5. Five Books in Reply to Marcion.
X. Appendix.
1. A Strain of Jonah the Prophet.
After the living, aye-enduring death
Of Sodom and Gomorrah; after fires
Penal, attested by time-frosted plains
Of ashes; after fruitless apple-growths,
Born but to feed the eye; after the death
Of sea and brine, both in like fate involved;
While whatsoe'er is human still retains
In change corporeal its penal badge:
A city-Nineveh-by stepping o'er
The path of justice and of equity,
On her own head had well-nigh shaken down
More fires of rain supernal. For what dread
Dwells in a mind subverted? Commonly
Tokens of penal visitations prove
All vain where error holds possession. Still,
Kindly and patient of our waywardness,
And slow to punish, the Almighty Lord
Will launch no shaft of wrath, unless He first
Admonish and knock oft at hardened hearts,
Rousing with mind august presaging seers.
For to the merits of the Ninevites
The Lord had bidden Jonah to foretell
Destruction; but he, conscious that He spare;
The subject, and remits to suppliants
The dues of penalty, and is to good
Ever inclinable, was loth to face
That errand; lest he sing his seerly strain
In vain, and peaceful issue of his threats
Ensue. His counsel presently is flight:
(If, howsoe'er, there is at all the power
God to avoid, and shun the Lord's right hand
'Neath whom the whole orb trembles and is held
In check: but is there reason in the act
Which in his saintly heart the prophet dares?)
On the beach-lip, over against the shores
Of the Cilicians, is a city poised,
Far-famed for trusty port-Joppa her name.
Thence therefore Jonah speeding in a barque
Seeks Tarsus, through the signal providence
Of the same God; nor marvel is's, I ween,
If, fleeing from the Lord upon the lands,
He found Him in the waves. For suddenly
A little cloud had stained the lower air
With fleecy wrack sulphureous, itself
By the wind's seed excited: by degrees,
Bearing a brood globose, it with the sun
Cohered, and with a train caliginous
Shut in the cheated day. The main becomes
The mirror of the sky; the waves are dyed so
With black encirclement; the upper air
Down rushes into darkness, and the sea
Uprises; nought of middle space is left;
While the clouds touch the waves, and the waves all
Are mingled by the bluster of the winds
In whirling eddy.'Gainst the renegade,
'Gainst Jonah, diverse frenzy joined to rave,
While one sole barque did all the struggle breed
'Twixt sky and surge. From this side and from that
Pounded she reels; 'neath each wave-breaking blow
The forest of her tackling trembles all;
As, underneath, her spinal length of keel,
Staggered by shock on shock, all palpitates;
And, from on high, her labouring mass of yard
Creaks shuddering; and the tree-like mast itself
Bends to the gale, misdoubting to be riven.
Meantime the rising clamour of the crew
Tries every chance for barque's and dear life's sake:
To pass from hand to hand the tardy coils
To tighten the girth's noose: straitly to bind
The tiller's struggles; or, with breast opposed,
T' impel reluctant curves. Part, turn by turn,
With foremost haste outbale the reeking well
Of inward sea. The wares and cargo all
They then cast headlong, and with losses seek
Their perils to subdue. At every crash
Of the wild deep rise piteous cries; and out
They stretch their hands to majesties of gods,
Which gods are none; whom might of sea and sky
Fears not, nor yet the less from off their poops
With angry eddy sweeping sinks them down.
Unconscious of all this, the guilty one
'Neath the poop's hollow arch was making sleep
Re-echo stertorous with nostril wide
Inflated: whom, so soon as he who guides
The functions of the wave-dividing prow
Saw him sleep-bound in placid peace, and proud
In his repose, he, standing o'er him, shook,
And said, "Why sing's", with vocal nostril, dreams,
In such a crisis? In so wild a whirl,
Why keep'st thou only harbour? Lo! the wave
Whelms us, and our one hope is in the gods.
Thou also, whosoever is thy god,
Make vows, and, pouring prayers on bended knee,
Win o'er thy country's Sovran!" Then they vote
To learn by lot who is the culprit, who
The cause of storm; nor does the lot belie
Jonah: whom then they ask, and ask again,
"Who? whence? who in the world? from what abode,
What people, hail'st thou?" He avows himself
A servant, and an over-timid one,
Of God, who raised aloft the sky, who based
The earth, who corporally fused the whole:
A renegade from Him he owns himself,
And tells the reason. Rigid turned they all
With dread."What grudge, then, ow'st thou us? What now
Will follow? By what deed shall we appease
The main?" For more and far more swelling grew
The savage surges. Then the seer begins
Words prompted by the Spirit of the Lord:
"Lo! I your tempest am; I am the sum
Of the world's madness: 'tis in me," he says,
"That the sea rises, and the upper air
Down rushes; land in me is far, death near,
And hope in God is none! Come, headlong hurl
Your cause of bane: lighten your ship, and cast
This single mighty burden to the main,
A willing prey!" But they-all vainly!-strive
Homeward to turn their course; for helm refused
To suffer turning, and the yard's stiff poise
Willed not to change. At last unto the Lord
They cry: "For one soul's sake give us not o'er
Unto death's maw, nor let us be besprent
With righteous blood, if thus Thine own right hand
Leadeth." And from the eddy's depth a whale
Outrising on the spot, scaly with shells,
Unravelling his body's train, 'gan urge
More near the waves, shocking the gleaming brine,
Seizing-at God's command-the prey; which, rolled
From the poop's summit prone, with slimy jaws
He sucked; and into his long belly sped
The living feast; and swallowed, with the man,
The rage of sky and main. The billowy waste
Grows level, and the ether's gloom dissolves;
The waves on this side, and the blasts on that,
Are to their friendly mood restored; and, where
The placid keel marks out a path secure,
White traces in the emerald furrow bloom.
The sailor then does to the reverend Lord
Of death make grateful offering of his fear;
Then enters friendly ports. Jonah the seer
The while is voyaging, in other craft
Embarked, and cleaving 'neath the lowest waves
A wave: his sails the intestines of the fish,
Inspired with breath ferine; himself, shut in;
By waters, yet untouched; in the sea's heart
And yet beyond its reach; 'mid wrecks of fleets
Half-eaten, and men's carcasses dissolved
In putrid disintegrity: in life
Learning the process of his death; but still-
To be a sign hereafter of the Lord -
A witness was he (in his very self),
Not of destruction, but of death's repulse.
2. A Strain of Sodom.
Already had Almighty God wiped off
By vengeful flood (with waters all conjoined
Which heaven discharged on earth and the sea's plain
Outspued) the times of the primeval age:
Had pledged Himself, while nether air should bring
The winters in their course, ne'er to decree,
By liquid ruin, retribution's due;
And had assigned, to curb the rains, the bow
Of many hues, sealing the clouds with band
Of purple and of green, Iris its name,
The rain-clouds' proper baldric.
