Chapter IX.--Human Knowledge Necessary for the Understanding of the Scriptures.
Some, who think themselves naturally gifted, do not wish to touch either philosophy or logic; nay more, they do not wish to learn natural science. They demand bare faith alone, as if they wished, without bestowing any care on the vine, straightway to gather clusters from the first. Now the Lord is figuratively described as the vine, from which, with pains and the art of husbandry, according to the word, the fruit is to be gathered.
We must lop, dig, bind, and perform the other operations. The pruning-knife, I should think, and the pick-axe, and the other agricultural implements, are necessary for the culture of the vine, so that it may produce eatable fruit. And as in husbandry, so also in medicine: he has learned to purpose, who has practiced the various lessons, so as to be able to cultivate and to heal. So also here, I call him truly learned who brings everything to bear on the truth; so that, from geometry, and music, and grammar, and philosophy itself, culling what is useful, he guards the faith against assault. Now, as was said, the athlete is despised who is not furnished for the contest. For instance, too, we praise the experienced helmsman who "has seen the cities of many men," and the physician who has had large experience; thus also some describe the empiric. [1894] And he who brings everything to bear on a right life, procuring examples from the Greeks and barbarians, this man is an experienced searcher after truth, and in reality a man of much counsel, like the touch-stone (that is, the Lydian), which is believed to possess the power of distinguishing the spurious from the genuine gold. And our much-knowing gnostic can distinguish sophistry from philosophy, the art of decoration from gymnastics, cookery from physic, and rhetoric from dialectics, and the other sects which are according to the barbarian philosophy, from the truth itself. And how necessary is it for him who desires to be partaker of the power of God, to treat of intellectual subjects by philosophising! And how serviceable is it to distinguish expressions which are ambiguous, and which in the Testaments are used synonymously! For the Lord, at the time of His temptation, skilfully matched the devil by an ambiguous expression. And I do not yet, in this connection, see how in the world the inventor of philosophy and dialectics, as some suppose, is seduced through being deceived by the form of speech which consists in ambiguity. And if the prophets and apostles knew not the arts by which the exercises of philosophy are exhibited, yet the mind of the prophetic and instructive spirit, uttered secretly, because all have not an intelligent ear, demands skilful modes of teaching in order to clear exposition. For the prophets and disciples of the Spirit knew infallibly their mind. For they knew it by faith, in a way which others could not easily, as the Spirit has said. But it is not possible for those who have not learned to receive it thus. "Write," it is said, "the commandments doubly, in counsel and knowledge, that thou mayest answer the words of truth to them who send unto thee." [1895] What, then, is the knowledge of answering? or what that of asking? It is dialectics. What then? Is not speaking our business, and does not action proceed from the Word? For if we act not for the Word, we shall act against reason. But a rational work is accomplished through God. "And nothing," it is said, "was made without Him"--the Word of God.
And did not the Lord make all things by the Word? Even the beasts work, driven by compelling fear. And do not those who are called orthodox apply themselves to good works, knowing not what they do?
[1894] The empirics were a class of physicians who held practice to be the one thing essential.
[1895] Prov. xxii. 20, 21. The Septuagint and Hebrew both differ from the reading here.
[1896] John. i. 3.
Chapter X.--To Act Well of Greater Consequence Than to Speak Well.
Wherefore the Saviour, taking the bread, first spake and blessed. Then breaking the bread, [1897] He presented it, that we might eat it, according to reason, and that knowing the Scriptures [1898] we might walk obediently. And as those whose speech is evil are no better than those whose practice is evil (for calumny is the servant of the sword, and evil-speaking inflicts pain; and from these proceed disasters in life, such being the effects of evil speech); so also those who are given to good speech are near neighbours to those who accomplish good deeds. Accordingly discourse refreshes the soul and entices it to nobleness; and happy is he who has the use of both his hands. Neither, therefore, is he who can act well to be vilified by him who is able to speak well; nor is he who is able to speak well to be disparaged by him who is capable of acting well. But let each do that for which he is naturally fitted. What the one exhibits as actually done, the other speaks, preparing, as it were, the way for well-doing, and leading the hearers to the practice of good. For there is a saving word, as there is a saving work. Righteousness, accordingly, [1899] is not constituted without discourse. And as the receiving of good is abolished if we abolish the doing of good; so obedience and faith are abolished when neither the command, nor one to expound the command, is taken along with us. [1900] But now we are benefited mutually and reciprocally by words and deeds; but we must repudiate entirely the art of wrangling and sophistry, since these sentences of the sophists not only bewitch and beguile the many, but sometimes by violence win a Cadmean victory. [1901] For true above all is that Psalm, "The just shall live to the end, for he shall not see corruption, when he beholds the wise dying." [1902] And whom does he call wise? Hear from the Wisdom of Jesus: "Wisdom is not the knowledge of evil." [1903] Such he calls what the arts of speaking and of discussing have invented. "Thou shalt therefore seek wisdom among the wicked, and shalt not find it." [1904] And if you inquire again of what sort this is, you are told, "The mouth of the righteous man will distil wisdom." [1905] And similarly with truth, the art of sophistry is called wisdom.
