| 1. Aesop, Fables, 32 (7th cent. BCE - 6th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Pinheiro et al. (2012a), Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel, 145 |
2. Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 192, 191 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Pinheiro et al. (2012a), Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel, 145| 191. τίς ἂν οὖν γένοιτ' ἂν ὅρκος; εἰ λευκόν ποθεν | |
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3. Plato, Symposium, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 47| 216d. τοῦτον γιγνώσκει· ἀλλὰ ἐγὼ δηλώσω, ἐπείπερ ἠρξάμην. ὁρᾶτε γὰρ ὅτι Σωκράτης ἐρωτικῶς διάκειται τῶν καλῶν καὶ ἀεὶ περὶ τούτους ἐστὶ καὶ ἐκπέπληκται, καὶ αὖ ἀγνοεῖ πάντα καὶ οὐδὲν οἶδεν. ὡς τὸ σχῆμα αὐτοῦ τοῦτο οὐ σιληνῶδες; σφόδρα γε. τοῦτο γὰρ οὗτος ἔξωθεν περιβέβληται, ὥσπερ ὁ γεγλυμμένος σιληνός· ἔνδοθεν δὲ ἀνοιχθεὶς πόσης οἴεσθε γέμει, ὦ ἄνδρες συμπόται, σωφροσύνης; ἴστε ὅτι οὔτε εἴ τις καλός ἐστι μέλει αὐτῷ οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ καταφρονεῖ τοσοῦτον | 216d. well, I shall reveal him, now that I have begun. Observe how Socrates is amorously inclined to handsome persons; with these he is always busy and enraptured. Again, he is utterly stupid and ignorant, as he affects. Is not this like a Silenus? Exactly. It is an outward casing he wears, similarly to the sculptured Silenus. But if you opened his inside, you cannot imagine how full he is, good cup-companions, of sobriety. I tell you, all the beauty a man may have is nothing to him; he despises it |
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| 4. Plato, Republic, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 47 |
| 5. Aristotle, History of Animals, None (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Pinheiro et al. (2012a), Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel, 145 |
| 6. Plutarch, On The Eating of Flesh Ii, None (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Simmons(1995), Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, 310 |
| 7. Achilles Tatius, The Adventures of Leucippe And Cleitophon, 5.27.2, 8.10.12 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Pinheiro et al. (2012a), Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel, 145 |
| 8. Aelian, Nature of Animals, 4.11 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Pinheiro et al. (2012a), Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel, 145 |
| 9. Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 5.2.12 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Simmons(1995), Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, 24 |
| 10. Porphyry, Against The Christians Fragments, None (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: nan nan |
11. Porphyry, Letter To Marcella, 18 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Simmons(1995), Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, 24 | 18. The chief fruit of piety is to honour God according to the laws of our country, not deeming that God has need of anything, but that He calls us to honour Him by His truly reverend and blessed majesty. We are not harmed by reverencing God's altars, nor benefited by neglecting them. But whoever honours God under the impression that He is in need of him, unconsciously deems himself greater than God. 'Tis not the anger of the gods that injures us, but our own ignorance of their nature. Anger is foreign to the gods, for anger is involuntary, and there is nothing involuntary in God. Do not then dishonour the divine nature by false human opinions, since thou wilt not injure the eternally blessed One, whose immortal nature is incapable of injury, but thou wilt blind thyself to the conception of what is greatest and chiefest. |
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12. Porphyry, On Abstinence, 2.16.1-2.16.5, 2.24.2, 2.49.1, 2.60.3, 3.1.2, 3.1.4, 3.18.1, 3.20.7, 3.25.3, 3.26-3.27 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Simmons(1995), Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, 24, 310, 314, 316 | 3.26. 26.By making pleasure, therefore, the end of life, that which is truly justice cannot be preserved; since neither such things as are primarily useful according to nature, nor all such as are easily attainable, give completion to felicity. For, in many instances, the motions of the irrational nature, and utility and indigence, have been, and still are the sources of injustice. For men became indigent [as they pretended] of animal food, in order that they might preserve, as they said, the corporeal frame free from molestation, and without being in want of those things after which the animal nature aspires. But if an assimilation to divinity is the end of life, an innoxious conduct towards all things will be in the most eminent degree preserved. As, therefore, he who is led by his passions is innoxious only towards his children and his wife, but despises and acts fraudulently towards other persons, since in consequence of the irrational part predominating in him, he is excited to, and astonished about mortal concerns; but he who is led by reason, preserves an innoxious conduct towards his fellow-citizens, and still more so towards strangers, and