1449 Eph. v. 27.—Origen (c. Cels. vii. 48, 49), comparing Pagan and Christian virginity, says, “The Athenian hierophant, distrusting his power of self-control for the period of his regular religious duties, uses hemlock, and passes as pure. But you may see among the Christians men who need no hemlock. The Faith drives evil from their minds, and ever fits them to perform the service of prayer. Belonging to some of the gods now in vogue there are certainly virgins here and there—watched or not I care not now to inquire—who seem not to break down in the course of chastity which the honour of their god requires. But amongst Christians, for no repute amongst men, for no stipend, for no mere show, they practise an absolute virginity; and as they ‘liked to retain God in their knowledge,’ so God has kept them in that liking mind, and in the performance of fitting works, filling them with righteousness and goodness. I say this without any depreciation of what is beautiful in Greek thought, and of what is wholesome in their teachings. I wish only to show that all they have said, and things more noble, more divine, have been said by those men of God, the prophets and apostles.”
Chapter XVI Chapter XVI.
There is only one right path. It is narrow and contracted. It has no turnings either on the one side or the other. No matter how we leave it, there is the same danger of straying hopelessly away. This being so, the habit which many have got into must be as far as possible corrected; those, I mean, who while they fight strenuously against the baser pleasures, yet still go on hunting for pleasure in the shape of worldly honour and positions which will gratify their love of power. They act like some domestic who longed for liberty, but instead of exerting himself to get away from slavery proceeded only to change his masters, and thought liberty consisted in that change. But all alike are slaves, even though they should not all go on being ruled by the same masters, as long as a dominion of any sort, with power to enforce it, is set over them. There are others again who after a long battle against all the pleasures!*°.
, yield themselves easily on another field, where feelings of an opposite kind come in; and in the intense exactitude of their lives fall a ready prey to melancholy and irritation, and to brooding over injuries, and to everything that is the direct opposite of pleasurable feelings; from which they are very reluctant to extricate themselves. This is always happening, whenever any emotion, instead of virtuous reason, controls the course of a life. For the commandment of the Lord is exceedingly far-shining, so as to “enlighten the eyes” even of “the simple!°!,” declaring that good cleaveth only unto God. But God is not pain any more than He is pleasure; He is not cowardice any more than boldness; He is not fear, nor anger, nor any other emotion which sways the untutored soul, but, as the Apostle says, He is Very Wisdom and Sanctification, Truth and Joy and Peace, and everything like that. If He is such, how can any one be said to cleave to Him, who is mastered by the very opposite? Is it not want of reason in any one to suppose that when he has striven successfully to escape the dominion of one particular passion, he will find virtue in its opposite? For instance, to suppose that when he has escaped pleasure, he will find virtue in letting pain have possession of him; or when he has by an effort remained proof against anger, in crouching with fear.
It matters not whether we miss virtue, or rather God Himself Who is the Sum of virtue, in this way, or in that. Take the case of great bodily prostration; one would say that the sadness of this failure was just the same, whether the cause has been excessive under-feeding, or immoderate eating; both failures to stop in time end in the same result. He therefore who watches over the life and the sanity of the soul will confine himself to the moderation of the truth; he will continue without touching either of those opposite states which run alongside virtue. This teaching is not mine; it comes from the Divine lips. It is clearly contained in that passage where our Lord says to His disciples, that they are as sheep wandering amongst 1450 = tac Ndovac i.e.the whole class.
Chapter XVI wolves’ ““, yet are not to be as doves only, but are to have something of the serpent too in their disposition; and that means that they should neither carry to excess the practice of that which seems praiseworthy in simplicity?
, as such a habit would come very near to downright madness, nor on the other hand should deem the cleverness which most admire to be a virtue, while unsoftened by any mixture with its opposite; they were in fact to form another disposition, by a compound of these two seeming opposites, cutting off its silliness from the one, its evil cunning from the other; so that one single beautiful character should be created from the two, a union of simplicity of purpose with shrewdness. “Be ye,” He says, “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”
1453 According to the emendation of Livineius: prjte tO Kata trv anAdTHTa SoKOdv EmatvEtov Chapter XVII Chapter XVII.
Let that which was then said by our Lord be the general maxim for every life; especially let it be the maxim for those who are coming nearer God through the gateway of virginity, that they should never in watching for a perfection in one direction present an unguarded side in another and contrary one; but should in all directions realize the good, so that they may guarantee in all things their holy life against failure. A soldier does not arm himself only on some points, leaving the rest of his body to take its chance unprotected. If he were to receive his death-wound upon that, what would have been the advantage of this partial armour? Again, who would call that feature faultless, which from some accident had lost one of those requisites which go to make up the sum of beauty? The disfigurement of the mutilated part mars the grace of the part untouched. The Gospel implies that he who undertakes the building of a tower, but spends all his labour upon the foundations without ever reaching the completion, is worthy of ridicule; and what else do we learn from the Parable of the Tower, but to strive to come to the finish of every lofty purpose, accomplishing the work of God in all the multiform structures of His commandments? One stone, indeed, is no more the whole edifice of the Tower, than one commandment kept will raise the soul’s perfection to the required height. The foundation must by all means first be laid but over it, as the Apostle says’, the edifice of gold and precious gems must be built; for so is the doing of the commandment put by the Prophet who cries, “Ihave loved Thy commandment above gold and many a precious stone!*°>.” Let the virtuous life have for its substructure the love of virginity; but upon this let every result of virtue be reared. If virginity is believed to be a vastly precious thing and to have a divine look (as indeed is the case, as well as men believe of it), yet, ifthe whole life does not harmonize with this perfect note, and it be marred by the succeeding!**® discord of the soul, this thing becomes but “the jewel of gold in the swine’s snout or “the pearl that is trodden under the swine’s feet.” But we have said enough upon this.
1455 Ps. cxix. 127, LXX. (ypvotov Kai tondiov). 1456 tf Aoinov 1457 For the gold, see Prov. xi. 22; for the pearl, S. Matt. vii. 6 Chapter XVIII Chapter XVHUI.
If any one supposes that!4°8 this want of mutual harmony between his life and a single one of its circumstances is quite unimportant, let him be taught the meaning of our maxim by looking at the management of a house. The master of a private dwelling will not allow any untidiness or unseemliness to be seen in the house, such as a couch upset, or the table littered with rubbish, or vessels of price thrown away into dirty corners, while those which serve ignobler uses are thrust forward for entering guests to see. He has everything arranged neatly and in the proper place, where it stands to most advantage; and then he can welcome his guests, without any misgivings that he need be ashamed of opening the interior of his house to receive them. The same duty, I take it, is incumbent on that master of our “tabernacle,” the mind; it has to arrange everything within us, and to put each particular faculty of the soul, which the Creator has fashioned to be our implement or our vessel, to fitting and noble uses. We will now mention in detail the way in which any one might manage his life, with its present advantages, to his improvement, hoping that no one will accuse us of trifling”, or over-minuteness. We advise, then, that love’s passion be placed in the soul’s purest shrine, as a thing chosen to be the first fruits of all our gifts, and devoted!4©° entirely to God; and when once this has been done, to keep it untouched and unsullied by any secular defilement. Then indignation, and anger, and hatred must be as watch-dogs to be roused only against attacking sins; they must follow their natural impulse only against the thief and the enemy who is creeping in to plunder the divine treasure-chamber, and who comes only for that, that he may steal, and mangle, and destroy. Courage and confidence are to be weapons in our hands to baffle any sudden surprise and attack of the wicked who advance. Hope and patience are to be the staffs to lean upon, whenever we are weary with the trials of the world. As for sorrow, we must have a stock of it ready to apply, ifneed should happen to arise for it, in the hour of repentance for our sins; believing at the same time that it is never useful, except to minister to that. Righteousness will be our rule of straightforwardness, guarding us from stumbling either in word or deed, and guiding us in the disposal of the faculties of our soul, as well as in the due consideration for every one we meet. The love of gain, which is a large, incalculably large, element in every soul, when once applied to the desire for God, will bless the man who has it; for he will be violent!4°!
where it is right to be violent. Wisdom and prudence will be our advisers as to our best interests; they will order our lives so as never to suffer from any thoughtless folly. But suppose a man does not apply the aforesaid faculties of the soul to their proper use, but reverses their intended purpose; 1458 TO un] ovvnppdoBan tivi d1a THV KaTAAANAWV TOV Biov 1459 ddoAEoxiav Tod Adyov TIs KaTAyIVWoKOL 1460 donep 1 dveéOnpa; so Gregory calls the tongue of S. Meletius the dvd®nua of Truth. 1461 Gregory seems to allude to S. Matt. xi. 12.
Chapter XVIII suppose he wastes his love upon the basest objects, and stores up his hatred only for his own kinsmen; suppose he welcomes iniquity, plays the man only against his parents, is bold only in absurdities, fixes his hopes on emptiness, chases prudence and wisdom from his company, takes gluttony and folly for his mistresses, and uses all his other opportunities in the same fashion, he would indeed be a strange and unnatural character to a degree beyond any one’s power to express. If we could imagine any one putting his armour on all the wrong way, reversing the helmet so as to cover his face while the plume nodded backward, putting his feet into the cuirass, and fitting the greaves on to his breast, changing to the right side all that ought to go on the left and vice versa, and how such a hoplite would be likely to fare in battle, then we should have an idea of the fate in life which is sure to await him whose confused judgment makes him reverse the proper uses of his soul’s faculties. We must therefore provide this balance in all feeling; the true sobriety of mind is naturally able to supply it; and if one had to find an exact definition of this sobriety, one might declare absolutely, that it amounts to our ordered control, by dint of wisdom and prudence, over every emotion of the soul. Moreover, such a condition in the soul will be no longer in need of any laborious method to attain to the high and heavenly realities; it will accomplish with the greatest ease that which erewhile seemed so unattainable; it will grasp the object of its search as a natural consequence of rejecting the opposite attractions. A man who comes out of darkness is necessarily in the light; a man who is not dead is necessarily alive. Indeed, if a man is not to have received his soul to no purpose!4, he will certainly be upon the path of truth; the prudence and the science employed to guard against error will be itself a sure guidance along the right road. Slaves who have been freed and cease to serve their former masters, the very moment they become their own masters, direct all their thoughts towards themselves so, I take it, the soul which has been freed from ministering to the body becomes at once cognizant i,in not of its own inherent energy. But this liberty consists, as we learn from the Apostle again being held in the yoke of slavery, and in not being bound again, like a runaway or a criminal, with the fetters of marriage. But I must return here to what I said at first; that the perfection of this liberty does not consist only in that one point of abstaining from marriage. Let no one suppose that the prize of virginity is so insignificant and so easily won as that; as if one little observance of the flesh could settle so vital a matter. But we have seen that every man who doeth a sin is the servant of sin'4™; so that a declension towards vice in any act, or in any practice whatever, makes a slave, and still more, a branded slave, of the man, covering him through sin’s lashes with bruises and seared spots. Therefore it behoves the 1462 Emi patat& 251: AdBo1. Gregory evidently alludes to Ps. xxiv. 4, and agrees with the Vulgate “in vano acceperit.”
Chapter XVIII man who grasps at the transcendent aim of all virginity to be true to himself in every respect, and to manifest his purity equally in every relation of his life. If any of the inspired words are required to aid our pleading, the Truth!4° Itself will be sufficient to corroborate the truth when It inculcates this very kind of teaching in the veiled meaning of a Gospel Parable: the good and eatable fish are separated by the fishers’ skill from the bad and poisonous fish, so that the enjoyment of the good should not be spoilt by any of the bad getting into the “vessels” with them. The work of true sobriety is the same; from all pursuits and habits to choose that which is pure and improving, rejecting in every case that which does not seem likely to be useful, and letting it go back into the universal and secular life, called “the sea!*°°,” in the imagery of the Parable. The Psalmist!”
also, when expounding the doctrine ofa full confession’ ~”, calls this restless suffering tumultuous life, “waters coming in even unto the soul,” “depths of waters,” and a “hurricane”; in which sea indeed every rebellious thought sinks, as the Egyptian did, with a stone’s weight into the deeps!*©?, But all in us that is dear to God, and has a piercing insight into the truth (called “Israel” in the narrative), passes, but that alone, over that sea as if it were dry land, and is never reached by the bitterness and the brine of life’s billows. Thus, typically, under the leadership of the Law (for Moses was a type of the Law that was coming) Israel passes unwetted over that sea, while the Egyptian who crosses in her track is overwhelmed. Each fares according to the disposition which he carries with him; one walks lightly enough, the other is dragged into the deep water. For virtue is a light and buoyant thing, and all who live in her way “fly like clouds!*”°,” as Isaiah says, “and as doves with their young ones”; but sin is a heavy affair, “sitting,” as another of the prophets says, “upon a talent of lea If, however, this reading of the history appears to any forced and inapplicable, and the miracle at the Red Sea does not present itself to him as written for our profit, let him listen to the Apostle: “Now all these things happened unto them for types, and they are written for our admonition!*’*.”
