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
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 choice of our minds, being set against the harmonizer of souls, has destroyed the harmony like some discordant note not sounding in concert with the tension of the strings. If you wish, I shall briefly discourse to you on the generation of our nature, so that you may know from what union the many brothers have been divided. Seed brought from the father and a bloody humor poured down from our first and maternal breast, as it were into some hollow space, the final cavity of the maternal body, and having come together with each other, they jointly create the offspring; then the whole, being generated and clotted and as it were made spherical, is attached to the base of the container by a certain appendage, called the chorion, and by another vessel extending from the middle of the navel-cord it is formed by the cotyledons of the womb; then indeed, the covering having been broken and the organs being first formed in a fluid state, the child is seen to be contained by two thin membranes, so that nature may preserve the harmony in the limbs and the organs may not be dissolved by the fluids, but may grow together in their unities. The whole mystery, therefore, of our generation is a unity of reason, a conjunction of kinds, a mixture of parents, a formation of the body, and the debt of community and concord demanded from the whole race. <Ἃ> some of the brothers have divided and have been false to nature; but you who are adorned by reason more than others, correct what has fallen away from nature and with knowledge depend on each other, so that what is innate may remain undivided among you. Those who have farmed, gathering the wheat from the same furrow, do not marvel at the similarity of the kind; for they know both the sameness of the sowing and the unchangeableness of the earth that bore it. But most of us seem astounded if there are any brothers who have a similar mind; and if they see similarities of bodies, they trace what is seen back to nature and have blamed the beginning of generation for the co-formation, but they are utterly astounded at the similar minds of those born from the same source; so ignorant are they of the more intelligent seeds of the unmixed nature. For the immediate cause of a body is a body, but of an incorporeal substance, God; and a body and God, if I may condescend to such a comparison, are as the many and the one. And so, with the causes being so far apart, the many often hold a similarity, but we, being divided by the differences of our souls, are false to the one. Israel, having long ago Egyptianized, drew in the habits of those who lived similarly as if from some Nile-stream, and brothers, having broken off from one spring, were divided into different channels, neither reverencing the first and common table nor having any other scruple for their common nature. But you (just as the sons of Numitor, having learned their lineage, that they happened to be of royal seed, conceived something more splendid and more princely, and one of them founded ancient Rome and gave his name to the city) having recognized that you too have received the sowing of a divine seed, might you run back with me through the same habits to the same cause, to a similar generation; for nothing so produces a community of souls as the handling of the same practices by agreement. For just as long ago when the schools of philosophy were divided, one was named the Ionian teaching, another the Academic, another the Cyrenaic, and another the Skeptic, taking their names from their ways or places or the founders of their schools or from some other source, and each was in unison and of one opinion with itself, so also for you the same zeal will be the cause of similar dispositions. I, therefore, would most gladly have lived with you all the time, setting before you the kinds of discourses and filling you with their sweetness and a single mixture of both
