論天意(十講) 第 1 章 第 1/11 段

Proof from heaven, and the sun, and the moon, and the rest of the stars

It is a law laid down for men by nature, that children should fight on behalf of fathers who are wronged, and servants for their masters, and citizens should risk danger first on behalf of cities under attack, and, in short, that those who have received benefit should, to the extent of their power, requite their benefactors.

One might also see that, when a king rightly and justly governs his subjects, and tempers his authority with mildness, his shield-bearers and spearmen eagerly shield him in wars.

And let no one at once object to me and charge my argument with falsehood, by bringing forward parricides, and scoundrels, and traitors, and tyrants.

For my argument concerns the keepers of the law; those others we are accustomed to call ungrateful and transgressors.

and indeed they pay penalties worthy of their audacious deeds.

But if nature ordains that children risk danger for fathers, servants for masters, citizens for cities, and spearmen for kings, then it is far more holy and just that those who have been both brought into being and saved by God should fight on His behalf not with words alone, but should even choose death itself, the last extremity.

For He is nearer to us than fathers;

for it is through Him that they too are called fathers;

for here the mastery over servants is according to nature, and not according to misfortune;

and He is safer than every wall;

for the wall, even if it be adamantine, is nevertheless man-made, and even if it escapes the force of siege-engines, it will not escape the hands of time;

but He is everlasting and eternal, sufficient for every guarding and security, and so much more kingly than kings, by how much that which always is, when compared with what is generated and perishable, reveals the immeasurable degree of its superiority.

For He always is, and has power united by nature with His very being;

whereas the earthly king has received from Him both his being and his rule;

and this rule is for a short time and over few, not even over all who have received the same nature as himself.

Since, then, He is nearer to us than fathers, more sovereign than masters, more provident than all benefactors, safer than every wall, and immeasurably more kingly than all kings, it is right that we, who have received our very being from Him and have further received our well-being, should set our own tongues against the tongues that dare to blaspheme Him, and should strike down impious words with pious words as with a spear;

not that we should bring Him our aid as though He were in need of it;

for the maker of all things is without need, and has no need of a tongue of clay to aid Him; yet He accepts it when it sings His praise, rewards it when it fights on His behalf, and crowns it when it refutes falsehood;

but rather that we may show our goodwill toward Him, and, if possible, put an end to the audacity of our fellow servants;

but if not, that we may at least refute it, and make it plain to those who do not know.

Many, then, and manifold are the ranks of those who choose impiety, and various are the arrows of their blasphemy;

for falsehood is many-branched and varied, but the grace of truth is simple.

For the phalanx of the poets, having divided the Divine into many parts by their discourse, and having mixed falsehood with the delightfulness of myth, and having thus concocted a kind of potion, brought to men the intoxication of polytheistic error.

And philosophy, marking itself out merely by long locks of hair, though it saw the absurdity of the poets' theology, devised other paths of error, leading to that very same pit of the poets.

For some, by the elegance of their reasoning and the cleverness of their arguments, concealed the poets' shameful talk concerning the gods;

while others attributed divine appellations to the passions, and named pleasure Aphrodite;

and by prating such things with arrogant brow and Attic loquacity, they led the greater part of mankind into another kind of deception.

And those who professed philosophy, and reaped honor from all on account of their outward guise, and professed to master the passions, made men worship the passions instead, and foolishly persuaded the mind — which should be the sovereign charioteer of the passions — to sacrifice to desire, and to anger, and to theft, and to drunkenness, and to the other passions.

Others again, unable to conceive of anything beyond the things seen, but having imprisoned their mind within things perceptible to the senses, called the things set before the eyes for viewing 'gods.'

And the venerable name, which strikes those who hear it with awe, some applied to the elements, others to parts of these.

And some held that the cosmos came into being spontaneously;

while others imagined many worlds in place of one.

And some held that the Divine does not exist at all;

others, that it exists, but cares for none of the things that are;

and others said that it does care, but does so in a stingy manner, confining its providence to the moon, while the rest of the cosmos is borne along at random, being compelled to be enslaved to the necessity of fate.

There are also some who bear the name of Christians, yet openly make war on the doctrines of the truth.

For some divide the unbegotten into three;

and one of them they call good;

Others depict in their teaching two unbegotten first principles, diametrically opposed to one another.

