Oratoria minora
these things the phalanx-commander more courageous, the leader of the company stronger, the hoplite more ready for the needs of the moment, the one i
This gathering is a symbol of peace, O wise and beloved audience of mine, and, to speak with God, a most accurate stamp of coming peace. But it also h
of the barrier, may he himself also now make peace in our affairs and crush the opposing powers and find a way and a means for the desperate, he who b
through whom corruption has stolen into our souls. But neither are you free from the things of envy for upon your breast and your belly you have walk
None of you is without a share of lily-beds and rose-gardens, nor of other fragrance, what graces would one not enjoy when spring has arrived? But sin
virtues, but these they practiced and pursued, and all, having made the body lean through fasting and having released the soul from the bonds of natur
the heaven, how great, how ever-moving in its revolution, how wonderful in its nature? and the sun, how it is the source of the light here, how it is
is tested by countless signs, but Egypt is punished by darkness and you, the new Israel, have been freed from the clay and the brick-making thence al
has entrusted the rule of all. And having reviewed in his mind everyone, both soldiers and citizens, senators and governors, and all who had gained a
Rejoice and exult at my proclamation which God has shown to be splendid and most illustrious as never another. 6 {1To those who think the philosopher
so as to move the world, not to mention lead it up to heaven, but I am within the great circuit, for these reasons I have not wished to run in the sta
of actions, but you do not act in the proper way, nor do you emulate those ancient orators, Pericles, Cimon, Demosthenes and the others who have under
the pleasure of a matter drawing forth laughter, and the philosopher alone. But here it is the opposite in the case of your creation for you are the
testifying to the sweetness in a philosophical man. And Plato often rebukes Dion for the sullenness and smilelessness of his soul but is not the phil
A second matter is both adorned and set in order. This is the philosophy I too have emulated and if you examine it in one respect, you will count me
are divided into an aristocracy, to be of lesser concern, because it is necessary to adorn the inner nature, while these things superficially beautify
achievements. Aristotle also divided his entire force into cavalry and infantry. and of the infantry, he positioned the light-armed to throw stones an
to judge their customs worthy of comparison to philosophy) those things lift one up above the ether on a whole wing, but this they sink in the sea, ju
dividing and heaping up solids. But I also frequently showed you the images in mirrors and measured their sizes for you optically, having taken their
To those who envied him for the most esteemed honor Neither will an occasion for envy be left for you, nor for me a cause for honor and advancement f
ordained by God. But of the others, some excelled in these things, others in those, and no one in everything, or if anyone did, it was not as I have (
I am called for there are those who give me this name. If, then, I embark on the matter as if it were not permitted or unskillfully, show me this ver
they have imitated my manner for themselves. But look up also to the heavens at night, when all is clear, and see how not all the stars are of equal h
oversights, and the other things of which the tragic daemons are providers for all things are abundant, as if dripping from some spring of evils. The
a more grievous and troublesome evil. How very pleasing to them is the banquet hall. For as if shut up and squeezed together in some narrow place with
he was showing the strength of his words for a prize set before him, but for a matter from which it was not possible to profit from buffoonery and ins
