傳道書講道 第 1 章 第 7/8 段

But whether the text philosophizes concerning beings according to the contemplation already examined by us, or teaches such things as these through this counsel, in every respect the saying contains what is beneficial and useful — tearing asunder, at the proper time, those things whose conjunction is evil, and again joining together, at the proper time, those things whose union is beneficial.

Let us proceed, then, to what follows in the text, through which it seems to me that the meaning contemplated according to the loftier philosophy fits more properly with the letter itself.

For the time to keep silence is set first, and after the silence he gave the time to speak.

When, then, and concerning what things is silence better? One of those who look to moral character might say that in many respects silence is more becoming than speech — just as Paul distinguishes the proper occasion of silence and of speech, at one time legislating silence, at another permitting speech.

"Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth;

but only such as is good for building up the faith, that it may give grace to those who hear."

This is the time for speaking.

"Let the women keep silence in the churches."

Again he gave the occasion to silence.

"But if they wish to learn anything of what they do not know, let them ask their own husbands at home."

Again he indicated the proper occasion for speech.

"Do not lie to one another."

And this too is an occasion for silence.

"Let each one speak the truth with his neighbor."

Again, the license for speech.

And many such things could also be cited from the older scripture.

"When the sinner stood up against me, I was struck dumb, and I was humbled, and I kept silence from good things," and "As one deaf, I did not hear, and as one mute, not opening his mouth."

And "when the sinner stood up" he became voiceless — that is, the one who remains unmoved with regard to repaying evil for evil; but in matters where it is fitting to make use of speech, he "opens his mouth in parables," "utters hard sayings," "fills his mouth with praise," and "makes his tongue a pen."

But what need is there, when the examples in scripture are countless, to labor minutely over things already agreed upon? What occurred to my mind before all this — that the proper occasion for silence and for speech accords with the contemplation already given concerning the tearing and the sewing — this I wish to take up again and state briefly.

For there too, having torn the soul away from the evil thing to which it had been badly joined, the text led it, through attachment, to the knowledge of him who truly is — which the preceding discourse declared to be beyond speech; and here, too, it seems to me that silence is set first for this very reason: because that which is beyond every thought and name — which the soul, once torn away from evil, both seeks continually and longs to be sewn to, once it has been found — is higher than every interpretive utterance.

This is what the contentious person, in attempting to drag it down under the signification of speech, unwittingly offends against the divine.

For that which is believed to be beyond all things is also, altogether, beyond speech.

But he who undertakes to comprehend the boundless by speech no longer grants that it is beyond all things — that against which he sets up his own account in opposition — supposing it to be of such a kind and such a magnitude as his own reasoning has managed to express; not knowing that it is precisely in being persuaded that the divine is beyond knowledge that the God-befitting conception concerning him who truly is, is preserved.

Why is this? Because everything that exists within creation looks by nature toward what is akin to it, and none of the things that exist remains in being once it comes to be outside of itself: fire does not remain in water, nor water in fire; the creature of dry land does not remain in the deep, nor the water-dwelling creature on dry land; the earth-bound creature does not remain in the air, nor again the air-borne creature on the earth.

But each thing, remaining within the proper limits of its nature, exists only so long as it remains within its own limits.

But should it come to be outside of itself, it will also come to be outside of being.

And just as the faculty of the senses, abiding by its natural activities, is not able to pass over into the faculty adjacent to it —

for the eye does not perform the functions of hearing, nor does touch converse, nor does hearing taste, nor does the tongue perform the functions of sight or of hearing — but each has, as the limit of its own faculty, its own natural activity —

so too all creation is not able, through any comprehending contemplation, to come to be outside itself, but remains always within itself, and whatever it may see, it sees itself.

And even should it suppose that it sees something beyond itself, it does not have the nature to see what is outside itself.

For instance, in its contemplation of beings it strains to pass beyond the notion of extension, but it does not pass beyond it.

But extension is nothing other than creation itself.

But that good which we have learned to seek and to keep, and to which we have been counseled to be joined and to cleave, being above creation, is also above comprehension.

For how could our understanding, which travels through the extension of interval, comprehend a nature that has no interval? It ascends through time by analysis, always searching out what is older than the things it finds.

And it has run through all things known by its restless inquiry, but it finds no device by which to run beyond the notion of the age, so as to set itself outside and rise above the age of beings that is contemplated as prior.

