Cure of the Greek Maladies 1 part 13/16

that the very fact that the so-called seers sometimes speak truth in their predictions would be the work not of knowledge, but of a chance cause.

For we who have grasped the clear concepts ranged under each name have determined to call it the work of chance—not the never hitting the mark, but the not hitting it always, nor for the most part, nor as if from knowledge, whenever someone does at some time hit it. And that Porphyry says the oracle-giving gods, when compelled by human beings, foretell what they do foretell, anyone who wishes can easily learn from that very treatise of his which he entitled On the Philosophy from Oracles;

for he himself set down the very utterances of the gods.

For he says that Hecate, when summoned by him, said:

"I came, hearkening to thy much-pondered prayer, which the nature of mortals devised by the counsels of the gods." And again, complaining against the one who had summoned her:

"In need of what," she says, "didst thou call me, the goddess Hecate, by god-constraining compulsions?" And Apollo too cries out:

"Hear me against my will, since thou hast bound me by compulsion."

For indeed they drag them down from above and bind them below;

and they are not able to depart until the human beings release them.

And one can find countless other such things in this writer, refuting their weakness.

And how full of harm their oracles are, anyone who happens upon these (oracles) would easily learn.

For once, when a famine had fallen upon the Athenians, the Pythian gave an oracle that it would not cease before the Athenians sacrificed seven maidens and as many youths to Minos.

And the obliqueness of the oracles has brought destruction upon many.

For indeed Aristomachus, not having understood (the word) "the strait," abandoned the crossing and the triremes, but attacking through the Isthmus, lost his life.

But the oracle-giver ought not to have shrouded the oracle in darkness, if indeed he knew what was going to be;

but maliciously he gave the prediction ambiguously, so that the falsehood might not be easy to detect.

And this very same thing also brought disaster upon Croesus;

for he said, "Croesus, having crossed the Halys, will destroy a great kingdom."

But which one—he did not make clear: whether his own or that of his enemies—so that whether defeated or victorious, he might not accuse the seer.

And the Pythian did these things after receiving from that man gifts worth many talents.

For either he boasts of knowing what he does not know, or, knowing it, he willingly wrongs those who have been eager to serve him.

[He did something very similar also in the case of Julian, when he had set his impulse against the Assyrians;

for he said, "Now we gods have all set out toward the river Therus, to bring back the trophies of victory; over these I will lead—I, impetuous Ares, raiser of the din of war."] And he did something quite like this also in the case of the Athenians.

For when Xerxes had marched against them with many myriads, the envoys of the Athenians ran to him (Apollo);

(and he answered:) "O wretched ones, why do you sit (idle)?" And this plainly convicts him of his ignorance.

For if he had truly foreknown the victory, he would surely not have called them "wretched," but "thrice-blessed";

for with twelve hundred triremes they conquered three million men.

Victorious, therefore, and exceedingly renowned, and not wretched and thrice-miserable, were those who set up that celebrated and far-famed trophy.

Then he counseled them to flee, foretelling the weakness of the city's guardian goddess;

But what follows is directly contrary to this.

For after saying that Zeus would not be persuaded by Athena's entreaties, he then said again, as though he had changed his mind:

"Far-seeing Zeus grants to Tritogeneia a wall of wood."

And to those whose hopes hung on a razor's edge, he did not point out concisely any clear path of escape;

but he cloaked his own ignorance in the ambiguity of his oracles, dreading lest the tokens of his falsehood be detected.

And the very end of the oracle was likewise of the same sort:

For he was ignorant, as he showed, of who would die—whether they would be Persians or Athenians.

But here Themistocles, employing both intelligence and courage, did not allow the falsehood of the oracle to be completely exposed.

Nor, indeed, did he show the Athenians to be wretched, but rather blessed.

But for the Lacedaemonians and the Cnidians his oracles brought to the one defeat, and to the other slavery.

And he prides himself on having given to Lycurgus the lawgiver those most savage and most shameful laws.

"You have come, O Lycurgus, to my rich temple, dear to Zeus and to all who hold the halls of Olympus.

Yet still more, O Lycurgus, do I expect you to be a god;

you have come seeking good government."

What sort of laws this man laid down we have shown in the discourse before this one.

