駁歐諾米 第 1 章 第 2/56 段

And these things he raves not simply thus, at random, as it happens with those he chances upon, but he set up a written monument of this melancholy against himself.

And in a long stretch of time, having obtained as much leisure as he desired, he was in travail with a discourse surpassing the great and fleshy beasts throughout all the intervening time, and was oppressive with his threats while still shaping the embryo in secret; but late at last, and with difficulty, he brought forth to the light a certain abortive and unripened offspring.

which all who partake of the same corruption nurse and cherish; but we—on account of the blessing from the prophecy ('For blessed,' it says, 'is he who shall seize and dash your infants against the rock')—since it also came into our hands, were eager to seize this infantile little oracle and to dash it against the rock, as one of the children of Babylon.

And the rock was Christ, that is, the word of truth.

Only let there come upon us also that power which strengthens what is weak, through the prayers of him who in the weakness of the body perfected his own power.

If, then, even now that God-like and holy soul were still surveying human life through the flesh, and that lofty mouth were still sending forth, according to the grace allotted to it from the beginning, that irresistible voice, who would have come to such a pitch of confidence as to dare to say and to utter anything about this subject, while every word and every sound was overwhelmed by the sound of that divine trumpet? But since he has wholly soared up to God—formerly touching the earth with some small and shadowy remnant of the body, yet soaring aloft together with God in the greater part, and now having laid aside even that shadow of the body and left it to this life—while the drones buzz around the honeycombs of the word and spoil the honey, let no one blame my daring, when I rise up in defense of the silenced mouth.

For it was not because I recognized in myself some strength of words beyond that of others that I took up the labor.

[entering] into the opposing rank as one not weaker.

For in a healthy body even the smallest part, through the sympathy of the whole, would be more powerful than that which is corrupted and cut off, even though the one be greater and the other less.

But let no one suppose that I speak boastfully through these words, as one vaunting over vain things beyond the power that is mine.

For it is not in some tasteless fashion, for a contest of words or a display of phrases, that I am led to descend against the man for the sake of some boyish ambition.

For in matters where to have the advantage is unprofitable and useless, we readily yield the victory to those who wish for it.

I conjecture that this man is, moreover, otherwise well-worn in words, looking to his very practice concerning the doctrine, and that he has toiled with exceptional pains over the present discourse—inferring this both from the fact that no small portion of the writer's life has been consumed upon this piece of composition, and from the fact that his admirers exult in his labors with every excess.

And it is nothing improbable that one who has toiled through so many Olympiads of years should have furnished himself with something more than those who set to it offhand.

But such prolonged wearing-away of his over the discourse is shown rather by the tastelessness in the figures according to the arrangement of the phrases, and by the superfluous and vain character of his zeal about such matters.

For having gathered from ready-made preparation a great heap of little words out of certain books, and having laboriously heaped up upon a few thoughts an immeasurable pile of phrases, he wrought out this much-labored toil—which the disciples of deceit praise and admire, being deprived, perhaps through their maiming in what is essential, of all discernment between the good and what is not such; but those in whom the discerning faculty of the heart has not been darkened by the filth of unbelief laugh at it and judge it to be worth nothing.

For who would not, and fittingly, laugh, seeing that the subject of the zeal was proclaimed as being on behalf of the doctrines of truth, but the zeal itself was occupied with the tastelessness of phrases and figures, with no successful result? For what could better assist toward the refutation of what, as he himself supposes, has been badly said, and toward the establishment of the truth of the things under inquiry, than some monstrous notion of the figures in the discourse, and a novel and idiosyncratic syntax, and an insolence pursued with zeal, and again a zeal treated with insolence, wrought out in emulation of none of his predecessors? For one could not discover, looking to which of those renowned for eloquence he advanced himself to this—like one of the jugglers on the stage clashing the discourse together, as it were with certain castanets, by the rhythm of little phrases, through parallel and equal-membered, like-sounding and like-ending phrases.

For such, among many others, are the little trillings in his prooemia—those foolish and effeminate Sotadean measures—which it seems to me one ought perhaps not even to recite in a calm manner, but rather, beating time with the foot and snapping the fingers shrilly, at the same time to chant along with the rhythm and to say [it], namely, that there will be no further need either of other words or of a second labor.

In these matters, then, and in such as these, having conceded that he has the advantage and takes his fill of victory at will, I will willingly pass over all the zeal about these things, as belonging only to those who look to ambition—if indeed such kinds of words bring any ambition at all to those who preen themselves in them.