But just as one who finds himself upon some mountain summit — let it be supposed that it is a certain smooth and sheer rock, rising up from below in an upright and worn-round shape to an unbounded height, and above, at its crest, bearing that very peak which, in the jutting-out of its brow, bends down over some vast and gaping depth —

whatever, then, is likely to befall the one who touches with the very tip of his foot the ridge inclining down into the depth, and finds no longer any footing for his foot nor any handhold for his hand — this same thing, it seems to me, the soul also experiences, when, having passed beyond the footing found in notions of extension, it seeks the nature that is before all ages and without extension.

Having nothing to lay hold of — no place, no time, no measure, nor anything else of the kind that admits the footing of our understanding — but slipping on every side from what cannot be grasped, it grows dizzy and is at a loss, and turns back again to what is akin to it, content to know only this much concerning that which lies above: enough to be persuaded that it is something other, beyond the nature of the things that are known.

For this reason, when speech comes to what is beyond speech, then it becomes the time for silence, and for holding, unexpressed, in the secrecy of conscience, the wonder of that ineffable power — knowing that even the great [prophets] spoke of the works of God, and not of God himself, when they said:

these things they speak, and about these they discourse, entrusting to speech the declaration of what has come to be.

But when the discourse concerns him who rises above every conception, they legislate outright silence by the very things they say.

For they say: "Of the majesty of the glory of his holiness there is no end."

How greatly did the discourse fear to draw near to the contemplation of the divine nature, seeing that it did not even grasp the wonder of one among the things observed from without!

For he did not say that there is no end to the essence of God, judging it altogether audacious even to entertain that conception, but rather admires in speech the majesty that is observed in the glory.

Again, he was not even able to see the glory of the essence itself, but was struck with amazement upon perceiving the glory of his holiness.

How far, then, was he from prying curiously into the nature, whatever it is, seeing that he did not even suffice to marvel at the last of the things shown beforehand? For he marveled neither at his holiness nor at the glory of his holiness, but, setting out to marvel only at the majesty of the glory of his holiness, he grew faint even in the wonder of this.

For he did not grasp with his understanding the limit of what he wondered at.

"Of the majesty of the glory of his holiness there is no end."

Therefore, in discourses concerning God: when the inquiry concerns his essence, it is the time for silence; but when it concerns some good activity, the knowledge of which descends even to us, then it is the time to speak of his mighty deeds, to proclaim his wonders, to recount his works — to make use of speech up to this point, but in what lies beyond, not to permit creation to overstep its own limits, but rather to be content, if it should come to know itself.

For creation, in my judgment at least, has not yet come to know itself, nor has it comprehended what the essence of the soul is, what the nature of the body is, whence beings come, how generations arise from one another, how that-which-is-not is given essence, how that-which-is is resolved into that-which-is-not, what is the harmony arising from opposites throughout this world.

Not even this does it know — how then will it give an account of what is beyond itself? Therefore it is the time to be silent concerning these matters.

For in these matters silence is better.

But it is the time to speak of those things by which our life advances toward virtue, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion forever.

HOMILY 8. A time to love, and a time to hate.

Who, then, will have hearing so purified as to receive purely the discourse concerning loving, bringing with him nothing of impure affection? Perhaps even our ears have need of the fingers of Jesus, that through the divine touch of the true Word the hearing-faculty of our soul may be set free from every defilement that obstructs the hearing, so that it may both comprehend praiseworthy love and receive into the soul what is the time for loving and what is the time for hating.

I do not think this occasion is any other than that of what is beneficial.

For the benefit arising from each of these, in my own judgment, is precisely the occasion for the proper use of both; so that if what occurs should fall outside what is advantageous, what is done would also fall outside the proper time.

But first, I think, it is necessary to understand the meaning of these two words — I mean, loving and hating — so that in this way we may also comprehend, by reasoning, their timely use.

Love is the inward disposition toward what is pleasing to the heart, brought about through pleasure and attachment; hatred, on the other hand, is estrangement from what is displeasing, and the turning away from that which causes grief.

It is possible to use each of these dispositions both profitably and for contrary ends, and, generally speaking, the whole of life, whether according to virtue or vice, has its origin from this source.

For toward whatever we incline in love, to that we become akin in our souls; and from whatever we are disposed to hate, from that we become estranged.

For whether the soul's disposition be toward the good or toward the evil, that which is loved is in some way mingled together with the soul.

— whatever it may be. And into whatever hatred intrudes as a mediating force, it works a separation from that thing, whether it be the good or the worse.

Therefore it would be necessary to examine what by nature is worthy of love, and what worthy of hatred, so that, using this disposition of the soul at the proper time, we might, through hatred, become estranged from evils, and might be mingled together with the nature of good things.

