醫治希臘病 第 1 章 第 9/16 段

The blame belongs to the one who chooses; God is blameless;

for God is never the cause of evils. And in the very midst of grievous perils Plato shows Socrates philosophizing, both concerning Providence and concerning not fearing death.

For he set down these words too in the Apology:

"But you also, O judges, must be of good hope toward death, and consider this one truth: that to a good man no evil can happen, neither while he lives nor when he is dead, nor are his affairs neglected by the gods." So in truth poverty and sickness and slavery and death are not evils, but they are called evils by the foolish, while they become goods to those who use them well and rightly.

That the failure to believe that all things are governed by Providence increases the wickedness of men, Atticus the Platonist proclaims aloud:

"So that the despair of Providence is a ready instrument for injustice." And Plotinus too—and he is illustrious among writers of philosophy—prefixed this preface to his discourses on Providence:

"That to attribute the cause and constitution of this universe to spontaneity and chance, as something irrational and proper to a man possessing neither mind nor perception, is surely plain even before the demonstration; and many sufficient arguments have been advanced before this to prove it." Then, after unfolding many such arguments, he added:

"Thus indeed from one Mind and from the Logos that comes from it this universe arose and was differentiated." But this too he has pilfered from the sacred oracles.

For he had assuredly heard the theology taught by the divine Gospels, that through the Word all things came to be, and without him not even one thing came to be. For this man was many years later than the apostles.

In his time Ammonius surnamed Saccas, having abandoned the sacks in which he used to carry grain, embraced the philosophic life.

They say that our Origen attended his lectures, and that this Plotinus attended Origen's.

And Porphyry obtained the teaching of Plotinus.

I have noted the chronology not by way of idle chatter, but to show that this man—not like Plato, learning only the doctrines of the Hebrews, but having been instructed also in the teachings of the fishermen and of the leather-worker—learned from that source that from the Mind and from the Logos that proceeds from it all things were both constituted and differentiated and attained their fitting harmony.

Then he refutes the folly of those who attempt to find fault with some portions of the creation, speaking thus:

"...in due proportion to itself and to its own parts, both the more dominant and the lesser, in like manner suitable."

He, then, who blames the whole on account of its parts would be unreasonable in his accusation;

for one must consider the parts in relation to the whole itself, to see whether they are in concord and harmonious with it, and in considering the whole one must not look to certain petty parts;

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands." And a little later he shows the diversity of created things, and says:

"Some seem to partake only of being, others of life, others rather in perception, others already possess reason, and others all of life."

For one must not demand equal things from things that are not equal;

for seeing does not belong to fingers, but this belongs to the eyes;

and something else belongs to a finger—namely, I suppose, to be a finger and to have what is its own. He said that stones and things like them partake only of being, that plants partake also of life, that the irrational creatures have, along with life, also perception, that the human race partakes of reason, and that the nature of incorporeal beings possesses perfect life; and to these things he added:

"If fire is quenched by water, and another thing is destroyed by fire, do not be amazed;

for another brought them too into being." And concerning virtue and vice in the same discourse he treats matters as follows:

"Many things suffer also from others, even when those who do them are unwilling and are aiming at something else."

"But living beings that have movement on their own account, by free will, would incline at one time toward what is better, at another time toward what is worse;

and to seek the turning toward what is worse as coming from Him is perhaps not fitting;

for a small turning occurring at the start, as it advances, ever makes the fault greater and greater;

and a body too is joined to it, and from necessity desire;

and being overlooked at first, the sudden impulse, not being checked at once, both wrought the very choice into which one had fallen.

And it is not unjust that one who has become such should suffer consequences in keeping with his disposition, nor should happiness be demanded for those who have not done deeds worthy of happiness.

Only the good are happy;

for it is on this account that the gods too are happy.

If, then, it is possible even for souls in this universe to be happy, then if some are not happy, one must not blame the universe, but their own incapacities, which were unable to contend nobly in that contest for which the prizes of virtue are set forth;

and what is there terrible in those who have not become divine not having a divine life? Then he also enumerates the misfortunes and says that these are necessary for those who sin:

"For poverty," he says, "and sicknesses are nothing to the good, but to the bad they are a calamity; and it is necessary that those who have bodies should fall sick;

and these things too are by no means useless for the ordering and completion of the whole." Then he teaches that very many of the rest are benefited by these examples, and says:

"But vice has accomplished something useful for the whole, having become an example of justice and having furnished from itself many useful things.