But alike
With mankind's second race impiety
Revives, and a new age of ill once more
Shoots forth; allotted now no more to showers
For ruin, but to fires: thus did the land
Of Sodom earn to be by glowing dews
Upburnt, and typically thus portend
The future end. There wild voluptuousness
(Modesty's foe) stood in the room of law;
Which prescient guest would shun, and sooner choose
At Scythian or Busirian altar's foot
'Mid sacred rites to die, and, slaughtered, pour
His blood to Bebryx, or to satiate
Libyan palaestras, or assume new forms;
By virtue of Circaean cups, than lose
His outraged sex in Sodom. At heaven's gate
There knocked for vengeance marriages commit
With equal incest common 'mong a race
By nature rebels 'gainst themselves; and hurts
Done to man's name and person equally.
But God, forewatching all things, at fix'd time
Doth judge the unjust; with patience tarrying
The hour when crime's ripe age-not any force
Of wrath impetuous-shall have circumscribed
The space for waiting. Now at length the day
Of vengeance was at hand. Sent from the host
Angelical, two, youths in form, who both
Were ministering spirits, carrying
The Lord's divine commissions, come beneath
The walls of Sodom. There was dwelling Lot
A transplantation from a pious stock;
Wise, and a practicer of righteousness,
He was the only one to think on God:
As oft a fruitful tree is wont to lurk,
Guest-like, in forests wild. He, sitting then
Before the gate (for the celestials scarce
Had reached the ramparts), though he knew not them
Divine, accosts them unsolicited,
Invites, and with ancestral honour greets;
And offers them, preparing to abide
Abroad, a hospice. By repeated prayers
He wins them; and then ranges studiously
The sacred pledges on his board, and quits
His friends with courteous offices. The night
Had brought repose: alternate dawn had chased
The night, and Sodom with her shameful law
Makes uproar at the doors. Lot, suppliant wise,
Withstands: "Young men, let not your new fed lust
Enkindle you to violate this youth!
Whither is passion's seed inviting you?
To what vain end your lust? For such an end
No creatures wed: not such as haunt the fens;
Not stall-fed cattle; not the gaping brood
Subaqueous; nor they which, modulant
On pinions, hang suspended near the clouds;
Nor they which with forth-stretched body creep
Over earth's face. To conjugal delight
Each kind its kind doth owe: but female still
To all is wife; nor is there one that has
A mother save a female one. Yet now,
If youthful vigour holds it right to waste
The flower of modesty, I have within
Two daughters of a nuptial age, in whom
Virginity is swelling in its bloom,
Already ripe for harvest-a desire
Worthy of men-which let your pleasure reap!
Myself their sire, I yield them; and will pay
For my guests' sake, the forfeit of my grief!"
Answered the mob insane: "And who art thou7
And what? and whence? to lord it over us,
And to expound us laws? Shall foreigner
Rule Sodom, and hurl threats? Now, then, thyself
For daughters and for guests shalt sate our greed!
One shall suffice for all!" So said, so done:
The frantic mob delays not. As, whene'er
A turbid torrent rolls with wintry tide,
And rushes at one speed through countless streams
Of rivers, if, just where it forks, some tree
Meets the swift waves (not long to stand, save while
By her root's force she shall avail to oppose
Her tufty obstacles), when gradually
Her hold upon the undermined soil
Is failing, with her bared stem she hangs,
And, with uncertain heavings to and fro,
Defers her certain fall; not otherwise
Lot in the mid-whirl of the dizzy mob
Kept nodding, now almost o'ercome. But power
Divine brings succour: the angelic youths,
Snatching him from the threshold, to his roof
Restore him; but upon the spot they mulct
Of sight the mob insane in open day,-
Fit augury of coming penalties!
Then they unlock the just decrees of God:
That penalty condign from heaven will fall
On Sodom; that himself had merited
Safety upon the count of righteousness.
"Gird thee, then, up to hasten hence thy flight,
And with thee to lead oat what family
Thou hast: already we are bringing on
Destruction o'er the city." Lot with speed
Speaks to his sons-in-law; but their hard heart
Scorned to believe the warning, and at fear
Laughed. At what time the light attempts to climb
The darkness, and heaven's face wears double hue
From night and day, the youthful visitants
Were instant to outlead from Sodoma
The race Chaldaean, and the righteous house
Consign to safety: "Ho! come, Lot! arise,
And take thy yokefellow and daughters twain,
And hence, beyond the boundaries be gone,
Preventing Sodom's penalties!" And eke
With friendly hands they lead them trembling forth,
And then their final mandates give: "Save, Lot,
Thy life, lest thou perchance should will to turn
Thy retroverted gaze behind, or stay
The step once taken: to the mountain speed!"
Lot feared to creep the heights with tardy step,
Lest the celestial wrath-fires should o'ertake
And whelm him: therefore he essays to crave
Some other ports; a city small, to wit,
Which opposite he had espied."Hereto,"
He said, "I speed my flight: scarce with its walls
'Tis visible; nor is it far, nor great."
They, favouring his prayer, safety assured
To him and to the city; whence the spot
Is known in speech barbaric by the name
Segor. Lot enters Segor while the sun
Is rising, the last sun, which glowing bears
To Sodom conflagration; for his rays
He had armed all with fire: beneath him spreads
An emulous gloom, which seeks to intercep
The light; and clouds combine to interweave
Their smoky globes with the confused sky:
Down pours a novel shower: the ether seethe
With sulphur mixt with blazing flames: the air
Crackles with liquid heats exust. From hence
The fable has an echo of the truth
Amid its false, that the sun's progeny
Would drive his father's team; but nought availed
The giddy boy to curb the haughty steeds
Of fire: so blazed our orb: then lightning reft
The lawless charioteer, and bitter plaint
Transformed his sisters. Let Eridanus
See to it, if one poplar on his banks
Whitens, or any bird dons plumage there
Whose note old age makes mellow!
Here they mourn
O'er miracles of metamorphosis
Of other sort. For, partner of Lot's flight,
His wife (ah me, for woman! even then
Intolerant of law!) alone turned back
At the unearthly murmurs of the sky)
Her daring eyes, but bootlessly: not doomed
To utter what she saw! and then and there
Changed into brittle salt, herself her tomb
She stood, herself an image of herself,
Keeping an incorporeal form: and still
In her unsheltered station 'neath the heaven
Dures she, by rains unmelted, by decay
And winds unwasted; nay, if some strange hand
Deface her form, forthwith from her own store
Her wounds she doth repair. Still is she said
To live, and, 'mid her corporal change, discharge
With wonted blood her sex's monthly dues.
Gone are the men of Sodom; gone the glare
Of their unhallowed ramparts; all the house
Inhospitable, with its lords, is gone:
The champaign is one pyre; here embers rough
And black, here ash-heaps with hoar mould, mark out
The conflagration's course: evanished
Is all that old fertility which Lot,
Seeing outspread before him, ...
