Tatian, Address to the Greeks (Selections)
Be not, O Greeks, so very hostilely disposed towards the Barbarians, nor look
with ill will on their opinions. For which of your institutions has not been
derived from the Barbarians? The most eminent of the Telmessians invented the
art of divining by dreams; the Carians, that of prognosticating by the stars;
the Phrygians and the most ancient Isaurians, augury by the flight of birds; the
Cyprians, the art of inspecting victims. To the Babylonians you owe astronomy;
to the Persians, magic; to the Egyptians, geometry; to the Phoenicians,
instruction by alphabetic writing. Cease, then, to miscall these imitations
inventions of your own. Orpheus, again, taught you poetry and song; from him,
too, you learned the mysteries. The Tuscans taught you the plastic art; from the
annals of the Egyptians you learned to write history; you acquired the art of
playing the flute from Marsyas and
"These are gleaners' grapes and small talk,-
Twittering places of swallows, corrupters of
art."
Yet those who eagerly pursue it shout lustily, and croak like so many ravens.
You have, too, contrived the art of rhetoric to serve injustice and slander,
selling the free power of your speech for hire, and often representing the same
thing at one time as right, at another time as not good. The poetic art, again,
you employ to describe battles, and the amours of the gods, and the corruption
of the soul.
Chapter II.-The Vices and
Errors of the Philosophers.
What noble thing have you produced by your pursuit of philosophy? Who of your
most eminent men has been free from vain boasting? Diogenes, who made such a
parade of his independence with his tub, was seized with a bowel complaint
through eating a raw polypus, and so lost his life by gluttony. Aristippus,
walking about in a purple robe, led a profligate life, in accordance with his
professed opinions. Plato, a philosopher, was sold by Dionysius for his
gormandizing propensities. And Aristotle, who absurdly placed a limit to
Providence and made happiness to consist in the things which give pleasure,
quite contrary to his duty as a preceptor flattered Alexander, forgetful that he
was but a youth; and he, showing how well he had learned the lessons of his
master, because his friend would not worship him shut him up and and carried him
about like a bear or a leopard. He in fact obeyed strictly the precepts of his
teacher in displaying manliness and courage by feasting, and transfixing with
his spear his intimate and most beloved friend, and then, under a semblance of
grief, weeping and starving himself, that he might not incur the hatred of his
friends. I could laugh at those also who in the present day adhere to his
tenets,-people who say that sublunary things are not under the care of
Providence; and so, being nearer the earth than the moon, and below its orbit,
they themselves look after what is thus left uncared for; and as for those who
have neither beauty, nor wealth, nor bodily strength, nor high birth, they have
no happiness, according to Aristotle. Let such men philosophize, for me!
Chapter III.-Ridicule of
the Philosophers.
I cannot approve of Heraclitus, who, being self-taught and arrogant, said,
"I have explored myself." Nor can I praise him for hiding his poem3
in the temple of Artemis, in order that it might be published afterwards as a
mystery; and those who take an interest in such things say that Euripides the
tragic poet came there and read it, and, gradually learning it by heart,
carefully handed down to posterity this darkness4
of Heraclitus. Death, however, demonstrated the stupidity of this man; for,
being attacked by dropsy, as he had studied the art of medicine as well as
philosophy, he plastered himself with cow-dung, which, as it hardened,
contracted the flesh of his whole body, so that he was pulled in pieces, and
thus died. Then, one cannot listen to Zeno, who declares that at the
conflagration the same man will rise again to perform the same actions as
before; for instance, Anytus and Miletus to accuse, Busiris to murder his
guests, and Hercules to repeat his labours; and in this doctrine of the
conflagration he introduces more wicked than just persons-one Socrates and a
Hercules, and a few more of the same class, but not many, for the bad will be
found far more numerous than the good. And according to him the Deity will
manifestly be the author of evil, dwelling in sewers and worms, and in the
perpetrators of impiety. The eruptions of fire in
Chapter
XXI.-Doctrines of the Christians and Greeks Respecting God Compared.
