導師 第 1 章 第 10/15 段

Countless kindred sufferings increase with these, from which the licentious character reaches its peak.

Scourges and punishments are prepared for the licentious 'upon the shoulders of fools'—calling the strength of licentiousness and its vigorous endurance 'the shoulders of fools.'

Therefore: 'Remove vain hopes from your servants,' he says, 'and turn away from me unseemly desires; let not the appetite of the belly and lustful intercourse take hold of me.'

We must therefore keep off from afar the great wickedness of treacherous things.

For not only into the wallet of Crates, but not even into our city, does there sail a foolish parasite, nor a greedy fornicator glorying in lust, nor a wily harlot, nor any other such beast of pleasure.

Let much worthy conduct, then, be sown in us throughout our whole life.

Now whether one ought to marry at all, or to remain wholly pure of marriage—for this too is a matter of inquiry—has been set forth by us in the work 'On Self-Control.'

But if this very point, whether one ought to marry, required examination, how could one be permitted unrestrainedly, just as with food, so also with intercourse, to use it on every occasion as a necessity? At any rate one may observe how, as if they were warp-threads, the sinews are dispersed and ruptured at the intensity of the union.

Indeed, it also spreads a mist over the senses and breaks down the body's vigour.

This is clear both in irrational animals and in bodies under training, of which those that abstain prevail over their adversaries in the contests, while the others are led off from the act of mating, dragged about, all but hauled away, utterly emptied of all strength and dash.

The sophist of Abdera called intercourse 'a little epilepsy,' considering it an incurable disease.

For do not exhaustions also follow, attributable to the magnitude of the loss? For a human being is brought forth and torn away from a human being.

Behold the magnitude of the harm:

a whole human being is torn away in the expenditure of intercourse.

'This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.'

Thus, then, a man is emptied by his seed as much as he is seen in his body.

For that which departs is the beginning of generation.

But also the seething of matter agitates and shakes the harmony of the body.

like a raging and savage master.

But let marriage indeed be approved and ranked among good things;

for the Lord wills mankind to be multiplied, but He does not say 'be wanton,' nor did He will that men should give themselves over to pleasures as if they had been made for mating.

Let the Instructor put us to shame, crying through Ezekiel: 'Circumcise your fornication.'

Even the irrational animals have a fitting season for sowing.

But to come together not for the begetting of children is an outrage upon nature, whom we ought to inscribe as our teacher and observe the wise pedagogies of the season—I mean old age and the age of childhood, which she interposes: for to the latter she has not yet granted it, and the former she no longer wills to marry—save that one should not always be marrying.

Marriage is the desire for the begetting of children, not the disorderly emission of seed, which is unlawful and unreasonable.

Our whole life would proceed according to nature if we mastered our desires from the first, and did not slay by wicked devices the human race that springs up by divine providence;

for these women, under the cloak of fornication, employing abortive drugs that drag down to utter destruction, abort, together with the embryo, their very humanity.

But for those to whom marriage has been conceded, these too needed an instructor, that the mystic rites of nature should not be performed by day, nor that one, coming, say, from church or the market-place in the early morning, should mate like a cock, when it is the time for prayer and reading and for the good works of the day;

but in the evening it is fitting to take rest after the meal and after the thanksgiving for the enjoyments.

But nature does not always grant the season for the marital union to be consummated;

for indeed the more long-awaited embrace is the more desirable.

Nor indeed must one be wanton as in darkness by night, but one must confine within the soul the sense of modesty, as it were the light of reason;

for we shall differ in nothing from Penelope at her loom, by day weaving the doctrines of self-control, but by night unravelling them, whenever we go to bed;

for if one must practise gravity—as indeed one must—much more must a man display gravity to his own wife, declining unseemly embraces; and let trustworthy faithfulness toward chastity with neighbours come forth from one's own household.

For it is not, it is not possible to be reckoned grave by her with whom gravity is shown to be unwitnessed in those very keen pleasures.

Goodwill that confesses to be slipperily disposed toward intercourse blooms a little and grows old together with the body, and sometimes even grows old before its time, the desire having withered, whenever harlot-like pleasures outrage the chastity of marriage;

for the hearts of lovers are winged, and their love-charms are quenched by repentance, and loving often turns to hating, whenever the satiety of condemnation is felt.

Of licentious words and unseemly postures and harlot-like kisses, fornicating names and certain such lewd practices, one must not even make mention, obeying the blessed apostle, who says expressly:

'But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints.'

Well, then, does someone seem to have spoken:

'Intercourse has profited no one; it is to be loved if it has not harmed.'