No ploughman spends his fruitless toil on glebes
Pitchy with soot: or if some acres there,
But half consumed, still strive to emulate
Autumn's glad wealth, pears, peaches, and all fruits
Promise themselves full easely to the eye
In fairest bloom, until the plucker's hand
Is on them: then forthwith the seeming fruit
Crumbles to dust 'neath the bewraying touch,
And turns to embers vain.
Thus, therefore (sky
And earth entombed alike), not e'en the sea
Lives there: the quiet of that quiet sea
Is death! -a sea which no wave animates
Through its anhealant volumes; which beneath
Its native Auster sighs not anywhere;
Which cannot from its depths one scaly race,
Or with smooth skin or cork-like fence encased,
Produce, or curled shell in single valve
Or double fold enclosed. Bitumen there
(The sooty reek of sea exust) alone,
With its own crop, a spurious harvest yields;
Which 'neath the stagnant surface vivid heat
From seething mass of sulphur and of brine
Maturing tempers, making earth cohere
Into a pitch marine. At season due
The heated water's fatty ooze is borne
Up to the surface; and with foamy flakes
Over the level top a tawny skin
Is woven. They whose function is to catch
That ware put to, tilting their smooth skin. down
With balance of their sides, to teach the film,
Once o'er the gunnel, to float in: for, lo!
Raising itself spontaneous, it will swim
Up to the edge of the unmoving craft;
And will, when pressed, for guerdon large, ensure
Immunity from the defiling touch
Of weft which female monthly efflux clothes.
Behold another portent notable,
Fruit of that sea's disaster: all things cast
Therein do swim: gone is its native power
For sinking bodies: if, in fine, you launch
A torch's lightsome hull (where spirit serves
For fire) therein, the apex of the flame
Will act as sail; put out the flame, and 'neath
The waters will the light's wrecks ruin go!
Such Sodom's and Gomorrah's penalties,
For ages sealed as signs before the eyes
Of unjust nations, whose obdurate hearts
God's fear have quite forsaken, will them teach
To reverence heaven-sanctioned rights, and lift
Their gaze unto one only Lord of all.
3. Genesis.
In the beginning did the Lord create
The heaven and earth: for formless was the land,
And hidden by the wave, and God immense
O'er the vast watery plains was hovering,
While chaos and black darkness shrouded all:
Which darkness, when God bade be from the pole
Disjoined, He speaks, "Let there be light; "and all
In the clear world was bright. Then, when the Lord
The first day's work had finished, He formed
Heaven's axis white with nascent clouds: the deep
Immense receives its wandering shores, and draws
The rivers manifold with mighty trains.
The third dun light unveiled earth's face, and soon
(Its name assigned ) the dry land's story 'gins:
Together on the windy champaigns rise
The flowery seeds, and simultaneously
Fruit-bearing boughs put forth procurvant arms.
The fourth day, with the sun's lamp generates
The moon, and moulds the stars with tremulous light
Radiant: these elements it gave as signs
To th' underlying world, to teach the times
Which, through their rise and setting, were to change.
Then, on the fifth, the liquid streams receive
Their fish, and birds poise in the lower air
Their pinions many-hued. The sixth. again,
Supples the ice-cold snakes into their coils,
And over the whole fields diffuses herds
Of quadrupeds; and mandate gave that all
Should grow with multiplying seed, and roam
And feed in earth's immensity. All these
When power divine by mere command arranged,
Observing that things mundane still would lack
A ruler, thus It speaks: "With utmost care,
Assimilated to our own aspect,
Make We a man to reign in the whole orb."
And him, although He with a single word
Could have compounded, yet Himself did deign
To shape him with His sacred own right hand,
Inspiring his dull breast from breast divine.
Whom when He saw formed in a likeness such
As is His own, He measures how he broods
Alone on gnawing cares. Straight way his eyes
With sleep irriguous He doth perfuse;
That from his left rib woman softlier
May formed be, and that by mixture twin
His substance may add firmness to her limbs.
To her the name of "Life"-which is called "Eve" -
Is given: wherefore sons, as custom is,
Their parents leave, and, with a settled home,
Cleave to their wives.
The seventh came, when God
At His works' end did rest, decreeing it
Sacred unto the coming ages' joys.
Straightway-the crowds of living things deployed
Before him-Adam's cunning skill (the gift
Of the good Lord) gives severally to all
The name which still is permanent. Himself,
And, joined with him, his Eve, God deigns address
"Grow, for the times to come, with manifold
Increase, that with your seed the pole and earth
Be filled; and, as Mine heirs, the varied fruits
Pluck ye, which groves and champaigns render you,
From their rich turf." Thus after He discoursed,
In gladsome court a paradise is strewn,
And looks towards the rays of th' early sun.
These joys among, a tree with deadly fruits,
Breeding, conjoined, the taste of life and death,
Arises. In the midst of the demesne
Flows with pure tide a stream, which irrigates
Fair offsprings from its liquid waves, and cuts
Quadrified paths from out its bubbling fount
Here wealthy Phison, with auriferous waves,
Swells, and with hoarse tide wears conspicuous gems,
This prasinus, that glowing carbuncle,
By name; and raves, transparent in its shoals,
The margin of the land of Havilath.
Next Gihon, gliding by the Aethiops,
Enriches them. The Tigris is the third,
Adjoined to fair Euphrates, furrowing
Disjunctively with rapid flood the land
Of Asshur. Adam, with his faithful wife,
Placed here as guard and workman, is informed
By such the Thunderer's speech: "Tremble ye not
To pluck together the permitted fruits
Which, with its leafy bough, the unshorn grove
Hath furnished; anxious only lest perchance
Ye cull the hurtful apple, which is green
With a twin juice for functions several."
And, no less blind meantime than Night herself,
Deep night 'gan hold them, nor had e'en a robe
Covered their new-formed limbs.
Amid these haunts,
And on mild berries reared, a foamy snake,
Surpassing living things in sense astute,
Was creeping silently with chilly coils.
He, brooding over envious lies instinct
With gnawing sense, tempts the soft heart beneath
The woman's breast: "Tell me, why shouldst thou dread
The apple's happy seeds? Why, hath not
All known fruits hallowed? Whence if thou be prompt
To cull the honeyed fruits, the golden world
Will on its starry pole return."
But she Refuses, and the boughs forbidden fears
To touch. But yet her breast 'gins be o'er come
With sense infirm. Straightway, as she at length
With snowy tooth the dainty morsels bit,
Stained with no cloud the sky serene up-lit!
Then taste, instilling lure in honeyed jaws,
To her yet uninitiated lord
Constrained her to present the gift; which he
No sooner took, then-night effaced!:-their eyes
Shone out serene in the resplendent world.
When, then, they each their body bare espied,
And when their shameful parts they see, with leaves
Of fig they shadow them. By chance, beneath
The sun's now setting light, they recognise
The sound of the Lord's voice, and, trembling, haste
To bypaths. Then the Lord of heaven accosts
The mournful Adam: "Say, where now thou art."