We have known you as one who counterfeits its laws and has not understood even a trace of true wisdom. But O huckster, I have now suddenly changed my
being torn away from the laws as if from your own limbs, and clinging to other limbs whose form you did not know nor whose use you had studied? How th
and thus, having harmonized them with the rules of dialectic, you thence winged your way to theology. But you, as if having passed over the vale of th
For such a thing had happened to these men, and Herodotus indeed mentions the story right at the beginning of the first of the Muses. And if you shoul
sitting on the floor, knowing not even as much as mules. But I fear lest one of those standing by, taking hold of your cloak, might say, Friend, how
He forces the nonsense into truth. Do not, therefore, speak with the man, do not touch him, do not share a table, neither of salt nor of other things,
Taking a Megarian jar firmly in his two hands and raising it with both and fitting it to his lips, he drinks without taking a breath just like the oxe
they judge matters by their own life, but not by the rule of truth. For since these men have hated indifference, and they live like bees arranged unde
as you are writing, standing by your life. But we too shall write against our persecutors. For just as the seemliness of hair pleased you, so the unke
sitting and with his fingers harnessing and re-harnessing horses in the shadows but there, one fighting against contrary winds and quickly backing wa
Geometry, having taken its beginning from bodies, ended in the mind, though its nature is not so. For perception does not know how to beget mind, but
he has set down some introductions to the subject, then, as if out of necessity, he turned his argument to what he wanted. And he has not chosen in an
It is interwoven with its arguments and divided by its complexities and turned back upon itself. But if such styles have been assigned to perfect orat
he puts to sleep. But the others have leaped out from here and there, from the dormouse-holes and from the caves, one a palm-breadth tall, another but
changing the parts, preserves the same idea of the sound. But you must also take care for the art concerning the arrangement of the argument and do n
mysteries, and there they were taught the equality of geometry, and when they needed to philosophize, they went to Egypt, and having chosen to study a
but drawing them upon yourselves whence someone might indict you for sacrilege for having most shamelessly plagiarized things dedicated to divine men
and you are zealous but you render the account for your studies just as one of the necessary debts which some are required to pay even unwillingly. A
The birth-pangs of Plato and Aristotle are a bringing forth, by whom I am both born and fashioned. Do you see how from every side the argument has pro
you render to me. And while I seem to neglect other things, your affair is my pursuit and care whence, staying awake far into the nights, as soon as
to have the contemplation concerning these things, but from our wisdom to know the type and the truth, and to break the letter as if it were a shell,
having done no wrong thus you are elegant and sophistic, or rather powerful men and tyrants, and you dance upon a gentle character. But you are still
to the philosophers the technical matters, to learn the introductions, the proofs, the matters concerning demonstrations, how one reminds, how one pro
they might fit a diatonic melody and arrange the strings for it, do they not play a prelude for it and practice beforehand, not just once, but as many
should I enumerate poets and orators, who treated ancient genealogies with myths, from the very foundation basing their own discourse on myth? How the
quality and draws as much as its appetite desired but if it sees the liquid of the water corrupted, it leaves this spring, and goes to another and se