ψυχάς; πολλοῦ γε καὶ δεῖ. ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν σῶμα οὐκ ἀντιπράττει τῷ σπερματικῷ λόγῳ (διὰ ταῦτα πρὸς ὃ ἐκεῖνος βούλεται πλάττεται),
ἡ δὲ τῶν γνωμῶν ἡμῶν αἵρεσις ἀντιδιατιθεμένη τῷ ἁρμοστῇ τῶν ψυχῶν τὴν ἁρμονίαν ἠφάνισεν ὥσπερ τις ἐκμελὴς φθόγγος μὴ συνηχήσας
ταῖς τάσεσι τῶν χορδῶν. Εἰ βούλεσθε, βραχύ τι τὴν γένεσιν ὑμῖν φυσιολογήσω τῆς φύσεως, ἵν' εἰδῆτε ἐκ ποίας ἑνώσεως οἱ πολλοὶ
τῶν ἀδελφῶν διεστήκασι. σπέρμα πατρόθεν φερόμενον καὶ παρὰ τῆς πρώτης ἡμῶν καὶ μητρῴας θηλῆς αἱματηρὸς καταχέων χυμὸς ὥσπερ
εἴς τι κοῖλον χωρίον τὸ τελευταῖον κύτος τοῦ μητρικοῦ σώματος καὶ ἀλλήλω συμβεβηκότε δημιουργεῖτον κοινῇ τὰ γεννώμενα· εἶτα
τὸ σύμπαν γονούμενον καὶ θρομβούμενον καὶ οἷον σφαιρούμενον ἀρτήματί τινι, χορίῳ οὕτω λεγομένῳ, τῇ βάσει προσῆπται τοῦ περιέχοντος,
ἑτέρῳ δέ τινι ἀγγείῳ ἐκ τῆς ὀμφαλίτιδος διατεινομένῳ μεσότητος ταῖς κοτυληδόσι τῆς μήτρας διαπλάττεται· εἶτα δή, ῥαγέντος
τοῦ ἐπιπάγου καὶ τῶν ὀργάνων ὑγρῶς τὰ πρῶτα συμμορφουμένων, δυσὶν ὑμέσι λεπτοῖς ὁρᾶται περιεχόμενον τὸ τικτόμενον, ἵνα τὴν
ἁρμονίαν ἡ φύσις φυλάξῃ τοῖς μέλεσι καὶ μὴ διαχυθῇ τὰ ὄργανα ταῖς ὑγρότησιν, ἀλλὰ συμφύηται ταῖς ἑνότησι. τὸ σύμπαν οὖν μυστήριον
τῆς ἡμετέρας γενέσεως ἑνότης λόγου ἐστί, γενῶν συνάφεια, γονῶν ἀνάκρασις, διάπλασις σώματος καὶ τὸ παρὰ τοῦ παντὸς γένους
ἀπαιτούμε νον τῆς κοινωνίας καὶ τῆς ὁμοφροσύνης ὄφλημα. <Ἃ> ἔνιοι τῶν ἀδελφῶν διῃρήκασι καὶ τῆς φύσεως κατεψεύσαντο· ἀλλ'
ὑμεῖς οἱ τῷ λόγῳ μᾶλλον τῶν ἄλλων κοσμούμενοι τὸ διαπεπτωκὸς ἐπανορθοῦτε τῆς φύσεως καὶ μετ' ἐπιστήμης ἀλλήλων ἐξαρτᾶσθε,
ἵνα μείνῃ παρ' ὑμῖν τὸ συμφυὲς ἀδιάστατον. ἐκ τῆς αὐτῆς αὔλακος τὸν πυρὸν οἱ γεωργήσαντες κομιζόμενοι οὐ θαυμάζουσι τοῦ γένους
τὴν ὁμοιότητα· τῆς τε γὰρ καταβολῆς τὸ ἀδιάφορον ἴσασι καὶ τὸ τῆς γεννησαμένης ἀπαράλλακτον γῆς. οἱ δὲ πλείους ἡμῶν ἐκπεπληγμένοις
ἐοίκασιν, εἴ τινές εἰσιν ἀδελφοὶ ὁμοίαν ἐσχηκότες διάνοιαν· κἂν μὲν σωμάτων ἴδωσιν ὁμοιότητας, ἐπὶ τὴν φύσιν ἀνάγουσι τὸ φανὲν
καὶ τῆς συμπλάσεως τὴν ἀρχὴν ᾐτιάσαντο τῆς γενέσεως, τὰς δὲ ὁμοίας γνώμας τῶν ὁμόθεν γεγεννημένων ὑπερεκπλήττονται· οὕτως
εἰσὶν ἀμαθεῖς τῶν νοερωτέρων σπερμάτων τῆς ἀμιγοῦς φύσεως. σώματος μὲν γὰρ σῶμα προσεχὲς αἴτιον, οὐσίας δὲ ἀσωμάτου θεός·
σῶμα δὲ καὶ θεός, ἵν' εἰκάσω τοσοῦτον καταβάς, ὃ τὰ πολλὰ καὶ τὸ ἕν. οὕτω δὲ τῶν αἰτίων διεστηκότων τὰ μὲν πολλὰ ἴσχει πολλάκις
τὴν ὁμοιότητα, ἡμεῖς δὲ διαιρούμενοι ταῖς διαφοραῖς τῶν ψυχῶν καταψευδόμεθα τοῦ ἑνός. Αἰγυπτιάσας πάλαι ὁ Ἰσραὴλ ὥσπερ τινὸς
Νειλῴου ῥεύματος ἐσπάσατο τῶν ὁμοδιαίτων ἠθῶν, ἀδελφοὶ δὲ ἐκ μιᾶς ἀπορραγέντες πηγῆς εἰς διαφόρους ὀχετοὺς ἐμερίσθησαν, οὔτε
τὴν πρώτην αἰδεσθέντες καὶ κοινὴν τράπεζαν οὔτ' ἄλλο τι διευλαβηθέντες τῆς κοινῆς φύσεως. ἀλλ' ὑμεῖς (ὥσπερ οἱ τοῦ Νεμέτορος
υἱεῖς τὸ γένος μεμαθηκότες, ὅτι βασι λικῆς τυγχάνουσιν ὄντες σπορᾶς, ἐφρόνησάν τι λαμπρότερόν τε καὶ ἀρχι κώτερον, καὶ ἅτερος
τούτων τὴν παλαιὰν Ῥώμην ᾤκισε καὶ τὴν προσ ωνυμίαν ἀφῆκε τῇ πόλει) διαγνόντες ὅτι καὶ τὴν καταβολὴν θείου ἐσχή κατε σπέρματος
ἐς ὁμοίαν τὴν γένεσιν διὰ τῶν αὐτῶν ἠθῶν πρὸς τὴν αὐτὴν αἰτίαν μοι ἀναδράμοιτε· οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτω κοινωνίαν ψυχῶν ἀπεργάζε ται
ὡς ἡ τῶν αὐτῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων ἐκ συνθήματος μεταχείρισις. ὥσπερ γὰρ πάλαι διαιρεθεισῶν τῶν κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν αἱρέσεων ἡ μέν τις
Ἰωνικὴ ὠνομάζετο παίδευσις, ἡ δὲ Ἀκαδημαϊκή, ἡ δὲ Κυρηναϊκὴ καὶ ἄλλη Ἐπέχουσα, ἀπὸ τῶν τρόπων ἢ τῶν τόπων ἢ τῶν αἱρεσιαρχούντων
τὰς ἐπωνυμίας λαμβάνοντες ἢ ἑτέρωθέν ποι, καὶ ἦν ἑκάστη ὁμόφωνος καὶ ὁμόδοξος ἑαυτῇ, οὕτω δὴ καὶ ὑμῖν τὸ αὐτὸ σπούδασμα τῶν
ὁμοίων ἕξεων γενήσεται αἴτιον. Ἔγωγ' οὖν ὑμῖν ἥδιστ' ἂν τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον συγκατεβίωσα τὰ γένη τῶν λόγων παρατιθεὶς καὶ ἐμφορῶν
αὐτῶν τῆς γλυκύτητος καὶ μίαν ἀμφοῖν κρᾶσιν
