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| Chapter VIII.—On the Use of Ointments and Crowns.
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Chapter VIII.—On the Use of Ointments and Crowns.
The use of crowns and ointments is not necessary
for us; for it impels to pleasures and indulgences, especially on the
approach of night. I know that the woman brought to the sacred supper
“an alabaster box of ointment,”1453
and anointed the feet
of the Lord, and refreshed Him; and I know that the ancient kings
of the Hebrews were crowned with gold and precious stones. But the
woman not having yet received the Word (for she was still a sinner),
honoured the Lord with what she thought the most precious thing in her
possession—the ointment; and with the ornament of her person,
with her hair, she wiped off the superfluous ointment, while she
expended on the Lord tears of repentance: “wherefore her sins
are forgiven.”1454
This may be a symbol of the Lord’s teaching,
and of His suffering. For the feet anointed with fragrant ointment
mean divine instruction travelling with renown to the ends of the
earth. “For their sound hath gone forth to the ends of the
earth.”1455
And if I seem not to insist too much, the feet
of the Lord which were anointed are the apostles, having, according
to prophecy, received the fragrant unction of the Holy Ghost. Those,
therefore, who travelled over the world and preached the Gospel,
are figuratively called the feet of the Lord, of whom also the Holy
Spirit foretells in the psalm, “Let us adore at the place where
His feet stood,”1456
that is, where the apostles, His feet, arrived;
since, preached by them, He came to the ends of the earth. And tears
are repentance; and the loosened hair proclaimed deliverance from the
love of finery, and the affliction in patience which, on account of
the Lord, attends preaching, the old vainglory being done away with by
reason of the new faith.1457
| 1457[We need not refuse this efflorescence as poetry,
nor accept it as exposition.] |
Besides, it shows the Lord’s passion, if you
understand it mystically thus: the oil (ἔλαιον)
is the Lord Himself, from whom comes
the mercy (ἔλεος)
which reaches us. But the ointment,
which is adulterated oil, is the
traitor Judas, by whom the Lord was anointed on the feet, being released
from His sojourn in the world. For the dead are anointed. And the tears
are we repentant sinners, who have believed in Him, and to whom He has
forgiven our sins. And the dishevelled hair is mourning Jerusalem, the
deserted, for whom the prophetic lamentations were uttered. The Lord
Himself shall teach us that Judas the deceitful is meant: “He
that dippeth with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me.”1458
You
see the treacherous guest, and this same Judas betrayed the Master with a
kiss. For he was a hypocrite, giving a treacherous kiss, in imitation of
another hypocrite of old. And He reproves that people respecting whom it
was said, “This people honour Me with their lips; but their heart
is far from Me.”1459
It is not improbable, therefore, that by the
oil He means that disciple to whom was shown mercy, and by the tainted
and poisoned oil the traitor.
This was, then, what the anointed feet
prophesied—the treason of Judas, when the Lord went to His
passion. And the Saviour Himself washing the feet of the disciples,1460
and
despatching them to do good deeds, pointed out their pilgrimage for
the benefit of the nations, making them beforehand fair and pure by His
power. Then the ointment breathed on them its fragrance, and the work of
sweet savour reaching to all was proclaimed; for the passion of the Lord
has filled us with sweet fragrance, and the Hebrews with guilt. This the
apostle most clearly showed, when he said, “thanks be to God, who
always makes us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of
His knowledge by us in every place. For we are to God a sweet savour of
the Lord, in them that are saved, and them that are lost; to one a savour
of death unto death, to the other a savour of life unto life.”1461
And the kings of the Jews using gold and precious stones and a variegated
crown, the anointed ones wearing Christ symbolically on the head, were
unconsciously adorned with the head of the Lord. The precious stone, or
pearl, or emerald, points out the Word Himself. The gold, again, is the
incorruptible Word, who admits not the poison of corruption. The Magi,
accordingly, brought to Him on His birth, gold, the symbol of royalty.
And this crown, after the image of the Lord, fades not as a flower.
I know, too, the words of Aristippus the Cyrenian.
Aristippus was a luxurious man. He asked an answer to a sophistical
proposition in the following terms: “A horse anointed with ointment
is not injured in his excellence as a horse, nor is a dog which has
been anointed, in his excellence as a dog; no more is a man,”
he added, and so finished. But the dog and horse take no account of
the ointment, whilst in the case of those whose perceptions are more
rational, applying girlish scents to their persons, its use is more
censurable. Of these ointments there are endless varieties, such as the
Brenthian, the Metallian, and the royal; the Plangonian and the Psagdian
of Egypt. Simonides is not ashamed in Iambic lines to say,—
“I was anointed with ointments and perfumes,
And with nard.”
