醫治希臘病 第 1 章 第 7/16 段

and the Stagirite [Aristotle, called it] the first entelechy of a natural organic body having life potentially;

and by "entelechy" he meant the actuality;

Clearchus [said it was] the harmony of the four elements;

and Anaximenes and Anaximander and Anaxagoras and Archelaus said the nature of the soul was airy.

But the Stoics [said it was] pneumatic, partaking of a great deal of heat.

Parmenides and Hippasus and Heraclitus called it fiery;

but Heraclides [said it was] light-like;

and Epicurus the son of Neocles [said it was] a blend of four certain qualities—fiery and airy and pneumatic and a fourth, unnameable;

and Empedocles [said it was] a mixture of aetherial and airy substance.

And Critias said it was from blood and from moisture;

and others again have babbled other contrary things.

And indeed concerning the division of the soul too, very great conflict has arisen among them.

For Pythagoras and Plato said it was twofold, and that one part of it is rational, the other irrational.

But Xenocrates—and this though he was third from Plato, for he was a pupil of Speusippus, Plato's nephew—said that one part of the soul is perceptive, the other rational.

And the son of Nicomachus [Aristotle] said that it has five activities: the appetitive, the nutritive, the perceptive, the locomotive, and the discursive (rational).

But the Stoics did not even accept this number;

for they said the soul is constituted of eight parts—the sense of sight, of hearing, of smell, of taste, and of touch;

and the sixth they said is the vocal faculty, and the seventh the generative, and the eighth the ruling part [hegemonikon], by which each of these is activated.

And they said it also resembles the tentacles of the octopus.

But the successors of Pythagoras, saying that the body is compounded of five elements—for they ranked the aetherial together with the four—said that the powers of the soul are equal in number to these;

and they named these mind, prudence, knowledge, opinion, and perception.

And how far they differed from one another concerning the region of the ruling part [hegemonikon] is easy to discern.

Strato [placed it] between the eyebrows;

and Erasistratus the physician [placed it] around the membrane of the brain, which he calls the epicranium;

and Herophilus [placed it] in the ventricle of the brain;

and Parmenides and Epicurus [placed it] in the whole thorax;

and Empedocles and Aristotle and the company of the Stoics allotted the heart to it.

And of these in turn, some [placed it] in the ventricle of the heart, others in the blood;

and some in the membrane surrounding the heart, others in the diaphragm.

And Empedocles and Xenocrates declared the soul to be imperishable;

but Heraclitus said that the souls released from the body withdraw into the Soul of the universe, as being of the same kind and consubstantial with it.

And the Stoics said that the souls separated from bodies endure and live by themselves, but the weaker one for a little while, the stronger until the conflagration of the universe.

But Plato and Pythagoras [said] that the rational part of it is imperishable, but the irrational perishable.

And Plato even called plants [living], as partaking only of the third kind of soul, the appetitive;

but Aristotle would not endure to call them living creatures—for he deemed worthy of being called a living creature [animal] only that which partakes of the perceptive soul—yet he supposed that plants partake of the vegetative and nutritive soul.

But this account the men of the Painted Porch [the Stoics] did not accept;

for they would not endure to call the vegetative power a soul.

And Zeno of Citium, the founder of this school, taught his own pupils to hold the following opinions about the soul:

for he said that the human seed, being moist and partaking of pneuma, is a part and fragment of the soul, and a blending and mixture of the seed of one's ancestors, gathered together out of all the portions of the soul.

Wherefore he also called it perishable.

But Numenius the Pythagorean, taking aim at these men, said:

"They say that the soul is both generated and perishable, yet not that it perishes immediately upon being released from the body, but that it remains for certain periods by itself—that of the virtuous until the dissolution of all things into fire, that of the foolish for certain periods." And Longinus too openly accuses them, writing thus:

"For one might justly be indignant at Zeno and Cleanthes, who discoursed about the soul so very insolently.

For both said the soul is an exhalation of the solid body." And directly contrary to these are the views held by Pythagoras and Plato;

for they said that the mind is a divine portion.

And the son of Nicomachus [Aristotle] agrees with this account, although he declared the soul to be mortal;

for he supposed the mind to be something other than the soul.

And the followers of Plato and Pythagoras say that this [mind] enters in from outside.

And again, in turn, some of them said that the mind is self-determining and able to lead the passions wherever it wishes;

but others declared it to be a slave of necessity and fate, and to be led according to the threads of the Fates, and that its actions and activities are dependent on the revolution of heaven and the conjunction of the stars.

