Now there are many who though they have not the capacity to demolish by sheer force the plausible inventions of the sophists, because their occupation has lain continuously in active life and thus they are not trained in any high degree to deal with words, find refuge in the support of the solely Wise Being and beseech Him to become their helper. Such a one is the disciple of Moses who prays thus in the Psalms: “Let their cunning lips become speechless” (Ps. 30 19). And how should such lips be silent, unless they were bridled by Him who alone holds speech itself as His vassal? Let us flee, then, without a backward glance from the unions which are unions for sin, but hold fast to our alliance with the comrades of good sense and knowledge. And therefore when I hear those who say “We are all sons of one man, we are peaceful” (Gen. 42:11), I am filled with admiration for the harmonious concert which their words reveal. “Ah! my friends,” I would say, “how should you not hate war and love peace—you who have enrolled yourselves as children of one and the same Father, who is not mortal but immortal—God’s Man, who being the Word of the Eternal must needs himself be imperishable?” Those whose system includes many origins for the family of the soul, who affiliate themselves to that evil thing called polytheism, who take in hand to render homage some to this deity, some to that, are the authors of tumult and strife at home and abroad, and fill the whole of life from birth to death with internecine wars. But those who rejoice in the oneness of their blood and honour one father, right reason, reverence that concert of virtues, which is full of harmony and melody, and live a life of calmness and fair weather. And yet that life is not, as some suppose, an idle and ignoble life, but one of high courage, and the edge of its spirit is exceeding sharp to fight against those who attempt to break treaties and ever practise the violation of the vows they have sworn. For it is the nature of men of peace that they prove to be men of war, when they take the field and resist those who would subvert the stability of the soul.
On the Confusion of Tongues 11
Tap any verse to see what it echoes — and start a chain or echo from it.