For a merchant was present. They
use, too, the unguent made from lilies, and that from the cypress. Nard
is in high estimation with them, and the ointment prepared from roses
and the others which women use besides, both moist and dry, scents
for rubbing and for fumigating; for day by day their thoughts are
directed to the gratification of insatiable desire, to the exhaustless
variety of fragrance. Wherefore also they are redolent of an excessive
luxuriousness. And they fumigate and sprinkle their clothes, their
bed-clothes, and their houses. Luxury all but compels vessels for the
meanest uses to smell of perfume.
There are some who, annoyed at the attention
bestowed on this, appear to me to be rightly so averse to perfumes
on account of their rendering manhood effeminate, as to banish their
compounders and vendors from well-regulated states, and banish, too,
the dyers of flower-coloured wools. For it is not right that ensnaring
garments and unguents should be admitted into the city of truth; but it
is highly requisite for the men who belong to us to give forth the odour
not of ointments, but of nobleness and goodness. And let woman breathe
the odour of the true royal ointment, that of Christ, not of unguents
and scented powders; and let her always be anointed with the ambrosial
chrism of modesty, and find delight in the holy unguent, the Spirit.
This ointment of pleasant fragrance Christ prepares for His disciples,
compounding the ointment of celestial aromatic ingredients.
Wherefore also the Lord Himself is anointed with
an ointment, as is mentioned by David: “Wherefore God, thy God,
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows; myrrh, and
stacte, and cassia from thy garments.”1462
But let us not unconsciously
abominate unguents, like vultures or like beetles (for these, they say,
when smeared with ointment, die); and let a few unguents be selected
by women, such as will not be overpowering to a husband. For excessive
anointings with unguents savour of a funeral
and not of connubial life. Yet
oil itself is inimical to bees and insects; and some men it benefits,
and some it summons to the fight; and those who were formerly friends,
when anointed with it, it turns out to deadly combat.
Ointment being smooth oil, do you not think that it is
calculated to render noble manners effeminate? Certainly. And as we have
abandoned luxury in taste, so certainly do we renounce voluptuousness in
sights and odours; lest through the senses, as through unwatched doors,
we unconsciously give access into the soul to that excess which we have
driven away. If, then, we say that the Lord the great High Priest offers
to God the incense of sweet fragrance, let us not imagine that this is
a sacrifice and sweet fragrance of incense;1463
but let us understand it to
mean, that the Lord lays the acceptable offering of love, the spiritual
fragrance, on the altar.
To resume: oil itself suffices to lubricate the
skin, and relax the nerves, and remove any heavy smell from the body,
if we require oil for this purpose. But attention to sweet scents is a
bait which draws us in to sensual lust. For the licentious man is led
on every hand, both by his food, his bed, his conversation, by his eyes,
his ears, his jaws, and by his nostrils too. As oxen are pulled by rings
and ropes, so is the voluptuary by fumigations and unguents, and the
sweet scents of crowns. But since we assign no place to pleasure which
is linked to no use serviceable to life, come let us also distinguish
here too, selecting what is useful. For there are sweet scents which
neither make the head heavy nor provoke love, and are not redolent of
embraces and licentious companionship, but, along with moderation, are
salutary, nourishing the brain when labouring under indisposition, and
strengthening the stomach. One must not therefore refrigerate himself
with flowers when he wishes to supple his nerves. For their use is not
wholly to be laid aside, but ointment is to be employed as a medicine
and help in order to bring up the strength when enfeebled, and against
catarrhs, and colds, and ennui, as the comic poet says:—
“The nostrils are anointed; it being
A most essential thing for health to fill the brain with good odours.”
The rubbing of the feet also
with the fatness of warming or cooling unguents is practiced on
account of its beneficial effects; so consequently, in the case of
those who are thus saturated, an attraction and flow take place from
the head to the inferior members. But pleasure to which no utility
attaches, induces the suspicion of meretricious habits, and is a drug
provocative of the passions. Rubbing one’s self with ointment is
entirely different from anointing one’s self with ointment. The
former is effeminate, while anointing with ointment is in some cases
beneficial. Aristippus the philosopher, accordingly, when anointed
with ointment, said “that the wretched Cinœdi deserved
to perish miserably for bringing the utility of ointment into bad
repute.” “Honour the physician for his usefulness,”
says the Scripture, “for the Most High made him; and the art of
healing is of the Lord.” Then he adds, “And the compounder
of unguents will make the mixture,”1464
since unguents
have been given manifestly for use, not for voluptuousness. For we are by
no means to care for the exciting properties of unguents, but to choose
what is useful in them, since God hath permitted the production of oil
for the mitigation of men’s pains.