1465 S. John xiv. 6 1468 didaoKxadtav eEopodoyrjoews UPnyovuEvos 1470 Is. lx. 8. The LXX. has meptotepav ovv veoooois. 1471 Zech. v. 7. “this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah:” Emi u€oov tod pétpov (LXX.). Origen and Jerome as well as Gregory make her sit upon the lead itself. Vatablus explains that the lead was in an amphora.
Chapter XIX Chapter XIX.
But besides other things the action of Miriam the prophetess also gives rise to these surmisings of ours. Directly the sea was crossed she took in her hand a dry and sounding timbrel and conducted the women’s dance!*’, By this timbrel the story may mean to imply virginity, as first perfected by Miriam; whom indeed I would believe to be a type of Mary the mother of God'474 moisture and reduced to the highest degree of dryness, so has virginity a clear and ringing . Just as the timbrel emits a loud sound because it is devoid of all report amongst men because it repels from itself the vital sap of merely physical life. Thus, Miriam’s timbrel being a dead thing, and virginity being a deadening of the bodily passions, 1475 that Miriam was a it is perhaps not very far removed from the bounds of probability virgin. However, we can but guess and surmise, we cannot clearly prove, that this was so, and that Miriam the prophetess led a dance of virgins, even though many of the learned have affirmed distinctly that she was unmarried, from the fact that the history makes no mention either of her marriage or of her being a mother; and surely she would have been named and known, not as “the sister of Aaron!*’®,” but from her husband, if she had had one; since the head of the woman is not the brother but the husband. But if, amongst a people with whom motherhood was sought after and classed as a blessing and regarded as a public duty, the grace of virginity, nevertheless, came to be regarded as a precious thing, how does it behove us to feel towards it, who do not “judge” of the Divine blessings!4”” “according to the flesh”? Indeed it has been revealed in the oracles of God, on what occasion to conceive and to bring forth is a good thing, and what species of fecundity was desired by God’s saints; for both the Prophet Isaiah and the divine Apostle have made this clear and d!478» the other boasts that he is the parent of the largest family of any, bringing to the birth whole cities and nations; certain. The one cries, “From fear of Thee, O Lord, have I conceive not the Corinthians and Galatians only whom by his travailings he moulded for the Lord, but all in the wide circuit from Jerusalem to Illyricum; his children filled the world, “begotten” 1474 81 Ac oipat Kai tHv OcotdKov mpodiatutobaba1t Mapiav. These words are absent from the Munich Cod. i.e. the German; not from Vat. and Reg. Ambrose, Ep. 25, has “Quid de altera Moysi sorore Maria loquar, que foeminei dux agminis pede transmisit pelagi freta,” when speaking “de gloria virginitatis.”
1477 _ S. John viii. 15. “Ye judge after the flesh.” It is Gregory’s manner to make such passing allusions to Scripture, and especially to S. Paul.
1478 Gregory here quotes from LXX. Cf. Is. xxvi. 18, and also below, étéxopev mvebua owtnpias cov, 6 EMOINOAUEV ETL Tis is.
Chapter XIX by him in Christ through the Gospel!4”?. In the same strain the womb of the Holy Virgin, which ministered to an Immaculate Birth, is pronounced blessed in the Gospel!**°, for that birth did not annul the Virginity, nor did the Virginity impede so great a birth. When the “spirit of salvation!“*",” as Isaiah namesit, is being born, the willings of the flesh are useless. There is also a particular teaching of the Apostle, which harmonizes with this; viz. each man of us is a double man’4*?; one the outwardly visible, whose natural fate it is to decay; the other perceptible only in the secret of the heart, yet capable of renovation. If this teaching is true,—and it must be true!4®° because Wisdom is speaking there,—then there is no absurdity in supposing a double marriage also which answers in every detail to either man; and, maybe, if one was to assert boldly that the body’s virginity was the co-operator and the agent of the inward marriage, this assertion would not be much beside the probable fact.
1481 Is. xxvi. 18 (LXX.). See above. But R.V. “We have as it were brought forth wind: we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth.”
1483 m&vtwe dé dAnO1),, x. t. A. So Codd. Reg. and Morell., for mavtwv. Gregory alludes to 2 Cor. xiii. 3.
Chapter XX Chapter XX.
Now it is impossible, as far as manual exercise goes, to ply two arts at once; for instance, husbandry and sailing, or tinkering and carpentering. If one is to be honestly taken in hand, the other must be left alone. Just so, there are these two marriages for our choice, the one effected in the flesh, the other in the spirit; and preoccupation in the one must cause of necessity alienation from the other. No more is the eye able to look at two objects at once; but it must concentrate its special attention on one at a time; no more can the tongue effect utterances in two different languages, so as to pronounce, for instance, a Hebrew word and a Greek word in the same moment: no more can the ear take in at one and the same time a narrative of facts, and a hortatory discourse; if each special tone is heard separately, it will impress its ideas upon the hearers’ minds; but if they are combined and so poured into the ear, an inextricable confusion of ideas will be the result, one meaning being mutually lost in the other: and no more, by analogy, do our emotional powers possess a nature which can at once pursue the pleasures of sense and court the spiritual union; nor, besides, can both those ends be gained by the same courses of life; continence, mortification of the passions, scorn of fleshly needs, are the agents of the one union; but all that are the reverse of these are the agents of bodily habitation. As, when two masters are before us to choose between, and we cannot be subject to both, for “no man can serve two masters!4*4” he who is wise will choose the one most useful to himself, so, when two marriages are before us to choose between, and we cannot contract both, for “he that is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord, but he that is married careth for the things of the world!4®>,” I repeat that it would be the aim of a sound mind not to miss choosing the more profitable one; and not to be ignorant either of the way which will lead it to this, a way which cannot be learnt but by some such comparison as the following. In the case of a marriage of this world a man who is anxious to avoid appearing altogether insignificant pays the greatest attention both to physical health, and becoming adornment, and amplitude of means and the security from any disgraceful revelations as to his antecedents or his parentage; for so he thinks things will be most likely to turn out as he wishes. Now just in the same way the man who is courting the spiritual alliance will first of all display himself, by the renewal of his mind!486, a young man, without a single touch of age upon him; next he will reveal a lineage rich in that in which it is a noble ambition to be rich, not priding himself on worldly wealth, but luxuriating only in the heavenly treasures. As for family distinction, he will not vaunt that which comes by the mere routine of devolution even to numbers of the worthless, but that which is gained by the successful efforts of his own zeal and labours; a distinction which Chapter XX Chapter XX only those can boast of who are “sons of the light” and children of God, and are styled 1487» because of their splendid deeds. Strength and health he will not try to gain by bodily training and feeding, but by all that is the contrary of this, perfecting “nobles from the sunrise the spirit’s strength in the body’s weakness. I could tell also of the suitor’s gifts to the bride insucha wedding!*88, they are not procured by the money that perishes, but are contributed out of the wealth peculiar to the soul. Would you know their names? You must hear from ae in what the wealth of those consists who in Paul, that excellent adorner of the Bride everything commend themselves. He mentions much else that is priceless in it, and adds, “in chastity!4””; and besides this all the recognized fruits of the spirit from any quarter whatever are gifts of this marriage. Ifa man is going to carry out the advice of Solomon and take for helpmate and life-companion that true Wisdom of which he says, “Love her, and she shall keep thee,” “honour her, that she may embrace thee*”!,” then he will prepare himself in a manner worthy of such a love, so as to feast with all the joyous wedding guests in spotless raiment, and not be cast forth, while claiming to sit at that feast, for not having put on the wedding garment. It is plain moreover that the argument applies equally to men and women, to move them towards such a marriage. “There is neither male nor female!4??,” the Apostle says; “Christ is all, and in all!495”; and so it is equally reasonable that he who is enamoured of wisdom should hold the Object of his passionate desire, Who is the True Wisdom; and that the soul which cleaves to the undying Bridegroom should have the fruition of her love for the true Wisdom, which is God. We have now sufficiently revealed the nature of the spiritual union, and the Object of the pure and heavenly Love.
1487 See S. Matt. viii. 11; S. Luke xiii. 29. The same expression (evyevijg THv ag’ NAtov d&vatoAdv) is used of Meletius, in Gregory’s funeral oration on him. 1488 = ta Edva tod ycuov, i.e. given by the bridegroom. The Juris-consults called it Donatio propter nuptias, or simply Donatio. The human soul here espouses Wisdom, i.e. Christ, as its Bride. See below, where Prov. iv. 6 is quoted. 1489 vup@ootdAov Chapter XXI Chapter XXI.
It is perfectly clear that no one can come near the purity of the Divine Being who has not first himself become such; he must therefore place between himself and the pleasures of the senses a high strong wall of separation, so that in this his approach to the Deity the purity of his own heart may not become soiled again. Such an impregnable wall will be found in a complete estrangement from everything wherein passion operates.