For he enacted the expulsion of foreigners, the licentious love of boys, the lawless intercourse of women, and he overturned the laws of marriage.

But the most wise and most musical seer himself declared that he had given these laws, and he calls the one who legislated such things a god, yet confesses that he does not know whether one ought to call him a god or a man;

and wishing to bestow the more honourable title, he did not give it as a god, but said "I expect," as a man.

This same one also praises the women of the Lacedaemonians for consorting fearlessly with whomever they wish, and he says:

"Of all lands Pelasgian Argos is best, best are the Thracian mares, the Lacedaemonian women, and the men who drink the water of fair Arethusa."

This same one also called Archilochus, who was a most shameful poet, renowned in song and immortal;

and to his father he said:

"Immortal and renowned in song shall your son be among men, O Telesicles."

"Blessed and ill-fated"—the one because of the blindness that came upon him, the other because of the poetry, which he supposed to be excellent in every respect;

on account of which Plato, anointing him with perfume as one does the swallows, sent him forth from the city which he himself had founded.

This same one also commanded that Cleomedes the boxer be deemed worthy of divine honour;

"Last of the heroes," he says, "is Cleomedes of Astypalaea, whom honour with sacrifices as one who is no longer mortal."

How many bloody deeds this one dared, we have already said before.

And to the Methymnaeans he gave this oracle:

When his own temple was being burned, he did not defend it, but said that it had received this lot from the Fates, and he sang a dirge, lamenting the disaster.

I will recite the end of it:

"Endure in your heart the unalterable decrees of the Fates;

for it was destined that after long ages the most beautiful shrine should be subdued by the wind-borne sweep of flames."

And countless other ridiculous things one may find in this man's oracles.

And these oracles were collected not only by Porphyry in his work On the Philosophy from Oracles, but also by Oenomaus the Cynic, who refuted the falsehood of the oracle-mongers.

But for us the testimony of the facts themselves suffices, which speaks with the loudest voice and refutes the falsehood of the oracular shrines.

For before the appearing of our Saviour, when as it were a kind of darkness held the inhabited world, like certain robbers and thieves—those destroyers of mankind, the utterly wicked demons—employed ambushes and snares and nets of every kind, hunting down the nature of men;

but when the light of truth arose, they all fled and abandoned their own lairs.

Therefore at His very appearing they cried out:

"What have we to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here before the time to torment us?" And others again adjured Him not to send them into the abyss.

And at Philippi the spirit of the Python cried out concerning the apostles:

"These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation." Seeing, then, the preaching of truth running everywhere, like fugitive soldiers who have committed many dreadful and lawless deeds, and then, perceiving the coming of the king, they fled and left their ambushes bare.

But the King of all things dissolved their strongholds;

for He who rebukes the abyss and dries it up, according to the prophet, He who says to the abyss "Be dry," commanded them to be silent.

For the martyr did not permit him to foretell things and, as was his custom, to lead men astray from the Crucified One; but just as the great Paul rebuked the spirit of the Python, so the dust of the martyr bridled the falsehood of the seer.

What sort, then, the oracles of your gods are, you have learned from your own philosophers;

but what sort of things the God of all foretells, and how they are profitable for life and beneficial and sending forth the radiance of truth, anyone who wishes may learn accurately, by reading the divine words.

And I, for my part, will call to mind a few prophecies, that by setting them side by side I may show the difference.

First of all I will speak of those which foretold the abolition of the idols.

Hear, then, Isaiah the prophet saying:

"It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God upon the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and all the nations shall come to it, and many peoples shall go and shall say:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will declare to us His way;

for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and He shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many a people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks."

Tell me truly, if anything in these words appeared to you crooked or ambiguous;

but I know that you will not say so;

for you regard with awe the testimony of the facts;

for you see plainly the fulfilment of the prophecy.

Or do you not see the exaltation of the Church, and all men bowing down and offering their worship to her—the greater part willingly, but some, contradicting and serving against their will? Do you not see the summits of the mountains cleansed of your defilement and adorned with the dwellings of the ascetics, and all men streaming together from everywhere, confessing the divinity of the Word who appeared in Zion, and embracing the law that gushed forth from Zion, and the wars now ceased, and men handling, instead of weapons of war, the implements of agriculture? Or do you not know that, at the time when the prophet uttered these things, one man reigned over Jerusalem, another over Samaria, another over the Edomites, another over the Moabites, and yet another over the Ammonites? And the Arabs and the Midianites and the Amalekites were under still other rulers;

for indeed they were ruled by kings not only city by city, but even village by village.

