"What is sought may be captured,
But what is neglected escapes,"
according to Sophocles.
The like also says Menander the comic poet:--
"All things sought,
The wisest say, need anxious thought.
But we ought to direct the visual faculty of the soul aright to discovery, and to clear away obstacles; and to cast clean away contention, and envy, and strife, destined to perish miserably from among men.
For very beautifully does Timon of Phlius write:--
"And Strife, the Plague of Mortals, stalks vainly shrieking,
The sister of Murderous Quarrel and Discord,
Which rolls blindly over all things. But then
It sets its head towards men, and casts them on hope."
Then a little below he adds:--
"For who hath set these to fight in deadly strife?
A rabble keeping pace with Echo; for, enraged at those silent,
It raised an evil disease against men, and many perished;"
of the speech which denies what is false, and of the dilemma, of that which is concealed, of the Sorites, and of the Crocodilean, of that which is open, and of ambiguities and sophisms. To inquire, then, respecting God, if it tend not to strife, but to discovery, is salutary. For it is written in David, "The poor eat, and shall be filled; and they shall praise the Lord that seek Him. Your heart shall live for ever." [2971] For they who seek Him after the true search, praising the Lord, shall be filled with the gift that comes from God, that is, knowledge. And their soul shall live; for the soul is figuratively termed the heart, which ministers life: for by the Son is the Father known.
We ought not to surrender our ears to all who speak and write rashly. For cups also, which are taken hold of by many by the ears, are dirtied, and lose the ears; and besides, when they fall they are broken. In the same way also, those, who have polluted the pure hearing of faith by many trifles, at last becoming deaf to the truth, become useless and fall to the earth. It is not, then, without reason that we commanded boys to kiss their relations, holding them by the ears; indicating this, that the feeling of love is engendered by hearing. And "God," who is known to those who love, "is love," [2972] as "God," who by instruction is communicated to the faithful, "is faithful;" [2973] and we must be allied to Him by divine love: so that by like we may see like, hearing the word of truth guilelessly and purely, as children who obey us. And this was what he, whoever he was, indicated who wrote on the entrance to the temple at Epidaurus the inscription:--
"Pure he must be who goes within
The incense-perfumed fane."
And purity is "to think holy thoughts." "Except ye become as these little children, ye shall not enter," it is said, "into the kingdom of heaven." [2974] For there the temple of God is seen established on three foundations--faith, hope, and love.
[2943] Matt. xi. 15.
[2944] Odyss., vi. 185.
[2945] Teacher and scholar.
[2946] Rom. i. 11, 12.
[2947] Rom. i. 17.
[2948] ["The common faith" (he koine pistis) is no "secret," then, and cannot be in its nature.]
[2949] Matt. ix. 22.
[2950] Matt. xvii. 20; Luke xvii. 6; 1 Cor. xiii. 2.
[2951] Luke xvii. 5.
[2952] Gen. xv. 6; Rom. iv. 3.
[2953] Isa. lix. 8.
[2954] 2 Tim. ii. 23.
[2955] [All such expressions noteworthy for manifold uses among divines.]
[2956] [Fatal to not a little of the scholastic theology, and the Trent dogmas.]
[2957] 1 Cor. xiii. 12.
[2958] Ex. xxxiii. 20.
[2959] Matt. v. 8.
[2960] 1 Cor. i. 20.
[2961] 1 Cor. i. 19.
[2962] Jer. vi. 16.
[2963] Rom. iv. 3, 5, 9, 22.
[2964] Philo Judæus, De Abrahame, p. 413, vol. ii. Bohn. [But see [89]Elucidation I.]
[2965] Empedocles.
[2966] 1 Cor. ii. 5.
[2967] Heraclitus.
[2968] [See p. 318, supra.]
[2969] [See vol. i. p. 190, this series.]
[2970] Matt. vii. 7.
[2971] Ps. xxii. 26.
[2972] 1 John iv. 16.
[2973] 1 Cor. i. 9, x. 13.
[2974] Matt. xviii. 3. [Again this tender love of children.]
Chap. II.--On Hope.
Respecting faith we have adduced sufficient testimonies of writings among the Greeks. But in order not to exceed bounds, through eagerness to collect a very great many also respecting hope and love, suffice it merely to say that in the Crito Socrates, who prefers a good life and death to life itself, thinks that we have hope of another life after death.
Also in the Phoedrus he says, "That only when in a separate state can the soul become partaker of the wisdom which is true, and surpasses human power; and when, having reached the end of hope by philosophic love, desire shall waft it to heaven, then," says he, "does it receive the commencement of another, an immortal life." And in the Symposium he says, "That there is instilled into all the natural love of generating what is like, and in men of generating men alone, and in the good man of the generation of the counterpart of himself. But it is impossible for the good man to do this without possessing the perfect virtues, in which he will train the youth who have recourse to him." And as he says in the Theoetetus,"He will beget and finish men. For some procreate by the body, others by the soul;" since also with the barbarian philosophers to teach and enlighten is called to regenerate; and "I have begotten you in Jesus Christ," [2975] says the good apostle somewhere.
Empedocles, too, enumerates friendship among the elements, conceiving it as a combining love:--
"Which do you look at with your mind; and don't sit gaping with your eyes."
Parmenides, too, in his poem, alluding to hope, speaks thus:--
"Yet look with the mind certainly on what is absent as present,
For it will not sever that which is from the grasp it has of that which is
Not, even if scattered in every direction over the world or combined."
[2975] 1 Cor. iv. 15.