But the use of crowns did not exist at all among the ancient Greeks; for neither the suitors nor the luxurious Phæacians used them. But at the games there was at first the gift to the athletes; second, the rising up to applaud; third, the strewing with leaves; lastly, the crown, Greece after the Median war having given herself up to luxury.
Those, then, who are trained by the Word are restrained from the use of crowns; and do not think that this Word, which has its seat in the brain, ought to be bound about, not because the crown is the symbol of the recklessness of revelry, but because it has been dedicated to idols. Sophocles accordingly called the narcissus "the ancient coronet of the great gods," speaking of the earth-born divinities; and Sappho crowns the Muses with the rose:--
"For thou dost not share in roses from Pieria."
They say, too, that Here delights in the lily, and Artemis in the myrtle. For if the flowers were made especially for man, and senseless people have taken them not for their own proper and grateful use, but have abused them to the thankless service of demons, we must keep from them for conscience sake. The crown is the symbol of untroubled tranquillity. For this reason they crown the dead, and idols, too, on the same account, by this fact giving testimony to their being dead. For revellers do not without crowns celebrate their orgies; and when once they are encircled with flowers, at last they are inflamed excessively. We must have no communion with demons. Nor must we crown the living image of God after the manner of dead idols. For the fair crown of amaranth is laid up for those who have lived well. This flower the earth is not able to bear; heaven alone is competent to produce it. [1469] Further, it were irrational in us, who have heard that the Lord was crowned with thorns, [1470] to crown ourselves with flowers, insulting thus the sacred passion of the Lord. For the Lord's crown prophetically pointed to us, who once were barren, but are placed around Him through the Church of which He is the Head. But it is also a type of faith, of life in respect of the substance of the wood, of joy in respect of the appellation of crown, of danger in respect of the thorn, for there is no approaching to the Word without blood. But this platted crown fades, and the plait of perversity is untied, and the flower withers. For the glory of those who have not believed on the Lord fades. And they crowned Jesus raised aloft, testifying to their own ignorance. For being hard of heart, they understood not that this very thing, which they called the disgrace of the Lord, was a prophecy wisely uttered: "The Lord was not known by the people" [1471] which erred, which was not circumcised in understanding, whose darkness was not enlightened, which knew not God, denied the Lord, forfeited the place of the true Israel, persecuted God, hoped to reduce the Word to disgrace; and Him whom they crucified as a malefactor they crowned as a king. Wherefore the Man on whom they believed not, they shall know to be the loving God the Lord, the Just. Whom they provoked to show Himself to be the Lord, to Him when lifted up they bore witness, by encircling Him, who is exalted above every name, with the diadem of righteousness by the ever-blooming thorn. This diadem, being hostile to those who plot against Him, coerces them; and friendly to those who form the Church, defends them. This crown is the flower of those who have believed on the glorified One, but covers with blood and chastises those who have not believed. It is a symbol, too, of the Lord's successful work, He having borne on His head, the princely part of His body, all our iniquities by which we were pierced. For He by His own passion rescued us from offences, and sins, and such like thorns; and having destroyed the devil, deservedly said in triumph, "O Death, where is thy sting?" [1472] And we eat grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles; while those to whom He stretched forth His hands--the disobedient and unfruitful people--He lacerates into wounds. I can also show you another mystic meaning in it. [1473] For when the Almighty Lord of the universe began to legislate by the Word, and wished His power to be manifested to Moses, a godlike vision of light that had assumed a shape was shown him in the burning bush (the bush is a thorny plant); but when the Word ended the giving of the law and His stay with men, the Lord was again mystically crowned with thorn. On His departure from this world to the place whence He came, He repeated the beginning of His old descent, in order that the Word beheld at first in the bush, and afterwards taken up crowned by the thorn, might show the whole to be the work of one power, He Himself being one, the Son of the Father, who is truly one, the beginning and the end of time.
But I have made a digression from the pædagogic style of speech, and introduced the didactic. [1474] I return accordingly to my subject.
To resume, then: we have showed that in the department of medicine, for healing, and sometimes also for moderate recreation, the delight derived from flowers, and the benefit derived from unguents and perfumes, are not to be overlooked. And if some say, What pleasure, then, is there in flowers to those that do not use them? let them know, then, that unguents are prepared from them, and are most useful. The Susinian ointment is made from various kinds of lilies; and it is warming, aperient, drawing, moistening, abstergent, subtle, antibilious, emollient. The Narcissinian is made from the narcissus, and is equally beneficial with the Susinian. The Myrsinian, made of myrtle and myrtle berries, is a styptic, stopping effusions from the body; and that from roses is refrigerating. For, in a word, these also were created for our use. "Hear me," it is said, "and grow as a rose planted by the streams of waters, and give forth a sweet fragrance like frankincense, and bless the Lord for His works." [1475] We should have much to say respecting them, were we to speak of flowers and odours as made for necessary purposes, and not for the excesses of luxury. And if a concession must be made, it is enough for people to enjoy the fragrance of flowers; but let them not crown themselves with them. For the Father takes great care of man, and gives to him alone His own art. The Scripture therefore says, "Water, and fire, and iron, and milk, and fine flour of wheat, and honey, the blood of the grape, and oil, and clothing,--all these things are for the good of the godly." [1476]
[1453] Matt. xxvi. 7, etc.
