On Pilgrimages: ms. Ceesareus (Vienna): “valde vetustus” (Nessel, on the Imperial Lib- rary), vellum, No. 160, burnt at beginning.
mss. Florence (xx. 17: xvi. 8).
ms. Leyden (not older than fifteenth century).
54 a MSS. And Editions.
On the Making of Man: ms. Augsburgh, with twelve Homilies of Basil, the two last being wrongly attributed to Gregory (Reizer).
ms. Ambrosian (Milan). See Montfaucon, Bibl. Bibliothec. p. 498.
On Infants’ Early Deaths: ms. Turin (Royal Library).
On the Soul and Resurrection: mss. Augsburgh, Florence, Turin, Venice.
Great Catechetical: mss. Augsburgh, Florence, Turin, Czesareus.
Many other mss., for these and other treatises, are given by S. Heyns (Disputatio de Greg. Nyss. Leyden, 1835). But considering the mutilated condition of most of the oldest, and the still small number of treatises edited from an extended collation of these, the com- plaint is still true that ‘the text of hardly any other ancient writer is in a more imperfect state than that of Gregory of Nyssa.’
Versions of Several Treatises. Latin.
1. Of Dionysius Exiguus (died before 556): On the Making of Man. Aldine, 1537. Cologne, 1551. Basle, 1562. Cologne, 1573. Dedicated to Eugippius.’ This Ded- ication and the Latin of Gregory’s Preface was only once printed (i.e. in J. Ma- billon’s Analecta, Paris, 1677).
This ancient Latin Version was revised by Fronto Duceus, the Jesuit, and Combeficius. There is a copy of it at Leyden. It stimulated J. Letinclaius (see below), who judged it “foeda pollutum barbaria planeque perversum,” to make another. Basle, 1567.
2. Of Daniel Augentius: On the Soul. Paris 1557.
3. Of Laurent. Sifanus, I. U. Doct.: On the Soul and many other treatises. Basle, 1562 Apud N. Episcopum.
4. Of Pet. Galesinius: On Virginity and On Prayer. Rome, 1563, ap. P. Manutium.
5. Of Johann. Leiinclaius: On the Making of Man. Basle, 1567, ap. Oporinum.
6. Of Pet. Morelius, of Tours: Great Catechetical. Paris, 1568.
7. Of Gentianus Hervetus, Canon of Rheims, a diligent translator of the Fathers: Great Catechetical, and many others. Paris, 1573.
8. Of Johann. Livineius, of Ghent: On Virginity. Apud Plantinum, 1574.
9. Of Pet. Fr. Zinus, Canon of Verona, translator of Euthymius’ Panoplia, which contains the Great Catechetical. Venice, 1575.
55 MSS. And Editions.
10. Of Jacob Gretser, the Jesuit: I. e. Eunom. Paris, 1618.
11. Of Nicolas Gulonius, Reg. Prof. of Greek: II.-XIII. c. Eunom. Paris, 1615. Revised by his son John, the Franciscan.
12. Of J. Georg. Krabinger, Librarian of Royal Library, Munich: On the Soul, Great Catechetical, On Infants’ Early Deaths, and others. Leipzic, 1837.
German.
1. Of Glauber: Great Catechetical, &c. Gregorius von Nyssa und Augustinus tiber den ersten Christlichen Religions-unterricht. Leipzic, 1781.
2. Of Julius Rupp, K6nigsberg: On Meletius. Gregors Leben und Meinungen. Leip- 3. Of Oehler: Various treatises. Bibliothek der Kirchenvater I. Theil. Leipzic, 1858-59.
4, Herm. Schmidt, paraphrased rather than translated: On the Soul. Halle, 1864.
5. Of H. Hayd: On Infants’ Early Deaths: On the Making of Man, &c. Kempton, 56 Dogmatic Treatises.
Gregory of Nyssa Against Eunomius.
Letter I.
Gregory to his brother Peter, Bishop of Sebasteia.
Having with difficulty obtained a little leisure, I have been able to recover from bodily fatigue on my return from Armenia, and to collect the sheets of my reply to Eunomius which was suggested by your wise advice; so that my work is now arranged in a complete treatise, which can be read between covers. However, I have not written against both his pamphlets” Ps even the leisure for that was not granted; for the person who lent me the heretical volume most uncourteously sent for it again, and allowed me no time either to write it out or to study it. In the short space of seventeen days it was impossible to be prepared to answer both his attacks.
