Select Orations (2/40/43) 1-1 part 1/4

By the same author, an apology for his flight to Pontus, and again for his return thence, after his ordination as presbyter, in which he sets forth what the profession of the priesthood involves.

I have been defeated, and I confess my defeat;

I submitted myself to the Lord, and made my supplication to him.

For indeed the best order, for everyone who begins any word or work, is to begin from God and to find rest in God.

As for the cause—whether of my first reluctance and faintheartedness, on account of which I withdrew in flight and lodged far from you for a time perhaps not short to those who longed for me, or of my present gentleness and change of mind, on account of which I have once more given myself back and come to you—let each of those who either hate or love us think and say one thing or another;

the one not letting go of accusations, the other even adding his approval.

For nothing is so sweet to men as talking about other people's affairs, especially when they happen to be drawn on by some goodwill or hatred—by which the truth is for the most part wont to be stolen away.

But I will set the truth in the midst, ashamed of nothing, and will judge fairly between both parties—both those who accuse us and those who eagerly speak in our defence:

accusing myself in one respect, and defending myself in another.

And that our discourse may proceed in due course, I will speak first concerning my timidity, since it came first;

for neither can I bear that any of those who carefully watch over all my affairs—both what is well and what is otherwise—should be wounded in my person.

For since God has been pleased that our affairs should in some measure belong to Christians, I will also heal, by means of this defence, those who have already been wounded, if indeed there be any such;

for it is good, so far as is possible and as reason allows, neither by sinning nor by being suspected to lay a stumbling-block or an offence before the many;

since we know that for those who cause even one of the little ones to stumble, the punishment from him who cannot lie is inescapable and most heavy.

For I suffered this, O men, not as one untaught and senseless—but rather (that I may boast a little) nor as one who despises the divine laws and ordinances.

For just as in a body there is one part that rules and as it were presides, and another that is ruled and led,

so also in the Churches God has ordained—by a law of equity that holds to what is according to merit, or rather of providence, by which he has bound all things together—that some should be shepherded and ruled, namely those for whom this is more profitable, being guided by word and deed toward what is fitting;

and that others should be shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the Church, namely those who are above the many in virtue and in nearness to God, holding the place of soul to body, or of mind to soul;

so that both, being joined and blended with one another—the deficient and the abundant—as in the limbs of a body, and being knit together and bound by the harmony of the Spirit, may be shown forth as one complete body, truly worthy of Christ himself, who is our head.

I do not, then, know any anarchy and disorder to be more profitable than order and rule, either for other creatures or for men;

but for these latter least of all, inasmuch as for them the danger concerns the greater things;

for whom it is a great thing, even if they cannot preserve the first part of the principle—namely, to sin in nothing—yet at least to attain the second after it: that, when they have sinned, they be brought back again.

Since, then, this seemed good and right, it is for me an equal evil and a like disorder, both for all to wish to rule and for none to accept the office;

for if all should flee this—whether one must call it a ministry or a leadership—the Church would be lame in its greatest part, and the fair fullness of the Church would no longer remain fair.

And where, and by whom, would God still be worshipped by us with the mystic rites that lift us on high—which indeed is the greatest and most honourable of all that is ours—if there were no king, nor ruler, nor priesthood, nor sacrifice, nor any of those things which the disobedient of old were condemned to lose, as the greatest losses for their great transgressions?

But neither is it a strange or unseemly thing for those who philosophize on divine matters among the many to ascend from being ruled to ruling, nor is it outside the recognized bounds of philosophy, nor does it bring reproach;

just as it is no reproach for one of the esteemed sailors to take the lookout's post, and for him who at the prow has kept good watch on the winds to be entrusted with the helm;

or, if you will, for a noble soldier to become a captain, and for a good captain to be made a general and entrusted with the command of a whole war.

