Birth And Virtue

Econtratrio monendi sunt ignobiles, ut studeant esse nobiles virtutibus, quamvis non sint nobiles nobilitate sanguinis, quia humili loco nati multi clari fuerunt, prout ait Valerius libro iii capitulo viii. Pones exampla de talibus, sicut de Tullio Hostilio quem in cunabulis accepit agreste tugurium. Eiusdem adolescentia in pecora pascendo fuit occupata, validior etas. Imperium Romanum rexit et duplicavit, senectus in altissimo maiestatis fastigio fulsit. Et ibidem de aliis talibus. Similiter narrat qualiter humiliter nati, fulserunt nobilitate philosophie. Socrates inquit, non solum hominum consensu, verum etiam Appollonis oraculo sapientibus, iudicatus phantaice vel phanaretis matre obsistrice, et sophanisto patre marmorareo vel morario genitus ad clarissimum glorie lumine accessit, et si virtus per seipsum existimatur magister vite optimus. Et ibidem quam matrem eripides, aut quem patern Demostenes habuit, ipsorum quoque seculo ignotum fuit, alterius enim matrem cultellos vendidisse, omnium pene doctorum litere loquuntur. Sed quid aut illius tragita, aut huius oratoria vir clarus, natus ergo de humili genere, clarus tamen philosophia, et virtutibus satis magis est commendabilis nobili nato et alto genere, talibus carente. Johannes Gallensis, Communiloquium sive Summa Collationum, Tercia part: De informatione hominum quantum ad ea que omnibus sunt communia, Tercia distinctio, Captiulum tercium: De ignobilibus Source: here, p138

On the contrary the ignoble should be encouraged so that they become zealous to be noble by virtue, though they are not noble by nobility of blood, because many who were born in lowly position have become celebrated men, as Valerius says in book 3 chapter 8, giving examples of such men like Tullius Hostilius whom a rustic hut received into its cradle. His youth having been spent in pasturing cattle, he became strong in years, and ruling as king of the Romans, he doubled their territory, and in old age he shone with the most high majesty. 1 And in the some place he speaks of others. And likewise he tells of those who were humbly born and shone with the nobility of philosophy. Socrates, he says, not only by the agreement of men, but by the oracle of Apollo, was adjudged to be truly wise, he who was born of a mother, Phaenarete, who was a midwife, and his father, Sophroniscus, was a marble worker, or a stone cutter, but he came to the brightest light of glory, if virtue is judged to be the best teacher of life. And in the same place the mother of Euripides, and the father of Demosthenes, were also unknown to the world, for the mother of the former sold knives, 2 yet they are celebrated in nearly all of the works of those who are educated, for the first in tragedy and the other in oratory were great men, and both were born in a humble state, yet by philosophy they become famous, for indeed virtue is more commendable than a noble birth or a fine lineage which lacks such things. John of Wales, The Communiloquium, Third Part, On The Fashioning of Men In Things All Have In Common, Third Distinction, Third Chapter, On The Ignoble. 1 Valerius Maximus 3.4.2 2 Valerius Maximus 3.4e.1-2

A Plea For Endurance

Εἰ Σωκράτης ὁ τῶν Ἀττικῶν δογμάτων νομοθέτης, καὶ τυπτηθεὶς οὐκ ἠμύνατο, αὐτὸς τί ἀλύεις μόνον ὑβρισθεὶς, ὡς γέγραφας; Εἰ γὰρ φιλοσοφήσειας, αὐτὸς τὴν Σωκράτους δόξαν ἀποίσῃ, εἰ καὶ ἧττον Σωκράτους πεπαρῴνησαι· ὁ δὲ ἐξ ἑναντίας ὡς βέλει τῇ μεγαλοψυχίᾳ τρωθήσεται, ἤ καὶ ἔσθ' ὅτε τῆς φιλαμαρτήμονος μεταβληθήσεται καὶ γνώνης καὶ γλώσσης, καὶ χάριν σοι εἴσεται ὡς αἰτίῳ τῆς ἀλλοιώσεως. Ἅγιος Ἰσίδωρος Του Πηλουσιώτου, Βιβλιον Πρῶτον, Ἐπιστολή ΙΑ´ Ὠφελιῳ Γραμμτικῳ Source: Migne PG 78.185d-188a

If Socrates, that law giver of Attic dogmas, did not defend himself when attacked, why are you distraught by mere insolence, as you write? If you would be philosophical, look to the glory of Socrates, even if you are pierced by something less than him. Against that which wounds your soul like a weighty spear, if you shall transform mind and tongue to love of enduring, you shall have good repute, just as in the case of another. Saint Isidore of Pelusium, Book 1, Letter 11, To Ophelius the Scholar

Knowledge And Union

Ὅλβιος, ὁστις τῆς ἱστορίας ἔσχε μάθησιν, μήτε πολιτῶν ἐπιπημοσύνῃ, μήτ' εἰς ἀδίκους πράξεις ὁρμῶν, ἀλλ' ἀθανάτου καθορῶν φύσεως κόσμον ἀγήρω. πῇ τε συνέστη, καὶ ὅπη, καὶ ὅπως, τοῖς δὲ τοιοὺτοις, οὐδέ ποτ' αἰσχρῶν ἔργων μελέτημα προσίζει.' Εἰκότως οὖν καὶ Πλάτων ' τὸν τῶν ἰδεῶν θεωρητικὸν Θεὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποις ζήσεσθαί φησι· νοῦς δὲ χώρα ἰδεῶν· νοῦς δὲ ὁ Θεός.' Τὸν ἀοπάτου Θεοῦ θεωρητικὸν Θεὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποις ζῶντα εἴρηκεν. Καὶ ἐν τῷ 'Σοφιστῇ' δὲ τὸν Ἐλεάτην ξένον, διαλεκτικὸν ὄντα, ὁ Σωκράτης 'Θεὸν' ὠνόμασεν· 'οἴους τοὺς Θεοὺς ξείνοισιν ἐοικότας ἀλλοδα ποῖσιν, ἐπιφοιτῶντας τοῖς ἄστεσιν. Ὅταν γὰρ ψυχὴ γενέσεως ὑπεξαβᾶσα, καθ' ἑαυτήν γε ᾖ, καὶ ὁμιλῇ τοῖς εἰδεσιν· 'οἶός ἐστιν ὁ ἐν τῷ ' Θεαιτήτῳ' κορυφαῖος· οἶον ἀγγελος ἤδη γενόμενος, σὺν Χριστῷ τε ἔσται, θεωρητικὸς ὤν, ἀεὶ τὸ βούλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ σκοπῶν, τῷ ὄντι. Οἴος πεπνυμένος, τοὶ δ' ὡς σκιαὶ ἀῖσσουσιν. Νεκροὶ γὰρ τοὺς ἑαυτῶν θάπτουσι νεκρούς. Ὅθεν Ἰερεμίας λέγει· 'Πληρώσω αὐτὴν νεκρῶν γηγενῶν, οὐς ἔπαισεν ἡ ὀργή μου. Ὁ μὲν οὖν Θεὸς ἀναπόδεικτος ὦν, οὐκ ἔστιν ἐπιστημονικός· ὁ δὲ Υἰὸς σοφία τέ ἐστι, καὶ ἐπιστήμη, καὶ ἀλήθεια, καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τούτῳ συγγενῆ. Καὶ δὴ καὶ ἀπόδειξιν ἔχει, καὶ διέξοδον· πᾶσαι δὲ αἱ δυνάμεις Πνεύματος, συλλήβδην μὲν ἔν τι πρᾶγμα γενόμεναι, συντελοῦσιν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ, τὸν Υἰόν· ἀπαρέμφατος δέ ἐστι τῆς περὶ ἐκάστης αὐτοῦ τῶν δυνάμεων ἐννοίας. Καὶ δὴ οὐ γένεται ἀτεχνῶς ἕν ὡς ἔν, ούδὲ πολλὰ ὡς μέρη ὁ Υἱὸς, ἀλλ' ὡς πάντα ἕν· ἔνθεν καὶ πάντα· κύκλος γὰρ ὁ αὐτὸς πασῶν τῶν δυνάμεων εἰς ἕν εἰλουμένων καὶ ἐνουμένων· διὰ τοῦτο 'Α καὶ Ω' ὁ Λόγος εἴρηται· οὖ μόνου τὸ τέλος ἀρχὴ γίνεται, καὶ τελευτᾷ πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἄνωθεν ἀρχὴν, οὐδαμοῦ διάστασιν λαβών. Διὸ δὴ καὶ τὸ εἰς αὐτὸν καὶ τὸ δι' αὐτοῦ πιστεῦσαι μοναδικόν ἐστι γενέσθαι, ἀπερισπάστως ἐνούμενον ἐν αὐτῷ· τὸ δὲ ἀπιστῆσαι διστάσαι ἐστὶ, καὶ διαστῆναι, καὶ μερισθῆναι. Κλήμης ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, Στρωματεων, Λόγος Τέταρτος, Κεφ ΚΕ' Source: Migne PG 8.1364b-1365c

Happy the one who has the culture of knowledge, and is not driven to the injury of neighbours or to unjust deeds, but beholds the undecaying order of immortal nature, the way it is and how it is and by what, to such a man the care for base deeds does not adhere. Rightly, then, Plato says, 'The man who contemplates the ideas will live as a god among men, and the mind is the place of ideas, and God is mind.' He says that he who contemplates the unseen God lives as a god among men. And in the Sophist, Socrates names the stranger of Elea, who was a dialectician, 'god': 'Such are the gods who, making themselves like foreign guests, come often to cities.' For when the soul, rising above the place of origin, is by itself apart, and is in the company of the ideas, like the Coryphæus in Theaetetus, now being like an angel, it will be with Christ, in contemplation, ever regarding the will of God in reality. 'Alone wise, while others fleet like shadows.' 1 'For the dead bury their dead.' 2 Whence Jeremiah says: 'I will fill it with the earth-born dead whom my anger has struck down.' 3 God, then, being not demonstrable, cannot be the object of knowledge, but the Son is wisdom and knowledge and truth, and all else that has affinity to this. And has demonstration and description, and all the powers of the Spirit, becoming collectively one thing, come to an end in the same, that is, in the Son, but He is not able to be declared, in the ideas of each of His powers. And He is neither simply one thing as one thing, nor is the Son many parts, but he is one thing in all, whence He is all things. For He is the circle of all powers rolled and united into one, by which the Word is called the Alpha and the Omega, of whom alone end becomes beginning, and ends again at the original beginning, having no rupture. Thus to believe in Him and by Him is to become a unit, being indissolubly united in Him, and to disbelieve is to be cut off, disjoined, divided. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Book 4, Ch 25 1 Hom. Odyssey, 10.495 2 Mt 8.22 3 Jerem 33.5

Spreading The Faith

Adde quod ante resurrectionem Christi, notus tantum in Judaea erat Deus: in Israel magnum nomen eius. Et ipsi qui noverant cum, tamen ad inferos trahebantur. Ubi tunc totius orbis homines, ab India usque ad Britanniam, a rigida Septentrionis plaga, usque ad fervores Atlantici Oceani, tam innumerabiles populi, et tantarum gentium multitudines? Quam variae linguis, habitu tam vestis, et armis. Piscium ritu ac locustarum et velut muscae et culices conterebantur: absque notitia etenim Creatoris sui, omnis homo pecus est, Nunc vero passionem Christi, et resurrectionem eius, cunctarem gentium et voces et litterae sonant. Taceo Hebraeis, Graecis, et Latinis, quas nationes fidei suae in Crucis titulo Dominus dedicavit. Immortalem animam et Pythagoras somniavit, Democritus non credidit, in consolationem damnationis suae Socrates disputavit in carcere, Indus, Persa, Gothus, Aegyptius philosophantur. Bessorum ferita, et pellitorum turba populorum, qui mortuorum quondam inferiis homines immolabant, stridorem summ in dulce Crucis fregerunt melos, et totius mundi una vox Christus est.  Sanctus Hieronymus, Epistola LX, Ad Heliodorum Source: Migne PL 22 591-592

Moreover, before the resurrection of Christ only in Judah was God known, only in Israel was His name great. And even they who knew Him were dragged down to hell. Where in those days were the men of the globe from India to Britain, from the freezing blasts of the North to the warmth of the Atlantic ocean? Where were the innumerable peoples of the world, where those multitudes 'So unlike in tongue, in style of dress and arms' ?1 Like fishes and locusts, like flies and gnats they were crushed. For apart from knowledge of his Creator every man is but a beast. Now, in truth, the voices and letters of all nations proclaim the passion and the resurrection of Christ. I am silent about the Jews, the Greeks, and the Latins, peoples the Lord dedicated to His faith in the title written on the Cross. Pythagoras dreamed of the immortality of the soul, Democritus would not credit it, Socrates disputed over it in prison to console himself for his condemnation, but now the Indian, Persian, Goth and Egyptian philosophise. Even the wild Bessians and crowds of skinclad savages who once sacrificed men in honour of the dead have broken out of their howling into the sweet music of the Cross, and Christ is the one voice of all the world. St Jerome, from Letter 60, To Heliodorus 1 Virgil, Aeneid, 8.723