But immediately after our Saviour was born according to the flesh, Augustus Caesar gained dominion over all of them, and abolishing the ethnarchies and the petty kingdoms, he subjected them all to the helms of the Romans.

Foreseeing these things, the prophet uttered what has been said above, and a little later he lamented in tragic strain the abolition of the idols made by hands;

for he says: "They shall hide away all the works of their hands, carrying them into the caves and into the clefts of the rocks and into the holes of the earth, from before the face of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of His strength, when He arises to crush the earth.

For in that day a man shall cast away his abominations of silver and of gold, which they made for themselves to worship—to the vain things and to the bats—so as to enter into the holes of the solid rock and into the clefts of the rocks, from before the face of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of His strength, when He arises to crush the earth." Now the interpretation of this prophecy it does not befit us to make, but rather you to marvel at the truth of the oracle and to acknowledge what has often happened among yourselves.

But do not blush, O men;

for it is fitting to be ashamed not of the confession of sin, but of the deed.

But if you are unwilling to say it, nevertheless all know it, having been eyewitnesses of the gods that were often buried in the ground and dug up from there by those who had been taught true religion, and brought to light.

For some, enslaved to impiety, buried them, thinking thereby to come to the aid of the gods; others informed those who searched for such things; and others, digging, both found them and set them up in the marketplaces, so that even by women and lads the so-called gods were mocked.

For some were likenesses of creeping things, and others images of four-footed beasts;

and they even worshipped representations of bats and flies.

And these very creatures they destroy — the serpents, I mean, and the scorpions and the flies and the bats — yet they made gods of their imitations.

But concerning these matters we have already discoursed at length;

let us then learn the truth of the other oracles.

These words also are from the same prophet:

Thus says the LORD God of Israel:

In that day a man shall put his trust in Him who made him;

and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.

And they shall no longer put their trust in the altars, nor in the works of their hands, which their fingers have made.

And they shall no longer look to the groves nor to their abominations. These things the prophet foretold more than a thousand years before the reign of Constantine, after whom the shrines of the demons were destroyed.

But even from afar the God-bearing man, as though present, beheld and foretold the things that would come to pass after so long a time;

they foretold things that would happen after three months, as they were to be, but rather they gave oracles inclining now this way and now that.

Hear also what follows:

Turn back, you who devise a deep and lawless counsel, O sons of Israel, for in that day men shall cast away their handiwork of silver and of gold, which their hands have made. And again:

and as for the things to come, I am.

The nations saw and were afraid;

the ends of the earth were amazed;

they drew near and came, each one judging to help his neighbor and his brother.

The craftsman grew strong, and the smith striking with the hammer, beating together.

They fastened it with nails;

they set it up, and it shall not be moved. For it can neither stand unless nailed fast, nor walk unless carried by others.

my soul has accepted him.

I have put my Spirit upon him;

he shall bring forth judgment to the nations;

he shall not cry out, nor lift up his voice, nor shall his voice be heard abroad;

a bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, but he shall bring forth judgment unto truth;

he shall shine forth and not be crushed, until he has set judgment in the earth;

and in his name shall the nations hope.

Thus says the LORD God of Israel, who made the heaven and established it, who set firm the earth and the things in it, and gives breath to the people upon it, and spirit to those who tread upon it:

I the LORD God have called you in righteousness, and I will take hold of your hand and strengthen you;

and I have given you for a covenant of the race, for a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from their bonds, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison house.

My glory I will not give to another, nor my excellencies to graven images. These things the God of all spoke to the Lord Christ as to a man, naming him Jacob and Israel from the nature that is seen;

for from that race he sprang up according to the flesh;

and clearly he displayed his meekness and his longsuffering, which he showed even while being treated with drunken insolence by the Jews.

He said that this one was given for a covenant of the race;

for to the patriarchs and to the Jews themselves he promised the salvation that would come through him.

And he said that he would also rise up as a light to the nations, so as to open the eyes of the blind, to break the bonds of those who were fettered, and to set free from darkness those sitting in the gloom of ignorance as in a prison.