Nor indeed—as someone perhaps of those altogether perverse and base might suppose, who judge the affairs of others by their own passions—was I ashamed of the rank of my degree out of a desire for the higher one;

I am not so ignorant of the divine greatness or of human lowliness as not to count it a great thing for any created nature even in any way whatsoever to draw near to God, who alone is most resplendent and most radiant, surpassing in purity all nature, both material and immaterial.

What, then, is it that I have suffered? And what is the reason for my disobedience? For I did not seem to most people then to remain within myself, nor to be such as I had been known to be, but to have become quite another person out of myself, and to resist and behave with more self-will than was good.

The causes of this you shall now hear, you who have long been longing for them.

First of all, being smitten by the unexpected, like those who are startled by sudden noises, I could not control my reasonings;

and on this account I cast off my reserve, though all that time I had been accustomed to it.

Then there crept upon me a certain longing for the beauty of stillness and of withdrawal;

of which I had become a lover from the beginning, as I know not whether any other of those devoted to learning has been; which also, amid the greatest and most grievous dangers, I had promised to God; and having even laid some hold on it, only so far as to come to its threshold, and having had my longing the more kindled by the experience—I could not bear to be tyrannized over, to be thrust into the midst of the tumults, and as it were to be torn away by force from this life as from some inviolable sanctuary.

For nothing seemed to me to be such as, closing the senses, becoming outside flesh and world, turning in upon oneself, touching none of human things except so far as is altogether necessary, conversing with oneself and with God, to live above the things that are seen, and ever to bear within oneself the divine reflections pure and unmixed with the lower and wandering images—being truly a spotless mirror of God and of divine things, both being so and ever becoming so, taking light to light, and the clearer to the dimmer, already reaping by hope the good of the age to come, and going about in company with angels, while still upon earth having left the earth, and being set on high by the Spirit.

If any of you is possessed by this love, he knows what I mean, and will forgive my feeling at that time;

for the many I could perhaps not even persuade by speaking, those to whom the matter even seems laughable, being ill disposed either by their own folly or by those who are unworthy of the profession;

who have attached an evil name to a good thing—vainglory to philosophy—taking as their helper envy and the wickedness of the many, which is more ready to incline toward the worse;

so that in any case one of two sins is committed by them: either the evil is practised, or the good is disbelieved.

Besides these things, I suffered something—for I will tell you the whole secret—I know not whether it was boorish or befitting a free man, but suffer it I did:

I was ashamed on behalf of those others who, being in no way better than the many—indeed it would be much, if they were not far worse—with unwashed hands, as the saying goes, and uninitiated souls, thrust themselves into the most holy things;

and before they have become worthy to approach the sacred things, they lay claim to the sanctuary, and crowd and jostle about the holy table, thinking this rank to be not a pattern of virtue, but a means of livelihood, not a ministry that must give account, but a rule that is exempt from scrutiny.

And they are well-nigh more in number than those whom they rule;

wretched in respect of piety, and pitiable in respect of splendour;

so that, to me at least, it seems that, as time and the evil go on, they will at length have no one left to rule, when all are teaching instead of being taught of God, as the promise says, and all are prophesying, so that even Saul is among the prophets, according to the old story and proverb.

For nothing has ever been, nor ever was, so abundant at any time—with different evils flourishing and ceasing at different times—as such reproaches and sins are now among Christians.

And even if to stay the tide of these things be beyond our power, yet at least to hate and to be ashamed of them is no small part of piety.

But that which is the last and greatest of the things mentioned—for I now come to the very crown and climax of my discourse, and I will not lie—

For it is not even lawful for those who speak about such weighty matters to do otherwise.

I did not think then, nor do I think now, that it is one and the same thing to rule a flock or a herd of cattle and to have charge of the souls of men.

For there it is enough to show that one has made the herd or the flock as fat and well-fed as possible;

and with this end in view the herdsman and the shepherd will look out for the watered and well-pastured places, will drive the beasts in and out from pasture to pasture, will let them rest, move them on, and call them back, using the staff a little but the pipe for the most part.

