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willing, but at another time held fast by another, and not able to find the victor, as in a body everywhere equal and beautiful; for what falls to my lot always seems more beautiful, and this carries away my discourse. Come then, divide for me his good qualities, all you who are his praisers and witnesses, and contend in a noble contest with one another, men and women together, young men and maidens, elders with younger men, priests and people, the solitary and those in communities, those of simplicity and those of strictness, all who 35.1093 are of contemplation, and all who are of action. Let one praise what is in fasting and prayers, as if incorporeal and immaterial; another, what is strong and invincible in vigils and psalmody; another, what is in the protection of the needy, another, the resistance to the powerful, or the condescension to the humble. Virgins, the bride-leader; married women, the master of temperance; the men of the desert, the one who gives them wings; those in society, the lawgiver; the simple, the guide; the contemplative, the theologian; those in good cheer, the bridle; those in misfortunes, the consolation; old age, the staff; youth, the tutor; poverty, the provider; abundance, the steward. It seems to me that widows too will praise their protector; and orphans, their father; and the poor, the lover of the poor; and strangers, the lover of strangers; and brothers, the lover of brothers; the sick, the physician, for whatever disease and healing you wish; the healthy, the guardian of their health; all men, him who became all things to all men, that he might gain all, or the greater part.
11. Let others then, as I said, admire and praise these things, those who have leisure to admire his lesser qualities. But when I say lesser, I speak comparing him to himself, and examining his qualities against his own (for that which was glorified has no glory, even if it is very bright, by reason of the glory that excels, as we have heard); since even a few of these things are sufficient for others to be well-reputed. But for us (for it is not tolerable to leave the discourse to minister to lesser things), we must turn to what is most pre-eminent of his qualities. And it is the work of God, on whose behalf is also this discourse, to say something worthy of his magnanimity and soul.
12. There was a time when our affairs flourished and were well, when this superfluous, and glib, and artificial theology had not even an entrance into the divine courts, but it was the same thing to play with pebbles, deceiving the sight by the speed of their change, or to dance before spectators with all sorts of androgynous contortions, as to say or hear anything newer and more curious about God; but the simple 35.1096 and noble character of the word was considered piety. But since the time that Sextuses and Pyrrhos, and the antithetical tongue, like some terrible and malignant disease, crept into our Churches; and babbling seemed to be education, and, as the book of Acts says of the Athenians, we spend our time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing. O what Jeremiah will bewail our confusion and dizziness, who alone knows how to make lamentations equal to sufferings!