Who suppliant thus answers: "Thine address,
O Lord, O Mighty One, I tremble at,
Beneath my fearful heart; and, being bare,
I faint with chilly dread." Then said the
Lord:
"Who hath the hurtful fruits, then, given you? "
"This woman, while she tells me how her eyes
With brilliant day promptly perfused were,
And on her dawned the liquid sky serene,
And heaven's sun and stars, o'ergave them me!"
Forthwith God's anger frights perturbed Eve,
While the Most High inquires the authorship
Of the forbidden act. Hereon she opes
Her tale: "The speaking serpent's suasive words
I harboured, while the guile and bland request
Misled me: for, with venoms viperous
His words inweaving, stories told he me
Of those delights which should all fruits excel."
Straightway the Omnipotent the dragon's deeds
Condemns, and bids him be to all a sight
Unsightly, monstrous; bids him presently
With grovelling beast to crawl; and then to bite
And chew the soil; while war should to all time
'Twixt human senses and his tottering self
Be waged, that he might creep, crestfallen, prone,
Behind the legs of men, -that while he glides
Close on their heels they may down-trample him.
The woman, sadly caught by guileful words,
Is bidden yield her fruit with struggle hard,
And bear her husband's yoke with patient zeal.
"But thou, to whom the sentence of the wife
(Who, vanquished, to the dragon pitiless
Yielded) seemed true, shalt through long times deplore
Thy labour sad; for thou shalt see, instead
Of wheaten harvest's seed, the thistle rise,
And the thorn plenteously with pointed spines:
So that, with weary heart and mournful breast,
Full many sighs shall furnish anxious food;
Till, in the setting hour of coming death,
To level earth, whence thou thy body draw'st,
Thou be restored." This done, the Lord bestows
Upon the trembling pair a tedious life;
And from the sacred gardens far removes
Them downcast, and locates them opposite,
And from the threshold bars them by mid fire,
Wherein from out the swift heat is evolved
A cherubim, while fierce the hot point glows,
And rolls enfolding flames. And lest their limbs
With sluggish cold should be benumbed, the Lord
Hides flayed from cattle's flesh together sews,
With vestures warm their bare limbs covering.
When, therefore, Adam-now believing-felt
(By wedlock taught) his manhood, he confers
On his loved wife the mother's name; and, made
Successively by scions twain a sire,
Gives names to stocks diverse: Cam the first
Hath for his name, to whom is Abel joined.
The latter's care tended the harmless sheep;
The other turned the earth with curved plough.
These, when in course of time they brought their gifts
To Him who thunders, offered-as their sense
Prompted them-fruits unlike. The elder one
Offered the first-fruits of the fertile glebes:
The other pays his vows with gentle lamb,
Bearing in hand the entrails pure, and fat
Snow-white; and to the Lord, who pious vows
Beholds, is instantly acceptable.
Wherefore with anger cold did Cain glow;
With whom God deigns to talk, and thus begins:
"Tell Me, if thou live rightly, and discern
Things hurtful, couldst thou not then pass shine age
Pure from contracted guilt? Cease to essay
With gnawing sense thy brother's ruin, who,
Subject to thee as lord, his neck shall yield."
Not e'en thus softened, he unto the fields
Conducts his brother; whom when overta'en
In lonely mead he saw, with his twin palms
Bruising his pious throat, he crushed life out.
Which deed the Lord espying from high heaven,
Straitly demands "where Abel is on earth? "
He says "he will not as his brother's guard
Be set." Then God outspeaks to him again:
"Doth not the sound of his blood's voice, sent up
To Me, ascend unto heaven's lofty pole?
Learn, therefore, for so great a crime what doom
Shall wait thee. Earth, which with thy kinsman's blood
Hath reeked but now, shall to thy hateful hand
Refuse to render back the cursed seeds
Entrusted her; nor shall, if set with herbs,
Produce her fruit: that, torpid, thou shalt dash
Thy limbs against each other with much fear."....
4. A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord.
(Author Uncertain.)
Who will for me in fitting strain adapt
Field-haunting muses? and with flowers will grace
The spring-tide's rosy gales? And who will give
The summer harvest's heavy stalks mature?
And to the autumn's vines their swollen grapes?
Or who in winter's honour will commend
The olives, ever-peaceful? and will ope
Waters renewed, even at their fountainheads?
And cut from waving grass the leafy flowers?
Forthwith the breezes of celestial light
I will attune. Now be it granted me
To meet the lightsome muses! to disclose
The secret rivers on the fluvial top
Of Helicon, and gladsome woods that grow
'Neath other star. And simultaneously
I will attune in song the eternal flames;
Whence the sea fluctuates with wave immense:
What power moves the solid lands to quake;
And whence the golden light first shot its rays
On the new world; or who from gladsome clay
Could man have moulded; whence in empty world
Our race could have upgrown; and what the greed
Of living which each people so inspires;
What things for ill created are; or what
Death's propagation; whence have rosy wreaths
Sweet smell and ruddy hue; what makes the vine
Ferment in gladsome grapes away; and makes
Full granaries by fruit of slender stalks distended be; or makes the tree grow ripe
'Mid ice, with olives black; who gives to seeds
Their increments of vigour various;
And with her young's soft shadowings protects
The mother. Good it is all things to know
Which wondrous are in nature, that it may
Be granted us to recognise through all
The true Lord, who light, seas, sky, earth prepared,
And decked with varied star the new-made world;
And first bade beasts and birds to issue forth;
And gave the ocean's waters to be stocked
With fish; and gathered in a mass the sands,
With living creatures fertilized. Such strains
With stately muses will I spin, and waves
Healthful will from their fountainheads disclose:
And may this strain of mine the gladsome shower
Catch, which from placid clouds doth come, and flows
Deeply and all unsought into men's souls,
And guide it into our new-fumed lands
In copious rills. Now come: if any one
Still ignorant of God, and knowing naught
Of life to come, would fain attain to touch
The care-effacing living nymph, and through
The swift waves' virtue his lost life repair,
And'scape the penalties of flame eterne,
And rather win the guerdons of the life
To come, let such remember God is One,
Alone the object of our prayers; who 'neath
His threshold hath the whole world poised; Himself
Eternally abiding, and to be
Alway for aye; holding the ages all;
Alone, before all ages; unbegotten,
Limitless God; who holds alone His seat
Supernal; supereminent alone
Above high heavens; omnipotent alone;
Whom all things do obey; who for Himself
Formed, when it pleased Him, man for aye; and gave
Him to be pastor of beasts tame, and lord
Of wild; who by a word could stretch forth heaven;
And with a word could solid earth suspend;
And quicklier than word had the seas wave
Disjoined; and man's dear form with His own hands
Did love to mould; and furthermore did will
His own fair likeness to exist in him;
And by His Spirit on his countenance
The breath of life did breathe. Unmindful he
Of God, such guilt rashly t' incur I Beyond
The warning's range he was not ought to touch.
