119. But what wilt thou sayabout the Moral department of these teachers? Whence and from what principles will they start, and what arguments will they use, in order to incite men unto virtue, and render them honest people by their lessons? A very good thing is Concord, for states to agree together, and nations, and families, and individuals; following |82 the law and disposition of Nature which hath divided and united all; and hath made all this into one single world out of several parts. By what examples will they go about to prove this? Perhaps by quoting the wars of the gods, their tumults, and rebellions, and the whole host of evils which they suffer themselves and occasion to others, publicly and privately; with which pretty nearly all history and poetry is filled! Sooner, from the things mentioned, would they render people quarrelsome and furious instead of sane, than convert the imprudent and rude into orderly and sober men, by means of examples like these! For people whom, even without anything to draw them into wickedness, it is a hard matter to reform from evil ways, and bring over to the better part from the worse----who can possibly make such as these gentle and self-restrained, when they have gods for inciters and patrons of their passions; where the being vicious is an honourable thing, inasmuch as some one of the gods presides over it, to whom the particular passion belongs, being dignified with altars and sacrifices, and invested with legal impunity. For this is the most terrible part of it all----that the very things which are punished by the laws are your objects of worship: so great is the absurdity of unrighteousness!
120. In the second place, let the subject expounded to them be Respect and Honour for parents, and the reverencing the first cause of being next to the First Cause of all. Here let a legend be brought in, and let theology convince. Assuredly Saturn will convince the hearers, when he has castrated Uranus, in order that he may be unable to generate more gods, and give unto the waves to create a goddess, offspring of the foam: and let Jove rebel against Saturn, following his sire's example; that sweet stone and bitter slayer of tyrants, or whatever else of the sort their books afford them, touching honour to parents. Let the third theme be the contempt of riches, and not to seek for gain from every source, and not to |83 take that earnest penny of wickedness, the getting of money by bad means! In what light will the "Patron of gain" be set before them, and his Purse be represented, and the thievish character of the deity be duly honoured, and the saying "Without a copper Phoebus does not prophesy," and "Nothing is more to be honoured than the obolus"----for such are their venerable and respectable maxims.
121. And what next? Let them teach chastity, and bring forward the subject of temperance: and see! the convincing argument is ready for them in him that turned himself into all manner of things for the sake of women. Jupiter, and the Phrygian Boy, and the Eagle ravisher most dear, in order that the gods might feast most pleasantly, being served with wine by Jove's own favourite: also Hercules, the child of three nights, labouring amongst the fifty daughters of Thestias in a single night, and performing this as his thirteenth Labour; although not counted, I know not wherefore, in the list. Let Mars bridle anger; Bacchus, drunkenness; Diana, inhospitality; Deceit, their own "Oblique" giver of oracles: or immoderate Laughter, the deity that limps, whilst the gods are amused, and steadies himself upon his two spider-legs: Gluttony, Jupiter running along with the "blameless" Venus to a splendid banquet, and followed by the rest of the deities; and the "Bull-eater" that robbed the ploughman, and swallowed up his ox, and got his title and honour from this feat; as well as all the others that ran after the fumes of burnt-offerings and libations.
122. And yet how do these maxims come up to ours, whose rule of friendship is "loving as one's own self," and the wishing to our neighbour the same good that we wish to ourselves; amongst whom it is a crime not merely |84 to have acted wickedly, but even to have been on the point of it, the wish being punished as much as the deed; by whom chastity is so studied that even the eye is restrained; with whom the murderous hand is so far removed that even anger is chastised; to whom the swearing a false oath is so terrible and monstrous a thing, that to us alone swearing at all is interdicted; whilst as for money, the most of us have never had any at all, whilst others had gladly possessed more, but only that they might have more to despise, philosophically preferring the having nothing to all wealth; casting away the yoke of the belly as a bitter and abominable tyrant, and the author of every evil. Is it not a great thing to boast that they strive to be not even flesh and blood, expending the mortal upon the immortal part; their single rule of virtue being the not giving way to small vices and such as are thought nothing of by the generality. But the greatest thing of all is, that whereas others punish the ends, as the law directs, we chastise the beginnings, and repress them like some dangerous and unruly torrent.
