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| Chapter LXXIV
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Chapter
LXXIV.
He accuses the Christian teacher, moreover of
“seeking after the unintelligent.” In answer we ask,
Whom do you mean by the “unintelligent?” For, to
speak accurately, every wicked man is
“unintelligent.” If then by
“unintelligent” you mean the wicked, do you, in drawing men
to philosophy, seek to gain the wicked or the virtuous?3660
But it is impossible to gain the
virtuous, because they have already given themselves to
philosophy. The wicked, then, (you try to gain;) but if they are
wicked, are they “unintelligent?” And many such you
seek to win over to philosophy, and you therefore seek the
“unintelligent.” But if I seek after those who are
thus termed “unintelligent,” I act like a benevolent
physician, who should seek after the sick in order to help and cure
them. If, however, by “unintelligent” you mean
persons who are not clever,3661
but the inferior
class of men intellectually,3662
| 3662 The reading in the
text is τερατωδεστέρους,
of which Ruæus remarks, “Hic nullum habet
locum.” Καταδεεστέρους
has been conjectured instead, and has been adopted in the
translation. | I shall answer that
I endeavour to improve such also to the best of my ability, although I
would not desire to build up the Christian community out of such
materials. For I seek in preference those who are more clever and
acute, because they are able to comprehend the meaning of the hard
sayings, and of those passages in the law, and prophecies, and Gospels,
which are expressed with obscurity, and which you have despised as not
containing anything worthy of notice, because you have not ascertained
the meaning which they contain, nor tried to enter into the aim of the
writers.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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