And he called blind and fettered and sitting in darkness those who were wrapped about with the mist of ignorance, and those who were fettered with the chains of sin.

And that he so named those who were enslaved to the error of superstition, the following words bear witness:

For I, says the LORD God:

My glory I will not give to another, nor my excellencies to graven images. For as soon as he appeared, he stripped them also of the title which they had snatched and clothed themselves with; and a little after he again said this:

The LORD God of hosts shall go forth to shatter war, and to stir up zeal, and shall cry out against his enemies with might. Then he teaches why he did not do this long ago, and says:

Shall I forever keep silence and forbear? I have endured like a woman in travail;

I will reveal myself, and I will astound, and I will dry up all together. Those former words were of longsuffering, and these of lovingkindness;

for being longsuffering from the beginning he did not punish.

Then, using forbearance, he called those who had gone astray, and scattered those who led astray;

For I will astound, he says, and will dry up all together;

And I will lead the blind in a way that they knew not;

and I will make them tread paths that they did not know. For those who long ago went astray were ignorant of the way of truth;

the paths of the deceiver, but they came to know the way of truth.

I will make the darkness light before them, and the crooked things straight. For instead of the former darkness they now enjoy the spiritual light, and forsaking the perverse ways they walk the straight way.

Then, as to those still going astray, he rebukes them:

Be utterly ashamed, you who trust in graven images, who say to molten images:

You are our gods. And a little after:

Behold, I do new things, which shall now spring forth, and you shall know them;

and I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the dry land,

to give drink to my chosen race, my people whom I have preserved for myself, to declare my excellencies. And here he called those who had believed his race, of whom he was named the firstborn on account of the flesh which he assumed.

And that he said these things concerning the nations, what follows bears witness:

Hear, O islands, and give heed, O nations;

"Stand after a long time, says the Lord." And that none of this fits the Jews is testified both by the name of the islands and by that of the nations.

And again: "Hearken unto me, my people;

and give ear unto me, ye kings;

for a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment for a light of the nations;

my righteousness draweth near speedily, and my salvation shall go forth as a light."

By "arm," however, he did not name a bodily member—for the divine nature is simple and free from all composition—but figuratively signified the power.

For since it is by the hands that warriors draw up in battle array, and farmers do their labor, and indeed those who practice any other craft, fittingly through the "arm" he indicated the power, in which we put our trust and cry out:

"I will not fear evils, for thou art with me." And again he cries out:

"Behold, I have given him for a witness among the nations, a prince and a commander to the nations."

"Behold, nations that know thee not shall call upon thee;

peoples that understand thee not shall flee to thee for refuge, for the sake of the Lord thy God and the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee." Seeing therefore the Lord Christ reigning over the inhabited world, and all the nations gladly hymning his lordship, both understand the prophecy and marvel at the truth.

And hear also what follows:

"And they that are from the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and they that are from the rising of the sun shall fear his glorious name." And again:

"I was made manifest to them that asked not for me;

I was found of them that sought me not;

behold me, behold me, unto a nation that called not upon my name." And indeed the whole prophecy is full of such words.

But that we may show the other prophets also foretelling things in harmony with these, hear Jeremiah crying out:

"At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord;

and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, and they shall not walk any more after the imaginations of their evil heart." Behold, O men, the harmony of the words, and see all men from everywhere running together to that city which received the Lord's saving Passion, abhorring the deceit of idols and offering to the Crucified the worship that once belonged to those idols.

And from the same prophet these words also:

"Stand ye in the ways, and see;

and seek out the eternal paths of the Lord, and see which is the good way, and walk in it, and ye shall find sanctification for your souls."

"I have set watchmen over you;

hearken to the sound of the trumpet."

but when those refused, the God-given gifts were bestowed upon all the nations.

For just as the byways from the villages and the fields lead into the royal highway, so all the prophets pointed out this road to those willing to believe;

and the Lord himself in the sacred Gospels cries out:

"I am the way and the life and the truth." He exhorts the Jews, therefore, to read the oracles of the prophets and to seek out what was prophesied.

But when they contradicted the prophecies, he brought forward the apostolic trumpet.

