Thanksgiving Address to Origen

Silence, poverty of speech, and the daunting subject§1

Gregory is opening his address to Origen by explaining why he has been silent for eight years and why he now hesitates to speak.

Not his birth or body, but the godlike part of the man§2.1

Gregory says he has come to praise not Origen's birth or body but the godlike part of the man, and so he shrinks from the task.

2.1It is not his family, nor the upbringing of his body, that I have come to praise, and so hang back and delay out of excessive scruple; nor his strength or his beauty. These are the praises given to young men, and it matters little whether they are spoken worthily or not. For to make a speech about things that neither last nor stand firm, but perish quickly and in many ways, and to do it with solemn airs and a show of dignity, and with such delays, might well prove frigid or overdone. If I had set out to speak of any of these things, I would not do it that way, since they are useless and vain, and I would never willingly have chosen to speak of them. Even so, had I set out to speak of anything of that kind, my speech would have felt no caution and no anxiety that I might seem, in what I said, to fall short of what the subject deserves.

But now I am to speak of what is most godlike in him, the part of him that is akin to God: shut up in this visible and mortal frame, yet striving with all its labor to be made like God. As I call this to mind, I am about to touch in some way on greater matters, and through it on a kind of thanksgiving to God, because it has been granted me to meet such a man, beyond all human expectation, both that of others and my own. I had never proposed it, nor even hoped for it. Now that I am about to touch on such things, small as I am and wholly without understanding, I shrink back, not without reason, and hesitate, and would willingly keep silent.

Afraid to walk into sacred hearing with unwashed feet§2.2

Gregory fears that a weak speech would insult holy things, yet resolves to explain why he has dared to speak.

2.2And so it seems safe to keep quiet. Otherwise, on the pretext of giving thanks but in truth perhaps out of rashness, I might say undignified, cheap and trite things about solemn and holy matters, and not only fail to reach the truth, but even, as far as lies in me, take something away from them in the minds of those who believe these things are so. For a weak speech will sketch them by insulting them rather than by matching the deeds in power. And yet what is yours, dear friend, cannot be torn down or insulted; and much more do divine things remain as they are, unshaken, not harmed at all by our small and unworthy words. But I do not know how we shall escape a name for boldness and rashness, having leapt in our folly, with small mind and small preparation, upon great matters, perhaps beyond us.

If we had been eager to show off like this elsewhere and before other people, we would have been bold even so, and somewhat at fault. Yet the rashness would not have been put down to shamelessness, since the bold venture would not have been made in your presence. Now, however, we shall fill up the whole measure of folly, or have filled it already, for we have dared to step, as the saying goes, with unwashed feet into ears where the divine Word himself makes his home. He does not walk there as he walks in the ears of most people, with his feet covered, as it were, by thick hides of riddling and obscure words. He walks there with bare feet, so to speak, clear and plain. And we, carrying our human words like filth or mud, have dared to pour them into ears trained to hear divine and pure voices.

Is it enough, then, to have gone wrong this far? Must we now at least begin to be sensible, and go no further with the speech, but stop here? I would like to. Yet since I have once been bold, let me be allowed first to state the cause that led me into this contest, in the hope that I may be pardoned for this rashness.

Ingratitude is terrible; even the poor must give what they can§3.1

Ingratitude is a terrible thing, so even one who can give little must offer what thanks he can.

3.1Ingratitude seems to me a terrible thing, terrible, indeed utterly terrible. For when someone has been treated well and does not even try to repay it, if in no other way, then at least with thanks spoken in words, he is either wholly senseless and unaware of the kindness done him, or forgetful. And if someone did at first perceive and recognize the good he received, yet memory does not keep it into the time that follows, and he does not render some thanks to the author of those good things, he is idle, ungrateful and impious, and his offense is unpardonable, whether he is great or small. If he is great and great-minded, it is unpardonable not to have his benefactor's great kindnesses on his lips with all thanksgiving and honor. If he is small and of no account, it is unpardonable not to sing the praises, and speak well, with all his strength, of the one who has done him good not only in great things but in small things too.

Those who are greater and stand above others in strength of soul must, as from a larger surplus and great wealth, render to their benefactors greater and more generous praises, as far as their power allows. Yet the small and those in straitened circumstances in their turn ought not to neglect this or grow careless, nor give up, as if they could bring nothing worthy or complete. Like people who are poor but grateful, they should measure not the power of the one honored but their own, and bring their honors out of the power they have. These will perhaps prove pleasing and welcome to the one honored, and with him they will not stand second to great and many gifts, if they are offered with greater eagerness and a whole heart. So it is recorded in the sacred books that a small and poor woman, among the rich and powerful who were offering great and costly gifts from their wealth, contributed small things, the very least, yet all that she had, and she alone carried off the testimony of having given more (Mark 12:41–44; Luke 21:1–4). For I think the sacred word did not weigh generosity and magnificence by the amount of the material given, which is outside a person, but by the intention of the one offering it, or rather by the choice.

So neither ought we to shrink back altogether because our thanksgiving will not equal the benefits. Quite the opposite: we ought to dare and to try, and to offer by way of return, if not equal honors, then at least the honors we can, in the hope that, even if our speech fails to give complete thanks, it may at least give partial thanks, and escape the name of utter ingratitude.

No one can thank God as he deserves§3.2

Silence helps no one; Gregory will give what thanks he can, knowing that no one can thank God worthily.

3.2For total silence is truly useless, hiding behind the plausible excuse of being unable to say anything worthy, while the attempt to make some return is always the mark of a grateful mind, even if the power of the one returning the favor falls short of what is deserved. For I will not keep silent because I cannot speak as the subject deserves. Rather, if I fulfill all that is in my power, I shall even take pride in it.

Let this speech of mine, then, be a thank-offering. I would not presume to say that it is offered to the God of the universe, although it is from him that all the beginnings of good things come to us, and it is with him too that we ought to begin our thanksgivings, hymns and praises. But even if I offered my whole self, not as I am now, profane and impure, mixed and soiled with a foul and unclean evil, but my very self laid bare, as pure, bright and clean as could be, unmixed with anything worse; even if, I say, I brought and gave my whole self bare, as though I were newly born, I could still bring no gift of my own worthy to honor and repay the Ruler and Cause of all. No one could ever praise him worthily, neither each person on his own, nor all together, not even if all things became, as it were, one and the same, all pure, going out of themselves and turning instead to him, gathered in one spirit and with one impulse, in harmony.

For even if any of his creatures could think of him in the best and fullest way, and could, if it may be said, speak of him as he deserves, still, for that very power, which he has been granted, receiving it not from anyone else but from him, there is no way he could find anything greater anywhere to offer in thanks.

