied in his adaptation to each, and suited and fitting in his manner of conversation toward all.

For some need to be nourished with milk, with the simpler and more elementary of the teachings—those who in their disposition are babes and newly formed, as one might say, unable to bear the manly food of the word;

which, if one were to set before them beyond their strength, perhaps, being weighed down and burdened—their understanding being insufficient, just as in the body matter cannot draw in and assimilate what comes upon it from without—they would suffer loss even in their original strength;

but others, needing the wisdom that is spoken among the perfect, and the higher and more solid food—their senses being sufficiently exercised to discern between true and false—if they were given milk to drink and fed with vegetables, with the food of the weak, would be displeased.

And quite reasonably so, since they are not being strengthened according to Christ, nor growing with that praiseworthy growth which the word effects, perfecting a man and bringing him to the measure of spiritual maturity—him, that is, who is well nourished.

And for these things, who is sufficient? For we are not, like so many, able to peddle the word of truth and to mix the wine with water,

diluting the word that gladdens a man's heart with what is cheap and abundant, that crawls upon the ground and quickly fades and flows aimlessly—so as to gain some private profit from such hucksterism, speaking now this way, now that, to those near at hand, and to all merely to please them;

being like ventriloquists and empty babblers, pandering to their own pleasures with words that are uttered out of the earth and sink down into the earth;

so that we may stand especially well in the esteem of the multitude, precisely insofar as we do them the most harm, or even destroy them, and pour out the innocent blood of simpler souls—blood that will be required at our hands.

It is better to be reasonable and discerning than to wag an untrained tongue.

Having reasoned thus with ourselves—counsellors perhaps not contemptible, or at least well-meaning—and recognizing that we do not know what ought to be said and done, much less are we ignorant of how to teach, we made our decision.

For it is something to be cherished if a man's word, hoary with age, should reach even to deep old age, and be able to benefit a soul that is young in godliness.

For to attempt to instruct others before one has oneself been sufficiently instructed, and—as the saying goes—to learn the potter's craft on a wine-jar, that is, to practise godliness in the souls of others, seems to me the mark of men exceedingly foolish or exceedingly reckless;

foolish, if they do not even perceive their own ignorance;

reckless, if, even understanding it, they yet presume upon the undertaking.

Now the wiser among the Hebrews say that there was of old a certain law among the Hebrews—and one held in the highest regard and much praised—that not every age should be granted access to every Scripture;

for this would not be more profitable, since not every part is at once apprehensible by everyone, and the deeper portions, by their surface appearance, might do the greatest harm to the multitude;

but those from the very beginning were thrown open to all and held in common—those whose literal sense too is not unworthy;

while the others were to be entrusted to none but those past their twenty-fifth year: namely, all those which, beneath a mean garment, veil a mystic beauty—a prize of diligent toil and a shining life—flashing forth and appearing only to those cleansed in mind; since this age alone is able to rise above the body and to ascend rightly from the letter to the spirit.

But for us there is no rule for teaching and being taught, as there once was for the stones, divided between the tribes beyond Jordan and the tribes on this side of Jordan;

nor is one thing to be permitted to some and another to others;

nor is there any canon of qualifications.

But the matter has been so cast aside and thrown into confusion, and we are in so wretched a state, that most of us—not to say all—before we have well-nigh shed our first hair and ceased to lisp like children, before we have entered the divine courts, before we have come to know so much as the names of the sacred books, before we have learned to recognize the character of the New and Old Testaments and their authors,

—O the pretension to the chief seat, and the conceit of mind!

Samuel was holy even from his swaddling-clothes;

but we are at once wise men and teachers, lofty in divine things, foremost among scribes and doctors of the law; we ordain ourselves as heavenly, and seek to be called rabbi by men; the letter counts for nothing, everything must be understood spiritually, and dreams are mere expansive nonsense.

And we should be indignant, were we not exceedingly praised.

Such are the more honest and simpler among us;

but what of the more 'spiritual' and 'noble' sort? Having heaped much condemnation upon us, if it so please them, and put us to the test, and reckoned us as nothing, they departed, spurning communion with us as with men of no godliness.

But if we say to one of them thus, gently and reasonably leading him on:

'Tell me, my excellent friend, do you call dancing and flute-playing something?' 'Certainly,' he would say.

'And what of wisdom, and being wise—that which we define as the knowledge of things divine and human?' This too they will grant.

