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| For Eight Years Gregory Has Given Up the Practice of Oratory, Being Busied with the Study Chiefly of Roman Law and the Latin Language.
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The
Oration and Panegyric Addressed to Origen.151
| 151
Delivered by Gregory Thaumaturgus in the Palestinian
Cæsareia, when about to leave for his own country, after many
years’ instruction under that teacher. [Circa
a.d. 238.] Gallandi, Opera,
p. 413. |
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Argument I.—For Eight Years
Gregory Has Given Up the Practice of Oratory, Being Busied with the
Study Chiefly of Roman Law and the Latin Language.
An excellent152
| 152
καλόν, for
which Hœschelius has ἀγαθόν. | thing has silence proved itself in many
another person on many an occasion, and at present it befits myself,
too, most especially, who with or without purpose may keep the door of
my lips, and feel constrained to be silent. For I am unpractised
and unskilled153
| 153
ἄπειρος, for which
Hœschelius has ἀνάσκητος. | in those beautiful
and elegant addresses which are spoken or composed in a regular and
unbroken154
| 154
ἀκωλύτῳ, for which Bengel
suggests ἀκολούθῳ. | train, in select and
well-chosen phrases and words; and it may be that I am less apt by
nature to cultivate successfully this graceful and truly Grecian
art. Besides, it is now eight years since I chanced myself to
utter or compose any speech, whether long or short; neither in that
period have I heard any other compose or utter anything in private, or
deliver in public any laudatory or controversial orations, with the
exception of those admirable men who have embraced the noble study of
philosophy, and who care less for beauty of language and elegance of
expression. For, attaching only a secondary importance to the
words, they aim, with all exactness, at investigating and making known
the things themselves, precisely as they are severally
constituted. Not indeed, in my opinion, that they do not desire,
but rather that they do greatly desire, to clothe the noble and
accurate results of their thinking in noble and comely155
| 155 εὐειδεῖ,
for which Ger. Vossius gives ἀψευδεῖ. | language. Yet it may be that they are
not able so lightly to put forth this sacred and godlike power
(faculty) in the exercise of its own proper conceptions, and at the
same time to practise a mode of discourse eloquent in its terms, and
thus to comprehend in one and the same mind—and that, too, this
little mind of man—two accomplishments, which are the gifts of
two distinct persons, and which are, in truth, most contrary to each
other. For silence is indeed the friend and helpmeet of thought
and invention. But if one aims at readiness of speech and beauty
of discourse, he will get at them by no other discipline than the study
of words, and their constant practice. Moreover, another branch
of learning occupies my mind completely, and the mouth binds the tongue
if I should desire to make any speech, however brief, with the voice of
the Greeks; I refer to those admirable laws of our sages156
| 156 [See my
introductory note, supra. He refers to Caius, Papinian,
Ulpian; all, probably, of Syrian origin, and using the Greek as their
vernacular.] | by which the affairs of all the subjects of
the Roman Empire are now directed, and which are neither
composed157
| 157
συγκείμενοι,
which is rendered by some conduntur, by others confectæ
sunt, and by others still componantur, harmonized,—the
reference then being to the difficulty experienced in learning the
laws, in the way of harmonizing those which apparently oppose each
other. | nor learnt without
difficulty. And these are wise and exact158
| 158
ἀκριβεῖς, for which
Ger. Vossius gives εὐσεβεις,
pious. | in themselves, and manifold and admirable,
and, in a word, most thoroughly Grecian; and they are expressed and
committed to us in the Roman tongue, which is a wonderful and
magnificent sort of language, and one very aptly conformable to royal
authority,159
but still difficult
to me. Nor could it be otherwise with me, even though I might say
that it was my desire that it should be.160
| 160 εἰ καὶ
βουλητόν, etc., for
which Hœschelius gives οὔτε
βουλητόν, etc. The Latin version gives, non enim
aliter sentire aut posse aut velle me unquam dixerim. | And as our words are nothing else than
a kind of imagery of the dispositions of our mind, we should allow
those who have the gift of speech, like some good artists alike skilled
to the utmost in their art and liberally furnished in the matter of
colours, to possess the liberty of painting their word-pictures, not
simply of a uniform complexion, but also of various descriptions and of
richest beauty in the abundant mixture of flowers, without let or
hindrance.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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