駁尤利安 第 1 章 第 4/6 段

Now then, toward what does this manner of comparison actually look? And what could his purpose be in setting the doctrines of the Hebrews — that is, of the Christians — over against those of the Greeks? For surely no one would say that, having renounced denunciation and having removed himself from the need to slander, he will treat as upright judges those who read him, so as even to wish to learn from them what is better or what is worse.

But he supposes, presumably, and reasonably enough from his own view, that no one will praise the opinion he holds concerning God unless the doctrines of the Christians are made to appear base, receiving upon themselves, by comparison with those of the Greeks, the more shameful verdict.

But this could never happen, at least among those who know both the impotence of falsehood and the power of truth.

For though he legislates, as it were, for us that we must be silent and make no mention whatsoever of his own affairs when we speak on behalf of our own religion, he himself is found convicted by the very things he denies.

But since he also puts forward the question why in the world, having abandoned the ways of the Greeks, we have inclined toward those of the Hebrews, come, let us also say the same things back to him:

Then do you suppose you have counseled well, and not rather that you have fallen into the very worst of all false opinions? But if indeed he wishes to understand the truest reason for which, abandoning the ways of the Greeks, we have honored those of the Hebrews, taking his own words, we say:

{JULIAN} Well then, the Greeks fashioned myths about the gods that are incredible and monstrous (for they said that Cronos devoured his children, and then again vomited them up), and unlawful marriages besides:

For Zeus lay with his mother, and having begotten children from her, he himself married his own daughter — or rather, he did not himself marry his own daughter, but having simply lain with her, he handed her over to another;

Such are the things the myths of the Greeks tell.

{CYRIL} From this you already have a sufficient defense.

You are at a loss, then, as to why you should also think it right to call us to account, when we, having all but spurned the so shameful and implausible idle mythology of the Greeks, have given the better verdict to the things that are true. For Moses the divinely-inspired, and moreover the chorus of the holy prophets, and apostles and evangelists, glorify the one true God who is such by nature, and they persuade us also to be so disposed, carrying us away from myths and every monstrous fable and base thinking, and shaping us into a way of life worthy of admiration.

Nothing in what is found among them [in the Scriptures] has been fabricated, nor indeed does the exposition of their teachings contain anything implausible.

For that the things concerning us agree with the proclamations of Moses and of the holy prophets, and that the force of the evangelical and apostolic teaching accords with the concepts of those who went before, our argument will clearly demonstrate to us in due time.

But since, saying I know not what, he insists that nothing serious or good exists among us, come, let him demonstrate this too;

for let him not make his accusation a bare and unproven one.

For how is it that nothing serious exists among us? Is not the account concerning God and the coming-to-be of the world found among Christians precise and refined? Have we not been furnished, from the sacred Scriptures, with a knowledge of what is to be done that is beyond reproach and beyond censure? And yet, how is it not evident to all that philosophizing in the best manner could rightly be accomplished in no other way, I think? For contemplative philosophy, together with practical philosophy, would be full of every praise, and it is admired among those who have zealously pursued the ways of the Greeks:

Well then, it is not from the opinion of the Hebrews that we have learned atheism — for he himself said this too — but rather, if one wishes to speak the truth, it is from the divinely-inspired Scripture that we have condemned the ignorance of the Greeks.

And that atheism belongs rather to them, who do not know the one true God who is such by nature, how could this not be clear to everyone? He says that we have chosen a base and slovenly life out of the indolence found among them [the Greeks], calling by the name of "Greek" vulgarity and indolence the indiscriminate devouring of rich food, and the refusal to abstain from any comestible whatsoever.

For it is precisely in this that they most display the power of piety, and think that they have attained the good of every virtue, if indeed they abstain from certain foods.

And yet why in the world do they define the manner of purity by these things? For all things have come to be from God, and all things that come from what is good are wholly good;

and the all-pure and unprofaned God would produce nothing of the things that are wont to defile us.

For what could food do to those who partake of it? Or what sort of pollution could it introduce into them? What is fitting to be shunned, I think, are the things by which one might reasonably be defiled — and these, quite generally, are the ways of baseness: adulteries, fornications, slanders, false speech, calumnies, love of money, and the rest.

They reject certain foods, yet fear none of the monstrous things.

Very many, then, are the charges against us from him;

but he speaks with great impropriety, and against the all-wise Moses and his writing he makes no small denunciation.

For he says that the one who composed the book of the world's creation spoke nothing whatsoever true, but simply heaped together stale nonsense; and that the things which it would have been reasonable to deem worthy of full account, he counted as nothing at all, while, having simply strung things together at random, he seemed to be saying something wise and worth hearing.