"We will not hear," cry the divine men to them, as Luke records in the Acts:

"It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you;

but since ye judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, we are clean, and from now on we will go to the nations." Yet again the prophet foretells the salvation of the nations and cries out to the God of all:

"O Lord my strength and my help and my refuge in the day of evils, unto thee the nations shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say:

as false our fathers acquired idols, and there was no profit in them; can a man make for himself gods? and these are no gods." What could be plainer than these words? For the prophet, as if present and beholding the transformation of the inhabited world, and hearing the repentance of the nations, and perceiving them mocking the impotence of the idols, thus composed the oracle.

And Amos the prophet foretells not only the salvation of the nations but also the dispersion of the Jews—or rather, through his tongue, the God of all himself does so:

"For behold, I command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve." And a little after:

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father,

full of grace and truth." And Zephaniah also cries out:

"The Lord will appear against them, and will utterly destroy all the gods of the earth;

and men shall worship him, every one from his own place, and all the islands of the nations." For since he had commanded the Jews to run together to the temple in Jerusalem, he necessarily added that, the so-called gods having vanished, each one would worship the true God, not being compelled to run to that city, but offering worship in their homes and cities and villages and fields.

And a little after he says again:

"Then will I turn to the peoples a language for their generation, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him under one yoke;

from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia they shall bring sacrifices unto me." For the one tongue of the apostles, which was Galilean, he distributed into the tongues of all the nations, and brought to all the call of salvation.

And indeed through Zechariah also he foretells things in concord:

"Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Zion;

for behold, I come, and will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord;

and many nations shall flee to the Lord for refuge in that day, and shall be his people;

and I will dwell in the midst of thee;

and thou shalt know that the Lord Almighty hath sent me unto thee." In these words the Only-begotten displayed both his own person and that of the Father.

And he said "sent," since he appeared not as God but as man;

and it befitted him, having come on behalf of men, to fulfill righteousness and to show forth the praiseworthy obedience.

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion;

shout, O daughter of Jerusalem;

riding upon a beast of burden, even a young colt."

"And he will utterly destroy the chariots out of Ephraim, and the horse out of Jerusalem;

and the battle bow shall be utterly destroyed;

and there shall be multitude and peace out of the nations;

and he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth." And after very much more:

"And the Lord shall be king over all the earth;

in that day there shall be one Lord, and his name one, encircling all the earth and the wilderness." What of these things, O men, is obscured or in need of clarification? Which of the things said does not have the loud-crying testimony of the facts themselves? Hear then, through Malachi also, the God of all speaking to Israel:

“I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord,

and I will not accept an offering from your hands;

for from the rising of the sun even unto its setting my name shall be glorified among the nations;

and in every place incense is offered unto my name, and a pure offering.

“But ye profane it.” Set the words beside the facts, my friends, and behold both the contradiction of the Jews and the confession of the nations, and the spiritual sacrifice offered everywhere on land and sea to the God of all; and sing the praises of him who so plainly foretold these things.

For indeed all the prophets foretell the salvation of the nations; and moreover, when he made the covenant with the patriarch Abraham, he promised that through his seed he would give the blessing to the nations:

“I will bless thee,” he said, “and make thy name great, and thou shalt be blessed; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” And this promise he gave him not once but many times;

and indeed, after his death he bestowed the same blessing upon Isaac also, and after him again upon Jacob.

For since the Only-begotten, having taken human nature from their seed, became man, and having become man and accomplished the dispensation, sent forth the apostles into all the world and commanded them to make disciples of all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and the nations having believed enjoyed salvation — it was therefore fitting that he should grant this blessing to Abraham and to those descended from him,

making known to them what was to come, and displaying the greatness of the gift, and cheering with the hope of salvation those who give heed to the divine oracles.

And the patriarch Jacob also, in blessing Judah, made mention of the blessing of the nations:

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah,” he said, “nor a ruler from between his loins, until he come for whom it is laid up;

and he is the expectation of the nations.” And the great Moses too cries aloud:

“this day have I begotten thee;

ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession.” And in the eighth psalm he says:

“O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, for thy majesty is exalted above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected praise.” And we see these things being fulfilled day by day.

And in the ninth psalm again he says to the God of all:

“let the nations be judged before thee;

appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them;