towards all men, through having the irrational part in subjection, and is therefore more rational and divine than the former character; - thus also, he who does not confine harmless conduct to men alone, but extends it to other animals, is more similar to divinity; and if it was possible to extend it even to plants, he would preserve this image in a still greater degree. As, however, this is not possible, we may in this respect lament, with the ancients 18, the defect of our nature, that we consist of such adverse and discordant principles, so that we are unable to preserve our divine part incorruptible, and in all respects innoxious. For we are not unindigent in all things: the cause of which is generation, and our becoming needy through the abundant corporeal efflux which we sustain. But want procures safety and ornament from things of a foreign nature, which are necessary to the existence of our mortal part. He, therefore, who is indigent of a greater number of externals, is in a greater degree agglutinated to penury; and by how much his wants increase, by so much is he destitute of divinity, |108 and an associate of penury. For that which is similar to deity, through this assimilation immediately possesses true wealth. But no one who is [truly] rich and perfectly unindigent injures any thing. For as long as any one injures another, though he should possess the greatest wealth, and all the acres of land which the earth contains, he is still poor, and has want for his intimate associate. On this account, also, he is unjust, without God, and impious, and enslaved to every kind of depravity, which is produced by the lapse of the soul into matter, through the privation of good. Every thing, therefore, is nugatory to any one, as long as he wanders from the principle of the universe; and he is indigent of all things, while he does not direct his attention to Porus [or the source of true abundance]. He likewise yields to the mortal part of his nature, while he remains ignorant of his real self. But Injustice is powerful in persuading and corrupting those that belong to her empire, because she associates with her votaries in conjunction with Pleasure. As, however, in the choice of lives, he is the more accurate judge who has obtained an experience of both [the better and the worse kind of life], than he who has only experienced one of them; thus also, in the choice and avoidance of what is proper, he is a safer judge who, from that which is more, judges of that which is less excellent, than he who from the less, judges of the more excellent. Hence, he who lives according to intellect, will more accurately define what is eligible and what is not, than he who lives under the dominion of irrationality. For the former has passed through the irrational life, as having from the first associated with it; but the latter, having had no experience of an intellectual life, persuades those that resemble himself, and acts with nugacity, like a child among children. If, however, say our opponents, all men were persuaded by these arguments, what would become of us? Is it not evident that we should be happy, injustice, indeed, being exterminated from men, and justice being conversant with us, in the same manner as it is in the heavens? But now this question is just the same as if men should be dubious what the life of the Danaids would be, if they were liberated from the employment of drawing water in a sieve, and attempting to fill a perforated vessel. For they are dubious what would be the consequence if we should cease to replenish our passions and desires, the whole of which replenishing continually flows away through the want of real good; since this fills up the ruinous clefts of the soul more than the greatest of external necessaries. Do you therefore ask, O man, what we should do? We should imitate those that lived in the golden age, we should imitate those of that period who were [truly] free. For with them modesty, Nemesis, and Justice associated, because they were satisfied with the fruits of the earth. |109 The fertile earth for them spontaneous yields Abundantly her fruits 19. But those who are liberated from slavery, obtain for themselves what they before procured for their masters. In like manner, also, do you, when liberated from the servitude of the body, and a slavish attention to the passions produced through the body, as, prior to this, you nourished them in an all-various manner with externals, so now nourish yourself all-variously with internal good, justly assuming things which are [properly] your own, and no longer by violence taking away things which are foreign [to your true nature and real good]. [Footnotes moved to the end and numbered] 1.* This external reason (λογος προφορικος) is speech. 2.* Philostratus relates this of Apollonius, in his Life of him. 3.* The words within the brackets are added from the version of Felicianus. Hence it appears, that the words εκ των διαφορων μυκηματων are wanting in the original, after the word ζητει. But the defect is not noticed by any of the editors. 4.* Porphyry derived this from the treatise of Plutarch, in which it is investigated whether land are more sagacious than aquatic animals. 5.