And would that human nature were instructed in this above all else — I mean, the discernment between the good and that which is not such!

For the passions would not have gained entry against our life, if from the beginning we had known the good.

But now, having made irrational sense-perception the criterion of the good from the very outset, we are nurtured together with the judgment concerning existing things that arises in us from the start; and for this reason we cling fast, not easily torn away, from the things that sense-perception has deemed to be good, having through this shared upbringing rendered our disposition toward them firm.

That appears good to human beings which, through its fair colour, implants a certain pleasure in the eyes, whether in inanimate matter or in animate sights.

To the hearing, melody is good; and among flavours and among scents, such-and-such is defined as good — the one by taste, the other by smell.

But the most burdensome and most irrational of all is touch, through which unrestrained pleasure takes precedence by nature in the reckoning of the good.

Since, then, the senses are born together with us the moment we come into being, and we are nurtured together with these from our very first life, and there is a great kinship between the faculty of sense-perception and irrational life —

for all such things are seen also in irrational creatures —

the intellect, however, is in some way hindered from its own proper activity by infancy, not yet finding room for itself, but is in a certain manner squeezed out by the dominance of the more irrational sense-perception —

for this reason, the erring and mistaken use of the loving disposition becomes the beginning and foundation of a life lived according to vice.

— arising in us, corporeal as regards the sensible part [of our nature], but, as regards the other part, intelligible and incorporeal.

In like manner, also, the good and that which is not such are not the same for each of the two forms of our life; rather, for the intelligible part the good is intelligible, while for the sensible and bodily part it is such as sense-perception wishes it to be.

Since, then, sense-perception grows together with us from our very first coming-into-being, while the intellect awaits the advance toward a due proportion of age, so that it might be able gradually to appear in the subject, for this reason the intellect, which comes into being little by little, is mastered by sense-perception, which is already complete, and, ever overpowered by that which has the greater strength, becomes accustomed to obey it, judging that to be good or base which sense-perception either chooses or rejects.

For this reason the apprehension of the truly good becomes difficult and hard for us to set right, because we have been forestalled by the criteria of sense-perception, defining the good in terms of what gives delight and pleasure.

For just as it is impossible to look upon the beauties in heaven when mist has taken hold of the air overhead, so too the eye of the soul does not clearly perceive virtue, being dimmed in its sight, as it were by a kind of mist, through pleasure.

Since, then, sense-perception looks toward pleasure, and the intellect, on account of pleasure, is hindered from beholding virtue, this becomes the beginning of vice: that the intellect, overpowered by sense-perception, ratifies the irrational judgment concerning the good, so that, if the eye should say that the good consists in the fair colour of what appears, the understanding inclines together with it toward the same judgment —

and likewise, in the case of the rest of the senses, that which delights sense-perception carries off the vote for the good.

But if it were somehow possible for the true judgment concerning the good to arise in us from the beginning, with the intellect testing the good by itself, we would not have become enslaved to irrational sense-perception, reduced to the condition of beasts and held in servitude.

So that this confusion in us might be resolved, and that what is by nature worthy of love, and what is otherwise, might be recognized without error, the Ecclesiast now says these things in his discourse, that there is a time to love and a time to hate.

By these words he distinguishes the nature of things, showing what is fittingly loved and what is fittingly hated.

Youth, seething with the passions of that age, says that it is its own time to love those things which are dear to youth.

But the Ecclesiast cries out against youth, defining another time for pure love —

for indeed the soul's erring disposition toward improper things is not love at all.

For just as, when nature prospers in health, thirst comes upon the body in its proper time, but in the case of those in whom the bite of the dipsas viper has produced such a condition, no one would say that the thirst occurs in due season —

for in this case the thirst is not a natural appetite, but becomes a diseased passion —

so too the foul love of youth is not love, but a disease that arises from the burning and venomous bite of that age.

Not every love, then, possesses timeliness, but only that which is directed toward the one thing alone worthy of love.

But it is not possible to attain a clear knowledge concerning these things unless one thus divides the argument in contemplation —

Of the goods that are pursued eagerly by human beings, some are truly such as they are named, while others bear a falsely-named appellation.

For whatever gives enjoyment not merely for a season, and does not, while seeming good to one, become useless to another, but is always, in every respect, and in all who possess it, good — these are truly good, remaining ever the same, and admitting no admixture of the worse —

which things, to those who examine accurately, are seen to belong to the divine and eternal nature alone.

But all other things, whatever seems good to sense-perception, appearing good through the deceit of mere opinion, neither exist in reality nor have subsistence, but, being of a flowing and transient nature, are reckoned by the untaught, through a certain deception and vain preconception, as though they truly existed.