Only the Word can give the Father worthy thanks§4.1

Gregory leaves the praise owed to the King of all to the Word, who alone can give the Father worthy thanks.

4.1But the praises and hymns due to the King and Guardian of all, the unfailing fountain of all good things, we shall leave to him who heals our weakness even in this, and who alone can supply what is lacking: to the Protector and Savior of our souls, his firstborn Word, the Maker and Governor of all. He alone can send up to the Father unceasing and uninterrupted thanksgivings, both for himself and for all, for each one separately and for all together at once. For he is himself the Truth (John 14:6), and the Wisdom and Power of the very Father of all (1 Corinthians 1:24). Moreover, he is in the Father and wholly united to him, so there is no way that through forgetfulness, or lack of wisdom, or some weakness, as though he were a stranger to him, he should either fail to reach the Father's power with his own power, or reach it and yet willingly (which it is not lawful even to say) leave the Father unpraised.

He alone is able to fulfill most perfectly the full worth of the praises due to the Father. The Father of all himself has made him one with himself, and through him all but encompasses himself; honoring him in a way with a power equal in every respect to his own, he is himself honored. This, first and alone of all beings, his Only-begotten was given to have: God the Word who is in him (John 1:1). All others can be thankful and godly only in this way: if we ascribe to him alone, in return for all the good things we have from the Father, the power of worthy thanksgiving, confessing that this is the one way of godliness, that every remembrance of the Cause of all is made through him.

Therefore, for the unceasing providence over all things, which cares for us in the greatest things and in the least, and which has come even this far, let it be confessed that he is the worthy and unceasing Word of thanksgivings and hymns; for he is most perfect and living, the animate Word of the First Mind himself.

The guardian angel who has led him from childhood§4.2

Gregory gives thanks to Origen and to the guardian angel who has led him since childhood.

4.2But let this speech of ours be a thank-offering, among all people, most of all to this holy man. And if I should wish to speak still more boldly, let it also be thanks to one of those beings who are not seen but are more divine, and who care for human beings: to him who, by some great judgment, was given charge of me from childhood, to manage, nurse and guard me, the holy angel of God, “who has fed me from my youth” (Genesis 48:15–16), as that man who was dear to God says, meaning, of course, his own.

He, being great, had a correspondingly great guardian: whether some other, whoever that may be, or perhaps the Angel of Great Counsel himself (Isaiah 9:6), the common Savior of all, whom, by reason of his perfection, he had by then received as his only guardian. This I do not know clearly. In any case, he knew and praised his own great one, whoever he may be. We, besides the common Governor of all people, acknowledge and praise also this one, whoever he is, who has been our own tutor from infancy. In everything else he has been in every way my good nurse and guardian, not as seems beneficial to me or to any of the friends close to me, for we are blind and see nothing of what lies ahead, so as to be able to judge anything of what is needed, but as seems beneficial to him, who foresees everything that helps our soul. Long ago and still now he nurtures me and leads me by the hand.

And besides all this, he contrived to join me to this man, the most important thing of all. I was not related to him by family or human blood, nor connected in any other way, nor one of his neighbors, nor even of the same nation at all, the very things that give most people their grounds for friendship and union. To put it shortly, we were unknown to each other, strangers, foreign to each other, standing very far apart, as far as the nations, mountains and rivers in between could separate us. Yet he brought us together by a providence truly divine and wise, and contrived this saving meeting for me, foreseeing it from above, I think, from my first birth and upbringing. How he did so would take long to recount, not only for one who speaks with precision and tries to leave nothing out, but even if I were to pass over most of it and chose to recall, in brief, a few of the most important points.

Pagan childhood, his father's death, and the Word at fourteen§5.1

Gregory recalls his pagan upbringing, his father's death, and his first turn to the Word at fourteen.

5.1My earliest upbringing, from birth, was in my parents' hands, and in our ancestral customs, which had gone astray. No one, I think, expected that we would ever be freed from them, and I myself had no hope of it, a child still without reason and living under a superstitious father. Then I lost my father and was left an orphan; and that, perhaps, was for me the beginning of the knowledge of the truth. For it was then that I was first brought over to the saving and true Word, I do not know how, compelled rather than of my own will. What judgment, after all, could I have had at fourteen? Yet from that time this sacred Word somehow began at once to come and dwell with me, seeing that the reason common to all human beings was only then reaching its fullness in me; and yet it came then for the first time.

Now, as I reckon it up, if not long ago, then at least now, I take this coincidence, so measured out by the years, as no small sign of the sacred and wonderful providence that has watched over me. Everything before that age, all the works of error, was to be put down to infancy and want of reason; the sacred Word was not to be handed over in vain to a soul not yet able to reason; and once the soul was becoming rational, it was not to be left empty, if not of the divine and pure Word, then at least of the fear that accords with this Word. Rather, human reason and the divine Word were to begin in me together: the divine giving help, by a power I cannot express but which is its own, and the human receiving help. When I think of this, it fills me with joy and fear at once. I am lifted up by how far I have been brought forward, yet I fear that, though I have been counted worthy of such gifts, I may still fall short of the end.

But somehow my speech has lingered over this part, wanting as it does to tell the wonderful ordering of my road to this man. Even so, I am hurrying on first, and briefly, to what comes next. I do not offer it as the praise owed to the one who ordered it so, nor as thanksgiving and devotion (let us not be tiresome, giving it such names and saying nothing worthy of them), but as an account and a confession, or under some humbler name of this kind.

Rhetoric, Latin, and the study of Roman law§5.2

His mother sends him to study rhetoric, and a teacher of Latin points him toward Roman law.

5.2My mother, the only one of my parents left to care for us, decided that, since we were being educated in the other subjects as boys of good birth and upbringing, as of course we were, we should also attend a teacher of rhetoric, in the expectation that we would become orators. So we attended him, and those who judged such things at the time said that we would soon be orators. For my part, I could not say this, nor would I want to. But there was as yet no thought of all this, nor any groundwork laid for it, for none of the causes that could carry us here was yet at work.

But the divine tutor, ever wakeful, the true guardian, stepped in when neither my family had thought of it nor I myself desired it, and fell in with one of my teachers. This teacher had been entrusted simply with teaching me the Roman tongue, not so that I would master it, but so that I might not be wholly ignorant of this language too; and he happened also to be no stranger to the law. Taking note of this, my guardian urged me through him to learn the laws of the Romans. That man pressed this on me earnestly, and I went along with him to some degree, more to please him than because I loved the art. Taking me as his student, he set about teaching me with zeal. And he said something that has come true for me more truly than anything: that the study of the laws would be my greatest provision for the journey (that was the very word he used), whether I wished to be one of the orators who contend in the law courts, or anything else. He said this with his eye on human affairs. But it seems to me that, under some more divine inspiration, he prophesied beyond what he himself supposed.