* This was the opinion of the Stoics; but is most erroneous. For the supreme divinity, being superessential, transcends even intellect itself, and much more reason, which is an evolved perception of things; and this is also the case with every other deity, according to the Platonic theology, when considered according to his hyparxis, or summit. See my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato. 6.* A musket, or male hawk of a small kind. This bird is mentioned by Homer, Iliad, XIV. v. 233. 7.* Reason in a divine intellect subsists causally, or in a way better than reason, and therefore is not a discursive energy (διεξοδικη ενεργεια), but an evolved cause of things. And though, in a divine soul, it is discursive, or transitive, yet it differs from our reason in this, that it perceives the whole of one form at once, and not by degrees, as we do when we reason. 8.* In the original, ουτω δ̕ εστι λογιστικα ων δρᾳ, κ.τ.λ. But for λογιστικα, Lipsius proposes to read, λογικα, and Meerman λογικη. There is, however, no occasion whatever to substitute any other word for λογιστικα, as, with Platonic writers, το λογιστικον is equivalent to to λογιζομενον. 9.* See the first book of Herodotus, chap. 159. 10.+ The more mystical cause why the Egyptians worshipped animals, appears to me to be this, that they conceived a living to be preferable to an iimate image of divinity. Hence, they reverenced animals as visible and living resemblances of certain invisible powers of the Gods. See Plutarch's Treatise on Isis and Osiris. 11.* See the Symposiacs of Plutarch, lib. ix. 8. 12.* Odyss. XII. v. 96. 13.+ The latter part of this sentence, which in the original is τι ουκ εδιδαξεν μηας ο δημιουργος οπη χρησιμα τη φυσει γεγονε; Valentinus most erroneously translates, "quare nos rerum opifex non edocuit, quomodo a natura in nostros usus facta fuerint?" 14.* i.e. The discursive energy of reason. 15.* In the original, μυημην δε καταληψις αξιωματος παρεληλυθος, οὐ το παρον εξ αισθησεως κατεληφθη; but for αξιωματος, I read πραγματος. Felicianus also appears to have found this reading in his manuscript copy of the work; for his version of the passage is, "vel memoriam rei praeteriae comprehensionem, quem praesentem sensus perciperat." 16.* This doubt may, perhaps, be solved, by admitting that brutes have an imperfect rationality, or the very dregs of the rational faculty, by which they form a link between men and zoophytes, just as zoophytes are a link between brutes and merely vegetable substances. Brutes, therefore, having an imperfect reason, possess only the beginning of perfection. 17.* Plutarch has written a most ingenious treatise on this subject. 18.* In the original, οσῳ μειζον το γενος το των ζωων, τυο ουτῳ και ωρος το μερος και το οικειον ταυτην διασωσει. On this passage, Reisk observes, "Forte οσῳ μειζων ῃ οικειωσις ωρος το γενος το των ζωων, τοσουτῳ (scilicet μαλλον) και προς το μερός, κ.τ.λ." But, instead of η οικειωσις, it appears to me that η φιλια should be substituted. 19.* Porphyry here particularly alludes to Empedocles. 20.* Hesiod. Oper. v. 117. BOOK FOUR [Translated by Thomas Taylor] SPAN |
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| 13. Porphyry, Philosophy From Oracles, None (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: nan nan |
| 14. Iamblichus, Concerning The Mysteries, 1.12.41 (31.9-15) (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 50 |
| 15. Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation For The Gospel, 4.7, 4.9, 6.1-6.6 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Simmons(1995), Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, 24, 316 |
| 16. Lactantius, Deaths of The Persecutors, 11 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Simmons(1995), Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, 24 |
| 17. Marinus, Vita Proclus, 3 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 50 |
| 18. Paulinus of Nola, Carmina, 19.15 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 50 |
| 19. Anon., Mosaicarum Et Romanarum Legum Collatio, 5.3.1-5.3.2 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 38 |
| 20. Eunapius, Lives of The Philosophers, 5.1.8 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 38, 50 |
21. Ammianus Marcellinus, History, 16.1.4 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 47 | 16.1.4. For some law of a higher life seems to have attended this youth from his noble cradle even to his last breath. For with rapid strides he grew so conspicuous at home and abroad that in his foresight he was esteemed a second Titus, son of Vespasian, in the glorious progress of his wars as very like Trajan, mild as Antoninus Pius, and in searching out the true and perfect reason of things in harmony with Marcus Aurelius, in emulation of whom he moulded his conduct and his character. This is also stated by Eutropius, x. 16, 5, and by Julian himself in his Letter to Themistius , p. 253, 13; ii. p. 203, L.C.L. |