Yet others profess to make war on these impious doctrines, but devise another path of impiety.

For while confessing the only-begotten Word of God to be the Son, they number Him among creation as a creature, and rank the Creator together with the creation.

And by their impious teaching they banish the Holy Spirit from the divine nature.

Still others, having lost the straight path in various ways, and being unwilling to follow in the footsteps of those who had gone before, have strayed far from the truth.

And some have utterly denied the dispensation wrought on our behalf;

while others confess that God the Word became man, but claim that He assumed only a body.

Others call the flesh He assumed ensouled, but deny that a rational and intellective soul came to be in it;

having, perhaps, their own folly as proof of this.

But we know no other soul of man than the rational and immortal one.

But let us for the present leave aside all the others;

for the argument cannot, as in a battle line, discharge the arrows of refutation against all of them at the same time.

Therefore let all the other ranks of the impious keep still for now, while we bring into the midst the phalanx of those who make war on the providence of God, and let us break it up with our refutations, and tear it apart, and dissolve its close ranks, and lead it captive by the spear, and draw every thought into obedience to Christ.

Let the remaining company of the impious take the place of spectators, and behold the contest.

For it is likely that each of those other ranks too will not need its own separate engagement, but will desert to the truth, once they have witnessed the defeat of these, and reckoned the power of the truth.

But perhaps, if the discourse delays and proceeds too leisurely, it will weary both those now listening and those who will later peruse it.

...[the breastplate] of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation; and having girded our loins with truth, and having shod our feet in readiness for the gospel of peace, and above all having taken up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, let us take hold of the contest; and let the divine trumpet sound, sustaining our weakness.

Let us, then, right from the starting-line, ask our opponents why on earth they contradict the doctrine of providence, and this while affirming that He is their maker.

For let our discourse for the present be directed against these.

From what did you set out toward this impiety? What among the things you see appears disorderly? What among the things that have come to be is seen to be without order? What part of creation lacks harmony? What part is in need of beauty, or of magnitude? What part, moving in an unfitting way, has begotten in us this impiety? Examine now, then, if not before, the nature of the things you see, their position, their order, their stability, their motion, their rhythm, their harmony, their season, their beauty, their magnitude, their usefulness, their delightfulness, their variety, their alteration, their return again to the same, their permanence amid perishable things.

Behold the very providence of God, peering out through each part of creation, and appearing, and speaking, and, through the very things themselves, all but crying aloud, and stopping your unbarred mouths, and bridling your unbridled tongues.

Behold it in heaven, and in the luminaries throughout heaven — the sun, I say, and the moon, and the stars;

in the air, and in the clouds, on earth, and in the sea, and in all things around the earth;

in plants and herbs, and seeds;

in living creatures rational and irrational, walking and flying, and swimming, and creeping, and amphibious, tame and wild, domesticated and untamed.

Consider among yourselves who it is that holds together the vaults of heaven;

'They (the heavens),' it says, 'shall perish, but You remain; and they shall all grow old like a garment, and like a cloak You shall fold them up, and they shall be changed; but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail.' Yet nevertheless, though it has a passible and perishable substance, it has remained just as it was, held fast by the word of Him who made it.

For the Word that fashioned it holds it together and sustains it, and grants it stability and steadfastness for as long as He wills.

For this reason, though so great a fire is borne around it — the sun, I say, and the moon, and the other luminaries — throughout so many cycles of years it does not melt, does not dry up, is not set ablaze;

for the nature of fire received these operations from its Maker.

For gold, and silver, and iron, and bronze, and lead, and tin, and wax, and pitch, and all such things, it melts and dissolves, and transforms into a fluid nature;

But mud, and the marshy places among the waters, it dries up, consuming their moisture.

And it boils stones, and strips away their solidity, and renders their hardest nature into dust;

and wood, and grass, and stubble it kindles very easily.

But heaven endures none of these things.

For the substance of fire, great as it is, does not melt heaven's crystalline nature, nor mar its smoothness, nor loosen its spherical shape;

but it preserves to the end the position it received from the beginning.

For he who set it up like a vault, and stretched it out like a tent to be dwelt in, brought the contrary natures together into friendship.