'And which is the better and loftier thing—these compared with wisdom, or wisdom far surpassing these?' And I know well that they will say wisdom is of all things the best;

and thus far they are reasonable.

Is it then so, that for dancing and flute-playing there is teaching and learning, and time is needed for it, and much sweat and toil, and one must sometimes pay fees, find sponsors, travel far abroad, and do all manner of things and suffer others, by which experience is gathered;

while wisdom, which presides over all, and gathers and holds in itself all that is good—so that God Himself is said to delight in being called by this name more than by any other, since He is called by many names—this we shall suppose to be so trifling and trodden-down a thing that one need only wish, and lo, he is wise? This is the mark of great ignorance.

If we say these things to them, and little by little cleanse away their error—I or some other of the more teachable and intelligent—it is, as the saying goes, sowing upon rocks and speaking into the ears of those who will not hear.

So far are they from being wise even in this one thing—to recognize their own want of instruction.

And it seems to me fitting to apply to them the saying of Solomon:

'There is an evil which I have seen under the sun: a man who seemed wise in his own eyes;'

and what is worse than this, that one entrusted with the instruction of others should not even be aware of his own ignorance.

This affliction, if any, is worthy of tears and groaning;

and I myself have often bewailed it, knowing well that opinion robs being of the greater part, and that vainglory is for men a great hindrance to virtue.

To heal and stay this disease would be the task of some Peter or Paul, those great disciples of Christ, who together with governance in word and deed had received the gift, and became all things to all men, that they might gain them all;

but for the rest of us it is much, if even we ourselves are well governed and guided by those entrusted to set such things right and direct them.

Passing over all these, let us set forward Paul alone as our witness for the argument, and in him let us behold how great a thing is the care of souls, and whether it is a slight business or one requiring little understanding.

And that we may most easily come to know and discern this, let us hear what Paul himself says concerning Paul.

I forbear to speak of his labours, his watchings, his fears, his hardships in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness; of those who plotted against him from without, and those who worked against him from within.

I pass over the persecutions, the councils, the prisons, the bonds, the accusers, the tribunals, the deaths he faced day by day and hour by hour; the basket, the stonings, the beatings with rods, his journeyings to and fro; the perils on land, the perils on the sea, the deep, the shipwrecks, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from his own kindred, perils among false brethren; his life lived by the labour of his hands, the gospel preached without charge—how he became a spectacle to angels and to men, standing as a mediator between God and men;

contending on behalf of the one, and bringing near and making His own a peculiar people for the other—and all this apart from the things that are without.

Of these things, who could worthily recount the daily oversight, the care for each individual, the anxiety for all the churches, the sympathy and brotherly love toward all? Someone was made to stumble, and Paul was weakened;

another was offended, and Paul was the one set on fire.

And what of the diligence of his teaching? the variety of his treatment? his loving-kindness? and again his severity? the blending and tempering of the two together—so as neither to soften by gentleness nor to harden by harshness?

—he became all things to all men—to the uncircumcised, to Christ and to the world, to the flesh and to the spirit.

For some he gives thanks, while others he rebukes.

Some he names his joy and his crown, while others he charges with folly.

With those who walk uprightly he journeys and presses forward in eager fellowship; but those who walk ill he holds back.

Now he excommunicates, now he ratifies love;

now he gives milk to drink, now he handles the mysteries;

now he descends to their level, now he raises them up to himself;

now he threatens with the rod, now he holds forth a spirit of gentleness;

now he is lifted up among the lofty, now he is humbled among the lowly;

at one moment he is the least of the apostles, at another he offers proof of the Christ who speaks in him;

at one moment he longs for his departure and is poured out as a drink offering;

at another he judges it more needful for their sake to remain in the flesh;

for he seeks not his own, but that of his children, whom he begot in Christ through the Gospel.

This is the very rule of all spiritual leadership: everywhere to overlook one's own interest for the benefit of others.

He boasts in his weaknesses and afflictions;

as in some other adornment, he glories in the dying of Jesus;

he is exalted above carnal things, and exults in the things of the Spirit;

no novice in knowledge, yet he says that he sees through a glass and in a riddle.

He takes courage in the Spirit, yet he buffets his body, subduing it as an adversary;

what does he teach us in these things, and what does he train us in? Not to set our minds on things below, not to be puffed up by knowledge, not to rouse the flesh against the spirit.