For that which is according to law is precarious, except in so far as it is for the begetting of children; but concerning that which is unlawful the Scripture says:

'A hired woman shall be reckoned equal to a sow, but a married woman is a tower of death to those who use her.'

He likened the harlot's passion to a boar or swine, and called adultery with a guarded harlot 'death sought after.'

And the house and city in which they act wantonly—indeed even the poetry among you reproachfully writes somehow:

'Adulteries are with you, and the lawless mingling of men, effeminate and unjust unions, O evil city, all unclean;'

but on the contrary he admires the self-controlled,

those who have no shameful longing upon another's bed, nor rush upon the hateful and abominable outrage of a male, because it is contrary to nature;

they call their own sins 'delights,' but those of them who are more decent recognize that these are indeed sins, yet are overcome by pleasures.

And darkness is for them a screen for their passions;

for he who prostitutes himself commits adultery against his own marriage, and does not hear the Instructor crying out:

'The man who goes up upon his bed, who says in his soul:

Who sees me? Darkness is round about me, and the walls are my covering, and no one sees my sins;

why should I be cautious? Will the Most High remember?'

Most wretched is this man, fearing only the eyes of men, but supposing he will escape the notice of God.

For he does not know, says the Scripture, that the eyes of the Lord Most High are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, which look upon all the ways of men and observe into hidden places.

By this again the Instructor threatens them, saying through Isaiah:

'Woe to those who make their counsel in secret, and they shall say:

Who sees us?' For one might perhaps escape the perceptible light, but to escape the intelligible light is impossible; or as Heraclitus says:

'How could anyone escape that which never sets?' By no means, then, let us screen ourselves with darkness, for the light is indwelling in us;

and 'the darkness,' it says, 'does not comprehend it,' but the night is illumined by chaste reasoning;

and the Scripture has named the reasonings of good men 'unsleeping lamps.'

And yet to attempt to escape notice in the things one does is the act of one who confesses to be sinning; and everyone who sins straightway also does wrong, not so much to his neighbour, if he commits adultery, as to himself, in that he has committed adultery;

but in every way he shows himself worse and more dishonoured.

For he who sins, in so far as he sins, is worse and more dishonoured than his own self;

and by all means licentiousness is now present in him who is overcome by shameful pleasure;

wherefore by all means the fornicator has died to God, and has been left behind by the Word, as if dead by the Spirit.

For He abhors that the holy be defiled, as is indeed fitting.

And it is always lawful for the pure to touch the pure;

let us not, then, when we strip off our tunic, ever strip off modesty as well, since it is never lawful for the righteous man to strip off self-control.

For behold, this corruptible shall put on incorruption, whenever the insatiate of desire, that which flows into wantonness, being instructed by self-control and become free from the love of corruption, shall yield the human being to everlasting chastity;

for in this age they marry and are given in marriage, but having abolished the works of the flesh and put on incorruption with the flesh itself made pure, we press on toward the measure of the angels.

Thus too Plato, in the Philebus, that disciple of the barbarian philosophy, mystically called 'atheists' those who corrupt and defile the God dwelling in them—the Reason (Logos)—in so far as in them lies, by their familiarity with the passions.

We must therefore never live as mortals, being sanctified to God, nor indeed, as Paul says, ought we to make the members of Christ the members of a harlot, nor make the temple of God a temple of shameful passions.

For remember the twenty-four thousand who were thrust away because of fornication; and the sufferings of those who fornicated, as I have already said, are types pedagogically training our desires.

But to us the Instructor most plainly exhorts:

'Go not after your lusts, and refrain from your appetites;'

'for wine and women will turn away the prudent, and he who cleaves to harlots will become more reckless; rottenness and the worm shall inherit him, and he shall be made an example in a greater public disgrace;' and again, 'for she does not cease from doing good;'

'but he who looks pleasure in the face crowns his life.'

It is therefore not right to be overcome by sexual pleasures, nor indeed to gape after lusts, nor to be passionately stirred over irrational appetites, nor to desire to be defiled.

Only to sow is permitted to the married man, as to a farmer, at that time when the season receives the seed.

For incontinence the best remedy is reason, but want of satiety also helps, by which the inflamed desires leap about pleasures.

Neither, then, should one lay claim to costly clothing, just as not to varied food.

The Lord Himself, then, dividing His precepts into soul and body and, thirdly, external things, advises that for the body external things be provided, that the body be managed by the soul, and He pedagogically trains the soul, saying: Do not be anxious for your soul, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on;

for the soul is more than the food and the body than the clothing.