And silly women, who dye their grey hair and anoint
their locks, grow speedily greyer by the perfumes they use, which are of a
drying nature. Wherefore also those that anoint themselves become drier,
and the dryness makes them greyer. For if greyness is an exsiccation
of the hair, or defect of heat, the dryness drinking up the moisture
which is the natural nutriment of the hair, and making it grey, how
can we any longer retain a liking for unguents, through which ladies,
in trying to escape grey hair, become grey? And as dogs with fine sense
of smell track the wild beasts by the scent, so also the temperate scent
the licentious by the superfluous perfume of unguents.
Such a use of crowns, also, has degenerated to scenes
of revelry and intoxication. Do not encircle my head with a crown, for
in the springtime it is delightful to while away the time on the dewy
meads, while soft and many-coloured flowers are in bloom, and, like the
bees, enjoy a natural and pure fragrance.1465
But to adorn
one’s self with “a crown woven from the fresh mead,”
and wear it at home, were unfit for a man of temperance. For it is not
suitable to fill the wanton hair with rose-leaves, or violets, or lilies,
or other such flowers, stripping the sward of its flowers. For a crown
encircling the head cools the hair, both on account of its moisture and
its coolness. Accordingly, physicians, determining by physiology that
the brain is cold, approve of anointing the breast and the points of
the nostrils, so that the warm exhalation passing gently through, may
salutarily warm the chill. A man ought not therefore to cool himself
with flowers. Besides, those who crown themselves destroy the pleasure
there is in flowers: for they enjoy neither the sight of them, since
they wear the crown
above their eyes; nor their fragrance,
since they put the flowers away above the organs of respiration. For the
fragrance ascending and exhaling naturally, the organ of respiration
is left destitute of enjoyment, the fragrance being carried away. As
beauty, so also the flower delights when looked at; and it is meet
to glorify the Creator by the enjoyment of the sight of beautiful
objects.1466
The use of them is
injurious, and passes swiftly away, avenged by remorse. Very soon their
evanescence is proved; for both fade, both the flower and beauty. Further,
whoever touches them is cooled by the former, inflamed by the latter. In
one word, the enjoyment of them except by sight is a crime, and not
luxury. It becomes us who truly follow the Scripture to enjoy ourselves
temperately, as in Paradise. We must regard the woman’s crown to
be her husband, and the husband’s crown to be marriage; and the
flowers of marriage the children of both, which the divine husbandman
plucks from meadows of flesh. “Children’s children are the
crown of old men.”1467
And the glory of children is their fathers,
it is said; and our glory is the Father of all; and the crown of
the whole church is Christ. As roots and plants, so also have flowers
their individual properties, some beneficial, some injurious, some also
dangerous. The ivy is cooling; nux emits a stupefying effluvium, as the
etymology shows. The narcissus is a flower with a heavy odour; the name
evinces this, and it induces a torpor (νάρκην) in
the nerves. And the effluvia of roses and violets being mildly cool,
relieve and prevent headaches. But we who are not only not permitted
to drink with others to intoxication, but not even to indulge in much
wine,1468
| 1468 [This was a marked
characteristic of Christian manners at war with heathenism.] |
do not need the crocus or the flower of the cypress to lead us to an
easy sleep. Many of them also, by their odours, warm the brain, which
is naturally cold, volatilizing the effusions of the head. The rose is
hence said to have received its name (ῥόδον)
because it emits a copious stream (ῥεῦμα)
of odour (ὀδωδή).
Wherefore also it quickly fades.
But the use of crowns did not exist at all among the
ancient Greeks; for neither the suitors nor the luxurious Phæacians
used them. But at the games there was at first the gift to the athletes;
second, the rising up to applaud; third, the strewing with leaves;
lastly, the crown, Greece after the Median war having given herself up
to luxury.
Those, then, who are trained by the Word are
restrained from the use of crowns; and do not think that this Word, which
has its seat in the brain, ought to be bound about, not because the crown
is the symbol of the recklessness of revelry, but because it has been
dedicated to idols. Sophocles accordingly called the narcissus “the
ancient coronet of the great gods,” speaking of the earth-born
divinities; and Sappho crowns the Muses with the rose:—
“For thou dost not share in roses from Pieria.”
They say, too, that Here delights in the
lily, and Artemis in the myrtle. For if the flowers were made especially
for man, and senseless people have taken them not for their own proper
and grateful use, but have abused them to the thankless service of
demons, we must keep from them for conscience sake. The crown is the
symbol of untroubled tranquillity. For this reason they crown the dead,
and idols, too, on the same account, by this fact giving testimony to
their being dead. For revellers do not without crowns celebrate their
orgies; and when once they are encircled with flowers, at last they are
inflamed excessively. We must have no communion with demons. Nor must
we crown the living image of God after the manner of dead idols. For
the fair crown of amaranth is laid up for those who have lived well.
This flower the earth is not able to bear; heaven alone is competent to
produce it.1469
Further, it were irrational in
us, who have heard that the Lord was crowned with thorns,1470
to
crown ourselves with flowers, insulting thus the sacred passion of the
Lord. For the Lord’s crown prophetically pointed to us, who once
were barren, but are placed around Him through the Church of which He
is the Head. But it is also a type of faith, of life in respect of the
substance of the wood, of joy in respect of the appellation of crown,
of danger in respect of the thorn, for there is no approaching to the
Word without blood. But this platted crown fades, and the plait of
perversity is untied, and the flower withers. For the glory of those
who have not believed on the Lord fades. And they crowned Jesus raised
aloft, testifying to their own ignorance. For being hard of heart, they
understood not that this very thing, which they called the disgrace of
the Lord, was a prophecy wisely uttered: “The Lord was not known
by the people”1471
which erred, which was not circumcised in
understanding, whose darkness was not enlightened, which knew not God,
denied the Lord, forfeited the place of the true Israel, persecuted God,
hoped to reduce the Word to disgrace; and Him whom they crucified as
a malefactor they crowned as a king. Wherefore the Man on whom they
believed not, they shall
know to be the loving God the Lord,
the Just. Whom they provoked to show Himself to be the Lord, to Him when
lifted up they bore witness, by encircling Him, who is exalted above every
name, with the diadem of righteousness by the ever-blooming thorn. This
diadem, being hostile to those who plot against Him, coerces them;
and friendly to those who form the Church, defends them. This crown is
the flower of those who have believed on the glorified One, but covers
with blood and chastises those who have not believed. It is a symbol,
too, of the Lord’s successful work, He having borne on His head,
the princely part of His body, all our iniquities by which we were
pierced. For He by His own passion rescued us from offences, and sins,
and such like thorns; and having destroyed the devil, deservedly
said in triumph, “O Death, where is thy sting?”1472
And we eat grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles; while those to
whom He stretched forth His hands—the disobedient and unfruitful
people—He lacerates into wounds. I can also show you another
mystic meaning in it.1473
| 1473 [See
note 10, p. 253. The beauty of this mysticism need
not be pointed out, but it need not be pressed as exposition.] |
For when the Almighty Lord of the universe began to legislate by the Word,
and wished His power to be manifested to Moses, a godlike vision of light
that had assumed a shape was shown him in the burning bush (the bush is
a thorny plant); but when the Word ended the giving of the law and His
stay with men, the Lord was again mystically crowned with thorn. On His
departure from this world to the place whence He came, He repeated the
beginning of His old descent, in order that the Word beheld at first in
the bush, and afterwards taken up crowned by the thorn, might show the
whole to be the work of one power, He Himself being one, the Son of the
Father, who is truly one, the beginning and the end of time.
But I have made a digression from the pædagogic
style of speech, and introduced the didactic.1474
| 1474 [This illustrates, in part, the difference between
the esoteric, or mystic, and the more popular teaching of our
author.] | I return accordingly to my subject.
To resume, then: we have showed that in the
department of medicine, for healing, and sometimes also for moderate
recreation, the delight derived from flowers, and the benefit derived from
unguents and perfumes, are not to be overlooked. And if some say, What
pleasure, then, is there in flowers to those that do not use them? let
them know, then, that unguents are prepared from them, and are most
useful. The Susinian ointment is made from various kinds of lilies;
and it is warming, aperient, drawing, moistening, abstergent, subtle,
antibilious, emollient. The Narcissinian is made from the narcissus,
and is equally beneficial with the Susinian. The Myrsinian, made of
myrtle and myrtle berries, is a styptic, stopping effusions from the
body; and that from roses is refrigerating. For, in a word, these also
were created for our use. “Hear me,” it is said, “and
grow as a rose planted by the streams of waters, and give forth a sweet
fragrance like frankincense, and bless the Lord for His works.”1475
We should have much to say respecting them, were we to speak of flowers
and odours as made for necessary purposes, and not for the excesses of
luxury. And if a concession must be made, it is enough for people to
enjoy the fragrance of flowers; but let them not crown themselves with
them. For the Father takes great care of man, and gives to him alone
His own art. The Scripture therefore says, “Water, and fire,
and iron, and milk, and fine flour of wheat, and honey, the blood of
the grape, and oil, and clothing,—all these things are for the
good of the godly.”1476
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