And he has admired the opinions of the wise men among the Greeks on this matter, and above all, with acclamations and applause beyond the rest, he crowns that of Plato.

As for me, that he swaggers no small amount in this too, I will again pass over without comment; but that he vainly raises his eyebrow at the clever inventions of the Greeks, I shall try, as best I am able, to explain.

I think it necessary, again, to select from their own books and set forth the opinion each of them held concerning the construction of the world, and then to bring forward in reply the cosmogony of Moses:

for thus it will be evident to readers both the nonsense of their petty wrangling and the purity, unto truth, of the writings of Moses.

Plutarch, then, a man of no small repute among them, in the second book of his Collection of the Opinions of the Natural Philosophers, speaks thus concerning the world:

"Pythagoras was the first to name the encompassing whole of all things 'kosmos,' from the order that is in it."

"Thales and his followers [held] the world to be one;

Empedocles [held] that the circuit of the sun is the circumscription of the world's boundary;

Seleucus [held] the world to be infinite;

the Stoics [held] that 'the All' and 'the Whole' differ;

for 'the All' is that which includes the infinite void, while 'the Whole' is the world apart from the void;

so that the Whole and the world are one and the same."

Then, concerning the shape of the world, he again speaks as follows:

"The Stoics [held] the world to be spherical, others conical, and others egg-shaped;

and Epicurus [held] that it is possible for the worlds to be spherical, but also possible for them to have other shapes."

And again, setting forth for exposition the opinions of the philosophers among the Greeks as to whether the world is ensouled or not, he spoke thus:

"All the others said that the world is ensouled and governed by providence;

Aristotle [held that it is] neither wholly ensouled throughout, nor rational, nor intelligent, nor governed by providence;

for the heavenly things partake of all these;

for it contains spheres that are ensouled and full of life, whereas the earthly things partake of none of these, but share in good order only incidentally, not primarily."

And such are the things concerning these matters.

And since it was again their purpose to examine whether the world is by nature perishable or not, they have held the following opinions on this matter too:

"Pythagoras and the Stoics [held] that the world is both brought into being by God, and perishable insofar as concerns its nature;

for it is perceptible because it is also corporeal, yet it will surely not perish, on account of the providence and sustaining power of God;

Epicurus [held it] perishable, because it is also generated, like an animal, like a plant;

Xenophanes [held] the world to be ungenerated, eternal, and imperishable;

Aristotle [held] that the part of the world beneath the moon is subject to change, in which also earthly things suffer decay."

Hear, O men, and understand at last how much nonsense there is in these things.

Belching forth their opinions according to what seems right to each, how could they not be thought rather mere guessers, and not knowers of the truth? For some say the world is one, others many, others that it is generated; and there are those who, standing entirely opposed to these and differing in judgment, say that it is imperishable and ungenerated;

and some say it is governed by the providence of God, while others, apart even from providence, have attributed the well-ordered motion of the elements to spontaneous causes and to chance;

and some say it is ensouled, while others say it is neither ensouled nor intelligent;

and, in short, one might observe their reasoning on each point being tossed this way and that, as if drunk.

But since, having singled out Plato from among the rest, he dwells especially upon his opinions, I would say that Plato and Pythagoras do hold somewhat more reasonable opinions concerning both God and the world;

but they gathered this instruction, or rather this knowledge, having betaken themselves among the Egyptians, among whom there was in fact much discourse concerning the all-wise Moses, and the wonder of his teachings was held in honor.

Nevertheless, they say that Plato held opinions contrary to himself, and that Aristotle, who studied under him, chose not to think as he did, but rather set himself in opposition and array against him.

For Porphyry says that Plato held an opinion concerning heaven, stating that its bodily form was composed of the four elements, which had been brought into harmony with one another by the [world-]soul;

and he gives, I think, an etymology of the name, saying that it is called "ouranos" as being, as it were, something visible ("horaton"), so that from being seen it might be understood to be a heaven.

To Aristotle, however, these matters did not seem to stand thus.

How could it be otherwise? For he says that heaven was not composed [of the elements], nor indeed that it consists of the four elements, but he conceives of a certain fifth body, having no share whatsoever in the four, and wholly devoid of them.

And Plato says that the cosmos is ensouled and an intelligent living being, and he sets providence over it;

but his own disciple, in turn, did not think this way;

for [he holds the cosmos to be] neither wholly and entirely ensouled, nor intelligent, nor governed by providence

And again, the one [Plato] defines it, so far as concerns its own nature, as generated and perishable, while the other does not even grant that it is generated, but [regards it] as imperishable and ungenerated

And again, the formidable and renowned Plato defines that there are three principles of the universe: God, matter, and form;

and he says that God is the maker, matter is the substrate, and form is the paradigm of each thing that comes to be;

but Aristotle in turn rises up against him and does not agree with him at all;

for he does not deem it fit either to think or to say that form is a principle, but says that the principles are two: God and matter

And Plato, again saying that the principles of the universe are three—God, matter, and form—adds also a fourth, which he calls the universal soul

And besides this, having said that matter is ungenerated, he also says that it is generated;

then, having granted that form, whatever it may be, subsists by itself, he contradicts his own discoveries;

for he said that it exists in the thoughts of God and does not have an independent existence, that is, substantiality

To which of them, then, should the seekers of truth incline so as to run along the blameless and most unerring path? Which of the named [philosophers] shall we absolve of speaking falsely? To whom is it fitting to award the vote for having erred in no way whatsoever? Or rather, how could they be trustworthy enough to persuade anyone, seeing that they have so greatly missed the truth as to be at variance not only with one another but even with their own opinions? Yet the all-wise Julian praises these things and stands amazed at them, and while he mocks the words of Moses, stirring up everything from top to bottom, he dares to set the words of Plato over against them, and says:

Consider, then, what this man [Plato] says concerning the demiurge, and what words he attributes to him in the coming-to-be of the cosmos, so that we may set the cosmogony of Plato and that of Moses side by side with one another

For thus it would become clear who is the better, and who is more worthy of God;

is it Plato, who worshipped idols, or he of whom Scripture says that God spoke to him mouth to mouth? "In the beginning God made heaven and earth;"

"and the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water."

"Let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light, that it was good."

"And God divided between the light and the darkness, and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night."

"And there was evening and there was morning, one day."

"Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and God called the firmament Heaven."

"Let the water under heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear;"

"Let the earth put forth the grass of the field and the fruit-bearing tree."

"Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, that they may give light upon the earth;"

"and God set them in the firmament of heaven, to rule the day and the night."

In these [words], he says that neither the abyss was made by God, nor the darkness, nor the water;

and yet, presumably, having said concerning the light that it came to be at God's command, he ought also to have spoken concerning the night, and concerning the abyss, and concerning the water;

but he said nothing at all about them as having come into being, even though he mentioned them repeatedly.

Besides this, he makes no mention of the coming-to-be or making of the angels, nor of the manner in which they were brought forth, but only of the bodies pertaining to heaven and earth—so that, according to Moses, God is the maker of nothing incorporeal, but only the orderer of a pre-existing matter;

"And the earth was invisible and unformed" is nothing other than [Moses] making the dry substance to be matter, and introducing God as its orderer.

{CYRIL} Concerning Moses, then, the discourse would be long and extensive for those wishing to speak well of him;

for he clearly heard God saying:

"I know you above all, and you have found grace with Me."

And indeed, a most clear proof of the manifold virtue present in him would be the power of the wonder-working in Egypt

for he was subject to the God of the universe, and was a minister to Him who rose up, through creation, against the follies of the Egyptians

But as for what sort of man Plato was, even if no one were to say it, his journey from Athens to Sicily would proclaim it aloud;

However, let the discourse concerning this be set aside for now, and let us return again to the matter at hand

For the divinely-inspired Moses is seen to have composed for us not idle words, nor was he moved to this simply out of love of glory, but he devised something necessary for the benefit of life

For he did not set out to give a subtle natural philosophy, that is, to say something concerning the so-called first principles or the elements derived from them;

for I think these matters are too elaborate and subtle, and not to be grasped by the minds of some.

But his aim was to fix the minds of those living at that time upon the doctrines of truth

For they had gone astray, and were caught worshipping whatever seemed [good] to each, and, through their excessive ignorance, not knowing the one true God by nature, they had rendered worship to creation

And some named heaven as god, others the orb of the sun, while there are those who were eager to assign the glory of the highest nature to the moon and the stars, to earth and plants and the nature of the waters, and to birds and irrational animals

this error having been distributed among all who dwell upon the earth, Moses was a helper, and showed himself the teacher of the most excellent lessons for all: on the one hand plainly proclaiming that the maker of the universe alone exists by nature [as God], and on the other hand separating him from the other things which were brought forth through him into being and existence at all

Most usefully, then, and very clearly, having passed over excessive and subtle discourse, he proceeded to speak of more necessary matters

For what need was there to say what the nature of the waters is, or how it came to be in the beginning, and to measure out both the abysses and the nature of heaven, and to inquire minutely into the manner of the angels' existence? For I think it would be agreed by all that these things are difficult to explain.

But even if, supposing God taught wisdom, it were possible to explain these matters fully, who would there have been to listen, that is, capable of understanding things so subtle, or rather even beyond comprehension? And yet we shall find that those living at that time, when the writing of the all-wise Moses was being composed, were even behind the ignorance of the Greeks themselves;

for those [Greeks], by the very means through which it was possible to perceive clearly the glory of God, were by those very same means caught, having fallen into the pit of the utmost folly of all

For, as the divinely-inspired Scripture indeed says, the ancients ought presumably to have conceived of the maker and craftsman of the universe from the beauty of created things;

but they had fallen into such folly that, even from those things by which it was reasonable to be borne toward the knowledge of truth, by those very things they were caught, suffering the fate of being attached to falsehood

And a faithful witness to this would be the all-wise Paul, who wrote as follows

"For His invisible attributes, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, both His eternal power and divinity, so that they are without excuse; because, knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor give thanks, but became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened."

And this would apply fittingly to those who have devised a herd-like, promiscuous, and altogether irrational false worship—such as, as I have said, were those to whom the discourse of the all-wise Moses was addressed;

and that they would be found to have become full of a stupor that reached its extreme limit, we shall see without difficulty by inquiring closely into the opinion of those who came after them

For Plutarch, who was extremely subtle, says somewhere concerning them, in the first book of his Collection of the Opinions of the Physicists:

"And they derived from this a conception of God;"

"for the sun and moon and the rest of the stars, having been borne along beneath the earth, always rise again alike in their colors, equal in their magnitudes, and in the same places;"

and again in the same book:

"And they define the conception of God thus:"

"an intelligent and fiery spirit, having no form, but changing into whatever it wishes and assimilating itself to all things."

"And they first arrived at a conception of this by attending to the beauty of the things that appear, [reasoning] that nothing beautiful comes to be at random and by chance, but through some craft that fashions it."

And I will add to these what Hermes Trismegistus once wrote in To His Own Mind (for that is the title of the book):

"Then, you say, is God invisible? Speak not so!"

"This is the goodness of God, this is His virtue, that He is made manifest through all things."

And we shall see that even he who accuses our holy religion, Julian himself, agrees with these things

{JULIAN} And that this exists in human beings not by teaching but by nature, let the first proof for us be the common eagerness of all men, both privately and publicly, both individually and by nations, concerning the divine

it is not easy, nor is it possible for even those who know it to speak of it in every respect

"And to this common conception of all men there is added also another:"

"for all men are so naturally attached to heaven and to the gods appearing in it, that even if someone conceived of a God other than these, he nevertheless assigned heaven to him as a dwelling-place—not removing him from earth, but as if, having seated the king of the universe in that place more honorable than all, supposing that from there he oversees the things here."

{CYRIL} Observe, then, how those who could not endure the gross, charlatan-like, and, so to speak, vulgar error, and who departed from the herd-like opinion, were not entirely deprived of the true conception concerning God, but inferred both what, and how great, is the pre-eminence of the power present in Him, such that He sustains this so great and admirable creation with laws of good order

The others, however, of whom our discourse treats, did not come to know God through his creatures; rather, they were so thunderstruck and so bereft of a mind fit for human beings, that they chose to worship not only heaven and earth and the moon and the other stars, but also set up in shrines images of many forms, and engraved for themselves shapes not only of human beings but also of irrational animals and birds and reptiles, and called these very things gods and saviors.

Then how could one not admire the skillful artistry of Moses, who spoke to his hearers of that time nothing over-elaborate or profound and hard for them to receive, but rather those things by which it was possible for them to pass over gradually to what is right, and to guide their understanding toward an unblemished opinion — I mean, that concerning God who rules over all things? Then shall we not praise teachers of boys, and very reasonably too, who accommodate themselves to their pupils' understanding, and lead them by the hand little by little toward being able to perceive something of the hidden things, setting before them at the outset nothing of what is too advanced and, in a manner, difficult of approach — and shall we not judge most holy Moses, who did this very thing, worthy of every praise? But if it seems to you that I have said nothing necessary, shall we take up the studies dearest to you? Let us examine, so far as we can, the precision of Hesiod's Theogony.

For he feigns the invocation of the gods, and, having assigned to himself, as if it were some great and lovable thing, the appearance of being possessed by the Muses...

"Tell (he says), how at the first the gods and earth came to be, and the rivers, and the boundless sea raging with its swell, and the shining stars, and the wide heaven above."

Then, saying that Chaos and Night came to be, without adding in what manner:

"Earth (he says) first brought forth, equal to herself, starry Heaven, that he might cover her all about."

And having declared Heaven to be the child of Earth, he says that, lying with Heaven, she also bore the seas, and Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus and Theia and Rhea and Themis and Mnemosyne, and Phoebe besides these, whom he also calls "golden-crowned", and moreover Tethys; and he says that Cronus was born youngest of all.

Then to these he adds certain rubbish of random and incoherent narratives.

But perhaps someone will say that Hesiod fashioned these things as myth, according to the poet's convention.

for perhaps he himself blushes at his own narratives.

Why then does one blame the hierophant Moses, who composed a clear and utterly unerring account of true narratives? For he said that heaven and earth, sun and moon, stars and light, birds and swimming creatures, and the forms of irrational animals, and the beauty of plants, edible fruits, and the grasses of the fields, were made by God.

Observe how, through these words, he most wisely cuts away the error that had settled upon the ancients.

...the earth [as some deity], and the sun as Apollo, and the moon as "her of the golden distaff, the resounding one" — that is, Artemis? And, in short, giving to each of the things that had come to be from God whatever name seemed fitting to them, they worshiped these as gods.

But that the account of the cosmogony given by the divinely-inspired Moses is clear and easily comprehended, containing nothing over-elaborate, and composed with great precision — come now, come, let us demonstrate this.

For "in the beginning" (he says) "God made heaven and earth."

For he does not, like some, allow matter to be understood as without beginning together with God, co-eternal and unbegotten — as though that which once was not could run alongside and co-subsist with the eternal, or that which came into being in time and only with difficulty could be joined to that which always is, or that which is moved could be joined to that which remains ever the same and in like manner, or that which is subject to corruption could be joined to the incorruptible.

Rather, he bounds creation by time and by a beginning that summons it to coming-to-be, as having been brought, out of things that are not, according to the will of God, to be this very thing which it is.

And surely he does not say that, matter having pre-existed and been found already at hand, God became merely an orderer and craftsman, giving form to the shapeless in whatever manner he knew how, and merely casting upon it differences of qualities, magnitudes, and masses; but rather, by some ineffable and unspeakable power, he brought that which was not, and did not exist at all, into the beginnings of being.

But in what manner he creates is impossible for our mind to see, and I say it is even beyond all reasoning.

For how could anyone express what is beyond mind? And I think that the achievements of the highest of all essences, and its way toward whatever is to be done, will stand as far above our own as we are, by nature, inferior to it.

"In the beginning God made heaven and earth" — understand that, having gathered together, so to speak, all things summarily and in brief, he narrates the coming-to-be of the whole creation.

Then he proceeds skillfully to say what was necessary: in what manner it was set in order, and how each of the things made obtained, very fittingly, this very thing which they are.

And he says that He created by the all-powerful Word.

For his Word, the demiurge of all things, is God, and by nature from God.

"Let there be a firmament" — and see, at once, by the power of the Word, the firmament fixed fast, which indeed he also called heaven.

"Let the dry land appear" — and the water ran together into one gathering.

And besides these he said that the sun should come to be, and it came to be; the moon, the stars, and light, and land animals and water animals, and besides these, birds.

And that the very nature of the elements could not, of itself and from itself, escape corruption, but rather needs the hand of him who holds it together for its well-being, he taught by saying:

"The Spirit of God was borne above the water."

For the Spirit of God gives life to all things, being itself, by nature, life, as from the life of the Father; and all things need it, and could not otherwise possess stability with respect to being that very thing which they are.

Behold then, as I said, the firmament being fixed fast by the Word, and the dry land rising up as the waters were gathered together into one.

Behold the earth bearing verdure with grasses and trees, and seminal principles existing within them, so that through these the temporary things, stealthily borrowing the power of eternal existence, might persist and be preserved.

Observe the luminaries in the firmament, made by God for no other purpose than only this: that they might give light to those upon the earth, and mark out seasons and days and years.

For indeed his coming-to-be was not, like that of the other creatures, contrived off-hand and on equal terms.

The supreme nature — which is conceived, and indeed is, beyond the universe, beyond mind, reason, and wonder — has willed to make the living being like unto itself, so far as this is possible.

For this reason, and quite fittingly, lest the living being that was to be made according to his image and likeness — that is, man — should seem to be something small and lowly, or to differ but little from the other animals, he does not make its coming-to-be without careful deliberation.

And yet someone might say, and would not miss the truth, that nothing could escape the divine mind.

For he knows, he knows all things before their coming-to-be.

What then was he deliberating about, though he had foreknown the nature of man? In an economical manner, as I said, the most excellent Moses says that man was honored, as it were, even by deliberation beforehand, not presenting his coming-to-be as simple, as one might say, and in no way distinguished from that of the other creatures, but as though God had, in a manner, taken thought and care over the matter.