27 Encomium on the Flea They say ‘the gnat as an elephant.’ And so that our discourse may proceed along its path, let us attempt the flea as a leopard
its begetter for it is precisely black, like an eastern Ethiopian having changed his skin color from sun-burning, and it immediately reveals the heat
grieving. For it has appointed two masters of all things for itself, the sun for its birth, and man for its growth for from the one it has come into
lest it produce apoplexy, nature has cut the skull into various sutures but it also divided the entire bone of the suture with certain small holes, t
the awns guard, so also do the hairs of the louse ward off every attack. And even if the hunt should get close to the skin, it, just as they say spong
So indeed this creature has received its natural power in all the parts of its body. Now, the other beasts, being ambushed from behind, are by nature
from every side, equality bestows youth on nature. For men, when they grow old, and especially those who are graceful and tall in body, are filled wit
He was being plotted against by those revolting within him because of the absence of the regulator and shield-bearer of health and adversary of diseas
This is clear from the fact that it is possible to live without it and be well in the other senses, but the inactivity of these begets sickness and de
shouting like a Bacchant and acclaiming the son of Zeus and Semele. And from where did this good thing come to you, he says, O blessed one? Did you
let your communion with one another not be from habit and the opinion of the many, but let its principle be knowledge, and let the wandering and disor
souls? Far from it. But the body does not work against the spermatic logos (for this reason it is formed according to what that logos wishes), but the
working for just as the most drinkable of waters and the most temperate of airs dispose bodies well and generate a similar disposition, so also the c
But let the one who fails take pride that his brother happens to be better than he. Agesilaus happened to be the first among the Lacedaemonians even b
Let us summarize, by virtue, by reason, and by ancestral goods, using these three things for the best ends, you will be left behind in no part of eter
All things are mixed. But she fails in her plan, as the hero draws his sword against her, whence she almost breathed her last for her form is changed
by reason for see how the limbs have been fitted to nature. or rather, I shall marvel at the artist even from the stone for he did not place the var
being brought up, was he not turned away? Was not the compassionate one pricked to the heart over you? For this reason he shall be un-sacrificed and u
Nothing that exists is above Olympus. and so that I might make the last things of my discourse first, heaven is indeed adorned with stars, but these a
they have been hollowed out spontaneously, he will find how he might live luxuriously. For if he should go under the shade of a tree, immediately soft
pleasing, but all things were full of all things- the first tabernacle, the mercy-seat, the veil, the temple, the side-scenes, the vestibules, the out
discerning that man is an animal, which he did not know, and whatever else belongs to this, lest I make a further example of the foolish, or of the on
Intently and from every side examining subtleties, I was investigating the extensions, the releases, the intonations, the transitions, the displacemen
he has come, nor has he arrived to gather spiritual fruits, but only for the sake of this man whom you see reading with pleasure. For just as one who
Who will relate your magadis upon the breast and the songs and warblings upon your tongue, that all-harmonious melody, the pleasure that knows no sati
and himself, but what kind the others are, I do not know. For I see a form above human nature, and a look in one way cherubic, in another leonine, in
an ineffable sympathy and in turn feels a contrary passion, as the cosmos happens to be one living being, and how Plato, having posited the elements a