And He adds a clear illustration of the teaching:

Consider the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap, which have no storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them.

Are you not of more value than the birds? And these things concern food;

and likewise also concerning clothing, which belongs to the third class, the external things, He enjoins, saying: Consider the lilies, how they neither spin nor weave; but I say to you, that not even Solomon was clothed like one of these.

And Solomon the king prided himself greatly upon wealth.

What, then, is fairer and more flourishing than flowers? And what more delightful than lilies, or perfumes, or roses? But if God so clothes the grass which is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith?

And you, do not seek what you shall eat or what you shall drink.

Here the word 'what' has cast out the variety of food, for this is signified from the Scripture:

do not be anxious about what kinds you shall eat or what kinds you shall drink;

for it is covetousness and luxury to be anxious about these things;

but the mere eating, simply understood, is a token of necessity, the fulfilment, as we have said, of need;

but the 'what' is from excess, and the Scripture has declared that the superfluous is from the devil.

And the following phrase clarifies the meaning.

For having said, Do not seek what you shall eat or what you shall drink, He added:

and boastfulness and luxury make men hover aloft away from the truth, and the self-indulgence that occupies itself with superfluities leads away from the truth;

wherefore He also says most beautifully:

For all these things do the nations of the world seek.

The disorderly and senseless are the 'nations.'

And what does He call 'these things'? Luxury, self-indulgence, dainty cookery, gluttony in fish, and ravenous gluttony;

but concerning the mere food, both dry and liquid, as being necessary, He says, your Father knows that you have need of it.

And if we have become altogether inquisitive, let us not waste our inquisitiveness upon luxury, but kindle it anew toward the discovery of the truth.

For seek, He says, the kingdom of God, and the things of food shall be added to you.

If, then, He takes away anxiety about clothing and food and superfluities in general, as not necessary, what must we suppose He would say concerning love of adornment—the dyeing of wool, the variety of colours, the fussing over precious stones, the working of gold, and further the artificial braids and curled ringlets, and besides the painting of the eyes, the pluckings and false complexions, the white lead, the dyeing of hair, and the malicious artifices that go with these deceptions?

Must we not very well suppose that what was said a little before concerning the grass might also have been spoken concerning these inelegant lovers of adornment? For the world is a field, and we are the grass watered by the grace of God, and being mown down we again spring up, as will be shown more fully in the work 'On the Resurrection'; while the common rabble is allegorized as 'grass,' the multitude akin to ephemeral mirth, blooming for a little, lovers of adornment and of glory and anything rather than lovers of truth, fit for nothing but to be kindling for the fire.

There was a certain man, the Lord relates in His narrative, exceedingly rich, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day;

and a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate, full of sores, desiring to be fed from the things that fell from the rich man's table;

but the one was punished in Hades, the rich man, partaking of the fire, while the other flourished anew in the bosom of the Father.

I admire the ancient city of the Lacedaemonians;

for to courtesans alone it permitted to wear flowery garments and golden adornment, taking away from honourable women the love of adornment by allowing only the courtesans to deck themselves out.

But the Athenians, on the contrary, the rulers who emulated the urban civic order, forgetting the men's quarters, wore gold and put on ankle-length tunics, and were clothed in long robes;

and they bound up the krobylos, which is a kind of hair-knot, adorning themselves with the insertion of golden cicadas, displaying their earth-born origin truly with the bad taste of effeminacy.

And the zeal of these rulers spread also to the other Ionians, whom Homer, ridiculing their effeminacy, calls 'trailing-robed.'

Therefore those who reach out after love of adornment as an idol of the beautiful, and not after the beautiful itself, again practising idolatry under a fair name, must be banished far from the truth, dreaming of the nature of the beautiful by opinion, not by knowledge.

And the life here is for them a deep sleep of ignorance, from which we must awake and hasten toward the truly beautiful and orderly, and lay hold of and cling to this alone, leaving the orderly things here to rejoice in the world itself, before we fall fast asleep forever.

I say, then, that man needs woven garments for no other reason than the covering of the body, as a protection against excessive cold and the intensity of heat, lest the immoderation of the surrounding air should in some way injure us.

If, then, this is the aim of clothing, see whether one kind of clothing should not be assigned to men and another to women;

for the being covered is common to both, just as is eating and drinking.

Since, then, the need is common, we approve a similar construction.

For just as the need of coverings is common to both, so also the coverings ought to be similar; though even so, this covering too must be adopted, by which it is proper to hide the eyes of women.