And the shepherd or the herdsman has no other task than now and then to fight off the wolves a little, and here and there to look after some ailing beast;

but for the most part his concern is the oak tree, the shade, the reeds, lying down in a fair patch of grass beside cool water, improvising a bed of leaves beneath the breezes, now and then singing some love-song over his cup, and conversing with his oxen or his flock;

and to feast upon these very beasts, or to sell off the fattest of them.

But no one ever yet gave a thought to the virtue of flocks or herds.

For what virtue is there in them? Or who ever considered their good before his own pleasure? (10)

But since for a man it is hard to know how to be ruled, it is likely far harder still to know how to rule men, and most of all in this office of ours, which is under divine law and leads toward God; and as great as its height and dignity are, so great also is the peril, at least for him who has understanding.

Such a man must first of all, like silver or gold turned about on every side and tried in all sorts of seasons and circumstances, nowhere ring false or sound base-metalled, nor carry within himself any of the meaner ore, the ore deserving the hotter fire;

otherwise his evil will be the greater, the more numerous those over whom he rules;

since indeed the wickedness that spreads to many is greater than that which stands within a single man.

For a woven cloth does not so readily take on a fast-fixed dye, nor does what comes near so easily absorb a stench or its opposite, nor does a pestilent vapour so quickly diffuse itself into the air and through the air infect living creatures—the thing that is and is called a plague—as the subjects are wont most swiftly to be filled up with the vice of the one set over them, and far more readily than with its opposite, virtue.

For to become evil is easy, even if no one at all be leading us to it;

but the acquiring of good is rare and uphill, even if there be much that draws us on and invites us toward it.

And this, it seems to me, is what the most blessed Haggai too perceived, when he came to that wonderful and most truthful image;

for he said, Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying:

If holy flesh, carried in the fold of a garment, should touch any food, or drink, or vessel, will it forthwith sanctify what it has come near?

Ask again, whether if any of these things has come into contact with uncleanness, it does not at once partake of the defilement; for they will surely answer that it does partake, and does not remain clean through the contact.

—signifying that the good is hard for human nature to take hold of, just as fire is hard to kindle in over-moist material;

but the most part of men are ready and apt for fellowship with evil, like stubble that is easily set ablaze by a spark and a breath of wind, and consumed because of its dryness;

for one would more quickly take on a rich measure of a little vice than, little by little, a deep store of virtue.

Since indeed a little wormwood most swiftly imparts its bitterness even to honey;

but honey, even in double measure, does not impart its own sweetness to the wormwood;

and a small pebble drawn out from beneath might draw a whole river down the slope,

while even the strongest barrier could scarcely hold it back or turn it.

First, then, among the things we have spoken of, this is worth taking heed to: that we do not show ourselves to be bad painters of that wonderful virtue—or rather, painters perhaps not unskilful, but having the many for a poor archetype;

or that we run not far from the proverb, in undertaking to heal others while we ourselves are teeming with sores.

For he to whom this charge is entrusted must not merely be free from evil—for that, in most of those under authority, is the most shameful thing—but must also excel in goodness, according to the commandment which bids us turn away from evil and do good;

nor only to blot out the base impressions from his soul, but also to inscribe the better ones upon it, so that he may surpass others in virtue by more than the measure by which he exceeds them in rank;

and to recognize no limit to the good and to his ascent, nor to count what he has attained as gain rather than what eludes him as loss;

but ever to make what he has reached a stepping-stone to the next;

and not to think it a great thing if we surpass the many, but a loss if we fall short of our calling;

and to measure his attainment by the commandment, not by his neighbours—whether they be evil, or have come to some measure of virtue;

and not to weigh virtue in small scales, when it is owed to the Greatest One, from whom are all things and to whom all things are owed.