But Plato taught the opinion contrary to these concerning the soul;

for he said that it is free and mistress of the passions that trouble it, and that it advances of its own accord either this way or that, and willingly either conquers or is conquered.

And this he has plainly shown in the Laws:

"And here too, O stranger, for a man to conquer himself is the first and best of all victories;

but to be conquered by oneself is the most shameful and the most base of all;

for these things signify that there is, as it were, a war within each of us against our own selves." And again, a little after:

"This we know, that these passions within us, like sinews or certain cords, being present, pull us and drag us against one another, being contrary, toward contrary actions, wherein lies the distinction between virtue and vice."

"For reason," he says, "declares that one must always follow one of these pulls and never forsake it, but pull against the others, each one in moderation;

and this [pull] is the guidance of reason." And directly through these words he has shown that we men neither received an evil nature nor sin by necessity and force, nor are led by the threads of Clotho, nor indeed are pushed toward what we must do by the conjunction of the stars;

but the soul struggles against itself, and has the power to conquer, if it is willing to incline toward virtue;

reason has the power either to be persuaded or not.

For it was appointed to drive and to lead, not to be led and dragged.

And he confirmed this account also in the tenth book of the Laws, saying these things:

"But the causes of one's becoming of such-and-such a quality he left to the wills of each one of us;

for in whatever way one desires, and being of whatever quality in soul, in that way for the most part each of us becomes such." And after a little he added these things also:

"But the soul partakes the more of vice and of virtue whenever, through its own will and association having become strong, it takes a greater share—whenever, having joined itself to divine virtue, it becomes pre-eminently of such a kind, and partakes of a distinguished and holy place, being wholly transformed into some better, other place;

but whenever the contrary, it relocates its life according to the contrary." And here likewise he taught that the Maker assigned to the will of the soul the choice of the better and the worse things.

For the self-determination of the judgment prepares it to incline this way or that, but association and habit produce a strong disposition.

Whenever, then, having fallen in love with virtue, it takes the imprint of its form, it passes over into some other place, holy and far better than the present;

but having chosen vice and embraced the reproachful life, it is in turn allotted the corresponding region.

And in the second book of the Republic too he wrote things in unison with these:

"Is not, then, God truly good, and must we not say so?" "—Of course." "—But nothing good is harmful;

"—Does that which is not harmful do harm?" "—By no means."

"—And does that which does no harm do any evil?" "—By no means."

"—Nor could it be the cause of any evil?" "—How could it?" "—But what then? Is the good beneficial?" "—Yes."

"—Then it is the cause of well-being?" "—Yes."

"—Then the good is not the cause of all things, but the cause of all things that are well, while of evil things it is not the cause."

"—Then," said I, "God, since he is good, would not be the cause of all things, as the many say, but the cause to men of few things, and of many things not the cause;

for the good things are far fewer for us than the evil, and of the good things no other must be held responsible, but of the evil things one must seek some other causes, and not God."

"—Most true," said he, "you seem to me to speak."

"And to whomever Zeus, mixing the two, gives them, that man meets now with evil, now with good." And so likewise are the other such things of both Homer and Hesiod, and indeed also of Aeschylus.

"But to say that God, being good, is the cause of evils, must be fought against in every way—neither that anyone should say such things in his own city, if it is to be well-governed, nor that anyone should hear them, whether younger or older, whether in meter or without meter telling such tales, since they would be neither holy if uttered, nor profitable to us, nor consistent with themselves."

"I cast my vote with you," he said, "for this law, and it pleases me."

"This, then," said I, "would be one of the laws and patterns concerning God, in accordance with which those who speak must speak and those who compose must compose: that God is not the cause of all things, but only of good things." These things Plato taught us both to think and to hold concerning the God who made us and concerning our very selves, and he commanded that those who say God is the cause of evils be driven out;

for he says that this account is impious and unprofitable to us and inconsistent with itself.

For if God is good—as indeed he is good, for this is a common account—then the good would not become the cause of evils.

But if God is not the cause of the evils that occur—and by "evils" we properly mean not those things reckoned so by the many, poverty and sickness and the rest that are like these, which some are pleased to call misfortunes, but vice and licentiousness and the other transgressions—and these are dared by us, then it is we who are the cause of them, and not the God who legislated the contrary;

for these things both Socrates and Plato taught us to think.

They called the rational part of the soul god-like, and one can hear Socrates saying to Alcibiades—and this Plato wrote down—:

"Can we say, then, what is the most divine thing of the soul, except this, around which knowing and thinking occur?" "—We cannot."

"—This part of it, then, resembles God;

and one who looks to this and knows all that is divine, both God and prudence, would thus best know himself also." And he says things similar in the Phaedo:

"Let us posit, then," he said, "two kinds of existing things, the one visible, the other invisible."

"—And the invisible always remaining the same and in the same state, but the visible never in the same state?" "—Let us posit this too," he said.

"—Come now," said he, "is not one part of us body, the other soul?" "—Nothing else," he said.

"—To which kind, then, do we say the body is more similar and more akin?" "—This at least," he said, "is clear to everyone, that it is to the visible."

"—And what of the soul? Is it visible or invisible?" "—Not visible to men, at any rate, O Socrates," he said.

"—But surely we were speaking of the visible and the not-visible with reference to the nature of men—or do you think with reference to some other?" "—With reference to that of men."

"—What, then, do we say about the soul? That it is visible or invisible?" "—Not visible."

"—The soul, then, is more similar to the invisible than the body, and the body to the visible?" "—It is altogether necessary, O Socrates." And having gone through many other such things, he added:

"What then? These things being so, does it not befit the body to be quickly dissolved, but the soul, on the contrary, to be altogether indissoluble, or near to it?" "—How could it not?" Then, having said how the body is dissolved, he added:

"But the soul, departing to the invisible or to some other such place, noble and excellent and invisible, to the realm of Hades truly, into the presence of the good and wise God—where, if God wills, my own soul too must presently go—shall this soul of ours, being such and so constituted, immediately upon being released from the body be scattered to the winds and perish, as most men say? Far from it, O dear Cebes and Simmias;

but rather it is far more so as follows." And the things that follow are held by the same line of thought and openly demonstrate the immortality of the soul.

So great a strife and conflict have historians and philosophers and poets had with one another, both concerning the soul and the body and the very constitution of man—some championing these things, others those, and others again travailing to bring forth an opinion contrary to both these and those.

For they did not desire to learn the truth, but, being enslaved to vainglory and ambition, they desired to be called the discoverers of novel doctrines.

And Anaximander, when Thales had already died, made use of contrary doctrines;

and Anaximenes too, after the death of Anaximander, did this same thing;

and Anaxagoras likewise.

And Aristotle, while Plato was still living, openly set himself in opposition and took up the war against the Academy, and neither honored the teaching from which he had ambitiously profited, nor felt shame before the renown of that much-vaunted man, nor feared his power in argument, but unrestrainedly arrayed himself against him, employing doctrines not better than his, but far worse.

For indeed, whereas that man [Plato] declared the soul immortal, this one [Aristotle] said it was mortal;

And whereas that one declared that God provides for all things, this man, so far as his account went, deprived the earth of the divine care;

for he said that God governs the things as far as the moon, but that all the rest are ranged under fate;

and he introduced many other novelties besides, which it would be superfluous to mention at present. I have supposed—

Those men, then, naturally demolished one another's opinions;

for falsehood is hostile not only to truth, but also to itself;

but truth alone is in concord with itself, having falsehood as its enemy.

and one may behold Isaiah and Jeremiah and the whole choir of the prophets, and Matthew and John and Luke and Mark and Peter and Paul and the entire company of the apostles, teaching all men things that are in harmony.

For one cannot hear some of them calling these peoples autochthonous and others calling those peoples so, nor some declaring the soul mortal and others immortal, nor some calling the reason sovereign over the passions and others naming it servile and slavish;

for all of them teach in agreement that the body was fashioned out of earth and water and the other elements, but that the soul did not pre-exist and was sent down into it, but rather was created after the fashioning of the body;

For "God," he says, "formed man, dust from the earth, and breathed into his face a breath of life,"

"and man became a living soul." But the inbreathing must be understood not as some outflow of spirit issuing from a mouth—for the Divine is incorporeal and simple and uncompounded—but as the very nature of the soul, namely that it is a spirit intelligent and rational.

These things, then, the Lawgiver recorded in the account of the world's creation;

and he teaches the like also in the laws.

For in discoursing about the pregnant woman who miscarries as a result of certain blows, he says that the infant is first formed in the womb, and then in this way is ensouled—the soul being neither introduced from somewhere outside, nor sprung from the seed, but receiving its coming-into-being by the divine decree according to the law implanted in nature from the beginning.

This too the noble Job declared, when in his much-celebrated contests he discoursed with the Judge of the contest and the Maker, saying:

"Remember that you fashioned me as clay, and you turn me back again to earth.

Did you not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese? You clothed me with skin and flesh;

and with bones and sinews you knit me together;

and you bestowed on me life and mercy;

Your hands made me and fashioned me;

give me understanding, and I shall learn your commandments." And at the same time he both reminds the Maker of the act of making, and entreats to obtain understanding from Him.

And all the prophets likewise teach things in harmony with these concerning human nature.

And lest anyone suppose that the Greeks came into being in one way, the Romans in another, the Egyptians otherwise, and that the Persians and Massagetae and Scythians and Sarmatians partook of a different substance, he who composed our account of the world's creation taught that the Maker, having fashioned one man from earth and having created the woman from his rib, filled the whole inhabited world with men from the intercourse of these two, as their children and descendants severally increased the race.

For it would have been very easy for Him to command and forthwith fill all land and sea with inhabitants;

but in order that men might not suppose the natures of human beings to be diverse, He ordained that the countless tribes of mankind should come into being from that one pair.

For this very reason He also fashioned the woman not from some other source, but taking the starting-points of her origin from the man, so that neither might she suppose herself to possess a different nature and travel a course contrary to the men.

For she too is rational like him, able to understand and knowing what must be done, and likewise knowing what to flee and what to pursue; and there are times when she even discovers what will be advantageous better than the man, and becomes a good counsellor;

and as for the temple and partaking of the divine mysteries, the Law does not permit it to some while forbidding it to women, but bids that these too be initiated and led into the mysteries just as those, and indeed the prizes of virtue are set before these as before those, since the contests of virtue are common to all.

Nor, moreover, does the difference of tongues do harm to nature;

for both among Greeks and among barbarians one may behold both those who care for virtue and those who work wickedness.

With this account, moreover, the Greeks also agree;

and they praise the Egyptians too as most wise;

for indeed they learned many sciences from these people as well.

Therefore the diversity of tongues does no injury to nature.

For indeed Homer called the Hippemolgi most just;

and this is a Thracian race;

and Xenophon the son of Gryllus admired Cyrus the son of Cambyses—a Persian on his father's side and a Mede on his mother's—for his prudence and temperance and justice and courage.

Accordingly the Greeks too acknowledge that among the barbarians as well there is some cultivation of virtue, and that the difference of speech does not hinder this acquisition.

For indeed all the heralds of the truth—I mean the prophets and apostles—did not share in Greek eloquence, but being full of the true wisdom, brought the divine teaching to all the nations, both Greek and barbarian, and filled all land and sea with writings about virtue and piety.

And now all men, having abandoned the trifles of the philosophers, revel in the teachings of the fishermen and tax-collectors, and cherish the writings of the leather-worker;

and of the Italic and Ionic and Eleatic schools they do not know even the names—for time has wiped out the memory of them—whereas the names of the prophets, who came into being more than a thousand five hundred years before these men, they carry about on their lips.

And indeed even those still older than these—I mean Abraham and his sons, and those more ancient than they: Abel, Enoch, Noah, and the rest, as many as the praiseworthy life rendered illustrious;

whereas of the seven sages who came after the prophets, and of those who succeeded them, not even those who embrace the Greek tongue know the names.

And why do I speak of those of the present day? For even among the ancients much dispute arose concerning these matters.

For some rank with these Periander the Corinthian, others Epimenides the Cretan, others Acusilaus the Argive, others Anacharsis the Scythian, others Pherecydes the Syrian, while Plato ranks Myson of Chen.

These men, then, even those who lived near them have been ignorant of;

For at once they even ridicule the names as barbarous;

but we lament their folly, in that, although they see men of barbarian speech having vanquished Greek eloquence, and the elegantly contrived myths utterly driven out, and the fishermen's solecisms having overthrown the Attic syllogisms, they neither blush nor cover their faces, but shamelessly champion error—and this although they are few and easily countable, and do not even share in Greek refinement of speech, but, so to speak, commit as many barbarisms as the words they utter, yet supposing it to be the height of education and brilliance of speech if, when swearing, they say "By the gods" and "By the sun," and forge some such oaths upon their discourses.

Speusippus or Xenocrates? Whom Anaximander or Anaximenes? Whom Arcesilaus or Philolaus? Who are the patrons of the Stoic school? Who uphold the teaching of the Stagirite? Who order their public life according to the laws of Plato? Who have embraced the polity composed by him? But of these doctrines you will be unable to point out to us a single teacher, whereas we plainly demonstrate the power of the apostolic and prophetic doctrines;

for all the world beneath the sun is filled full of these words.

And the language of the Hebrews was translated not only into that of the Greeks, but also into those of the Romans, Egyptians, Persians, Indians, Armenians, Scythians, and Sarmatians, and—to put it briefly—into all the tongues that all the nations continue to use.

And the most wise Plato, after expounding very many arguments concerning the immortality of the soul, did not even persuade his disciple Aristotle to embrace this doctrine;

yet our fishermen and tax-collectors and the leather-worker persuaded Greeks and Romans and Egyptians and, in a word, every nation of mankind, that the soul is immortal, that it is honoured with reason, that it is able to master the passions, and that it transgresses the laws not under compulsion but through negligence;

and again, when it inclines toward what is better, it is freed from its former vice and once more is imprinted with the divine characters.

And one may see that not only the teachers of the Church know these doctrines, but also leather-workers and coppersmiths and wool-workers and other manual labourers;

and women likewise—not only those who have shared in learning, but also day-labouring spinners and seamstresses, and indeed even serving-maids;

and not only townsfolk, but also country people have attained this knowledge;

and one may find diggers and oxherds and gardeners discoursing about the divine Trinity and about the creation of all things, and knowing human nature far better than Aristotle and Plato; and moreover cultivating virtue and shunning vice, fearing the punishments that are expected and unwaveringly awaiting the divine tribunal, philosophizing about eternal and imperishable life, and gladly choosing every toil for the sake of the kingdom of heaven—and these things they learned not from anyone else, but from those whom you call barbarian-tongued;

and you do not even heed Anacharsis when he says:

"To me, all Greeks speak Scythian." For this surely resembles what was said by our leather-worker;

for that every tongue holds the same understanding—since the nature of all human beings is indeed one—experience is the teacher.

For one may find even among the barbarians both arts and sciences and feats of valour in war;

and some of them often devise contrivances even wiser than those of the Greeks, and better ambushes and more cunning snares.

And there are those who even surpass the eloquence of the Greeks by their brevity of speech.

For this both the ancient historians testify concerning the Persians, and so does anyone who has nowadays associated with them as ambassador or general or in pursuit of some trade.

For they say that the Persians keenly detect the deceptions of arguments, and that, though speaking few words, they overcome those who debate with them; that they are exceedingly skilled in reasoning and able to unravel the snares woven by others, and that they employ most sapient proverbs and riddles—not because they have read the labyrinths of Chrysippus and Aristotle, nor because Socrates and Plato trained them in this kind of thing;

for they were nurtured in neither rhetorical nor philosophical discourses, but had nature alone as their teacher.

And the Nomads too, our neighbours—I mean the Ishmaelites, who dwell in the deserts and know nothing of the Greek writings—are adorned with shrewdness and intelligence, and possess a mind capable both of discerning the truth and of refuting falsehood.

Concerning the Egyptians I think it superfluous to speak;

for the foremost of the philosophers themselves declared that these men were superior to the most renowned figures that ever arose among the Greeks.

The Romans, too, have had their poets and historians and orators;

and those who are versed in both this and that language say that their conceptions are more compact than those of the Greeks, and their maxims more concise.

And I say these things not to belittle the Greek tongue, in which I myself have in some measure had a share, nor to repay it with hostility the nurture it gave me, but to humble the jaw and lower the brow of those who pride themselves upon it, and to teach them not to mock a tongue that is made resplendent by truth, nor to swagger over discourses adorned by the cosmetician's art but stripped bare of truth; but rather to admire the interpreters of the truth, who were not taught to embellish and elaborate their words with eloquence, but who display the beauty of truth naked, and who stood in no need at all of borrowed and imported flowers.

Set side by side, then, my dear friends, the idle prattle of the philosophers and the simple teaching of the fishermen, and observe the difference;

and when you have counted the many myriads of your books, learn how feeble their words are.

For no one has followed either the poetic myths or the opinions of the philosophers;

but as for the divine oracles, marvel at their brevity and extol their power, and learn the truth of the divine doctrines: the divine fashioning of the body, the immortal nature of the soul and its rational part that governs the passions, and that the passions are necessary to nature and useful.

For desire is most serviceable, and so likewise is the spirited temper, its counterpart.

Now the spirited temper was given as a helper to reason, that it might restrain the immoderation of desire.

For since desire attempts to rush beyond the appointed bounds, the Creator yoked the spirited temper to it like a colt to draw it back, whenever desire forces its way forward beyond what is needful.