For while I was being trained in these laws, willingly and unwillingly, bonds of a sort were already laid down, and the cause and occasion of my road here: the city of Berytus. That city, not far from here, is somewhat more Roman in character and is trusted as the school of these laws. As for this holy man, other affairs moved him from Egypt, from the city of Alexandria, where he had happened to make his home before, and brought him to this place, as if to meet us. I do not know how to give the causes of these things either, and I will gladly pass them by. Even so, nothing yet made my coming here and my meeting with the man necessary, as far as our law studies went, since it was also possible to travel to the city of Rome.

The soldier, the journey, and the angel's handing over§5.3

A soldier sent to escort his sister brings Gregory to Caesarea, where his guardian angel hands him over to Origen.

5.3How, then, was this too provided? My brother-in-law, my sister's husband, was taken up suddenly by the man who was then governor of Palestine and brought here against his will, parted from his wife and alone, to help him and share the labors of governing the province. For he was a lawyer, and perhaps still is. Having come with the governor, he meant before long to send for his wife and have her with him again, since he was parted from her unwillingly and with distress, and to draw us along with her. Then suddenly, I do not know how, while we were planning to travel, though to some other place rather than here, a soldier appeared with orders to escort our sister and see her safely to her husband, and to bring us too as her fellow travelers. We would be doing a kindness to our brother-in-law, and most of all to our sister, so that she would not make the journey in any unseemly way or with greater reluctance; and to our household and kin as well, who valued the plan and held that no small further gain would come of it if we went to the city of Berytus to work through our study of law there.

So everything moved us: what was fitting toward our sister, our own studies, and besides these the soldier as well (for he too must be mentioned), who carried authority to use a larger number of the public carriages, and passes for more people, for our sake rather than for our sister's alone. These were the visible reasons. But the hidden and truer ones were these: fellowship with this man, the true teaching of the Word that would come through him, the good of our souls. These were leading us toward salvation, while we were then still blind and unknowing, yet in a way that would save us.

So it was not the soldier, but a divine fellow traveler, a good escort and guardian, who keeps us safe through the whole of this life, as on a long journey. He passed by other places, and Berytus too, where we had thought we were chiefly heading, and brought us here and settled us, doing everything and setting everything in motion, until by every means he had bound us to this man, the cause of so many blessings for us. And so this divine angel, having come through so much and handing over his charge to this man, perhaps rested here, not from any weariness or toil (for the race of divine ministers never tires), but because he had handed it over to a man who would supply, as far as that was possible, all forethought and care.

Origen urges them toward philosophy§6.1

From the first day Origen works to hold the young men and urges them toward philosophy.

6.1He received us from the first day, truly the first day for me, the most precious of all my days, if I may say so, when the true sun first began to rise on me. At first we were like wild beasts, or fish, or birds that have fallen into snares or nets and try to slip out and run away: we wanted to leave him for Berytus or for our homeland. But he contrived in every way to bind us, turning every argument, moving every rope, as the proverb has it, and bringing all his powers to bear. He praised philosophy and the lovers of philosophy with long and many and fitting praises. He said that they alone truly live the life fit for rational beings who take care to live rightly, knowing first of all themselves, what they are, and then the things that are truly good, which a human being must pursue, and the things that are truly evil, which one must flee.

He censured ignorance and all the ignorant. And there are many of them: people blind in mind like cattle, who do not know even what they themselves are, who wander like creatures without reason, neither knowing at all what good or evil is, nor willing to learn. As if toward the good, they rush and flutter after money, fame, honors from the crowd, and bodily health. They prize these highly, indeed as everything, and with them the arts that can provide them and the ways of life that will supply them: soldiering, pleading in the courts, and the study of law. He spoke most of all, and with great skill, about these very things that had stirred us, saying that we had neglected what is most sovereign in us, reason.

I cannot now tell how many such appeals he made, urging us to study philosophy, not on one day only but on many, as many as we came to him in those first days. We were struck by his word as by an arrow from the very first, for it was blended with a certain sweet grace and persuasion, and with a kind of compulsion. Yet we still wavered and kept reasoning it over. We kept at philosophy, though we were not yet wholly persuaded; but somehow we could not draw back again, and we were always being drawn to him by his words, as if by some greater compulsion.

No true piety without philosophy; the sting of friendship§6.2

Origen teaches that there is no true piety without philosophy, and his words strike like a goad.

6.2For he said, and rightly, that no one who has not practiced philosophy can be pious at all toward the Master of all. Piety is something that human beings alone, of all living creatures on earth, have been honored and judged worthy to possess; and with good reason every person, wise or ignorant, holds fast to it, unless he has lost his notions entirely through some derangement of mind. So he went on, pouring out one such argument after another, until at last, as if we were spellbound by his arts, he carried us and set us down beside him, simply unable to move, by his words and, I do not know how, with some divine power.

For he also drove into us the sting of friendship, not easy to fight off, but sharp and most effective: the sting of his kindness and good disposition, the goodwill toward us that showed in the very words he used as he spoke and talked with us. He was not trying merely to get the better of us with arguments. With a kindly, humane, and most generous purpose, he sought to save us and to make us sharers in the goods that come from philosophy, and most of all in those others which God had given to him alone above the many, perhaps even above everyone now living: the teacher of piety, the saving Word. That Word comes to many and overcomes all whom it meets, for nothing will stand against the One who is, and will be, King of all. Yet the Word is hidden, and most people do not come to know it, whether easily or with difficulty, well enough to say anything clear about it when asked.

The spark of love: bound like Jonathan to David§6.3

Love for the Word and for Origen binds Gregory to him, as Jonathan's soul was bound to David's.

6.3Like a spark dropping into the middle of our soul, love was kindled there and fanned into flame: love for the holy Word himself, the most lovely, who by his unspeakable beauty is the most winning of all, and love for this man, his friend and advocate. Wounded deeply by this love, I was persuaded to neglect all the affairs and studies that seemed to concern us, among them even my fine laws, and to neglect my homeland and my family, both those who are here with me and those we left when we went abroad. One thing alone was dear to me and loved: philosophy, and this divine man who is its guide.