For indeed it made men watchful, and it rouses the mind and understanding of those who set themselves against the paths of wickedness, and it makes us learn what a good thing virtue is, by comparison with the evils which the wicked possess.

And evils did not come into being on this account, but, since they did come to be, it has been said that He uses even them for what is needful.

And this belongs to a most mighty power: to be able to use even evils well, and to be capable of employing things that have become formless into other forms.

...he advises that one should not demand the good strictly nor in unmixed purity in the composite living being, and says:

"First, then, it must be said that those who seek the beautiful in the composite being should not demand it altogether, but only so far as the composite admits of the beautiful, and should not seek the primary things in things of secondary rank; but, since it also has a body, one should concede that from this too there proceeds something into the whole, and should demand from the reason only as much as the mixture was able to receive—whether it lacks nothing of this." Then he is indignant at those who are unwilling to contend for virtue, yet think it fitting to be saved by God, and says:

"But as it is, some unarmed, others armed, prevail, where it was not right for God himself to fight on behalf of those who do not make war;

for the law says that one must be saved out of wars by playing the man, not by praying;

for neither must one gather crops by praying, but by tending the earth;

nor be healthy without tending to health; nor should one be indignant if more crops come to the worthless, or if in general they farm better than others.

Then it is absurd to do all the other things in life by one's own judgement—even if they do not do them in the way that is dear to the gods—yet to be saved by the gods alone, even without having done those things through which the gods command these men to be saved.

And so for them death too is better than to be living in such a way as the laws in the universe do not wish them to live;

so that, if the contrary were to happen—if peace were preserved amid all follies and vices—the affairs of Providence would be in an absurd state, allowing the worse thus to prevail.

And the wicked rule because of the cowardice of those who are ruled;

for this is just, and not the other.

For Providence must not be such that we ourselves should be nothing;

yet if all were Providence and Providence alone existed, even it would not be; for of what would it still be the providence? There would only be the Divine. And a little further on he shows the rewards of the good:

For to those who have become good, he says, there shall be a good life, both now and laid up for hereafter;

but he affirms that it is not lawful for those who have become evil to claim others as their saviours when they have abandoned themselves, and that they make their prayer in vain. Then concerning the other living creatures he speaks thus:

Since with regard to the other lesser creatures, none of sound mind finds fault that they bring some adornment to the earth.

For it would be absurd if one were to complain that they bite human beings, as though men ought to live forever sleeping.

And it is necessary that these too should exist;

and the benefits from some of them are plain, while time has discovered many that are not obvious, so that none of them exists in vain even for human beings.

It is also absurd to complain that many of them are wild, since wild men too come into being. And after many other things he said this as well:

But we are like those inexperienced in the painter's art, who find fault as though the colours were not beautiful everywhere; whereas in truth the artist has assigned what is fitting to each place. Or like one who blames a drama because not all in it are heroes, but there is also a slave and some rustic who speaks coarsely;

but it would not be beautiful if one were to remove the inferior characters, for it is from these too that the whole is filled out. And every discourse, both the first and the second, is full of such arguments.

But I, avoiding prolixity, shall pass over the greater part;

and though I am able to use as witnesses Xenophon the disciple of Socrates, and Epictetus the Stoic, and many others, and am capable of refuting by natural demonstrations the folly of those who disbelieve this doctrine, I think that what has been gathered together suffices for the confirmation of the truth.

This one thing alone I have thought useful to add to what has been said, namely, that just as it has been clearly shown that the Maker exercises providence over all things, so beyond all doubt and dispute the argument concerning the Saviour's dispensation has been demonstrated;

for it was fitting that He who fashioned all things and bestowed being upon those who were not, should not overlook the human nature perishing—the nature for whose sake He prepared all visible things.

For the earth is their dwelling-place, and they have heaven for a roof;

and air and sea and rivers and springs and the travails of the clouds and the dews and the breezes, and moreover plants both fruitful and barren, and creatures of the land and of the air and of the water and amphibians, and countless kinds of herbs, and metallic ores, all afford their use to the human race.

[The sun and moon], dividing time in two, have shared it out between them, as it were;

and the one gives light to the day and summons to labour, while the other, with the stars, has obtained the nocturnal torch-bearing.

The Lord of the universe, then, did not think it just to overlook him for whose sake all these things came into being, when he was besieged by sin and given over to death like a captive of war; and on this account He assumed the human form and veiled the invisible nature with the visible, and kept the visible nature sinless and preserved the hidden nature undefiled;

for neither did the latter partake of the sufferings of the flesh, nor did the flesh share in the stains of sin.

For it would have been most easy for Him, even apart from the covering of the flesh, to accomplish the salvation of men and by His will alone to dissolve the dominion of death, and to declare its mother, sin, utterly abolished, and to drive out from the earth the all-wicked demon who gave it birth and consign him to the darkness, to which a little later He threatened to deliver him;

but He did not will to display His power so much as the justice of His providence.

For just as, though able to address men from heaven and to terrify those living at their ease, He did not do this, knowing that human nature could not bear it, but appeared seldom, making His manifestations proportioned to the beholders, and always continued through men to legislate and exhort men, using the prophets as ministers and servants of His words; so likewise, when later He willed to offer to all men the saving remedies, He used neither angels nor archangels as His servants, nor did He send forth from heaven a voice loudest and proportioned to all men, but, having fitted about Himself in a virgin's womb the human tabernacle, He came forth thence, seen as man and worshipped as God—begotten of the Father's substance before the ages, and from the virgin receiving that which is visible, the same being both newly come and eternal.

For the union did not confound the natures, nor did it make the Maker of times subject to time, nor declare that which came to be in time pre-eternal; but each nature remained pure—the one enduring the sufferings of nature, I mean hunger and thirst, sleep and weariness and the cross and death, the other working divine things and performing wonders as was its wont: causing bodily feet to walk upon the sea, and commanding five loaves to suffice to fill many thousands, and bestowing on the wedding the wine that then first came into being, and healing the maimed bodies, and fashioning with clay eyes for those whom nature had omitted to form in the womb, and with a word knitting together the palsied limbs, and opening the tombs, and calling forth the dead and making them run, and doing the other things which the histories of the divine Gospels teach.

But if you marvel at these things and say that they are befitting God, yet call the manner of the dispensation unsuitable, then first it is altogether audacious and frenzied to declare yourselves wiser than the Wisdom that fashioned all things, and not to be content with what was done by Her, but to suppose that you can find out a better course of action than She.

And I know this well too, that even if He had devised some other manner of healing, you would surely have found fault with that as well;

for you are hard to please, and know only how to mock at the mysteries of the divine dispensation.

But since you make a youthful boast of surpassing by your speculations the abyss of Wisdom, then you yourselves show forth a better device for our salvation.

But you would not be able to show one.

For He employed such surpassing excess of love for mankind that it is disbelieved by you and those like you, that indeed the only-begotten Son of God, the God-Word before the ages, the Maker of all things, having taken the human nature, became man and wrought our salvation.

but they themselves, stripping off their cloak and girding up their tunic, take the iron in hand and apply the incision, and endure foul smells, and receive the spatters of the discharge, and douche with the sponge, and sprinkle on the medicines, and do the other things which the law of the medical art prescribes.

And moreover it is dear to you to admire and praise those kings—not those nourished in royal chambers and enjoying every kind of luxury, but those who endure to face danger on behalf of their subjects, and put on soldiers' equipment, and play the hero before the phalanx.

Why then did the Maker of all not do this long ago? Find fault then also with physicians, because they reserve to the last the more powerful of their remedies;

for having first used the milder ones, they apply the most potent last of all.

This indeed the all-wise Physician of our souls also did.

For having offered many and varied remedies—through creation and nature to all men, and through the law and the prophets to the Hebrews—at last He brought this all-prevailing and saving remedy and drove out the disease.

And the facts bear witness to the word: earth and sea delivered from their former ignorance, the deceiver of the idols brought to an end, the gloom of ignorance driven away, the rays of the light of knowledge filling the inhabited world; Greeks and Romans and barbarians confessing as God the Crucified and honouring the sign of the cross, and instead of the many and falsely-named gods worshipping the Trinity; the precincts of the demons brought to nought, the altars of the idols torn up from their foundations, conspicuous churches built everywhere—in cities, in villages, in fields, in remote places—shrines of the martyrs wrought in beauty, dwellings of ascetics hallowing the peaks of the mountains and peopling the uninhabited deserts.

These things and the like to these display the God-befitting character of our Saviour's dispensation; and the ancient prophecies also bear witness to the truth of the Gospels.

For the former contain the prediction of these things, while these display the fulfilment of the prediction.

And the ones foretold the birth from the virgin, while the others teach the truth of the prophecy;

the ones prophesied the cross beforehand, the others point to the cross;

the ones foretold the miracles, the others record the miracles;

the ones gave oracles of the salvation of the inhabited world, while we behold the fulfilment of those oracles;

they foretold the unbelief and utter destruction of the Jews, while we see their unbelief and dispersion and bondage.

But I, were I not afraid of wearying both you and those who in time to come shall read this by the length of my discourse, would have set before you the very predictions of the inspired prophets, so that you might more accurately learn through the events the truth of the words;

but since the multitude of what has been said does not permit me to do this, I beg you, O men, both to believe the prophecies and to give heed to the events that cry aloud, and to be persuaded also by Euripides the tragic poet, who says in the Oenomaus:

'We infer the unseen from things present;' and again in the Phoenix:

'The unseen is fittingly apprehended by means of proofs.'

But if the tragic poet is not credible enough for you as a witness, listen to Hyperides the orator, who says:

'But as for things that are unseen, those who teach must necessarily seek them by proofs and probabilities.' And Isocrates too—he likewise being one of the renowned orators—has written in agreement concerning this:

and indeed Andocides too, and he likewise one of the Ten:

[so that you may] embrace the doctrine of the dispensation and not miss the salvation that is worthy of love and thrice-longed-for.

Most men, generally speaking, are fond of jesting and fond of laughter;

and pleasing to them is not the earnest and strenuous life, but the soft and dissolute one.

Whence indeed the all-wicked demon has most easily gained the mastery over them.

For he did not bid them tread that steep and narrow and rough and hard-to-pass and uphill way, but the downhill and descending and smooth and easy one.

Nor did he enjoin them to take care for temperance and righteousness, but permitted them fearlessly to live licentiously and wantonly and to dare unrestrainedly every kind of lawlessness.

Therefore, indeed, very easily he reduced most men to slavery.

For shunning the toil of virtue and shirking the sweat of the divine laws, they readily deserted to him who legislated the easiest and most agreeable things.

Having thus enslaved them in this manner, first he blotted out the opinions concerning the God of all which nature had inscribed in them from the beginning;

then he taught them the wicked dogmas of the falsely-named gods, and instructed them to worship the great throng of beings that are not, instead of Him who is, laying this down as the foundation and base of the corrupted way of life.

For since, when men do wrong, they are stung—for their reason pricks them within and does not allow the pleasure of sin to remain unmixed, but tempers it with most bitter pain;

and one may see this happening both to the despoiler of the dead and to him who dares adultery, and moreover to the burglar and the clothes-stealer and the traitor and to him who does any other of the forbidden things—such a drug of insensibility did the sophist of wickedness contrive for them.

For concerning the so-called gods he taught them wicked opinions;

for he represented them as licentious and most lustful and as lovers of boys and plotters against marriages and slayers of fathers and slayers of mothers, and as mingling unrestrainedly with mothers and sisters, and moreover with daughters, and as robbing one another's beds and being caught, and being bound by those they had wronged, and unrestrainedly mocked by the rest; and these things, as they themselves say, are dared by the heavenly ones in heaven and on earth, by the marine ones in the sea and on land, and by those called nymphs on mountains and in glens and ravines.

And these most shameful and most abominable myths he sounded into the ears not only of poets, but also of theologians and philosophers, very cunningly contriving the deception and using more teachers for the deceit.

And since not all are skilled in letters, nor capable of partaking in poetic and philosophic discourses, he devised certain other snares for those unable to learn these things.

For he taught the painters and bronze-workers and the makers of stone and wooden statues to paint and carve and fashion such images of the so-called gods as the mythologists had depicted in words, so that those unable to partake of discourses might have models of licentiousness and might not miss the accursed teaching;

and with these phantoms he filled not only their precincts, but also the market-places and the streets, and moreover the houses of the wealthy.

For everywhere one may find the so-called gods in love and raging and rutting—the father of the gods likened to an eagle and a bull and a swan, and in this manner mingling with his beloveds; the eloquent Hermes becoming a goat; and Pan, goat-legged and goat-horned, begetting children.

To these the destroyer of mankind enacted that festivals and assemblies and public banquets should be celebrated;

and to all the rest as well—for great is their throng—he allotted festivals, naming the feast for each of the demons from his appellation: Hermaea and Cronia and Poseidonia and Heraclea and Asclepia and Anacia.

For not only to the so-called gods, but also to men did they assign this veneration.

And in these assemblies every kind of licentiousness was fearlessly dared.

For the rites and the orgies of these gods had their secret symbols—Eleusis the comb, and the Phallagogia the phallus.

But indeed, even apart from the symbols, the things done by the celebrants of the orgies incited the onlookers to every kind of wantonness.

For who of the most exceedingly lustful has dared within his bedchamber such things as the chorus of the Satyrs wantonly performed in public procession—having in their midst Silenus and Pan, the one raging after the Bacchantes, the other loosed by drunkenness, called the tutor of the effeminate boy? To these they sacrificed hecatombs and chiliombs, and slaughtered flocks and herds, and offered frankincense and poured out wine as abundantly as possible, and other things which their hierophants prescribed.

For the poets say that they rejoice exceedingly in the libation and the savour of fat, and they say that the gods have declared this to be their privilege;

and for this reason they say that they journey abroad to the sacrifices of the Ethiopians, and deem Hector worthy of all care, because he never left their altar wanting in sacrifice.

And Chryses too reminds Apollo not of righteousness and temperance, but of the fat thighs and the goats and the bulls and the garlands, with which he had adorned the temple.

So sweet to them was the smoke and the foul smell of the savour, and they were simply like cooks.

But indeed we did not rightly compare them to cooks.

For these at least smell and taste of the best-prepared dishes, but those received the foul smell of the bones being burnt.

And each of us, if but a little of these should fall upon the hearth, is disgusted and stops up his nostrils and turns away the foul odour;

but they, enjoying ambrosia and nectar, hung upon the foul smell of the burning bones.

But perhaps they themselves too will dare to say these things concerning the God who is and who ever is, since they hear the laws concerning sacrifices set down in the divine Scripture, but are utterly ignorant of the lawgiver's intent.

For when Israel had spent a very long time in Egypt and had taken in the wicked customs of the natives, and had learned from them to sacrifice to idols and demons and to sport and dance and delight in musical instruments, and had become habituated to these, God, willing to set them free, allowed them to sacrifice—but not to sacrifice all things, nor to the falsely-named gods of the Egyptians, but to Himself alone to offer the gods of the Egyptians;

for the Egyptians of old indeed deified the ox and the sheep and the goat and the dove and the turtledove and certain other creatures not of the edible sort, but of those called unclean.

Therefore, lest they should be aggrieved, as though wholly hindered from those customs, He forbade them to sacrifice to the gods that are not, but enacted that they should sacrifice to Himself the things formerly worshipped by them—of land animals the goat and the ox and the sheep, and of birds the turtledove and the dove;

and surely these creatures, both these and those, are tame and serviceable to man.

He applied this to the Egyptian disease, permitting them to sacrifice on account of the weakness of those who sacrificed, but commanding the things venerated by them to be used as sacrificial victims, so that by sacrificing they might learn not to regard as gods the things slaughtered as victims.

For having legislated that these things be regarded as unclean, He commanded them to eat the things deified, so that they might appear contemptible as being eaten by them, and not usurp the divine veneration.

For having commanded them to abstain from swine's flesh as unclean, but having legislated that they enjoy the rest as clean, by the desire for meat-eating He compelled them to partake of the things reckoned to be gods.

Therefore it was not as needing victims nor as craving the savour of fat that God commanded sacrifice, but as healing the passions of the sick.

In the same way He also tolerated the well-sounding instruments, not as delighting in their harmony, but as gradually putting an end to the deceit of the idols.

For if immediately, when they had been delivered from association with the Egyptians, He had offered them the perfect laws, they would altogether have started away and, casting off the bridle, would have run back to their former destruction.

For if, even when these things were thus dispensed, they often attempted to do this, what would they not have dared, had He legislated for them the evangelical philosophy straightway from the beginning? And that God has no need of sacrifices and musical instruments, hear Him saying through the prophets:

'I will not accept calves from your house, nor he-goats from your flocks.'

'For all the beasts of the forest are Mine, the cattle on the mountains and the oxen.'

'I know all the birds of heaven;'

'and the beauty of the field is with Me.' For in these words He has cast out all the things legislated to be offered—not only the land animals and the birds, but also the wine that is pressed out, and the oil offered with fine flour and cakes.

For He called these things 'the beauty of the field' and showed that both these and those are His works, teaching thereby in some way that the divine nature is without need.

Then with a most graceful irony, full of all benefit, He both convicts their ignorance and displays His own power:

'If I were hungry, I would not tell you;'

'for Mine is the inhabited world and the fulness thereof.' Thus through these words having clearly displayed both His creative work and His lordship, He healed that which had been said with irony, saying: