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| Prologue to the Oration.
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The
Oration
of
Eusebius Pamphilus,
in praise of
the Emperor
Constantine.
Pronounced on the thirtieth
anniversary of his reign.
————————————
Prologue to the
Oration.3494
| 3494 The conventional heading has been retained. Literally it is
“Tricennial oration of Eusebius, addressed to the Emperor
Constantine. Prologue to the praises addressed to
Constantine.”
The translation of this
oration shows, even more than that of the Life or
Constantine’s Oration, a sympathy on the part of the
translator with the florid style of Eusebius, and, trying as the style
itself is, the success of Bag. in presenting the spirit of the
original with, on the whole, very considerable accuracy of rendering
has been a constant matter of surprise during the effort to
revise. |
1. I
come not forward prepared with a fictitious narrative, nor with
elegance of language to captivate the ear, desiring to charm my hearers
as it were, with a siren’s voice; nor shall I present the draught
of pleasure in cups of gold decorated with lovely flowers (I mean the
graces of style) to those who are pleased with such things. Rather
would I follow the precepts of the wise, and admonish all to avoid and
turn aside from the beaten road, and keep themselves from contact with
the vulgar crowd.
2. I come, then, prepared to
celebrate our emperor’s praises in a newer strain; and, though
the number be infinite of those who desire to be my companions in my
present task, I am resolved to shun the common track of men,3495
| 3495 Cf. Hom. Il. 6. 202, tr. Bryant, 6. 263–4,
“shunning every haunt of human-kind.” | and to pursue that untrodden path which
it is unlawful to enter on with unwashed feet. Let those who admire a
vulgar style, abounding in puerile subtleties, and who court a pleasing
and popular muse, essay, since pleasure is the object they have in
view, to charm the ears of men by a narrative of merely human merits.
Those, however who are initiated into the universal science,3496
| 3496 Eusebius seems to use this phrase much as the modern phrases
“The final philosophy,” “The science of
sciences,” “The queen of sciences,” when applied to
theology. | and have attained to Divine as well as
human knowledge, and account the choice of the latter as the real
excellence, will prefer those virtues of the emperor which Heaven
itself approves, and his pious actions, to his merely human
accomplishments; and will leave to inferior encomiasts the task of
celebrating his lesser merits.
3. For since our emperor is
gifted as well with that sacred wisdom which has immediate reference to
God, as with the knowledge which concerns the interests of men; let
those who are competent to such a task describe his secular
acquirements, great and transcendent as they are, and fraught with
advantage to mankind (for all that characterizes the emperor is great
and noble), yet still inferior to his diviner qualifies, to those who
stand without the sacred precincts.
4. Let those, however, who are
within the sanctuary, and have access to its inmost and untrodden
recesses, close the doors against every profane ear, and unfold, as it
were, the secret mysteries of our emperor’s character to the
initiated alone. And let those who have purified their ears in the
streams of piety, and raised their thoughts on the soaring wing of the
mind itself, join the company which surrounds the Sovereign Lord of
all, and learn in silence the divine mysteries.
5. Meanwhile let the sacred
oracles, given, not by the spirit of divination (or rather let me say
of madness and folly), but by the inspiration of Divine truth,3497
be our instructors in these mysteries;
speaking to us of sovereignty, generally: of him who is the Supreme
Sovereign of all, and the heavenly array which surrounds the Lord of
all; of that exemplar of imperial power which is before us, and that
counterfeit coin: and, lastly, of the consequences which result from
both. With these oracles, then, to initiate us in the knowledge of the
sacred rites, let us essay, as follows, the commencement of our divine
mysteries.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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