123. Where else in the world, tell me, wilt thou find, "When reviled do ye bless; when blasphemed at do ye exhort" (inasmuch as it is not the accusation that does the harm but the reality), "when persecuted, submit; when cursed, pray for them that curse you; when stripped, strip yourself to boot"; in one word, to overcome malice by goodness, and make them better who injure us, by enduring the things whereby our patience is tried? And yet even though we should grant that they can repress vice by means of the lessons of their false doctrine, yet how can they ever attain to the full height of our virtue and discipline, when we even regard as vice the not progressing in what is good, and becoming young in place of old, and standing still in the same place, in the condition of whipping-tops, running round, but not going forward at all, but moving in a stationary way, so to speak, by the impulse of the lash; and it behoves us to have already |85 practised one part of the virtues to grasp at another, and to aim at yet another, until the end, and that deification for which we were born, and to which we aspire, inasmuch as we cast a mental glance across the gulf between the two worlds, and have in expectation a reward commensurate with the magnificence of God!
[Footnotes have been renumbered and placed at the end]
1. In allowing Julian, then a child of six years old, to escape, when he commanded the massacre of his father and brothers.
2. It is impossible to preserve in English this string of miserable puns on the word lo&goj , in its numerous senses of the Word, Reason, Literature, Speech, &c., on which the preacher evidently prides himself not a little.
3. Another play upon the double meaning of " Ellhnej ," "Greeks," and "Pagans."
4. That is the restitution of the revenues of the temples which they had appropriated without form of law under Constantius.
5. Probably alluding to the immense body of neutrals, who had given up Paganism, but not accepted Christianity.
6. The monks of Nazianzus, who having squabbled with their bishop about some matter of discipline, hated him even more than they did Julian.
7. An unfortunate simile----a "solid rock" being even more unfavourable to the germination of seed than a "dry ground."
8. This name must be wrong; all these legends being quoted in chronological order. Methuselah was probably written, he being the only noteworthy personage between Enoch and Noah.
9. Supposed to represent the Cross.
10. The number Seven.
11. Constantine's half-brothers, Julius Constantius and Delmatius. There can be no reasonable doubt that Constantius II. was a party to the forgery of his father's last injunctions by the Bishop of Nicomedia, which was the pretext for the massacre of these two princes and their sons.
12. Even by Gregory's own showing, these children owed their escape from the massacre, not to the mercy of Constantius, but to the care of Marcus, who made them take sanctuary in a church.
13. The two children were kept close prisoners for fourteen years in a secluded castle at Cappadocia, carefully secluded from their friends, and allowed to see none but their servants. There is no doubt that if Constantius had had male issue, the last of his nephews would immediately have been sacrificed to state necessity.
14. He showed his complicity in the murders not only by appropriating the provinces of the slaughtered princes (which might be excused by political necessity), but by confiscating the paternal estates of the orphans, and retaining them to the last. It was only after Julian was made Caesar that he restored to him the dowry of his mother, Basilina.
15. Theology, under Eusebius of Caesarea. The enthusiastic temper of Julian was so wrought upon by his teachers that at one time he was anxious to become a monk.
16. Gallus was a monster of cruelty; but this, not being incompatible with soundness of faith, Gregory regards as a mere trifle. Julian, as he remarks in an epistle to the Alexandrians, was, up to the age of twenty, a firm believer in Christianity.
17. It must be borne in mind that his congregation was composed entirely of women, and mechanics or slaves----the only apology for such a narration.
18. A curious figure, of a thing pursuing what it preceded!
19. This admission, which Gregory often repeats, is a sufficient evidence that there was no real persecution of the Christians by Julian.