And neither is the nature of fire quenched by the great multitude of the waters, nor is the crystalline, or airy, or cloud-like heavenly body melted and destroyed, though the substance of fire is so vast;

they conceal their activities from one another, and, persuaded by the word of their Maker, have entered into an everlasting covenant of friendship — and this though they are inanimate and possess no mind to govern them — yet nevertheless they abide, keeping the limit set from the beginning.

For the Maker governs creation, and has not left the vessel he made without a pilot; but being himself both shipwright and provider of the material, and having at once both fashioned the matter and woven together the vessel, he continues holding fast the rudder.

And the cycle of so many years bears witness, and the vastest span of time, which has not destroyed the vessel, but shows it sound and unimpaired, not only to the first generations but also to those born afterward.

Since then, O friend, you have seen in heaven the

providence of God made manifest, come, let us guide you as a guest to the remaining parts of creation;

and just as with infants first beginning to walk, taking hold of your right hand, let us make you ready to journey through creation little by little.

Descend, then, from the heavens, as it were to a first step, to the sun; and do not fear its conflagration, but step upon it and look about you.

For fire by nature loves the upward motion, just as water loves the downward course.

And it is not possible to lead the one from the foot of a hill up to its summit, nor to persuade the other to send its flame downward;

but even if a man should contend ten thousand times, holding a lamp or a torch, to carry it downward with his hand, the flame moves upward again, and darts against the very hand that holds it, and does not abandon the impulse it received from the beginning, but stands firm within the boundaries of nature.

And one may see the sun and moon, and the chorus of the stars, turning their backs to heaven, yet sending their rays downward;

for they are slaves of their Owner, and the limit set by their Maker is nature to them.

For to you the nature of fire is not obedient, nor does it depart from its own proper activity;

but obeying the nod of the Maker, it is transformed, and its upward-tending nature becomes downward-tending.

Thus he leads and carries aloft the nature of the waters, though flowing and loose, drawing it up from below, and sets it midway between heaven and earth, resting upon nothing, but suspended and hanging by word alone.

But for now, do not desire to hear anything about the clouds, nor wish to run, since you have not yet learned to walk; rather, journeying through creation little by little, learn the course of piety.

See, then, here also the providence of God, standing watch over the sun and moon and the other luminaries, and, as it were with a certain voice, commanding them to give light to men — and not simply to give light, but according to an apportionment of time.

And one may see, as it were, certain sisters — I mean day and night — borrowing time from one another for the need of men, and again repaying it faithfully.

For when winter is drawing to a close, and spring begins to shine forth, when men's labors — journeys and travels abroad, and departures from harbors, and the sea now calm and freed from wintry roughness — become more numerous, and the earth, luxuriant with crops, calls the farmer to its tending, and the plants call the vinedresser to pruning and cleaning and irrigation, and to the care performed by digging — then day borrows from night, increasing for men the season of labor;

yet it is repaid little by little, lest by suddenness it should harm those who use it.

For labor that suddenly becomes greater does great harm to bodies that have remained idle for a very long time.

But when summer has already reached its midpoint, day ceases from borrowing, and immediately begins repayment, not putting off the repayment even a single day.

Yet little by little, just as it received, it gives back what it received.

Then, becoming equal in measure by autumn, it is not ashamed to be diminished, nor does it endure to have the advantage over its yoke-fellow; but until it has repaid the whole debt, it does not cease from diminishing, procuring for men a long-continued benefit.

For being compelled, on account of cold and rain and mud and marshes, to remain at home, we find night more welcome than day.

And there are some who, even when night thus becomes so long, do not get their fill of rest, but on seeing the dawn begin to shine, are vexed.

Thus, in turn, night, having received back its debt, does not refuse the loan.

Thus our whole life journeys on by means of these, and night provides men no less benefit than day.

For, in the first place, the very difference between darkness and light shows light to us as more pleasant and more delightful;

wherefore the dawn is more longed for by us than midday.

For having our fill of light during the day, we need the rest of night;

then, having obtained it, we set aside our satiety, and light again becomes desirable to us.

Thus also, being sated with labors during the day, we let our wearied body rest by night;

and having tended it well with bed, and sleep, and quiet, we again offer it, renewed, to our tasks at the break of dawn.

So great and so manifold is the benefit night provides us.

For the darkness of night stops even the most industrious of men from their labor.

Men waging war, even when conquering and pursuing their adversaries, have often shown it reverence;

and on beholding it arrive, they ceased from pursuing, and allowed those fleeing to escape at greater leisure.