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22. Augustine, The City of God, 10.29, 19.23 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Simmons(1995), Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, 24, 220, 297 | 10.29. You proclaim the Father and His Son, whom you call the Father's intellect or mind, and between these a third, by whom we suppose you mean the Holy Spirit, and in your own fashion you call these three Gods. In this, though your expressions are inaccurate, you do in some sort, and as through a veil, see what we should strive towards; but the incarnation of the unchangeable Son of God, whereby we are saved, and are enabled to reach the things we believe, or in part understand, this is what you refuse to recognize. You see in a fashion, although at a distance, although with filmy eye, the country in which we should abide; but the way to it you know not. Yet you believe in grace, for you say it is granted to few to reach God by virtue of intelligence. For you do not say, Few have thought fit or have wished, but, It has been granted to few,- distinctly acknowledging God's grace, not man's sufficiency. You also use this word more expressly, when, in accordance with the opinion of Plato, you make no doubt that in this life a man cannot by any means attain to perfect wisdom, but that whatever is lacking is in the future life made up to those who live intellectually, by God's providence and grace. Oh, had you but recognized the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, and that very incarnation of His, wherein He assumed a human soul and body, you might have seemed the brightest example of grace! But what am I doing? I know it is useless to speak to a dead man - useless, at least, so far as regards you, but perhaps not in vain for those who esteem you highly, and love you on account of their love of wisdom or curiosity about those arts which you ought not to have learned; and these persons I address in your name. The grace of God could not have been more graciously commended to us than thus, that the only Son of God, remaining unchangeable in Himself, should assume humanity, and should give us the hope of His love, by means of the mediation of a human nature, through which we, from the condition of men, might come to Him who was so far off - the immortal from the mortal; the unchangeable from the changeable; the just from the unjust; the blessed from the wretched. And, as He had given us a natural instinct to desire blessedness and immortality, He Himself continuing to be blessed; but assuming mortality, by enduring what we fear, taught us to despise it, that what we long for He might bestow upon us. But in order to your acquiescence in this truth, it is lowliness that is requisite, and to this it is extremely difficult to bend you. For what is there incredible, especially to men like you, accustomed to speculation, which might have predisposed you to believe in this - what is there incredible, I say, in the assertion that God assumed a human soul and body? You yourselves ascribe such excellence to the intellectual soul, which is, after all, the human soul, that you maintain that it can become consubstantial with that intelligence of the Father whom you believe in as the Son of God. What incredible thing is it, then, if some one soul be assumed by Him in an ineffable and unique manner for the salvation of many? Moreover, our nature itself testifies that a man is incomplete unless a body be united with the soul. This certainly would be more incredible, were it not of all things the most common; for we should more easily believe in a union between spirit and spirit, or, to use your own terminology, between the incorporeal and the incorporeal, even though the one were human, the other divine, the one changeable and the other unchangeable, than in a union between the corporeal and the incorporeal. But perhaps it is the unprecedented birth of a body from a virgin that staggers you? But, so far from this being a difficulty, it ought rather to assist you to receive our religion, that a miraculous person was born miraculously. Or, do you find a difficulty in the fact that, after His body had been given up to death, and had been changed into a higher kind of body by resurrection, and was now no longer mortal but incorruptible, He carried it up into heavenly places? Perhaps you refuse to believe this, because you remember that Porphyry, in these very books from which I have cited so much, and which treat of the return of the soul, so frequently teaches that a body of every kind is to be escaped from, in order that the soul may dwell in blessedness with God. But here, in place of following Porphyry, you ought rather to have corrected him, especially since you agree with him in believing such incredible things about the soul of this visible world and huge material frame. For, as scholars of Plato, you hold that the world is an animal, and a very happy animal, which you wish to be also everlasting. How, then, is it never to be loosed from a body, and yet never lose its happiness, if, in order to the happiness of the soul, the body must be left behind? The sun, too, and the other stars, you not only acknowledge to be bodies, in which you have the cordial assent of all seeing men, but also, in obedience to what you reckon a profounder insight, you declare that they are very blessed animals, and eternal, together with their bodies. Why is it, then, that when the Christian faith is pressed upon you, you forget, or pretend to ignore, what you habitually discuss or teach? Why is it that you refuse to be Christians, on the ground that you hold opinions which, in fact, you yourselves demolish? Is it not because Christ came in lowliness, and you are proud? The precise nature of the resurrection bodies of the saints may sometimes occasion discussion among those who are best read in the Christian Scriptures; yet there is not among us the smallest doubt that they shall be everlasting, and of a nature exemplified in the instance of Christ's risen body. But whatever be their nature, since we maintain that they shall be absolutely incorruptible and immortal, and shall offer no hindrance to the soul's contemplation, by which it is fixed in God, and as you say that among the celestials the bodies of the eternally blessed are eternal, why do you maintain that, in order to blessedness, every body must be escaped from? Why do you thus seek such a plausible reason for escaping from the Christian faith, if not because, as I again say, Christ is humble and you proud? Are you ashamed to be corrected? This is the vice of the proud. It is, forsooth, a degradation for learned men to pass from the school of Plato to the discipleship of Christ, who by His Spirit taught a fisherman to think and to say, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. John 1:1-5 The old saint Simplicianus, afterwards bishop of Milan, used to tell me that a certain Platonist was in the habit of saying that this opening passage of the holy gospel, entitled, According to John, should be written in letters of gold, and hung up in all churches in the most conspicuous place. But the proud scorn to take God for their Master, because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14 So that, with these miserable creatures, it is not enough that they are sick, but they boast of their sickness, and are ashamed of the medicine which could heal them. And, doing so, they secure not elevation, but a more disastrous fall. 19.23. For in his book called ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας, in which he collects and comments upon the responses which he pretends were uttered by the gods concerning divine things, he says - I give his own words as they have been translated from the Greek: To one who inquired what god he should propitiate in order to recall his wife from Christianity, Apollo replied in the following verses. Then the following words are given as those of Apollo: You will probably find it easier to write lasting characters on the water, or lightly fly like a bird through the air, than to restore right feeling in your impious wife once she has polluted herself. Let her remain as she pleases in her foolish deception, and sing false laments to her dead God, who was condemned by right-minded judges, and perished ignominiously by a violent death. Then after these verses of Apollo (which we have given in a Latin version that does not preserve the metrical form), he goes on to say: In these verses Apollo exposed the incurable corruption of the Christians, saying that the Jews, rather than the Christians, recognized God. See how he misrepresents Christ, giving the Jews the preference to the Christians in the recognition of God. This was his explanation of Apollo's verses, in which he says that Christ was put to death by right-minded or just judges, - in other words, that He deserved to die. I leave the responsibility of this oracle regarding Christ on the lying interpreter of Apollo, or on this philosopher who believed it or possibly himself invented it; as to its agreement with Porphyry's opinions or with other oracles, we shall in a little have something to say. In this passage, however, he says that the Jews, as the interpreters of God, judged justly in pronouncing Christ to be worthy of the most shameful death. He should have listened, then, to this God of the Jews to whom he bears this testimony, when that God says, He that sacrifices to any other god save to the Lord alone shall be utterly destroyed. But let us come to still plainer expressions, and hear how great a God Porphyry thinks the God of the Jews is. Apollo, he says, when asked whether word, i.e., reason, or law is the better thing, replied in the following verses. Then he gives the verses of Apollo, from which I select the following as sufficient: God, the Generator, and the King prior to all things, before whom heaven and earth, and the sea, and the hidden places of hell tremble, and the deities themselves are afraid, for their law is the Father whom the holy Hebrews honor. In this oracle of his god Apollo, Porphyry avowed that the God of the Hebrews is so great that the deities themselves are afraid before Him. I am surprised, therefore, that when God said, He that sacrifices to other gods shall be utterly destroyed, Porphyry himself was not afraid lest he should be destroyed for sacrificing to other gods. This philosopher, however, has also some good to say of Christ, oblivious, as it were, of that contumely of his of which we have just been speaking; or as if his gods spoke evil of Christ only while asleep, and recognized Him to be good, and gave Him His deserved praise, when they awoke. For, as if he