One fruit illicit, whence he was to know
Forthwith how to discriminate alike
Evil and equity, God him forbade
To touch. What functions of the world did God
Permit to man, and sealed the sweet sweet pledge
Of His own love! and jurisdiction gave
O'er birds, and granted him both deep and soil
To tame, and mandates useful did impart
Of dear salvation!'Neath his sway He gave
The lands, the souls of flying things, the race
Feathered, and every race, or tame or wild,
Of beasts, and the sea's race, and monsterforms
Shapeless of swimming things. But since so soon
The primal man by primal crime transgressed
The law, and left the mandates of the Lord
(Led by a wife who counselled all the ills),
By death he 'gan to perish. Woman 'twas
Who sin's first ill committed, and (the law
Transgressed) deceived her husband. Eve, induced
By guile, the thresholds oped to death, and proved
To her own self, with her whole race as well,
A procreatrix of funereal woes.
Hence unanticipated wickedness,
Hence death, like seed, for aye, is scattered. Then
More frequent grew atrocious deed; and toil
More savage set the corrupt orb astir:
(This lure the crafty serpent spread, inspired
By envy's self:) then peoples more invent
Practices of ill deeds; and by ill deeds
Gave birth to seeds of wickedness.
And so
The only Lord. whose is the power supreme.
Who o'er the heights the summits holds of heaven
Supreme, and in exalted regions dwells
In lofty light for ages, mindful too
Of present time, and of futurity
Prescient beforehand, keeps the progeny
Of ill-desert, and all the souls which move
By reason's force much-erring manf-nor less
Their tardy bodies governs He-against
The age decreed, so soon as, stretched in death,
Men lay aside their ponderous limbs, and light
As air, shall go, their earthly bonds undone,
And take in diverse parts their proper spheres
(But some He bids be forthwith by glad gales
Recalled to life, and be in secret kept
To wait the decreed law's awards, until
Their bodies with resuscitated limbs
Revive. ) Then shall men 'gin to weigh the awards
Of their first life, and on their crime and faults
To think, and keep them for their penalties
Which will be far from death; and mindful grow
Of pious duties, by God's judgments taught;
To wait expectant for their penalty
And their descendants', fruit of their own crime;
Or else to live wholly the life of sheep,
Without a name; and in God's ear, now deaf,
Pour unavailing weeping. Shall not God
Almighty, 'neath whose law are all things ruled,
Be able after death life to restore?
Or is there ought which the creation's Lord
Unable seems to do? If, darkness chased,
He could outstretch the light, and could compound
All the world's mass by a word suddenly,
And raise by potent voice all things from nought,
Why out of somewhat could He not compound
The well-known shape which erst had been, which He
Had moulded formerly; and bid the form
Arise assimilated to Himself
Again? Since God's are all things, earth the more
Gives Him all back; for she will, when He bids,
Unweave whate'er she woven had before.
If one, perhaps, laid on sepulchral pyre,
The flame consumed; or one in its blind waves
The ocean have dismembered; if of one
The entrails have, in hunger, satisfied
The fishes; or on any's limbs wild beasts
Have fastened cruel death; or any's blood,
His body reft by birds, unhid have lain:
Yet shall they not wrest from the mighty Lord
His latest dues. Need is that men appear
Quickened from death 'fore God, and at His bar
Stand in their shapes resumed. Thus arid seeds
Are drops into the vacant lands, and deep
In the fixt furrows die and rot: and hence
Is not their surface animated soon
With stalks repaired? and do they not grow strong
And yellow with the living grains? and, rich
With various usury, new harvests rise
In mass? The stars all set, and, born again,
Renew their sheen; and day dies with its light
Lost in dense night; and now night wanes herself
As light unveils creation presently;
And now another and another day
Rises from its own stars; and the sun sets,
Bright as it is with splendour-bearing light;
Light perishes when by the coming eve
The world is shaded; and the phoenix lives
By her own soot renewed, and presently
Rises, again a bird, O wondrous sight!
After her burnings! The bare tree in time
Shoots with her leaves; and once more are her boughs
Curved by the germen of the fruits. While then
The world throughout is trembling at God's voice,
And deeply moved are the high air's powers,
Then comes a crash unwonted, then ensue
Heaven's mightiest murmurs, on the approach of God,
The whole world's Judge! His countless ministers
Forthwith conjoin their rushing march, and God
With majesty supernal fence around.
Angelic bands will from the heaven descend
To earth; all, God's host, whose is faculty
Divine; in form and visage spirits all
Of virtue: in them fiery vigour is;
Rutilant are their bodies; heaven's might
Divine about them flashes; the whole orb
Hence murmurs; and earth, trembling to her depths
(Or whatsoe'er her bulk is ), echoes back
The roar, parturient of men, whom she,
Being bidden, will with grief upyield. All stand
In wonderment. At last disturbed are
The clouds, and the stars move and quake from height
Of sudden power. When thus God comes, with voice
Of potent sound, at once throughout all realms
The sepulchres are burst, and every ground
Outpours bones from wide chasms, and opening sand
Outbelches living peoples; to the hair
The members cleave; the bones inwoven are
With marrow; the entwined sinews rule
The breathing bodies; and the veins 'gin throb
With simultaneously infused blood:
And, from their caves dismissed, to open day
Souls are restored, and seek to find again
Each its own organs, as at their own place
They rise. O wondrous faith! Hence every age
Shoots forth; forth shoots from ancient dust the host
Of dead. Regaining light, there rise again
Mothers, and sires, and high-soured youths, and boys,
And maids unwedded; and deceased old men
Stand by with living souls; and with the cries
Of babes the groaning orb resounds. Then tribes
Various from their lowest seats will come:
Bands of the Easterns; those which earth's extreme
Sees; those which dwell in the downsloping clime
Of the mid-world, and hold the frosty star's
Riphaean citadels. Every colonist
Of every land stands frighted here: the boor;
The son of Atreus with his diadem
Of royalty put off; the rich man mixt
Coequally in line with pauper peers.
Deep tremor everywhere: then groans the orb
With prayers; and peoples stretching forth their hands
Grow stupid with the din! The Lord Himself
Seated, is bright with light sublime; and fire
Potent in all the Virtues flashing shines.
And on His high-raised throne the Heavenly One
Coruscates from His seat; with martyrs hemmed
(A dazzling troop of men), and by His seers
Elect accompanied (whose bodies bright
Effulgent are with snowy stoles), He towers
Above them. And now priests in lustrous robes
Attend, who wear upon their marked front
Wreaths golden-red; and all submissive kneel
And reverently adore. The cry of all
Is one: "O Holy, Holy Holy, God!"
To these the Lord will mandate give, to range
The people in twin lines; and orders them
To set apart by number the depraved;
While such as have His biddings followed
With placid words He calls, and bids them, clad
With vigour-death quite conquered-ever dwell
Amid light's inextinguishable airs,
Stroll through the ancients' ever blooming realm,
Through promised wealth, through ever sunny swards,
And in bright body spend perpetual life.
A place there is, beloved of the Lord,
In Eastern coasts, where light is bright and clear,
And healthier blows the breeze; day is eterne,
Time changeless: 'tis a region set apart
By God, most rich in plains, and passing blest,
In the meridian of His cloudless seat.
There gladsome the air, and is in light
Ever to be; soft is the wind, and breathes
Life-giving blasts; earth, fruitful with a soil
Luxuriant, bears all things; in the meads
Flowers shed their fragrance; and upon the plains
The purple-not in envy-mingles all
With golden-ruddy light. One gladsome flower,
With its own lustre clad, another clothes;
And here with many a seed the dewy fields
Are dappled, and the snowy tilths are crisped
With rosy flowers. No region happier
Is known in other spots; none which in look
Is fairer, or in honour more excels.
Never in flowery gardens are there born
Such lilies, nor do such upon our plains
Outbloom; nor does the rose so blush, what time,
New-born, 'tis opened by the breeze; nor is
The purple with such hue by Tyrian dye
Imbued. With coloured pebbles beauteous gleams
The gem: here shines the prasinus; there glows
The carbuncle; and giant-emerald
Is green with grassy light. Here too are born
The cinnamons, with odoriferous twigs;
And with dense leaf gladsome amomum Joins
Its fragrance. Here, a native, lies the gold
Of radiant sheen; and lofty groves reach heaven
In blooming time, and germens fruitfullest
Burden the living boughs. No glades like these
Hath Ind herself forth-stretcht; no tops so dense
Rears on her mount the pine; nor with a shade
So lofty-leaved is her cypress crisped;
Nor better in its season blooms her bough
In spring-tide. Here black firs on lofty peak
Bloom; and the only woods that know no hail
Are green eternally: no foliage falls;
At no time fails the flower. There, too, there blooms
A flower as red as Tarsine purple is:
A rose, I ween, it is (red hue it has,
An odour keen); such aspect on its leaves
It wears, such odour breathes. A tree it stands,
With a new flower, fairest in fruits; a crop
Life-giving, dense, its happy strength does yield.
Rich honies with green cane their fragrance Join,
And milk flows potable in runners full;
And with whate'er that sacred earth is green,
It all breathes life; and there Crete's healing gift
Is sweetly redolent. tide,
Flows in the placid plains a fount: four floods
Thence water parted lands. The garden robed
With flowers, I wot, keeps ever spring; no cold
Of wintry star varies the breeze; and earth,
After her birth-throes, with a kindlier blast
Repairs. Night there is none; the stars maintain
Their darkness; angers, envies, and dire greed
Are absent; and out-shut is fear, and cares
Driven from the threshold. Here the Evil One
Is homeless; he is into worthy courts
Out-gone, nor is't e'er granted him to touch
The glades forbidden. But here ancient faith
Rests in elect abode; and life here treads,
Joying in an eternal covenant;
And health without a care is gladsome here
In placid tilths, ever to live and be
Ever in light.
Here whosoe'er hath lived
Pious, and cultivant of equity
And goodness; who hath feared the thundering God
With mind sincere; with sacred duteousness
Tended his parents; and his other life
Spent ever crimeless; or who hath consoled
With faithful help a friend in indigence;
Succoured the over-toiling needy one,
As orphans' patron, and the poor man's aid;
Rescued the innocent, and succoured them
When press with accusation; hath to guests
His ample table's pledges given; hath done
All things divinely; pious offices
Enjoined; done hurt to none; ne'er coveted
Another's: such as these, exulting all
In divine praises, and themselves at once
Exhorting, raise their voices to the stars;
Thanksgivings to the Lord in joyous wise
They psalming celebrate; and they shall go
Their harmless way with comrade messengers.
When ended hath the Lord these happy gifts,
And likewise sent away to realms eterne
The just, then comes a pitiable crowd
Wailing its crimes; with parching tears it pours
All groans effusely, and attests in acts
With frequent ululations. At the sight
Of flames, their merit's due, and stagnant pools
Of fire, wrath's weapons, they 'gin tremble all.
Them an angelic host, upsnatching them,
Forbids to pray, forbids to pour their cries
(Too late!) with clamour loud: pardon withheld,
Into the lowest bottom they are hurled!
O miserable men! how oft to you
Hath Majesty divine made itself known!
The sounds of heaven ye have heard; have seen
Its lightnings; have experienced its rains
Assiduous; its ires of winds and hail!
How often nights and days serene do make
Your seasons-God's gifts-fruitful with fair yields!
Roses were vernal; the grain's summer-tide
Failed not; the autumn variously poured
Its mellow fruits; the rugged winter brake
The olives, icy though they were: 'twas God
Who granted all, nor did His goodness fail.
At God earth trembled; on His voice the deep
Hung, and the rivers trembling fled and left
Sands dry; and every creature everywhere
Confesses God! Ye (miserable men!)
Have heaven's Lord and earth's denied; and oft
(Horrible!) have God's heralds put to flight;
And rather slain the just with slaughter fell;
And, after crime, fraud ever hath in you
Inhered. Ye then shall reap the natural fruit
Of your iniquitous sowing. That God is
Ye know; yet are ye wont to laugh at Him.
Into deep darkness ye shall go of fire
And brimstone; doomed to suffer glowing ires
In torments just. God bids your bones descend
To penalty eternal; go beneath
The ardour of an endless raging hell;
Be urged, a seething mass, through rotant pools
Of flame; and into threatening flame He bids
The elements convert; and all heaven's fire
Descend in clouds. 3 Then greedy Tartarus
With rapid fire enclosed is; and flame
Is fluctuant within with tempest waves;
And the whole earth her whirling embers blends!
There is a flamy furrow; teeth acute
Are turned to plough it, and for all the years
The fiery torrent will be armed: with force
Tartarean will the conflagrations gnash
Their teeth upon the world. There are they scorched
In seething tide with course precipitate;
Hence flee; thence back are borne in sharp career;
The savage flame's ire meets them fugitive!
And now at length they own the penalty
Their own, the natural issue of their crime.
And now the reeling earth, by not a swain
Possest, is by the sea's profundity
Prest, at her farthest limit, where the sun
(His ray out-measured) divides the orb,
And where, when traversed is the world, the stars
Are hidden. Ether thickens. O'er the light
Spreads sable darkness; and the latest flames
Stagnate in secret rills. A place there is
Whose nature is with sealed penalties
Fiery, and a dreadful marsh white-hot
With heats infernal, where, in furnaces
Horrific, penal deed roars loud, and seethes,
And, rushing into torments, is up-caught
By the flame's vortex wide; by savage wave
And surge the turbid sand all mingled is
With miry bottom. Hither will be sent,
Groaning, the captive crowd of evil ones,
And wickedness (the sinful body's train)
To burn! Great is the beating there of breasts,
By bellowing of grief accompanied;
Wild is the hissing of the flames, and thence
The ululation of the sufferers!