Owing to its somehow having become notorious that we had laboured to answer this blasphemous manifesto, many persons possessing some zeal for the Truth have importuned me about it: but I have thought it right to prefer you in your wisdom before them all, to advise me whether to consign this work to the public, or to take some other course. The reason why I hesitate is this. When our saintly Basil fell asleep, and I received the legacy of Eunomius’ controversy, when my heart was hot within me with bereavement, and, besides this deep sorrow for the common loss of the church, Eunomius had not confined himself to the various topics which might pass as a defence of his views, but had spent the chief part of his energy in laboriously-written abuse of our father in God. I was exasperated with this, and there were passages where the flame of my heart-felt indignation burst out against this writer. The public have pardoned us for much else, because we have been apt in showing patience in meeting lawless attacks, and as far as possible have practised that restraint in feeling which the saint has taught us; but I had fears lest from what we have now written against this opponent the reader should get the idea that we were very raw controversialists, 55 both his pamphlets. The ‘sheets’ which Gregory says that he has collected are the 12 Books that follow. They are written in reply to Eunomius’ pamphlet, ‘Apologia Apologize, itself a reply to Basil’s Refutation. The other pamphlet of Eunomius seems to have come out during the composition of Gregory’s 12 Books: and was afterwards answered by the latter in a second 12th Book, but not now, because of the shortness of the time in which he had a copy of the ‘heretical volume’ in his hands. The two last books of the five which go under the title of Basil’s Refutation are considered on good grounds to have been Gregory’s, and to have formed that short reply to Eu- nomius which he read, at the Council of Constantinople, to Gregory of Nazianzen and Jerome (d. vir. illust. c. 128). Then he worked upon this longer reply. Thus there were in all three works of Gregory corresponding to the three attacks of Eunomius upon the Trinity.
57 Pa Gregory to his brother Peter, Bishop of Sebasteia.
who lost our temper directly at insolent abuse. Perhaps, however, this suspicion about us will be disarmed by remembering that this display of anger is not on our own behalf, but because of insults levelled against our father in God; and that it is a case in which mildness would be more unpardonable than anger.
If, then, the first part of my treatise should seem somewhat outside the controversy, the following explanation of it will, I think, be accepted by a reader who can judge fairly. It was not right to leave undefended the reputation of our noble saint, mangled as it was by the opponent’s blasphemies, any more than it was convenient to let this battle in his behalf be spread diffusely along the whole thread of the discussion; besides, if any one reflects, these pages do really form part of the controversy. Our adversary’s treatise has two separate arms, viz. to abuse us and to controvert sound doctrine; and therefore ours too must show a double front. But for the sake of clearness, and in order that the thread of the discussion upon matters of the Faith should not be cut by parentheses, consisting of answers to their personal abuse, we have separated our work into two parts, and devoted ourselves in the first to refute these charges: and then we have grappled as best we might with that which they have ad- vanced against the Faith. Our treatise also contains, in addition to a refutation of their heretical views, a dogmatic exposition of our own teaching; for it would be a most shameful want of spirit, when our foes make no concealment of their blasphemy, not to be bold in our statement of the Truth.
58 To his most pious brother Gregory. Peter greeting in the Lord.
Letter II.
To his most pious brother Gregory. Peter greeting in the Lord.
Having met with the writings of your holiness and having perceived in your tract against this heresy your zeal both for the truth and for our sainted father in God, I judge that this work was not due simply to your own ability, but was that of one who studied that the Truth should speak, even in the publication of his own views. To the Holy Spirit of truth I would refer this plea for the truth; just as to the father of lies, and not to Eunomius, should be re- ferred this animosity against sound faith. Indeed, that murderer from the beginning who speaks in Eunomius has carefully whetted the sword against himself; for if he had not been so bold against the truth, no one would have roused you to undertake the cause of our reli- gion. But to the end that the rottenness and flimsiness of their doctrines may be exposed, He who “taketh the wise in their own craftiness” hath allowed them both to be headstrong against the truth, and to have laboured vainly on this vain speech.
But since he that hath begun a good work will finish it, faint not in furthering the Spirit’s power, nor leave half-won the victory over the assailants of Christ’s glory; but imitate thy true father who, like the zealot Phineas, pierced with one stroke of his Answer both master and pupil. Plunge with thy intellectual arm the sword of the Spirit through both these heretical pamphlets, lest, though broken on the head, the serpent affright the simpler sort by still quivering in the tail. When the first arguments have been answered, should the last remain unnoticed, the many will suspect that they still retain some strength against the truth.