“And the soul of Jonathan was bound to David” (1 Samuel 18:1). I read this only later in the holy Scriptures, but I had felt it before, no less vividly than it is told there, though the inspired words there put it most vividly. For it was not simply Jonathan who was bound to David, but what is most truly theirs, their souls: things which, even when the men who appear and are seen are parted, will not be forced apart by any device, not against their will at any rate. For the soul is a free thing and cannot be shut in by any means, not even if you lock it up and guard it in a little cell. By nature it is, in the primary sense, wherever the mind is; and if it seems to you to be in the cell, it is pictured as being there in a secondary sense. This in no way prevents it from being wherever it wishes to be. Rather, it can be, and would rightly be believed to be, wholly and in every way only there where the activities that belong to it alone are found, and toward which they are directed.

So the text showed most plainly, in the fewest words, what I experienced: that the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David (1 Samuel 18:1). These souls, as I said, will never be overpowered into separation against their will, and they will not easily wish it of their own accord. For the power to undo these sacred bonds of friendship does not lie, I think, with the worse party, who is changeable and more easily changes his mind (the binding did not lie with him alone at the beginning either), but with the better, who is steadfast and not easily won over, and to whom it belonged rather to make the bonds and to tie this sacred knot. At any rate, in the divine word too it is not the soul of David that was bound to the soul of Jonathan; on the contrary, it is the soul of the worse, which underwent this, that is said to be bound to the soul of David. For the better, being sufficient in itself, would not choose to be bound to what is worse than itself; but the worse, needing help from the better, had to be bound to the better and to hang upon it. In this way the one, remaining as it was, would take no harm from its fellowship with the worse, while the other, disordered in itself, once bound and fitted to the better, would be won over to the better by the constraints of the bonds without doing it any harm. So making the bonds belonged to the superior, not to the inferior; being bound belonged to the worse, so that it should have no power in any way to be set free from the bonds. With constraints such as these this David holds us bound fast, now and ever since that time, and even if we wished, we could not be loosed from his bonds. Nor, then, even if we go away, will he let go of our souls, which, as the divine Scripture says, he holds so bound together.

The good farmer clears and grafts the soul§7.1

Like a good farmer, Origen clears and tills the soul and trains it to keep to the question in hand.

7.1So he took hold of us from the beginning in this way and went round us by every means. When the greater part of his aim had been reached and it seemed settled that we would stay, from then on he set to work. He was like a good farmer with a piece of untilled land: either land not fertile at all, but salty and scorched, stony and crumbling; or land not wholly barren, nor lacking in growth, but even rich in growth, and yet fallow and neglected, matted hard with thorns and wild scrub and difficult to work. Or he was like a gardener with a plant that is wild and bears no cultivated fruit, and yet is not wholly useless, if someone skilled in the gardener's art should bring a cultivated shoot and graft it in, splitting the stock down the middle, then joining the two and binding them until they grow together and both are nourished. In this way you might see a mixed tree, a hybrid, but fruitful where it was fruitless, bearing the fruit of the good olive on wild roots. Or it may be a plant that is wild and yet not useless to a skilled gardener; or one that is cultivated and fruitful enough in other ways, but which, for want of skill, has again been left unpruned, unwatered and parched, choked by the many superfluous shoots sprouting there, so that it is hindered, the shoots getting in one another's way, from reaching full growth and bearing its fruit.

Such were we when he took us over. Going round us with his own farmer's skill, he examined not only what is visible to all and seen on the surface, but dug down and probed our innermost parts, asking questions, putting forward propositions, and listening to our answers. Once he had seen in us something not useless, not unprofitable, not beyond working, he dug, he turned the soil, he watered, he stirred everything, he brought to bear all his skill and care, and he cultivated us. The thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:18) and every kind of wild weed or plant that our soul threw up and put forth as it ran wild in its agitation, disordered and rash as it was, he cut down and rooted out entirely by refuting us and holding us back. He took us to task, and sometimes, quite in the manner of Socrates, he tripped us up in argument, whenever he saw us bolting from the rein altogether like wild horses, leaping off the road and running about aimlessly, until by a kind of persuasion and constraint, as with a bridle, the word from our own mouth, he brought us quietly to order under him.

At first this was hard for us and not without pain, since we were unused to it and not yet practiced in following an argument, when he brought his own reasoning to bear on us; but all the same he was cleansing us. When he had made us fit and had prepared us well to receive the words of truth, then at last, as on ground well worked and soft and ready to send up the seeds put into it, he set to work unsparingly, sowing the seed at the right time, and at the right time giving all the rest of his care as well, working each thing in its proper way. With the tools that belong to reason he sharpened and refined whatever in the soul was dull and spurious, whether it was so by nature or had grown thick from too much feeding of the body. He did this by the fine arguments and patterns of logical reasoning, which unwind one after another from the simplest first principles and turn in many ways until they advance into a baffling tangle hard to unravel. They roused us as if from sleep, and we were taught always to hold fast to the question before us, never slipping away from it, whether because of its length or because of its subtlety.

Training in logic: testing every claim before assent§7.2

Origen trains them in logic, so that they test every claim before giving or refusing assent.

7.2As for whatever was undiscerning and rash in us, when we gave our assent to whatever came our way, whatever it might be, even if it happened to be false, and often spoke against things even when they had been said truly, this too he schooled, both by the arguments I have mentioned and by others of many kinds. For this part of philosophy is itself many-sided, and it trains us not to cast our testimony carelessly or at random and then back out of it again, but to examine with care not only what is plain but also what is hidden. For many things that looked reputable and grave at first sight slipped into our ears as true under fine-sounding words, though they were rotten beneath and false; they carried us away and won from us a verdict that they were true, and before long they were caught out as unsound and untrustworthy, playing the part of truth in vain. Then they easily made us look ridiculous, deceived as we were, for having carelessly borne witness to what we should least of all have vouched for. And again, other things, worthy indeed and making no show, or set out in words that do not win belief, strange and seeming the least credible of all, were rejected at once as false and treated with undeserved scorn; and then later, to those who tracked them down and examined them closely, the very things that had until then been thought worthless and spurious were found to be the truest of all and simply unanswerable.

So he taught us not to search only what is plain and catches the eye, which is sometimes deceitful and sophistical, but also what is within, tapping each thing to hear whether it rings hollow anywhere, and so, having first made ourselves sure of what lies within, to give our assent to what is outside as well, and to declare our judgment on each matter. In this way he trained, by logic, the critical part of our soul that deals with words and arguments: not as the fine rhetoricians judge, whether a word is good Greek or barbarous, for that is a small and unnecessary study, but in this study, which is most necessary for all, Greeks and barbarians, learned and unlearned alike, and in short, so that I need not make a long speech by going through every art and pursuit one by one, for all people who have chosen any way of life whatever, since everyone who discusses anything at all cares about not being deceived and is in earnest about it.