For even if the female has the disadvantage on account of weakness, the habit of bad upbringing is to blame, by which men, often reared on base regimens, have become more effeminate than women;

we ought not, then, to relax our tone.

But if we must make some concession, a little must be yielded to them to use somewhat softer fabrics, only removing the foolish delicacies and the elaborate weaves in the textures, letting gold thread and Indian silks and the elaborate silkworm products go their way.

First a worm is produced; then from it a hairy caterpillar appears; after which, in a third metamorphosis, it is renewed as a chrysalis—some call it nekydallos—from which is produced a long thread, just as from the spider the spider's web.

For these superfluous and transparent garments are proof of a mind that is not robust, pandering to the shame of the body with a slight veil.

For the luxurious garment is no longer a covering, being unable to hide the form of nakedness;

for such clothing, falling upon the body, is moulded to it rather damply and is moulded round it, clinging fleshlily to the shape, and takes the impression of the woman, so that to one looking on, the whole disposition of the body becomes visible.

And we must also refuse the dyes of clothing;

for these are far from both utility and truth, besides causing slander of character to break out like a rash;

it is most fitting to use undyed white garments, free of elaboration, in things within.

Clearly, then, and plainly Daniel the prophet says: 'Thrones were set, and one sat upon them like the Ancient of Days, and his garment was white as snow.'

He beholds the Lord clad in such a robe in a vision;

'I saw the souls of those who had borne witness beneath the altar;

and to each was given a white robe.'

But if one must seek some other colour, the self-grown dye of truth suffices; and the garments that resemble flowers must be left to Bacchic and orgiastic follies; moreover, purple and silverware, as the comic poet says, are useful for tragic actors and not for life, but our life ought to be anything rather than a procession.

Sardian dye, then, and another unripe-green, and another pale-green, and rose-blended, and scarlet-dyed, and ten thousand other dyes have been devised with great zeal for ruinous self-indulgence.

This garment is for show, not for covering.

Things spangled with gold and dyed in sea-purple and figured with animals—this is rather a luxurious bit of show—and that perfume-dyed saffron robe, and the costly and varied garments of those much-admired gossamer stuffs, having little figures worked in the purple, must be left to art itself to enjoy.

For what prudent or splendid thing could women do, who—as the comedy says—'sit decked out in flowers, wearing saffron robes and beautified'? The Instructor expressly admonishes:

'In the putting on of a garment you shall not boast, nor be exalted in any glory that does not abide.'

Mocking, then, those clad in soft raiment, He says in the Gospel:

'Behold, those who are in glorious raiment and live in luxury are in kings' palaces'—He means the earthly palaces, the corruptible ones, where there is vain pursuit of glory and vainglory and flattery and deceit;

but those who serve the heavenly court round about the King of all sanctify the undefiled garment of the soul, the flesh, and with this put on incorruption.

Just as, then, the unmarried woman gives her leisure to God alone and her care is not divided, while the married woman, if she is chaste, divides her life between God and her husband, but she who is otherwise inclined becomes wholly of the marriage—that is, of passion—in the same way, I think, the chaste woman, when at leisure for her husband, worships God without hypocrisy, but when she loves adornment she has fallen away both from God and from chaste marriage, exchanging the world for her husband, after the manner of the Argive courtesan—I mean Eriphyle—'who received precious gold for her dear husband.'

On this account I also accept the sophist of Ceos, who sketches fitting and corresponding images of virtue and of vice;

the one of them, Virtue, he portrayed standing simply, white-robed and clean, adorned with modesty alone—such ought faith to be, virtuous with modesty—but the other he introduces as the opposite, Vice, clad in superfluous raiment and gleaming with an alien colour;

and her movement and bearing, studied for the sake of allurement, lie there as a sketch for lascivious women.

But he who follows the Word will appropriate to himself no shameful pleasure whatever;

wherefore also the useful aspect of clothing must be preferred.

And even if the Word sings this through David, saying concerning the Lord:

'Kings' daughters gladdened you in your honour;

the queen stood at your right hand, clothed in gold-wrought raiment and arrayed in golden tassels'—it did not declare the luxurious garment, but signified the undefiled adornment of the Church, woven of the faith of those who have obtained mercy, in which the guileless Jesus shines forth like gold, and the tassels, the elect, are golden.

But if one must relax the tone for the sake of women, the garment must be woven smooth and pleasant to the touch, but not, like paintings, embellished for the delight of the eye;

for the painting fades with time, while the scourings and astringents, melting the wool of the mantles with the drug-like juices of the dye, render the weaves weak, and this is not even fit for economy.