We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce that
God was born in the form of a man. I call on you who reproach us to compare your
mythical accounts with our narrations. Athene, as they say, took the form of Deοphobus
for the sake of Hector,62
and the unshorn Phoebus for the sake of Admetus fed the trailing-footed oxen,
and the spouse us came as an old woman to Semele. But, while you treat seriously
such things, how can you deride us? Your Asclepios died, and he who ravished
fifty virgins in one night at Thespiae lost his life by delivering himself to
the devouring flame. Prometheus, fastened to
Chapter XXVI.-Ridicule of the Studies of the Greeks.
Cease to make a parade of sayings which you have derived from others, and to
deck yourselves like the daw in borrowed plumes. If each state were to take away
its contribution to your speech, your fallacies would lose their power. While
inquiring what God is, you are ignorant of what is in yourselves; and, while
staring all agape at the sky, you stumble into pitfalls. The reading of your
books is like walking through a labyrinth, and their readers resemble the cask
of the Danaids. Why do you divide time, saying that one part is past, and
another present, and another future? For how can the future be passing when the
present exists? As those who are sailing imagine in their ignorance, as the ship
is borne along, that the hills are in motion, so you do not know that it is you
who are passing along, but that time (o9
ai0w/n) remains present as long as the Creator wills it to exist. Why am
I called to account for uttering my opinions, and why are you in such haste to
put them all down? Were not you born in the same manner as ourselves, and placed
under the same government of the world? Why say that wisdom is with you alone,
who have not another sun, nor other risings of the stars, nor a more
distinguished origin, nor a death preferable to that of other men? The
grammarians have been the beginning of this idle talk; and you who parcel out
wisdom are cut off from the wisdom that is according to truth, and assign the
names of the several parts to particular men; and you know not God, but in your
fierce contentions destroy one another. And on this account you are all nothing
worth. While you arrogate to yourselves the sole right of discussion, you
discourse like the blind man with the deaf. Why do you handle the builder's
tools without knowing how to build? Why do you busy yourselves with words, while
you keep aloof from deeds, puffed up with praise, but cast down by misfortunes?
Your modes of acting are contrary to reaSon, for you make a pompons appearance
in public, but hide your teaching in corners. Finding you to be such men as
these, we have abandoned you, and no longer concern ourselves with your tenets,
but follow the word of God. Why, O man, do you set the letters of the alphabet
at war with one another? Why do you, as in a boxing match, make their sounds
clash together with your mincing Attic way of speaking, whereas you ought to
speak more according to nature? For if you adopt the Attic dialect though not an
Athenian, pray why do you not speak like the Dorians? How is it that one appears
to you more rugged, the other more pleasant for intercourse?
Chapter XXVII.-The
Christians are Hated Unjustly.
And if you adhere to their teaching, why do you fight against me for
choosing such views of doctrine as I approve? Is it not unreasonable that, while
the robber is not to be punished for the name he bears,73
but only when the truth about him has been clearly ascertained, yet we are to be
assailed with abuse on a judgment formed without examination? Diagoras was an
Athenian, but you punished him for divulging the Athenian mysteries; yet you who
read his Phrygian discourses hate us. You possess the commentaries of Leo, and
are displeased with our refutations of them; and having in your hands the
opinions of Apion concerning the Egyptian gods, you denounce us as most impious.
The tomb of Olympian Zeus is shown among you,74
though some one says that the Cretans are liars.75
Your assembly of many gods is nothing. Though their despiser Epicurus acts as a
torch-bearer,76
I do not any the more conceal from the rulers that view of God which I hold in
relation to His government of the universe. Why do you advise me to be false to
my principles? Why do you who say that you despise death exhort us to use art in
order to escape it? I have not the heart of a deer; but your zeal for dialectics
resembles the loquacity of Thersites. How can I believe one who tells me that
the sun is a red-hot mass and the moon an earth? Such assertions are mere
logomachies, and not a sober exposition of truth. How can it be otherwise than
foolish to credit the books of Herodotus relating to the history of Hercules,
which tell of an upper earth from which the lion came down that was killed by
Hercules? And what avails the Attic style, the sorites of philosophers, the
plausibilities of syllogisms, the measurements of the earth, the positions of
the stars, and the course of the sun? To be occupied in such inquiries is the
work of one who imposes opinions on himself as if they were laws.