Nor should one think that the same things suit all alike, just as ages are not the same for all, nor the characters of faces, nor the natures of living creatures, nor the qualities of soils, nor the beauties and sizes of lamps;

but should hold that for a private man it is a vice to do mean things and whatever deserves punishment—things over which even the law is a stern master;

but for a ruler or one set in charge, the vice is in not being the best, and in not ever advancing toward the good, if indeed he is to draw the many, by the abundance of his virtue, toward what is moderate, and not to lord it over them by force, but to win them over by persuasion.

For that which is involuntary tends toward the tyrannical, and is neither praiseworthy nor lasting;

for that which has been forced is wont, like a plant violently bent aside by the hand, when let go to spring back again to its own place;

but that which springs from free choice is at once most lawful and most secure, being kept fast by the bond of goodwill.

Wherefore our own law and Lawgiver chiefly enjoins us to shepherd the flock willingly, and not under compulsion.

But grant that there be one who is neither evil and has come to the very summit of virtue;

for truly this seems to me to be an art of arts and a science of sciences—to guide man, the most versatile and many-sided of living creatures.

One may recognize this by setting the healing of souls over against the treatment of bodies;

and by learning how laborious the latter is, and by further examining how much more laborious is the work that pertains to us, and how it is more honourable—both in the nature of its material, and in the power of its science, and in the end of its activity.

For the one labours over bodies, over perishable material that flows downward, destined wholly to be dissolved and to suffer its own fate, even if for now, by the aid of the art, it gains the mastery over the strife within it;

for either disease or time has dissolved it, since it yields to nature and does not overstep its own bounds.

But the concern that touches the soul is for that which is from God and divine, which partakes of the nobility from above and presses on toward it, even though it has been bound together with the lower nature;

perhaps for other reasons too, which God alone knows, who bound them together, and any to whom such mysteries have been revealed in wisdom from God;

but so far as I and those like me can understand, for two reasons:

first, that through struggle and wrestling against things below, the soul might inherit the glory above; that, tried like gold in the fire by the things of this world, it might hold what it hopes for as the prize of virtue, and not merely as a gift of God;

and this also belonged to the highest goodness—to make the good our own as well, not only sown in us by nature, but cultivated also by our own choice, and by the movements of free will in both directions;

and second, that the soul might draw the lower part toward itself and raise it on high, gradually loosing it from its grossness;

so that what God is to the soul, the soul might become to the body—training through itself the matter that serves it, and bringing its fellow-servant into intimacy with God.

The physician will take note of regions, seasons, ages, climates, and the like;

he will prescribe medicine and regimen, and guard against what is harmful, lest the cravings of disease should resist the art of healing;

and sometimes, in certain cases, he will even resort to cauteries and incisions and the harsher means of treatment;

yet none of these, however toilsome and grievous they appear, is so great a task as to scrutinize and heal the characters, passions, lives, and choices of men, and whatever else of this kind is within us; and to banish from our nature all that is brutish and savage, to introduce and establish in its place all that is gentle and dear to God, and to render just judgment for both soul and body;

not allowing the better to be tyrannized by the worse—which is the greatest of all injustices;

but subjecting to the ruling and governing part that which is by nature secondary;

even as the divine law, which holds most beautifully throughout all His creation, both that which is visible and that which is beyond sense.

I observe this too: that each of the things I have enumerated, as kept by the physician in the natural state it has, so remains, and contrives nothing cunningly of itself against him, nor matches its wits against what the art applies;

rather, the healing art the more readily masters the matter;

except perhaps where some slight disorder of the patient intervenes, which it is not hard either to guard against or to check.

But for us, the cleverness and self-love, and the refusal either to know or to bear being easily overcome, is the greatest hindrance to virtue, and becomes, as it were, a battle-line drawn up against our very allies;

and all the zeal we ought to bring in order to lay our disease bare to those who would heal us, this much zeal we bring instead to flee from the cure; and we are brave against ourselves, and skilled against our own health.

