Chapter XX.; original source section: Chapter 20; original book/conference: XVII. The Second Conference of Abbot Joseph.
Complete historical editorial footnotes. These notes retain the original edition’s wording; individual note authors are unspecified.
English translation and editorial credits: Rev. Edgar C. S. Gibson (M.A.).
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the introduction to his sermon at Athens where heathen wickedness was flourishing: “As I passed by,” he says, “I saw your idols and an altar on which was written: To the unknown God;” and when he had thus started from their superstition, as if he himself also had been without law, under the cloke of that profane inscription he introduced the faith of Christ, saying: “What therefore ye ignorantly worship, that declare I unto you.” And after a little, as if he had known nothing whatever of the Divine law, he chose to bring forward a verse of a heathen poet rather than a saying of Moses or Christ, saying: “As some also of your own poets have said: for we are also His offspring.” And when he had thus approached them with their own authorities, which they could not reject, thus confirming the truth by things false, he added and said: “Since then we are the offspring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like to gold or silver or stone sculptured by the art and device of man.” But to the weak he became weak, when, by way of permission, not of command, he allowed those who could not contain themselves to return together again, or when he fed the Corinthians with milk and not with meat, and says that he was with them in weakness and fear and much trembling. But he became all things to all men that he might save all, when he says: “He that eateth let him not despise him that eateth not, and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth:” and: “He that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well, and he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better;” and elsewhere: “Who,” says he, “is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?” and in this way he fulfilled what he had commanded the Corinthians to do when he said: “Be ye without offence to Jews and Greeks and the Church of Christ, as I also please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit but that of the many, that they may be saved.” For it had certainly been profitable not to circumcise Timothy, not to shave his head, not to undergo Jewish purification, not to practice going barefoot, not to pay legal vows; but he did all these things because he did not seek his own profit but that of the many. And although this was done with the full consideration of God, yet it was not free from dissimulation. For one who through the law of Christ was dead to the law that he might live to God, and who had made and treated that righteousness of the law in which he had lived blameless, as dung, that he might gain Christ, could not with true fervour of heart offer what belonged to the law; nor is it right to believe that he who had said: “For if I again rebuild what I have destroyed, I make myself a transgressor,” would himself fall into what he had condemned. And to such an extent is account taken, not so much of the actual thing which is done as of the disposition of the doer, that on the other hand truth is sometimes found to have injured some, and a lie to have done them good. For when Saul was grumbling to his servants about David’s flight, and saying: “Will the son of Jesse give you all fields and vineyards, and make you all tribunes and centurions: that all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one to inform me,” did Doeg the Edomite say anything but the truth, when he told him: “I saw the son of Jesse in Nob, with Abimelech the son of Ahitub the priest, who consulted the Lord for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him also the sword of Goliath the Philistine?” For which true story he deserved to be rooted up out of the land of the living, and it is said of him by the prophet: “Wherefore God shall destroy thee forever, and pluck thee up and tear thee out of thy tabernacle, and thy root from the land of the living:” He then for showing the truth is forever plucked and rooted up out of that land in which the harlot Rahab with her family is planted for her lie: just as also we remember that Samson most injuriously betrayed to his wicked wife the truth which he had hidden for a long time by a lie, and therefore the truth so inconsiderately disclosed was the cause of his own deception, because he had neglected to keep the command of the prophet: “Keep the doors of thy mouth from her that sleepeth in thy bosom.”