But it is my purpose, as I reckon, and not without reason, to live according to the Word, and to understand what is revealed; [1906] but never affecting eloquence, to be content merely with indicating my meaning. And by what term that which I wish to present is shown, I care not. For I well know that to be saved, and to aid those who desire to be saved, is the best thing, and not to compose paltry sentences like gewgaws. "And if," says the Pythagorean in the Politicus of Plato, "you guard against solicitude about terms, you will be richer in wisdom against old age." [1907] And in the Theoetetus you will find again, "And carelessness about names, and expressions, and the want of nice scrutiny, is not vulgar and illiberal for the most part, but rather the reverse of this, and is sometimes necessary." [1908] This the Scripture [1909] has expressed with the greatest possible brevity, when it said, "Be not occupied much about words." For expression is like the dress on the body. The matter is the flesh and sinews. We must not therefore care more for the dress than the safety of the body. For not only a simple mode of life, but also a style of speech devoid of superfluity and nicety, must be cultivated by him who has adopted the true life, if we are to abandon luxury as treacherous and profligate, as the ancient Lacedæmonians adjured ointment and purple, deeming and calling them rightly treacherous garments and treacherous unguents; since neither is that mode of preparing food right where there is more of seasoning than of nutriment; nor is that style of speech elegant which can please rather than benefit the hearers. Pythagoras exhorts us to consider the Muses more pleasant than the Sirens, teaching us to cultivate wisdom apart from pleasure, and exposing the other mode of attracting the soul as deceptive. For sailing past the Sirens one man has sufficient strength, and for answering the Sphinx another one, or, if you please, not even one. [1910] We ought never, then, out of desire for vainglory, to make broad the phylacteries. It suffices the gnostic [1911] if only one hearer is found for him. [1912] You may hear therefore Pindar the Boeotian, [1913] who writes, "Divulge not before all the ancient speech. The way of silence is sometimes the surest. And the mightiest word is a spur to the fight." Accordingly, the blessed apostle very appropriately and urgently exhorts us "not to strive about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers, but to shun profane and vain babblings, for they increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a canker." [1914]
[1897] ["Eat it according to reason." Spiritual food does not stultify reason, nor conflict with the evidence of the senses.]
[1898] [This constant appeal to the Scriptures, noteworthy.]
[1899] [Matt. xii. 37.]
[1900] [Acts viii. 30.]
[1901] A victory disastrous to the victor and the vanquished.
[1902] Ps. xlviii. 10, 11, Sept.
[1903] Ecclus. xix. 22.
[1904] Prov. xiv. 6.
[1905] Prov. x. 31.
[1906] [Revelation is complete, and nothing new to be expected. Gal. i. 8, 9.]
[1907] Plato's Politicus, p. 261 E.
[1908] Plato's Theætetus, p. 184 C.
[1909] [2 Tim. ii. 14.]
[1910] The story of OEdipus being a myth.
[1911] The possessor of true divine knowledge
"[Fit audience find though few." Paradise Lost, book. vii. 31. Dante has the same thought. Pindar's phonanta sunetoisn, Olymp., ii. 35.]
[1913] [Here I am sorry I cannot supply the proper reference. Clement shows his Attic prejudice in adding the epithet, here and elsewhere (Boeotian), which Pindar felt so keenly, and resents more than once. Olymp., vi. vol. i. p. 75. Ed. Heyne, London, 1823.]
[1914] 2 Tim. ii. 14, 16, 17.