The feeling shewn in your treatise will be grateful, as salt, to the palate of the soul. As bread cannot be eaten, according to Job, without salt, so the discourse which is not savoured with the inmost sentiments of God’s word will never wake, and never move, desire.
Be strong, then, in the thought that thou art a beautiful example to succeeding times of the way in which good-hearted children should act towards their virtuous fathers.
59 a Book I Book I.* §1. Preface.—It is useless to attempt to benefit those who will not accept help.
It seems that the wish to benefit all, and to lavish indiscriminately upon the first comer one’s own gifts, was not a thing altogether commendable, or even free from reproach in the eyes of the many; seeing that the gratuitous waste of many prepared drugs on the incurably- diseased produces no result worth caring about, either in the way of gain to the recipient, or reputation to the would-be benefactor. Rather such an attempt becomes in many cases the occasion of a change for the worse. The hopelessly-diseased and now dying patient re- ceives only a speedier end from the more active medicines; the fierce unreasonable temper is only made worse by the kindness of the lavished pearls, as the Gospel tells us. I think it best, therefore, in accordance with the Divine command, for any one to separate the valuable from the worthless when either have to be given away, and to avoid the pain which a generous giver must receive from one who ‘treads upon his pearl,’ and insults him by his utter want of feeling for its beauty.
This thought suggests itself when I think of one who freely communicated to others the beauties of his own soul, I mean that man of God, that mouth of piety, Basil; one who from the abundance of his spiritual treasures poured his grace of wisdom into evil souls whom he had never tested, and into one among them, Eunomius, who was perfectly insensible to all the efforts made for his good. Pitiable indeed seemed the condition of this poor man, from the extreme weakness of his soul in the matter of the Faith, to all true members of the Church; for who is so wanting in feeling as not to pity, at least, a perishing soul? But Basil alone, from the abiding? 7 ardour of his love, was moved to undertake his cure, and therein to attempt impossibilities; he alone took so much to heart the man’s desperate condition, 56 This first Book against Eunomius was not in the 1*' Paris Edition of Gregory’s works, 1615; but it was published three years later from the ‘Bavarian Codex,’ i.e. that of Munich, by J. Gretser, in an Appendix, along with the Summaries (i.e. the headings of the sections, which appear to be not Gregory’s) and the two Introductory Letters. These Summaries and the Letters, and nearly three quarters of the 15 Book were found in J. Livineius’ transcript from the Codex Vaticanus made 1579, at Rome. This Appendix was added to the 24 Paris Edit. 1638. F. Oehler, whose text has been followed throughout, has used for the 1°' Book the Munich Codex (on paper, xvi'h Cent.); the Venetian (on cotton, xiiith Cent.); the Turin (on cotton, xivth Cent.), and the oldest of all, the Florentine (on parchment, xi? Cent.).
57 Reading,— t0 pdvipov...emitoAu@vta. This is the correction of Oehler for tov povov...ém1toAuav which the text presents. The Venetian ms. has émitoAu@vtt 60 «] Preface.--It is useless to attempt to benefit those who will not accept...as to compose, as an antidote of deadly poisons, his refutation of this heresy” 8 which aimed at saving its author, and restoring him to the Church.
He, on the contrary, like one beside himself with fury, resists his doctor; he fights and struggles; he regards as a bitter foe one who only put forth his strength to drag him from the abyss of misbelief; and he does not indulge in this foolish anger only before chance hearers now and then; he has raised against himself a literary monument to record this blackness of his bile; and when in long years he got the requisite amount of leisure, he was travailling over his work during all that interval with mightier pangs than those of the largest and the bulkiest beasts; his threats of what was coming were dreadful, whilst he was still secretly moulding his conception: but when at last and with great difficulty he brought it to the light, it was a poor little abortion, quite prematurely born. However, those who share his ruin nurse it and coddle it; while we, seeking the blessing in the prophet (“Blessed shall he be who shall take thy children, and shall dash them against the stones”) are only eager, now that it has got into our hands, to take this puling manifesto and dash it on the rock, as if it was one of the children of Babylon; and the rock must be Christ; in other words, the enunciation of the truth. Only may that power come upon us which strengthens weakness, through the prayers of him who made his own strength perfect in bodily weakness, 58 his refutation of this heresy. This is Basil’s ’AvatpentiKog tod anodoyntiKod tod dvocepobs Ebvoptov. ‘Basil,’ says Photius, ‘with difficulty got hold of Eunomius’ book,’ perhaps because it was written originally for a small circle of readers, and was in a highly scientific form. What happened next may be told in the words of Claudius Morellius (Prolegomena to Paris Edition of 1615): “When Basil’s first essay against the foetus of Euno- mius had been published, he raised his bruised head like a trodden worm, seized his pen, and began to rave more poisonously still as well against Basil as the orthodox faith.’ This was Eunomius’ ‘Apologia Apologiz:’ of it Photius says, “His reply to Basil was composed for many Olympiads while shut up in his cell. This, like another Saturn, he concealed from the eyes of Basil till it had grown up, i.e. he concealed it, by devouring it, as long as Basil lived.’ He then goes on to say that after Basil’s death, Theodore (of Mopsuestia), Gregory of Nyssa, and Sophronius found it and dealt with it, though even then Eunomius had only ventured to show it to some of his friends. Philostorgius, the ardent admirer of Eunomius, makes the amazing statement that Basil died of despair after reading it.