And flames, and limbs sonorous, will outrise
Afar: more fierce will the fire burn; and up
To th' upper air the groaning will be borne.
Then human progeny its bygone deeds
Of ill will weigh; and will begin to stretch
Heavenward its palms; and then will wish to know
The Lord, whom erst it would not know, what time
To know Him had proved useful to them There,
His life's excesses, handiworks unjust,
And crimes of savage mind, each will confess,
And at the knowledge of the impious deeds
of his own life will shudder. And now first,
Whoe'er erewhile cherished ill thoughts of God;
Had worshipped stones unsteady, lyingly
Pretending to divinity; hath e'er
Made sacred to gore-stained images
Altars; hath voiceless pictured figures feared;
Hath slender shades of false divinity
Revered; whome'er ill error onward hath
Seduced; whoe'er was an adulterer,
Or with the sword had slain his sons; whoe'er
Had stalked in robbery; whoe'er by fraud
His clients had deferred; whoe'er with mind
Unfriendly had behaved himself, or stained
His palms with blood of men, or poison mixt
Wherein death lurked, or robed with wicked guise
His breast, or at his neighbour's ill, or gain
Iniquitous, was wont to joy; whoe'er
Committed whatsoever wickedness
Of evil deeds: him mighty heat shall rack,
And bitter fire; and these all shall endure,
In passing painful death, their punishment.
Thus shall the vast crowd lie of mourning men!
This oft as holy prophets sang of old,
And (by God's inspiration warned) oft told
The future, none ('tis pity!) none (alas!)
Did lend his ears. But God Almighty willed
His guerdons to be known, and His law's threats
'Mid multitudes of such like signs promulged.
He 'stablished them by sending prophets more,
These likewise uttering words divine; and some,
Roused from their sleep, He bids go from their tombs
Forth with Himself, when He, His own tomb burst,
Had risen. Many 'wildered were, indeed,
To see the tombs agape, and in clear light
Corpses long dead appear; and, wondering
At their discourses pious, dulcet words!
Starward they stretch their palms at the mere sound,
And offer God and so-victorious Christ
Their gratulating homage. Certain 'tis
That these no more re-sought their silent graves,
Nor were retained within earth's bowels shut;
But the remaining host reposes now
In lowliest beds, until-time's circuit run-
That great day do arrive. Now all of you
Own the true Lord, who alone makes this soul
Of ours to see His light, and can the same
(To Tartarus sent) subject to penalties;
And to whom all the power of life and death
Is open. Learn that God can do whate'er
He list; for 'tis enough for Him to will,
And by mere speaking He achieves the deed;
And Him nought plainly, by withstanding, checks.
He is my God alone, to whom I trust
With deepest senses. But, since death con
Every career, let whoe'er is to-day
Bethink him over all things in his mind.
And thus, while life remains, while 'tis allowed
To see the light and change your life, before
The limit of allotted age o'ertake
You unawares, and that last day, which is
By death's law fixt, your senseless eyes do glaze,
Seek what remains worth seeking: watchful be
For dear salvation; and run down with ease
And certainty the good course. Wipe away
By pious sacred rites your past misdeeds
Which expiation need; and shun the storms,
The too uncertain tempests, of the world.
Then turn to right paths, and keep sanctities.
Hence from your gladsome minds depraved crime
Quite banish; and let long-inveterate fault
Be washed forth from your breast; and do away
Wicked ill-stains contracted; and appease
Dread God by prayers eternal; and let all
Most evil mortal things to living good
Give way: and now at once a new life keep
Without a crime; and let your minds begin
To use themselves to good things and to true:
And render ready voices to God's praise.
Thus shall your piety find better things
All growing to a flame; thus shall ye, too,
Receive the gifts of the celestial life;
And, to long age, shall ever live with God,
Seeing the starry kingdom's golden joys.
5. Five Books in Reply to Marcion.
(Author Uncertain.)
Book I.-Of the Divine Unity, and the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Part I.-Of the Divine Unity.
After the Evil One's impiety
Profound, and his life-grudging mind, entrapped
Seduced men with empty hope, it laid
Them bare, by impious suasion to false trust
In him,-not with impunity, indeed;
For he forthwith, as guilty of the deed,
And author rash of such a wickedness,
Received deserved maledictions. Thus,
Thereafter, maddened, he, most desperate foe,
Did more assail and instigate men's minds
In darkness sunk. He taught them to forget
The Lord, and leave sure hope, and idols vain
Follow, and shape themselves a crowd of gods,
Lots, auguries, false names of stars, the show Is
Of being able to o'errule the births
Of embryos by inspecting entrails, and
Expecting things to come, by hardihood
Of dreadful magic's renegadoes led,
Wondering at a mass of feigned lore;
And he impelled them headlong to spurn life,
Sunk in a criminal insanity;
To joy in blood; to threaten murders fell;
To love the wound, then, in their neighbour's flesh;
Or, burning, and by pleasure's heat entrapped,
To transgress nature's covenants, and stain
Pure bodies, manly sex, with an embrace
Unnameable, and uses feminine
Mingled in common contact lawlessly;
Urging embraces chaste, and dedicate
To generative duties, to be held
For intercourse obscene for passion's sake.
Such in time past his deeds, assaulting men,
Through the soul's lurking-places, with a flow
Of scorpion-venom,-not that men would blame
Him, for they followed of their own accord:
His suasion was in guile; in freedom man
Performed it.
Whileas the perfidious one
Continuously through the centuries
Is breathing such ill fumes, and into hearts
Seduced injecting his own counselling
And hoping in his folly (alas!) to find
Forgiveness of his wickedness, unware
What sentence on his deed is waiting him;
With words of wisdom's weaving, and a voice
Presaging from God's Spirit, speak a host
Of prophets. Publicly he does not dare
Nakedly to speak evil of the Lord,
Hoping by secret ingenuity
He possibly may lurk unseen. At length
The soul's Light as the thrall of flesh is held;
The hope of the despairing, mightier
Than foe, enters the lists; the Fashioner,
The Renovator, of the body He;
True Glory of the Father; Son of God;
Author unique; a Judge and Lord He came,
The orb's renowned King; to the oppress
Prompt to give pardon, and to loose the bound;
Whose friendly aid and penal suffering
Blend God and renewed man in one. With child
Is holy virgin: life's new gate opes; words
Of prophets find their proof, fulfilled by facts;
Priests leave their temples, and-a star their guide-
Wonder the Lord so mean a birth should choose.
Waters-sight memorable!-turn to wine;
Eyes are restored to blind; fiends trembling cry,
Outdriven by His bidding, and own Christ!
All limbs, already rotting, by a word
Are healed; now walks the lame; the deaf forthwith
Hears hope; the maimed extends his hand; the dumb
Speaks mighty words: sea at His bidding calms,
Winds drop; and all things recognise the Lord:
Confounded is the foe, and yields, though fierce,
Now triumphed over, to unequal arms!