He fights for all, he prays for all, he is jealous for all, he is set ablaze on behalf of all—both those without the law and those under the law;

a herald to the Gentiles, a champion of the Jews.

He even dared something yet greater on behalf of his brethren according to the flesh—so that I too may dare to speak thus:

out of love he prays that these might be brought in to take his own place before Christ.

O the fervor of the Spirit!

He imitates Christ, who became a curse for us, who took up our weaknesses and bore our diseases;

or, to put it more modestly, he accepts to suffer something on their behalf and to be reckoned as ungodly, first after Christ, if only these might be saved.

And why should I recount each thing? For living not to himself, but to Christ and to the preaching, having crucified the world to himself and being crucified to the world and to the things seen, he counts all things small and less than his desire;

whether he fulfills the Gospel from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum, whether he is caught up by rapture to the third heaven, whether he becomes a spectator of paradise, whether he is a hearer of words unutterable to us.

Such was Paul, and such is anyone who is like him in the Spirit.

But as for us, we are afraid—in contrast to these—lest we be foolish rulers of Tanis, or extortioners gleaning the gleanings, or falsely pronouncing the people blessed;

and I will add, also being pronounced blessed ourselves, while troubling the path of your feet;

or mockers lording it over others, or youthful leaders immature in judgment, having no more provision than bread and a garment to qualify them to guide any;

or prophets teaching lawless things, or rulers who are disobedient, deserving with their fathers to be ill spoken of because of the harshness of the famine;

or priests utterly far from speaking to the heart of Jerusalem—all of which things Isaiah, who was cleansed by the Seraph and the live coal, rightly reproaches and bears witness against.

Is then the work so great and so toilsome to a sensitive and sorrowful heart, and truly, to anyone who has understanding, a moth gnawing the bones?

And is the danger small, or the fall to be lightly regarded? Nay, much fear is stretched out over me: on the one hand the blessed Hosea, declaring that the judgment is against us, the priests and the rulers, because we have become a snare to the watchtower and as a net spread upon Itabyrion—a net which has been fixed fast by those who hunt the souls of men—threatening to mow down the worthless prophets and to consume their judges with fire, and to restrain himself a little from anointing king and rulers;

because they made themselves kings, but not through Him.

On the other hand, the divine Micah, who could not bear to see Zion built with bloodshed of whatever kind, and Jerusalem with injustices—her leaders judging for bribes, her priests answering for hire, and her prophets divining for silver;

in return for which, what will come to pass? Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become as a storehouse of fruit, and the mountain of the house shall be reckoned as a grove of the forest;

and he laments the desolation of the upright, so that scarcely anywhere is a stalk or a gleaning left;

as he says, 'Save me, O Lord, for the godly man has ceased;'

wherefore good things also shall fail them, being consumed as if by a moth.

And Joel commands us to lament, and wills that those who minister at the altar should mourn, when famine presses hard;

so far is he from allowing them to live in luxury amid the calamities of others;

and besides sanctifying a fast and proclaiming a healing, he bids them gather the elders, the infants, the pitiable ages, and even those who have taken refuge in the temple, in ashes and sackcloth, cast down very lowly upon the ground, because the plains had been wasted by barrenness, and drink offering and sacrifice had been cut off from the house of the Lord—that by humility they might draw down mercy.

And what of Habakkuk? He lays hold of yet more fervent words, and grows impatient even toward God Himself, and as it were cries out against the kind Master because of the injustice of the judges;

'How long, O Lord, shall I cry out,' he says, 'and Thou wilt not hear? I shall cry out to Thee, being wronged, and Thou wilt not save? Why hast Thou shown me toils and pains, to look upon misery and ungodliness? Judgment has come forth against me, and the judge takes a bribe.'

Then follows the threat, and what comes upon these things:

'Behold, ye despisers, and look, and wonder at marvelous things, and vanish away, for I am working a work.'

And why must I cite all the words of threatening? But a little before that—

for this seems to me better to add to what has been said—

having called back and bewailed many of those who are in any way unjust and wicked, at last he calls back also the leaders and teachers of depravity, naming wickedness a turbid overthrow and a drunkenness and wandering of the mind;

and he says that their neighbors are made to drink by them of these things, so that they look upon the darkness of their soul, and the dens of reptiles and beasts, the dwelling-places of wicked thoughts.

Such indeed are these men, and with such lessons do they converse with us.

And how is it right to pass over Malachi? Now he bitterly accuses the priests and reproaches them as despising the name of the Lord;