59 Psalm cxxxvii. 9.
60 ‘Heasks for the intercession of Saint Paul’ (Paris Edit. in marg.).
61 ] We have been justly provoked to make this Answer, being stung by Eunomius’...
§2. We have been justly provoked to make this Answer, being stung by Eunomius’ accusations of our brother.
If indeed that godlike and saintly soul were still in the flesh looking out upon human affairs, if those lofty tones were still heard with all their peculiar®! grace and all their resistless utterance, who could arrive at such a pitch of audacity, as to attempt to speak one word upon this subject? that divine trumpet-voice would drown any word that could be uttered. But all of him has now flown back to God; at first indeed in the slight shadowy phantom of his body, he still rested on the earth; but now he has quite shed even that unsubstantial form, and bequeathed it to this world. Meantime the drones are buzzing round the cells of the Word, and are plundering the honey; so let no one accuse me of mere audacity for rising up to speak instead of those silent lips. I have not accepted this laborious task from any consciousness in myself of powers of argument superior to the others who might be named; I, if any, have the means of knowing that there are thousands in the Church who are strong in the gift of philosophic skill. Nevertheless I affirm that, both by the written and the natural law, to me more especially belongs this heritage of the departed, and therefore I myself, in preference to others, appropriate the legacy of the controversy. I may be counted amongst the least of those who are enlisted in the Church of God, but still Iam not too weak to stand out as her champion against one who has broken with that Church. The very smallest member of a vigorous body would, by virtue of the unity of its life with the whole, be found stronger than one that had been cut away and was dying, however large the latter and small the former.
61 dnoKAnpwOeioav. This is probably the meaning, after the analogy of dmoxArpwors, in the sense (most frequent in Origen), of ‘favour, ‘partiality,’ passing into that of ‘caprice, ‘arbitrariness,’ cf. below, cap. 9, tig amoKAnpwots, k.t.A. “How arbitrarily he praises himself.’
62 We see nothing remarkable in logical force in the treatise of Eunomius,...§3. We see nothing remarkable in logical force in the treatise of Eunomius, and so embark on our Answer with a just confidence.
