as from an all-fruitful field;" on account of which exuberance he adds:
"Thou speakest of a harvest-wreath not of husbandry."
For the Athenians were wont to cry:
"The harvest-wreath bears figs and fat loaves,
And honey in a cup, and olive oil to anoint you."
We must then often, as in winnowing sieves, shake and toss up this the great mixture of seeds, in order to separate the wheat.
CHAPTER III.
THE TRUE EXCELLENCE OF MAN.
The most of men have a disposition unstable and heedless, like the nature of storms. "Want of faith has done many good things, and faith evil things." And Epicharmus says, "Don't forget to exercise incredulity; for it is the sinews of the soul." Now, to disbelieve truth brings death, as to believe, life; and again, to believe the lie and to disbelieve the truth hurries to destruction. The same is the case with self-restraint and licentiousness. To restrain one's self from doing good is the work of vice; but to keep from wrong is the beginning of salvation. So the Sabbath, by abstinence from evils, seems to indicate self-restraint. And what, I ask, is it in which man differs from beasts, and the angels of God, on the other hand, are wiser than he? "Thou madest him a little lower than the angels."[1] For some do not interpret this scripture of the Lord, although He also bore flesh, but of the perfect man and the gnostic, inferior in comparison with the angels in time, and by reason of the vesture [of the body]. I call then wisdom nothing but science, since life differs not from life. For to live is common to the mortal nature, that is to man, with that to which has been vouchsafed immortality; as also the faculty of contemplation and of self-restraint, one of the two being more excellent.
- ↑ Ps. viii. 6.