When all his enterprises now revoked
He sees; the flesh, once into ruin sunk,
Now rising; man-death vanquisht quite-to heavens
Soaring; the peoples sealed with holy pledge
Outpoured; the work and envied deeds of might
Marvellous; and hears, too, of penalties
Extreme, and of perpetual dark, prepared
For himself by the Lord by God's decree
Irrevocable; naked and unarmed,
Damned, vanquisht, doomed to perish in a death
Perennial, guilty now, and sure that he
No pardon has, a last impiety
Forthwith he dares,-to scatter everywhere
A word for ears to shudder at, nor meet
For voice to speak. Accosting men cast off
From God's community, men wandering
Without the light, found mindless, following
Things earthly, them he teaches to become
Depraved teachers of depravity.
By them he preaches that there are two Sires,
And realms divided: ill's cause is the Lord
Who built the orb, fashioned breath-quickened flesh,
And gave the law, and by the seers' voice spake.
Him he affirms not good, but owns Him just;
Hard, cruel, taking pleasure fell in war;
In judgment dreadful, pliant to no prayers.
His suasion tells of other one, to none
E'er known, who nowhere is, a deity
False, nameless, constituting nought, and who
Hath spoken precepts none. Him he calls good;
Who judges none, but spares all equally,
And grudges life to none. No judgment waits
The guilty; so he says, bearing about
A gory poison with sweet honey mixt
For wretched men. That flesh can rise-to which
Himself was cause of ruin, which he spoiled
Iniquitously with contempt (whence, cursed,
He hath grief without end), its ever-foe,-
He doth deny; because with various wound
Life to expel and the salvation whence
He fell he strives: and therefore says that Christ
Came suddenly to earth, but was not made,
By any compact, partner of the flesh;
But Spirit-form, and body feigned beneath
A shape imaginary, seeks to mock
Men with a semblance that what is not is.
Does this, then, become God, to sport with men
By darkness led? to act an impious lie?
Or falsely call Himself a man? He walks,
Is carried, clothed, takes due rest, handled is,
Suffers, is hung and buried: man's are all
Deeds which, in holy body conversant,
But sent by God the Father, who hath all
Created, He did perfect properly,
Reclaiming not another's but His own;
Discernible to peoples who of old
Were hoping for Him by His very work,
And through the prophets' voice to the round world
Best known: and now they seek an unknown Lord,
Wandering in death's threshold manifest,
And leave behind the known. False is their faith,
False is their God, deceptive their reward,
False is their resurrection, death's defeat
False, vain their martyrdoms, and e'en Christ's name
An empty sound: whom, teaching that He came
Like magic mist, they (quite demented) own
To be the actor of a lie, and make
His passion bootless, and the populace
(A feigned one!) without crime! Is God thus true?
Are such the honours rendered to the Lord?
Ah! wretched men! gratuitously lost
In death ungrateful! Who, by blind guide led,
Have headlong rushed into the ditch! and as
In dreams the fancied rich man in his store
Of treasure doth exult, and with his hands
Grasps it, the sport of empty hope, so ye, so
Deceived, are hoping for a shadow vain
Of guerdon!
Ah! ye silent laughingstocks,
Or doomed prey, of the dragon, do ye hope,
Stern men for death in room of gentle peace?
Dare ye blame God, who hath works
So great? in whose earth, 'mid profuse displays
Of His exceeding parent-care, His gifts
(Unmindful of Himself!) ye largely praise,
Rushing to ruin! do ye reprobate-
Approving of the works-the Maker's self,
The world's Artificer, whose work withal
Ye are yourselves? Who gave those little selves
Great honours; sowed your crops; made all the brutes
Your subjects; makes the seasons of the year
Fruitful with stated months; grants sweetnesses,
Drinks various, rich odours, jocund flowers,
And the groves' grateful bowers; to growing herbs
Grants wondrous juices; founts and streams dispreads
With sweet waves, and illumes with stars the sky
And the whole orb: the infinite sole Lord,
Both Just and Good; known by His work; to none
By aspect known; whom nations, flourishing
In wealth, but foolish, wrapped in error's shroud,
(Albeit 'tis beneath an alien name
They praise Him, yet) their Maker knowing! dread
To blame: nor e'en one -save you, hell's new gate!-
Thankless, ye choose to speak ill of your Lord!
These cruel deadly gifts the Renegade
Terrible has bestowed, through Marcion-thanks
To Cerdo's mastership-on you; nor come'
The thought into your mind that, from Christ's name
Seduced, Marcion's name has carried you
To lowest depths. Say of His many acts
What one displeases you? or what hath God
Done which is not to be extolled with praise?
Is it that He permits you, all too long,
(Unworthy of His patience large,) to see
Sweet light? you, who read truths, and, docking them,
Teach these your falsehoods, and approve as past
Things which are yet to be? What hinders, else,
That we believe your God incredible?
Nor marvel is't if, practiced as he is,
He captived you unarmed, persuading you
There are two Fathers (being damned by One),
And all, whom he had erst seduced, are gods;
And after that dispread a pest, which ran
With multiplying wound, and cureless crime,
To many. Men unworthy to be named,
Full of all magic's madness, he induced
To call themselves "Virtue Supreme; "and feign
(With harlot comrade) fresh impiety;
To roam, to fly. He is the insane god
Of Valentine, and to his Aeonage
Assigned heavens thirty, and Profundity
Their sire. He taught two baptisms, and led
The body through the flame. That there are gods
So many as the year hath days, he bade
A Basilides to believe, and worlds
As many. Marcus, shrewdly arguing
Through numbers, taught to violate chaste form
'Mid magic's arts; taught, too, that the Lord's cup
Is an oblation, and by prayers is turned
To blood. His suasion prompted Hebion
To teach that Christ was born from human seed;
He taught, too, circumcision, and that room
Is still left for the Law, and, though Law's founts
Are lost, its elements must be resumed.
Unwilling am I to protract in words
His last atrocity, or to tell all
The causes, or the names at length. Enough
It is to note his many cruelties
Briefly, and the unmentionable men,
The dragon's organs fell, through whom he now,
Speaking so much profaneness, ever toils
To blame the Maker of the world. But come;
Recall your foot from savage Bandit's cave,
While space is granted, and to wretched men
God, patient in perennial parent-love,
Condones all deeds through error done! Believe
Truly in the true Sire, who built the orb;
Who, on behalf of men incapable
To bear the law, sunk in sin's whirlpool, sent
The true Lord to repair the ruin wrought,
And bring them the salvation promised
Of old through seers. He who the mandates gave
Remits sins too. Somewhat, deservedly,
Doth He exact, because He formerly
Entrusted somewhat; or else bounteously,
As Lord, condones as it were debts to slaves:
Finally, peoples shut up 'neath the curse,
And meriting the penalty, Himself
Deleting the indictment, bids be washed!