宗教史(敘利亞苦修者傳) 第 1 章 第 1/13 段

For things that are praised, when seen, appear worthy of possession and become worthy of love, and urge on the viewers toward acquiring them.

But nevertheless, accounts of such achievements also bring no small benefit, when brought by those who know them to the ears of those who do not.

For some say that sight is more trustworthy than hearing;

yet hearing too is persuaded, judging the things said by the truthfulness of those who speak them.

For just as tongue and palate are entrusted to judge sweetness and bitterness and the other such qualities, and render their verdict accordingly, so hearing has been entrusted with the discernment of words, and knows how to distinguish those that bring some benefit from those that are harmful.

Now if the memory of beneficial accounts remained inviolate, and the ravage of forgetfulness, spreading like a kind of mist, did not render it faint, it would surely be superfluous and redundant to record such things in writing, since the benefit derived from them would pass quite easily even to those who would come afterward.

But since time ravages bodies, bringing old age and death, and ravages achievements too, producing forgetfulness and blunting memory, no one could reasonably be indignant at us for undertaking to record in writing the way of life of men who love God.

For just as those entrusted with the care of bodies prepare remedies, warring against disease and coming to the aid of the sick, so the diligent labor of this kind of writing becomes, as it were, a remedy warding off harm, hostile to forgetfulness and an ally to memory.

For how would it not be absurd that poets and writers have recorded feats of valor in wars, and tragedians have openly made tragedy of well-hidden misfortunes and left a written memorial of them, and certain others have spent their words on comedy and laughter, while we should overlook men being handed over to oblivion who, in a mortal and passible body, have displayed impassibility and have emulated the incorporeal nature? What penalty would we not justly pay, if we allowed the memory of these admirable contests to be obscured? For if the men of old themselves, having emulated the utmost philosophy of the saints before them, did not engrave their memory in bronze and letters, but by imprinting all their virtue made themselves, as it were, living images and monuments of those saints, what pardon could we reasonably obtain, if we do not even honor with letters their celebrated life? And this, when athletes and pankratiasts competing at the Olympic games are honored with statues, and moreover, when victorious charioteers appearing in the horse-races receive this very same honor.

And not only these, but also effeminate men and womanish creatures and persons of ambiguous sex, whether they be men or women, those fond of watching their spectacle inscribe them upon panels, striving that their memory should endure as long as possible—although such memory produces ruin, not benefit, for souls.

And since death plunders their mortal nature, by mixing colors and setting their likenesses upon panels, they contrive that their memory should become far longer-lived than their life.

But we are writing a life that teaches philosophy and has emulated the way of life in the heavens;

and we paint not the features of bodies, nor do we display their impressions to those who do not know them, but we sketch in outline the forms of invisible souls, and we display unseen wars and hidden struggles.

For such was the full armor that Paul, the general and champion of their battle-line, put upon them;

"Take up," he says, "the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."

"Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Having clothed them with this armor, he led them into the contests.

For such too is the nature of the enemies: incorporeal, invisible, attacking unseen, plotting in secret, lying in ambush and assaulting suddenly.

And teaching this, this same general said:

"For our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." But nevertheless, though the company of these saints had such adversaries—or rather, though each one of them was surrounded by so many and such enemies (for they did not attack all in common, but assailed now this one, now that one)—they won so brilliant a victory that the adversaries fled, while they themselves pursued them by force, and raised up a trophy, with none standing in their way.

It was not nature that furnished them the victory—for that is mortal, and full of countless passions—but their resolve, which drew to itself the divine grace.

For having become fervent lovers of the divine beauty, and having gladly chosen to do and suffer all things for the sake of the beloved, they bore nobly the insurrection of the passions, and steadfastly repelled the volleys of the devil's darts, and, to speak in the apostle's words, having pressed down the body and brought it into subjection, they calmed the inflammations of anger, and compelled the rabid fury of desires to keep still.

By fasting and sleeping on the bare ground, having thus lulled the passions to sleep and stilled their leapings, they compelled the body to make a truce with the soul, and dissolved the war innate between them.

And having thus adjudicated peace for themselves, they drove out the whole host of their adversaries.