Now pleasure is one in kind, as we learn from the experts; as water parted into various channels from one single fountain, it spreads itself over the pleasure-lover through the various avenues of the senses; so that it has been on his heart that the man, who through any one particular sensation succumbs to the resulting pleasure, has received a wound from that sensation. This accords with the teaching given from the Divine lips, that “he who has aie for I take it that our Lord was speaking in that particular example of any of the senses; so that we might satisfied the lust of the eyes has received the mischief already in his heart well carry on His saying, and add, “He who hath heard, to lust after,” and what follows, “He who hath touched to lust after,” “ of pleasure, hath sinned in his heart.”
He who hath lowered any faculty within us to the service To prevent this, then, we want to apply to our own lives that rule of all temperance, never to let the mind dwell on anything wherein pleasure’s bait is hid; but above all to be specially watchful against the pleasure of taste. For that seems in a way the most deeply rooted, and to be the mother as it were of all forbidden enjoyment. The pleasures of eating and drinking, leading to boundless excess, inflict upon the body the doom of the most dreadful sufferings'4?°; for over-indulgence is the parent of most of the painful diseases. To secure for the body a continuous tranquillity, unstirred by the pains of surfeit, we must make up our minds to a more sparing regimen, and constitute the need of it on each occasion not the pleasure of it, as the measure and limit of our indulgence. If the sweetness will nevertheless mingle itself with the satisfaction of the need (for hunger knows how to sweeten everything ~~”, and by the vehemence of appetite she gives the zest of pleasure to every discoverable supply of the need), we must not because of the resulting enjoyment reject the satisfaction, nor yet make this latter our leading aim. In everything we must select the expedient quantity, and leave untouched what merely feasts the senses!*?”, 1495 dvayxryv Eurorobo1 tHv aBovAntOv KaKdv, MAnopovi|s Ws Ta TOAAG ExtiKtovONG, K. T. A., removing the comma from mAnopovijs (Paris Edit.) to kaKdv.
1496 Cf. Cicero, 2 De Fin. Bon.: “Socratem audio dicentem cibi condimentum esse famem; potionis sitim;” so Antiphanes (apud Stobzeum), amdv’ 6 Atpos yAvKEa, MANY avtod, motet.
1497 Kata to mponyovuEvov, principaliter. Cf. Clem. Alexand. Strom., ta d6véyata obupoda TOV vonudtwv KATH TO TpoNyovuEVoY, i.e. of general concepts.
Chapter XXII Chapter XXII.
We see how the husbandmen have a method for separating the chaff, which is united with the wheat, with a view to employ each for its proper purpose, the one for the sustenance of man, the other for burning and the feeding of animals. The labourer in the field of temperance will in like manner distinguish the satisfaction from the mere delight, and will fling 1498 «whose end is to be burned'*”?,” as the Apostle says, but this latter nature to savages will take the other, in proportion to the actual need, with thankfulness. Many, however, slide into the very opposite kind of excess, and unconsciously to themselves, in their overpreciseness, laboriously thwart their own design; they let their soul fall down the other side from the heights of Divine elevation to the level of dull thoughts and occupations, where their minds are so bent upon regulations which merely affect the body, that they can no longer walk in their heavenly freedom and gaze above; their only inclination is to this tormenting and afflicting of the flesh. It would be well, then, to give this also careful thought, so as to be equally on our guard against either over-amount ~~’, neither stifling the mind beneath the wound of the flesh, nor, on the other hand, by gratuitously inflicted weakenings sapping and lowering the powers, so that it can have no thought but of the body’s pain"), and let every one remember that wise precept, which warns us from turning to the right hand or to the left. I have heard a certain physician of my acquaintance, in the course of explaining the secrets of his art, say that our body consists of four elements, not of the same species, but disposed to be conflicting: yet the hot penetrated the cold, and an equally unexpected union of the wet and the dry took place, the contradictories of each pair being brought into contact by their relationship to the intervening pair. He added an extremely subtle explanation of this account of his studies in nature. Each of these elements was in its essence diametrically °° opposed to its contradictory; but then it had two other qualities lying on each side of it, and by virtue of its kinship with them it came into contact with its contradictory; for example, the cold and the hot each unite with the wet, or the dry; and again, the wet and the dry each unite with the hot, or the cold: and so this sameness of quality, when it » 1498 toic dAoywtéporc. Fronto Duczus translates “bardis objiciat,” i.e. “savages,” not “beasts.”