For either we have stolen away our sin like slaves, concealing it like some festering and malignant passion in the depths of the soul, as if we would escape even the great eye of God and of justice, provided we elude men;

or we make excuses in our sins, devising arguments to plead on behalf of our passions;

stopping our ears like the deaf adder that closes up its hearing, we strive not to hear the voice of the charmers, nor to be cured by the medicines of wisdom, by which the sickness of the soul is healed;

or finally—those of us who are bolder and more shameless—we even openly flaunt our impudence toward sin and toward those who would heal it, advancing, as the saying goes, with bare head to every transgression;

O the madness!—or whatever other name may more fitly suit such a passion!

And those whom we ought to love as benefactors, these we ward off as enemies, hating them when they reprove us in the gates, and abhorring the holy word;

and we suppose we shall the more do battle with those who wish us well, the more grievously we treat our own selves—like those who lay hold of their own flesh, thinking thereby to consume the flesh of their neighbors.

These are the reasons why I reckon our healing—the cure of souls—far more laborious than that which concerns bodies, and on that very account more honorable;

and because that other art, which scrutinizes but little of what lies in the depths, has its greater concern about what is outwardly apparent;

but for us, all the treatment and all the zeal is about the hidden man of the heart, and our warfare is against the one who wars and wrestles against us from within, who, using our own weapons against ourselves, surrenders us—most terrible of all—to the death of sin.

Against these things, therefore, there is need of much and entire faith, and of yet greater cooperation from God, and of no small effort of our own contrivance (so at least I persuade myself), an effort to be shown both in word and in deed, if we are to be rightly healed and cleansed, and if the most precious of all we possess—our souls—are to be of the greatest worth.

Now as for the ends of the two kinds of healing—for this still remains for us to examine—the one aims either to preserve the health or good condition of the flesh while it is present, or to recall it once it has departed; yet it is not even clear whether these will profit those who possess them;

since often the very opposites have benefited their possessors more—as poverty and wealth, glory and dishonor, lowliness and splendor, and all such things as by nature lie midway, inclining no more this way than that, which take on the better or the worse according to the use and choice of those who possess them;

but the other has set before it this aim: to give wings to the soul, to snatch it from the world and give it to God, and to preserve the image where it abides, or to lead it by the hand where it is in peril, or to restore it where it has been broken in pieces, and to settle Christ in the heart through the Spirit;

and—the sum of all—to make a god, and a partaker of the blessedness above, of one belonging to the order above.

This is what the law, our tutor, intends for us;

this, the prophets, who stand midway between Christ and the law;

this, Christ, the fulfiller and the end of the spiritual law;

this, the Godhead emptied;

this, the flesh assumed;

this, the new mingling—God and man, one out of both, and through one the two together.

And all things came together into one, on behalf of all and on behalf of one—the first father:

the soul, on account of that soul which disobeyed; the flesh, on account of that flesh which abetted it and was condemned together with it;

Christ, on account of Adam who came under sin—He who is mightier than sin and higher than it;

and through suffering, the One who suffered called us back, and for each of our ills there was given in exchange each thing of the One who is above us;

and so there came to pass a new mystery—the dispensation, born of God's love for mankind, concerning the one who fell through disobedience.

For this cause—the manger and Bethlehem;

the birth, on behalf of the first fashioning;

the Virgin, on behalf of the woman;

the manger, because of paradise;

the small and visible things, on behalf of the great and hidden ones;

and shepherds beholding glory upon the Lamb and Shepherd;

falling down and bringing gifts, that idolatry might be abolished.

For this cause was wood set against the wood, and hands against the hand: against that which was wantonly stretched out, the hands nobly stretched out;

against the hand unrestrained, the hands bound fast with nails;

against the hand that cast out Adam, the hands that gather in the ends of the earth.

And gall against the tasting, and a crown of thorns against the dominion of the evil one, and death against death, and darkness for the sake of the light, and burial against the return to the earth, and resurrection for the sake of the resurrection.