For not having the inner thoughts that betray one from within, and being deprived of the cooperation of the human members, the enemies were unable to make war.

For the devil uses our own members as arrows against us.

For when the eyes are not enticed, nor the ears bewitched, nor the touch tickled, nor the mind receiving wicked designs, the zeal of those who plot is in vain.

For just as no enemy could capture a city built upon a height, walled about with strong ramparts, and surrounded on every side by deep ravines, unless someone from within betrayed it and secretly opened some small gate, so it is impossible for demons warring from without to overcome a soul encircled by divine grace, unless the laxity of some reasoning should open some small gate among our senses and admit the enemy within through it.

Having been trained in the divine Scripture, those whom we celebrate, and having heard God saying through the prophet that death came up through the windows, closed the senses with the divine laws as with bars and bolts, and entrusted the keys of these to the mind;

and neither did the tongue open the lips, when the mind did not command it, nor, when not permitted, did the pupil endure to peep forth from beneath the eyelids;

and hearing, unable to wall off its entrance by means of eyelids or lips, thrust away unprofitable words, and received only those in which the mind took delight.

Thus they trained the sense of smell not to long for fragrant things, since these by nature enervate and relax.

Thus they drove satiety from the belly, and taught it to take such food as fulfilled not pleasure but need, and that much only as could prevent death from starvation.

Thus they dissolved the sweet tyranny of sleep, and, freeing the eyelids from its bondage, taught them to rule rather than to serve, and to receive sleep's service not whenever sleep itself came upon them, but whenever they themselves called it in for a brief support of nature.

Thus, then, having taken care for the guarding of the walls and gates, and having presided over concord among the inner reasonings, they laughed at the adversaries attacking from without, who were unable to force their way in because of the security of divine grace, and who found no traitor willing to admit the enemy;

and the enemies, though possessing an invisible nature, could not gain mastery over a body that was visible and subject to the necessities of nature.

For its charioteer, and musician, and helmsman, holding the reins most excellently, persuaded the horses to run in good order;

and striking the strings of the senses in rhythm, he brought about the production of a perfectly harmonious sound;

and skillfully moving the rudders, he dissolved both the onset of the waves and the assault of the winds.

These men, then, who journeyed through life amid countless labors, who subdued the body with sweats and hardships, who knew not the affection of laughter, who spent their whole life in weeping and tears, who reckoned abstinence from food as a Sybaritic banquet, laborious wakefulness as sweetest sleep, the resistant hardness of the ground as a soft bed, and the occupation spent in prayers and psalmody as an immeasurable and insatiable pleasure—these men who have obtained every kind of virtue as their portion, who would not reasonably marvel at them? Or rather, who could praise them worthily? For I myself know clearly that no discourse could attain to their virtue;

for it would not be right that, because they became perfect men, lovers of true philosophy, they should for this reason receive not even lesser praises.

We shall not, however, write a single eulogy common to all alike;

for different gifts were given to them by God, and teaching this the blessed Paul said:

"To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing in the same Spirit, to another workings of powers, to another prophecy, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues."

And showing the source of all these, he added:

"But all these things one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as he wills." Since, then, they obtained different gifts, we shall reasonably make our narrative concerning each one individually, not recounting all that was accomplished in his manner of life—for not even a whole lifetime would suffice for such a composition—but recounting a few of the things each one lived through or did, and, having through these few things exhibited the character of his whole life, we shall proceed to the next.

Nor indeed shall we attempt to hand down to history the way of life of all the saints who have distinguished themselves everywhere;

I shall therefore record only the life of those who have appeared, like luminaries, in the East, and who with their rays have reached the ends of the inhabited world.

My account will proceed in narrative form, not employing the rules of panegyric, but making an unadorned recital of a few things.

I ask those who will read this History of the Friends of God, or this Ascetic Way of Life—for let each call the work as he wishes—not to disbelieve what is said, if they hear anything beyond their own capacity, nor to measure the virtue of those men by their own standard, but to know clearly that God is accustomed to measure out the gifts of the all-holy Spirit according to the dispositions of the pious, and gives the greater gifts to the more perfect.

