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| Chapter L
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Chapter L.
Moreover, if the law of Moses had contained
nothing which was to be understood as having a secret meaning, the
prophet would not have said in his prayer to God, “Open Thou mine
eyes, and I will behold wondrous things out of Thy law;”3917
whereas he knew that there was a veil of
ignorance lying upon the heart of those who read but do not understand
the figurative meaning, which veil is taken away by the gift of God,
when He hears him who has done all that he can,3918
| 3918 ἐπὰν
ἐπακούσῃ τοῦ
παρ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ
πάντα
ποιήσαντος. |
and who by reason of habit has his senses exercised to distinguish
between good and evil, and who continually utters the prayer,
“Open Thou mine eyes, and I will behold wondrous things out of
Thy law.” And who is there that, on reading of the dragon
that lives in the Egyptian river,3919
and of the
fishes which lurk in his scales, or of the excrement of Pharaoh which
fills the mountains of Egypt,3920
is not led at once
to inquire who he is that fills the Egyptian mountains with his
stinking excrement, and what the Egyptian mountains are; and what the
rivers in Egypt are, of which the aforesaid Pharaoh boastfully says,
“The rivers are mine, and I have made them;”3921
and who the dragon is, and the fishes in its
scales,—and this so as to harmonize with the interpretation to be
given of the rivers? But why establish at greater length what
needs no demonstration? For to these things applies the
saying: “Who is wise, and he shall understand these things?
or who is prudent, and he shall know them?”3922
Now I have gone at some length into
the subject, because I wished to show the unsoundness of the assertion
of Celsus, that “the more modest among the Jews and Christians
endeavour somehow to give these stories an allegorical signification,
although some of them do not admit of this, but on the contrary are
exceedingly silly inventions.” Much rather are the stories
of the Greeks not only very silly, but very impious inventions.
For our narratives keep expressly in view the multitude of simpler
believers, which was not done by those who invented the Grecian
fables. And therefore not without propriety does Plato expel from his
state all fables and poems of such a nature as those of which we have
been speaking.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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