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| Chapter XXIX.—The Greeks But Children Compared with the Hebrews.
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Chapter XXIX.—The Greeks But Children Compared with the Hebrews.
Whence most beautifully the Egyptian priest in Plato said, “O
Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, not having in your souls
a single ancient opinion received through tradition from antiquity. And
not one of the Greeks is an old man;”2136
| 2136 [Timæus, p. 22,
B.—S.] | meaning by old, I
suppose, those who know what belongs to the more remote antiquity, that
is, our literature; and by young, those who treat of what is more
recent and made the subject of study by the Greeks,—things of
yesterday and of recent date as if they were old and ancient. Wherefore
he added, “and no study hoary with time;” for we, in a kind
of barbarous way, deal in homely and rugged metaphor. Those, therefore,
whose minds are rightly constituted approach the interpretation utterly
destitute of artifice. And of the Greeks, he says that their
opinions” differ but little from myths.” For neither
puerile fables nor stories current among children are fit for listening
to. And he called the myths themselves “children,” as if
the progeny of those, wise in their own conceits among the Greeks, who
had but little insight; meaning by the “hoary studies” the
truth which was possessed by the barbarians, dating from the highest
antiquity. To which expression he opposed the phrase “child
fable,” censuring the mythical character of the attempts of the
moderns, as, like children, having nothing of age in them, and
affirming both in common—their fables and their speeches—to
be puerile.
Divinely, therefore, the power which spoke to Hermas by
revelation said, “The visions and revelations are for those who
are of double mind, who doubt in their hearts if these things are or
are not.”2137
| 2137 [See Shepherd of
Hermas, i. p. 14, ante. S.] |
Similarly, also, demonstrations from the resources of
erudition, strengthen, confirm, and establish demonstrative reasonings,
in so far as men’s minds are in a wavering state like young
people’s. “The good commandment,” then, according to
the Scripture, “is a lamp, and the law is a light to the path;
for instruction corrects the ways of life.”2138
“Law is
monarch of all, both of mortals and of immortals,” says Pindar. I
understand, however, by these words, Him who enacted law. And I regard,
as spoken of the God of all, the following utterance of Hesiod, though
spoken by the poet at random and not with comprehension:—
“For the Saturnian framed for men this law:
Fishes, and beasts, and winged birds may eat
Each other, since no rule of right is theirs;
But Right (by far the best) to men he gave.”
Whether, then, it be the law
which is connate and natural, or that given afterwards, which is
meant, it is certainly of God; and both the law of nature and that
of instruction are one. Thus also Plato, in The Statesman,
says that the lawgiver is one; and in The Laws, that he who
shall understand music is one; teaching by these words that the
Word is one, and God is one. And Moses manifestly calls the Lord
a covenant: “Behold I am my Covenant with thee,”2139
| 2139 Gen. xvii. 4. “As for
me, behold, My convenant is with thee.”—A.V. |
having previously told him not to seek the covenant in writing.2140
| 2140 The allusion here is
obscure. The suggestion has been made that it is to ver. 2 of the same
chapter, which is thus taken to intimate that the covenant would be
verbal, not written. | For it is a covenant which God, the
Author of all, makes. For God is called Θεός, from θέσις
(placing), and order or arrangement. And in the Preaching2141
| 2141 Referring to an apocryphal
book so called. [This book is not cited as Scripture, but (valeat
quantum) as containing a saying attributed to St. Peter. Clement
quotes it not infrequently. A very full and valuable account of
it may be found in Lardner, vol. ii. p. 252, et seqq. Not
less valuable is the account given by Jones, On the Canon,
vol. i. p. 355. See all Clement’s citations, same volume,
p. 345, et seqq.] | of Peter you will find the Lord
called Law and Word. But at this point, let our first Miscellany2142
of gnostic notes, according to the true philosophy, come to a close.
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