Those, then, who cling to unstable things do not stretch out after the things that are ever stable.

The Ecclesiast, then, seems as it were to stand upon some lofty watchtower and cry out to human nature, through the words he speaks —

— [true] goods make also those who participate in them to be such as themselves.

For whatever the thing participated in may be by nature, the thing participating in it must necessarily be transformed to correspond with it.

For example, the mouth of one who has taken through the mouth something of the sweet-smelling spices becomes sweet-smelling, and again, foul-smelling, in the case of one who has eaten garlic or something else among the more foul-smelling things.

Therefore, since every filth of sin is foul-smelling, while, on the contrary, virtue is the fragrance of Christ, and the disposition of love naturally effects a commingling with the thing loved —

whatever, then, we choose through love, that we become — either the fragrance of Christ, or a foul stench.

For he who has loved the good will himself also become good, the goodness of that which has come to be in him transforming the one who has received it into conformity with itself.

For this reason he who eternally is sets forth himself to us as food, so that, having received him into ourselves, we might become that very thing which he is —

for he says, 'My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink.'

He, then, who loves this flesh will not be a lover of the flesh, and he who is disposed toward this blood will be pure from sensible blood.

For the flesh of the Word, and the blood contained in this flesh, do not possess a single, simple grace, but become sweet to those who taste, desirable to those who long for it, and lovely to those who love it.

But if anyone should turn his love toward things that have no subsistence, it is altogether necessary that he who comes to be occupied with those things become such as those things are by nature.

Since, then, among existing things some are true, and some are vain, it is fitting to come to know the vain, so that, through the contrast, we might apprehend the nature of the things that truly exist.

For thus do all the saints act, who lead back to the road from which they strayed those who have been cut off from the straight road and are journeying by the erring path, crying out to them from afar: 'Flee the road on which you are traveling!'

'For along it there are robbers and thieves and ambushes of murderers' — so that the traveler, learning of the danger, might turn aside from the road of destruction.

And the withdrawal from that road becomes the guidance toward the road that saves.

So too the great Ecclesiast cries out from above to human nature, which wanders in a trackless waste and not upon a road, as the prophet says, crying these things directly, through the words he utters, saying —

'Why do you wander throughout life, O men? Why do you love vain things, and cherish things without subsistence, and have you melted with your disposition toward these things which have no subsistence? There is another road, one that is unerring and salvific.'

'Love that road; journey upon it through love — that road whose name is Truth, and Life, and Light, and Incorruption, and such things.'

'But this road, on which you now run, is worthy of hatred and aversion —'

'for it is without light and pervaded by darkness, and it leads to precipices and chasms and places infested with wild beasts and ambushes of robbers.'

He, then, who said, 'There is a time to love,' pointed to that which is truly lovable and worthy of love; and he who assigned a time to hatred taught us those things from which we ought to turn away.

'Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood?' For there is only one thing that is by nature worthy of love — that which truly is — concerning which the legislation of the Decalogue also says, 'You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole understanding.'

And there is likewise only one thing truly worthy of hatred — the inventor of evil, the enemy of our life — concerning whom the law says, 'You shall hate your enemy.'

For the love of God becomes strength to the one who loves, while the disposition toward evil brings destruction upon the one who loves evil.

For thus says the prophecy —

'I will love you, O Lord, my strength;'

'the Lord is my firmament, and my refuge, and my deliverer.' But concerning the contrary he says —

'But he who loves unrighteousness hates his own soul'; 'he will rain down a snare upon sinners.'

The time for love toward God, then, is the whole of life, and the time for estrangement from the adversary is the whole of one's life.

For the one who has come to be outside God must necessarily be outside the light, since God is light; and outside also of life, and of incorruption, and of every thought and thing that is contemplated as pertaining to the better.

For he who is not among these is assuredly among their opposites.

Therefore darkness and corruption and utter destruction and death await such a one.

These things the word of the Ecclesiast, in a brief utterance, sets forth by distinguishing them, having revealed, through timely love and through hatred exercised at its proper time, the nature of each of the two things conceived as opposites.

"A time," he says, "to love" — do you supply "the good"; again he says, "A time to hate" — suppose the word to be looking toward the evil.

For the disposition of our soul, when it is exchanged and led astray with regard to each of these, is the root and beginning of sin.

"No one," he says, "can serve two masters;"

"for either he will hate the one and love the other"

The contrast has shown who is the master that rules for ill, from whom one must become estranged through hatred, and who is the one who governs his subject for good, to whom it is fitting to be joined through love.