All these were a kind of training that God gave concerning us, and a healing of our weakness, leading the old Adam back to the place from which he had fallen, and bringing him to the tree of life, from which the tree of knowledge—partaken of unseasonably and unfittingly—had estranged us.

Of this healing we are the ministers and fellow-workers, all of us who preside over others;

for whom it is a great thing both to know and to heal their own passions and infirmities;

or rather, this is not yet a great thing—except that the wickedness of the many among those in this order has made us say even this much;

but far greater is the power to heal the ills of others and to cleanse them skilfully, in such a way as may profit both parties—both those who need the healing and those entrusted with the curing.

Now the healers of bodies will have toils and sleepless nights and anxieties such as we know;

and they reap their own griefs out of the misfortunes of others, as one of the wise men among the Greeks has said;

and some remedies they themselves devise by their own labour and discovery, while others they gather from elsewhere and contribute, to offer to those in need;

and nothing is so small, whether found or overlooked—not even the least thing—that it is not reckoned to weigh greatly toward the inclining of health, or, on the contrary, toward danger;

and all this for what end? That a man may live more days upon the earth—and that man perhaps not even one of the worthy, but of the most wretched, for whom it would perhaps have been better to have died long ago, being evil, that he might be rid of the greatest of diseases, which is wickedness.

But even if we should grant him to be among the good, for how long is he to live? For all time? Or what does he gain from this earthly life, to seek release from which is the first and safest of good things, and the mark of a man truly sound and possessing understanding? XXVIII.

But as for us, whose peril concerns the salvation of the soul—that blessed and immortal soul, which shall be either punished or praised everlastingly, according to its vice or virtue—how great ought we to think the contest to be, or how much skill is needed to heal well, or to be well healed, to transform one's life and to render the dust over to the spirit? For neither the same words nor the same impulses suit all alike: not woman the same as man, nor youth as age, nor wealth as poverty, nor the cheerful as the despondent, nor the sick as the healthy; rulers and ruled, wise and unlearned, timid and bold, the irascible and the gentle, those who stand upright and those who fall.

And if you examine yet more closely, how great is the difference between those joined in wedlock and the unmarried; and again, among these, between those of the solitary life and those who live in fellowship and intermingled with the world;

between the proven and advanced in contemplation and those who simply keep to the straight path; between townsfolk and country-dwellers, between the more guileless and the more crafty, between those engaged in affairs and those who live at leisure, between those stricken by reverses of fortune and those who run their course prosperously, yet are ignorant of the worse.

For in each of these classes men differ from one another sometimes more in their desires and impulses than they do in the forms of their bodies;

and, if you will, the mixtures and blends of the elements out of which we are composed are no easy thing to govern.

But just as for bodies the same medicine and diet are not applied to all, but to some one and to others another, according as they are in good health or sick, so too souls are treated with differing word and method of guidance.

And witnesses to this healing are the very maladies themselves:

some are led by reasoning, others are set in order by example;

some need the goad, others the bridle.

For some are sluggish and hard to move toward the good, and these must be roused by the stroke of the word;

while others are too hot in spirit beyond measure, and hard to restrain in their impulses, like noble colts running far past the post, whom the word would make better by checking and reining them in.

Some are benefited by praise, others by blame, both administered in due season;

or, on the contrary, they are harmed when these are out of season and out of all reason.

Some are set right by encouragement, others by rebuke;

and this rebuke too: some when reproved in public, others when admonished in private.

For some are wont to despise private admonitions, but are brought to their senses by the condemnation of a crowd;

others grow shameless in the face of the freedom of open reproofs, but are disciplined by the secrecy of correction, and repay sympathy with ready obedience.

In the case of some it is needful to watch carefully over everything, down to the very least matters—those who, by supposing that they go undetected (since this is the trick they practise), have puffed themselves up as wiser;