論詩篇的標題 第 1 章 第 1/9 段

GREGORY, BISHOP OF NYSSA: ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS. I received your injunction with all eagerness, O man of God, since it bestows the same zeal equally upon both you and me, and I gave heed to the inscriptions of the Psalms.

For this you enjoined upon us: to search out the meaning contemplated within them, so that what is able to guide us through them to virtue might become clear to all.

Having, then, conversed with the whole book of the Psalms with considerable attention, I judged it necessary not to begin the inquiry from the inscriptions, but first to set forth some methodical approach to the understanding of the thoughts concerning the whole psalmody together, through which, in due consequence, the account concerning the inscriptions might also be made clear to us.

It is necessary, then, first to understand the aim (skopos) of this writing, to what it looks; then to perceive the constructions of thoughts that proceed in sequence toward what is set before us, which are indicated both by the order of the Psalms — well disposed for the knowledge of the aim — and by the sections of the whole book, marked off by certain proper divisions, the whole prophecy contained in the Psalms being divided into five parts.

When these things have first been adequately understood, the benefit arising from the inscriptions will become more familiar to us, made manifest through the understanding of what has been previously examined.

Let us, then, begin our contemplation from this point.

CHAPTER I. The end of the life lived according to virtue is blessedness. For everything that is achieved through effort always has reference to some end.

And just as medicine looks toward health, and the aim of agriculture is provision for life, so too the acquisition of virtue looks toward the one who lives according to it becoming blessed.

For this is the chief point and end of everything that is conceived under the notion of the good.

That, then, which is truly and properly contemplated and conceived in this lofty sense would fittingly be called the divine nature.

For thus the great Paul names God, setting the word ‘blessed’ before all the theological names, when in one of his epistles he writes in these very words:

The blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see; to whom be honor and eternal dominion.

For all these lofty conceptions concerning the divine would, in my view at least, constitute a definition of blessedness.

For if someone were asked what the blessed is, he would not miss the pious answer if, following Paul’s word, he said that the blessed is that which is properly and primarily called the nature that transcends the universe:

But blessedness among human beings, through participation in that which truly is, comes to be and is named, in some measure, that very thing which the nature of the one participated in is.

Blessedness for human beings, then, is defined as likeness to the divine.

Since, then, the truly good — or rather that which is beyond the good — alone is blessed and desirable by nature, that of which everything participating becomes blessed, the divine writing of the psalmody rightly points out to us, through a certain methodical and natural sequence, the way toward this, expounding with art, in a teaching simple and unadorned in appearance, yet in various and manifold ways, the method of acquiring blessedness.

and from the very first hymn one may derive a certain notion concerning the matter before us: how the discourse, having divided virtue into three parts, attests blessedness to each part according to a fitting proportion — now pronouncing blessed the estrangement from evil, as being the beginning of the inclination toward the better; and after this, the cultivation of lofty and more divine things, as already producing a settled disposition toward the better;

and then, the likeness to the divine that is brought about through these things for those being made perfect;

for the sake of which the preceding stages too are called blessed.

And this is intimated by the ever-flourishing tree, to which the life perfected through virtue is likened.

CHAPTER II. In order that we may understand more accurately the teaching concerning the virtues which the discourse sets forth throughout the whole guidance of the Psalms, it would be well for us first to work out for ourselves, as though advancing some methodical account in due order and sequence, how one who is a lover of such a life may come to be in virtue.

For thus we might recognize the logical sequence of the teaching set before us.

It is necessary, then, that the one who intends to look toward virtue should first distinguish by reason the virtuous life from the blameworthy life, marking each with its own proper characteristics, so that the account of them may remain unconfused, undisturbed by anything held in common.

Now there are perhaps also other signs of the particular character of each of these;

but the more general ones, in comparison with the others, are, in our own judgment, these:

namely, that the joy arising in human beings from these is divided between sense-perception and understanding: vice giving pleasure to the senses, while virtue gladdens the soul.

Following upon this, it would be consistent, by means of praise and censure, to lead away the understanding of the hearers from the worse and to attach it to the better — the censure of the wicked life bringing hatred toward vice, while the praise of good things draws desire toward what is more praiseworthy.

After this, in order that the praise of the good life might become more effective and the censure of the worse more vivid, it is fitting to make mention of those very persons who have been admired for virtue and those condemned for vice.

For examples of lives, once made manifest, produce a certain intensification and firmness of disposition in the soul, hope drawing the soul toward equal honor with the best, while the censure of the condemned trains it toward avoidance and estrangement from similar practices.

In addition to all these things, it would be necessary to give, for each of these two, some detailed instruction, which would both point out the better and turn one away from the worse — guiding the hearing, on the one hand, toward this by certain precepts and counsels, and, on the other, keeping it away from the worse things through dissuasive words.

Now that these matters have thus been carefully distinguished, since everything that stands estranged from pleasure is by nature hard for it to receive (by pleasure I mean that which is dear to the body;

for the joy of the soul is separated by a great distance from irrational and servile indulgence in pleasure) —

we have already recognized this as the proper mark of each of the two lives, that of virtue and that of vice: that through vice the sense-organs of our flesh are flattered, whereas virtue becomes joy of soul for those who succeed in it.

But for those who are now being introduced to the higher life, for whom sense-perception still seems to be the criterion of the good, the soul is not yet sufficiently able to discern the good, being still untrained and unaccustomed to such understanding.

Toward everything that is not known, even if it be exceedingly good, our desire remains unmoved; and if desire does not previously exist, no pleasure at all could arise from a thing that is not longed for.

For longing becomes the road to pleasure.

Such, then, is necessary for those who have not yet tasted the pure and divine pleasure — a means by which the teachings of virtue may be received along with it, being sweetened by something that delights the senses, just as it is customary for physicians, whenever one of the protective medicines is bitter and hard to take, to make it easy for the sick to take by seasoning it with the sweetness of honey.

But if the introduction to the life according to virtue has now been fully set out methodically for us through what has been said — namely, that one must first separate the opposite practices from one another, then mark each of them with its own proper characteristic, and after this extol the one by reasoned discourse while rendering the other an object of avoidance through censure, and further strengthen the mind toward each by the examples of notable men, and by particular precepts both point out the way leading to the good and turn one away from the worse, and finally make the hardened and manly aspect of virtue pleasant for those still in infancy by sweetening it with something that delights our sense-perception — then it would be time to understand how, through this method now contemplated, the whole teaching that comes to us through the Psalms has been brought forth, both warding us off from vice and drawing us toward virtue.

CHAPTER III. First, then — for we begin our inquiry from the last things — let us examine the design by which the way of life according to virtue, being so harsh and strenuous, and the enigmatic teaching of the mysteries, and the theology that is ineffable and hidden in contemplations hard to attain, has been made so easy to grasp and so sweet, that not only is this teaching earnestly pursued by mature men who have already had the organs of perception of their soul purified, but it has also become the peculiar possession of the women’s quarters, and brings pleasure to infants as one of their playthings, and becomes for the very aged a staff and a repose; so that the one who is cheerful considers the gift of this teaching to be his own, while the one who is despondent because of circumstance supposes that such grace of the Scripture has been given for his sake:

In addition, people who are traveling and voyaging at sea, or who are occupied with some sedentary craft, and, in short, absolutely all men and women in every occupation, in health and in sickness, count it a loss not to carry this lofty teaching upon their lips.

Already, too, banquets and the festivities of weddings take up this philosophy as part of the merriment in their gladness — to say nothing of the divinely-inspired hymnody through these psalms at the all-night vigils, and the earnest philosophy of the churches devoted to them.

For one might say that the singing of the words is the cause of dwelling upon these matters with pleasure.

But I, even if this is true, say that it ought not to be passed over without further contemplation.

For the philosophy conveyed through melody seems to signify something greater than what most people’s understanding grasps.

What, then, is it that I mean? I have heard one of the wise men, discoursing on our nature, say that man is a certain small world, having in himself all the things of the great world.

Now the ordered arrangement of the universe is a kind of musical harmony, fitted together with itself in manifold and various ways according to a certain order and rhythm, and singing in tune with itself, and never torn apart from this concord, even though a great diversity of beings is observed among particular things.

for if the note were alike in all, the melody would certainly not have come together at all;

So too the blending of the universe, amid the various things observed severally in the world, touching itself through a certain ordered and inviolable rhythm, and producing the concord of the parts with the whole, works out this all-harmonious melody throughout the universe — of which the mind becomes a hearer, making no use whatsoever of this bodily hearing, but rising above the sense-organs of the flesh and coming to be on high, and thus perceives the hymnody of the heavens.

For truly the concord of all creation with itself, blended together out of opposites and brought forth by such a rhythm, is a hymn to the unattainable and ineffable glory of God.

For rest and motion are opposed to one another, yet these are blended together in the nature of existing things, and a certain inconceivable mixture of opposites is observed in them, so that stability is shown even in motion, and perpetual motion even in what is not moved.

For all the heavenly bodies are always in motion, either revolving together with the fixed sphere in its circuit, or, conversely, winding their way through the wandering planets.

Yet the sequence found in these things always stands still and remains in sameness, never shifting from the state in which it is to some other, new state, but always being disposed in the same way and abiding in the same condition.

The conjunction, then, of what stands still with what is in motion, occurring in a certain ordered and inviolable harmony throughout, is a kind of musical concord, producing the blended and marvelous hymnody of the power that sustains the whole universe.

For the mutual concord and sympathy of all things with one another, governed by order, arrangement, and sequence, is the first, archetypal, and true music;

which the harmonizer of the universe strikes up with skill, by the ineffable reason of wisdom, through the things that are ever coming to be in wisdom.

If, then, the whole ordered universe is a kind of musical harmony, of which God is the artificer and craftsman, as the Apostle says, and man is a small world, and this same man has been made a copy of him who harmonized the world, then whatever reason recognizes in the great world, it fittingly sees also in the small world;

for the part is always of the same kind as the whole.

For just as, in a small fragment of glass, one can see, on its gleaming surface, the whole circle of the sun displayed as in a mirror, to the extent that the smallness of the gleaming surface can contain it, so also in the small world — I mean human nature — all the music observed in the universe is beheld, proportionate to the whole through the part, in the measure that the whole is contained by the part.

This is also shown by the instrumental constitution of our body, which has been artfully wrought by nature for the production of music.

For the good rhythm of life is a therapy of nature, which melody, it seems to me, counsels through enigmas.

For perhaps this very thing becomes an exhortation toward the higher condition of life: that the character of those living in virtue ought not to be unmusical, deviant, and discordant, nor the string strained sharp beyond measure;

for the well-tuned string, when overstretched, breaks entirely;

nor, again, on the contrary, to slacken the tension immoderately through pleasure;

for the soul, made slack by such passions, becomes deaf and mute;

and likewise in all other respects, one should tighten the tension at the fitting time and relax it at the fitting time;

looking to this end, that the manner abiding in our characters might always remain well-tuned and well-rhythmed, neither slackened immoderately nor stretched beyond measure.

For when he once found Saul deranged and out of his mind, he healed him thus, charming away his passion by song, so that his mind returned again to its natural state.

It is clear, then, from these things, toward what the enigma of melody looks: that it counsels us to bring about the restraint of the passions that arise in us in various ways from the circumstances of life.

But this too ought not to be passed over without consideration: that these melodies were not composed after the manner of the songwriters outside our own wisdom;

For the melody does not reside in the pitch of the words, as one can see among those who, by a certain arrangement of prosodic accents — the tone in the sounds being lowered, raised, shortened, and prolonged — bring forth rhythm; but Scripture, having woven the melody into the divine words in an unstudied and artless manner, wishes by the melody to interpret the sense of what is said, disclosing as far as possible, through the fitting accompaniment of the vocal tone, the meaning lying within the words.

Such, then, is the seasoning of the food, by which the nourishment of the teachings is sweetened as though by certain spices.

For in the first place one can find virtue distinguished from vice by manifest signs, so that the difference of each of these from its opposite is unconfused.

For from the gladness that arises in us from them the distinctive character of each pursuit is shown: vice gladdens the senses concerning the body, while virtue gladdens the soul.

so that the nature of the subject discovered from these signs is unerring and unambiguous.

And this one can find, both from certain other instances and according to the plain sense as well as the contemplation of the thoughts lying in the depth, in many places of the psalmody, and especially in the fourth psalm, in which he says that those are "heavy of heart" who do not distinguish falsehood and vanity from truth, but love what does not exist while disregarding what abides and is worthy of love.

For he said that holiness alone is truly wondrous, while all the other things that men eagerly pursue in place of the goods lie merely in opinion, not existing in themselves, but seeming to have being only in the vain conceit of men.

And that he might disclose more clearly the doctrine concerning these things, proceeding further he says that the many define the good in terms of appearances, saying that only that is good which someone can first show forth to sense-perception.

"For many," he says, "say, Who will show us good things?" But he who looks toward virtue disregards this slavish judgment of the beautiful.

but he sees the beautiful in the light.

and thus he marks out the god-formed and lofty gladness.

And by "light" he means that which shines forth from the divine face, which sense-perception does not have the nature to reach.

"For the light of your face, O Lord," he says, "was signed upon us."

For it does not seem to me that the prophet understands the face of God, contemplated in certain distinguishing marks, as anything other than the virtues.

for by these the divine form is characterized.

And having said this, he states the perfect mark of virtue.

"You have put gladness into my heart" — calling the soul and the mind by the name "heart."

that the mind should be gladdened by the baits of vice.

And he contrasts with the gladness of the heart this material and worldly abundance, saying that for those who look to the present life, the belly becomes the criterion of the good.

For by saying that "grain and wine" are multiplied for such people, he has, by naming a part, comprehended in his statement all the pleasures concerning the belly and feasting.

These pleasures govern all material preoccupation, concerning which their zeal prospers to no end at all; for there is in nature no storehouse for the enjoyment that comes to men in an instant, so that they might lay up for themselves as a treasure the pleasure which they acquire with all their zeal; but, just like one of the deceptive phantasms, no sooner is it thought by pleasure-lovers to be grasped than it straightway vanishes and passes over into non-being.

But of such an apparition one trace is left behind after its departure — namely, shame — which imprints upon those through whom it has passed a deep and hard-to-erase mark, such that, as in the art of hunters, it is possible to discern the nature of the beast by its tracks.

For indeed those hunters, when the quarry is out of sight, recognize the animal by its track.

If, then, the boar or the lion is betrayed by its own tracks, it altogether follows that the nature of pleasure too is recognized in the track it leaves behind.

But indeed its track is shame.

Therefore that which imprints such a mark upon the soul is either altogether shame itself, or productive of shame.

But this was, for us, considered beforehand as a digression at this place.

For it was necessary, in accordance with what preceded, to show through the psalmody what the outcome is of each of the pursuits, the one according to virtue and the other according to vice.

Having said, then, in the aforementioned psalm that the end of virtue is peace and rest, and the uniform and unmixed dwelling free from the passions achieved in the hope of participation in God — the opposite of this he indicated here by silence, but in many places through the psalmody he cries aloud, saying: "But the lawless shall be utterly destroyed," and "The seed of the impious shall be destroyed," and "He who loves iniquity hates his own soul";

and "He shall rain down snares upon sinners," and countless other things of like kind.

The whole book of the psalmody is full both of praises of virtue and of accusation against those living in vice.

And the recollection of histories, being divided toward these two purposes, makes virtue an object of emulation through esteemed persons, and makes wickedness an object of avoidance through those who are condemned.

For whenever it rouses you to virtue by example, it says:

"Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who call upon his name."

"They called upon the Lord, and he heard them."

"In a pillar of cloud he spoke to them."

But whenever it points out the evil end of vice, it recounts in detail the sufferings of those condemned in wickedness.

"Flame consumed sinners";

and "Do to them as to Midian and to Sisera";

and "Make their princes as Oreb and Zeeb and Zebah and Zalmunna, all their princes."

And the psalmody cries out to you all the particular counsels from beginning to end, omitting in no part the exhortation to the good, and the ways by which one might flee vice;

all things are yoked together with the judgments that lead toward the good.

For the acquisition of the good becomes the flight from, and the destruction of, its opposite.

But it would be superfluous to set forth all these things in precise detail, since the concern of the discourse regarding such matters is evident to those who read through this scripture.

CHAPTER V. The whole treatise of the psalms is divided into five parts, and there is in these sections a certain artful arrangement and division

to be recognized according to the division we have indicated in the psalmodies.

The number of psalms in each section is as follows:

of the second, thirty-one;

seventeen of the third, and as many of the fourth;

and of the fifth, forty-five.

The first part, then, extends from the first psalm to the fortieth, the end of which is: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from age to age; let it be, let it be."

The second extends to the seventy-first, the end of which reads thus:

"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who alone does wonders, and blessed be the name of his glory forever, and forever and ever."

"And let all the earth be filled with his glory; let it be, let it be."

The third extends to the eighty-eighth, and this too ends in a similar close:

"Blessed be the Lord forever; let it be, let it be."

The end of the fourth section is the hundred and fifth, whose ending is similar to the rest:

"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from age even to age; and let all the people say, Let it be, let it be."

And the fifth part extends from this one to the last, whose end is: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord."

It would, then, be timely to say briefly what artful order we have discerned in these divisions.

In the first, it stops those living in vice from their absurd wandering, and draws them toward the choice of the better, so that they no longer proceed in the deceptions of the impious, nor take their stand deep within the wicked path of sin, nor cultivate for themselves vice as something immovable and firmly established, but rather, joining themselves to the divine law, direct for themselves through practice an unerring course, so that the disposition toward the better might, like a plant, be rooted in them, watered by the divine teachings.

The first entrance toward the good, then, is departure from the things opposed to it, through which participation in the better comes about.

But he who has already tasted virtue, and has, by his own experience, understood the nature of the good, is no longer such as to be drawn away from his attachment to vice by some compulsion and admonition and thus to look toward virtue, but he thirsts exceedingly for the better.

For the text likens the unrestrained and vehement quality of the desire to thirst, having sought out the most thirsty nature among animals, so that the intensity of the desire might be shown above all through the animal that comes to be exceedingly thirsty.

And this animal he calls the hart, whose nature it is to grow fat by feeding on venomous creatures.

Hot and burning are the humors of these creatures, and the hart, having fed upon them, necessarily becomes drier, being as it were drugged by the humor of the creatures.

And for this reason it desires water more vehemently, in order to heal the dryness that arises in it from such feeding.

He, then, who has been initiated into the life of virtue in the first part of the psalmody, and has come to know by taste the sweetness of the thing desired, and who has consumed in himself every creeping form of desire, and has, with the teeth of self-control, devoured the passions in place of beasts, thirsts for participation in God more than the hart desires the springs of waters.

And it follows for the one who has attained the spring, after the surpassing thirst, to draw as much of the water as the desire, in its full power, draws to itself.

And he who has received within himself the thing desired is full of that which he desired.

For it is not after the likeness of bodily satiety that what has become full is again emptied, nor does the draught remain idle within itself; but the divine fountain, in whomsoever it comes to be, transforms unto itself the one who has touched it and imparts to him a share of its own power.

CHAPTER 6. Moreover, it is proper to the Godhead to possess the power and activity of overseeing the things that exist.

it surveys the nature of the things that exist

For this reason he has made this the beginning of the third section of the psalmody, in which the discourse most especially examines this question: how the justice of the divine judgment is to be preserved amid the inequality of life, since good fortune in this life for the most part comes to men not in accordance with the worth of their moral choices.

For often one can observe in the same person both extremes: the extremity of vice and the extremity of prosperity.

Looking upon this, one's mind somehow falters, wondering whether for human nature that which is called worse might not be better, and, conversely, that evil which is reckoned among the portion of the better might in fact be an evil.

For if righteousness is praised, yet the one who is zealous for it fares badly, while vice is condemned, yet grants lasting enjoyments of all that is pursued to those who are zealous for it, how is it possible not to suppose that vice is a more preferable choice for life than virtue — the condemned than the praised? He, then, who is lofty in understanding, and who, as if from some jutting watchtower, extends his gaze upon things far off, saw wherein lies the difference between vice and virtue: that the judgment of these is made from the outcome, not from the present.

For with the overseeing and penetrating eye of the soul, having understood as present that which through hope is laid up for the good, and having passed beyond, in soul, everything that appears, and having entered within the heavenly inner sanctuaries, he lays hold upon the lack of judgment of those who in a petty manner entrust the judgment of the good to the sensory parts.

By which he says, 'For what have I in heaven? and what have I desired upon earth besides you?' — in the same clause of the text at once wondrously magnifying and exalting by his word the heavenly, and, by the same word, with contempt and mockery abasing and loathing that which on earth is pursued by the eyes of the foolish.