But if someone should cling to what is to be hated, and despise what is to be loved, this is the one who exchanges the proper occasion of love and of hatred, to his own harm.

For he who despises a thing will be despised by it, while he who clings to destruction will procure for himself that very thing to which he clung.

Having thus, by this word, distinguished the things conceived in terms of virtue and of vice, you will come to know the proper occasion for how one ought to be disposed toward each of these.

Self-control and pleasure, temperance and licentiousness, moderation and conceit, goodwill and ill-will, and everything conceived in terms of opposites are plainly set before you by the Ecclesiast, so that, being so disposed in soul concerning these things, you may take counsel to your profit.

There is, then, a time to love self-control and to hate pleasure, lest you become a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God; and likewise all the rest — love of strife, love of gain, love of glory, and everything which, by the misuse of love toward what is not fitting, cuts one off from relation to the good.

Thus, as it were in passing, we have learned this doctrine: that every movement of the soul was fashioned for good by him who created our nature, but the mistaken use of such movements has begotten the occasions for vice.

For our power of self-determination, being in itself something good, when it operates toward evil becomes the worst of evils.

And conversely, the faculty that repels what is unpleasant, whose name is hatred, is an instrument of virtue when it is armed against what is opposed to it, but it becomes a weapon of sin when it stands in opposition to the good.

Therefore every creature of God among those fashioned within us is good, and nothing is to be rejected when received with thanksgiving; but the thankless use of these things has turned the creature into passion, through which intimacy with God departs, and, in its place, the opposites enter in and are set up in the place of God, so that for such persons the passions come to be deified.

Thus for the gluttonous the belly becomes their god.

Thus the covetous make an idol for themselves out of their disease.

Thus those who, through deceit, have had the eyes of their soul darkened in this age have made vainglory a god for themselves.

And, to speak concisely, whatever a person yokes his own reasoning to and makes it a slave and subject of, this he has deified in his own passion — a thing he would not have suffered had he not, through love, made the evil his own.

If, then, we have understood the proper occasion for love and for hatred, let us love the one and make war upon the other.

"For there is," he says, "a time of war and a time of peace."

You see the battle-array of the opposing passions, the law of the flesh warring against the law of your mind and leading it captive to the law of sin.

Attend to the manifold arrangement of the battle, how varied in its forms is the strategy of the adversary against your city.

He musters against you the cavalry force and all such things.

Surely you are not ignorant of the meaning of what has been said: who is the traitor, who the spy, who the ambushers, who the slingers and javelin-throwers and archers, who those who fight hand to hand, and the squadron of horsemen, and what the siege-engines are by which the wall of the soul is battered.

Looking, then, at all these things, it is necessary both to arm ourselves and to summon our allies, and to distinguish carefully among our subjects, lest any harbor the sentiments of the enemy; to watch ahead for ambushes along the way and to guard against their missiles with shields; to hold firm against those who close with us in hand-to-hand combat; to trench off the way against the horsemen who ride against us; and to fortify the walls with certain defenses and outworks, so that they may not be battered down by the siege-engines.

Surely we need no lengthy discourse to explain each point in detail — how the enemy of each one's city, which God has settled within the soul, makes trial of our strength through spies, and who those are, arising from among ourselves, who become traitors to our own strength.

That the meaning may be more clearly disclosed, it is like this: the first assault of temptation, from which the passions take their beginning, this becomes the spy of our strength — as, for example, a sight has fallen upon the eye that is able to stir up desire.

Through this, then, the enemy spies out the strength within you, whether you are strong and well-equipped or feeble and easily taken.

For if you did not give way before the sight, nor was the tension of your understanding dissolved before what appeared, but you let the encounter pass by without passion, you have at once terrified the spy, having shown to the spy, as it were, a phalanx of hoplites bristling with spears — I mean, the readiness of your reasonings.

But if the sense-faculty is softened by pleasure at the sight, and the image of the outward form slips in through the eyes into the understanding, then the mind, the general of what is within, is overcome in battle, having nothing manly or vigorous about it, but being sluggish and dissolute, and a multitude of traitors from the populace of the reasonings is mustered around the spy.

These are the traitors concerning whom the Lord says that "a man's enemies are they of his own household" — those things proceeding out of the heart and defiling the man, whose names one may clearly learn from the Gospel.

From this point on, it should no longer be difficult for you to understand, in due sequence, each detail of that martial arrangement:

those who lie in ambush out of concealment, upon whom fall those who travel unwarily along the road of life: