58. But they were written by unlearned and ignorant men, and should not therefore be readily believed. See that this be not rather a stronger reason for believing that they have not been adulterated by any false statements, but were put forth by men of simple mind, who knew not how to trick out their tales with meretricious ornaments. But the language is mean and vulgar. For truth never seeks deceitful polish, nor in that which is well ascertained and certain does it allow itself to be led away into excessive prolixity. Syllogisms, enthymemes, definitions, and all those ornaments by which men seek to establish their statements, aid those groping for the truth, but do not clearly mark its great features. But he who really knows the subject under discussion, neither defines, nor deduces, nor seeks the other tricks of words by which an audience is wont to be taken in, and to be beguiled into a forced assent to a proposition.
59. Your narratives, my opponent says, are overrun with barbarisms and solecisms, and disfigured by monstrous blunders. A censure, truly, which shows a childish and petty spirit; for if we allow that it is reasonable, let us cease to use certain kinds of fruit because they grow with prickles on them, and other growths useless for food, which on the one hand cannot support us, and yet do not on the other hinder us from enjoying that which specially excels, and which nature has designed to be most wholesome for us. For how, I pray you, does it interfere with or retard the comprehension of a statement, whether anything be pronounced smoothly [3358] or with uncouth roughness? whether that have the grave accent which ought to have the acute, or that have the acute which ought to have the grave? Or how is the truth of a statement diminished, if an error is made in number or case, in preposition, participle, or conjunction? Let that pomposity of style and strictly regulated diction be reserved for public assemblies, for lawsuits, for the forum and the courts of justice, and by all means be handed over to those who, striving after the soothing influences of pleasant sensations, bestow all their care upon splendour of language. But when we are discussing matters far removed from mere display, we should consider what is said, not with what charm it is said nor how it tickles the ears, but what benefits it confers on the hearers, especially since we know that some even who devoted themselves to philosophy, not only disregarded refinement of style, but also purposely adopted a vulgar meanness when they might have spoken with greater elegance and richness, lest forsooth they might impair the stern gravity of speech and revel rather in the pretentious show of the Sophists. For indeed it evidences a worthless heart to seek enjoyment in matters of importance; and when you have to deal with those who are sick and diseased, to pour into their ears dulcet sounds, not to apply a remedy to their wounds. Yet, if you consider the true state of the case, no language is naturally perfect, and in like manner none is faulty. For what natural reason is there, or what law written in the constitution of the world, that paries should be called hic, [3359] and sella hæc?--since neither have they sex distinguished by male and female, nor can the most learned man tell me what hic and hæc are, or why one of them denotes the male sex while the other is applied to the female. These conventionalities are man's, and certainly are not indispensable to all persons for the use of forming their language; for paries might perhaps have been called hæc, and sella hic, without any fault being found, if it had been agreed upon at first that they should be so called, and if this practice had been maintained by following generations in their daily conversation. And yet, O you who charge our writings with disgraceful blemishes, have you not these solecisms in those most perfect and wonderful books of yours? Does not one of you make the plur. of uter, utria? another utres? [3360] Do you not also say coelus andcoelum, filus and filum, crocus and crocum, fretus andfretum? Also hoc pane andhic panis, hic sanguis and hoc sanguen? Are not candelabrum and jugulum in like manner written jugulus and candelaber? For if each noun cannot have more than one gender, and if the same word cannot be of this gender and of that, for one gender cannot pass into the other, he commits as great a blunder who utters masculine genders under the laws of feminines, as he who applies masculine articles to feminine genders. And yet we see you using masculines as feminines, and feminines as masculines, and those which you call neuter both in this way and in that, without any distinction. Either, therefore, it is no blunder to employ them indifferently, and in that case it is vain for you to say that our works are disfigured with monstrous solecisms; or if the way in which each ought to be employed is unalterably fixed, you also are involved in similar errors, although you have on your side all the Epicadi, Cæsellii, Verrii, Scauri, and Nisi.
[3358] So Orelli and Hildebrand, reading glabre from a conjecture of Grotius, for the ms. grave.
[3359] i.e., that the one should be masculine, the other feminine.
[3360] i.e., does not one of you make the plural of uter masc., another neut.? [Note the opponent's witness to the text of the Gospels.]
60. But, say my opponents, if Christ was God, why did He appear in human shape, and why was He cut off by death after the manner of men? Could that power which is invisible, and which has no bodily substance, have come upon earth and adapted itself to the world and mixed in human society, otherwise than by taking to itself some covering of a more solid substance, which might bear the gaze of the eyes, and on which the look of the least observant might fix itself? For what mortal is there who could have seen Him, who could have distinguished Him, if He had decreed to come upon the earth such as He is in His own primitive nature, and such as He has chosen to be in His own proper character and divinity? He took upon Him, therefore, the form of man; and under the guise of our race He imprisoned His power, so that He could be seen and carefully regarded, might speak and teach, and without encroaching on the sovereignty and government of the King Supreme, might carry out all those objects for the accomplishment of which He had come into the world.
61. What, then, says my opponent, could not the Supreme Ruler have brought about those things which He had ordained to be done in the world, without feigning Himself a man? If it were necessary to do as you say, He perhaps would have done so; because it was not necessary, He acted otherwise. The reasons why He chose to do it in this way, and did not choose to do it in that, are unknown, being involved in so great obscurity, and comprehensible by scarcely any; but these you might perhaps have understood if you were not already prepared not to understand, and were not shaping your course to brave unbelief, before that was explained to you which you sought to know and to hear.
62. But, you will say, He was cut off by death as men are. Not Christ Himself; for it is impossible either that death should befall what is divine, or that that should waste away and disappear in death which is one in its substance, and not compounded, nor formed by bringing together any parts. Who, then, you ask, was seen hanging on the cross? Who dead? The human form, [3361] I reply, which He had put on, [3362] and which He bore about with Him. It is a tale passing belief, you say, and wrapt in dark obscurity; if you will, it is not dark, and is established by a very close analogy. [3363] If the Sibyl, when she was uttering and pouring forth her prophecies and oracular responses, was filled, as you say, with Apollo's power, had been cut down and slain by impious robbers, [3364] would Apollo be said to have been slain in her? If Bacis, [3365] if Helenus, Marcius, [3366] and other soothsayers, had been in like manner robbed of life and light when raving as inspired, would any one say that those who, speaking by their mouths, declared to inquirers what should be done, [3367] had perished according to the conditions of human life? The death of which you speak was that of the human body which He had assumed, [3368] not His own--of that which was borne, not of the bearer; and not even this death would He [3369] have stooped to suffer, were it not that a matter of such importance was to be dealt with, and the inscrutable plan of fate [3370] brought to light in hidden mysteries.
[3361] So the ms., followed by Hildebrand and Oehler, reads and punctuates quis mortuus? homo, for which all edd. read mortuus est? "Who died?"
[3362] Here, as in the whole discussion in the second book on the origin and nature of the soul, the opinions expressed are Gnostic, Cerinthus saying more precisely that Christ having descended from heaven in the form of a dove, dwelt in the body of Jesus during His life, but removed from it before the crucifixion.
[3363] So the ms. by changing a single letter, with LB. and others, similitudine proxim-a (ms. o) constitutum; while the first ed., Gelenius, Canterus, Ursinus, Orelli, and others, read -dini proxime--"settled very closely to analogy."
[3364] In the original latronibus; here, as in the next chapter, used loosely to denote lawless men.
[3365] So emended by Mercerus for the ms. vatis.
[3366] So read in the ms.--not -tius, as in LB. and Orelli.
[3367] Lit., "the ways of things"--vias rerum.
[3368] The ms. reads unintelligibly assumpti-o which was, however, retained in both Roman edd., although Ursinus suggested the dropping of the o, which has been done by all later edd.
[3369] The ms. reads, quam nec ipsam perpeti succubuisset vis--"would his might," i.e., "would He with His great power have stooped." Orelli simply omits vis as Canterus, and seemingly the other later edd. do.
[3370] The ms. and 1st ed. read sati-s, which has clearly arisen from f being confounded with the old form of s.
63. What are these hidden and unseen mysteries, you will say, which neither men can know, nor those even who are called gods of the world can in any wise reach by fancy and conjecture; which none can discover, [3371] except those whom Christ Himself has thought fit to bestow the blessing of so great knowledge upon, and to lead into the secret recesses of the inner treasury of wisdom? Do you then see that if He had determined that none should do Him violence, He should have striven to the utmost to keep off from Him His enemies, even by directing His power against them? [3372] Could not He, then, who had restored their sight to the blind, make His enemies blind if it were necessary? Was it hard or troublesome for Him to make them weak, who had given strength to the feeble? Did He who bade [3373] the lame walk, not know how to take from them all power to move their limbs, [3374] by making their sinews stiff? [3375] Would it have been difficult for Him who drew the dead from their tombs to inflict death on whom He would? But because reason required that those things which had been resolved on should be done here also in the world itself, and in no other fashion than was done, He, with gentleness passing understanding and belief, regarding as but childish trifles the wrongs which men did Him, submitted to the violence of savage and most hardened robbers; [3376] nor did He think it worth while to take account of what their daring had aimed at, if He only showed to His disciples what they were in duty bound to look for from Him. For when many things about the perils of souls, many evils about their...; on the other hand, the Introducer, [3377] the Master and Teacher directed His laws and ordinances, that they might find their end in fitting duties; [3378] did He not destroy the arrogance of the proud? Did He not quench the fires of lust? Did He not check the craving of greed? Did He not wrest the weapons from their hands, and rend from them all the sources [3379] of every form of corruption? To conclude, was He not Himself gentle, peaceful, easily approached, friendly when addressed? [3380] Did He not, grieving at men's miseries, pitying with His unexampled benevolence all in any wise afflicted with troubles and bodily ills, [3381] bring them back and restore them to soundness?