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| Chapter I.—Exhortation to Abandon the Impious Mysteries of Idolatry for the Adoration of the Divine Word and God the Father.
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Chapter I.—Exhortation to Abandon the Impious Mysteries of Idolatry for the Adoration of the Divine Word and God the Father.
Amphion of
Thebes and Arion of Methymna were both minstrels, and both were renowned
in story. They are celebrated in song to this day in the chorus of
the Greeks; the one for having allured the fishes, and the other for
having surrounded Thebes with walls by the power of music. Another,
a Thracian, a cunning master of his art (he also is the subject of a
Hellenic legend), tamed the wild beasts by the mere might of song; and
transplanted trees—oaks—by music. I might tell you also the
story of another, a brother to these—the subject of a myth, and a
minstrel—Eunomos the Locrian and the Pythic grasshopper. A solemn
Hellenic assembly had met at Pytho, to celebrate the death of the Pythic
serpent, when Eunomos sang the reptile’s epitaph. Whether his ode
was a hymn in praise of the serpent, or a dirge, I am not able to say. But
there was a contest, and Eunomos was playing the lyre in the summer time:
it was when the grasshoppers, warmed by the sun, were chirping beneath the
leaves along the hills; but they were singing not to that dead dragon,
but to God All-wise,—a lay unfettered by rule, better than the
numbers of Eunomos. The Locrian breaks a string. The grasshopper sprang
on the neck of the instrument, and sang on it as on a branch; and the
minstrel, adapting his strain to the grasshopper’s song, made up
for the want of the missing string. The grasshopper then was attracted
by the song of Eunomos, as the fable represents, according to which also
a brazen statue of Eunomos with his lyre, and the Locrian’s ally
in the contest, was erected at Pytho. But of its own accord it flew to
the lyre, and of its own accord sang, and was regarded by the Greeks as
a musical performer.
How, let me ask, have you believed vain fables and
supposed animals to be charmed by music; while Truth’s shining face
alone, as would seem, appears to you disguised, and is looked on with
incredulous eyes? And so Cithæron, and Helicon, and the mountains
of the Odrysi, and the initiatory rites of the Thracians, mysteries of
deceit, are hallowed and celebrated in hymns. For me, I am pained at
such calamities as form the subjects of tragedy, though but myths; but
by you the records of miseries are turned into dramatic compositions.
But the dramas and the raving poets, now quite
intoxicated, let us crown with ivy; and distracted outright as they are,
in Bacchic fashion, with the satyrs, and the frenzied rabble, and the
rest of the demon crew, let us confine to Cithæron and Helicon,
now antiquated.
But let us bring from above out of heaven, Truth,
with Wisdom in all its brightness, and the sacred prophetic choir,
down to the holy mount of God; and let Truth, darting her light to
the most distant points, cast her rays all around on those that are
involved in darkness, and deliver men from delusion, stretching
out her very strong857
| 857
The Greek is
ὑπερτάτην,
lit. highest. Potter appeals to the use of ὑέρτερος
in Sophocles, Electr. 455, in the sense of stronger, as
giving a clue to the meaning here. The scholiast in Klotz takes the words
to mean that the hand is held over them. | right hand, which is
wisdom, for their salvation. And raising their eyes, and looking above,
let them abandon Helicon and Cithæron, and take up their abode in
Sion. “For out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the
Lord from Jerusalem,”858
—the
celestial Word, the true athlete crowned in the theatre of the whole
universe. What my Eunomos sings is not the measure of Terpander, nor that
of Capito, nor the Phrygian, nor Lydian, nor Dorian, but the immortal
measure of the new harmony which bears God’s name—the new,
the Levitical song.859
“Soother of pain, calmer of wrath, producing forgetfulness of all ills.”860
Sweet and true is the charm of persuasion
which blends with this strain.