I have not heard of him rising up against anyone nor boasting for the whole time, but just as they say that the very learned accuse themselves of a te
to know what sort of thing your grandfather had become in life and what command of language he had. But I shall praise you, not by bringing in falseho
to revel. But whenever your bond was loosened and you shed the swaddling clothes, you did not know what to do with yourself, looking more cheerful, sm
sitting on the floor, knowing not even as much as mules. But I fear lest one of those standing by, taking hold of your cloak, might say, "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?" Then indeed, having dragged you away, he might drive you out of the assembly or, like Hephaestus, hurl you down, having seized you from the divine threshold. Before, then, being hurled down from there to the earth all at once and having your foot dislocated, descend gently from Olympus, bracing and supporting yourself, until, proceeding little by little, you come straight to the foothills and enter the nearby tavern, where no one will sue you for illegal seizure while you hold onto your patrimony. 15 To him (i.e., Pothos the vestarches) asking who is superior to praise. You asked if anyone is superior to praise, and if anyone is too base to incur censure. To this, then, I answer you briefly, granting the one part to common opinion, but opining the other as it has appeared to me along with many others. Superior to praise is God alone (for He whose power virtue cannot touch, how could anyone offer praise to Him? For the one who praises, not to mention external things, is accustomed to gather his encomium from the starting points concerning the virtues), but too base to receive blame, I would say most emphatically, is the metropolitan of Tarsus, a man having surpassed the measures of all evil, yet having become less than all lawlessness. The proverb, then, says that shamelessness is a god, either saying this euphemistically because of the excess of evil, or that the shameless man can do anything because of his preeminence in impudence. But this man, having established his own soul even beyond what is called shamelessness, would not even accept a comparison with the demons, whom both reason and experience have shown to the more discerning to be most shameless. And I say these things not having heard them from others speaking, but having myself looked more closely at him and having observed the basilisk exposed in him, not to say inherent. For that the evil stored up in him is of such a kind as could not be supplied to any other soul, none of those who have experienced the man is unaware. But what is apparent—but since I am not able to state this accurately and present it by way of similarity, I will speak by way of contrast: for what the sun is to the stars, surpassing them both in the size of its orb and in its boundless light, this is what the metropolitan is to the shameless demons; so great is he in evil and so has he mastered by his nature those who are worse. To say, then, whence and from what sort of fortune and in what manner he crept into the church and was deemed worthy of the presidency, and how many things have been dared by him after this, and how from the very hearth, as they say, he began to do evil, raging against the man who ordained him, whom this great city brought forth as a luminary, and Antioch enjoyed his rays, and how in rivalry with him he came, and not having received, as they say, a fifth part of the votes, he plotted against him in vain, blaspheming openly and shamelessly on the one hand, and on the other hand, as on a stage, playing the part of the most villainous of men, and if I add other, more numerous things to these, they are all less than the man's malevolence; and even if one were to gather together every other evil with this, it is all incomparable to the excess of his wickedness. Immediately and from his very appearance, he is an exact image of the coming of the Antichrist; so shameless has his countenance become, and his tongue, that (and this not once but many times) he dares to chatter and to boast, to place his throne upon the clouds and all such blasphemy. I know, then, that the Greeks talk nonsense when they animate human bodies with demonic natures, but this one