This it is that gathers men home, and brings them sweet sleep, yet leads the wild beasts out to pasture, granting them freedom to feed.

"He made the moon for seasons; the sun knows its going down."

"Thou hast appointed darkness, and it became night;"

"in it all the beasts of the forest creep forth, young lions roaring after their prey, and seeking their food from God."

"The sun arose, and they gathered themselves together, and lay down in their dens."

"Man goes forth to his work, and to his labor until evening." So night provides this benefit as well: while giving men rest, it also grants the wild beasts to procure their food without fear.

And perhaps one of those who deny providence might say:

"For what reason, then, were the wild beasts created? And what use do they fulfill for men?" But let him await the defense concerning these matters in the discourse concerning wild beasts;

for the present, let the discourse proceed on its way.

That, then, the benefit of night is necessary, and exceedingly useful for men, what has already been said suffices, I think, to teach.

Yet the discourse will add still other things, bearing joint witness with what has gone before.

For since we possess a mortal nature, and live a life that is circumscribed, it was necessary for us to learn also the measures of time.

Night, therefore, coming in the middle of the days, causes time to be measured.

For if the light had remained without interruption, we would not have learned the cycles of years, we would not have been taught the number of months, but a single day would have seemed to be the measure of the whole present age — which measure we believe the age to come will possess;

for we have been taught that that day will be without evening, and altogether without interruption.

For such an age is fitting also for those who are to become immortal.

let us take care for ourselves, and hold ourselves ready for that journey.

But we take the measure of the month from the moon;

for from this it also received its name;

for they call the moon "mēnē."

For this — waxing and waning, becoming crescent-shaped, then half, then gibbous and full, and again passing back into the gibbous shape, then from there into the half, and into the crescent — thereby fulfills the number of thirty days, lacking but a few hours.

But the yearly cycle we are taught not from the months alone, but also from the days.

For when spring begins to shine forth, the sun, traveling through the middle of heaven, brings about equality between day and night;

then, taking hold of the more northerly points of its rising, and rising from there, it shortens the nights but lengthens the days;

But growing warmer as it strikes the earth, it ripens her fruits.

And having journeyed as far as its accustomed bounds, it turns back from the northern regions to the southern; and again in autumn, having presided over the equality of night and day, it becomes more southerly, and restores to the nights what it had taken from them and given to the days;

and it yields to the air, letting it grow dense, and be filled with clouds, and water the whole land.

From there, returning to the equinoctial turning-point, it completes the yearly cycle.

Since, then, you have seen the usefulness of sun and moon, and the equally-measured successions of night and day, and the benefit thence afforded to men, consider now, I pray you, also the most delightful and most useful dance of the seasons of the year.

For the Maker did not divide the yearly cycle in two, nor did he simply give us summer and winter, nor do we pass immediately from one extreme to the other; but spring and autumn, having obtained a middle temperament, become intermediaries between the frost and the burning heat.

And the extremely moist and cold winter is not succeeded by the extremely dry and hot summer, but by spring, which, partaking both of the latter's warmth and the former's coldness, produces the best mixture of things far apart, and, as it were laying hold with its hands of the opposites — on the one side the coldness of winter, on the other the warmth of summer — brings into agreement and friendship things utterly at war.

For, gradually withdrawing from the coldness of the one and drawing near to the warmth of the other, we suffer no harm from a sudden change.

Thus we pass from summer to winter, autumn again becoming the mean and not allowing us to touch at once the opposite extremes, but blending extreme heat with extreme cold, producing another mixture, and by degrees guiding us, as strangers, toward that extreme.

So great is the Maker's solicitude for us.

Thus also in the changes of the seasons he procures for us not only freedom from pain, but delight as well.

And perhaps one of those who are ungrateful for what has been made well and rightly, and ordered wisely and to our benefit, might find fault and say:

"Why, pray, do the solstices occur? What use do the shiftings of the seasons afford us?" And of what goods, O wisest and most clever accuser of Providence, do we not obtain through these? For at the beginning of winter we cast down the seeds, and he who taught us this art nourishes them, raining from the clouds, and drawing up the sea-water by his word, and lifting it on high, and changing that briny quality into sweetness, and separating out the droplets, now releasing them small, now large and pouring down in torrents, and dividing, as it were with a kind of sieve, the birth-pangs of the clouds.

