Oration XXXIII.

 I.  Where are they who reproach us with our poverty, and boast themselves of their own riches who define the Church by numbers, and scorn the little

 II.  Would you like me to utter to you the words of God to Israel, stiff-necked and hardened?  “O my people what have I done unto thee, or wherein hav

 III.  What tumultuous mob have I led against you?  What soldiers have I armed?  What general boiling with rage, and more savage than his employers, an

 IV.  What wild beasts have we let loose upon the bodies of Saints,—like some who have prostituted human nature,—on one single accusation, that of not

 V.  And to speak of older things, for they too belong to the same fraternity whose hands living or dead have I cut off—to bring a lying accusation ag

 VI.  Now since your antecedents are such, I should be glad if you too will tell me of my crimes, that I may either amend my life or be put to shame. 

 VII.  Why do you not also mention the convenience of the site, and what I may call the contest between land and sea as to which owns the City, and whi

 VIII.  Do you also find fault with the raggedness of my dress, and the want of elegance in the disposition of my face? for these are the points upon w

 IX.  But I am so old fashioned and such a philosopher as to believe that one heaven is common to all and that so is the revolution of the sun and the

 X.  I was deceived too by the Ramah of Samuel, that little fatherland of the great man which was no dishonour to the Prophet, for it drew its honour

 XI.  But perhaps some one who is very circumscribed and carnally minded will say, “But our herald is a stranger and a foreigner.”  What of the Apostle

 XII.  My friend, every one that is of high mind has one Country, the Heavenly Jerusalem, in which we store up our Citizenship.  All have one family—if

 XIII.  It is thus then and for these reasons that I, who am small and of a country without repute, have come upon you, and that not of my own accord,

 XIV.  And if I am doing wrong in this, that when tyrannized over I endure it, forgive me this wrong I have borne to be tyrannized over by others too

 XV.  Moreover this also I reckoned and still reckon with myself and do you see if it is not quite correct.  I have often discussed it with you before

 XVI.  These I call by name (for they are not nameless like the stars which are numbered and have names), and they follow me, for I rear them up beside

 XVII.  These words let everyone who threatens me to-day concede to me the rest let whoever will claim.  The Father will not endure to be deprived of

XVI.  These I call by name (for they are not nameless like the stars which are numbered and have names),26    Ps. cxlvii. 4. and they follow me, for I rear them up beside the waters of rest; and they follow every such shepherd, whose voice they love to hear, as you see; but a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him, because they have a habit of distinguishing the voice of their own from that of strangers.  They will flee from Valentinus27   Valentinus, a celebrated Gnostic leader of the Second Century, was one of the first Gnostics who taught in Rome.  He was probably of Ægypto-Jewish descent, and was educated at Alexandria.  He died in Cyprus about 160.  His system is a very curious one, giving the reins to the wildest vagaries of the imagination.  The original eternal Being, or Absolute Existence, he called Bythos or Depth; and to this he assigned as a wife Sige or Silence.  From this union there sprang thirty Æons or Emanations, who unfolded the Attributes of the Deity and created the world. with his division of one into two, refusing to believe that the Creator is other than the Good.  They will flee from Depth and Silence, and the mythical Æons, that are verily worthy of Depth and Silence.  They will flee from Marcion’s28   Marcion was a contemporary of Valentinus.  He was a native of Sinope in Pontus, of which city his father was Bishop.  He supposed Three Principles, the Good God, Who was first revealed by Christ; the Just Creator, Who is the “hot tempered and imperfect” God of the Jews; and the intrinsically evil Hyle or Matter, which is ruled by the Devil.  He also distinguished two Messiahs; one a mere warrior prince sent by the Jewish God to restore Israel; the other sent by the Good God for the delivery of the whole human race. god, compounded of elements and numbers; from Montanus’29   Montanus, a Phrygian enthusiast of the middle of the Second Century, imagined himself the inspired Organ of the Paraclete.  Connected with him were two Prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, who left their husbands to follow him.  His heresy, or rather his schism, spread to Rome and Northern Africa, and threw the whole Church into confusion.  He was very early anathematized by Bishops and Synods of Asia, but he carried the great African, Tertullian, away by his frenzy. evil and feminine spirit; from the matter and darkness of Manes;30   Manes or Mani, a Persia philosopher, astronomer, and painter of the Third Century, who introduced into Christianity some elements drawn from the religion of Zoroaster, especially its πρῶτον ψεὺδος.  Dualism, the co-eternity of two contradictory principles, Light and Darkness, Spirit and Matter, Good and Evil.  This heresy flourished till the Sixth Century, S. Augustine himself having been for nine years led away by it.  It is believed not to be wholly extinct even now in some parts of Eastern Christendom. from Novatus’31   Novatus was a Carthaginian Priest, who at first rebelled against his Bishop, S. Cyprian, on account of his severity in the treatment of persons who had lapsed in the Decian persecution.  At Rome, however, this same Novatus, either out of simple antagonism to constituted authority, or because he had really changed his views, adopted the extremest rigorism, and became one of the most violent partisans of the Priest Novatian, whom his followers contrived to get consecrated as a rival Bishop of Rome, in opposition to Cornelius, the reigning Pope.  They set up a new “church,” and arrogated to themselves an exclusive claim to the title of Cathari, the Pure. boasting and wordy assumption of purity; from the analysis and confusion of Sabellius,32   Sabellius, a native of the Libyan Pentapolis, rejected the Catholic Faith of the Trinity of Persons in God, and would only allow a Trinity of manifestations. and if I may use the expression, his absorption, contracting the Three into One, instead of defining the One in Three Personalities; from the difference of natures taught by Arius33    It is hardly necessary here to dwell on the Arian tenets; cf. Prolegomena to the Theological Oration. and his followers, and their new Judaism, confining the Godhead to the Unbegotten; from Photinus34   Photinus flourished in the fourth century, a little earlier than S. Gregory.  He seems to have taught that our Lord Jesus Christ was a mere man, and had no existence previous to His Birth of the Virgin Mary.  He made Jesus rise on the basis of His human nature, by a course of moral improvement, to the divine dignity, so that the Divine in Him is a thing of growth:  cf. Schaff, H. E. Nicene Period, vol. ii. p. 653. earthly Christ, who took his beginning from Mary.  But they worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, One Godhead; God the Father, God the Son and (do not be angry) God the Holy Ghost, One Nature in Three Personalities, intellectual, perfect, Self-existent, numerically separate, but not separate in Godhead.

Ι2ʹ. Ταῦτα καλῶ κατ' ὄνομα (οὐκ ἀνώνυμα γὰρ, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ἀστέρες ἀριθμούμενοι καὶ ὀνομαζόμενοι), καὶ ἀκολουθοῦσί μοι, ἐκτρέφω γὰρ ἐπὶ ὕδατος ἀναπαύσεως: ἀκολουθοῦσι δὲ καὶ παντὶ τοιούτῳ ποιμένι, οὗ τὴν φωνὴν ὁρᾶτε, ὅπως ἡδέως ἤκουσαν: ἀλλοτρίῳ δὲ οὐ μὴ ἀκολουθήσωσιν, ἀλλὰ φεύξονται ἀπ' αὐτοῦ, ὅτι διαγνωστικὴν ἕξιν ἔχουσιν ἤδη φωνῆς οἰκείας καὶ ἀλλοτρίας. Φεύξονται Οὐαλεντίνου τὴν τοῦ ἑνὸς εἰς δύο κατατομὴν, οὐκ ἄλλον τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ τὸν Δημιουργὸν πιστεύοντες, καὶ τὸν Βυθὸν, καὶ τὴν Σιγὴν, καὶ τοὺς μυθικοὺς Αἰῶνας, τὰ βυθοῦ καὶ σιγῆς ὄντος ἄξια. Φεύξονται Μαρκίωνος τὸν ἐκ στοιχείων καὶ ἀριθμῶν Θεόν: Μοντανοῦ τὸ πονηρὸν πνεῦμα καὶ γυναικεῖον: Μάνου τὴν ὕλην μετὰ τοῦ σκότους: Ναυάτου τὴν ἀλαζονείαν, καὶ τὴν ἐν ῥήμασι καθαρότητα: Σαβελλίου τὴν ἀνάλυσιν καὶ τὴν σύγχυσιν, καὶ τὴν, ἵν' οὕτως εἴπω, κατάποσιν, τὰ τρία εἰς ἓν συναιροῦντος, ἀλλ' οὐκ ἐν τρισὶν ὑφεστῶσι τὸ ἓν ὁρίζοντος: Ἀρείου καὶ τῶν ὑπ' Ἀρείῳ τὴν τῶν φύσεων ἀλλοτρίωσιν, καὶ τὸν καινὸν Ἰουδαϊσμὸν, μόνῳ τῷ ἀγεννήτῳ τὴν θεότητα περιγράφοντος: Φωτεινοῦ τὸν κάτω Χριστὸν, καὶ ἀπὸ Μαρίας ἀρχόμενον. Αὖ τοὶ δὲ προσκυνοῦσι τὸν Πατέρα, καὶ τὸν Υἱὸν, καὶ τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, μίαν θεότητα: Θεὸν τὸν Πατέρα, Θεὸν τὸν Υἱὸν, Θεὸν, εἰ μὴ τραχύνῃ, τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, μίαν φύσιν ἐν τρισὶν ἰδιότησι, νοεραῖς, τελείαις, καθ' ἑαυτὰς ὑφεστώσαις, ἀριθμῷ διαιρεταῖς, καὶ οὐ διαιρεταῖς θεότητι.