Let no one think, that in saying this I exaggerate and make an idle boast of doing something which is beyond my strength. I shall not be led by any boyish ambition to descend to his vulgar level in a contest of mere arguments and phrases. Where victory is a useless and profitless thing, we yield it readily to those who wish to win; besides, we have only to look at this man’s long practice in controversy, to conclude that he is quite a word-practi- tioner, and, in addition, at the fact that he has spent no small portion of his life on the composition of this treatise, and at the supreme joy of his intimates over these labours, to conclude that he has taken particular trouble with this work. It was not improbable that one who had laboured at it for so many Olympiads would produce something better than the work of extempore scribblers. Even the vulgar profusion of the figures he uses in concocting his work is a further indication of this laborious care in writing”. He has got a great mass of newly assorted terms, for which he has put certain other books under contribution, and he piles this immense congeries of words on a very slender nucleus of thought; and so he has elaborated this highly-wrought production, which his pupils in error are lost in the ad- miration of;—no doubt, because their deadness on the vital points deprives them of the power of feeling the distinction between beauty and the reverse:—but which is ridiculous, and of no value at all in the judgment of those, whose hearts’ insight is not dimmed with any soil of unbelief. How in the world can it contribute to the proof (as he hopes) of what he says and the establishment of the truth of his speculations, to adopt these absurd devices in his forms of speech, this new-fangled and peculiar arrangement, this fussy conceit, and this conceited fussiness, which works with no enthusiasm for any previous model? For it would be indeed difficult to discover who amongst all those who have been celebrated for their eloquence he has had his eye on, in bringing himself to this pitch; for he is like those 62 Photius reports very much the same as to his style, i.e. he shows a ‘prodigious ostentation:’ uses ‘words difficult to pronounce, and abounding in many consonants, and that in a poetic, or rather a dithyrambic style: he has ‘periods inordinately long:’ he is ‘obscure,’ and seeks ‘to hide by this very obscurity whatever is weak in his perceptions and conceptions, which indeed is often.’ He ‘attacks others for their logic, and is very fond of using logic himself:’ but ‘as he had taken up this science late in life, and had not gone very deeply into it, he is often found making mistakes.’ The book of Eunomius which Photius had read is still extant: it is his ‘Apologeti- cus’ in 28 sections, and has been published by Canisius (Lectiones Antique, I. 172 ff.). His €xOo1 tig tlotews, presented to the emperor Theodosius in the year 383, is also extant. This last is found in the Codex Theodosius and in the mss. which Livineius of Ghent used for his Greek and Latin edition of Gregory, 1574: it follows the Books against Eunomius. His ‘Apologia Apologiz,’ which he wrote in answer to Basil’s 5 (or 3) books against him, is not extant: nor the Seutepdc Adyos which Gregory answered in his second 12th Book. Most of the quotations, then, from Eunomius, in these books of Gregory cannot be verified, in the case of a doubtful reading, &c.
63 a We see nothing remarkable in logical force in the treatise of Eunomius,...
who produce effects upon the stage, adapting his argument to the tune of his rhythmical phrases, as they their song to their castenets, by means of parallel sentences of equal length, of similar sound and similar ending. Such, amongst many other faults, are the nerveless quaverings and the meretricious tricks of his Introduction; and one might fancy him bringing them all out, not with an unimpassioned action, but with stamping of the feet and sharp snapping of the fingers declaiming to the time thus beaten, and then remarking that there was no need of other arguments and a second performance after that.
64 Eunomius displays much folly and fine writing, but very little seriousness...§4. Eunomius displays much folly and fine writing, but very little seriousness about vital points.
In these and such like antics I allow him to have the advantage; and to his heart’s content he may revel in his victory there. Most willingly I forego such a competition, which can attract those only who seek renown; if indeed any renown comes from indulging in such methods of argumentation, considering that Paul®’, that genuine minister of the Word, whose only ornament was truth, both disdained himself to lower his style to such prettinesses, and in- structs us also, in a noble and appropriate exhortation, to fix our attention on truth alone. What need indeed for one who is fair in the beauty of truth to drag in the paraphernalia of a decorator for the production of a false artificial beauty? Perhaps for those who do not possess truth it may be an advantage to varnish their falsehoods with an attractive style, and to rub into the grain of their argument a curious polish. When their error is taught in far- fetched language and decked out with all the affectations of style, they have a chance of being plausible and accepted by their hearers. But those whose only aim is simple truth, unadul- terated by any misguiding foil, find the light of a natural beauty emitted from their words.
But now that I am about to begin the examination of all that he has advanced, I feel the same difficulty as a farmer does, when the air is calm; I know not how to separate his wheat from his chaff; the waste, in fact, and the chaff in this pile of words is so enormous, that it makes one think that the residue of facts and real thoughts in all that he has said is almost nil. It would be the worse for speed and very irksome, it would even be beside our object, to go into the whole of his remarks in detail; we have not the means for securing so much leisure so as wantonly to devote it to such frivolities; it is the duty, I think, of a prudent workman not to waste his strength on trifles, but on that which will clearly repay his toil.
As to all the things, then, in his Introduction, how he constitutes himself truth’s cham- pion, and fixes the charge of unbelief upon his opponents, and declares that an abiding and indelible hatred for them has sunk into his soul, how he struts in his ‘new discoveries,’ though he does not tell us what they are, but says only that an examination of the debateable points in them was set on foot, a certain ‘legal’ trial which placed on those who were daring to act illegally the necessity of keeping quiet, or to quote his own words in that Lydian style of singing which he has got, “the bold law-breakers—in open courts—were forced to be quiet;” (he calls this a “proscription” of the conspiracy against him, whatever may be meant by that term);—all this wearisome business I pass by as quite unimportant. On the other hand, all his special pleading for his heretical conceits may well demand our close attention. Our own interpreter of the principles of divinity followed this course in his Treatise; for though he had plenty of ability to broaden out his argument, he took the line of dealing only Eunomius displays much folly and fine writing, but very little seriousness...with vital points, which he selected from all the blasphemies of that heretical book™, and so narrowed the scope of the subject.
If, however, any one desires that our answer should exactly correspond to the array of his arguments, let him tell us the utility of such a process. What gain would it be to my readers if I were to solve the complicated riddle of his title, which he proposes to us at the very commencement, in the manner of the sphinx of the tragic stage; namely this “New Apology for the Apology,’ and all the nonsense which he writes about that; and if I were to tell the long tale of what he dreamt? I think that the reader is sufficiently wearied with the petty vanity about this newness in his title already preserved in Eunomius’ own text, and with the want of taste displayed there in the account of his own exploits, all his labours and his trials, while he wandered over every land and every sea, and was ‘heralded’ through the whole world. If all that had to be written down over again,—and with additions, too, as the refutations of these falsehoods would naturally have to expand their statement,—who would be found of such an iron hardness as not to be sickened at this waste of labour? Suppose I was to write down, taking word by word, an explanation of that mad story of his; suppose I were to explain, for instance, who that Armenian was on the shores of the Euxine, who had annoyed him at first by having the same name as himself, what their lives were like, what their pursuits, how he had a quarrel with that Armenian because of the very likeness of their characters, then in what fashion those two were reconciled, so as to join in a common sympathy with that winning and most glorious Aetius, his master (for so pompous are his praises); and after that, what was the plot devised against himself, by which they brought him to trial on the charge of being surpassingly popular: suppose, I say, I was to explain all that, should I not appear, like those who catch opthalmia themselves from frequent contact with those who are already suffering so, to have caught myself this malady of fussy circum- stantiality? I should be following step by step each detail of his twaddling story; finding out who the “slaves released to liberty” were, what was “the conspiracy® of the initiated” and “the calling out® of hired slaves,” what ‘Montius and Gallus, and Domitian, and ‘false witnesses, and ‘an enraged Emperor, and ‘certain sent into exile’ have to do with the argu- ment. What could be more useless than such tales for the purpose of one who was not wishing merely to write a narrative, but to refute the argument of him who had written against his heresy? What follows in the story is still more profitless; I do not think that the author himself could peruse it again without yawning, though a strong natural affection for 64 — that heretical book, i.e. the first ‘Apology’ of Eunomius in 28 parts: a translation of it is given in Whiston’s Eunomianismus Redivivus.
65 oxéotv.
66 td&1v. We have no context to explain these allusions, the treatise of Eunomius being lost, which Gregory is now answering, i.e. the Apologia Apologize.
66 Eunomius displays much folly and fine writing, but very little seriousness...his offspring does possess every father. He pretends to unfold there his exploits and his suf- ferings; the style rears itself into the sublime, and the legend swells into the tones of tragedy.
67 His peculiar caricature of the bishops, Eustathius of Armenia and Basil...§5. His peculiar caricature of the bishops, Eustathius of Armenia and Basil of Galatia, is not well drawn.
But, not to linger longer on these absurdities in the very act of declining to mention them, and not to soil this book by forcing my subject through all his written reminiscences, like one who urges his horse through a slough and so gets covered with its filth, I think it is best to leap over the mass of his rubbish with as high and as speedy a jump as my thoughts are capable of, seeing that a quick retreat from what is disgusting is a considerable advantage; and let us hasten on®” to the finale of his story, lest the bitterness of his own words should trickle into my book. Let Eunomius have the monopoly of the bad taste in such words as these, spoken of God’s priests™, “curmudgeon squires, and beadles, and satellites, rummaging about, and not suffering the fugitive to carry on his concealment,” and all the other things which he is not ashamed to write of grey-haired priests. Just as in the schools for secular learning’, in order to exercise the boys to be ready in word and wit, they propose themes for declamation, in which the person who is the subject of them is nameless, so does Euno- mius make an onset at once upon the facts suggested, and lets loose the tongue of invective, and without saying one word as to any actual villainies, he merely works up against them all the hackneyed phrases of contempt, and every imaginable term of abuse: in which, besides, incongruous ideas are brought together, such as a “dilettante soldier,’ “an accursed saint,’