It is the greatest vulgarity to be so fluttered over robes and trailing dresses and over-mantles and cloaks and tunics, 'and they cover the shame,' as Homer says.

For I am truly ashamed when I see so much wealth poured out upon the covering of the pudenda.

For the ancient man in Paradise measured out the covering of his shame with branches and leaves, but now, since sheep have been created for us, let us not be foolish in the same way as the sheep, but, being pedagogically trained by the Word, let us expose the costliness of clothing, adding: You are the hairs of sheep, even if Miletus boasts, even if Italy is glorified, even if the hairs are guarded under hides, those hairs over which the many are mad; but for us at any rate they must not be eagerly pursued.

But the blessed John, despising even the hairs of sheep as smelling of luxury, chose the hairs of camels and clothed himself with these, setting forth a type of the frugal and guileless life.

For he also ate honey and locusts, sweet and spiritual food, preparing the ways of the Lord unpretentious and sober.

For surely he would never have put on a purple cloak, he who turned away from political ostentation and lived in the desert in the calm of solitude, having his citizenship with God, apart from all vain endeavour, churlishness, and meanness of spirit.

Elijah used a sheepskin as a garment and girded the sheepskin with a belt made of hair.

And Isaiah, that other prophet, was naked and barefoot, and often clothed himself with sackcloth, the garment of humility.

And if you call Jeremiah, he had only a linen girdle.

And just as well-nourished bodies, when stripped, show their vigour more plainly, so also the beauty of character, when not wrapped up in tasteless trifles, displays its magnificence.

But to trail one's garments, letting them drop to the very tips of the feet, is utterly arrogant, becoming a hindrance to the activity of walking, the garment being dragged along like a broom over the chaff lying on the surface of the ground; nor is this practice even of those broken-down dancers who pursue the voiceless effeminacy upon the stages, who let their garment trail down to such a pitch of insolence—men for whom the careful arrangements and the danglings of the fringes and the elaborate rhythms of their postures betoken the trailing of a petty-minded slackness.

And even if one cite the ankle-length robe of the Lord, that many-coloured tunic shows the flowers of wisdom, the varied and unfading Scriptures, the oracles of the Lord flashing with the rays of the truth.

Such another garment the Spirit clothed the Lord with through David, singing somewhat thus:

'You put on confession and majesty, clothing yourself with light as with a garment.'

Just, then, as one must be pure of all absurdity in the making of garments, so also must one be wary of immoderation in their use.

For it is not seemly to be dressed above the knee, as they say the Laconian maidens were;

for it is unseemly for any part whatsoever of a woman to be laid bare.

And yet it is possible to utter most decorously that elegant saying to one who said:

'Beautiful is the forearm,' 'But not for the public,' and:

'Beautiful are the legs,' 'But only for my husband,' she says, and:

'A comely face,' 'But only for him who has married me.'

But I would not wish chaste women even to give occasion for such praises to those who hunt for blameworthy things through praises; and not only is the baring of the ankle alone forbidden, but it has also been enjoined that the head be veiled and the face shaded.

Bodily beauty is a snare for men;

nor is it reasonable for a woman, using a sea-purple veil, to wish to become conspicuous.

For would that it were possible even to remove the purple from clothing, so as not to turn the spectators' gaze upon the face of those who wear it;

but those women, weaving the remaining little bit of the mantle, have made the whole thing sea-purple, inflaming men's idleness; and indeed for them, busying themselves about these foolish and dainty purples, that poetic phrase holds: 'purple death seized them.'

On account of this purple, then, Tyre and Sidon and the neighbour of the Laconian sea are most coveted;

and their dyers too are held in high esteem, and the purple-fishers, and the very shellfish themselves, because the purple blooms from their blood.

But also the deceitful women and the womanish among the men, mingling deceitful dyes into their dainty fabrics, rage about immoderation, no longer importing the fine linens from Egypt, but certain others from the land of the Hebrews and from the land of the Cilicians.

And of the amorgine and byssine fabrics I am silent;

luxury has outdone even the naming of them.

But the covering, I think, ought to show that which it covers to be better than itself, as the statue is better than the temple, the soul than the body, and the body than the clothing.

But now it is quite the contrary: if their body were put up for sale, it would never fetch a thousand Attic drachmas, yet, buying a single garment for ten thousand talents, they prove themselves more worthless and more dishonoured than the fabrics.

Why, then, do you pursue the rare and costly before the common and cheap? Because you are ignorant of the truly beautiful and the truly good;

and instead of the realities, the seeming things are zealously pursued among the senseless, who, like madmen, fancy the white as black.