Natural science, geometry and astronomy§8

Origen leads them through natural science, geometry and astronomy toward the highest things.

8And he did not train only that part which it falls to dialectic alone to set right. There was also the lowly part of our soul. We were awestruck at the mighty works and marvels and the varied, all-wise craftsmanship of the world; we marveled without reason and cowered in astonishment, and like animals without reason we did not know how to reason about any of it at all. This part he roused and set upright by other studies, those of nature. He made clear each thing that exists and distinguished it, and with great wisdom worked his account down to the very first elements; he went through the nature of the whole and of each part, and the many kinds of turning and change in the things of the world. At last, carrying us along by his clear teaching and by the arguments, both those he had learned and those he had found out for himself, about the sacred ordering of the universe and its blameless nature, he set in our souls a reasoned wonder in place of an unreasoning one. Natural science, which all find most delightful, teaches this lofty and divine study.

Why should I speak of the sacred studies, geometry, dear to all and beyond dispute, and astronomy, which travels the heights? He stamped each of these on our souls, by teaching them, or by reminding us of them, or I do not know what I ought to call it. Geometry he made the unshakable base of absolutely everything, a sure foundation; and through astronomy he led us up to the highest things, making heaven passable for us by each of the two studies, as by a ladder reaching up to heaven.

Ethics: the soul sees itself and the virtues take root§9

Origen turns to ethics, teaching the soul to know itself and urging the virtues more by his deeds than by his words.

9Then came the highest things of all, the chief reason why the whole tribe of philosophers labors, gathering good fruit, as it were, from a varied planting of every other study and of a long course of philosophy: the divine virtues of character. From them the impulses of the soul come into a calm and steady state, and they were going to make us free from grief and untouched by any evil, well ordered, steady, godlike and truly blessed. These too he worked at with discourses of his own, calming and wise and, not least, most needful, about our characters and our ways of life. And not with words alone: already, in a way, he steered our impulses by deeds as well, through the very study and observation of the impulses and passions of the soul. For once this is thoroughly grasped, our soul is by nature set right out of discord and brought from confusion to discernment and order. The aim was that the soul should look at itself as in a mirror: at the very beginnings and roots of evil, the whole irrational part of itself, from which unnatural passions rise up in us; and again at its best part, the rational, under whose rule it suffers no harm from itself and stays free of passion. Then, having observed these things in itself with care, it was to cast out and clear away everything that springs from the worse part, which either pours us out in license or cramps and chokes us in abjectness: pleasures and desires, griefs and fears, and the whole train of evils that follows these kinds. It was to rise against them while they are still beginning and just sprouting, and not let them grow even a little, but destroy them and wipe them out. Whatever good things rise in us from the better part, it was to nurture and preserve, nursing them from their beginning and guarding them until they reach maturity. For in this way, he said, the divine virtues may at last come to the soul: prudence, which can first judge these very movements of the soul, once knowledge has come from them of the goods and evils outside us as well, if there are any; self-control, the power that rightly chooses these things at their beginnings; justice, which gives each what is due; and courage, the safeguard of them all.

So he did not train us with recited words, as though prudence were ‘knowledge of goods and evils, or of what should be done and what should not’. That is an empty and useless lesson if the word stands apart from deeds, and prudence does not do what should be done and turn away from what should not, but only lets those who have it know these things, as we see so many do. So too with self-control, as though it were ‘a knowledge of what is to be chosen and what is not’: the other philosophers hardly teach it at all, especially the more recent ones. Vigorous and forceful in argument they are (I have often marveled at them when they prove that God and men have the same virtue, and that on earth the wise man is equal to God in the highest things), but they cannot hand on prudence so that a person actually does what prudence requires, nor self-control so that a person actually chooses what he has learned. The same holds for justice, and for courage too. This man did not go through the virtues with us like that, in words; he urged us rather toward the deeds, and he urged us more by what he did than by what he said.

A plea to the philosophers before the praise§10

Gregory asks the other philosophers not to take offense at his praise of Origen.

10I ask the philosophers of our day, both those I have known myself and those I have heard of from others, and everyone else as well, not to take offense at what I am now saying. Let no one think I say this out of friendship for the man, or else out of hostility toward the other philosophers. As much as anyone, I wish to be a devoted lover of them for the sake of their teachings; I want to speak well of them myself, and to hear others speak most highly of them. But their ways are such that the very name of philosophy is insulted to the last degree by nearly everyone, and I very nearly chose to stay wholly untaught rather than learn any of the things these men teach; for because of the rest of their lives I did not think them worth even approaching, though perhaps I did not judge rightly in this. So, I say, let no one suspect that I speak from some ambition, either in praising the man or in that other rivalry against the philosophers outside. Let him rather be assured that, so as not to seem to flatter, we are saying less than his deeds deserve. We are not supplying ourselves with phrases and words and the stock devices of the art for a eulogy. Even as a youth, when I was learning popular rhetoric from a rhetorician, I would not willingly bring myself to say anything untrue in praising anyone or in speaking a eulogy about anyone. Nor now, then, when I have set out to praise, do I think I should simply raise this man up by blaming others. Otherwise I would be speaking ill of him, setting his blessed life beside other people’s failings so as to have something greater to say about him. We are not so foolish. Instead I will confess exactly what happened to me, without comparisons or verbal trickery.

He taught virtue by deeds before words§11

Origen alone persuaded Gregory to study moral philosophy, teaching virtue by his own life before his words.

11He was the first and the only one who urged me, by his own character, to study even the philosophy of the Greeks, and who persuaded me to listen to teaching on morals and to bear with it. As far as the other philosophers were concerned I would not have been persuaded (I confess it again), wrongly, I grant, and very nearly to my misfortune. Not that I had met many at first, only a few who claimed to teach; but all of them stopped philosophy short at words. This man was the first who urged me to philosophy by words as well, but his deeds had come before his urging in words. He did not merely recite rehearsed phrases; he did not even think it right to speak unless he did so with a sincere mind that would strive to carry out what it said. He tried instead to show himself the kind of man his teaching describes as one who will live well; and he set before us, I wanted to say, a pattern of the wise man. But since my speech promised from the start the truth and not ornament, I do not yet call him a pattern of the wise man, though I should like to say it, and it would be true; but I leave this aside for now. Not, then, an exact pattern, but a man who longs earnestly to make himself like one, straining with all zeal and eagerness, if I may say so, even beyond human power. He also wished to shape us and others into such people, with mastery and knowledge not of arguments about the impulses but of the impulses themselves. He led us both to deeds and to words, and in our very study he brought us no small share of each virtue, perhaps even the whole of it, had we had room to take it in.

He compelled us, if I may put it so, to act justly, through the soul’s doing of its own work, which he persuaded us to take up. He drew us away from the busy meddling of ordinary life and from the noise of the marketplace, and roused us to look into ourselves and truly to do our own work. Some of the ancient philosophers too have said that this is acting justly and this the true justice, calling it ‘doing one’s own’; and, I think, it is the more effective path to blessedness, both for themselves and for those who come to them, if indeed it belongs to this virtue to give what is deserved and to give each their own. For what else could belong to the soul as its own? And what does it deserve so much as to care for itself, not looking outward, not busy with others’ affairs, not (to put it briefly) wronging itself with the worst injustice, but turned inward toward itself, restoring itself to itself and acting justly? In this way he taught us to do justice, by compulsion, if I may say so.

No less did he teach us prudence: for the soul to dwell with itself, and for us to want and to try to know ourselves. This is the finest work of philosophy, ascribed even to the most oracular of the demons as an all-wise command: ‘Know yourself.’ The ancients rightly say that this is truly the work of prudence, and that this is divine prudence, being truly the same virtue in God and in man: the soul practices seeing itself as in a mirror, and, if it should become worthy of this fellowship, beholds the divine mind reflected within itself, and traces out a hidden path to this deification. Following on this, he taught us self-control and courage. Self-control means keeping this prudence safe, the soul knowing itself, if that should ever be its lot; for self-control, again, is just this: prudence kept sound. Courage means holding fast in everything to the practices described, not falling away from them either willingly or under any compulsion, but guarding them and keeping a firm hold on what has been said; and this virtue, he said, is a kind of savior and guardian of teachings.

Not yet virtuous, but made lovers of virtue§12

Gregory admits he has not yet gained the virtues, but Origen has made him a lover of them, whose goal is to draw near to God.

12And indeed, because of our slowness and sluggishness, he has yet to make us just and prudent, self-controlled or courageous, earnestly as he strives for it. We neither have nor have come anywhere near any virtue at all, human or divine; far from it. For these are the greatest, the lofty virtues, and neither kind can be grasped, nor gained by chance, by anyone into whom God does not breathe power. We are not so well suited to them by nature, nor do we yet profess to be worthy to attain them, since through laziness and weakness we have not done all that those must do who aim at the best and seek after perfection. So we have yet to become just or self-controlled, or to have any of the other virtues. But lovers we are, loving with the keenest love; that, perhaps, was all that lay in his power, and this wonderful man, the friend and advocate of the virtues, made us such long ago. By his own virtue he kindled in us a love of the beauty of justice, whose truly golden face he showed us; of prudence, which all desire; of true wisdom, most lovely; of godlike self-control, which is steadiness and peace of soul for all who gain it; of courage, that most wonderful endurance; and above all of piety, which people rightly call the mother of the virtues. For piety is the beginning and the end of all the virtues. Starting from it, the other virtues too would come to us most easily, if we cared for the rest of them out of desire and eagerness to win for ourselves what every person must, at least every person who is not godless or a lover of pleasure: to become a friend of God and on familiar terms with Him. We would tend those virtues so that we might draw near to God not unworthy and soiled, but with every virtue and with wisdom as our good escort and most wise priest. And the goal of it all, I think, is nothing else than this: to draw near to God, made like Him by a pure mind, and to abide in Him.

Read every writer except those who deny God§13

Origen had them read every philosopher and poet except those who deny God, so that no single doctrine would hold them captive.

13Beyond all his other diligence and zeal, how could I set out in words his teaching on theology and the reverent care he brought to it? How could I enter into the man's very disposition and show with what judgment and what preparation he wanted us to learn thoroughly all that has been said about the divine, taking care that we should never run into danger over the most necessary thing of all, the knowledge of the Cause of all things? For he thought it right that we should study philosophy by reading, with all our strength, every writing of the ancients, whether philosophers or poets, setting nothing aside and rejecting nothing, since we were not yet able even to judge, except the writings of the atheists, who have fallen away even from the common notions of humankind and say that there is no God and no providence. These are not worth reading, so that our soul, which is meant to be devout, should not be stained even slightly by hearing words opposed to the worship of God. After all, people do not think it fitting to piety for those who go up to the temples to touch anything profane at all. The books of such men, then, are not worth even counting among people who have chosen to live devoutly. But all the rest he wanted us to read and engage with, preferring no single school or philosophical doctrine and rejecting none, whether Greek or barbarian, but listening to them all. This was wise and very skillful. He did not want some one teaching of this party or that, heard and honored by itself alone, to slip into our soul as the only truth, even if it should happen not to be true, and so deceive us, shaping us to itself and making us its own, so that we could no longer break away from it or wash it out, like wool dyed with a dye that will not run. For human argument is a formidable and supple thing, intricate with its sophistries and quick to rush into the ears, to stamp the mind and fix itself there; and once it has persuaded those it has seized, it is loved as true and stays inside, even if it is false and deceitful, like a sorcerer in control, with the very man it has deceived as its champion. And the human soul in turn is easily deceived by argument and quick to give its assent. Before it has weighed and tested a thing in every way, it is often ready, through its own dullness and weakness, or because the subtlety of the argument has made it weary of testing it closely, to hand itself over too easily to false arguments and doctrines, which are themselves astray and lead astray those who hold them. And not only that: even if another argument should want to set it right, it no longer admits it or lets itself be persuaded, but clings to the one already within it, as though some tyrant deaf to every plea had mastered it.

Why the schools hold their followers captive§14

Gregory explains how the schools hold their followers captive, and how Origen kept his students free by sifting what was true in each.

14Is it not this that has brought in the doctrines that fight and contradict one another, and the factions of the philosophers, some opposing the doctrines of others, some holding fast to one set of views and others attaching themselves to another? All of them, from the time they were first turned toward philosophy, want to practice it and profess that they do. They claim that they desire it no less now that they are deep in its arguments than when they were beginning them; rather, that they love philosophy even more now, when it has been granted them to taste it, so to speak, and to spend their time in its arguments, than when at first, knowing nothing of it, they were carried away by some impulse to philosophize. So they say; yet they will no longer listen to the arguments of anyone who thinks otherwise. So not one of the older philosophers ever persuaded any of the newer ones, or any of the Peripatetics, to turn to him and follow his philosophy, nor the other way round; in short, no one ever persuaded anyone. For no one would easily be won over to give up his own views and join others, and that perhaps the very views which, had he been persuaded of them before he came to philosophy, he would have loved from the first and accepted easily. Since his soul was not yet taken over by any arguments, he would have held to them and loved them, and for their sake would have opposed, in just the same way, the views he now holds.