Chapter XXIX.-Account of
Tatian's Conversion.
Wherefore, having seen these things, and moreover also having been admitted
to the mysteries, and having everywhere examined the religious rites performed
by the effeminate and the pathic, and having found among the Romans their
Latiarian Jupiter delighting in human gore and the blood of slaughtered men, and
Artemis not far from the great city77
sanctioning acts of the same kind, and one demon here and another there
instigating to the perpetration of evil,-retiring by myself, I sought how I
might be able to discover the truth. And, while I was giving my most earnest
attention to the matter, I happened to meet with certain barbaric writings, too
old to be compared with the opinions of the Greeks, and too divine to be
compared with their errors; and I was led to put faith in these by the
unpretending east of the language, the inartificial character of the writers,
the foreknowledge displayed of future events, the excellent quality of the
precepts, and the declaration of the government of the universe as centred in
one Being.78
And, my soul being taught of God, I discern that the former class of writings
lead to condemnation, but that these put an end to the slavery that is in the
world, and rescue us from a multiplicity of rulers and ten thousand tyrants,
while they give us, not indeed what we had not before received, but what we had
received but were prevented by error from retaining.
Chapter XXX.-How He
Resolved to Resist the Devil.
Therefore, being initiated and instructed in these things, I wish to put away
my former errors as the follies of childhood. For we know that the nature of
wickedness is like that of the smallest seeds; since it has waxed strong from a
small beginning, but will again be destroyed if we obey the words of God and do
not scatter ourselves. For He has become master of all we have by means of a
certain "hidden treasure,"79
which while we are digging for we are indeed covered with dust, but we secure it
as our fixed possession. He who receives the whole of this treasure has obtained
command of the most precious wealth. Let these things, then, be said to our
friends. But to you Greeks what can I say, except to request you not to rail at
those who are better than yourselves, nor if they are called Barbarians to make
that an occasion of banter? For, if you are willing, you will be able to find
out the cause of mews not being able to understand one another's language; for
to those who wish to examine our principles I will give a simple and copious
account of them.
Chapter XXXI.-The
Philosophy of the Christians More Ancient Than that of the Greeks.
But now it seems proper for me to demonstrate that our philosophy is older
than the systems of the Greeks. Moses and Homer shall be our limits, each of
them being of great antiquity; the one being the oldest of poets and historians,
and the other the founder of all barbarian wisdom. Let us, then, institute a
comparison between them; and we shall find that our doctrines are older, not
only than those of the Greeks, but than the invention of letters.80
And I will not bring forward witnesses from among ourselves, but rather have
recourse to Greeks. To do the former would be foolish, because it would not be
allowed by you; but the other will surprise you, when, by contending against you
with your own weapons, I adduce arguments of which you had no suspicion. Now the
poetry of Homer, his parentage, and the time in which he flourished have been
investigated by the most ancient writers,-by Theagenes of Rhegium, who lived in
the time of Cambyses, Stesimbrotus of Thasos and Antimachus of Colophon,
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, and Dionysius the Olynthian; after them, by Ephorus
of Cumae, and Philochorus the Athenian, Megaclides and Chamaeleon the
Peripatetics; afterwards by the grammarians, Zenodotus, Aristophanes,
Callimachus, Crates, Eratosthenes, Aristarchus, and Apollodorus. Of these,
Crates says that he flourished before the return of the Heraclidae, and within
80 years after the Trojan war; Eratosthenes says that it was after the 100th
year from the taking of Ilium; Aristarchus, that it was about the time of the
Ionian migration, which was 140 years after that event; but, according to
Philochorus, after the Ionian migration, in the archonship of Archippus at
Athens, 180 years after the Trojan war; Apollodorus says it was 100 years after
the Ionian migration, which would be 240 years after the Trojan war. Some say
that he lived 90 years before the Olympiads, which would be 317 years after the
taking of
.
Chapter
XXXV.-Tatian Speaks as an Eye-Witness.