[1454] Luke vii. 47.
[1455] Ps. xix. 4; Rom. x. 18.
[1456] Ps. cxxxii.
[1457] [We need not refuse this efflorescence as poetry, nor accept it as exposition.]
[1458] Matt. xxvi. 23.
[1459] Isa. xxix. 13.
[1460] John xiii. 5.
[1461] 2 Cor. ii. 14-16.
[1462] Ps. xlv. 7, 8.
[1463] [Considering the use of incense in Hebrew worship, and the imagery of the Apocalypse, the emphasis with which the Fathers reject material incense, is to be noted.]
[1464] Ecclus. xxxviii. 1, 2, 8.
[1465] [An idyllic passage illustrative of our author's delight in rural scenes and pleasures.]
[1466] [Christianity delights in natural beauty, and always associates its enjoyment with praise to its Author. Ecclus. xliii. 11.]
[1467] Prov. xvii. 6.
[1468] [This was a marked characteristic of Christian manners at war with heathenism.]
[1469] [
"Immortal amaranth, a flower which once
In Paradise fast by the tree of life
Began to bloom." Paradise Lost, iii. 352.]
[1470] Matt. xxvii. 29.
[1471] Isa. i. 3.
[1472] 1 Cor. xv. 55.
[1473] [See [14]note 10, p. 253. The beauty of this mysticism need not be pointed out, but it need not be pressed as exposition.]
[1474] [This illustrates, in part, the difference between the esoteric, or mystic, and the more popular teaching of our author.]
[1475] Ecclus. xxxix. 13, 14.
[1476] Ecclus. xxxix. 26, 27.
Chap. IX.--On Sleep.
How, in due course, we are to go to sleep, in remembrance of the precepts of temperance, we must now say. For after the repast, having given thanks to God for our participation in our enjoyments, and for the [happy] passing of the day, [1477] our talk must be turned to sleep. Magnificence of bed-clothes, gold-embroidered carpets, and smooth carpets worked with gold, and long fine robes of purple, and costly fleecy cloaks, and manufactured rugs of purple, and mantles of thick pile, and couches softer than sleep, are to be banished.
For, besides the reproach of voluptuousness, sleeping on downy feathers is injurious, when our bodies fall down as into a yawning hollow, on account of the softness of the bedding.
For they are not convenient for sleepers turning in them, on account of the bed rising into a hill on either side of the body. Nor are they suitable for the digestion of the food, but rather for burning it up, and so destroying the nutriment. But stretching one's self on even couches, affording a kind of natural gymnasium for sleep, contributes to the digestion of the food. And those that can roll on other beds, having this, as it were, for a natural gymnasium for sleep, digest food more easily, and render themselves fitter for emergencies. Moreover, silver-footed couches argue great ostentation; and the ivory on beds, the body having left the soul, [1478] is not permissible for holy men, being a lazy contrivance for rest.
We must not occupy our thoughts about these things, for the use of them is not forbidden to those who possess them; but solicitude about them is prohibited, for happiness is not to be found in them. On the other hand, it savours of cynic vanity for a man to act as Diomede,--
"And he stretched himself under a wild bull's hide," [1479] --
unless circumstances compel.
Ulysses rectified the unevenness of the nuptial couch with a stone. Such frugality and self-help was practiced not by private individuals alone, but by the chiefs of the ancient Greeks. But why speak of these? Jacob slept on the ground, and a stone served him for a pillow; and then was he counted worthy to behold the vision--that was above man. And in conformity with reason, the bed which we use must be simple and frugal, and so constructed that, by avoiding the extremes [of too much indulgence and too much endurance], it may be comfortable: if it is warm, to protect us; if cold, to warm us. But let not the couch be elaborate, and let it have smooth feet; for elaborate turnings form occasionally paths for creeping things which twine themselves about the incisions of the work, and do not slip off.
Especially is a moderate softness in the bed suitable for manhood; for sleep ought not to be for the total enervation of the body, but for its relaxation. Wherefore I say that it ought not to be allowed to come on us for the sake of indulgence, but in order to rest from action. We must therefore sleep so as to be easily awaked. For it is said, "Let your loins be girt about, and your lamps burning; and ye yourselves like to men that watch for their lord, that when he returns from the marriage, and comes and knocks, they may straightway open to him. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching." [1480] For there is no use of a sleeping man, as there is not of a dead man. Wherefore we ought often to rise by night and bless God. [1481] For blessed are they who watch for Him, and so make themselves like the angels, whom we call "watchers." But a man asleep is worth nothing, any more than if he were not alive.
But he who has the light watches, "and darkness seizes not on him," [1482] nor sleep, since darkness does not. He that is illuminated is therefore awake towards God; and such an one lives. "For what was made in Him was life." [1483] "Blessed is the man," says Wisdom, "who shall hear me, and the man who shall keep my ways, watching at my doors, daily observing the posts of my entrances." [1484] "Let us not then sleep, as do others, but let us watch," says the Scripture, "and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken, are drunken in the night," that is, in the darkness of ignorance. "But let us who are of the day be sober. For ye are all children of the light, and children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of the darkness." [1485] But whoever of us is most solicitous for living the true life, and for entertaining noble sentiments, will keep awake for as long time as possible, reserving to himself only what in this respect is conducive to his own health; and that is not very usual.