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VIII.
Scorpiace.
Antidote for the Scorpion’s
Sting.8215
| 8215 [Written about
a.d. 205.] |
[Translated by Rev. S.
Thelwall.]
————————————
Chapter I.
The earth brings forth, as
if by suppuration, great evil from the diminutive scorpion. The poisons
are as many as are the kinds of it, the disasters as many as are also
the species of it, the pains as many as are also the colours of it.
Nicander writes on the subject of scorpions, and depicts them.
And yet to smite with the tail—which tail will be whatever is
prolonged from the hindmost part of the body, and scourges—is the
one movement which they all use when making an assault. Wherefore that
succession of knots in the scorpion, which in the inside is a thin
poisoned veinlet, rising up with a bow-like bound, draws tight a barbed
sting at the end, after the manner of an engine for shooting
missiles. From which circumstance they also call after the
scorpion, the warlike implement which, by its being drawn back, gives
an impetus to the arrows. The point in their case is also a duct of
extreme minuteness, to inflict the wound; and where it penetrates, it
pours out poison. The usual time of danger is the summer season:
fierceness hoists the sail when the wind is from the south and the
south-west. Among cures, certain substances supplied by nature
have very great efficacy; magic also puts on some bandage; the art of
healing counteracts with lancet and cup. For some, making haste, take
also beforehand a protecting draught; but sexual intercourse drains it
off, and they are dry again. We have faith for a defence, if we are not
smitten with distrust itself also, in immediately making the
sign8216
| 8216 Of the cross over the
wounded part. [This translation is frequently weakened by useless
interpolations; some of these destroying the author’s style, for
nothing, I have put into footnotes or dropped.] | and adjuring,8217
| 8217 I.e. adjuring
the part, in the name of Jesus, and besmearing the poisoned heel with
the gore of the beast, when it has been crushed to death. [So the
translator; but the terse rhetoric of the original is not so
circumstantial, and refers, undoubtedly, to the lingering influence of
miracles, according to St. Mark xvi. 18.] |
and besmearing the heel with the beast. Finally, we often aid in
this way even the heathen, seeing we have been endowed by God with that
power which the apostle first used when he despised the viper’s
bite.8218
What, then, does this pen of yours offer, if
faith is safe by what it has of its own? That it may be safe by
what it has of its own also at other times, when it is subjected to
scorpions of its own. These, too, have a troublesome littleness,
and are of different sorts, and are armed in one manner, and are
stirred up at a definite time, and that not another than one of burning
heat. This among Christians is a season of persecution.
When, therefore, faith is greatly agitated, and the Church burning, as
represented by the bush,8219
then the Gnostics
break out, then the Valentinians creep forth, then all the opponents of
martyrdom bubble up, being themselves also hot to strike, penetrate,
kill. For, because they know that many are artless and also
inexperienced, and weak moreover, that a very great number in truth are
Christians who veer about with the wind and conform to its moods, they
perceive that they are never to be approached more than when fear has
opened the entrances to the soul, especially when some display
of ferocity has already arrayed with a crown the faith of
martyrs. Therefore, drawing along the tail hitherto, they first
of all apply it to the feelings, or whip with it as if on empty space.
Innocent persons undergo such suffering. So that you may suppose the
speaker to be a brother or a heathen of the better sort.
A sect troublesome to nobody
so dealt with! Then they pierce. Men are perishing without a reason.
For that they are perishing, and without a reason, is the first
insertion. Then they now strike mortally. But the unsophisticated
souls8220
| 8220 The opponents of
martyrdoms are meant.—Tr. | know not what is written, and what meaning
it bears, where and when and before whom we must confess, or
ought, save that this, to die for God, is, since He preserves me,
not even artlessness, but folly, nay madness. If He kills me, how will
it be His duty to preserve me? Once for all Christ died for us, once
for all He was slain that we might not be slain. If He demands the like
from me in return, does He also look for salvation from my death by
violence? Or does God importune for the blood of men, especially if He
refuses that of bulls and he-goats?8221
Assuredly He
had rather have the repentance than the death of the sinner.8222
And how is He eager for the death of those
who are not sinners? Whom will not these, and perhaps other subtle
devices containing heretical poisons, pierce either for doubt if not
for destruction, or for irritation if not for death? As for you,
therefore, do you, if faith is on the alert, smite on the spot the
scorpion with a curse, so far as you can, with your sandal, and leave
it dying in its own stupefaction? But if it gluts the wound, it drives
the poison inwards, and makes it hasten into the bowels; forthwith all
the former senses become dull, the blood of the mind freezes, the flesh
of the spirit pines away, loathing for the Christian name is
accompanied by a sense of sourness. Already the understanding also
seeks for itself a place where it may throw up; and thus, once for all,
the weakness with which it has been smitten breathes out wounded faith
either in heresy or in heathenism. And now the present state of matters
is such, that we are in the midst of an intense heat, the very
dog-star of persecution,—a state originating doubtless with the
dog-headed one himself.8223
Of some Christians
the fire, of others the sword, of others the beasts, have made trial;
others are hungering in prison for the martyrdoms of which they have
had a taste in the meantime by being subjected to clubs and
claws8224
besides. We ourselves, having been appointed
for pursuit, are like hares being hemmed in from a distance; and
heretics go about according to their wont. Therefore the state of
the times has prompted me to prepare by my pen, in opposition to the
little beasts which trouble our sect, our antidote against poison, that
I may thereby effect cures. You who read will at the same time
drink. Nor is the draught bitter. If the utterances of the Lord are
sweeter than honey and the honeycombs,8225
the juices are from that source. If the promise of God flows with milk
and honey,8226
the ingredients
which go to make that draught have the smack of this. “But woe to
them who turn sweet into bitter, and light into
darkness.”8227
For, in like
manner, they also who oppose martyrdoms, representing salvation to be
destruction, transmute sweet into bitter, as well as light into
darkness; and thus, by preferring this very wretched life to that most
blessed one, they put bitter for sweet, as well as darkness for
light.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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