were about to proclaim some marvellous thing passing belief, he says, What we are going to say will certainly take some by surprise. For the gods have declared that Christ was very pious, and has become immortal, and that they cherish his memory: that the Christians, however, are polluted, contaminated, and involved in error. And many other such things, he says, do the gods say against the Christians. Then he gives specimens of the accusations made, as he says, by the gods against them, and then goes on: But to some who asked Hecate whether Christ were a God, she replied, You know the condition of the disembodied immortal soul, and that if it has been severed from wisdom it always errs. The soul you refer to is that of a man foremost in piety: they worship it because they mistake the truth. To this so-called oracular response he adds the following words of his own: of this very pious man, then, Hecate said that the soul, like the souls of other good men, was after death dowered with immortality, and that the Christians through ignorance worship it. And to those who ask why he was condemned to die, the oracle of the goddess replied, The body, indeed, is always exposed to torments, but the souls of the pious abide in heaven. And the soul you inquire about has been the fatal cause of error to other souls which were not fated to receive the gifts of the gods, and to have the knowledge of immortal Jove. Such souls are therefore hated by the gods; for they who were fated not to receive the gifts of the gods, and not to know God, were fated to be involved in error by means of him you speak of. He himself, however, was good, and heaven has been opened to him as to other good men. You are not, then, to speak evil of him, but to pity the folly of men: and through him men's danger is imminent. Who is so foolish as not to see that these oracles were either composed by a clever man with a strong animus against the Christians, or were uttered as responses by impure demons with a similar design - that is to say, in order that their praise of Christ may win credence for their vituperation of Christians; and that thus they may, if possible, close the way of eternal salvation, which is identical with Christianity? For they believe that they are by no means counter working their own hurtful craft by promoting belief in Christ, so long as their calumniation of Christians is also accepted; for they thus secure that even the man who thinks well of Christ declines to become a Christian, and is therefore not delivered from their own rule by the Christ he praises. Besides, their praise of Christ is so contrived that whosoever believes in Him as thus represented will not be a true Christian but a Photinian heretic, recognizing only the humanity, and not also the divinity of Christ, and will thus be precluded from salvation and from deliverance out of the meshes of these devilish lies. For our part, we are no better pleased with Hecate's praises of Christ than with Apollo's calumniation of Him. Apollo says that Christ was put to death by right-minded judges, implying that He was unrighteous. Hecate says that He was a most pious man, but no more. The intention of both is the same, to prevent men from becoming Christians, because if this be secured, men shall never be rescued from their power. But it is incumbent on our philosopher, or rather on those who believe in these pretended oracles against the Christians, first of all, if they can, to bring Apollo and Hecate to the same mind regarding Christ, so that either both may condemn or both praise Him. And even if they succeeded in this, we for our part would notwithstanding repudiate the testimony of demons, whether favorable or adverse to Christ. But when our adversaries find a god and goddess of their own at variance about Christ the one praising, the other vituperating Him, they can certainly give no credence, if they have any judgment, to mere men who blaspheme the Christians. When Porphyry or Hecate praises Christ, and adds that He gave Himself to the Christians as a fatal gift, that they might be involved in error, he exposes, as he thinks, the causes of this error. But before I cite his words to that purpose, I would ask, If Christ did thus give Himself to the Christians to involve them in error, did He do so willingly, or against His will? If willingly, how is He righteous? If against His will, how is He blessed? However, let us hear the causes of this error. There are, he says, in a certain place very small earthly spirits, subject to the power of evil demons. The wise men of the Hebrews, among whom was this Jesus, as you have heard from the oracles of Apollo cited above, turned religious persons from these very wicked demons and minor spirits, and taught them rather to worship the celestial gods, and especially to adore God the Father. This, he said, the gods enjoin; and we have already shown how they admonish the soul to turn to God, and command it to worship Him. But the ignorant and the ungodly, who are not destined to receive favors from the gods, nor to know the immortal Jupiter, not listening to the gods and their messages, have turned away from all gods, and have not only refused to hate, but have venerated the