Since even the genuine minister of the word, Basil, adorned by truth alone, both himself deemed it shameful to trick out the discourse with such variegations, and trained us to look to the truth alone—well and fittingly making this his law.

For in this way deceit would become persuasive and easily accepted by the hearers, glib-tongued and bedecked all around with such elegances of speech.

But when the truth, pure and unmixed with every deceitful covering, is pursued by any, the beauty flashes forth upon the things said from within itself.

But being now about to lay hold of the examination of the things said, I seem to myself to be at a loss, like some farmer in a windless calm, having no way by which to separate the grain and the chaff;

so great is the superfluous and chaff-like element in this heap of words, that it comes near to making one think that in all the things said by him there is no substance whatever of matters and of thoughts.

For to go through in order all the things written I judge to be at once vain with respect to the effort, and laborious, and not even consonant with our aim.

For neither is there so much leisure to spare for us as to have it in our power to while away time on vain things; and I think it becomes the approved workman not to wear away his strength on vain things, but on those in which the labor has an acknowledged fruit.

All those things, then, by which, right at the very outset, magnifying himself as a champion of truth, he fastens the reproach of unbelief upon those ranged against him—saying that a persistent and hard-to-wash-off hatred has been ingrained in them, and how he swaggers over what has recently been decided by him, not adding what the things decided were, but saying that some judgment of the disputed matters took place among them, and some lawful trial bringing upon those who were insolent contrary to justice the necessity of coming to their senses—speaking thus in his own voice, according to that Lydian mode:

and of those insolent contrary to justice, compelled by lawful justice to come to their senses—which he also named a 'prohibition' of the insurgents (I do not know what he means by the 'prohibition')—and all such things, as a vain crowd bearing nothing useful, I will run past with my discourse;

but if he has made any advocacy of the heretical mindset, toward this I consider it well for me to expend the greater effort.

For thus also the interpreter of the divine doctrines did in his own discourse, who, though there were many things capable of extending the discourse into breadth, proceeding through the necessary things alone, cuts short the multitude of the subject-matter, having gathered up the chief points of the blasphemy from all the things said in that book of impiety.

But if anyone requires that ours too be set in opposition, following the order of his discourse consecutively, let him tell the profit.

What more will accrue to the hearers if I resolve the riddle and the enigma of the title, which is set before us right at the outset like the tragic Sphinx—that novel 'Apology on behalf of the Apology'—and the great nonsense upon this, and the long recounting narrative of the dream? For I think it sufficiently wears out those who encounter it, and that in Eunomius's discourse alone are preserved both the paltry and vain character of the novelty in the title of the work, and at the same time the burdensome and self-conceited character of his own narratives—what sorts of labors and contests of his own he recounts, ones that have ranged through all land and sea and are heralded throughout the whole inhabited world.

that he is even above the rest;

for I think that not even the writer himself could go through them without dozing, even though fathers are held by some natural affection toward those born of themselves.

For there, forsooth, the things done are made clear, and the sufferings are raised to a height through the discourse, and the history is refashioned into the bulk of a tragedy.

But that I may not, by the very declining of it, tarry more than is needful over unprofitable things—and, like one driving his horse through some bog and being filled with the disgust that comes from thence, so I too, conducting my discourse through the recollection of the things written, defile my own composition—I think it fitting, having leaped over all such rubbish as far as possible with a lofty and swift bound of the discourse (for a sufficient gain is the swift withdrawal from unpleasant things), to hasten the discourse toward the end of the history, so that the words of their bitterness may not be instilled into my book as well.

For let it befit the voice of Eunomius alone to say such things about the priests of God—shield-bearers and lictors and spear-bearers striking terror, ferreting things out, not permitting the hidden one to escape—and whatever else against the gray hairs of priests he is not ashamed to write.

For just as in the schools of external learning, for the training of readiness of tongue and mind, occasions for invective are set before the lads against some indefinite person, so the writer treads straight upon those he has mentioned and lets loose against them his slandering tongue, and, having kept silent about the works of wickedness, pours out upon them the bare stale-brew of insults, molding together every reproach against them and compounding in his revilings incompatible things—a certain gray-cloaked soldier, both holy and accursed, sallow from fasting yet murderous from bitterness, and much other such buffoonery.

And just as in the outdoor processions someone is decried for reveling without a mask through excess of shamelessness, so he too, having shaded over his own bitterness with no veil at all, with bare and unblushing voice, brings forth the things from the wagon [i.e., ribald abuse].

Then he confesses the things at which he is provoked: that 'those men,' he says, 'made it their concern that not many should be perverted together with these through the deceit.'

And on this account he is exasperated: that they were not permitted to dwell at will in whatever places they wished, but that, by the ordinance of the one then in power, Phrygia was made their place of habitation, so that not many might be harmed by the wicked association; and being indignant over these things, he writes those [words]:

and the great grievousness of the contests, and the hard-to-bear sufferings, and the noble endurance of the afflictions [was this]—that they exchanged Phrygia for their native land.

For these things ought those who procured the removal for them to be reviled?—To this I too agree.

Truly worthy of censure from them are those who became the causes of these things for them—if indeed there are or ever were any such at all—because the knowledge of their former manner of life, having been veiled over through these events, takes away the memory of the more august facts, and does not permit inquiry into matters older than the present: of what dignity each of the two set out at the beginning, what succession of life they had from their fathers, of what thing small or great, of those befitting free men, they were conscious in themselves, [that] they then became so renowned and named as even to become known to emperors—as is now boasted in the composition—and [that] all the surpassing authorities were set in motion over them, and their affairs were carried over much of the inhabited world.

Is it not truly the case that the greatest wrong has been done through these things—either to this very speech-writer himself, or to his patron and the teacher of a like manner of life, Aetius?—who, it seems to me, was zealous not so much with an eye to the deceit of doctrines, as far rather to the provisioning and abundance of livelihood.

And I say these things not by conjecturing from certain guesses, but having become an ear-witness of those who accurately knew [the matter].

For the things concerning this Aetius I once heard Athanasius, the bishop of the Galatians, relating—a man who would not have preferred anything before the truth, but who also, for the corroboration of his account by many, brought forward a letter of George of Laodicea.

And he said that Aetius had not from the first laid his hand to the absurdity of doctrines, but that in later times he set up this innovation as a craft for a living.

For [he related] that, having already put off the servitude of Ampelis, the woman who owned him (how, I need not say, lest I seem to lay hold of the tale in too malicious a spirit), he was at first a smith by fire, plying this fiery and menial craft with his hands, sitting over a small hammer and a little anvil beneath a hair-cloth tent, scantily and with toil procuring through this work the necessities of life.

For what wage worth mentioning could there be for one who mends the rotten parts of bronze vessels, and stops up the holes, and applies tin with hammer-blows, and pours lead onto the bases of cauldrons? And [he said] that the cause of the change of his life became a certain misfortune that befell him through the craft.

For, having once received from a soldier's wife a certain golden article among the ornaments worn about the neck or hand, on the condition that he repair the damage that had occurred to it, he deceived the woman by a contrivance and made off with the gold, giving her in exchange a bronze article, equal in size to the gold and, in outward appearance, like it through a superficial dipping, having overlaid the bronze with gold.

And the woman, outwitted by the appearance (for he was skilled also in the smith's art at cheating those who dealt with him through the tricks of the craft), in course of time detected the knavery about the gold, when the dip had been rubbed off from the bronze.

Then [she] prosecuted the thief at law, certain soldiers having been stirred to indignation by reason of kinship and common race; and the one who suffered these things, after that piece of audacity, having suffered as much as it is likely a cheat and thief should suffer, withdrew himself from the craft by an oath—as though it were not his own choice, but the occupation itself, that had implanted in him the desire for theft.

And consequently after this, having become [the assistant] of one of the itinerant quack physicians, so that he might not be altogether destitute of necessary food, he went about among the more obscure houses and among certain cast-off people, under the pretext of medicine.

Then, little by little, prosperity having come to him from this contrivance—a certain Armenian, easily deceived on account of his barbarian nature, having been prevailed upon to attend to him as a physician and continually supplying him with much silver—he now reckoned it a small thing to serve others in the craft, but deemed himself worthy both to be and to be called a physician.

Mingling [among the disputants], he was one of the loud shouters, and, in the twist of the argument putting forward his own position, he was not slightly esteemed by those who hired out the shamelessness of their voice for their own contentions.

But when a fatter barley-cake had accrued to him through these means, he thought that he ought not to remain even in this way of life either, but little by little he slipped out of that practice of medicine along with the smith's craft.

And Arius the God-fighter having sown these wicked seeds of the tares—whose fruit is the doctrines of the Anomoeans—the schools of the physicians at that time were resounding with the tumults concerning that question.

Having therefore trained himself in such a pastime, and having observed a certain approach of syllogisms from the echoes of Aristotle, he became renowned, outdoing Arius, the father of the heresy, by the novelty of his inventions;

or rather, having grasped the logical consequence of the things laid down by that one, he seemed to be a shrewd fellow and a discoverer of hidden things, having declared that the created, and that which is from things that are not, is unlike the one who created it and who brought it forth out of what is not.

Since, then, through such words he tickled the novelty-loving ears of those diseased with these notions, Theophilus the Blemmyan also came to know of this empty utterance—with whom, some prior familiarity concerning Gallus already existing, Aetius too slipped into the palace through his agency.

But this man slips out from punishment, having been judged unworthy even to suffer some evil along with those who shared the guilt of the abomination.

After these events, when the great Athanasius had been removed from the church of the Alexandrians by imperial power, and George the Tarbasthenite was tearing apart that man's flock, Aetius the Alexandrian again appeared, being in no way inferior to those who were being nurtured under and parasitically feeding upon the Cappadocian;

For he was not unpractised in flattery, so that George (for that man too was a Canaanite, and for this reason was well-disposed toward one of his own kind and race) both took pleasure in him, since he had long been caught in the perversion of that doctrine, and George became for Aetius a windfall laid ready for his exploitation.

These things, then, do not escape the notice of his genuine disciple, this Eunomius, who, having observed that the manner of life of his own natural father—a man in other respects most excellent, save that he became the father of such a son—was honest and of good repute, but wretched on account of poverty and laden with countless toils;

for he was a certain farmer, bent over the plough and expending much labour upon a small plot of land; and during the winter, when he had a respite from his agricultural toils, by ingeniously scratching out for the children the first elements and the syllables, through those wages he provided for himself the necessities of life.

Seeing, then, these things concerning his own father, and having bid farewell to the plough, the mattock, and all his father's tools—lest he too should wear himself out in like labours—he first became a disciple of Prunicus' wisdom, and having practised writing at speed, he associated, I suppose, with someone of the leading families, having his food as the wage for his service in copying; then, acting as tutor to the children of the man who fed him, he advanced little by little to a desire for rhetoric.

And I pass over what lies in between—both his life in his native land, and the circumstances under which he was arrested in Constantinople, and with whom.

After these things, having occupied himself, as they say, with cloak and belt, since he saw that everything he gathered from his zeal for these was petty and nothing worthy of his ambition, he abandoned the rest of life's pursuits and, out of all men, admired Aetius alone—not, I think, without discernment, at least with respect to his own aim—selecting this as his design for a livelihood.

For since the human being is for the most part easily captured through pleasure, and there is in our nature a great proneness to this passion—it readily sinking down from the rougher pursuits toward the smoothness of pleasure—he did this so that he might especially win over to himself many partners in the sickness of his doctrines.

For this reason he becomes pleasant to those initiated by him, casting away the steepness and laboriousness of virtue as unpersuasive for the reception of the mystery.

And as for what they teach in secret, and all that those who through deceit have received the defilement blurt out and bring into the open—both that unspeakable initiation and the sort of things they are taught by the venerable hierophant of their mysteries, the manner of their baptisms, the advocacy of nature, and all such things—if anyone has leisure to learn them with precision, let him question closely those for whom it is permissible to carry some indecent thing upon their lips.

For it is not holy even for those who have learned to honour purity in speech to mention such things by way of accusation, nor to defile a written work with the more indecent of these narratives, even if truth attaches to what is said.

But the reason we made mention of the aforesaid is this: that just as impiety [the mischievous artifice of Aristotle] was a means of gain for Aetius, in the same way it also fell to the well-trained disciple, equally with his teacher, to live comfortably off the simplicity of those who had been deceived.

What great wrong, then, has Basil in the region of the Euxine Pontus done, or Eustathius in Armenia, about whom the long parenthesis of this history reclines at length? In what have they injured the aim of their life? Why have they not rather nourished these men's newfangled opinion to greater proportions? For whence did it come to them to be known and to be so far renowned, if not through those men—assuming the accuser speaks truly against them? For to judge those who were of good repute, as the writer testifies, as worthy adversaries of oneself—men who from nowhere had the means of being recognized—reasonably becomes for those arrayed against men reputed to surpass others an occasion for great self-conceit.

And from this it resulted that the lowliness and namelessness of their former life was thrown into shadow, while from what came afterward they became well-known—things which are otherwise to be shunned by those who have sense (for none of the right-minded would pray to be reckoned great in an evil thing), yet to such men seem the highest limit of good fortune.

Just as they say a certain obscure and lowly man in Asia desired to become famous among the Ephesians, and, since he could not even conceive in his mind any great and splendid deed (for indeed he was unable), he became more conspicuous than those renowned for the greatest achievements, having devised a certain excess of harm against the Ephesians.

For there was among them a certain public building conspicuous for all its brilliance and costliness, and the man, having annihilated that magnificent work with fire, confessed—when he was being judged for his audacity—the passion of his soul: that, making a great matter of being known by many, he had devised that by the greatness of the evil the name of the perpetrator should be remembered along with it.

Such also is the ground of celebrity for these men, except in so far as it has a variation toward the greater in evil.

For it is not lifeless buildings, but the very living edifice of the Church itself that they utterly ruin, injecting the frenzy of their doctrine like a kind of fire.

But the discourse concerning the doctrine I shall defer to its proper occasion.

For the present, however, let us examine what sort of truth this man has employed—he who at the outset alleged that he is hated by the unbelievers on account of speaking the truth;

for perhaps it is not out of season, having learned from arguments outside of doctrine how he stands with regard to the truth, to use this as evidence also for the doctrines themselves.

For 'He that is faithful,' it says, 'in that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.'

elsewhere—but from the fact that a reply was made to him concerning the former discourse.

For that discourse bore the name 'Apology';

but when our teacher took hold of it, arguing that since an apology befits only those who are accused, whereas if someone wrote of his own accord and at liberty, what is composed is something else and not an apology—Eunomius does not dispute the point that one ought not to make an apology in the absence of any preceding accusation, because of the conspicuous absurdity of it, but claims that, having been accused of the gravest charges, he made his defence against the judgment brought against him.

And how great is the falsehood in these claims will, I think, become plain from the very things that have been said.

He alleged that many and hard-to-bear sufferings had been inflicted on him by those who condemned him;

and these things it is possible to learn from the very things written by him.

How, then, did he suffer these things, if indeed he made his defence upon the charges? For if he employed the apology for escape from the accusations, then that whole tragedy is utterly false and has been fabricated in vain;

but if he suffered the things he has described, then clearly he suffered them without having made a defence.

For this is the aim of every apology: not to allow those who are lords of the verdict to be misled through calumny;

unless indeed he will attempt to say this: that he did put forward the apology at the trial, but, being unable to win over those appointed to judge, he was worsted by his opponents.

But he neither said any such thing at the trial nor even intended to.

For how could he, seeing that somewhere in his treatise he acknowledges that he was unwilling to employ hostile and belligerent judges?

'For we,' he says, 'confess that we were convicted while keeping silence, seeing that malefactors and wicked men had thrust their way into the place of the judges.'

Here too, greatly agitated, as I think, and with his reasoning occupied with other matters, he did not notice—elegantly attired though he was—the solecism entangled in his phrasing, having very grandly played the Atticist with the expression 'thrust their way in' (eisphrēsantōn);

for the usage is one thing among those who have perfected the language—which those familiar with the orator's writings know—but another as it was reckoned by our young Atticist.

But this has nothing to do with our purpose.

And having proceeded a little further, he adds this also:

'For if, because I did not employ my accusers as judges, he thinks that on this account he abolishes the apology, he has escaped his own notice that he is exceedingly simple-minded.'

When, then, and before whom did the sharp fellow make his defence—he who challenged the judges out of enmity, yet, as he himself affirms, kept silence during the trial? Behold this vehement contender for the truth, how in a short space he changes and deserts to falsehood, and while honouring the truth in word, he ranges himself against it in deed.

But that is delightful, that he falls short even of the very advocacy of the falsehood.

For how can the same man both have justly made his defence against the judgment brought against him, and again prudently have kept silence because the trial was among enemies? And yet, even through the very discourse to which he affixed the title 'Apology,' it is plainly shown that no tribunal was ever constituted for him.

For the preface of the discourse is not put forward toward specified judges, but toward certain indefinite men—both those living at that time and those who would come to be later;