The things which I have thus set before you I have not learned at second
hand. I have visited many lands; I have followed rhetoric, like yourselves; I
have fallen in with many arts and inventions; and finally, when sojourning in
the city of the Romans, I inspected the multiplicity of statues brought thither
by you: for I do not attempt, as is the custom with many, to strengthen my own
views by the opinions of others, but I wish to give you a distinct account of
what I myself have seen and felt. So, bidding farewell to the arrogance of
Romans and the idle talk of Athenians, and all their ill-connected opinions, I
embraced our barbaric philosophy. I began to show how this was more ancient than
your institutions,88
but left my task unfinished, in order to discuss a matter which demanded more
immediate attention; but now it is time I should attempt to speak concerning its
doctrines. Be not offended with our teaching, nor undertake an elaborate reply
filled with trifling and ribaldry, saying, "Tatian, aspiring to be above
the Greeks, above the infinite number of philosophic inquirers, has struck out a
new path, and embraced the doctrines of Barbarians." For what grievance is
it, that men manifestly ignorant should be reasoned with by a man of like nature
with themselves? Or how can it be irrational, according to your own sophist,89
to grow old always learning something?
Chapter XXXVI.-Testimony
of the Chaldeans to the Antiquity of Moses.
But let Homer be not later than the Trojan war; let it be granted that he was
contemporary with it, or even that he was in the army of Agamemnon, and, if any
so please, that he lived before the invention of letters. The Moses before
mentioned will be shown to have been many years older than the taking of
Chapter XXXVII.-Testimony
of the Phoenicians.
After the Chaldeans, the testimony of the Phoenicians is as follows. There
were among them three men, Theodotus, Hypsicrates, and Mochus; Chaitus
translated their books into Greek, and also composed with exactness the lives of
the philosophers. Now, in the histories of the aforesaid writers it is shown
that the abduction of Europa happened under one of the kings, and an account is
given of the coming of Menelaus into Phoenicia, and of the matters relating to
Chiramus,90
who gave his daughter in marriage to Solomon the king of the Jews, and supplied
wood of all kind of trees for the building of the temple. Menander of Pergamus
composed a history concerning the same things. But the age of Chiramus is
somewhere about the Trojan war; but Solomon, the contemporary of Chiramus, lived
much later than the age of Moses.
Chapter XXXVIII.-The
Of the Egyptians also there are accurate chronicles. Ptolemy, not the king,
but a priest of Mendes, is the interpreter of their affairs. This writer,
narrating the acts of the kings, says that the departure of the Jews from
..
Chapter XL.-Moses More
Ancient and Credible Than the Heathen Heroes.
Therefore, from what has been said it is evident that Moses was older than
the ancient heroes, wars, and demons. And we ought rather to believe him, who
stands before them in point of age, than the Greeks, who, without being aware of
it,92
drew his doctrines [as] from a fountain. For many of the sophists among them,
stimulated by curiosity, endeavoured to adulterate whatever they learned from
Moses,93
and from those who have philosophized like him, first that they might be
considered as having something of their own, and secondly, that covering up by a
certain rhetorical artifice whatever things they did not understand, they might
misrepresent the truth as if it were a fable. But what the learned among the
Greeks have said concerning our polity and the history of our laws, and how many
and what kind of men have written of these things, will be shown in the treatise
against those who have discoursed of divine things.94
]
But the matter of principal importance is to endeavour with all accuracy to
make it clear that Moses is not only older than Homer, but than all the writers
that were before him-older than Linus, Philammon, Thamyris, Amphion, Musaeus,
Orpheus, Demodocus, Phemius, Sibylla, Epimenides of Crete, who came to Sparta,
Aristaeus of Proconnesus, who wrote the Arimaspia, Asbolus the Centaur, Isatis,
Drymon, Euclus the Cyprian, Horus the Samian, and Pronapis the Athenian. Now,
Linus was the teacher of Hercules, but Hercules preceded the Trojan war by one
generation; and this is manifest from his son Tlepolemus, who served in the army
against
Chapter XLII.-Concluding
Statement as to the Author.
These things, O Greeks, I Tatian, a disciple of the barbarian philosophy,95
have composed for you. I was born in the land of the Assyrians, having been
first instructed in your doctrines, and afterwards in those which I now
undertake to proclaim. Henceforward, knowing who God is and what is His work, I
present myself to you prepared for an examination96
concerning my doctrines, while I adhere immoveably to that mode of life which is
according to God.97