Such is the philosophy of these fine Greeks of ours, most learned and most searching as they are. Whatever each one happened upon at the start, driven by some impulse, that alone he calls true, and all the views of the other philosophers he calls deceit and nonsense. He does not support his own views by argument any more than each of the others champions theirs; and for refusing to change his mind or think again, whether pressed by necessity or by persuasion, he has, if the truth must be told, no other ground than the unreasoning impulse that, as he came to philosophy, drew him to these doctrines, and no other judge of what he thinks true, if it is not too strange a thing to say, than undiscerning chance. Each loves the views he first happened upon, and, bound by them as it were, he can no longer give heed to any others. If he can say something to prove the truth of his views on every point, and to show that his opponents' views are false, then he has argument on his side as well; but even without that help he has surrendered himself to the arguments that took hold of him first, welcoming them at random like a lucky find. These arguments have tripped up those who hold them in other matters, and above all have made them miss the greatest and most necessary thing of all, the knowledge of the divine and reverence toward it. Yet they stay bound in them, in a way, and no one could easily rescue them any longer. It is like a marsh in a vast plain that is hard to cross: once people have fallen in, it no longer lets them save themselves either by turning back or by getting across, but holds them there until they die. Or it is like a deep, dense, towering forest. A traveler goes in, perhaps meaning to come out again and set himself once more in open ground within the fences, but because of its length and thickness he cannot. He turns this way and that many times inside it, and, finding paths within that run on and on, he wanders along them in every direction, thinking he may soon get out by one of them; but they only lead further in and never out, for they are paths of the forest alone. At last the traveler, worn out and giving up, as though the whole world had become forest and there were no longer any dwelling on earth, decides to stay there, sets up his hearth, and clears himself what space he can in the forest. Or it is like a labyrinth. Only one entrance shows, so a man suspects nothing intricate from what he sees outside; he goes in through the single door that appears and walks on to the innermost parts. There he sees an intricate sight, a construction of great cunning, full of passages and cleverly contrived with entrances and exits one after another; and when he wants to leave, he can no longer do so, shut in by a construction that had seemed so clever to him. Yet no labyrinth is so hard to escape and so intricate, no forest so dense and tangled, no plain or marsh so terrible at holding those who come near it, as an argument can be when it is the argument of some of these philosophers.

So that we should not suffer the same fate as most people, he did not lead us to any single one of the philosophers' doctrines, nor did he think it right for us to go off after them; he led us to them all, wanting us to leave no Greek doctrine untried. He himself went in with us, leading the way and taking us by the hand, as on a journey. If anything crooked, unsound beneath its surface, or full of sophistry should confront us, he, a master of the craft to whom, after his long familiarity with arguments, nothing was strange and nothing untried, would stay safely above it himself and, stretching out his hand to others, would bring them through, drawing them up like people who are sinking. He gathered and set before us everything that was useful and true in each of the philosophers, and he sifted out whatever was false, in other matters and above all in whatever, where piety was concerned, was merely human.

Origen, interpreter of God's prophets§15

Origen teaches them to heed God and His prophets alone, and opens the dark sayings of Scripture.

15In these matters he counseled us to pay no heed at all, not even if someone were attested by all mankind as supremely wise, but to give heed to God alone and to His prophets. He himself acted as their interpreter and made clear whatever was dark and riddling, and much in the sacred words is of that kind. Whether it is God's pleasure to speak with human beings in this way, so that the divine word should not enter naked and uncovered into an unworthy soul, as most souls are; or whether the divine oracle, though by nature the clearest and simplest of all things, appears unclear and dark to us, who have fallen away from God and through the passing of long ages have unlearned how to listen, I cannot say. But he made these things clear and brought them into the light. If they happened to be riddles, he could do so because he was a skilled and most understanding hearer of God; and if they had nothing crooked in their nature, they were not beyond his understanding, since he alone of the people now living, of those I have known myself or heard others speak of, was so disposed, having trained himself to receive into his soul what is pure and full of light in the oracles and to teach it to others. For the Leader of all, who prompts the prophets, the friends of God, and inspires every prophecy and every mystical and divine word, so honored him as to make him His friend and one with whom He speaks. What He had only hinted at in riddles through others, He taught through this man. And whatever He, who is most worthy of trust, either commanded with royal authority or declared, He gave this man the gift to search out and discover their reasons, so that anyone who was hard of soul and unbelieving, or even eager to learn, might learn from him and be compelled, in a way, to understand and to choose to believe, and to follow God. And this man says these things, I think, in no other way than by fellowship with the divine Spirit. For those who prophesy and those who listen to the prophets need the same power; and no one can hear a prophet unless the very Spirit who prophesied gives him understanding of His words. Such an oracle stands written in the sacred Scriptures as well, saying that He who shuts alone opens, and no one else at all (Revelation 3:7; Isaiah 22:22). And the divine Word opens what is shut by making the riddles clear. This man has received from God this greatest of gifts, a most beautiful portion from heaven: to be an interpreter of God's words to human beings, to understand the things of God as though God Himself were speaking, and to explain them to human beings so that they can hear. So nothing was kept from us as unspeakable, for nothing was hidden or barred to us. We were free to learn every kind of teaching, barbarian and Greek, the more mystical and the more concerned with public life, divine and human, going round all of it and searching it out with complete freedom, taking our fill of everything and enjoying the goods of the soul. Whether it was some ancient lesson of truth, or anything else one could call by such a name, in him we had a wonderful store of it, full of the fairest sights, and free access to it. To put it briefly, he was truly a paradise to us, an image of the great paradise of God (Genesis 2:8). There we did not have to till the earth below or feed our bodies and grow fat; we had only to make the soul's riches grow, like fair plants, whether we planted them ourselves or they were planted in us by the Cause of all, while we rejoiced and took our delight.

Driven from paradise: Adam, the prodigal, and Babylon§16

Leaving Origen's school, Gregory compares himself to Adam driven from paradise, to the prodigal son and to the exiles in Babylon.

