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130 Pages
Page 108
Homily XXII., which is of considerable interest, on the study of pagan literature, is really not a homily at all. [658] It is a short treatise addressed to the young on their education. It would seem to have been written in the Archbishop's later years, unless the experience of which he speaks may refer rather to his earlier experience, alike as a student and a teacher.
No source of instruction can be overlooked in the preparation for the great battle of life, [659] and there is a certain advantage to be derived from the right use of heathen writers. The illustrious Moses is described as training his intellect in the science of the Egyptians, and so arriving at the contemplation of Him Who is. [660] So in later days Daniel at Babylon was wise in the Chaldean philosophy, and ultimately apprehended the divine instruction. But granted that such heathen learning is not useless, the question remains how you are to participate in it. To begin with the poets. Their utterances are of very various kinds, and it will not be well to give attention to all without exception. When they narrate to you the deeds and the words of good men, admire and copy them, and strive diligently to be like them. When they come to bad men, shut your ears, and avoid imitating them, like Ulysses fleeing from the sirens' songs. [661] Familiarity with evil words is a sure road to evil deeds, wherefore every possible precaution must be taken to prevent our souls from unconsciously imbibing evil influences through literary gratification, like men who take poison in honey. We shall not therefore praise the poets when they revile and mock, or when they describe licentious, intoxicated characters, when they define happiness as consisting in a laden table and dissolute ditties. Least of all shall we attend to the poets when they are talking about the gods, specially when their talk is of many gods, and those in mutual disagreement. For among them brother is at variance with brother, parent against children, and children wage a truceless war against parents. The gods' adulteries and amours and unabashed embraces, and specially those of Zeus, whom they describe as the chief and highest of them all,--things which could not be told without a blush of brutes,--all this let us leave to actors on the stage. [662]
I must make the same remark about historians, specially when they write merely to please. And we certainly shall not follow rhetoricians in the art of lying....I have been taught by one well able to understand a poet's mind that with Homer all his poetry is praise of virtue, and that in him all that is not mere accessory tends to this end. A marked instance of this is his description of the prince of the Kephallenians saved naked from shipwreck. No sooner did he appear than the princess viewed him with reverence; so far was she from feeling anything like shame at seeing him naked and alone, since his virtue stood him in the stead of clothes. [663] Afterwards he was of so much estimation among the rest of the Phaeacians that they abandoned the pleasures amid which they lived, all looked up to him and imitated him, and not a man of the Phaeacians prayed for anything more eagerly than that he might be Ulysses,--a mere waif saved from shipwreck. Herein my friend said that he was the interpreter of the poet's mind; that Homer all but said aloud, Virtue, O men, is what you have to care for. Virtue swims out with the shipwrecked sailor, and when he is cast naked on the coast, virtue makes him more noble than the happy Phaeacians. And truly this is so. Other belongings are not more the property of their possessors than of any one else. They are like dice flung hither and thither in a game. Virtue is the one possession which cannot be taken away, and remains with us alike alive and dead.
[658] It has often been separately published. In 1600 it was included by Martin Haynoccius in an Enchiridion Ethicum, containing also Plutarch's two tracts on the education of boys and the study of the poets, with which it is interesting to compare it. Grotius published it with Plutarch's De Legendis Poetis at Paris in 1623. They were also published together by Archbishop Potter at Oxford in 1691.
[659] S: 2.
[660] tou ontos. The highest heathen philosophy strove to reach the neuter to on. The revelation of Jehovah is of the masculine ho on, who communicates with his creatures, and says ego eimi.
[661] Hom., Od. xii. 158. cf. Letter i. p. 109.
[662] This shews that the shameless and cruel exhibitions of earlier days had not died out even in the fourth century. cf. Suetonius, Nero xi., xii., Tertullian, Apol. 15. On the whole subject, see Bp. Lightfoot's note on St. Clem. Rom., Ep. ad Cor. vi., where Danaides kai Dirkai is probably a misreading for neanides paidiskai. He refers for illustrations to Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms, ii. 234.
[663] Od. vi. 135 k.t.l.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/life-works.asp?pg=108