To me, therefore, that Thracian Orpheus, that Theban,
and that Methymnæan,—men,
and yet unworthy of the name,—seem
to have been deceivers, who, under the pretence of poetry corrupting human
life, possessed by a spirit of artful sorcery for purposes of destruction,
celebrating crimes in their orgies, and making human woes the materials
of religious worship, were the first to entice men to idols; nay, to build
up the stupidity of the nations with blocks of wood and stone,—that
is, statues and images,—subjecting to the yoke of extremest bondage
the truly noble freedom of those who lived as free citizens under heaven
by their songs and incantations. But not such is my song, which has come
to loose, and that speedily, the bitter bondage of tyrannizing demons;
and leading us back to the mild and loving yoke of piety, recalls to
heaven those that had been cast prostrate to the earth. It alone has
tamed men, the most intractable of animals; the frivolous among them
answering to the fowls of the air, deceivers to reptiles, the irascible
to lions, the voluptuous to swine, the rapacious to wolves. The silly are
stocks and stones, and still more senseless than stones is a man who is
steeped in ignorance. As our witness, let us adduce the voice of prophecy
accordant with truth, and bewailing those who are crushed in ignorance
and folly: “For God is able of these stones to raise up children to
Abraham;”861
and He, commiserating their great ignorance
and hardness of heart who are petrified against the truth, has raised
up a seed of piety, sensitive to virtue, of those stones—of the
nations, that is, who trusted in stones. Again, therefore, some venomous
and false hypocrites, who plotted against righteousness, He once called
“a brood of vipers.”862
But if one of those serpents even
is willing to repent, and follows the Word, he becomes a man of God.
Others he figuratively calls wolves, clothed in
sheep-skins, meaning thereby monsters of rapacity in human form. And so
all such most savage beasts, and all such blocks of stone, the celestial
song has transformed into tractable men. “For even we ourselves
were sometime foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and
pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.”
Thus speaks the apostolic Scripture: “But after that the kindness
and love of God our saviour to man appeared, not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us.”863
Behold the might of the new song! It has made men out of stones, men
out of beasts. Those, moreover, that were as dead, not being partakers
of the true life, have come to life again, simply by becoming listeners
to this song. It also composed the universe into melodious order, and
tuned the discord of the elements to harmonious arrangement, so that the
whole world might become harmony. It let loose the fluid ocean, and yet
has prevented it from encroaching on the land. The earth, again, which
had been in a state of commotion, it has established, and fixed the sea
as its boundary. The violence of fire it has softened by the atmosphere,
as the Dorian is blended with the Lydian strain; and the harsh cold of the
air it has moderated by the embrace of fire, harmoniously arranging these
the extreme tones of the universe. And this deathless strain,—the
support of the whole and the harmony of all,—reaching from the
centre to the circumference, and from the extremities to the central
part, has harmonized this universal frame of things, not according to
the Thracian music, which is like that invented by Jubal, but according
to the paternal counsel of God, which fired the zeal of David. And He
who is of David, and yet before him, the Word of God, despising the lyre
and harp, which are but lifeless instruments, and having tuned by the
Holy Spirit the universe, and especially man,—who, composed of
body and soul, is a universe in miniature,—makes melody to God
on this instrument of many tones; and to this instrument—I mean
man—he sings accordant: “For thou art my harp, and pipe,
and temple.”864
| 864 Probably a
quotation from a hymn. | —a harp for harmony—a pipe
by reason of the Spirit—a temple by reason of the word; so that the
first may sound, the second breathe, the third contain the Lord. And David
the king, the harper whom we mentioned a little above, who exhorted to
the truth and dissuaded from idols, was so far from celebrating demons
in song, that in reality they were driven away by his music. Thus,
when Saul was plagued with a demon, he cured him by merely playing. A
beautiful breathing instrument of music the Lord made man, after His
own image. And He Himself also, surely, who is the supramundane Wisdom,
the celestial Word, is the all-harmonious, melodious, holy instrument of
God. What, then, does this instrument—the Word of God, the Lord,
the New Song—desire? To open the eyes of the blind, and unstop the
ears of the deaf, and to lead the lame or the erring to righteousness,
to exhibit God to the foolish, to put a stop to corruption, to conquer
death, to reconcile disobedient children to their father. The instrument
of God loves mankind. The Lord pities, instructs, exhorts, admonishes,
saves, shields, and of His bounty promises us the kingdom of heaven as
a reward for learning; and the only advantage He reaps is, that we are
saved. For wickedness feeds on
men’s destruction; but truth, like the bee, harming nothing,
delights only in the salvation of men.
You have, then, God’s promise; you have
His love: become partaker of His grace. And do not suppose the
song of salvation to be new, as a vessel or a house is new. For
“before the morning star it was;”865
and “in the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.”866
Error seems old, but truth seems
a new thing.
Whether, then, the Phrygians are shown to be the most
ancient people by the goats of the fable; or, on the other hand, the
Arcadians by the poets, who describe them as older than the moon; or,
finally, the Egyptians by those who dream that this land first gave birth
to gods and men: yet none of these at least existed before the world. But
before the foundation of the world were we, who, because destined to
be in Him, pre-existed in the eye of God before,—we the rational
creatures of the Word of God, on whose account we date from the beginning;
for “in the beginning was the Word.” Well, inasmuch as the
Word was from the first, He was and is the divine source of all things;
but inasmuch as He has now assumed the name Christ, consecrated of old,
and worthy of power, he has been called by me the New Song. This Word,
then, the Christ, the cause of both our being at first (for He was in
God) and of our well-being, this very Word has now appeared as man, He
alone being both, both God and man—the Author of all blessings
to us; by whom we, being taught to live well, are sent on our way to
life eternal. For, according to that inspired apostle of the Lord,
“the grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all
men, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should
live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for
the blessed hope, and appearing of the glory of the great God and our
Saviour Jesus Christ.”867
This is the New Song,868
| 868 [Isa. xlii. 10. Note that in all the Psalms where this
expression is used, there is a foretaste of the New Covenant and of
the manifestation of the Word.] | the manifestation of the
Word that was in the beginning, and before the beginning. The Saviour,
who existed before, has in recent days appeared. He, who is in Him that
truly is, has appeared; for the Word, who “was with God,” and
by whom all things were created, has appeared as our Teacher. The Word,
who in the beginning bestowed on us life as Creator when He formed us,
taught us to live well when He appeared as our Teacher; that as God He
might afterwards conduct us to the life which never ends. He did not
now for the first time pity us for our error; but He pitied us from the
first, from the beginning. But now, at His appearance, lost as we already
were, He accomplished our salvation. For that wicked reptile monster,
by his enchantments, enslaves and plagues men even till now; inflicting,
as seems to me, such barbarous vengeance on them as those who are said
to bind the captives to corpses till they rot together. This wicked
tyrant and serpent, accordingly, binding fast with the miserable chain
of superstition whomsoever he can draw to his side from their birth,
to stones, and stocks, and images, and such like idols, may with truth
be said to have taken and buried living men with those dead idols,
till both suffer corruption together.
Therefore (for the seducer is one and the same) he that
at the beginning brought Eve down to death, now brings thither the rest
of mankind. Our ally and helper, too, is one and the same—the
Lord, who from the beginning gave revelations by prophecy, but now
plainly calls to salvation. In obedience to the apostolic injunction,
therefore, let us flee from “the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,”869
and let us
run to the Lord the saviour, who now exhorts to salvation, as He has ever
done, as He did by signs and wonders in Egypt and the desert, both by the
bush and the cloud, which, through the favour of divine love, attended the
Hebrews like a handmaid. By the fear which these inspired He addressed
the hard-hearted; while by Moses, learned in all wisdom, and Isaiah,
lover of truth, and the whole prophetic choir, in a way appealing more
to reason, He turns to the Word those who have ears to hear. Sometimes He
upbraids, and sometimes He threatens. Some men He mourns over, others He
addresses with the voice of song, just as a good physician treats some of
his patients with cataplasms, some with rubbing, some with fomentations;
in one case cuts open with the lancet, in another cauterizes, in another
amputates, in order if possible to cure the patient’s diseased part
or member. The Saviour has many tones of voice, and many methods for the
salvation of men; by threatening He admonishes, by upbraiding He converts,
by bewailing He pities, by the voice of song He cheers. He spake by the
burning bush, for the men of that day needed signs and wonders.
He awed men by the fire when He made flame to burst
from the pillar of cloud—a token at once of grace and fear: if you
obey, there is the light; if you disobey, there is the fire; but since
humanity is nobler than the pillar or the bush, after them the prophets
uttered their voice,—the Lord Himself speaking in Isaiah,
in Elias,—speaking Himself by
the mouth of the prophets. But if thou dost not believe the prophets, but
supposest both the men and the fire a myth, the Lord Himself shall speak
to thee, “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, but humbled Himself,”870
—He, the merciful God,
exerting Himself to save man. And now the Word Himself clearly speaks
to thee, shaming thy unbelief; yea, I say, the Word of God became man,
that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God. Is it not then
monstrous, my friends, that while God is ceaselessly exhorting us to
virtue, we should spurn His kindness and reject salvation?
Does not John also invite to salvation, and is he
not entirely a voice of exhortation? Let us then ask him, “Who
of men art thou, and whence?” He will not say Elias. He will deny
that he is Christ, but will profess himself to be “a voice crying
in the wilderness.” Who, then, is John?871
In a word, we may say, “The
beseeching voice of the Word crying in the wilderness.” What criest
thou, O voice? Tell us also. “Make straight the paths of the Lord.”872
John is the forerunner, and
that voice the precursor of the Word; an inviting voice, preparing for
salvation,—a voice urging men on to the inheritance of the heavens,
and through which the barren and the desolate is childless no more. This
fecundity the angel’s voice foretold; and this voice was also the
precursor of the Lord preaching glad tidings to the barren woman, as John
did to the wilderness. By reason of this voice of the Word, therefore,
the barren woman bears children, and the desert becomes fruitful. The
two voices which heralded the Lord’s—that of the angel and
that of John—intimate, as I think, the salvation in store for us to
be, that on the appearance of this Word we should reap, as the fruit of
this productiveness, eternal life. The Scripture makes this all clear,
by referring both the voices to the same thing: “Let her hear who
has not brought forth, and let her who has not had the pangs of childbirth
utter her voice: for more are the children of the desolate, than of her
who hath an husband.”873
The angel announced to us the glad tidings of a
husband. John entreated us to recognise the husbandman, to seek the
husband. For this husband of the barren woman, and this husbandman
of the desert—who filled with divine power the barren woman
and the desert—is one and the same. For because many were the
children of the mother of noble rule, yet the Hebrew woman, once
blessed with many children, was made childless because of unbelief:
the barren woman receives the husband, and the desert the husbandman;
then both become mothers through the word, the one of fruits, the
other of believers. But to the unbelieving the barren and the desert
are still reserved. For this reason John, the herald of the Word,
besought men to make themselves ready against the coming of the Christ
of God.874
| 874 This may be translated,
“of God the Christ.” | And it was this which was
signified by the dumbness of Zacharias, which waited for fruit in the
person of the harbinger of Christ, that the Word, the light of truth,
by becoming the Gospel, might break the mystic silence of the prophetic
enigmas. But if thou desirest truly to see God, take to thyself means
of purification worthy of Him, not leaves of laurel fillets interwoven
with wool and purple; but wreathing thy brows with righteousness, and
encircling them with the leaves of temperance, set thyself earnestly to
find Christ. “For I am,” He says, “the door,”875
which we who
desire to understand God must discover, that He may throw heaven’s
gates wide open to us. For the gates of the Word being intellectual,
are opened by the key of faith. No one knows God but the Son, and he to
whom the Son shall reveal Him.876
And I know well that He who has opened the door
hitherto shut, will afterwards reveal what is within; and will show
what we could not have known before, had we not entered in by Christ,
through whom alone God is beheld.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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