16This is truly a paradise of delight; this is true gladness and delight, the delight we have enjoyed in this time now completed. It has been no short time already, and yet it is short altogether, if it is to stop here, now that we are leaving and withdrawing from this place. For I do not know what has happened to me, or what sin I have committed again, that I am going out, that I am being driven out. What I ought to say I do not know, except that I am a second Adam out of paradise (Genesis 3:23–24), and I have begun to talk. How well off I was while I listened to my teacher speaking and kept silent! Would that I were keeping quiet even now! I was learning while I kept silent. If only I had not put on this novel spectacle, making my teacher the listener! What need did I have of these words? Why should I address such things to you at all? What was needed was not to go away, but to stay on. But these faults seem to belong to the ancient deception, and these penalties for the ancient wrongs still await me. Or else I seem to myself to be disobeying once more, daring to go beyond the words of God, when I ought to remain in them and beside them.

And I am going away, fleeing from this blessed life no less than that man of old fled from the face of God (Genesis 3:8), and returning to the earth from which I was taken (Genesis 3:19). So I shall eat earth all the days of my life (Genesis 3:17), and I work the earth (Genesis 3:23), an earth that brings forth thorns and thistles for me (Genesis 3:18): my own griefs and shameful cares, now that I have let go of noble and good cares. And I am turning back again to the things I had left behind: to the land from which I came out, to my kindred here below, and to the house of my father (Genesis 12:1). I am leaving the good land, where my good homeland lay, though for a long time I did not know it; and the kinsmen whom I had as kindred of my soul, though only later did I begin to know them; and the house of him who is truly our father, where he abides and where the father is reverently honored and revered by the true sons who wish to remain in it. But I, without reverence and unworthy, go out from these things, turning back toward what lies behind and running back the way I came.

There is a story of a son who received from his father the share of the inheritance that fell to him, as against his other brother, and went abroad from his father into a far country, by his own choice. Living wastefully, he scattered his father's property and used it up. At last, in his want, he hired himself out to feed swine. Driven by hunger, he longed even to share the swine's food, yet he could not get even this (Luke 15:12–16). So he paid the penalty for his wasteful table: in exchange for his father's table, which was a royal one, he received what he had not foreseen, the food of swine and the food of a hired laborer. Something like this, it seems, we too shall suffer in going away, and not even with the whole share that falls to us. For we have not even received what we ought, and yet we are going all the same. We leave the good and dear things with you and beside you, and take the worse in exchange.

For in their place everything gloomy will come upon us: uproar and confusion after peace, and after a quiet and orderly life, a disordered one; after this freedom, a harsh slavery: market-places and lawsuits, crowds and luxury. We shall no longer have the least leisure for better things. We shall not speak the divine oracles; we shall speak the works of men (Psalm 17:4). (A prophet held this to be nothing less than a curse.) And in our case it will be the works of wicked men. Truly, for us night will follow day, darkness will follow shining light, mourning will follow festival, and a hostile country will follow our homeland, where I may not sing a sacred song. For how could I sing in a land foreign to my soul (Psalm 137:4)? There, while we stay, we cannot sing to God; we can only weep and groan as we remember what is here (Psalm 137:1), if anyone will grant me even this.

Enemies, we are told, once came against a great and holy city in which God was worshipped, and dragged off its inhabitants as captives, singers of hymns and those who spoke of God, to their own country, which was Babylon. And those who were carried there were not willing to hymn God, even when their masters asked them (Psalm 137:3), or to sing psalms in a profane land. Instead, now idle, they hung their musical instruments on the willows, and they themselves wept by the rivers of Babylon (Psalm 137:1–2). I seem to be one of them, driven out of a city, out of this sacred homeland of mine. Here by day and night the sacred laws are declared, and hymns and songs and mystical words. Here there is the light of the sun and an unbroken waking vision by day, as we converse with the divine mysteries, and by night we are held by the images of what the soul saw and did by day. In short, this is where the inspiration of God holds us at every moment; from this I am driven out, carried off a captive into a foreign land. There I shall not even be allowed to play the flute, for I shall have hung my instrument on the willows as they did (Psalm 137:2). I shall be by the rivers and shall work in clay, and I shall not wish to recite hymns, though I remember them; and perhaps, through long labor at other things, I shall even forget, robbed of my memories.

And if only, in going, I went merely against my will, like a captive! But I go willingly too, driven out not by anyone else but by my own warfare against myself, when perhaps I could stay. And once I leave here, I shall not travel in safety, as one who has gone out from a city that is safe and at peace. It is likely that on the road I shall fall in with robbers and be seized, and be stripped and wounded with many wounds, and lie somewhere, thrown down half dead (Luke 10:30).

Comfort: the Savior keeps watch, and the seed goes with us§17

Gregory takes comfort: the Savior of all keeps watch, and the seeds Origen sowed go with him.

17But why do I lament like this? There is the Savior of all, the guardian and physician of all who are half dead and all who have been robbed (Luke 10:30–34): the Word who never sleeps, the keeper of all people. We have seeds too: those you showed us we already had, and those we have received from you, your good counsels; with these we go. We go weeping, as people setting out on a journey, yet carrying these seeds with us all the same (Psalm 126:6). Perhaps, then, the Keeper will stand over us and bring us safely through; and perhaps we shall return to you again, bringing from the seeds both the fruits and the sheaves (Psalm 126:6). They will not be perfect; how could they be? They will be such as we are able to bring from the business of public life: spoiled, it is true, by some power that is barren or bears bad fruit, yet a power that, if God consents, will not be ruined further along with us.

Ending the speech: thanks spoken plainly§18

Gregory ends his speech, sure that its thanks, though unworthy, are sincere.

18So let my speech end here. It has been bold where it least ought to have been; but it has given thanks in some fashion, I think, with a grateful mind and as far as we are able. We have said nothing worthy, yet we have not been wholly silent. It has also wept its farewell, as those who part from their friends usually do. Whether it has nothing boyish or flattering in it, nothing old-fashioned or overdone, I cannot say. But this I know clearly: it has this much, that it is not made up. It is true in every way, from a sound mind and from a purpose that is sincere and whole.

Farewell prayer: send us off under God's care§19

Gregory asks Origen to pray for him and to commit him to the care of God, who led him there.

19But you, my dear friend, rise and pray, and now send us on our way. As you saved us while we were with you by your sacred teachings, save us by your prayers once we have gone away. Hand us over and commit us; or rather, hand us over to the God who led us to you. Give him thanks for what he has already done for us, and ask him to lead us by the hand in what is to come as well: to stand over us always, to whisper his commands to our minds, and to instill in us his divine fear, which will be the best of tutors. For once we have gone away, it will not be in the freedom we had with you that we obey him. Ask him also that some comfort may come to us from him for our parting from you: that he send a good escort, an angel to travel with us. And ask, too, that he turn us back and bring us to you again. This above all, and this alone, will comfort us.