XIII. (63) The connection therefore between the reason which is devoted to contemplation and those powers which are citizen wives, or concubines, has here been explained to the best of my power. We must now proceed to investigate what follows, and endeavour to frame a proper connection for an argument. “Abraham,” says the sacred historian, “listened to the voice of Sarah.”{10}{#ge 16:2.} For it is necessary for him who is a learner to be obedient to the injunctions of virtue: (64) but yet all men are not so obedient, but only those who are inspired with an exceedingly vehement love for knowledge. Since almost every day the places where there is anything to hear and the theatres are crowded, and those who study philosophy go on without ever stopping to take breath in one long continued discussion about virtue. (65) But still what advantage is derived from all that is said? For men, instead of attending, turn their mind in other directions, some to marine and mercantile affairs, others to rents and agriculture; some to public honours and affairs of state, some to the gains to be derived from each different profession and art, others to revenging themselves upon their enemies, others again to the enjoyments to be derived from the indulgence of the amorous appetites, and in short every body is under the influence of some distracting idea or other; so that, as far as the subjects of the discussion are concerned, they are completely deaf, and are present with their bodies only, but are at a distance as to their minds, being in no particular different from images or statues. (66) And if any persons do attend, they sit all that time only listening, and when they have departed they do not recollect a word of what has been said, but they have come in fact rather to be pleased through the medium of their hearing than with the view of deriving any solid advantage; so that their soul has not been able to comprehend anything or to become pregnant with any new idea, and even the cause which at first excited their pleasure soon ceases and their attention is extinguished. (67) There is a third kind of persons to whom what is said is for a time attended to and remembered, as if still sounding in their ears; but still they are found to be sophists rather than philosophers: of these men the language indeed is praiseworthy but the life is blameable; for they are powerful at speaking, but have no ability to do what is best. (68) It is therefore hardly possible to find a man who is inclined to attend and endowed with a good memory, honouring deeds rather than words; as is testified to in the praise of the man fond of hearing in the words, “He listened to the voice of Sarah.” For he is not represented merely as hearing but also as listening to: and this last is a particularly felicitous expression to indicate one who approves of and is influenced by what he hears. (69) And the expression, “to the voice,” is not inconsiderately or incorrectly used in preference to saying–he listened to Sarah speaking. For it is the especial character of a learner to listen to the voice and words of his teacher; for by these alone is he taught. But he who acquires what is good by practice, and solitary meditation, and not by instruction, does not attend to what is said but rather to those who say it, imitating the lives of those men in their actions which are in each particular irreproachable. (70) For it is said, in the case of Jacob when he was sent away to form a marriage among his kinsmen, “Jacob listened to his mother and his father, and went into Mesopotamia.”{11}{#ge 28:7.} He listened not to their voice, nor to their words, for it was fitting that he who was an imitator of their actions should be a practiser of virtue not a listener to speeches. For this is the peculiar character of one who is being taught, but the other is the mark of one who is enduring labours, in order that from this instance we may comprehend the difference between a practiser and a learner, the one being regulated with regard to him who is speaking, and the other with regard to his speech.
Page 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