13. Of this madness Arius was the beginner, he who was named for madness, who also paid the penalty for an intemperate tongue, his dissolution in profane places, being the work of a prayer, not a disease, and suffering the rupture of Judas, for an equal betrayal of the Word. But others, having received the disease in succession, created an art of impiety; who, having circumscribed the Godhead by the Unbegotten, banished from the Godhead the Begotten, and not only so, but also that which proceeds, honoring the Trinity only by a communion of name, or not even preserving this for it. But not so that blessed man, and truly a man of God, and the great trumpet of truth. But knowing that to contract the three into one number is atheism, and of the innovation of Sabellius, who first devised a contraction of the Godhead; and that to divide the three by natures, is a cutting up
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ἐθέλοντι, ἄλλοτε δὲ ὑπ' ἄλλου κατεχομένῳ, καὶ οὐκ ἔχοντι τὸ νικῶν εὑρεῖν, ὥσπερ ἐν σώματι πανταχόθεν ἴσῳ τε καὶ καλῷ· ἀεὶ γάρ μοι τὸ προσπε σὸν κάλλιον φαίνεται, καὶ τοῦτο συναρπάζει τὸν λόγον. ∆εῦρο οὖν μοι διέλεσθε τὰ ἐκείνου καλὰ, ὅσοι τῶν ἐκείνου ἐπαινέται καὶ μάρτυρες, καὶ ἀγῶνα καλὸν ἀγωνίσασθε πρὸς ἀλλήλους, ἄνδρες ὁμοῦ καὶ γυναῖκες, νεανίσκοι καὶ παρθένοι, πρεσβῦται μετὰ νεωτέρων, ἱερεῖς καὶ λαὸς, οἱ μοναδικοὶ καὶ μιγάδες, οἱ τῆς ἁπλότητος καὶ τῆς ἀκριβείας, ὅσοι 35.1093 τῆς θεωρίας, καὶ ὅσοι τῆς πράξεως. Ὁ μὲν ἐπαινείτω τὸ ἐν νηστείαις καὶ προσευχαῖς, οἷον ἀσώματόν τε καὶ ἄϋλον· ὁ δὲ τὸ ἐν ἀγρυπνίαις τε καὶ ψαλμῳδίαις εὔτονόν τε καὶ ἀήττητον· ἄλλος τὸ ἐν προστα σίᾳ τῶν δεομένων, ἄλλος τὴν πρὸς τὸ ὑπερέχον ἀν τιτυπίαν, ἢ πρὸς τὸ ταπεινὸν συγκατάβασιν. Αἱ παρθένοι, τὸν νυμφαγωγόν· αἱ ὑπὸ ζυγὸν, τὸν σω φρονιστήν· οἱ τῆς ἐρημίας, τὸν πτερωτήν· οἱ τῆς ἐπιμιξίας, τὸν νομοθέτην· οἱ τῆς ἁπλότητος, τὸν ὁδηγόν· οἱ τῆς θεωρίας, τὸν θεολόγον· οἱ ἐν εὐθυ μίαις, τὸν χαλινόν· οἱ ἐν συμφοραῖς, τὴν παρά κλησιν· τὴν βακτηρίαν, ἡ πολιά· τὴν παιδαγωγίαν, ἡ νεότης· ἡ πενία, τὸν ποριστήν· ἡ εὐπορία, τὸν οἰκονόμον. ∆οκοῦσίμοι καὶ χῆραι τὸν προστάτην ἐπαινέσεσθαι· καὶ ὀρφανοὶ, τὸν πατέρα· καὶ πτωχοὶ, τὸν φιλόπτωχον· καὶ τὸν φιλόξενον, οἱ ξένοι· καὶ ἀδελφοὶ, τὸν φιλάδελφον· οἱ νοσοῦντες, τὸν ἰατρὸν, ἣν βούλει νόσον καὶ ἰατρείαν· οἱ ὑγιαίνοντες, τὸν φύ λακα τῆς ὑγείας· οἱ πάντες, τὸν πᾶσι πάντα γινόμενον, ἵνα κερδάνῃ τοὺς πάντας, ἢ πλείονας.
ΙΑʹ. Ταῦτα μὲν οὖν, ὅπερ εἶπον, ἄλλοι θαυμαζέ τωσάν τε καὶ ἀνυμνείτωσαν, οἷς σχολὴ τὰ μικρὰ τῶν ἐκείνου θαυμάζειν. Μικρὰ δὲ ὅταν εἴπω, αὐτὸν ἑαυτῷ συγκρίνων λέγω, καὶ τὰ ἐκείνου τοῖς ἐκείνου παρεξ ετάζων (οὐ γὰρ δεδόξασται τὸ δεδοξασμένον, κἂν ᾖ λίαν λαμπρὸν, ἕνεκεν τῆς ὑπερβαλλούσης δόξης, ὥσπερ ἠκούσαμεν)· ἐπεὶ καὶ ὀλίγα τῶν τού του, ἑτέροις αὐτάρκη πρὸς εὐδοκίμησιν. Ἡμῖν δὲ (οὐ γὰρ ἀνεκτὸν καταλείπουσι τὸν λόγον, διακο νεῖν τοῖς ἐλάττοσιν), ἐπ' αὐτὸ τὸ κυριώτατον τῶν ἐκείνου τρεπτέον. Θεοῦ δὲ ἔργον, ὑπὲρ οὗ καὶ ὁ λόγος, εἰπεῖν τι τῆς ἐκείνου μεγαληγορίας καὶ ψυ χῆς ἄξιον.