prohibited demons. Professing to worship God, they refuse to do those things by which alone God is worshipped. For God, indeed, being the Father of all, is in need of nothing; but for us it is good to adore Him by means of justice, chastity, and other virtues, and thus to make life itself a prayer to Him, by inquiring into and imitating His nature. For inquiry, says he, purifies and imitation deifies us, by moving us nearer to Him. He is right in so far as he proclaims God the Father, and the conduct by which we should worship Him. of such precepts the prophetic books of the Hebrews are full, when they praise or blame the life of the saints. But in speaking of the Christians he is in error, and caluminates them as much as is desired by the demons whom he takes for gods, as if it were difficult for any man to recollect the disgraceful and shameful actions which used to be done in the theatres and temples to please the gods, and to compare with these things what is heard in our churches, and what is offered to the true God, and from this comparison to conclude where character is edified, and where it is ruined. But who but a diabolical spirit has told or suggested to this man so manifest and vain a lie, as that the Christians reverenced rather than hated the demons, whose worship the Hebrews prohibited? But that God, whom the Hebrew sages worshipped, forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the holy angels of heaven and divine powers, whom we, in this our pilgrimage, venerate and love as our most blessed fellow citizens. For in the law which God gave to His Hebrew people He utters this menace, as in a voice of thunder: He that sacrifices unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed. Exodus 22:20 And that no one might suppose that this prohibition extends only to the very wicked demons and earthly spirits, whom this philosopher calls very small and inferior - for even these are in the Scripture called gods, not of the Hebrews, but of the nations, as the Septuagint translators have shown in the psalm where it is said, For all the gods of the nations are demons, - that no one might suppose, I say, that sacrifice to these demons was prohibited, but that sacrifice might be offered to all or some of the celestials, it was immediately added, save unto the Lord alone. The God of the Hebrews, then, to whom this renowned philosopher bears this signal testimony, gave to His Hebrew people a law, composed in the Hebrew language, and not obscure and unknown, but published now in every nation, and in this law it is written, He that sacrifices unto any god, save unto the Lord alone, he shall be utterly destroyed. What need is there to seek further proofs in the law or the prophets of this same thing? Seek, we need not say, for the passages are neither few nor difficult to find; but what need to collect and apply to my argument the proofs which are thickly sown and obvious, and by which it appears clear as day that sacrifice may be paid to none but the supreme and true God? Here is one brief but decided, even menacing, and certainly true utterance of that God whom the wisest of our adversaries so highly extol. Let this be listened to, feared, fulfilled, that there may be no disobedient soul cut off. He that sacrifices, He says, not because He needs anything, but because it behooves us to be His possession. Hence the Psalmist in the Hebrew Scriptures sings, I have said to the Lord, You are my God, for You need not my good. For we ourselves, who are His own city, are His most noble and worthy sacrifice, and it is this mystery we celebrate in our sacrifices, which are well known to the faithful, as we have explained in the preceding books. For through the prophets the oracles of God declared that the sacrifices which the Jews offered as a shadow of that which was to be would cease, and that the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun, would offer one sacrifice. From these oracles, which we now see accomplished, we have made such selections as seemed suitable to our purpose in this work. And therefore, where there is not this righteousness whereby the one supreme God rules the obedient city according to His grace, so that it sacrifices to none but Him, and whereby, in all the citizens of this obedient city, the soul consequently rules the body and reason the vices in the rightful order, so that, as the individual just man, so also the community and people of the just, live by faith, which works by love, that love whereby man loves God as He ought to be loved, and his neighbor as himself - there, I say, there is not an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and by a community of interests. But if there is not this, there is not a people, if our definition be true, and therefore there is no republic; for where there is no people there can be no republic. |
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| 23. Theodosius Ii Emperor of Rome, Theodosian Code, 14.1.1 (5th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 8 |
| 27. Various, Anthologia Graeca, 12.34, 12.222 Tagged with subjects: •bouffartigue, j. Found in books: Masterson (2016), Man to Man: Desire, Homosociality, and Authority in Late-Roman Manhood. 75 |