μὲν οὔδει καθήμε νος, εἰδὼς δὲ οὐδ' ὅσα ἡμίονοι. δέδοικα δὲ μή ποτέ σού τις τῶν παρεστώτων τοῦ ἱματίου λαβόμενος «ἑταῖρε»,
φαίη, «πῶς εἰσῆλθες ὧδε μὴ ἔχων ἔνδυμα γάμου;» εἶτα δή σε ἀντισπασάμενος ἀπελάσῃ τοῦ συνεδρίου ἢ ὥσπερ τὸν Ἥφαιστον ἀποκρημνίσῃ
τεταγὼν ἀπὸ βηλοῦ θεσπεσίοιο. πρὶν οὖν ἐκεῖθεν εἰς γῆν ἀθρόον ἀποδισκευθῆναι καὶ τὸν πόδα ἐξαρθρωθῆναι ἠρέμα τοῦ Ὀλύμπου κατάβηθι
ἀντερείδων καὶ ἀντιστηριζόμενος, μέχρι ἂν κατὰ βραχὺ προϊὼν εὐθύ τε τῶν προπόδων γένοιο καὶ εἰς τὸ παρακεί μενον τῶν καπηλείων
ἐμβαίης, ἔνθα οὐδείς σε τὴν ἐξούλης γράψεται τῶν πατρῴων ἐχόμενον. 15 Πρὸς αὐτὸν (σξ. Πόθον τὸν βεστάρχην) ἐρωτήσαντα ποῖος
ἐγκωμίων κρείττων Ἠρώτησας εἴ τις μὲν ἐγκωμίων κρείττων ἐστίν, εἴ τις δὲ χείρων ἢ ὥστε δυσφημίας τυχεῖν. πρὸς τοῦτο γοῦν συντόμως
σοι ἀποκρίνομαι, τὸ μὲν τῇ κοινῇ ὑπολήψει διδούς, τὸ δὲ τὸ φανθὲν ἐμοὶ μετὰ καὶ πλειόνων ἑτέρων δοξάζων. ἐγκωμίων μὲν κρείττων
μόνος θεός (οὗ γὰρ ἡ τῶν ἀρετῶν οὐκ ἐφάπτεται δύναμις, τούτῳ πῶς ἄν τις προσαγάγῃ ἐγκώμιον ὁ γὰρ ἐγκωμιάζων, ἵνα μὴ τὰ ἐκτὸς
λέγω, ἐκ τῶν περὶ τὰς ἀρετὰς ἀφορμῶν τὴν εὐφημίαν συναγείρειν εἴωθεν), ἥττων δὲ ἢ ὥστε ψό γον λαβεῖν, ἀποφαντικώτατα εἴποιμι,
ὁ μητροπολίτης Ταρσοῦ, ἄνθρω πος πάσης μὲν κακίας ὑπερβεβηκὼς μέτρα, πάσης δὲ παρανομίας ἐλάττων γενόμενος. ἡ μὲν οὖν παροιμία
θεόν φησι τὴν ἀναίδειαν, ἢ κατ' εὐφημισμὸν τοῦτο λέγουσα διὰ τὴν τῆς κακίας ὑπερβολήν, ἢ τὸ πάντα τὸν ἀναιδῆ δύνασθαι διὰ
τὴν τῆς ἀναισχυντίας ὑπεροχήν. ὁ δέ γε ἀνὴρ οὗτος, καὶ ὑπὲρ αὐτὴν τὴν λεγομένην ἀναίδειαν τὴν οἰκείαν στήσας ψυχήν, οὐδὲ τὴν
πρὸς τοὺς δαίμονας δέξαιτ' ἂν σύγκρισιν, οὓς ὅ τε λόγος καὶ ἡ πεῖρα τοῖς ἀκριβεστέροις ἀναιδεστέρους ἀπέδειξε. Λέγω δὲ ταῦτα
οὐκ ἄλλων λεγόντων ἀκηκοώς, ἀλλ' αὐτὸς ἀκριβέ στερον τούτῳ ἐνατενίσας καὶ τὸν ἐκκείμενον αὐτῷ βασιλίσκον, ἵνα μὴ λέγω ἐγκείμενον,
καταμαθών. ὅτι μὲν γὰρ καὶ τὸ ἀπόθετον αὐτῷ κακὸν τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν, οἷον μὴ ἂν ἄλλῃ χορηγηθῆναι ψυχῇ, οὐδεὶς τῶν πεπειρα μένων
τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀγνοεῖ. τὸ δ' οὖν φαινόμενον-ἀλλ' ἐπεὶ μὴ δύναμαι ἐξ ὁμοιότητος τοῦτο ἀκριβώσασθαί τε καὶ παραστῆσαι, ἀντιθέτως
ἐρῶ· ὅπερ γάρ ἐστιν ἄστρασιν ἥλιος καὶ τῷ μεγέθει τοῦ κύκλου καὶ τῷ ἀπείρῳ ὑπερβάλλων φωτί, τοῦτο πρὸς τοὺς ἀναιδεῖς δαίμονας
ὁ μητροπο λίτης ἐστί· τοσοῦτός ἐστι τὴν κακίαν καὶ οὕτω τῶν χειρόνων τῇ φύσει κεκράτηκε. Τὸ μὲν οὖν λέγειν ὅθεν τε καὶ ἐξ
οἵας τύχης τρόπῳ τε οἵῳ εἰσεφθάρη τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ καὶ προεδρίας ἠξίωται, ὅσα τε αὐτῷ μετὰ ταῦτα τετόλμηται, ὅπως τε ἐξ αὐτῆς,
ὅ φασιν, ἑστίας κακουργεῖν ἤρξατο κατὰ τοῦ χειροτονή σαντος τοῦτον λελυττηκὼς ἀνδρός, ὃν ἡ μὲν μεγαλόπολις αὕτη οἷα φωστῆρα
προήνεγκεν, ἡ δὲ Ἀντιόχεια τῶν ἀκτίνων ἀπήλαυσε, καὶ ὡς δι' ἁμίλλης αὐτῷ ἐληλύθει καὶ τὸ πέμπτον, ὅ φασι, μέρος τῶν ψήφων
μὴ λαβὼν διακενῆς κατ' αὐτοῦ μεμελέτηκε, τὰ μὲν ἀνέδην καὶ ἀναιδῶς βλασφημῶν, τὰ δὲ ὥσπερ ἐν σκηνῇ τοὺς κακουργοτάτους τῶν
ἀνθρώπων ὑποκρινόμε νος, ἄλλα τε εἰ τούτοις προστίθημι πλείονα, ἐλάττω πάντα τῆς τοῦ ἀνδρὸς κακοηθείας ἐστί· κἂν εἰ πᾶσάν
τις ἄλλην κακίαν τούτῳ συνέλοι, ἀσύγκριτος σύμπασα πρὸς τὴν τῆς ἐκείνου μοχθηρίας ὑπερβολήν. αὐτίκα καὶ αὐτόθεν ὁρώμενος ἀκριβὴς
εἰκὼν τῆς τοῦ Ἀντιχρίστου παρουσίας ἐστί· τοσοῦτον αὐτῷ καὶ ἡ ὄψις ἀπηναισχύντηκεν, ἡ δὲ γλῶττα, ὥστε (καὶ τοῦτο οὐχ ἅπαξ
ἀλλὰ πολλάκις) τολμᾶν φλυαρεῖν καὶ μεγαλ αυχεῖν, τὸ θεῖναι ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν τὸν θρόνον αὐτοῦ καὶ ὅσα τῆς τοιαύτης βλασφημίας
ἐστίν. οἶδα μὲν οὖν ὅτι ληροῦσιν Ἕλληνες ἀνθρώπεια σώματα ἐκ δαιμονίων ψυχοῦντες φύσεων, ἀλλ' οὗτος