ΙΒʹ. Ἦν ὅτε ἤκμαζε τὰ ἡμέτερα, καὶ καλῶς εἶ χεν, ἡνίκα τὸ μὲν περιττὸν τοῦτο, καὶ κατεγλωττισμένον τῆς θεολογίας καὶ ἔντεχνον, οὐδὲ πάροδον εἶχεν εἰς τὰς θείας αὐλὰς, ἀλλὰ ταυτὸν ἦν ψήφοις τε παίζειν, τὴν ὄψιν κλεπτούσαις τῷ τάχει τῆς μεταθέ σεως, ἢ κατορχεῖσθαι τῶν θεατῶν παντοίοις καὶ ἀνδρογύνοις λυγίσμασι, καὶ περὶ Θεοῦ λέγειν τι καὶ ἀκούειν καινότερον καὶ περίεργον· τὸ δὲ ἁπλοῦν 35.1096 τε καὶ εὐγενὲς τοῦ λόγου, εὐσέβεια ἐνομίζετο. Ἀφ' οὗ δὲ Σέξτοι, καὶ Πύῤῥωνες, καὶ ἡ ἀντίθετος γλῶσσα, ὥσπερ τι νόσημα δεινὸν καὶ κακόηθες, ταῖς Ἐκκλησίαις ἡμῶν εἰσεφθάρη· καὶ ἡ φλυαρία παί δευσις ἔδοξε, καὶ, ὅ φησι περὶ Ἀθηναίων ἡ βίβλος τῶν Πράξεων, εἰς οὐδὲν ἄλλο εὐκαιροῦμεν, ἢ λέγειν τι καὶ ἀκούειν καινότερον. Ὢ τίς Ἱερεμίας ὀδυρεῖται τὴν ἡμετέραν σύγχυσιν καὶ σκοτόμαιναν, ὁ μόνος εἰδὼς ἐξισοῦν θρήνους πάθεσι!
ΙΓʹ. Ταύτης τῆς λύσσης ἤρξατο μὲν Ἄρειος, ὁ τῆς μανίας ἐπώνυμος, ὃς καὶ δίκην ἔδωκεν ἀκολά στου γλώσσης, τὴν ἐν βεβήλοις τόποις κατάλυσιν, εὐχῆς ἔργον, οὐ νόσου γενόμενος, καὶ τὴν Ἰούδα ῥῆξιν ὑποστὰς, ἐπ' ἴσῃ προδοσίᾳ τοῦ Λόγου. ∆ιαδε ξάμενοι δὲ ἄλλοι τὴν νόσον, τέχνην ἀσεβείας ἐδη μιούργησαν· οἳ, τῷ ἀγεννήτῳ τὴν θεότητα περιγράψαντες, τὸ γεννητὸν, οὐ μόνον δὲ, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ ἐκπορευτὸν ἐξώρισαν τῆς θεότητος, ὀνόματος κοινωνίᾳ μόνον τὴν Τριάδα τιμήσαντες, ἢ μηδὲ τοῦτο αὐτῇ τηρήσαντες. Ἀλλ' οὐχ ὁ μακάριος ἐκεῖνος, καὶ ὄντως ἄνθρωπος τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ μεγάλη σάλπιγξ τῆς ἀληθείας. Ἀλλ' εἰδὼς, τὸ μὲν εἰς ἀριθμὸν ἕνα τὰ τρία συστέλλειν, ἀθεότητος ὂν, καὶ τῆς Σαβελλίου καινοτομίας, ὃς πρῶτος θεότητος συστολὴν ἐπενόησε· τὸ δὲ τὰ τρία διαιρεῖν φύσεσι, κατα τομὴν