Let these things be said by me to those who are not very precisely initiated into divine matters;

for those initiated into the innermost shrines of the Spirit know the munificence of the Spirit, and what wonders it works through men among men, drawing the unbelieving to the knowledge of God by the greatness of its marvels.

Whoever shall disbelieve what will be told by us, it is quite clear that he does not believe as true the things that came to pass through Moses and Joshua and Elijah and Elisha either, and he considers a myth the wonders wrought through the holy apostles as well.

But if truth bears witness to those, let him believe that these too are free from falsehood;

for the same grace that worked in those has also, through these men, done what it has done.

Grace is ever-flowing, and, choosing out the worthy, it wells up, as it were through certain channels, the streams of its beneficence through them.

Of the things about to be told, of some I myself was an eyewitness;

but as many as I did not see, I heard from those who had seen them, men who were lovers of virtue and had been deemed worthy of their sight and teaching;

for in writing the evangelical teaching, not only were Matthew and John, the great and first of the evangelists, eyewitnesses of the Lord's wonders and thus trustworthy, but Luke and Mark also, whom those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word instructed accurately, not only in what the Lord suffered and did, but also in what he continued to teach.

Nevertheless, even though the blessed Luke had not become an eyewitness, when beginning his composition he says that he is making his narrative concerning matters that have been fully assured.

And we too, though hearing that he was not an eyewitness of these very narratives, but received this teaching from others, give no less heed to him and to Mark than to Matthew and John;

for each of the two narrates trustworthily, inasmuch as he was instructed by those who had seen.

Therefore we too shall relate some things as eyewitnesses, and other things having trusted those who narrated them as eyewitnesses, men who had emulated the life of those saints.

I have spent rather many words on this point, wishing to persuade my readers that I shall narrate the truth.

I shall begin my narrative, taking my start from here.

JAMES. Moses, the divine lawgiver, who laid bare the floor of the sea and flooded the waterless desert with water and worked all the other wonders, wrote down the way of life of the saints of old, employing not the wisdom that he had received from the Egyptians, but receiving the radiance of grace from above.

...of that same cooperation, for one who attempts to write the life of the saints who shone forth a little before us and in our own time, and who wishes to set forth, as it were, a kind of legislation for those who desire to emulate them;

Their prayers, then, must be invoked, and the narrative must be begun.

Nisibis is a city on the border between the Roman and Persian empires, which of old paid tribute to the Romans and was subject to their rule;

setting out from this city, the great James embraced the life of the desert and of stillness, and, having taken possession of the summits of the highest mountains, he dwelt there, in spring and summer and autumn using the thickets for shelter and having the sky as his roof;

but in the season of winter a cave received him, providing scant shelter.

His food was not that which is sown and grown with toil, but that which springs up of its own accord;

for gathering the self-grown fruit of the wild trees, and the edible and vegetable-like herbs, from these he gave his body what sufficed for living, declining the use of fire.

The use of wool, too, was superfluous to him;

for the roughest hairs of goats fulfilled their function;

from these were made for him both his tunic and his simple cloak.

Thus wearing down the body, he continually offered spiritual food to the soul, and, purifying the eye of the mind and fashioning it into a transparent mirror of the divine Spirit, with unveiled face, according to the divine apostle, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, he was being transformed into that same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.

From this his boldness toward God increased with each day, and, asking what it was fitting to ask of God, he received it at once.

From this he also foresaw prophetically things that were to be, and received power for the working of wonders from the grace of the all-holy Spirit.

Of these I shall recount a few, and to those who do not know it I shall lay bare a ray of his apostolic radiance.

At that time the madness of men for idols was flourishing, and lifeless carved images were usurping divine reverence, while the worship of God was neglected by the majority;

and those who were unwilling to share with them in that drunkenness, but who, being sound of mind, possessed accurate discernment of what truly exists, and laughed at the weakness of the idols while worshiping the Creator of all things, were held in contempt.

At that time he went to Persia, to see the plants of piety and to bring them the care that was fitting.

As he was passing by a certain spring, some girls standing at the washing-troughs, cleansing garments with their feet, felt no shame even at the strangeness of his appearance, but casting aside modesty, gazed upon the man of God with a brazen face and shameless eyes, neither covering their heads nor letting down their girded-up garments.

Displeased at this, the man of God, wishing at this opportune moment to show the power of God, so that by the working of a wonder he might set them free from impiety, cursed the spring, and immediately its stream vanished;

and he cursed the girls, and punished their shameless youth with premature grey hair;

and the deed followed the word, and the blackness of their hair was changed, and they resembled newly-planted trees clothed, in springtime, with autumn leaves.

Perceiving the punishment in this way—for the waters of the spring had fled, and, looking at one another's heads, they saw that sudden change—they ran into the city to report what had happened.

And they ran and, reaching the great James, begged him to relax his anger and undo the punishment.

He, without delaying even a moment, offered his supplication to the Master, and bade the waters gush forth again;

at once it appeared again from its own reservoirs, channelled forth by the nods of the righteous man.

Having obtained this, they further begged that the former color be restored to the tresses of their daughters.

They say that he yielded to this as well, and asked for the girls who had received that instruction; but since they did not come, he let the punishment remain, a lesson in prudence and a foundation for good order, and a perpetual and manifest reminder of the divine power.

Such was the wonder of this new Moses, wrought not by the striking of a rod, but receiving its power through the sign of the cross.

But I marvel exceedingly, in addition to the wonder-working, also at his gentleness.

For he did not, like the great Elisha, hand over those shameless girls to flesh-devouring bears, but employing a harmless kind of correction, one bearing but a small disorder, he taught piety together with good order.

And I say this not accusing the prophet of harshness—may I never be so mad—but showing that, though possessing that same power, he accomplished what was fitting with the gentleness of Christ and the New Covenant.

On another occasion, seeing a Persian judge who had rendered an unjust verdict, he cursed a very large stone lying nearby, commanding it to be shattered and scattered, and charged that by this the man's unjust verdict be exposed.

At once the stone was split into countless pieces, and those present were struck with terror;

and the judge, filled with dread, revoked his former verdict and rendered another, just one.

Here too he emulated his own Master, who, wishing to show that he willingly endured his passion, and that he could easily have punished the transgressors had he so wished, did not bring punishment upon them, but by withering the lifeless fig tree with a word, displayed his own power.

And he too, imitating this loving-kindness, did not punish the unjust judge, but through the smiting of the stone taught him righteousness.

Distinguished in these things, and beloved by all, and celebrated on everyone's tongue, he was drawn into the ministry of the episcopate, and obtained the guardianship of his homeland.

Though he exchanged that mountain sojourn for life in the city—chosen not according to his own preference—he changed neither his food nor his clothing;

but while the places changed, his way of life admitted of no change.

His labors, indeed, received increase and became many times greater than before;

for to his fasting, his sleeping on the ground, and his wearing of sackcloth were added, throughout, cares for those in need;

I mean, care for widows and guardianship of orphans, the rebuking of wrongdoers and just assistance to the wronged.

And the more he amassed the wealth of virtue, the greater the grace of the all-holy Spirit that he enjoyed.

And once, as he was setting out for some village or city—for I cannot say precisely which place—certain poor men approached him, having laid out one of their companions as if dead, and begging to receive something suitable for his burial.

He offered supplication to God as for one who had died, entreating him to forgive the man's failings during his life, and to count him worthy of the company of the righteous.

And while these words were being spoken, the soul flew away from the man who until then had been feigning death.

And coverings were being furnished for the body;

but when the divinely-inspired man had gone forward a little, those who had contrived the scheme bade the man lying there to rise up;

the pretense having turned to reality, they caught up with the great James and, wailing and grovelling at his feet, declaring that poverty was the cause of the drama they had dared to enact, they begged him to absolve them of their offense and to restore to the fallen man the soul that had been taken from him.

Imitating, then, the loving-kindness of the Master, he both received their supplication and displayed the working of a wonder, restoring through prayer to the man lying there the life that had been taken away by prayer.

This seems to me to resemble the wonder-working of the great Peter, who consigned to death Ananias and Sapphira, who had stolen and lied.

For this man likewise took away the life of one who had stolen the truth and made use of falsehood.

But the one, knowing the theft—for the grace of the Spirit had revealed it—inflicted the penalty;

but the other, not knowing the plot of the drama, offered up his prayer, and thereby stopped the course of life for the man who had feigned it.

And the divine apostle did not undo the calamity for those who had died;

for the beginnings of the saving proclamation had need of fear;

but he, being full of apostolic grace, both chastised for a time and swiftly undid the chastisement;

for he knew that by this the offenders would gain benefit.

But now I must proceed to the other matters and briefly relate those as well.

For since Arius, the father and author of the blasphemy against the Only-Begotten and the all-holy Spirit, having moved his tongue against the very one who had made it, filled Egypt with tumult and confusion, and since Constantine, the greatest of emperors, the Zerubbabel of our flock—for it was he who brought back from exile the whole captivity of the pious, and raised on high the divine temples that had been cast to the ground—since, then, he gathered together at that time all the presidents of the churches at Nicaea, the great James too came together with the others, to do battle for right doctrines like some champion and front-fighter of the whole battle-line (for Nisibis at that time belonged to the dominion of the Romans).

At the great council, then, while many things were spoken well and rightly, and many others otherwise—for there were a few who held the opposite view, yet did not dare to expose their impiety openly, but concealed it with certain lures, not evident to all, yet quite manifest to those precisely versed in the mysteries of truth—there was dictated the confession of faith which even now prevails and is proclaimed throughout the whole world, and all subscribed to it, and confessed, both by hand and by pen, that they so believed and thought;

but while the majority did this gladly, a certain seven, advocates of the blasphemy of Arius, agreed with tongue and hand, yet possessed a mind that spoke against their tongue, according to the prophecy which says:

"This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me," and according to the voice of Jeremiah, which cries out plainly:

"You are near to their mouth, but far from their reins."

"With their mouth they would bless, but in their heart they would curse." And again:

"Their words were smoother than oil, yet they are darts." These men kept urging Alexander, the great bishop of the Alexandrians, to take pity on Arius, who had been renounced by that entire assembly;

but since he knew their treachery, and suspected that man's wickedness, and for this reason did not accept the request, certain others, who lived in simplicity, kept extolling loving-kindness at great length, saying that even the God of all rejoiced in it.

saying that this would give occasion for all the flocks, the divine James exhorted everyone to observe the hardship of fasting, and for seven days together to beseech God to ordain what would be of benefit to the churches.

And the helmsman of all these things was decreeing for the churches what was advantageous.

And when the Lord's Day arrived, on which the majority hoped that the accursed man would be received back, and the time for the divine liturgy had come, and everyone was waiting to see the God-opposer shown mercy, then indeed a truly divine and extraordinary wonder took place;

for that accursed man, while relieving himself in vile and foul-smelling places of the waste from his insatiable eating, expelled along with it the very organs that had contained it.

Thus, when his bowels had dissolved and departed along with his excrement, the wretched man immediately breathed his last and suffered that most shameful death, exacting the penalty for his foul-smelling blasphemy in foul-smelling places, and receiving his destruction through the tongue of the great James.

Now, sacred Scripture admires Phinehas the priest, and rightly so, because he slew Zimri, who had become the cause of ruin to the people.

"Phinehas stood up and made propitiation, and the plague was stayed;"

"and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, to generation and generation forever." Yet nevertheless, that man, using a weapon of war, wrought that famous and just slaughter;

For him the tongue sufficed in place of spear and sword, and it did away with the impious man, that he might not see the glory of the Lord.

This alone suffices to refute the folly of those who inherit the impiety of Arius.

For so great a man was herald and advocate of the doctrines maintained by us;

yet he so utterly abhorred their impiety that he even struck down its father, using the tongue as a weapon.

And when that sacred assembly was dissolved and each man returned home, he too came back, like some victorious champion, exulting in the trophies of piety.

And when time had passed, that great and admirable emperor departed this life, crowned with the crowns of piety;

and his sons inherited the empire.