And again, at the beginning of spring, some of the farmers prune the vines, others plant new ones, and the shoots, loosened by the warmth of the air, hasten toward their birth-pangs.

And when summer is at its height, and the sun greatly warms the air, the grain calls the farmer to the harvest, the grapes darken toward ripeness, the olive trees are laden as their fruit is nourished, and the various kinds of fruit ripen.

Then, autumn coming on, delivers these things, fully ripened, to the cultivators;

and they, having made the gathering, again set about the sowing of seeds.

Cease, then, being ungrateful, and attempting by the gifts of Providence to slander Providence itself, and shooting arrows at the giver of these goods by means of the very goods given.

In all that has been said, learn well the providence of God, guiding you and steering you, and procuring for you an abundance of every good thing.

Consider also the nature of the stars, their position, their order, the variety of their configurations, their delightfulness, their usefulness, their dance, their risings, their settings;

For seafarers, looking to these, travel the trackless path, and, attending to their position, steer the ship, and direct it to whatever harbours they wish.

O ineffable loving-kindness!

Who could worthily marvel at the goodness of God's providence, its power, its resourcefulness amid what is resourceless, its ingenuity amid what is unmanageable, its grand workmanship, its abundance? "Truly your knowledge has become wonderful for me, from myself; it has grown strong; I shall not be able to attain to it" — I too cry out.

And if you would be persuaded by me, you too will utter this cry along with me, and will hymn the Benefactor to the utmost of your power, and, being benefited by countless works, will render grateful words.

But that we may not, by making you, who have just now begun to walk, travel a long road, cause you toil, we shall for the present let you rest here, and leave off contemplating the providence of God that appears in heaven and in the luminaries of heaven.

For it is likely that you, having been guided, will of yourself also increase your contemplation, and, from what has been said, discover what has been omitted by the discourse for the sake of brevity, and cry out with the Prophet:

"How magnified are your works, O Lord!"

"You have made all things in wisdom." To you be glory, and honour, and worship, unto the ages.

Proof from air, and earth, and sea, and rivers, and springs

Those who disbelieve the reins of Providence, and who most foolishly maintain that the order of heaven and earth is borne along, with so much harmony and arrangement, without a charioteer, seem to me to resemble someone sitting in a ship and crossing the open sea, who, though he sees the helmsman grasping the tiller and moving the rudder as needed — now bringing it to the right, now shifting it to the left — and steering the vessel to whatever harbours he wishes, would nevertheless deny — thus manifestly lying and fighting outright against the truth — that any helmsman stands at the stern, or that the ship has rudders at all, or that it is steered by the movement of the tiller, but would claim that it is borne along of its own accord, and in this way overcomes the rush of the waves and does battle with the onslaught of the winds, needing neither the assistance of sailors nor a helmsman commanding what is mutually advantageous to the rowers.

It would suffice, then, if they were willing to listen with good will, that what was said by us yesterday concerning heaven, and the sun, and the moon, and the other luminaries, should persuade them to be sober-minded and to hymn the Benefactor.

But lest anyone of those who have set the moon as the boundary of Providence, and have said that it extends only as far as the moon, and have declared it to be extremely petty, should take the brevity of our words as a means to blasphemy, come then, O friend, let us bring you down again from there, through the air, to the earth, and, guiding you again by degrees as we did the day before, let us show you that this Providence appears and is displayed even in the smallest parts of creation, to those who are willing to attend, and, in a word, that it always accompanies — both in common and individually — those who have obtained a created nature.

Proceeding then in order, let us examine the nature of the air, how it is exceedingly subtle, and slippery, and easily escaping, and in need of things to contain it;

for it is by breathing this that we humans live; and of the irrational animals, as many as are winged, and creeping, and amphibious, have this as a co-worker of their life.

This, when set in motion, provides for us the breezes of the winds;

this, when condensed, sends down to the earth the watering that comes from the clouds;

the light, using this as its vehicle, feasts the eyes of those who see;

this, mediating between sun and earth, tempers the fierceness of the ray, and by its own moisture and coldness, soothing that dryness and heat, procures for us an unhurtful enjoyment of the light.

But lest you should think the air to be the cause of these goods in itself, learn that even its excess is lulled by the heat of the sun.

For no one could endure the coldness of the air in its pure, unmixed state;

and the wintry season is witness to this;